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Correlation Between Language System and Language Norm
These six lectures will touch on the modern pronunciation norm of literary Russian. Before
speaking about the pronunciation norm, it is necessary to discuss the language norm in general,
as well as the correlation between the system and the norm of a language. First of all, we need to
answer the following question: is it necessary to know the norms of literary Russian, or the ones
of any other language? We can give only an affirmative answer to the question, because we
would like all the people around us to speak correctly. We do not want to hear any errors in their
speech: either syntactical, grammatical, lexical or phonetic ones. We need a normative speech
that is devoid of any mistakes. As a rule, seemingly simple questions such as ‘Who or what can
teach us to speak correctly?’ turn out very complicated.
We always listen to the speech of other people: for example, that of government members.
Meanwhile, we would like to pay attention to the content of speech without being distracted by
its linguistic form. We do not want to hear any ambiguous words, grammatically unusual phrases
or unclear division of sentences. We can consider a simple example: ‘Peter saw a fox looking out
of the window’. What does it mean: ‘Peter saw a fox that was looking out of the window’ or
‘Looking out the window, Peter saw a fox’?
We would like to pronounce all words correctly, but how can we be sure about the pronunciation
of every single word? For instance, what is the correct pronunciation of the Russian word
‘весна’: [v’isná] or [v’esná]? Must we pronounce unstressed vowel ‘e’ as [e] or [i]? What is the
correct pronunciation of the Russian word ‘вода’: [vodá] or [vadá]? The answer to the second
question is obviously simple: of course, it is [vadá]. As for the first question, the answer would
have been rather complicated 100-150 years ago, because there were two possible variants: in
St. Petersburg ‘весна’ was pronounced as [v’esná], whereas in Moscow people would say
[v’isná]. However, both variants were correct.
It is important to note that the development of mass media, especially radio and television,
contributed to the distribution of the phonetic form of words. It is particularly pleasant that in
recent years mass media has facilitated the spread of free speech, with people expressing their
thoughts spontaneously, almost without any preparation, instead of reading a ready-made text.
As a result, we are no longer bored with unemotional and monotonous reading. Instead, we hear
many good orators. Now more people can influence the speech of others in some way, therefore
special attention should be paid to the phonetic aspect of speech, i.e. pronunciation.
There is no doubt that each person knowing a language should have a perfect command of both
written and spoken form. If we would like to know the modern pronunciation norm of literary
Russian, we should firstly identify the source of this norm. Further, we can describe the methods
for studying it and determine the type of relation between the phonological system of any
language and its pronunciation.
We should start with the following theoretical points: correlation between the system and the
norm; linguistic status of the norm; content of the norm and possibility of its alternative forms;
codification of the norm; sociolinguistic factors (which turn out very important); and influence of
writing on oral speech. For example, we see letter ‘e’ the in Russian word ‘весна’, but does it
influence the corresponding pronunciation? Has it ever influenced that pronunciation at all?
Today people normally pronounce the word as [v’isná], i.e. letter ‘e’ does not affect the
articulation in this case. However, there were two possible variants in the past: the word could be
pronounced either as [v’esná] or [v’isná]. Was unstressed vowel [e] connected with the
corresponding letter ‘e’ or not? We will try to find answers to these questions.
When studying a language, a researcher inevitably encounters two types of issues having equal
importance. At first, it is necessary to deal with the characteristics of language as a system. Such
characteristics are usually called linguistic. Secondly, a linguist has to consider sociolinguistic
and psycholinguistic factors, because a language exists and develops within a certain speech
community and, naturally, during a certain period of time. As a rule, the sociolinguistic and
psycholinguistic factors are called extralinguistic. It is hardly possible to really contrast linguistic
and extralinguistic factors, because they are closely interconnected and interdependent in a
language.
Any national language (i.e. any language belonging to a nation as a whole) comprises a variety
of separate phenomena such as the literary language, the vernacular, local and social dialects,
jargon, etc. Classification of these phenomena makes it necessary to understand the correlation
between linguistic and extralinguistic (including sociolinguistic and psycholinguistic)
characteristics.
The literary language serves as a standard for native speakers. For this reason, they must not
deviate from its norms. In our case, we deal with phonetics, and our task is to identify the norms
of pronunciation. A national language includes not only a literary language but also various
dialects. Local dialects constitute an oral form of the language spoken by a limited number of
people who live within a certain region. Such dialects often preserve the peculiarities of a
language that are not present in its contemporary literary form. Thus, they characterise the period
of time preceding the establishment of the literary language. However, the literary language
exerts a considerable influence on local dialects, that is why their distinctive characteristics
gradually blur out.
