An
Introduction to Sociolinguistics (Janet Holmes)
Chapter One: What do sociolinguists study?
- Sociolinguistics: a term that refers to the
study of the relationship between language and society, and how language is
used in multilingual speech communities.
Q what aspects of language are
Sociolinguists interested in?
Sociolinguists are interested in explaining why people
speak differently in different social contexts. And the effect of social
factors such as (social distance, social status, age, gender, class) on
language varieties (dialects, registers, genres, etc), and they are concerned
with identifying the social functions of language and the way they are used to
convey social meanings.
Q what do sociolinguists mean
by the term variety?
A variety is a set of linguistic forms used under
specific social circumstances, with a distinctive social distribution.
* Formality increases between participants (speaker
and hearer) when the social distance is greater. Informality
(Solidarity) increases when the social distance is little between participants
(speaker and hearer).
* Social status depends on a number of factors
such as social rank, wealth, age, gender and so on; therefore the person with
the higher social status has the choice of using formality or informality
(solidarity) when addressing other persons of lower social status. But the
person with the lower social status uses only formality when addressing a
person of higher social status.
Chapter Two: Multilingual speech communities
- Domains: domains of language use, a term popularised by an American
sociolinguist, Joshua Fishman. A domain of language involves typical
interactions between typical participants in typical settings about a typical
topic. Examples of these domains are family, friendship, religion, education
and employment.
- Setting: the physical situation or the typical place where speech interactions
occur (code choice), settings such as home, church, mosque, school, office, etc.
- Diglossia: communities rather in which two languages or
language varieties are used with one being a high variety for formal situations
and prestige, and a low variety for informal situations (everyday conversation).
Diglossia has three crucial features; two distinct varieties of the same language
are used in the community, with one regarded as high (H) variety and the other
as low (L) variety. Each variety is used for quite distinct functions; H &
L complement each other. No one uses the H variety in everyday conversation.
Example: the standard classical Arabic language is the high
variety in Arab countries, and it is used for writing and for formal functions,
but vernacular (colloquial) Arabic is the low variety used for informal speech
situations.
- Polyglossia: basically polyglossia situations involve two
contrasting varieties (high and low) but in general it refers to communities
that regularly use more than two languages.
- Code-switching: it is to move from one code (language, dialect, or
style) to another during speech for a number of reasons such, to signal
solidarity, to reflect one's ethnic identity, to show off, to hide some
information from a third party, to achieve better explanation of a certain
concept, to converge or reduce social distance with the hearer, to diverge or
increase social distance or to impress and persuade the audience (metaphorical
code-switching)
- Lexical borrowing: it results from the lack of vocabulary and it
involves borrowing single words – mainly nouns. When speaking a second
language, people will often use a term from their first language because they
don't know the appropriate word in their second language. They also my borrow
words from another language to express a concept or describe an object for
which there is no obvious word available in the language they are using.
* Code switching involves a choice between the
words of two languages or varieties, but Lexical borrowing is resulted
from the lack of vocabulary.
Chapter Three: Language maintenance and shift
- Language shift: it happens when the language of the wider society
(majority) displaces the minority mother tongue language over time in migrant
communities or in communities under military occupation. Therefore when
language shift occurs, it shifts most of the time towards the language of the dominant
group, and the result could be the eradication of the local language
Q What factors lead to language
shift?
Economic, social and political factor
1-The dominant language is associated with social
status and prestige
2-Obtaining work is the obvious economic reason for
learning another language
3-The pressure of institutional domains such as
schools and the media
Demographic factors
1-Language shift is faster in urban areas than rural
2-The size of the group is some times a critical
factor
3-Intermarriage between groups can accelerate language
shift
Attitudes and values
1-Language shift is slower among communities where the
minority language is highly valued, therefore when the language is seen as an
important symbol of ethnic identity its generally maintained longer, and visa
versa.
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Language death and Language loss:
When all the people who speak a language die,
the language dies with them.
With the spread of a majority group language into more
and more domains, the number of contexts in which individuals use the ethnic
language diminishes. The language usually retreats till it is used only in the
home, and finally it is restricted to such personal activities as counting,
praying and dreaming.
Q How can a minority language
be maintained?
