Razprave in gradivo, Ljubljana, March 1986, No.18 
Zdenka Gudelj-Velaga UDC 376.744:316:80 
Teachers Training College 
Rijeka, Yugoslavia 
SOCIOLINGUISTIC CONDITIONING AND SOCIOLINGUISTIC CONSEQUENCES OF 
SECOND-LANGUAGE LEARNING: EXAMPLE OF THE ELEMENTARY-SCHOOL 
TEACHING OF THE CROATIAN OR SERBIAN LANGUAGE CONDUCTED IN THE 
LANGUAGES OF THE NATIONALITIES WITHIN THE CONFINES OF THE 
SOCIALIST REPUBLIC OF CROATIA* 
The teaching of language is consistently a socially determined 
process. It is by way of syllabuses, teaching materials, and the 
training of teaching staff that society shows the need for the 
language qualification of its members. By determining the 
direction and extent of language skills of the population, the 
society projects the types of potential models of communication 
practice in the medium of language. 
In the case of the mother tongue, this can be demonstrated as 
follows: if the language spoken by the population differs from 
the standardized variety, the teaching of language imposed by the 
society either hampers or facilitates the integration of the 
speakers of nonstandard varieties into the social communication 
practice making use of the standardized variety; hence the shift 
of the population up and down the ladder of social success is 
similarly hampered or facilitated. Therefore language culture 
does not equal language elitism. Furthermore, if - quite properly 
- the concept of language culture is conceived of as including 
not only the speaker's individual language skills but also the 
concept of linguistic tolerance, then the two notions (language 
culture and language elitism) clash and destroy each other, so 
that only the former can be included in the description of lan- 
guage medium as the most universal means of human communication. 
All this becomes quite complicated in those social communities 
which are not at the same time also single-code language 
communities. The destiny of speakers of one or another language 
of a social community manifests itself as homogeneity or non- 
homogeneity of a language community. The number of speakers Of 
the two languages defines the degree of bilingualism attained in 
the social community which can be described as entirely bilingual 
only if all of its members are actual (competent) speakers of the 
two languages alike. A low degree of bilingualism in a two-code 
social community favors the appearance of vertical stratification 
of language use with markedly social connotations. 
Certain societies react to their two-codedness by setting up 
bilingual instruction. It is second-language teaching which 
underlies every bilingual instruction, regardless of its scope 
and its organization. For the present purposes, it seems adequate 
to define the second language as the language which is neither 
the mother tongue (the language learned first) nor a foreign 
    
* Original: Serbo-Croatian 
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language (a living language which is not the native language of a 
given social community). In certain parts of SR Croatia, the 
Croatian or Serbian language has the status of a second language, 
being used as such by native speakers of Italian, Hungarian, 
Czech, Ruthenian, and Slovak languages. Consequently, in the 
schools of these regions where teaching is conducted in the 
languages of the nationalities, the Croatian or Serbian language 
is taught and learned as a second language. 
It can be assumed that every student attending a school using a 
nationality language as the language of instruction has gained 
some linguistic experience in the second-language medium (in this 
context, Croatian or Serbian). It is proper to distinguish the 
student's receptive language activity from his/her productive 
language use. One must be aware that these students, native 
speakers of - say - Italian or Hungarian, realize the minimum 
receptive language practice in the Croatian or Serbian language 
simply by being exposed to the mass media that embody the social 
communication practice (radio, television, the newspapers, songs, 
the movies, perhaps children's puppet theaters, various 
performances and shows, etc.). Some linguistic units are adopted 
through life in the social community: names and appellations (of 
people, places, streets, work organizations...). Certain 
linguistic units do get anchored in first-language speech 
practice, either in their original form or grammatically - 
usually phonetically and morphologically - adapted to the first 
language (Vesna e mia amica. Vengono dal Treéi maj). This is the 
earliest use of linguistic units of other language, but one that 
cannot yet be regarded as productive language use/practice. In 
the context of this topic, productive language practice occurs 
when the communication of some kind has been achieved in the 
other language; it need not amount to more than a simple “Hello” 
used in a speech situation in which this linguistic unit carries 
the semantic function of "I greet you/I return the greeting." 