Social dialects are dialects formed within separate groups of people which are characterised by
social (e.g. professional) homogeneity. The concept of a national language also includes the nonliterary language (the vernacular). Unlike local and social dialects, the vernacular is not peculiar
to a specific local or social group of people. It can be described only as a deviation from the
norms of the literary language. There are multiple reasons for such deviations, but primarily they
are rooted in insufficient knowledge of a literary language. The vernacular and dialects exist only
in the spoken form, but they have a written description. The literary language exists in both
written and spoken forms. We should keep in mind, that gradually there occurs a change in the
concept of literariness and non-literariness of a language. This fact is mainly connected with
development of the literary language and its changes.
If we take into account only a certain group of factors (either linguistic or extralinguistic), there
will be a risk of one-sided interpretation of language, which is a complex and controversial
phenomenon. This statement is proved by the history of linguistics and, to be more exact, by the
definitions of language given in different periods of time. For some time, language was regarded
mainly as a mental phenomenon connected with human activity. Hermann Steinthal considered
language to be a spiritual activity, on the one hand, and a physical activity (articulatory
movements), on the other. Obviously, such an approach is based only on extralinguistic
(psycholinguistic) factors. This view made it impossible to study language and understand it
comprehensively. The approach described can be found in interesting works by famous linguists
of the 19th and 20th centuries – Wilhelm von Humboldt and Hermann Steinthal. This very method
shows that linguistic phenomena are affected by psycholinguistic factors, which is objectively
true. The opposite method of studying language assigns primary importance to internal
characteristics of a language system and is described in the linguistic works written already at the
end of the 19th century, for example, by the Neogrammarians. According to them, a language is a
passive system abstracted from speech activity. The representatives of sociolinguistics regarded
language as a linguistic form that had a permanent influence on each individual of a specific
social group and that was implemented by these individuals through the passive traces of their
own (also individual) system of speech habits. Again, this approach took into account only
linguistic factors, and therefore was also one-sided. It could not allow linguists to understand
complex linguistic phenomena – the interaction between linguistic and extralinguistic factors.
Inconsistency in linguistic approaches (methods for interpretation of language as a concept)
arose from the lack of differentiation between two important notions – language and speech.
Perhaps, we still do not understand them perfectly. Ferdinand de Saussure was the first to
formulate the general linguistic theory which differentiated between the individual and the
social, the potential and the actual, as well as between language as a system of possible
communication tools and speech as a form of existence of this system (and as a sequence of
specific manifestations of a language). Language and speech constitute two components of
speech activity. Language is an abstract system of interconnected components, while speech is a
physical sequence of signs. It should be emphasised that Ferdinand de Saussure does not use the
concept of the language norm at all, when contrasting language and speech. However, drawing
an analogy between language and chess, Saussure compares language to the rules of chess (the
norms of playing the game) and speech to the moves that an individual chooses to make (an
individual’s preferences in the game). In his viewpoint, language encompasses the abstract,
systematic rules and conventions of a signifying system. Meanwhile, speech refers to specific
application of language by an individual and, in essence, can be called a norm. Saussure employs
terms ‘language’, ‘speech’ and ‘speech activity’. He characterises only the first two notions and
leaves the third one undefined.
In fact, it is Lev Scherba who explained the concept of speech activity as a special linguistic
phenomenon (if we use the term introduced by Ferdinand de Saussure). Lev Scherba recognises
three objects of study: language, language material and speech activity. Language comprises a
language system, vocabulary and grammar. Language material is everything that people say and
understand. Speech activity refers to the processes of speaking and understanding. Scherba takes
into account both linguistic and extralinguistic factors, because he regards a language system as
the objective content of the language material given. Scherba also specifies that language
material is everything people say and understand in a concrete situation during a specific period
of time when a given social group exists. Therefore, a change in the living conditions of this
social group entails an alteration of speech activity. Accepting Scherba's theory, we should
probably think that language norms are selected in the very process of speech activity. Thus,
language is a system of all possible communication tools, while speech is a form of existence of
this system. It is this very understanding of language and speech that resulted in the opposition
between the language system and the language norm. It should be immediately noted that there is
no direct coincidence between speech and the language norm. The specific and, occasionally,
rather complex relationship between these two phenomena will be examined below.
