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SOCIOLINGUISTICS
Introduction to Linguistics for lawyers
What is sociolinguistics?
• Sociolinguistics is the study of lanuage use in its social contexts
• While linguistics primarily analyses the structure of language,
sociolinguistics analyses language function and use
• Sociolinguistics – developed since 1960’s
• No hard boundary between sociolinguistics and linguistics
Some basic sociolinguistic principles
• Sociolinguistics – concerned with the complex relationship between
language and society
• 1) assumption that language reflects society (1960’s-1990’s), e.g. calling the
judge „Your Honour” reflects the hierarchical authority structure in
courtrooms
• 2) assumption that language, or culture, determines aspects of society:
Sapir-Whorf hypothesis
Some basic sociolinguistic principles
• 21st c. sociolinguistics assumes a dynamic and reciprocal relationship
between language and society, so that language usage at the same time
both reflects and shapes society
Some basic sociolinguistic principles
• Language – characterised by variation
• Variation can be studied along two dimensions: diachronic and synchronic
• Diachronic variation – all languages change over time
• Synchronic variation – differences in the ways in which language is used in
the same time period; people speak differently in different contexts
Some basic sociolinguistic principles
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Language variation – ubiquitous and related to social factors
Dialects – forms of a language which are generally mutually intelligible, and which
differ from each other in systematic ways, such as in accent, grammar, words and
thier meaning, and communication patterns
Cover term ‘variety’ refers to both languages and dialects
Differences between social groups based on ethnicity or geographical and/or
political space often correspond to the use of different language varieties
Variation
• Can be attributed to social factors such as geographical location, socioeconomic background, level of education, age and gender, as well as
situational and contextual factors: who is speaking to whom about what and
where
Variation
• Languages show variety at all levels: in their genres, text types, lexicogrammar and phonology
• This variation is witnessed when we move across social registers and
geographical locations, encountering different speech communities along
our way
Speech community
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Defined by the language they use, as their language use forms their boundaries
Speech community is a product of the communicative activities engaged in by a group of
people
A speech community – not identifiable only on the basis of spoken language
Throughout our lives we may belong to different speech communities synchronically and
diachronically as we move in and out of different communities
Communities that we choose to belong to based on written language – discourse
communities (e.g. acadmic journals, Internet groups)
Individual way of using laguage - idiolect
Exercise
• Make a list of speech/discourse communities that you consider yourself a
part of
• Make a list of any expressions you use with your family that you perhaps
avoid outside that sphere. Include expressions used to refer to other family
members, to food, family practices etc.
• Think back of your own language use over your life. How has it changed?
Diglossia
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Charles Fergusson used the term to refer to specific situations in which two
varieties of the same language exist: the high variety (H) and the low variety (L)
Varieties – used for separate functions: H for official purposes, L for informal
communication
L – language of the home, H – learned at school
H- long-standing literary tradition, L – no literary tradition
Examples: High German and Swiss German, Katharevousa versus spoken Demotic
Greek, classical Arabic vs. Spoken Arabic, standard French vs. Haitian Creole
Pidgins and Creoles
• A pidgin – a hybrid of two languages which comes into existence in an area
where at least two different langage groups come into contact; extremely
simplified structure; a language with no native speakers
• Creole – if a pidgin is passed on to new generations, its structure and
vocabulary gradually develop - creole
Sociolect
• Ways how a certain group of people uses language (socio-economic
background, gender, age, occupation influence how we use language)
Language variation based on gender
• Robin Lakoff (1975) Language and Woman’s Place: ways in which women’s
language differs from that of men: women use more hedging (sort of, guess
so) and tag questions (…isn’t it?), they apologize more and use more ‘empty’
adjectives (‘cute, wonderful, fantastic’)
• Women’s language choices put them forth as lacking in power and authority
and as seeking approval
• Little girls – socialized into language use scolded for not talking as nice little
girls should
Gender
• W. O’Barr and B. Atkins (1980) in their study of language in a courtroom,
challenge Lakoff’s assumption that the features she suggests are typical of
female speech; they argue that these features are present in females and
males who are in a position of powerlessness
Gender
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Janet Holmes (1990) characterized Lakoff’s list as functional; i.e. Lakoff identified
linguistic features which function to express epistemic modality – the degree of
certainty that we have about a proposition, as well as the speaker’s affective stance
toward the person(s) with whom they are interacting
Intonation should also be taken into account as the illocutionary force can vary
greatly depending on how it is uttered
Differences between male and female speech – not in the frequency of use, but
rather in ways the features were used by women which included positive politeness
strategies suggesting that women used language to be facilitative and
collaborative
Exercise
• Robin Lakoff’s research is from forty years ago. Do you think that women’s
ways of speaking have changed?Have the ways in which girls and boys are
socialized into language changed?
