Video Analysis

Introduction

Sociolinguistics

It is the descriptive study of the effect of any and all aspects of society, including cultural norms, expectations, and context, on the way language is used, and society's effect on language. It differs from sociology of language, which focuses on the effect of language on a society. Sociolinguistics overlaps considerably with pragmatics. It is historically closely related to linguistic anthropology, and the distinction between the two fields has been questioned.

It also studies how language varieties differ between groups separated by certain social variables (e.g., ethnicity, religion, status, gender, level of education, age, etc.) and how creation and adherence to these rules is used to categorize individuals in social or socioeconomic classes. As the usage of a language varies from place to place, language usage also varies among social classes, and it is these sociolects that sociolinguistics studies.

Video Analysis

This video is about Turah Parthanaya wants to know how some common words are pronounced in different languages. He asks his three friends (Nastya from Russia, Nino from Laos, Jenny from Colombia) to pronounce several words with their own languages. The words in this video are commonly about name of country, but there are few words that are not about name of country.

There are several sociolinguistics features that can be found in this video, such as:

1. Lingua Franca

In this video the language that is used as lingua franca is Russian. Most of the time people in the video speak with Russian, even Turah Parthanaya who is from Indonesia mostly speak with Russian.

2. Code Switching and Code Mixing

Code switching and code mixing in this video is mostly combination between Indonesian and Russian. In the beginning of the video Turah still mostly uses Bahasa Indonesia and add an utterance or word from Russian so he can communicate with his friends. In some moments Turah speaks with English like in 0:59 and 1:29. For the rest of the video he mostly speaks with Russian.

3. Gender and Age

Gender and age aspect in this video are not really emphasized. They all speak with same style, it is because they have known each other or close friend. For age aspect, people in the video likely have same age. There is no solid proof about it but people will mostly make friends with people around their age. In gender aspect, there is only one moment where masculinity and feminism is emphasized, it is on minute 7:48 when the Jenny is asked to pronounce Norwegia with her native language.

4. Standard Variety

Though in the video Russian mostly used when communicating with each other, other language such as Bahasa Indonesia and English are still used. Bahasa Indonesia in this video is still in Standard/Formal language, though there are one or two words that is not on standard form. Keep in mind that Analysis of Bahasa Indonesia in this video is not about the subtitles.

English in this video is still on standard format. They speak with proper pronunciaton,  structural and grammatical. For Russian itself, apparently they speak Russian with informal form.The only proof about it is the subtitle on this video. Subtitles in this video is Bahasa Indonesia, and it is on informal form. If the subtitles accurately translate the Russian, than Russian in this video is not on standard format.

5. Function of Speech

There are six functions of speech in sociolinguistics, but there are only 3 function of speech that can be found in this video. The first one is function of expressive. This function is least used in the video. People in the video don't express much their feelings in the video. Nastya is the only one who often expresses her feelings through the video.

The second one is function of directive. This function is used quite often (approximately twice of first function) during the whole video especially by Turah (it's because he is the YouTuber on the video). He asks his friends to pronounce several words with their native language. The third one is function of referential. This function dominates the entire video and as well dominates the utterance in the real life

6. Politeness and Cross Cultural Communication

Politeness and Cross Cultural Communication in this video are not really emphasized. The main reason is because all people in the video have known each other well. Although politeness is not really emphasized it doesn't mean the words on the video is not proper. They still speak with proper language or words, but they don't use words that show about their status level. They also avoid use utterance that can possibly result in the misunderstanding between themselves. It is because they are from completely different cultures.

Link Video: https://youtu.be/Xzg0hBEoPJ4