A sociolinguistic investigation of social stratification and linguistic variation among the kashmiri speech community

Abstract

This paper is restricted to the investigation of linguistic variation among the Kashmiri speakers at the level of phonology and lexicon of their language in accordance with certain social variables, viz-a-viz. religion, education, region / socioeconomic status, age and occupation. In the present paper, an effort has been devoted to examine as to how the structure of the Kashmiri language varies at the level of phonology and lexicon, in accordance with above mentioned social variables. It also takes into account the possible reasons behind this variation. The present paper explores as to how the social heterogeneity of the Kashmiri speech community is reflected in the linguistic behavior of its speakers, and gives rise to variations in the use of their language at the level of phonology and lexicon. The paper begins with giving a brief introduction about language variation, social variables, and linguistic variables. It also discusses the historical perspective of language variation, and throws light on the related literature by discussing some important studies of variation carried out by different scholars of linguistics from time to time. In this study an attempt has been made to picturize the social structure of the Kashmiri speech community in terms of its social stratification/ and social heterogeneity. The paper also discusses the research methodology adopted in carrying out this study.