Chapter7 Language, Culture, and Society

It has long been recognized that language is an essential and important

part of a given culture and that the impact of culture upon a given language is
something intrinsic and indispensable. As we' 11 show below, though the
endeavor in the pursuit of this inter-relationship has never been dormant in
the development of linguistic science, "this very embedding of language in
society and culture has been the focus of intense and sustained research
efforts since the 1960s" (Apte 1994: 2000). In order to provide the student an
opportunity to know more about the situation, we introduce this chapter and
focus our discussion on the relationship between LANGUAGE, CULTURE,
and SOCIETY. This attempt can be alternatively understood as an effort to
provide a different perspective to the study of language science in terms of
some new tendencies and developments in the field of SOCIOLINGUISTICS,
which has been proven to be an additional momentum to the study of
language use in a sociocultural setting over the past decades. Bearing this
point in mind, we organize our discussion in two parts, (1) language and
culture, (2) language and society.
7.1 Language and culture
7.1.1 How does language relate to culture?
It has become axiomatic to state that there exists a close relationship
between language and culture. More evidence can be gathered to
substantiate this claim if we have a brief survey of what has happened in the
field of linguistics over the past century. Admittedly, ever since the beginning
of the eighteenth century, the linguistic inquiry of language has been either
comparative and historical or structural and formalized in nature, some
change, however, was observed at the start of the 20th century: AN
ANTHROPOLOGICAL ORIENTATION in the study of language was
developed both in England and in North America. What characterized this new
tradition was its study of language in a sociocultural context. While Bronislaw
Malinowski and John P. Firth can be regarded as the pioneers of this
movement in England. Franz Boas, Edward Sapir, and Benjamin Lee Whorl
are naturally seen as the representatives of a parallel but independent
tradition from North America. With their innovation, commitment, and
perseverance, a lot of important and creative work has been done in the
research of the relationship between language and culture. More importantly,
a paradigm was thus set up, which has led to a diversity of research of the
issue in the following years.
As early as in the 1920s, a school of ANTHROPOLOTICAL STUDY OF
LINGUISTICS came into being in England. For instance, when Malinowski, an
anthropologist, did his field work on the Trobriand Islands off eastern New
Guinea, he observed that in this primitive culture the meaning of a word
greatly depended upon its occurrence in a given context, or rather, upon a
real language situation in life. Take the word wood for example. In this culture,
the word might be used either to refer to the solid substance of a tree as its
English equivalent suggests, or more specifically, to designate a canoe, which
served as a useful means of transportation to these islanders and therefore
played an important role in the daily life of this SPEECH COMMUNITY. The
second interpretation of this word was, however, turned out to be heavily
situationally or culturally specified and might not be easily captured by an
outsider from a different cultural background. Based on phenomena like this,
Malinowski claimed that "In its primitive uses, language functions as a link in
concerted human activity .... It is a mode of action and not an instrument of
reflection." ( 1923: 312 [ Sampson 1980: 224 ] ) Needless to say, the work by
Malinowski paved the way for a cultural, rather, a contextual study of
language use in Britain. Strongly influenced by this anthropological view of
language and being fully aware of the importance of the context in the study
of language use, Firth, a leading figure in a linguistic tradition later known as
the London School, tried to set up a model for illustrating the close
relationship between language use and its co-occurrent factors. In the end, he
developed his own theory of CONTEXT OF SITUATION, which can be
summarized as follows.
A. The relevant features of the participants: persons, personalities:
(i) The verbal action of the participants.
(ii) The non-verbal action of the participants
B. The relevant objects.
C. The effects of the verbal action (Firth 1950: 43 - 44 [ Palmar 1981:53 -
54] ).
In relation to the focus of our discussion here, two points can be made to
show the strong culture-oriented implication of this theory. Like Sapir, though
far less directly, Firth here seemed to suggest the creativity and diversity of
linguistic idiosyncrasy in language use (cf. Darnell 1994:3655). On the other
hand, what Firth emphasized in this theory is quite similar to a more updating
sociological axiom in language use, namely, "who speaks (or writes) what
language (or what language variety) to whom and when and to what end"
(Fishman 1972:46). And the Firthian tradition in this respect was further
developed by the founder of systemic-functional linguistics, M.A.K. Halliday,
whose contributions to sociolinguistics could be better seen from his
understanding of language from a socially semiotic or interactional
perspective, his functional interpretation of grammar as a resource for
meaning potential, and his linguistic model in the study of literature(Downes
1998).
Meanwhile, we also notice that linguists from the North American side
began to make some substantial contributions to the study of the relationship
between language and culture around the early 1920s. In fact, when we talk
about a cultural study of language in America, we'll soon realize the fact that
the American Indian culture formed an extremely fruitful source for early
American anthropologists to look at this subject matter. From the 1920s to the
1940s, when engaged in a demanding but significant task--the reconstruction
of American Native languages, those anthropologists such as Boas, Sapir,
and Whorl came to know the significance of culture in the study of language
use. For instance, from their field work, a lot of language data had been
documented, providing much first-hand evidence to show how the
interpersonal relationship is related to linguistic forms chosen by these
American Indians in their daily communication. If things like this were not to
be appropriately described and correctly understood, it would be very difficult
to interpret some variations in the structure of these languages. This
anthropological approach to the study of language and culture laid a firm
foundation in the history of linguistic development. The potential impact of this
tradition can still be felt when we talk about the ETHNOGRAPHY OF
COMMUNICATION, an authoritative research framework of our time in a
linguistic study of social and cultural factors (Hymes 1962).
Having talked so much on the heritage concerning the study of language
and culture, now let us move on and introduce a very influential but also
extremely controversial theory that has ever been made in the study of the
