LINGUISTICS 101 SOCIOLINGUISTICS - University of...
Transcript of LINGUISTICS 101 SOCIOLINGUISTICS - University of...
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LINGUISTICS 101
SOCIOLINGUISTICS Language Variation
and Language Contact
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Sociolinguistics
• Definition: the study of the interaction between language
and society
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Language Variation
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Dialects
• Dialect: a variety of a language spoken by a particular
group of people
• Dialects differ systematically from other dialects
• Everybody speaks a dialect.
• Colloquial use of ‘dialect’ differs from linguistic use.
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Dialects: Misconceptions
• Misconceptions about dialects:
• some dialects are inferior to others
• some dialects are less pure, logical, complex, etc than others
• some dialects are ‘just slang’
• language variety reflects intelligence
• There is no scientific basis for the above misconceptions!
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Language vs. Dialect
¿Donde está mi libro?
Dove è il mio libro?
Onde está meu livro?
‘Where is my book?’
• Spanish
• Italian
• Portuguese
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Language vs. Dialect
gua e tsei di thowi?
wo de shu zai nali?
ngai su na bui?
‘Where is my book?’
(Lit. ‘My book is at where?’)
• Taiwanese
• Mandarin
• Hakka
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Language vs. Dialect
• Distinguishing language from dialect:
1. If two dialects are mutually intelligible, they belong to
the same language
2. If two dialects are mutually unintelligible, they belong
to different languages
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Language vs. Dialect
• A language is a collection of dialects.
‘English’ =
{Standard American English, Bostonian English, Cockney
English, African American English, Midwestern English,
Appalachian English, Received Pronunciation (i.e. standard
British English), Australian English, South African English, New
Zealand English, ...}.
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Language vs. Dialect
• Politics and the language/dialect distinction
• does not coincide with linguists’ distinction
1. Socially-/Politically-defined languages
• Danish, Norwegian, Swedish
• Czech, Slovakian
• Hindi, Urdu
2. Socially-/Politically-defined dialects
• Dialects of China
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Dialectal Differences
• Any aspect of language is subject to variation
• Phonetics
• e.g. articulation of [t] in SAE vs. some Chicano English dialects
• Phonology
• e.g. word-final /s/ in Spanish dialects
• e.g. different prosodic patterns in Japanese dialects, Korean dialects,
SAE vs. Valley Girl
• Morphology
• e.g. subject-verb agreement -s on verbs in SAE vs. AAE
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Dialectal Differences
• Differences between dialects
• Syntax
• e.g. inversion in embedded questions in SAE vs. Belfast English
`They asked me if I was going to the meeting.’
`They asked me was I going to the meeting.’
• Lexicon
• e.g. Am.En. ‘elevator’ = Br.En. ‘lift’
• Word choice
• e.g. use of words like ‘fabulous’, ‘delicious’, ‘bro’
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Language Variation Factors
• Regional
• Bostonian , New York, Southern, British English, etc.
• Social
• socioeconomic class, education, age, gender, sexual
orientation/identification
• Ethnic
• African American English, Chicano English, Jewish English, Italian-
American English, etc.
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Regional Dialects
• Often separated by natural boundaries
• Infrequent communication growing differences
• Many regional dialects can exist within miles of each other
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Social Dialects
• Dialects of groups of people from specific social classes
• Socioeconomic / educational level
• Age
• Gender differences
• Sexual orientation/identification
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Ethnic Dialects
• Associated with a particular ethnic group
• No inherent, biological reason
• Why do they exist?
• language of one’s environment
• history / other social factors
• group identification
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Standard Dialect
• An idealized version of a language
• ‘Choosing’ a standard dialect
• often based on the prestige dialect
• often based on the dialect of a capital city, or the most populated
city in a country
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Standard Dialect
• All dialects are scientifically equal, but there are benefits
to knowing the standard dialect
1. socioeconomic benefits
2. simplifies communication between speakers of different
dialects
3. unifies people
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Speech Style
• Speech style varies depending on context
• formality (formal vs. informal registers of speech)
• relationship between conversation participants
• topic of conversation
• setting
• individual factors
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Speech Style
• Variations in speech style:
• may be integrated in grammar (e.g. formal/informal pronouns,
conjugations)
• involve lexical choice (pass away / die / kick the bucket)
• involve construction choice (Give me... / Would you mind giving
me...)