The implication here is that in starting organized teaching of 
the language (second-language instruction in the first grade of 
the elementary school), one should take into consideration the 
results of spontaneous language learning (exposure to the 
language in the communication practice of a bilingual social 
community). This pre-instructional language experience is 
characterized by the duality of language influence, being the 
same as that to which the new second-language speaker will be 
permanently exposed within his/her linguistic community. The 
point in question is the difference between the colloquial and 
official language use by the native speakers of Croatian or 
Serbian wherever the students live who attend the schools in 
which teaching is conducted in the languages of the 
nationalities. More specifically, in Istria the Chakavian dialect 
is spoken; on the basis of this dialect, urban speech has 
developed in Rijeka and Pula whose linguistic repertory consists 
of disparate components in terms of their origin, including as ze 
does, for instance, specific linguistic contributions of a 
settlers and elements of classic city slang. On the other oes ’ 
dialects spoken in Slavonia-Baranya 
are well-known for t si 
composite structure comprising Yhay ian URS yee ie cnens na 
features. It may be useful to note at this point ; a er 
the corresponding duality observed in these stu yo nate 
standard and nonstandard forms can be ascertaine 
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first-language use. This means that the student attending a 
nationality-language school initially finds himself/herself in an 
extremely complex situation: he/she develops his/her linguistic 
skills by learning spontaneously two languages, both in 
nonstandard (communication) and standard (mostly reception only) 
varieties, while at the same time he/she learns - on an organized 
basis - only the standard varieties of the very same two 
languages. Such a learner should therefore develop a very high 
degree of sensitivity to appropriate usage in the first or second 
language also with respect to both nonstandard and standard 
varieties of these languages. The school can counteract 
resistance to the learning of one or both languages - resistance 
which might result from difficulties in acquiring and using them 
- only by relying on the joy that the learning of a language can 
provide if the self-motivation function of developing language 
skills is taken advantage of. This function is the most 
significant motivation expedient in any serviceable teaching 
system, which is revealed by as rapid as possible a process after 
which the “new" speaker is capable and qualified to verify the 
results of the work put in (namely the learning of language) 
within the framework of actual communication by participating 
successfully in the speech situation that requires the use of the 
language he/she is learning. 
The curriculum for teaching Croatian or Serbian as the second 
language (i.e. the language of the social environment) takes into 
account the linguistic situation in the social community and 
Gevotes its basic part to the task of training the students to 
become integrated with direct communication practice, enabling 
them to gain well-rounded skills as soon as possible. At this 
point, two tasks quoted in the curriculum must in particular be 
singled out for special mention, viz.: 
- Task no. 1: That students be introduced into the communication 
using the Croatian or Serbian language, and that they gain the 
skills necessary for participating in all the communication 
situations that are realized in that language; 
- Task no. 8: That students qualify for communication with their 
coevals who speak Croatian or Serbian as their native language, 
and later also for communication with their entire social 
environment. Finally, that students be qualified for taking 
active part in the currents of our self-managing socialist 
society also in the Croatian or Serbian language. 
(Gazette of the Republic Committee on Education, Culture, 
Physical and Technical Culture of SR Croatia, No. 3, Zagreb, 9 
April 1985) 
The former of the preceding two tasks in fact centers on the 
integrated nature of language use, whereas the latter discusses 
the strict application of the principle of gradualness in 
language learning. The syntagm - also in the Croatian or Serbian 
language indicates that the instructional program is implemented 
in the social community that tends to have an integrally 
bilingual character. 
As given in the program (or in the curriculum), the integrality 
of language use is built on several levels. The first, which 
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focuses on the student, breaks down speech activities into four 
distinct aspects of the overall speech behavior, viz., listening, 
speaking, reading and writing. The first two of these are the 
groundwork for the initial stage of language learning, a 
prerequisite for the student's successful coping with the other 
two which, naturally, during later stages of the learning process 
come to play the central role in the course of linguistic self- 
education. 
Assessing the student's pre-instructional experience formed in 
the stage of spontaneous language learning via listening, the 
curriculum pays special attention to developing this very aspect 
of the student's linguistic competence. Active listening enables 
him/her to get acquainted with and then to acquire all the values 
inherent in the spoken language, comprising all those language 
functions which can be expressed through sound. 
It is by guided listening that the student effectuates the speech 
activity, comprehending either globally or individually the 
factors making up a given speech situation. This in turn fosters 
the development of receptive linguistic skills and hence promotes 
the possibility of integrating the student into actual social 
communication, Conversation represents the basic form of social 
speech actualization. The orientation of the curriculum toward 
qualifying the student for communication practice can be followed 
in several ways and from different viewpoints, for instance, in 
terms of the order of introducing language units with respect to 
the selection of lexical items, and the like. Here, however, it 
seems best to cite in full the first sentence appearing in the 
curriculum unit entitled Conversation, which forms part of the 
chapter Speaking, itself incorporated in the part entitled Speech 
Activities. we quote the first sentence as given for each of the 
eight elementary-school grades. 
The First Grade: Establishing speech contact with one's 
classmates and with the teacher, in basic communication 
situations of classroom life and games. 
The Second Grade: Accomplishing speech contact with one's 
classmates and with the teacher, in all the communication 
situations of classroom life. 
The Third Grade: Accomplishing speech contact beyond classroom 
situations, 
The Fourth Grade: Accomplishing speech contact in the 
communication situations associated with traveling and trips. 