relationship between language and culture. And this attempt will inevitably
lead us to an important figure in American AN THROPOLOGICAL
LINGUISTICS --Benjamin Lee Whorl and his famous hypothesis concerning
language, thought, and culture. From the early 1920s, as an amateur linguist,
Whorl began to show an interest in language, anthropology, and archaeology.
Later on, he attended some linguistic courses given by Sapir at Yale
University and "found particular resonance between his own ideas and those
of Sapir" (Sram 1994: 4983). This experience and his study of Hopi, an
American Indian language, helped him develop his unique understanding of
linguistic relativity, which is widely known as the SAPIR-WHORF
HYPOTHESES. What this hypothesis suggests is like this: our language helps
mould our way of thinking and, consequently, different languages may
probably express our unique ways of understanding the world) Following this
argument, two important points could be captured in this theory. (On the one
hand, language may determine our thinking patterns; on the other, similarity
between languages is relative, the greater their structural differentiation is, the
more diverse their conceptualization of the world will be.)For this reason, this
hypothesis has alternatively been referred to as LINGUISTIC DETERMINISM
and LINGUISTIC RELATIVITY--a view which "was first expounded by the
German ethnologist, Wilhelm von Humboldt" (Crystal 1985:262).
Before we end this historical survey and move on to a more detailed
illustration of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, we should not miss some brilliant
points made by Eugene Nida, a well-known linguist and translation theorist,
concerning the relationship between language and culture. What makes his
discussion of language and culture more meaningful to the issue we are
talking about here is the fact that for many years he has been involved in the
Bible translation work across different languages. His rich experience in this
respect leads him to claim that, as translators, if we want to do a good job in
CROSSCULTURAL COMMUNICATION, there are five types of sub-culture
we should be fully aware of: 1 ) ecological culture; 2) linguistic culture; 3)
religious culture; 4) material culture, and 5) social culture (Nida 1964)
7.1.2 More about the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis
As has been shown above, what this hypothesis primarily suggests is
that our language will mould our view of the world. One thing we would like to
point out here is that nowadays few people would possibly tend to accept the
original form of this theory completely. Consequently, two versions of the
Sapir-Whorf hypothesis have been developed, a strong version and a weak
version. The strong version of the theory refers to the claim the original
hypothesis suggests, emphasizing the decisive role of language as the shaper
of our thinking patterns. The weak version of this hypothesis, however, is a
modified type of its original theory, suggesting that there is a correlation
between language, culture, and thought, but the cross-cultural differences
thus produced in our ways of thinking are relative, rather than categorical.
As we go over the literature concerning the hypothesis, we' 11 soon
discover that it has aroused a lively controversy. While some researchers
claim to have found reliable evidence to justify its validity, others suggest to
have obtained enough counter-evidence to jeopardize its feasibility. Facing a
situation like this, we must be careful and do not rush to any hasty conclusion
before we really obtain some reliable
evidence to support or reject the hypothesis. Here are two examples taken to
show the complexity and controversy of the theory . One is quoted from Hopi,
an American Native language spoken in Arizona; central highlands of Irian
Jaya. As far as the former is concerned, it serves as a good example to show
how languages may differ from each other, possibly providing some positive
evidence to support the hypothesis. On the other hand, by looking at the basic
color word system in Dani language from an evolutionary perspective, we'll
have an opportunity to get to know that linguistic relativity may equally meet
some cross-cultural counterexamples, a challenge to the theory hence
formed.
In Hopi, there is something very special about its grammar (cf. Fasold
1999 [1990] :51 -52). One of these features that separate it from other
languages is that it does not use the same means to express time, and hence
is metaphorically dubbed as a "timeless language". As Sampson (1980:86)
puts it,
… the language does not recognize time as a linear dimension, which
can be measured and divided into units like spatial dimensions ....
Furthermore, Hopi verbs do not have tenses comparable to those of
European languages. And since there is no concept of time, there can be no
concept of speed, which is the ratio of distance to time: Hopi has no word for
' fast', and their nearest equivalent for 'He runs fast ' would translate more
literally as something like He very runs.
With an understanding of Hopi language like this, here is a big question
for us to consider. If we have from the Hopi culture a physicist, as innovative
as Albert Einstein is, could we expect this physicist to tell us the same thing as
Einstein will in discussing the relativity theory? Admittedly, we may say that if
this happened, this Hopi physicist would definitely find his/her way to express
the principles suggested by the theory, but a more crucial question involved
here is how his linguistic representation could be compared in relation to
those linguistic patterns of which we are either native speakers or fully aware.
Considerations like this suggest that when dealing with a crosscultural
question like this, we have to take a caution and do not always evaluate a
language system against the criteria in our mother tongue. In fact, one of the
criticisms to the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is that the theory is based on
establishing European languages as a model against which all comparisons
are made. The undertone behind this criticism is that when we examine
linguistic issues from a universal perspective, what we are actually doing is to
look at linguistic properties by a criterion of similarity and difference; hence, it
is a process of recategorization, but not by a criterion of an already
established model language. Furthermore, due to the convenience of
observation and comparison, it is suggested that when we search for
LINGUISTIC UNIVERSALITY, we'd better begin with the similarities
possessed by most languages, instead of their assumed differences
(Greenberg et al. 1978).
Now let us move on and introduce our second example from Dani
language. In the later 1960s, two American scholars, Brent Berlin and Paul
Kay conducted a large cross-linguistic investigation of basic color vocabulary,
which involved 98 languages in the world. The most striking finding in this
research is that color' word systems in different languages are not like what
has been assumed by the Sapir and Whorl hypothesis, being culturally