• involve phonetic/phonological differences (e.g. more/less-careful
articulation)
• ...
• Can be found in any language variety
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Language Contact
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Types/Causes of Language Contact
• Geographic proximity of languages
• Education (e.g. Latin)
• Prestige language
• Commerce (e.g. pidgins, lingua francas)
• Other dominance relations
• Bi/multilingualism
• Second-language influence
• ...
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Effects of language contact
• Frequent lexical borrowing
• Borrowing of other aspects of grammar
• Language shift (from A to B)
• Language convergence (mutual influence)
• Language death
• Language formation (pidgins, creoles, mixed languages)
• Increase/decrease in dominance (e.g. lingua franca)
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Lingua Francas, Pidgins, Creoles
• Lingua Franca
• A language used by speakers of several different languages in
order to communicate, usually for commercial purposes
• The term refers to the pidgin of Italian mixed with French, Spanish,
Greek, and Arabic, which was a lingua franca around the
Mediterranean. It literally means ‘Frankish Language’.
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Lingua Francas, Pidgins, Creoles
• Pidgin
• Formed to allow communication among speakers of various
languages (thus functioning as a lingua franca)
• does not have native speakers
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Lingua Francas, Pidgins, Creoles
• Pidgin
• vocabulary often largely adopted from dominant language (the
lexifier language, usually the superstratum language)
• phonology generally derived from various substratum languages
• syntax generally reduced
• generally lack inflectional morphology (i.e. functional morphemes)
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Lingua Francas, Pidgins, Creoles
• Creole
• If children grow up in an area that uses a pidgin, they may adopt it
as their native language
• Creoles are ‘languages’ just like any other (just as complex, logical,
etc.)
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Multilingualism
• norm in many communities
• may involve complete or varying degrees of fluency
depending on language and community
• even in largely monolinguistic societies (e.g. USA),
multiple languages are often used
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Code Switching
• bi/multilingual speakers may use multiple
language/dialects within one conversation or utterance
• if switching mid-sentence, obeys rules of language
currently in use
• context influences choice of language
• often misconstrued as ‘broken English’
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Linguistic Decline
• Dialect leveling
• Dialectal discrimination
• Banned languages
• Endangered languages
• Extinct languages
• Opposite of linguistic decline: Linguistic Revival
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Dialect Leveling
• Neutralization of dialectal differences
• Causes
1. Education (reinforcing a ‘standard’ dialect)
2. Migration (into towns/cities - causes dialects to mix)
3. Media
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Dialectal Discrimination
• Does not necessarily lead to decline
• Purnell, Idsardi and Baugh 1999 study
• called to set up housing appointments in various areas
• during calls, one of three dialects was used: SAE, CE, or AAVE
• result: choice of dialect significant in setting up appointments
• discrimination went both ways
• additional experiment found that one word (“hello”) is generally
enough to distinguish dialects
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Banned Languages/dialects
• Languages/dialects are sometimes banned for political
reasons
• Cajun English and French were banned in Louisiana
• Korean was banned in Korea by the Japanese during their
occupation
• France has an official language academy to dictate allowable
French - often bans loanwords
• Sign languages have been banned in many parts of the world
• Many Americans favor an ‘English-only’ movement
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Endangered / Extinct languages
• Endangered languages
• languages which are not being passed down to the younger
generation
• generally have few living speakers left
• e.g. many Native-American languages, Hawaiian, Provençal (in France)
• Extinct language
• a language with no living native speakers
• e.g. Latin, many Native-American languages
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Linguistic Revival
• There are often efforts to revive endangered languages,
these include:
• teaching the language in elementary schools (as second
languages)
• creating schools using said language as language of instruction
• creation of language academies to ‘define’ the dialect (as a way of
‘legitimizing’ it)
• Note that not all communities have a desire to ‘save’ their
language.
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Linguistic Revival
• Hebrew is a very special example
• was a dead language for hundreds of years (extinct as of 400
B.C.E.)
• written variant survived
• in 19th century, there was a revival of the spoken form, including
addition of lexical items
• now, native language of about 5 million people