Polari as a language system

It is worth bearing in mind an important distinction when considering Polari (or any language variety). It can be viewed as an abstract language system, defined by its linguistic items (Hudson 1980: 24; Wardhaugh 1986: 22), but it can also be thought of in terms of language use, or rather, the social contexts, mores and motivations for using language. This is perhaps similar to Saussure’s (1966: 9, 13) concepts of langue and parole, where langue refers to the ‘language habits of all speakers of a language’ and parole refers to ‘the individual uses and variations we observe’ (Wardhaugh 1993: 19).