1- A language can be maintained and preserved, when
it's highly valued as an important symbol of ethnic identity for the minority
group.
2- If families from a minority group live near each
other and see each other frequently, their interactions will help to maintain
the language.
3- For emigrate individuals from a minority group, the
degree and frequency of contact with the homeland can contribute to language
maintenance.
4- Intermarriage within the same minority group is
helpful to maintain the native language.
5- Ensuring that the minority group language is used at
formal settings such as schools or worship places will increases language
maintenance.
6- An extended normal family in which parents, children
and grandchildren live together and use the same minority language can help to
maintain it.
7- Institutional support from domains such as
education, law, administration, religion and the media can make a difference
between the success and failure of maintaining a minority group language.
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………
- Language revival: some times a community becomes
aware that its language is in danger of disappearing and takes steps to
revitalises it.
Example:
In 1840, two thirds of the Welsh people spoke Welsh,
but by 1980, only 20% of the population spoke Welsh, therefore the Welsh
people began a revival process of Welsh language by using a Welsh-language
TV channel and bilingual education programs that used Welsh as medium of
instruction at schools.
Chapter Four: Linguistic varieties and multilingual nations
- Vernacular language: It generally refers to a
language which has not been standardised or codified and which does not have
official status (uncodified or standardised variety). It generally refers to
the most colloquial variety in a person's linguistic repertoire.
- Standard Language: a standard variety is
generally one which is written, and which has undergone some degree of
regulation or codification (in a grammar and a dictionary).
* The development of Standard English illustrates the
three essential criteria which characterise a standard: It emerged in the 15th
as a delicate of the London London
- World Englishes: world English languages are
classified into, inner circle Englishes as in the UK ,
USA (English as a native
or first language); Outer circle Englishes as in India ,
Malaysia , Tanzania (English as a second language with
an official status), and Expanding circle Englishes as China , Japan ,
Russia
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………
- Lingua franca: a language used for
communication between different language users, for people whose first
languages differ, such as pidgin between European colonizers and African slaves
(Swahili).
- Pidgin: it is a language which has no native speakers.
Pidgins develop as a means of communication between people who don't have a
common language.
- Creole: when a pidgin becomes the language of
newly-born generations as a mother-tongue or first language, and acquires
additional vocabulary and grammatical structures to serve their various
necessary communicative needs (referential and social functions) it becomes a
Creole.
Chapter Five: National languages and language planning
- National language: it is the main
language of political, social and cultural practices, where people use it as a
symbol of their national unity / Official language is the language used
by governments for formal functions / In a monolingual community, a
national language is usually also the official language, but in bilingual or
multilingual communities, it may or may not be the official language. For
example: English and French are both official languages in Canada
Planning for a national official language:
1- Selection: selecting the variety
or code to by developed.
2- Codification: standardising its
structural or linguistic features.
3- Elaboration: extending its
functions for use in new domains.
4- Securing its acceptance:
acceptance by people in terms of attitude & prestige.
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………
* Linguists have
played an important role at the micro level of language planning activates. Many
of them work as members of communities with a lot of influence on language
planning, and especially on the standardization or codification of a particular
variety. Example: Samuel Johnson's 40,000-word dictionary was a landmark
in the codification of English.
- Acquisition planning: sociolinguists
can make a contribution to organized efforts to spread a language by increasing
the number of its users, by using it in the education system (language-in-
Education planning) or in the media domains such as news papers, radio,
etc.
Chapter Six: Regional and social dialects
- Accent: accents are
distinguished from each other by pronunciation.
- Dialects: linguistic
varieties which are distinguishable by their vocabulary, grammar and
pronunciation.
* Examples of different regional
dialects:
Example one: in British
English: pavement, boot, bonnet, petrol, baggage. But in American
English: sidewalk, trunk, hood, gas, luggage.
Example two: the word tog in
English refers to clothes one wears in formal dinner, but in New Zealand
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………
- Social dialects: a variety of language that
reflects social variation in language use, according to certain factors related
to the social group of the speaker such as education, occupation, income level
(upper-class English, middle-class English and lower-class English. For
example: Standard English can be classified as a type of social English
spoken by the well-educated English speakers throughout the world.
