27.03.

2017

Ao.Univ.-Prof. Mag. Dr.Hermine Penz. M.S.

 MA lecture course
 Course materials available on Moodle platform and
HANDAPPARAT in the Fachbibliothek
Anglistik/Amerikanistik (Heinrichstraße 36, 2nd floor)
◦ Moodle platform is only available for registered students
 Attendance is not required, but recommended! (not all
course materials will be available in Moodle !)

 3 exam dates:
◦ 1st exam: 28 June 2017
◦ 2nd exam date: 4 Oct 2017
◦ 3rd exam date: approx. middle of WS 2017
◦ You have to register for the exam (registration will start a few
weeks before the exam)

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(1)
 Telephone rings.

 Pat: Hello.
 Caller: Hello, is Mark there?
 Pat: Yes. Just hold on a minute.
 Pat (to Mark):There‘s a rather well-educated young
lady from Scotland on the phone from you.
(2)
 Post office delivery man to elderly upper-class
woman.
◦ Can I have your signature, my love.

 Judge:
◦ I see the cops say you were pickled last night and
were driving an old jalopy [old, delapidated car] down
the middle of the road. True?

 Defendant:
◦ Your honour, if I might be permitted to address this
allegation, I should like to report that I was neither
inebriated [intoxicated] nor under the influence of an
alcoholic beverage.

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 Make a list of names you are called by

people you know. For each name note who
uses it to you when and where. Do some
people call you by more than one name?
What are the reasons why people choose
one name rather than another for you.

 We often have different names for people when we are

addressing them directly, as opposed to when we are
referring to them in different contexts. Note what you call
your mother (or any other person who is close to you) in
different contexts:
 addressing her
◦ at home alone with her
◦ on the telephone with friends listening
◦ in a shop.
 referring to her
◦ at home to another family member when she is present
◦ at home to another family member when she isn't
present
◦ to an acquaintance who doesn't know her
◦ to a sales assistant in a shop when she is present.

 What influences your choice of address form and reference

form in each of these contexts?

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 Definitions of sociolinguistics
 Linguistics and sociolinguistics
 The biological and the social side of language
 Sociolinguistics of language (microsociolinguistics)
 Sociolinguistics of society (macrosociolinguistics)
 Social factors, dimensions and explanations

 Language variation: Focus on users

◦ Dialect vs. language, standard language

◦ Regional and social variation
◦ Regional variation (British dialects, American dialects, etc.)
◦ Social variation/social dialects
◦ Variation and gender
◦ Variation and age
◦ Ethnicity and social networks
◦ Language change

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 Language Variation: Focus on Uses

◦ The influence of the addressee

◦ Accommodation theory
◦ Context
◦ Style and class
◦ Register
◦ The functions of speech
◦ Politeness and address forms
◦ Linguistic politeness in different cultures

 Multilingual speech communities

◦ Language choice in multilingual communities:
◦ Choosing your variety or code; diglossia; code-switching
and code-mixing
◦ Language maintenance and shift
◦ Language shift – factors contributing to language shift;
◦ language death and language loss
◦ language maintenance and language revival
◦ Linguistic varieties and multilingual nations
◦ Vernacular languages, Standard languages (Standard
English; standardizing Englishes)
◦ lingua francas (English as a lingua franca), pidgins and
creoles
◦ National languages and language planning
◦ The sociolinguistics of globalisation

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 WHAT IS LANGUAGE?

 WHAT IS A LANGUAGE?

What is language? What is a language?

„Language is a set of very specific Language is always realized in a
universal principles which are particular variety [a way of
intrinsic properties of the human speaking], i.e. we always come
mind and part of our species‘ across utterances in a particular
genetic endowment” (Chomsky language (e.g. English), a particular
1985) dialect (Yorkshire English),
pronounced with a particular accent.
A conventional system of
communicative sounds and
sometimes (though not necessarily)
written symbols capable of fulfilling
the following hierarchy of
functions[…]: expressing a
communicator's physical, emotional,
or cognitive state; issuing signals
that can elicit responses from other
individuals; describing a concept,
idea, or external state of affairs and
commenting on a previous
communication. (Karl Bühler)

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 Biological view of language:

◦ „[Language] is a distinct piece of the biological make-up of
our brains. It is not something that parents teach their
children or something that must be elaborated in school”
(Pinker 1994)
 Social view of language:
◦ Language is a social fact, a means of communication. It can
only be studied as a collective product which has ben created
by a group of speaker; it enables people to use forms of social
planning and to cooperate. Human beings are socialized into
language. They are not born with a particular language but
acquire this through interaction in society.

Language as a natural fact Language as a social fact

inborn learnt
genetically fixed culturally varied
universal variable
species-specific group-specific
timeless historical
governed by natural law governed by convention

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 When studying language both aspects have to be

given equal value because the complexity of
language can only be explained when looking at
both the biological and the social side of language.

 It is not the case that the case the biological and

formal view is more valuable than the social one, as
is sometimes proposed.

 Aims of linguistics:

 To determine the properties of natural language, the features

it has which distinguish it from possible artificial language

 To construct a theory of universal grammar that explains why

natural languages are they way they are

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 “Sociolinguistics is the study of language in relation

to society” (Hudson 1996)

 “Sociolinguistics is that part of linguistics which is

concerned with language as a social and cultural
phenomenon

 “Sociolinguistics is that branch of linguistics which

studies just those properties of language and
languages which require reference to social,
including contextual, factors of language” (Downes
1998:9)

butter

bᴧdər
General
bᴧtə bᴧɁə bᴧdə
Canadian
RP British and Cockney New York
American City (WC)

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CONCEPTION OBJECT OF COGNITIVE EXPLANATION

OF INQUIRY LOCALE TYPE
LANGUAGE MODULARITY
I-language knowledge of language cognitive,
Saussure‘s language faculty psychological,
langue as a property of as a module of universal,
the mind-brain. mind, localized biological
competence in the brain
E – language use of non-linguistic social empirical,
language; cognitive teleological
Saussure‘s
faculties intentional,
parole set of utterance
cognitive
acts. involved in relevance theory
performance language use. of non-linguistic
processes,
functional, critical

 Bell, Allan (2013).The Guidebook to Sociolinguistics. Oxford:

Wiley-Blackwell.
 Coulmas, Florian (2005). Sociolinguistics. The Study of Speakers‘
Choices. Cambridge: CUP.
 Fasold, Ralph (1984). The Sociolinguistics of Society. Oxford.
Basil Blackwell.
 Fasold, Ralph (1990). The Sociolinguistics of Language. Oxford.
Basil Blackwell.
 Holmes, Janet (2001). An Introduction to Sociolinguistics.
London/New York: Longman.
 Milroy, Lesley and Matthew Gordon (2003). Sociolinguistics.
Method and Interpretation. Oxford: Blackwell.
 Romaine, Suzanne (2000). Language in Society. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.

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