Sociolinguistics

Society+Linguistics
 Society
A large group of people who live in the
same country or area and have the same
laws, .traditions, etc
 Linguistics
.The scientific study of language is linguistics
Psycholinguistics
Sociolinguistics
Semantics
.Phonetics etc
 Sociolinguistics
The study of how language is used by different
.groups in society
The study of the relationship between language
.and society
The study of the relationship between language
.and the context in which it is used
 Sociolinguists
Sociolinguists study the relationship between language
and society. They 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.
Examining the way people use language in different social
contexts provides a wealth of information about how the
language works, as well as about the social relationships
in a community, and the way people signal aspects of their
.social identity through their language
 Identity

Our linguistic choices reflect our identity.

Our speech provides clues to others about
who we are, where we come from, and
perhaps what kind of social experiences we
.have had
 Why do we say the same thing in
different ways?
The reasons for the choice of one dialect rather
than another involve some social considerations
such as – the participants, the social setting or
the topic or purpose of the interaction. This
linguistic variation which patterns according to
social factors is known as variety.
 Language Variety
A variety is a set of linguistic forms used under
specific social circumstances, i.e., with a
distinctive social distribution. Variety is
therefore a broad term which includes different
accents, different linguistic styles, different
dialects and even different languages which
.contrast with each other for social reasons
 Linguistic Repertoire
It is the variety of linguistic codes that a person
has stored and uses them depending on the
.different environments
 Domains of language use
A number of typical interactions identified as
relevant in describing patterns of language choice. A
domain involves typical interactions between typical
participants in typical settings.
For example: Family
Friendship
Religion
Education
Employment
 Diglossia
Diglossia is a situation in which there are two
different forms of the same language used by a
.community in different social situations
 Three crucial features of Diglossia

Two distinct varieties of the same language .1

are used in the community, with one regarded as
high (or H) variety and the other a low (or L)
.variety
Each variety is used for quite distinct .2
.functions; H and L complement each other
No one uses the H variety in everyday .3
.conversations
 The case of Arabic
:H variety
Mosque sermons, university lectures, political
speeches, news broadcasts, newspaper editorials
.etc
:L variety
Giving instructions to waiters, servants and
clerks, personal letters, radio soap operas, folk
.literature etc
 Diglossia and Bilingualism
Diglossia is a characteristic of speech communities
rather than individuals. Individuals may be bilinguals.
Societies or communities are diglossic. In other words,
the term diglossia describes societal or institutionalized
bilingualism, where two varieties are required to cover
all the community’s domains. There are some diglossic
communities where there is very limited bilingualism;
e.g. in Haiti more than 90 per cent of the population is
monolingual in Haitian Creole. Consequently they
.cannot actively contribute in more formal domains
 Polyglossia
Polyglossia is a situation where more than two
distinct codes or varieties are used for clearly
distinct purposes or in clearly distinguishable
.situations
 ?Diglossia is a stable situation
Yes, in some situations such as in Arabic
.speaking countries

No, as in Europe Latin was ousted and L

.varieties took up the place
.Also in England English displaced French
 Code-switching
Code-switching is the use of more than one
language, variety, or style by a speaker within an
utterance or discourse, or between different
.interlocutors or situations
People sometimes switch code within a domain
or social situation when there is some obvious
change in the situation, such as the arrival of a
.new person
 Reasons for code-switching
As an expression of solidarity
As a signal of group membership and shared
ethnicity with an addressee
To maintain distance from the interlocutors
To show status relations between the participants
Formality of the interaction
To quote someone
To quote a proverb or saying
 Tag-switching
This switch is simply an interjection or a linguistic tag in the other
language which serves as an ethnic identity marker. This tag serves as a
solidarity marker between two minority ethnic group members whose
.previous conversation has been entirely in English
Example
.Tamati : Engari [ SO ] now we turn to more important matters )a(
)Switch between Maori and English(
Ming : Confiscated by Customs, dà gài [ PROBABLY ] )b(
)Switch between English and Mandarin Chinese(
?A : Well I’m glad I met you. OK )c(
?M : ándale pues [ OK SWELL ], and do come again. Mm
)Switch between Spanish and English(
Switching for affective functions
Sometimes code-switching is also used for the
sake some affective functions such as : showing
resentment, amusement, dramatic effect, anger,
.etc. Example 14, 15, 16
 Lexical borrowing
When speaking a second language people often use a
term from their mother tongue because they don’t
know the appropriate word in the second language or
vice versa. Borrowing of this kind generally involves
single words -mainly nouns- and it is motivated by
lexical need. It is different from switching where
speakers have a choice. Another difference between
switching and borrowing is that borrowed words are
.usually adapted to the speaker’s first language
 Language Shift
Language shift occurs when speakers of a
minority group give in to different kinds of
pressure and start using the dominant language in
all domains. It often happens with migrant
communities, although not always. Moreover;
language almost always shifts towards the
.language of the dominant powerful group
Reasons: children, assimilation, workplace,
.status, prestige, social success etc
Factors Contributing to Language Shift