purple
pink
orange
gray
determined and hence absolutely different from one another. Contrary to this
assumption, Berlin and Kay showed that different languages might well
undergo a universal evolutionary process of development which, in turn,
made the basic color system in one language different from that in another
only in terms of the stages of their evolution. This evolutionary process can be
specified as follows.

White green
black yellow
＜[red] ＜ ＜[blue] ＜[brown] ＜

Stage: Ⅰ Ⅱ Ⅲ Ⅳ
Ⅴ Ⅵ

Fig.1 Evolutionary Stages of Basic Color Words

(Berlin & Kay 1991 [1969]: 4)
What Figure 1 above suggests is like this: if a language has two basic
color terms, it is identified as staying in the first stage of evolution, possessing
two basic color words "white" and "black"; if a language has three basic color
words, it is assumed to be in the second stage of evolution, possessing three
basic color words "white", 'black", and "red". According to this evolutionary
theory, English has all the eleven basic color words so it reaches the last
stage of evolution. The good thing about this theory is that it correctly
captures a kind of generalization in color words cross-culturally. Because it
was found that for the whole of 98 languages examined, there were only
about 30 combinations of basic color words, varying from two to eleven in
number. If there is not a linguistic universality in the basic color word system
of languages, as this theory suggests, a free combination of these eleven
basic color words will produce over two thousand random combinations.
This evolutionary theory finds a good explanation in our second example
from Dani, a language which has become well known for its very restricted
system of basic color words. For instance, there are only two basic color
words in this language: modla for light, bright, hence, white, and mili for dark,
dull, hence, black (Berlin & Kay 1991:46). In relation to this specific language,
an interesting question can be raised: What will a native Dani speaker do if
he/she wants to designate colors other than black and white? Or, alternatively,
do white and black always mean white and black cross-linguistically? A further
investigation of the basic color word system in Dani revealed that the native
speakers of this culture use this White versus Black contrast to convey more
messages about their color perception. And it turns out that they use modla as
a general color term to include all warm colors such as red and yellow and
use mili as another umbrella color word to cover all the cold colors such as
blue and green. Therefore, the contrast between modla and mili in fact is a
contrast between "whitewarmness" versus "blackcoldness", instead of a
simple achromatic contrast like white and black. Furthermore, these results
indicate that the color word system in Dani is still in its first stage of evolution
and by means of using this whitewarmness and blackcoldness contrast and
other types of color words, say, color words derived from object names,
animals, plants, and so on, the speakers from this culture can successfully
express any colors labeled by distinct color words in another
culture. The force of linguistic relativity is hence greatly reduced if we also
take into our consideration the issue of language use.
7.1.3 Case studies
A constellation of examples could be picked up from different levels of
language analysis to illustrate the interplay of language and culture and this
selection may range from textual structure to phonological variation. For
instance, Kaplan (1966) claims that the structural organization of a text tends
to be culturally specific. Some interesting experimental studies have also
been conducted to testify the sensitivity of the speakers to conditional clauses
in a cross-linguistic context, though no consensus results have been observed
yet (Bloom 1981 ). A crosscultural study of the meaning of some idioms or
metaphorical uses in a cultural context, however, will definitely provide an
optimal opportunity to examine the issue. This choice of observation may
partially explain why Nida, when summarizing some intrinsic features of
vocabulary in relation to semantic, translating and cultural studies, states that
words are sometimes "idiomatically-governed" and “culturally-specific” ( 1998:
32 - 45). Additionally, this observation also implies that there comes an
important new force (i. e., the study of metaphor) in the pursuit of. the
relationship between language and culture (Lakoff & Johnson 1980). What is
presented below forms only a small part of the collections obtained through
our personal exposure to the American culture (Yang 1993), but it suffices to
serve the purpose of our discussion here.
1) When you get your hands dirty, it does not necessarily mean in the
American culture that you've done some manual work and need to wash your
hand.
Interaction Milieu: Professor Tulai, an American linguist, and Professor
Yang, a visiting scholar from China, were talking about the relationship
between teaching and doing research in the office.
Prof. Tulai: To do research means to get your hands dirty.
Prof. Yang: So you think teaching is worthier than doing research? Does
the phrase "to get your hands dirty" have some pejorative connotations?
Prof. Tulai: Oh, no! I didn't mean that. When I was saying that, I simply
meant "you are practicing something", or “you are engaged in doing
something."
2) When you have enough dumbbells, it does not necessarily mean that
you keep pairs of this instrument for regular physical practices..
Interaction Milieu: Mr. Goodell, Mr. Yang's American landlord, and Mr.
Yang were cleaning up the apartment. Mr. Yang pointed to the dumbbells on
the floors and asked Mr. Goodell if he would have any use of them for the time
being.
Mr. Goodell: I guess I'd better put them in the garage. I’ve had enough
dumbbells in my office.
Mr. Yang: Really? Can you do dumbbell practice in your office?
Mr. Goodell: Definitely not! I was joking. What I really meant is that there
have been a lot of stupid guys in my office.
7.1.4 To which extent do we need culture in our linguistic study?
Our Hopi, Dani, and case examples above partially provide a good
answer to this question. In what follows, we are going to take up a more
structure-related example from English to indicate that a study of linguistic
issues in a cultural setting can greatly promote our understanding of
MOTIVATION and DIRECTIONALITY in language change. Moreover, by
introducing a study like this, we will have an opportunity to show how to "do
linguistics" in a cultural context.
Ever since the early 1970s, along with the disclosure of the notorious
political scandal dubbed as the Watergate event, a bunch of derived words
have been rushing into the English language. Word like "Billygate",
"Debategate,” “Cattlegate," "Ricegate" are some of these compounding forms.
In this situation, it is felt that a sociolinguistic study of the combining form
-gate and its derivations is necessary for us to examine the semantic,
structural, and functional development concerning these nonce-words and
know more about the correlation of these related factors in the study of word-
formation (Yang 1997). After a careful study of this phenomenon, we found
that 1) this suffix enjoys a rich productivity in American English; 2) words
derived from this source inevitably take on a culturally pejorative implication to
refer to "the disclosures of misconduct in highplaces" (Barnhart & Barnhart
1981:2364), hence, a synonym to scandals of different types, political or
economical, and 3) a variety of derivational processes (i. e., antonomasia,
conversion, & affixation) can be explained in the study of the productivity of
this compounding form. Based on these findings, we can draw some tentative
conclusions:
a) Watergate as a word taking on a pejorative implicature to refer to any
political scandal at the high rank, will stay in English for quite a long time.
b) Its structural status in the language becomes rather stable through the
rich derivational processes it has undergone in word-formation.
c) The semantic implicature it has will stay with the word for quite a long
time.
This combining form has become so generalized in its meaning that
some -gate words have even gone out of the society and been used to refer
to political scandals in other cultures as well.
7.1.5 Culture in language teaching classroom
To know another culture is a rather difficult job. To act or behave
appropriately in another culture is a more demanding task. It is even claimed
that a satisfactory fulfilment of this task will take about 20 years of time (Nida
& JFL correspondent 1998 ). Keeping this in mind and also realizing the
facilitating role of cultural knowledge in language learning, we will briefly
discuss the relationship between culture and language teaching here. The
interested reader can find more examples in Gao (2000).
