Transcript Folie 1

Linguistics
Sociolinguistics: Regional and Social Varieties
Sociolinguistics:
Regional & Social Varieties
Presentation © Carsten Litterscheidt, 19 Jan 2006
Reference works:
• Holmes, Janet. An Introduction to Sociolinguistics. London et. al.: Longman, 1996.
• Mesthrie, Rajend, ed. Concise Encyclopedia of Sociolinguistics. Amsterdam et. al.:
Elsevier, 2001.
• Romaine, Suzanne. Language in society: an introduction to sociolinguistics. Oxford et. al.:
Oxford UP, 1994.
• Trudgill, Peter. Sociolinguistics: An Introduction to language and society. London et al.:
Penguin Books, 1983.
• Wardhaugh, Ronald. An Introduction to Sociolinguistics. 4th ed. Malden et. al.: Blackwell,
2002.
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Linguistics
Sociolinguistics: Regional and Social Varieties
Outline of Presentation
I.
What is Sociolinguistics?
II. A brief account on the history of Sociolinguistics (SL)
III. How do sociolinguists work?
IV. Regional Variation: The starting point
V. Social Variation
VI. Sociolinguistic competence
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Linguistics
Sociolinguistics: Regional and Social Varieties
I. What is Sociolinguistics?
One possible definition:
The study of the relationship between language (lge) and society
Sociology vs. Sociolinguistics
study the
Sociologists (among others)
Sociolinguists
effect of lge on society
effect of society on lge
 A more precise definition:
“[Sociolinguists] are interested in explaining why we speak differently in different
social contexts, and they are concerned with identifying the social functions of
language and the ways it is used to convey social meaning.”
(Janet Holmes)
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Linguistics
Sociolinguistics: Regional and Social Varieties
II. A brief account on the history of SL
• Forerunners of SL: the founders of the study of lge, culture and cognition
• Franz Boas
• Leonard Bloomfield
ethnographical approach to linguistics
• Edward Sapir
• Term first mentioned in 1952 by Haver Currie (poet and philosopher)
• “Sociolinguistics” became an independent area of research in the early 1960s
• SL chiefly influenced by:
• historical and comparative linguistics
 interest in dialects, because they could help explain/varify theories on
lge change previously based on written material
• anthropology
• dialectology
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Linguistics
Sociolinguistics: Regional and Social Varieties
II. A brief account on the history of SL
• First significant works:
• 1953: Uriel Weinreich’s Languages in Contact
(a structural and social account on bilingualism)
• 1953: Einar Haugen’s study of the social history of the Norwegian lge in
America
• 1962: Martin Joos’ study on the dimensions of style
• The Chomskyan/Generative vs. Sociolinguistic approach
• Chomsky: what can be generated in lge by what means
• SL:
what can be said in a language, by whom, to whom, in whose
presence, when and where, in what manner, and under what
social circumstances
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Linguistics
Sociolinguistics: Regional and Social Varieties
III. How do Sociolinguists work?
Q1: Why do we say the same thing in different ways?
Example: adressing & greeting
Margaret leaves her office:
Mike (her colleague):
“Goodbye Margaret.”
Margaret  Mike:
“Goodbye Mike.”
Jill (her secretary):
“Goodbye Ms Walker.”
Margaret  Jill:
“Goodbye Jill.”
Andy (the caretaker):
“Bye Mrs Walker.”
Margaret  Andy:
“Goodbye Andy.”
colleagues = same status
employer / employee = formal
employer / employee = informal?
Margaret arrives at home:
young, casual, short, indifferent?
Jamie (her son):
“Hi mum!”
Her mother:
“Hello dear, have a good day?” old, intimate, friendly
Her husband:
“You’re late again…”
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intimate, no salutation, annoyed
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Linguistics
Sociolinguistics: Regional and Social Varieties
III. How do Sociolinguists work?
Q2: What are the different ways we say things?
Example: different accent use
Sam:
“You seen our ‘enry’s new ‘ouse yet? It’s in ‘alton you know.”
Jim:
“I have indeed. I could hardly miss it Sam. Your Henry now owns the
biggest house in Halton.”