Economic: To obtain a job

Social: No efforts towards maintenance of a
language, need to become successful in the new
Society
Demographic factors: urban/rural, the size of the
group
Political factors
Globalisation
 Language loss
If a community, such as a Turkish community in
England, shifts to using English in all domains,
that community loses their mother tongue. They
experience language loss. The language as such
is not under threat because it still thrives in their
.home country
 Language Death
When all the people who speak a language die,
the language dies with them. Nobody else speaks
.those languages
For example: Manx(Isle of Man) 1974
Cornish(Cornwall) 1777
Aboriginal Australian languages
African languages
 Language maintenance
The continued use of one’s mother tongue in
spite of there being a stiff competition from the
.dominant language
For example: migrant communities in Europe or
USA
 How can a minority language be
?maintained
Regular contact among the speakers of a minority
language
Contact with the homeland
By discouraging intermarriage
By ensuring the use of the language in schools and
places of worship
Institutional support: education, law and
administration, religion and the media
 Language Revival
Sometimes a community becomes aware that its
language is in danger of disappearing and takes
deliberate steps to revitalize it. The success of such
efforts may depend on how far language loss has
occurred. But attitudinal factors are more important.
?How strongly people want to revive the language
Successful examples: Hebrew and Welsh
 Bilingual and Multilingual
There are some places in the world where
monolingualism is regarded as normal, and
bilingualism is considered unusual. For most of
the world it is bilingualism and multilingualism
which is normal.Over half the world’s
population is bilingual. Many people are
multilingual such as in countries like India.
 The distinction between vernacular and
standard language

Vernaculars are usually the first languages

learned by people in multilingual communities,
and they are often used for a relatively narrow
range of informal functions. Generally, these
languages are not standardized and they don’t
.have an official status
 The standard variety

A standard variety is one which has undergone

some degree of regularisation or codification
( for example, in a grammar and a dictionary); it
is regarded as a prestigious variety or code by a
community, and it is used for H functions
.alongside a diversity of L varieties
 World Englishes
They are local varieties of English, with distinctive
linguistic features, in many multilingual countries such as
Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong, India and many African
countries. These nativised varieties express the local
aspirations and identities of a wide range of communities,
and this is reflected in linguistic characteristics such as
stress patterns, vocabulary from local languages,
grammatical features which reflect the influence of the
local languages, and semantic concepts drawn from the
other languages spoken in the communities where they are
.used
Braj Kachru’s Circle
 Lingua Franca
The term ‘lingua franca’ describes a language which
serves as a regular means of communication between
different groups in a multilingual speech community.
People whose first languages are different use a lingua
franca to communicate. In some countries the most
useful and widely used lingua franca is an official
language or the national language. Lingua francas
often develop initially as trade languages. Sometimes
they are so useful that they eventually displace the
.vernaculars
 Pidgin
A language that has developed from a mixture of
two languages. It is used as a way of
communicating by people who do not speak each
.other’s languages
A pidgin is a language which has no native
.speakers
.It may have derived from business
They have a very narrow range of functions. (Trade
or administration)
Linguistic structure of a pidgin language