Principally, there are at least three objectives for us to teach culture in
our language class:
1) To get the students familiar with cultural differences;
2) To help the students transcend their own culture and see things as the
members of the target culture will;
3) To emphasize the inseparability of understanding language and
understanding culture through various classroom practices
All this leads to a belief that a good understanding of structural things in
some cases has much to do with a conscious understanding of the cultural
background of the target language from language learners. In other words, a
successful master of a given language has much to do with an understanding
of that culture. Because, as we have shown so far, language and culture are
correlated with each other at different levels of linguistic structure.
7.2 Language and society
7.2.1 How does language relate to society?
The relationship between language and society has long been
recognized and examined. Evidence for this claim, discrete as it might be, can
be conveniently gathered from the works by those great philosophers and
grammarians either in the Graeco-Roman tradition or in the Indian history
(Harris & Taylor 1997 [ 1989 ]; Apte 1994).
During the whole 20th century, a great deal of efforts has been taken to
treat the inquiry of linguistics as a MONISTIC or AUTONOMOUS PURSUIT of
an independent science. Strongly influenced by this dominant view of
linguistic science, a separation of the structural study of language from its
social context of usage was claimed, justified, and reinforced. The
resurrection of a DUALISTIC VIEW of linguistic inquiry, however, came into
being in the 1960s, along with the development of sociolinguistics as an
opposition to the dominant theory of Chomskyan linguistics.
7.2.2 A situationally and socially variationist perspective
As far as the situational variation in language use is concerned, Geertz
(1960) provides a good example to illustrate the diversity and richness of
some stylistic variants available for a Javanese speaker to choose when
engaged in different types of communicative events. For instance, even a
simple interrogative sentence like "Are you going to eat rice and cassava
now?" will situationally admit several Javanese translations, starting from a
rather lower level of style and moving to a comparatively higher level of style:
Are apa / napa / menapa
you kowé / sampéjan / pandjenengan
going arep/adjeng/dadé
to eat mangan / neda / daharé
 rice sega / sekul
and lan / kalijan
cassava laspé
now saiki / saniki / samenika
The copiously potential selection of linguistic forms in this Javanese
community indicates that an appropriate language use in any social
interaction not only has something to do with structural rules, but also involves
some socially institutionalized norms in usage. In this sense, the choice of one
form over another is both stylistically and socially governed. This
conceptualization of linguistic variation, in relation to what will be discussed
below, is likely to provide an innovative and more comprehensive
understanding of the issue in general.
There has been a maxim in sociolinguistics which claims that "You are
what you say" (Lakoff 1991). Following this claim, we may expand the scope
of our observation by introducing some social factors that are believed to
influence our language behavior in a social context. Among these factors,
some major ones include 1) class; 2) gender; 3) age; 4) ethnic identity; 5)
education background, 6) occupation, and 7) religious belief. In our discussion
below, we are going to focus on the first two factors and show their impact
upon one's language use.
In the middle of 1960s, William Labov, a famous sociolinguist, conducted
a rather meticulous survey at several departments in the City of New York.
The objective for having this sociolinguistic investigation was to examine the
relationship between speakers' social status and their phonological
VARIATIONS. The results of this investigation were reported in The Social
Stratification of English in New York City (1966), which has now become a
classical work in sociolinguistics. And it turned out that class and style were
two major factors influencing the speakers' choice of one phonological variant
over another. Based on these findings, Labor explicitly delineated the patterns
of stratification by class and style and, more importantly, successfully
introduced class as an indispensable sociolinguistic variable. Ever since its
publication in the middle of the 1960s, this research paradigm has become
the mainstream in sociolinguistics and alternatively termed as "the quantitative
paradigm, sociolinguistics proper, variationist studies, urban dialectology and
secular linguistics" (Mesthrie 1994: 4900;Bolton 1992:14; Milroy 1994:4859;
Fasold 1999 [1990]).
Over the past decades, in addition to the study of linguistic variation
produced by class, the investigation of gender effects upon one's linguistic
behavior has also been proven to be a rich resource for examining the
correlation of language and society, though the awareness of this issue
seems to be an older story which can be traced back at least to over two
millenniums ago. For instance, many precious examples reflecting gender
differences in speech have been documented in some Ancient Greek dramas
(Gregersen 1979). Nonetheless, it is generally believed that the real
sociolinguistic inquiry of this issue began with Robin Lakoff’s (1973)
retrospective study of gender differences in American English in the early
1970s (cf. Jesperson 1922). Inspired by this very seminal article, the following
years have seen a lot of publications either to support or challenge the
hypotheses Lakoff put forward concerning the linguistic behavior of females in
the American society. What these hypotheses suggest is that there exists a
WOMEN REGISTER in the language that takes on the following features:
1) women use more "fancy" color terms such as mauve and beige;
2) women use less powerful curse words;
3) women use more intensifiers such as terrible and awful;
4) women use more tag questions;
5) women use more statement questions like “Dinner will be ready
at seven o’clock?”(with a rising intonation at the end);
6) women's linguistic behavior is more indirect and, hence, more polite
 than men's.
More importantly, it is argued that these differences in language use are
brought about by nothing less than women's place in society. The underlying
point for this argument is rather meaningful. Suppose that we are not satisfied
with some practices in language use, say, LINGUISTIC SEXISM, and want to
reform the language. Then, the first thing we need do is to try to change the
society. Because, as Lakoff correctly suggests, it is not language itself but
women' s place in society that makes people linguistically behave in that way.
Hence, the relationship between language and society can be further
illustrated by studying questions like this: Is a certain linguistic form more
likely to be used by females than by their male peers? If so, why should it be
so? The natural connection of this type also explains why the study of gender
differences has become an ever-lasting focus in sociolinguistics ever since
the 1970s.
7.2.3 What should we know more about sociolinguistics?
Sociolinguistics, as an interdisciplinary study of language use, attempts to
show the relationship between language and society. More specifically, in this
discipline we have two important things to think about: structural things and
their uses in a sociocultural context. Similarly, when we are conducting a
sociolinguistic study of language use, we have two big issues to deal with.
First, we want to show how these two factors are related to each other, and
second, we attempt to know why it should be so. Put another way, we want to
look at structural things by paying attention to language use in a social
context; on the other hand, we try to understand sociological things of society
by examining linguistic phenomena of a speaking community.
These dual objectives make this new type of linguistic study as an
interdisciplinary, or multidisciplinary enterprise in nature (Bolton & Kwok
1992). The pluralism and diversity of the field, on the other hand, makes it
difficult to delineate the scope of this enterprise. Over lapping with other types
of scientific research is another striking property we can observe in a
sociolinguistic study. Keeping this fact in mind, if we are prepared to examine
the structure of the whole sociolinguistic edifice, we can either classify
sociolinguistic studies by means of a hierarchical division, or alternatively, by
means of an orientational categorization. For convenience of discussion, we
choose the latter approach to continue our survey of the relationship between
language and society, which could be further specified as two related but not
