Speech, Folk

The designation folk speech is one of various terms that have been used to describe the language of ordinary people as used for routine purposes on the everyday level of face-to-face oral communication. Such variation refers to the pragmatic rather than to the grammatical aspect of language, that is, to the way language is used to communicate within the context of social interaction as revealed in different patterns of discourse, rather than to the internal structure of the linguistic code as seen, for example, in dialect variation.

Folk speech can be differentiated from two other major intralinguistic varieties: dialect and style. Following M. A. K. Halliday, we can say that dialect is linguistic variety according to users (regional populations or social classes) while style is variety according to use. Since folk speech is a natural product of face-to-face oral communication, it can co-occur with whatever dialect variation is natural to the speakers, thus the two varieties, folk speech and dialect, can be treated separately. Style can be defined as the intentional selection of alternative forms within the linguistic code for some specific communicative purpose. For example, “He regrets that he is unable to attend” and “He's sorry he can't make it” are denotatively synonymous, yet everyone recognizes at once that the first is formal while the second is informal in its occurrence. Stylistic variations of this kind, which mark different levels of formality, are called registers. [Page 2121]Other registers within the stylistic repertoire of a language correspond to different domains of use such as journalism, bureaucratic communication, sermons, lectures, and so on, as well as to the selection of alternative forms for esthetic effect in literature. In so far as the restricted mode is an automatic response to speaking conditions and not a matter of conscious choice, it is not “variety according to use,” as is style. If, however, style is defined in its most neutral sense as simply “a way or mode of doing something,” folk speech can be described as an informal register within the variegated functions of a complex speech community, unless the speakers master no other stylistic variants.

As a separate variety, we can describe folk speech as the restricted as opposed to the elaborated mode of language use. Borrowing terms from literary criticism, we might characterize the restricted mode as thinly textured discourse, since fewer of the grammatical and lexical resources of the language are employed than in the thickly textured discourse of the elaborated mode, in which the full grammatical and lexical resources of the linguistic code are employed. The restricted mode is thus the language of implicit meaning while the elaborated mode is the language of explicit meaning. The thinly textured discourse of folk speech is characterized by the use of simple verb constructions and preference for the active over the passive voice. Syntactically, folk speech is paratactic, that is, it is made up of simple sentences with only a few conjunctions used repetitively and with little subordination of clauses. Indeed, there is evidence that in the languages of some nonliterate, pre-industrial homogeneous societies there is no subordination at all. Another feature of folk speech is the avoidance of impersonal pronouns as sentence subjects. Thus, “Everybody knows he lives here” is used instead of “It is known that he lives here,” and “A man used to come to town all the time” instead of “There was a man who used to come to town all the time.” Also, ellipsis and unfinished sentences are frequent in folk speech. The syntax of the more thickly textured discourse of the elaborated mode is hypotactic, that is, it consists of complex sentences employing a wide range of syntactic devices for conjunction and subordination. The use of impersonal pronouns as subjects is also frequent, as is the use of prepositions to mark both temporal and logical relations. More frequent use is also made of complex verb phrases as well as of the passive voice.

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