* Received Pronunciation (the Queens
English) or BBC English (the accent of the beast educated and most prestigious
members of English society) is classified as a social accent.
Q Is there a relationship between one's language and one's social
identity?
The language one uses often reflects one's
social identity and education, for example: dropping the initial h in
words like house can indicate a lower socioeconomic background. On the
other hand, pronouncing the letter r in the city of New
York is considered as a prestigious feature, but the opposite is
true in London
- Isogloss: a term that
refers to the boundary lines that mark the areas in which certain dialect words
are used.
- Sharp Stratification: it refers to the
pattern that certain pronunciation features such as h-dropping and grammatical
features such as mutable negation divide speaking communities sharply between
the middle class and the lower classes.
Chapter Seven: Gender and age
* It is claimed that women are linguistically more
polite than men
Q How are the language forms
used by men and women different in western societies, give examples? (just read)
In western societies, women and men whose social roles
are similar do not use forms that are completely different, but they use
different quantities or frequencies of the same form. For example: women
use more standard forms than men, and men use more vernacular forms than women
/ women use more ing-forms than men and fewer ing-forms in words like coming or
running. But in western communities, such differences are also
found in the speech of different social classes, therefore the language of
women in the lower and higher classes is more similar to that of men in the
same group.
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Q Explain women's linguistic
behavior (using
forms that are more standard):
1- Social status: women generally have a lower
social status in society; therefore they try to acquire social status by using
Standard English.
2- Women's role as guardian of society's values: women
use more standard forms than men, because society tends to expect 'better'
behavior from women than from men (women serve as modals for their children's
speech).
3- Subordinate groups must be polite: women use
more standard forms than men, because children and women are subordinate groups
and they must avoid offending men, therefore they must speak carefully and
politely.
4- Vernacular forms express machismo: men prefer
vernacular forms because they carry macho connotations of masculinity and
toughness. Therefore women might not want to use such form, and use standard
forms that associated with female values or femininity
5- women's categories: Not all women marry men
from the same social class, however it is perfectly possible for a women to be
more educated then the man she marry, or even to have a more prestigious job
than him.
6- The influence of the interviewer and the context:
women tend to become more cooperative conversationalists than men.
Chapter Eight: Ethnicity and social networks
* It is often possible for individuals to signal their ethnicity
by the language they choose to use. Even when a complete conversation in an
ethnic language is not possible, people may use short phrases, verbal filers or
linguistic tags, which signal ethnicity. For Example: In New Zealand
- African American Vernacular English: a distinct variety or dialect
that was developed by African Americans as a symbolic way of differentiating
themselves from the majority group.
Some of AAVE linguistic features (pp186-187)
- Complete absence of the copula verb be in
some social & linguistic contexts
- The use of invariant be to signal recurring
or repeated actions
- Mutable negation
- Constant cluster simplifications
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………
British Black English
1-Patois: a Jamaican Creole in origin,
which is used by Jamaican immigrants in London
Some of Patois linguistic features (p190)
- Lexical items such as lick meaning 'hit'
and kenge meaning 'week, puny'
- Different pronunciation like then and thin
are pronounced 'den' and 'tin'.
- Plural forms don't have s on the end.
- Tenses aren't marked by suffixes on verbs, so forms
like walk and jump are used rather than walked, walks,
jumped, and jumps.
- The form mi is used for I, me
and my (mi niem / my name).
- The form dem is used for they, them
and their (dem car / their car).
2- Midland Black English: a variety of Standard English
with a west midland accent which is an informal variety with some Patois
features.
3- Multi-cultural London
- Social networks: who we talk and listen to
regularly is an important influence on the way we speak (regular patterns of
informal social relationships among people.
- Density: it refers to whether members of a
person's network are in touch with each other.
- Plexity: is a measure of the range of different types of
transaction people are involved in with different individuals.
- Uniplex relationship: is one where the link with
the other person is in only one area.
- Multiplex relationship: it involves interactions with
others along several dimensions.
- Community practice: the activities that group
members share, and their shared objectives and attitudes (one belongs to many
communities of practice such as family, workgroup, sports team, etc).
Chapter Nine: Language change
* Variation and Change: the cause behind language
change is the variation of use in the areas of pronunciation and vocabulary.