identical perspectives of observation identified as a SOCIOLINGUISITIC
STUDY OF SOCIETY and a SOCIOLINGUISTIC STUDY OF LANGUAGE,
respectively.
If we want to know more about a given society or community by
examining the linguistic behavior of its members, we are doing a
sociolinguistic study of society. That is, we are doing sociolinguistics at a
macro level of investigation. If we turn to Fasold (1984) again, we may say
that at this level of discussion things that we are interested in include
bilingualism or multilingualism, language attitudes, language
choice, language maintenance and shift, language planning and
standardization, vernacular language education, to name some important
ones
On the other hand, if we want to know more about some linguistic
variations in language use by turning to potential sociocultural factors for a
description and explanation, we are doing a sociolinguistic study of language.
Consequently, we are more interested in examining micro linguistic
phenomena such as structural variants, address forms, gender differences,
discourse analysis, Pidgin and Creole languages, and other more language
related issues. The interested reader can find more detailed discussions
concerning some of these heated sociolinguistic issues in Yang (1988, 1990,
1991, 1996, 2000)
7.2.4 What implications can we get from sociolinguistics?
 The past decades have witnessed a rapid development in sociolinguistics
and the findings in this field have greatly enriched our understanding of the
relationship between language and society. Along with the gradual maturity
and acceptance of this school of linguistics, there has been an ever growing
possibility for us to have a new daughter discipline called "applied
sociolinguistics" (Trudgill 1984). Some more successful practices of this
attempt have been found in language classrooms, law courts, and clinical
settings, respectively.
First, we' 11 have a look at sociolinguistics in language classrooms. But
before we take up this issue, we'd better raise a question like this: What is
wrong with the traditional perspective in language teaching? By asking a
question like this, we are in fact making a choice between training our
students as GRAMMARIANS and training them as ACTIVE LANGUAGE
USERS. This contrast reflects two different views of philosophy in language
teaching. For the traditional school, "language learning is treated as a process
of acquiring knowledge, like studying history or mathematics. The end result is
that learners will know something about the language in the same way a
linguist does, but will know little about the language used by others" (Berns,
1990: 342). We witnessed, however, a change in language teaching in the
middle of the 1970s when Hyme' s theory of COMMUNICATIVE
COMPETENCE was introduced into the field as an antagonism to the
traditional philosophy in language teaching. Consequently, as the name of
this theory suggested, language teachers began to pay more attention to the
question of how to train their students as active and successful language
users in a real language context. As far as language teaching is concerned,
sociolinguistics is believed to have provided some important contributions
which can further be summarized as follows (Berns 1990:339):
a) Sociolinguistics has contributed to a change of emphasis in the
content of language teaching;
 b) it has also contributed to innovations in materials and activities for
the classroom;
c) it has contributed to a fresh look at the nature of language
development and use;
d) it has contributed to a more fruitful research in this field.
Second, let us have a look at sociolinguistics in law courts. The inquiry of
the relationship between language and law has opened another avenue for
the application of sociolinguistic findings to some more practical issues in
society. Some fruitful practices of this attempt have been observed in this
respect. For instance, the important role of linguists in the analysis of
language data gathered as evidence in law courts has been recognized by
more and more people. Meanwhile, the joint work by sociolinguists and
legislators in the preparation of some legal documents is proven to be helpful
to increase the readability of this text and therefore appreciated (cf. Fasold
1999 [ 1990 ] ). On the other hand, investigations of language use in a law
court background also have revealed some interesting results which, in turn,
greatly enrich our understanding of the relationship between the concept of
power and language in use (O'Barr & Atkins 1980).
Lastly, we turn to sociolinguistics in clinic settings. The analysis of
dialogues between doctors and patients in a hospital context has also
attracted the interest of some researchers in sociolinguistics. Similar to our
last case in the law court, the study of this type is also employed to illustrate
things such as how the concept of power is encoded and decoded through
language use in a hierarchical society and what pragmatically related patterns
and forces in reference and implication are involved in a speech event like
this. For this reason, a lot of efforts have been taken in a sociolinguistic
analysis of discourse patterns in a clinic setting. Because it is believed that in
a highly hierarchically ordered communicative situation like this, through the
study of language use by doctor and patient( more implications can be
obtained in terms of the impact of some sociological factors upon the linguistic
behavior of the members of a speech community.
7.3 Summary
In our discussion above, we have introduced some important theories and
practices in a sociocultural inquiry of linguistic issues. As we have indicated, a
more systematic pursuit of this kind did not start until the 1960s, with the
occurrence of sociolinguistics as a new force in the study of language. After
almost 40 years' development, this innovative movement has gained much
momentum and vitality by incorporating the insights from other relevant
sciences and has gradually secured its position as a legitimate pursuit in
linguistics (cf. Chomsky 1995). On the other hand, as has been shown above,
the study of the relationship between language, culture, and society is a rather
intriguing task. One of the difficulties observed in this attempt is the diversity
in subject matters. The interdisciplinary nature of this pursuit requires a
satisfactory mastery of knowledge in relevant fields such as anthropology,
social psychology, sociology, ethnology, and cognitive sciences (cf. Rosch
1975 & 1977) on the part of its researchers and practitioners. Therefore, we
fully understand that what is presented above is only a small part of the whole
edifice. Much of its beauty and fascination is still there waiting for the
conscious and courageous explorer to search and discover. That said, we
suggest that the interested students go to the bibliographic part of this chapter
for more information concerning their further study in this respect.
Further Reading
Berlin, Brent and Paul Kay 1991[1969].Basic Color Terms: Their
Universality and Evolution. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Bolton, Kingsley & Helen Kwok (eds.) 1992. Sociolinguistics Today:
International Perspectives London: Routledge
Downes, William 1998. Language and Society. 2nd Edition. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
 Faslod, Ralph 1999[1990]. The Sociolinguistics of Language. Oxford:
Blackwell.
Readings in the Sociology of Language Harris, Roy & Talbot J. Taylor
1997 [1989]. Landmarks in
Fishman, Joshua 1968. Reading in the Sociology of Language. The
Hague: Mouton.
Firth, John P. 1950. Personality and Language in Society. The
Sociological Review, 42:37-52. Reprinted in J. P. Firth 1957, Papers in
Linguistics 1934 - 1951, 190 - 215. London: Oxford University Press.
Giglioli, P. P(ed) 1972.Language and Social Context: Selected Readings.
Harmondsworth, English: Penguin.
Harris, Roy & Talbot J. Taylor 1997 [1998]. Landmarks in Linguistic
Thought I: The Western Tradition from Socrates to Saussure. London
Routledge.
Hymes, Dell 1962. The Ethnography of Speaking. In T. Gladwin & William
Sturtevant ( eds. ), Anthropology and Human Behavior,
13 - 53. Washington, DC: Anthropological Society of Washington.
Hymes, Dell (ed.) 1964. Language in Culture and Society: A reader in
Linguistics and Anthropology. New York: Harper & Row.
Jespersen, Otto 1922. Language: Its Nature, Development and Origin.
London: George Allen & Unwin.
Labov, William 1966. The Social Stratification of English in York City.
Washington, DC: Center for Applied Linguistics.
Lakoff, George & M. J. Johnson 1980. Metaphors We Live By.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Rosch, Eleanor. 1977. Human Categorization. In N. Warren (ed), Studies in
Cross-cultural Psychology, Vol I, 1-49London: Academic Press.
Sampson, Geoffrey 1980. Schools of Linguistics: Competition and
Evolution. London: Hutchinson.
INTRO TO LANGUAGE