The Fifth Grade: Accomplishing speech contact in communication 
situations beyond the classroom, i.e. out of school. 
The Sixth Grade: Accomplishing speech contact in situations 
associated with social and economic characteristics of the area 
in question (maritime affairs, tourism, agriculture). 
The Seventh Grade: Accomplishing speech contact in communication 
situations related to cultural performances, sports events, and 
the like, whether in school or elsewhere. 
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The Eighth Grade: Accomplishing speech contact in situations 
related to socio-political aspects of school life and of the 
social environment. 
Of course, this list is not intended to exclude other 
communication situations in which language activities are carried 
out. It simply stresses the gradual broadening of thematic 
complexes in those contents of student speech by which language 
activities follow the integration of an individual into the 
framework of broader social interaction and illustrate the 
societal and socializing function of knowledge of a second 
language (language of the social environment). 
The integrality of language use subsumes utilizing the language 
in all of its many-sided complex functions. It would be wrong not 
to include under this heading reflections on sociolinguistic 
conditions and consequences of introducing the student to the 
expressive and poetic functions of the second language. To do 
this, however, would mean to beg a host of questions, among which 
the dominant ones appear to be the relations between the mother 
tongue and the second language as subjects of instruction, and in 
this respect the function of the second language in the 
actualization of creative language use making part of an 
individual's speech production, and the participation in the 
cultural life and cultural heritage of a social community 
whenever the language used to achieve that aim is the student's 
second language. Therefore these questions refer not only to 
school, as they are by nature to the same extent also social and 
linguistic. 
In the total instructional process conducted in the student's 
mother tongue, the nature of things is such that the central 
concern is fostering and developing such complex skills as those 
which emanate from the interrelationship between speech and 
thought. This is the language in which the student attains 
cognition and expresses himself/herself, the world, and his being 
within the macrocosm. It is important to note that this does not 
happen because of the concrete idiom in question, but rather 
because the developmental nature of language and the relevant 
psycho-mental functions interact. In other words, the fundamental 
thing here is the student's overall language behavior and not the 
idiom she/he employs while learning it. On the other hand, the 
reception of a linguistic message is conditioned, among other 
things, by the degree to which the receiver's language skills 
have developed. They too are dynamically interrelated. Such 
questions are dealt with by sciences such as psycholinguistics, 
developmental psychology, language pedagogy, language teaching 
methodology, and others. Suffice it here to establish the fact 
that there is no reason that expression or reception should be 
linked to the idiom; they should be related to linguistic 
competence in that idiom. It follows from this that the student 
is able to express himself/herself also in the second language 
provided she/he possesses the means of linguistic expression and 
on condition that the language repertoire she/he has internalized 
is structured in such a manner as to enable the formation of 
creative combinations of linguistic units, so that the messge 
realized through them functions as language expression, If we 
accept the view that each and every message, regardless of its 
structural complexity and semantic range, is considered creative 
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whenever it represents a personal choice of a linguistic 
expedient used to communicate a personal experience, the 
beginnings of creativity in language can be traced as far back as 
the initial stage of second-language learning. In this context, 
we can regard as an example of language creativity a novel, 
functional intonation pattern applied to a previously adopted 
unit of the referential code of the type, "This is a toy,” 
provided that the intonation imparts a new, contextually 
appropriate meaning to the utterance. Likewise, choosing a 
felicitous adjective which, when actually used in the language- 
expression process becomes an epithet rather than keeping its 
former function of an attribute, can also be judged an instance 
of language creativity. In other words, the degree of the 
development of language competence required for giving actual 
shape to a substantial semantic base by using the means of 
language expression will come sooner the less we wait for it to 
come. This fact derives from the nature of language medium that 
manifests itself in the self-motivation function of fostering 
linguistic skills: the use of language creates the need for 
acquiring new linguistic units by which semantic units containing 
the communicated reality can be expressed; the level of 
linguistic competence thus attained opens up the possibility of 
internalizing a novel linguistic expedient. The spiral of 
increasing internalized units is a process that goes on 
throughout a person's lifetime. 
On this basis, the students are introduced - right from the 
initial stage of second-language learning - to the expressive and 
poetic functions of the second language. This is not in 
opposition to the hitherto highlighted communicological 
orientation in second-language learning; rather, these are 
directions of one and the same course, because they are parts of 
the same whole - integrated language use. Proportions of language 
material proper to this or that orientation and the precise 
delimitation of their function are elements that have a decisive 
role here. This can be explained in the following way: if the 
teacher is in the situation of having to choose one of the 
semantically related verbs, say, teéi (English: run, flow) and 
zuboriti (English: babble, burble), she/he will doubtless explain 
to the students the thematic verb teéi, but without failing to 
take account of the onomatopoeic value of a running mountain 
stream. Here, like in the case of the other components of 
language learning, the point in question is first and foremost 
the principles of functionality, appropriateness and gradualness 
of methods, expedients, and the contents of subjects that are to 
be taught. 