Post-vocal |r| its spread and its
status: In
many parts of England and Wales England New York
The spread of vernacular forms: some
times a vernacular feature in some communities as a reflection of ethnic
or social identity such as what happened in Martha's Vineyard Island
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Q How do language changes
spread?
1- from group to group: changes spread like waves in
different directions, and social factors such as age, gender, status and social
group affect the rates and directions of change.
2- from style to style: from more formal to more
casual, from one individual to another, from one social group to another, and
from one word to another.
- Lexical diffusion: the change from one word's vowel
to another, the sound change begins in one word and later on in another, etc.
Q How do we study language
change?
A- Apparent-time studies of language change: it is the study of comparing
the speech of people from different age groups, to find out any differences
that could indicate change (whether increase or decrease).
B- Studying language change in real time: in this study, the researcher
studies the language in a community and then comes back to it after a number of
years to study it again, and find out any changes.
Reasons for language change:
1- Social status and language change: members of the group with
most social status, for example, tend to introduce changes into a speech
community from neighboring communities which have greater status and prestige
in their eyes.
2- Gender and change: differences in women's and
men's speech are a source of variation which can result in linguistic change.
3- Interaction and language change: interaction and contact
between people is crucial in providing the channels for linguistic change
(social networks).
4- The influence of the media: some researcher belief that
media has a great influence on people's speech patterns and new forms.
Chapter Ten: Style, context and register
* Language varies according to use and users and
according to where it is used and to whom, as well as according to who is using
it. The addresses and the context affect our choice of code or variety, whether
language, dialect or style.
1- Addressee's influence on style: many factors influence the
addressee's style such as social distance / solidarity / age / gender / social
background.
2-Formal contexts and social roles: the formal setting where the
social roles of participants override their personal relationship in
determining the appropriate linguistic form (style).
3- Topic or function: style is sometimes determined
by the function which language is used for.
- Audience design: the influence of the audience
(listeners) on a speaker's style, for example: the same news is read
differently by newsreaders on different radio stations during the same day,
therefore producing different styles for each audience.
Accommodation Theory
- Speech converges: each person's speech
converges towards the speech of the person they are talking to. It tends to
happen when the speakers like one another, or where one speaker has a vested
interest in pleasing the other or putting them at ease.
- Speech diverges: deliberately choosing a
different language style not used by one's addressee, it tends to happen when a
person wants to show his cultural distinctiveness, social status, ethnic
identity, etc.
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………
- Hypercorrection: it is the exaggeration of some
lower class speakers in imitating middle class standard speech. For example:
the use of 'I' rather than 'me' in constructions such as 'between
you and I'.
- Register: occupational style using specialized or
technical jargon,
it describes the language of groups of people with common interests or jobs, or
the language used in situations associated with such groups, such as the
language of doctors, engineers, journals, legalese, etc.
Q in sports announcer talk;
what is the difference between ply-by-play commentary and color commentary?
- Play-by-play commentary: it focuses on actions by using
telegraphic grammar.
- Colour commentary: it focuses on people, with heavy
and long modifications or descriptions of nouns.
Chapter
Eleven: Speech functions, politeness & cross-cultural communication
Functions of Speech
1- Referential function: to convey information and
this is done through different forms of speech, such as declarative or interrogative
statements.
- Declarative statements (After this semester, I'm
going to visit London
- Interrogative statements using Wh-questions (what
is your name?)
- Interrogative statements using yes/no questions (do
like London
- Alternative questions with answer choices (do
like tea or coffee?)
2- Directive function: giving orders or making
requests by using imperative statements. An imperative statements may express a
strict demand such as saying (open the door) or it can seem less
demanding by using the politeness strategy such as saying (open the door,
please) or through using question tags in the case of informality between
mother and son (Max the TV is still on!)
3- Expressive function: to express personal
feelings, thoughts, ideas and opinions, with different choice words,
intonation, etc. These expressions are submissive to social factors and to the
nature of the expression as negative (I'm very gloomy tonight) or
positive (I'm feeling very good today).
4- Phatic or Social function: it is one of the most common
speech acts in everyday interactions; it consists of greetings, complements,
gossip, etc. for greeting a friend, a speaker can say (hi/hello).
