The Concept of Diglossia Revisited.

Abstract

It is cleat that Ferguson’s Classification/Model of Diglossia provides new dimensions especially in the area where language functions. Fishman, Fasold, and many other scholars discussed and elaborated the concept of Diglossia. Ferguson selects four lingusitic communities where he tries to apply his model of Diglossia. These four commmunties are Arabic, Swiss German, Greek, and Haitian Creole. In his classification he claims that in the speech form there is pure high  form (H) of address in a certain setting , while there is a pure low form(L) of address in another form of address. He proposes a very popular Model for his notion of Diglossia. It is a fact that the form of address is greatly influenced by the known sociological factors such as age, gender, education, topic, setting, etc. The researher believes that the relationship between French and Haitian Creole is not like the relationship in the other three communities chosen by Ferguson. The primary L and H arise maily from different languages rather than one language (French). His generalizations that that Haitian Creole arose from a Creolization of pidgin French, and that creole is a dialect of French, may not be fully acceptable. Also, the researher believes that in the case of the Shaigiyya dialect, there is no pure H or pure L, but a mixture of both