idiolect

In linguistics, an idiolect is a variety of a language unique to an individual. It is manifested by patterns of vocabulary or idiom selection (the individual's lexicon), grammar, or pronunciations that are unique to the individual. Every individual's language production is in some sense unique. Linguists disagree about exactly what is shared, in terms of the underlying knowledge of the language, among speakers of the same language or dialect.

Idiolect and language

Linguists generally say that the notion of a language is an abstract description of the language use and abilities of individual speakers and listeners. According to this view, a language is an "ensemble of idiolects... rather than an entity per se."^[1] Linguists study particular languages, such as English or Xhosa by examining the utterances produced by the people who speak the language.

This view contrasts with a common view among non-linguists, especially in North America, that languages exist as ideal systems of grammar and vocabulary, and that individual usage derives from this external language system.^[2]

Linguists who understand particular languages as a composite of unique, individual idiolects must nonetheless account for the fact that members of large speech communities, and even speakers of different dialects of the same language, can understand one another. All human beings seem to produce language in essentially the same way.^[3] This has led to searches for universal grammar, as well as to attempts to define the nature of particular languages.

Forensic linguistics

Forensic linguists attempt to identify whether a certain person did or did not produce a given text by comparing the style of the text with the idiolect of the individual. The forensic linguist may conclude that the text is either consistent with the individual, the individual is ruled out as the author, or the comparison is inconclusive.^[4]

See also

• Catch phrase
• Dialect
• Genderlect
• Idioglossia
• Sociolect

References

1. ^ Zuckermann, Ghil'ad (2006), "A New Vision for 'Israeli Hebrew': Theoretical and Practical Implications of Analysing Israel's Main Language as a Semi-Engineered Semito-European Hybrid Language." Journal of Modern Jewish Studies 5 (1):57-71
2. ^ Niedzielski, Nancy & Dennis Preston (2000) Folk Linguistics. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
3. ^ Gleitman, Lila (1993) "A human universal: the capacity to learn a language." Modern Philology 90:S13-S33.
4. ^ McMenamin, Gerald R. & Dongdoo Choi (2002) Forensic Linguistics: Advances in Forensic Stylistics. London: CRC Press.

External links

Look up idiolect in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry
• The Online Dictionary of Language Terminology