As for greeting a stranger, the speaker can use (hello), but the more
formal greetings between strangers are (good morning/afternoon/evening).
5- Metalinguistic Function: it is used to describe parts
of language such as grammar, or words that describe language itself (I is a
personal pronoun)
6- Poetic Function: using poetic features such as
rhyming words, alliteration or paronomasia and antithesis (An apple a day
keeps the doctor a way).
7- Heuristic Function: Halliday identified this
function of language which concerned with learning, the main concentration of
researching this function of speech is to identify the spoken language of
learning children.
8- Commissives: it involves using threats and
promises (I will clean my room, I promise).
Politeness: it is the consideration of social factors
(social distance in terms of solidarity or formality), social status, type of
situation or context, intonation, etc when communicating with others.
* One may ask somebody to sit down by using different
utterances:
Sit down / please sit down / I want you to sit down
/ won't you sit down / you sit down / why don't you
make yourself more comfortable?
- Positive politeness: a type of politeness based on
solidarity between speakers and hearers who share values and attitudes, and in
which formal expressions in addressing are avoided.
- Negative politeness: a type of politeness based on
formality between speakers and hearers in which formal expressions in
addressing are used in order to protect hearers' face and avoid intruding on
them.
Chapter Twelve: Gender, politeness and stereotypes
Women's language and confidence
- Lakoff's linguistic features of women's
speech:
1- Lexical hedges or fillers (you know, sort of,
well, you see)
2- Tag questions (she's very nice, isn’t she?)
3- Rising intonation on declaratives (it's really
good)
4- 'Empty' adjectives (divine, charming, cute)
5- Precise colour terms (magenta, aquamarine)
6- Intensifiers such as just and so (I
like him so much)
7- 'Hypercorrect' grammar (consistent use of
standard verb forms)
8- 'Super-polite' forms (indirect requests,
euphemism)
9- Avoidance of strong swear words (fudge, my
goodness)
10- Emphatic stress (it was a BRILLIANT performance)
Q What are tag questions for
Lakoff and what are their functions?
According to Lakoff, Tag questions are syntactic
devices that are used more by men to express uncertainty (she's very nice,
isn't she) and they are used more by women to express positive politeness (you
will study for the exam, won't you?).
Interaction
Q Who interrupts more, men or
women? Why?
Studies showed that men, and even boys interrupt more,
due to women's gender rather than to their role or occupation.
Q who gives more feedback
during conversation, men or women?
Studies show that women are more cooperative and give
more feedback.
Q What is gossip? What functions
does gossip have for women? What is men's equivalent activity to women's
gossip?
Gossip is a social not a referential function to
affirm solidarity, and relieve feelings. The equivalent activity for
gossip to men is mock-insults and abuse, with the function of expressing
solidarity & maintaining social relationships.
Chapter Thirteen: Language, cognition and culture
Language and perception
Q What is verbal hygiene?
It is a thought–provoking term, used by Deborah
Cameron describe how People respond to the 'urge to meddle in matters of
language'. It covers a wide range of activities, from writing letters to
Editors complaining about the 'deterioration' and 'abuse' of language, through
prescriptions and proscriptions about what constitutes 'proper', 'correct' and
'acceptable' usage in a range of contexts, to using language as a political
weapon.
- Euphemism: substituting unacceptable terms with nicer
words or terms, such as disabled instead of crippled, cosmetically
different instead of ugly.
- Dysphemism: using derogatory terms of language to reflect
society's perceptions of particular groups, such as referring to a coloured person
as a nigger or a homosexual male as gay or queer.
Benjamin Lee Whorf
In his analysis of Native American languages, Whorf
noticed that the particular words selected to describe or label objects often
influenced people's perceptions and behavior.
Q What is linguistic
determinism?
The medium is the message, Sapir-Whorf hypothesis (linguistic
determinism) is that people from different cultures think differently because
of differences in their languages.
* Testing Sapir-Whorf hypothesis: if Whorf is right then it is
difficult to identify colours which your language does not have a name for. But
although people form the Dani tribe in New Guinea, use only two colour terms (corresponding
to black and white or dark and light), it was found that they could
recognize and distinguish between subtle shades of colours that their language
had no names for (pale blue vs. turquoise).
