Language, language and dialect. Possibly you've already heard about the three terms, haven't you? Common expressions in Sociolinguistics – an area of Linguistics that studies the relationship between language and society – these elements present significant differences between them, which we will see now. Enjoy your reading and good studies!
Differences between language, language and dialect.
Tongue: Language is, above all, an instrument of communication, and that is its main purpose. It belongs to the speakers, who appropriate it to establish interactions with the society in which they live. When we say that language is an instrument of the people, we say that, although there are grammatical norms that govern a language, each speaker chooses a form of expression that best suits him, originating what we call speech. Speech, although it can be creative, must be governed by larger and socially established rules, otherwise, each of us would create our own language, which would make communication impossible. In speech we find linguistic variations, which should never be seen as language transgressions, but rather as proof that language is alive and dynamic.
Communication is the ultimate purpose of a language, language or dialect: it is through it that social interactions occur
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Language: Language is the language of a people. It is related to the existence of a political state, being used to identify one nation in relation to others. For example, in Brazil, the official language is Portuguese, which is common to most speakers. Even if there are communities that use other languages, only the Portuguese language receives the status official language. There are countries, such as Canada, for example, where two languages are considered official, in this case, French and English.
Dialect: The dialect is the variety of a language specific to a region or territory and is related to the linguistic variations found in the speech of certain social groups. Linguistic variations can be understood from the analysis of three different phenomena: exposure to conventional knowledge (different social groups with greater or lesser access to formal education use the language in different ways); use situation (speakers linguistically adapt to communication situations according to the level of formality) and sociocultural context (Slang and jargon can say a lot about specific groups formed by some kind of cultural “symbiosis”).
By Luana Castro
Graduated in Letters
Would you like to reference this text in a school or academic work? Look:
PEREZ, Luana Castro Alves. "Differences between language, language and dialect"; Brazil School. Available in: https://brasilescola.uol.com.br/gramatica/diferencas-entre-lingua-idioma-dialeto.htm. Accessed on June 27, 2021.