Every human knows at least one language, spoken or signed. Linguistics is

the science of language, including the sounds, words, and grammar rules.
Words in languages are finite, but sentences are not. It is this creative aspect of
human language that sets it apart from animal languages, which are essentially
responses to stimuli.

The rules of a language, also called grammar, are learned as one acquires
a language. These rules include phonology, the sound system, morphology,
the structure of words, syntax, the combination of words into
sentences, semantics, the ways in which sounds and meanings are related,
and the lexicon, or mental dictionary of words. When you know a language, you
know words in that language, i.e. sound units that are related to specific
meanings. However, the sounds and meanings of words are arbitrary. For the
most part, there is no relationship between the way a word is pronounced (or
signed) and its meaning.

Knowing a language encompasses this entire system, but this knowledge

(called competence) is different from behavior (called performance.) You may
know a language, but you may also choose to not speak it. Although you are
not speaking the language, you still have the knowledge of it. However, if you
don't know a language, you cannot speak it at all.

There are two types of grammars: descriptive and prescriptive. Descriptive

grammars represent the unconscious knowledge of a language. English
speakers, for example, know that "me likes apples" is incorrect and "I like
apples" is correct, although the speaker may not be able to explain why.
Descriptive grammars do not teach the rules of a language, but rather describe
rules that are already known. In contrast, prescriptive grammars dictate what
a speaker's grammar should be and they include teaching grammars, which are
written to help teach a foreign language.

There are about 7,000 languages in the world right now (a rough estimate),
and linguists have discovered that these languages are more alike than different
from each other. There are universal concepts and properties that are shared
by all languages, and these principles are contained in the Universal
Grammar, which forms the basis of all possible human languages.

Language is the ability to produce and comprehend spoken and written

words; linguistics is the study of language.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

Describe the key properties and features of language

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Key Points

 Grammar is a set of rules for generating logical communication.

 All languages have a grammar, and native speakers of a language
have internalized the rules of that language’s grammar.
 Every language has a lexicon, or the sum total of all the words in that
language.
  Phonetics and phonemics are the study of individual units of sound in
languages.
 Morphology is the study of words and other meaningful units of
language.
 Syntax is the study of sentences and phrases, and the rules of
grammar that sentences obey.
 Semantics is the study of sentence meaning; pragmatics is the study of
sentence meaning in context.

Key Terms

 lexicon: The sum total of all words in a language.

 grammar: The set of rules a language obeys for creating words and
sentences.