Lev Scherba stated in a number of his works, that language is constantly in a state of balance
which is stable only to a certain degree and is often unstable at all. That is, language is constantly
changing and developing. It is this continuing development that creates difficulties in describing
language and in resolving the issues of the modern language norm.
Relying on Scherba’s theory, it would be interesting to answer the following questions: what is
the language norm? What is the correlation between the language norm and the language
system? Can we classify the language norm as a linguistic category? From antiquity
approximately to the end of the 18th century, linguists thought that any language was chaotic. In
this connection, the objective pursued by linguists and grammarians was to set a language in
order. Linguistics was considered a science that established the norms of a language. Such a
view stemmed from the process of creating of a unified language at that time. Beyond any doubt,
standardisation performed by grammarians played an important role when choosing a common
dialect from a variety of ones. Nevertheless, even at that time there were linguists who
understood that normative grammar objectively depended on different factors. Mikhail
Lomonosov was one of such linguists. In 1755, he was the first to give lectures in Russian in
St. Petersburg University. Lomonosov also taught a full course of lectures in physics. He was the
university rector for seven years. He is often considered a representative of natural sciences, but
he also made a significant contribution to linguistics. His Russian Grammar contains the
following statement: ‘Grammar develops from the common usage of a language. However,
grammatical rules show the way of using this language.’
Later, existence of a grammatical structure in languages was acknowledged by other linguists
during the development of national literary languages. In this very period of time, linguists
started to understand that language develops in accordance with its own laws and therefore
should be studied comprehensively and impartially. The primary task was to investigate and
understand the laws of language. As far as the language norm is concerned, linguists could not
answer for a long time whether the norm derived from language itself or was somehow acquired
by language from outside sources. Today there are also a number of questions that are not fully
answered. Obviously, such seemingly simple issues could not be solved, because there was no
distinction between two aspects of the language norm. First of all, the language norm is a
linguistic category. It refers to the possibility to differently name one and the same phenomenon.
Such possibilities are represented in a language as a system. In this case, the language norm
results from a number of social factors determined by existence of a given language within a
specific speech community during a concrete period of time. Secondly, the language norm is a
recognition that specific means of verbal expression are correct and standard, and therefore must
be used. The second aspect of the language norm was later called codification of the norm. It is
important to understand the role of both aspects mentioned.
Theoretically, it is important to emphasise that the language norm as a linguistic category is the
description of this (objective) norm in dictionaries, reference books and textbooks in accordance
with a specific codification system. Let’s consider the following example. The phonological
system of literary Russian enables two possible variants: in the word ‘банке’ soft (palatalised)
consonant [k’] is preceded by hard consonant [n]; at the same time, in the word ‘баньке’ soft
consonant [k’] is preceded by the soft consonant [n’]. Thus, in a combination of two Russian
consonants the second palatalised consonant can be preceded by both a hard consonant and a soft
one. Both variants described are enabled by the system of the Russian language. Analysing this
system, we identify this fact. Further, we reveal that in a number of cases neither of these
variants hinders understanding of the words pronounced. For example, 150 years ago we could
pronounce the Russian word ‘дверь’ in two ways: [d’v’er’], where the palatalised consonant [v’]
is preceded by the palatalised consonant [d’]; and [dv’er’] where the palatalised consonant [v’] is
preceded by the hard consonant [d]. Neither pronunciation hindered comprehension of the
word’s meaning. For a certain period of time, both variants were normative. Nevertheless, one of
them gradually displaced the other (the current pronunciation is [dv’er’] with the soft consonant
[v’] preceded by the hard consonant [d]). Two former variants and the only present one were
registered in codified dictionaries compiled by different authors. Consequently, on the one hand,
the language norm is a linguistic category. In this case, it should be kept in mind that the concept
of the language norm assumes high importance for inflexional languages which suggest different
possibilities of naming one and the same object. On the other hand, the language norm is a
recognition that specific means of verbal expression are correct and standard, and therefore must
be used.
It should be emphasised that the author of a dictionary who takes on responsibility to establish
pronunciation standards for native speakers must clearly understand that any of his codified
norms or recommendations are to result from serious linguistic research and, in respect of the
pronunciation norm, from serious experiments in phonetics.