Age
• The language we use changes over our lifetime
• Adolescence – a particularly ripe time for language development, as
adolescents want to mark themselves as different from their parents’
generation
• A high degree of phonological innovation during adolescence (Eckert 1988)
Variation based on occupation
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Jargon – language specific to an occupation
Field-specific terms – not easily understood by outsiders
English for specific purposes (ESP) – acknowledgment of the need to learn the
language of a field and not just the language in general; debate on whether or not
language teachers can teach people the concepts from a field that they are not
active members of, as knowing how to use a work or phrase means understanding
the concept it refers to
Words which may look familiar sometimes take a different meaning within a
specialized field
Register
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Dialects and sociolects – varieties of language based on personal characteristics,
e.g. a region where a person comes from, social class, gender, age, occupation
Dialect and sociolect refer to language variation based on the users of the language
Register – refers to variation based on the social context in which language is used
Registers – formal and informal
Speech accomodation
• Leads us to position ourselves with respect to other speakers through
convergence or divergence
• Speakers converge when they want to reduce the social distance
• They diverge when they want to emphasize their distinctiveness or increase
their social distance
Lexical variation
• As we move across social and geographical communities within a wider
speech community, we find differences in words and expressions used to
refer to the same or similar items or phenomena
Sound variation
• The sounds can vary across speakers in terms of word stress, intonation and
articulation
Morphosyntactic variation
• Features from dialects viewed as incorrect (He don’t know nothin’;
Everybody knowed him)
Different kinds of sociolinguistic analysis
• All sociolinguistic analysis – empirical basis; collecting evidence of actual
language use
Different kinds of sociolinguistic analysis
• Ethnography of speaking/ethnography of communication
• Variationist sociolinguistics
• Sociology of language
• Critical sociolinguistics
• Descriptive linguistics
• Discourse analysis
Ethnography of communication
• Studies the ways of speaking (or communicating) in a speech community
• Uses anthropological approach in which researchers are interested in how
members of a social group live, and in learning about their beliefs, values
and practices from careful observation (rather than e.g. interviews)
Variationist sociolinguistics
• Studies patterns and structures of language variation, often using
quantitative analysis
• Initially this approach correlated social variables such as age, gender and
socioeconomic class with language variation
• Increasingly this is being broadened to examine dynamic interactions
between variations in ways of using language and ways in which speakers
can actively fine-tune a wide range of aspects of their social identity
Sociology of language
• Focuses on society-level issues involving language
• Topics include language choice and language policy and planning in
multilingual contexts
• Macroanalysis
Critical sociolinguistics
• Uses a range of sociolinguistic approaches (both macro and micro) in
combination with social theoretical analysis to examine the role of language
in power relationships
Descriptive linguistics
• Studies the structure of language and it complements ad accompanies
much sociolinguistic analysis
• Uses a number of analytical approaches: phonetics/phonology, morphology,
syntax, semantics
Discourse analysis
• Studies language use beyond the sentence level, whether in face-to-face
interactions such as conversations, interviews, public speeches, or written
communication such as newspaper articles or codified laws
• Sociolinguistic discourse analysis pays attention not just to the content of
what is said but how it is said, examining linguistic dimensions, such as
grammar, accent, word choice, turn-taking and context
Discourse analysis
• Conversation analysis
• Interactional sociolinguistics
• Critical Discourse Analysis
Conversation Analysis (CA)
• Focuses on everyday conversations, but is increasingly being used in the
study of institutional talk, such as in courtrooms
• Sociological tradition of ethnomethodology; focus on the structure of
conversations and on how this is cooperatively managed by participants
Interactional sociolinguistics
• In contrast to CA, highlights contextual and cultural dimensions of language
and interaction
Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA)
• Examines the ways in which language use (or discourse practices) reproduce
and/or trasform power relations within society