* Different discourse patterns can reflect different
patterns of thinking or socio-cultural relationships, for example: a
similar news report can be represented differently from one newspaper to
another, in form and content.
Chapter Fourteen: Analysing discourse
Q What is discourse?
For sociolinguists, the term discourse is generally
used to refer to stretches of spoken or written language which extend beyond an
utterance or a sentence.
For philosophers, discourse is a broader term; it is
regarded as a means of structuring knowledge and social practice, and language
is just one symbolic form of discourse.
Q How is discourse viewed by
pragmatics?
Pragmatics are concerned with the analysis of meaning
in interaction, context is crucial in interpreting what is meant, and
pragmatics extends the analysis of meaning beyond grammar and word meaning to
the relationship between the participants and the background knowledge they
bring to a situation, which is analysed in terms of conversation maxims and
politeness.
Q What are conversation maxims?
Paul Grice formulated four maxims of cooperative talk:
1- Quantity: say as much as but no more
than necessary
2- Quality: do not say what you believe
to be false, or that for which you lack evidence
3- Relation: be relevant
4- Manner: be clear, unambiguous, brief and orderly
Q What are the politeness rules
that Lakoff introduced?
1- Don't impose: use modals and hedges: I
wonder if I might just open the window a little.
2- Give options: use interrogatives including
tag questions: do you mind if I open the window? It would be nice to have
the window open a little wouldn't it?
3- Be friendly: use informal expressions
endearments: Be a honey and open the window darling.
Ethnography of speaking: or ethnography of
communication, it is an approach developed by the sociolinguist Dell Hymes,
for analysing language, which has been designed to heighten awareness of
culture-bound assumptions.
* The frame work that Hymes developed for the
analysis of communicative events involved the following components:
- Genre type of event: phone call, conversation,
business meeting, etc.
- Topic of what people are talking about: holidays, sports, politics,
etc.
- Purpose of function: the reason (s) for the talk.
- Setting: where the talk takes place.
- Key of emotional tongue: serious, jocular, sarcastic,
etc.
- Participants: characteristics of those
present and their relationship.
- Message form: code and/or channel
(telephone, letter, email, etc).
- Message content: specific details of what the
communication is about.
- Act sequence: ordering of speech acts.
- Rules for interaction: prescribed orders of
speaking.
- Norms for interpretation: what is going on?
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Interactional sociolinguistics: Interactional sociolinguists
typically make use of the detailed tools of conversation analysis, by paying
careful attention to turn-taking behavior, hesitations, pauses, and paralinguistic
behavior (sights, laughter, in-breaths, etc) to interpret what the speaker
intended.
Q What is Contextualisation
cause?
In an interactional sociolinguistics perspective, features
'by which the speakers signal and listeners interpret what the activity is, how
the semantic content is to be understood and how each sentence relates to what
precedes or follows'.
Conversational analysis: CA researchers approach
communication as a jointly organized activity like dancing, or cooperative
musical. Discourse is conversation (talk) which has its own structure
(openings, closings, overlaps, turn-taking, interruptions, etc.)
Critical Discourse Analysis: it is concerned with
investigating how language is used to construct and maintain power
relationships in society; the aim is to show up connections between language
and power, and between language and ideology.
Chapter Fifteen: Attitudes and applications
Attitudes to language
* Language attitudes (positive or negative) towards a
language or a variety have much impact on language and education
Q Explain overt prestige &
covert prestige from a sociolinguistic perspective?
The meaning of overt prestige is reasonably
self-evident; it is associated with the standard variety in a community 'the
best way of speaking in a community'. In contrast the term covert
prestige refers to positive attitudes towards vernacular or non-standard
speech varieties.
Q What are the methods of
collecting attitude data?
1- Direct observation
2- Direct questions
3- Indirect measures
Q Why do working-class children
fail in schools more than middle-class children from a sociolinguistic
perspective?
1- The criteria for success are middle-class criteria,
including middle-class language and ways of interaction
2- Many of the children, recognizing that schools are
essentially middle-class institutions, deliberately and understandably rebel
against all that they represent.
No comments:
Post a Comment