Sam =
use of accent different from standard  [h]-dropping  speaker of a
vernacular/dialect?
Jim =
speaker of standard? maybe uses standard to correct Sam’s “faulty”
language?
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Linguistics
Sociolinguistics: Regional and Social Varieties
III. How do Sociolinguists work?
Sociolinguists investigate varieties (codes)
•
Variety = a set of linguistic forms used under specific social circumstances
 accents, linguistic styles, dialects, different lges in contrast with each other
•
Varieties make up the linguistic repertoire of each member of a speech
community
Procedural steps of investigation:
1) Identify the linguistic variation involved (e.g. a dialect feature like [h]-dropping)
2) Identify the different social or non-linguistic factors which lead the speaker to
use that particular form rather than another
3) Generalization: Is it possible to determine why particular social factors lead to
the use of one set of forms rather than another?
 describe generalizations in the form of ‘sociolinguistic universals’
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Linguistics
Sociolinguistics: Regional and Social Varieties
III. How do Sociolinguists work?
What are the social factors involved?
•
Participants: who talks to whom?
•
Setting: where are they speaking?
•
Topic: what are they talking about?
•
Function: why are they speaking?
What social dimensions are involved in sociolinguistic analysis?
•
Solidarity / social distance  intimacy vs. distance of interlocutors
•
Status / power  superiority vs. subordination of interlocutors
•
Formality  high vs. low formality (setting / type of interaction)
•
Function  referential (“objective” information content, e.g. news report) vs.
affective function (subjective, affective content, e.g. tell about feelings)
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Linguistics
Sociolinguistics: Regional and Social Varieties
IV. Regional Variation: The starting point
International variation
Example:
A British visitor to New Zealand decided while he was in Auckland he would look up an old
friend from his war days. He found the address, walked up the path and knocked on the door.
‘Gidday’, said the young man opened the door. ‘What can I do for you?’
‘I’ve called to see me old mate Don Stone’, said the visitor.
‘Oh he’s dead now mate.’ said the young man.
The visitor was about to express condolences when he was thumped on the back by Don Stone
himself. The young man had said
‘Here’s dad now mate’,
as his father came in the gate.
 different dialects  differences in pronunciation, vocabulary and grammar
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Linguistics
Sociolinguistics: Regional and Social Varieties
IV. Regional Variation: The starting point
Intra-national / intra-continental variation
Example:
Rob:
“This wheel’s completely disjaskit.”
Alan:
“I might could get it changed.”
Rob:
“You couldn’t do nothing of the sort. It needs dumped.”
 Features of Tyneside dialect (North-Eastern England):
double modals, double negatives, ‘need’ + ‘-ed’ (instead of ‘-ing’)
+
Lexical borrowing from Scottish:
‘disjaskit’ = ‘worn out’ / ‘completely ruined’
 different dialects  differences in pronunciation, vocabulary and grammar
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Linguistics
Sociolinguistics: Regional and Social Varieties
IV. Regional Variation: The starting point
Conducting research on regional variation:
1) Collect data / samples on regional variation

2) Define geographical areas where the same dialectal features occur (‘linguistic
areas’)

3) Establish a dialect map  regional dialect continuum
Q: So far, this could have been done by a dialectologist, but where exactly does
the sociolinguists work come in?
A: Once we have identified a linguistic variable, we have to collect further data to
assess the social distribution of the variants of that particular variable, e.g. find out
about the social stratification of the use of the RP accent as compared to possible
variants of RP (“standard” vs. “vernacular” use).
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Linguistics
Sociolinguistics: Regional and Social Varieties
V. Social Variation
Q: What does regional variation have to do with social variation?
Example: RP – a social accent
Highest class: RP (ca 5% of British population)
Social
variation
/
“Social
ladder”
Lowest class: most
localized accents
Regional variation
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Linguistics
Sociolinguistics: Regional and Social Varieties
V. Social Variation
Q: What does regional variation have to do with social variation?
Social and regional dialect variation
Highest class: standard dialect
A limited amount of grammatical
variation is possible. Compare StE:
• “I’ve not washed the dishes yet.”
• “I haven’t washed the dishes yet.”
Social
variation
/
“Social
ladder”
Lowest class: most
localized non-standard
(‘vernaculars’)
Regional variation
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Linguistics
Sociolinguistics: Regional and Social Varieties
V. Social Variation
Q: What does regional variation have to do with social variation?
A: By referring to the previously mentioned social dimensions the use of a
social variety can reveal a speaker’s
• social status / background
• gender
• age
• ethnicity
+ (many) other social factors

People can accommodate their language (e.g. code-switch) according to their
communicative competence (Dell Hymes).
= We can move up and down the ‘social ladder’.
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Linguistics
Sociolinguistics: Regional and Social Varieties
V. Sociolinguistic Competence
Definition:
“The knowledge which underlies people’s ability to use language appropriately.”
(Janet Holmes)
Variation in multilingual speech communities
Example: code-switching
Young British Portuguese using
• Portuguese at home and at church
• English in all other domains of life
because it is appropriate language use for them.
(Other examples include the use and explain the existence of lingua francas,
pidgins and creoles.)
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Linguistics
Sociolinguistics: Regional and Social Varieties
V. Sociolinguistic Competence
Variation in monolingual speech communities
 Learning to use the community lge in a way which reflects one’s membership of
various overlapping social groups:
family
friends
My own private
sociolinguistic
competence
partner
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colleagues
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