Language is the ability to produce and comprehend both spoken and written
(and in the case of sign language, signed) words. Understanding how
language works means reaching across many branches of psychology—
everything from basic neurological functioning to high-level cognitive
processing. Language shapes our social interactions and brings order to our
lives. Complex language is one of the defining factors that makes us human.
Two of the concepts that make language unique are grammar and lexicon.

Grammar

Because all language obeys a set of combinatory rules, we can communicate

an infinite number of concepts. While every language has a different set of
rules, all languages do obey rules. These rules are known as grammar.
Speakers of a language have internalized the rules and exceptions for that
language’s grammar. There are rules for every level of language—word
formation (for example, native speakers of English have internalized the
general rule that -ed is the ending for past-tense verbs, so even when they
encounter a brand-new verb, they automatically know how to put it into past
tense); phrase formation (for example, knowing that when you use the verb
“buy,” it needs a subject and an object; “She buys” is wrong, but “She buys a
gift” is okay); and sentence formation.

Lexicon

Every language has its rules, which act as a framework for meaningful
communication. But what do people fill that framework up with? The answer
is, of course, words. Every human language has a lexicon—the sum total of
all of the words in that language. By using grammatical rules to combine
words into logical sentences, humans can convey an infinite number of
concepts.

Introduction to Linguistics

Language is such a special topic that there is an entire field, linguistics,

devoted to its study. Linguistics views language in an objective way, using the
scientific method and rigorous research to form theories about how humans
acquire, use, and sometimes abuse language. There are a few major
branches of linguistics, which it is useful to understand in order to learn about
language from a psychological perspective.

Major levels of linguistics: This diagram outlines the various subfields of linguistics, the study of
language. These include phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, and pragmatics.

Phonetics and Phonology

Phonetics is the study of individual speech sounds; phonology is the study of

phonemes, which are the speech sounds of an individual language. These
two heavily overlapping subfields cover all the sounds that humans can make,
as well as which sounds make up different languages. A phonologist could
answer the question, “Why do BAT and TAB have different meanings even
though they are made of the
same three sounds, A, B and T?”

Morphology
Morphology is the study of words and other meaningful units of language like
suffixes and prefixes. A morphologist would be interested in the relationship
between words like “dog” and “dogs” or “walk” and “walking,” and how people
figure out the differences between those words.

Syntax

Syntax is the study of sentences and phrases, or how people put words into
the right order so that they can communicate meaningfully. All languages
have underlying rules of syntax, which, along with morphological rules, make
up every language’s grammar. An example of syntax coming into play in
language is “Eugene walked the dog” versus “The dog walked Eugene.” The
order of words is not arbitrary—in order for the sentence to convey the
intended meaning, the words must be in a certain order.

Semantics and Pragmatics

Semantics, most generally, is about the meaning of sentences. Someone who

studies semantics is interested in words and what real-world object or concept
those words denote, or point to. Pragmatics is an even broader field that
studies how the context of a sentence contributes to meaning—for example,
someone shouting “Fire!” has a very different meaning if they are in charge of
a seven-gun salute than it does if they are sitting in a crowded movie theater.

The Structure of Language

All languages have underlying structural rules that make meaningful

communication possible.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

Explain the hierarchy of the building blocks of language

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Key Points

 The five main components of language are phonemes, morphemes,

lexemes, syntax, and context. Along with grammar, semantics, and
pragmatics, these components work together to create meaningful
communication among individuals.
 A phoneme is the smallest unit of sound that may cause a change of
meaning within a language but that doesn’t have meaning by itself.
  A morpheme is the smallest unit of a word that provides a specific
meaning to a string of letters (which is called a phoneme). There are two
main types of morpheme: free morphemes and bound morphemes.
 A lexeme is the set of all the inflected forms of a single word.
 Syntax is the set of rules by which a person constructs full sentences.
 Context is how everything within language works together to convey a
particular meaning.

Key Terms

 lexeme: The set of inflected forms taken by a single word.

 phoneme: An indivisible unit of sound in a given language.
 morpheme: The smallest linguistic unit within a word that can carry a
meaning, such as “un-“, “break”, and “-able” in the word “unbreakable.”

Every language is different. In English, an adjective comes before a noun

(“red house”), whereas in Spanish, the adjective comes after (“casa [house]
roja [red].”) In German, you can put noun after noun together to form giant
compound words; in Chinese, the pitch of your voice determines the meaning
of your words; in American Sign Language, you can convey full, grammatical
sentences with tense and aspect by moving your hands and face. But all
languages have structural underpinnings that make them logical for the
people who speak and understand them.

Five major components of the structure of language are phonemes,

morphemes, lexemes, syntax, and context. These pieces all work together to
create meaningful communication among individuals.

Phonemes

A phoneme is the basic unit of phonology. It is the smallest unit of sound that
may cause a change of meaning within a language, but that doesn’t have
meaning by itself. For example, in the words “bake” and “brake,” only one
phoneme has been altered, but a change in meaning has been triggered. The
phoneme /r/ has no meaning on its own, but by appearing in the word it has
completely changed the word’s meaning!

Phonemes correspond to the sounds of the alphabet, although there is not

always a one-to-one relationship between a letter and a phoneme (the sound
made when you say the word). For example, the word “dog” has three
phonemes: /d/, /o/, and / g /. However, the word “shape,” despite having five
letters, has only three phonemes: /sh/, /long-a/, and /p/. The English language
has approximately 45 different phonemes, which correspond to letters or
combinations of letters. Through the process of segmentation, a phoneme can
have a particular pronunciation in one word and a slightly different
pronunciation in another.

Morphemes

Morphemes, the basic unit of morphology, are the smallest meaningful unit of
language. Thus, a morpheme is a series of phonemes that has a special
meaning. If a morpheme is altered in any way, the entire meaning of the word
can be changed. Some morphemes are individual words (such as “eat” or
“water”). These are known as free morphemes because they can exist on
their own. Other morphemes are prefixes, suffixes, or other linguistic pieces
that aren’t full words on their own but do affect meaning (such as  the “-s” at
the end of “cats” or the “re-” at the beginning of “redo.”) Because these
morphemes must be attached to another word to have meaning, they are
called bound morphemes.