It will have become clear by now that the students of a second 
language are to be introduced to the literature written in that 
language, right from the start. This, however, does not give us 
grounds to conclude that it is only the second-language subject 
of instruction that is used as a vehicle - the sole vehicle - for 
communicating knowledge of literature and of the other forms of 
non-material culture expressible in the language of the social 
environment. After gaining the basic literary education as well 
as literary sensitivity in the mother tongue, the student 
supplements it and deepens it in the second language as the 
subject of instruction by applying his/her mother-tongue 
accomplishments; the extent to which this can be achieved 
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corresponds with the extent to which the advanced or not-so- 
advanced degree of his/her linguistic basis allows for the 
reception of a literay-artistic text (whereby the linguistic 
basis develops further). The matter in question is therefore a 
markedly complex body of instructional and non-instructional 
questions which are much easier to solve in theory than in 
teaching practice. The socio-culturological truth that the most 
integrated knowledge about a nation and its customs can - apart 
from life in the national community concerned - be derived from 
its literature clashes with the teaching practice imposing 
curricula, school equipment, and especially school libraries and 
what they supply. 
The complexity of this situation can be illustrated by adducing 
the policy of presenting literary texts in each of the two 
languages as given in each of the curricula: national literary 
works created in Yugoslavia and in the mother country of the 
language in question are in the mother tongue; works belonging to 
world literature appear translated into the language of the 
nationality; part of works making up the literature of the 
Yugoslav peoples and belonging to the Yugoslav core-section of 
the program as well as certain other works of Yugoslav authors 
which are either traditional parts of the program (thus time- 
tested) or just happen to have been translated, form part of the 
body of translated literature. 
Works included in the program of Croatian or Serbian as the 
second language were entered according to the following criteria: 
from the results of the comparative analysis in which students 
attending the schools where teaching is conducted in the 
languages of the nationalities made decisions on reading matter 
making up part one of the reading program from among standard 
works figuring in the syllabuses covering the integral 
instruction in the Croatian or Serbian language and which the 
authors of the syllabuses estimated to be linguistically 
accessible to the age-group for which they were intended, and 
from that part of the Yugoslav educational core program which was 
not included in the mother-tongue program. It follows from the 
above that students are introduced to the literature of the 
Yugoslav peoples and nationalities both in their mother tongue 
and in the second language (i.e. Croatian or Serbian). Whether 
this is good or bad has yet to be shown by a scientific 
assessment of both the conception and the implementation of the 
program. One thing is certain, however: if a second language is 
acquired only according to curricula and actual teaching, 
knowledge of this language is such that it cannot be used 
successfully and integrally in the learning of the literature 
written in Croatian or Serbian - to fulfill the requirement or 
rather the truism that it is best to learn literature in the 
language in which it was originally written, and on the other 
hand, to be in agreement with the opinion that the emotive- 
aesthetic and other riches inherent ina literary-artistic text 
make it the most valuable treasury of the given language, and 
that certain characteristics of some texts (such as 
melodiousness and rhythm) make the literary-artistic text very 
suitable for use in language learning, as it facilitates the 
learning of language. Of special importance is the fact that 
one's incorporation into the integrated communication practice 
carried out in the given language subsumes participation in all 
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the aspects of social interaction occurring in that language, 
thus including the literary-artistic text in terms of its 
reception and communication about it. 
Such a command of a second language would indicate that full 
bilingualism has been achieved by all the members of a given 
community. Second-language instruction can contribute 
significantly to such an optimum state of language affairs, but 
it cannot attain it by acting in isolation from other socio- 
cultural factors. Suffice it therefore to add here only a few 
observations on its orientation: 
Second-language instruction does away with the need for the 
vertical stratification of Language use with respect to the idiom 
(i.e., division into an official idiom and an idiom serving 
private purposes). This means that diglossia would emerge only 
with horizontal strata, representing a geographically conditioned 
transition from a bilingual linguistic community to a monolingual 
one, that is, to another bilingual community with an identical 
language and another new language combined in communication 
practice. 
Good second-language instruction in bilingual communities 
dispenses with the need for a socially motivated alteration 
(change of the idiom-code in communication practice), but amply 
provides for the linguistic expedients necessary for the change 
of code-idiom whenever the participants in communication find it 
Suitable for personal reasons. 
Note 
1. Kriz, J., 1983, "Program domaée lektire u osnovnim Skolama na 
jezicima narodnosti" (Reading Program for National Literature in 
the Elementary Schools with Nationalities' Languages as the 
languages of instruction), Obrazovanje i rad, No.3. 
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