Within the category of bound morphemes, there are two additional subtypes:
derivational and inflectional. Derivational morphemes change the meaning or
part of speech of a word when they are used together. For example, the word
“sad” changes from an adjective to a noun when “-ness” (sadness) is added to
it. “Action” changes in meaning when the morpheme “re-” is added to it,
creating the word “reaction.” Inflectional morphemes modify either the tense of
a verb or the number value of a noun; for example, when you add an “-s” to
“cat,” the number of cats changes from one to more than one.

Lexemes

Lexemes are the set of inflected forms taken by a single word. For example,
members of the lexeme RUN include “run” (the uninflected form), “running”
(inflected form), and “ran.” This lexeme excludes “runner (a derived term—it
has a derivational morpheme attached).

Another way to think about lexemes is that they are the set of words that
would be included under one entry in the dictionary—”running” and “ran”
would be found under “run,” but “runner” would not.

Syntax

Syntax is a set of rules for constructing full sentences out of words and
phrases. Every language has a different set of syntactic rules, but all
languages have some form of syntax. In English, the smallest form of a
 sentence is a noun phrase (which might just be a noun or a pronoun) and a
verb phrase (which may be a single verb). Adjectives and adverbs can be
added to the sentence to provide further meaning. Word order matters in
English, although in some languages, order is of less importance. For
example, the English sentences “The baby ate the carrot” and “The carrot ate
the baby” do not mean the same thing, even though they contain the exact
same words. In languages like Finnish, word order doesn’t matter for general
meaning—different word orders are used to emphasize different parts of the
sentence.

Context

Context is how everything within language works together to convey a

particular meaning. Context includes tone of voice, body language, and the
words being used. Depending on how a person says something, holds his or
her body, or emphasizes certain points of a sentence, a variety of different
messages can be conveyed. For example, the word “awesome,” when said
with a big smile, means the person is excited about a situation. “Awesome,”
said with crossed arms, rolled eyes, and a sarcastic tone, means the person
is not thrilled with the situation.

KEY POINTS

 Grammar is a set of rules for generating logical communication.

 All languages have a grammar, and native speakers of a language have
internalized the rules of that language's grammar.

 Every language has a lexicon, or the sum total of all the words in that
language.
 Phonetics and phonemics are the study of individual units of sound in
languages.

 Morphology is the study of words and other meaningful units of language.

 Syntax is the study of sentences and phrases, and the rules of grammar
that sentences obey.

 Semantics is the study of sentence meaning; pragmatics is the study of

sentence meaning in context.

TERMS

 lexicon
 The sum total of all words in a language.
 grammar
The set of rules a language obeys for creating words and sentences.
FULL TEXT

Language is the ability to produce and comprehend both spoken and

written (and in the case of sign language, signed) words.

Understanding how language works means reaching across many

branches of psychology—everything from

basic neurological functioning to high-level cognitive processing.

Language shapes our social interactions and brings order to our lives.

Complex language is one of the defining factors that makes us

human. Two of the concepts that make language unique are grammar

and lexicon.

Grammar
Because all language obeys a set of combinatory rules, we can

communicate an infinite number of concepts. While every language

has a different set of rules, all languages do obey rules. These rules

are known as grammar. Speakers of a language have internalized the

rules and exceptions for that language’s grammar. There are rules for

every level of language—word formation (for example, native

speakers of English have internalized the general rule that -ed is the

ending for past-tense verbs, so even when they encounter a brand-

new verb, they automatically know how to put it into past tense);
phrase formation (for example, knowing that when you use the verb

“buy,” it needs a subject and an object; “She buys” is wrong, but “She

buys a gift” is okay); and sentence formation.

Lexicon
Every language has its rules, which act as a framework for meaningful

communication. But what do people fill that framework up with? The

answer is, of course, words. Every human language has a lexicon—the

sum total of all of the words in that language. By using grammatical

rules to combine words into logical sentences, humans can convey an

infinite number of concepts.

Introduction to Linguistics
Language is such a special topic that there is an entire field,

linguistics, devoted to its study. Linguistics views language in an

objective way, using the scientific method and rigorous research to

form theories about how humans acquire, use, and sometimes abuse

language. There are a few major branches of linguistics, which it is

useful to understand in order to learn about language from a

psychological perspective.

Phonetics and Phonology

Phonetics is the study of individual speech sounds; phonology is the

study of phonemes, which are the speech sounds of an individual

language. These two heavily overlapping subfields cover all the

sounds that humans can make, as well as which sounds make up

different languages. A phonologist could answer the question, “Why

do BAT and TAB have different meanings even though they are made

of the same three sounds, A, B and T?”

Morphology
Morphology is the study of words and other meaningful units of

language like suffixes and prefixes. A morphologist would be

interested in the relationship between words like “dog" and "dogs” or

“walk” and “walking,” and how people figure out the differences

between those words.

Syntax
Syntax is the study of sentences and phrases, or how people put

words into the right order so that they can communicate

meaningfully. All languages have underlying rules of syntax, which,

along with morphological rules, make up every language’s grammar.

An example of syntax coming into play in language is “Eugene walked

the dog” versus “The dog walked Eugene.” The order of words is not
arbitrary—in order for the sentence to convey the intended meaning,

the words must be in a certain order.

Semantics and Pragmatics

Semantics, most generally, is about the meaning of sentences.

Someone who studies semantics is interested in words and what real-

world object or concept those words denote, or point to. Pragmatics is

an even broader field that studies how the context of a sentence

contributes to meaning—for example, someone shouting “Fire!” has a

very different meaning if they are in charge of a seven-gun salute than

it does if they are sitting in a crowded movie theater.