Created with the combined efforts of the people

who speak different languages
The prestige language supplies much of the
vocabulary
Vernacular languages influence grammar more
Simplified structure
Small vocabulary
 Creoles
A creole is a pidgin which has acquired native
.speakers
As a result of their status as some group’s first
language, creoles also differ from pidgins in their
range of functions, in their structure and in some cases
in the attitude towards them. A creole is a pidgin
which has expanded in structure and vocabulary to
express the range of meanings and serve the range of
.functions required of a first language
 Decreolisation
is the process in which features of the creole …
tend to change in the direction of the standard
.variety
Acrolect : The variety closest to the standard
Basilect : The variety closest to the creole
Mesolect: The variety in between the above two
 Language Variation
Language variation in monolingual communities
People often use a language to signal their
membership of particular groups and to construct
different aspects of their social identity. Social
status, gender, age, ethnicity and the kinds of
social networks people belong to turn out to be
important dimensions of identity in many
.communities
Between the speakers of any language there is variation in the
way that they use their language. This variation is
demonstrated by linguistic differences in terms of sound
(phonetics) and structure (grammar). There might be only
slight variations between forms of a language – such as minor
pronunciations of words or a slight change of grammatical
structure that do not inhibit intergroup communication.
Sometimes there are differences between the speech of men
and women, different social classes, and differences between
age groups. People will identify some of these features as
marking the "best" or most "beautiful" form of the language,
other features will be considered nonstandard or undesirable.
Some of these differences may impede intelligibility and
.intergroup communication
 Levels of variation
.No two people speak exactly the same
However, some features of speech are shared by
groups, and they become important because they
.differentiate one group from another

For example: Scottish speakers of English and

people from England (the letter ‘r’ in girl, star is
pronounced in a number of English-speaking areas)
 Regional Variation
British English
American English
New Zealand English
.Australian English etc
 Intra-national or Intra-continental
variation
Within England: Cockney, Geordie, Scouse
Within USA: Northern, Midland and Southern
 Isogloss
An isogloss is a geographical boundary •
line marking the area in which a
distinctive linguistic feature commonly
.occurs
This linguistic feature may be phonological
 (e.g., the pronunciation of a vowel), lexical
(the use of a word), or some other aspect of
 .language
 Dialect Chain
A dialect chain is a spread of language varieties
spoken across some geographical area in such a way
that all the neighboring varieties differ only slightly, but
the differences accumulate over distance resulting in
.the varieties being not mutually intelligible
For Example: The varieties of French spoken in the
border towns and villages of Italy, Spain and
Switzerland have more in common with the language of
the next village than the language of Paris. From one
.village and town to the next there is a chain
 Received Pronunciation- RP
It is a social accent. The accent of the best
educated and most prestigious members of
English society. It is claimed that the label
derives from the accent which was ‘received’ at
the royal court, and is sometimes identified with
‘the Queen’s English’. RP was promoted by the
.BBC for decades
 Standard English
It is a social dialect. It is the dialect used by
well-educated English speakers throughout the
world. It is the variety used for national news
broadcasts and in print, and it is the variety
generally taught in English-medium schools. It is
estimated that up to 15 per cent of the British
.regularly use standard British English
 Social Dialects
People can be grouped together on the basis of
similar social and economic factors. Their
language generally reflects these groupings- they
use different social dialects. So a person’s dialect
.reflects his social background
 Caste Dialects
In some countries such as India and Indonesia
the social divisions are very clear-cut. There are
caste systems determined by birth, and strict
social rules govern the behavior appropriate to
each group. These social distinctions are also
reflected in speech differences. A person’s
.dialect reflects his social background
 Social Class Dialects
This is related to differences between people
which are associated with differences in social
prestige, wealth and education. In western
society status comes from material resources and
family background. So class is used here as a
convenient label for groups of people who share
.similarities in economic and social status
 Differences
Social dialect research in many different
countries has revealed a consistent relationship
between social class and language patterns.
People from different social classes speak
differently. The most obvious differences are in
vocabulary. For example in the 1950s in
England: Upper class English people used
‘sitting room’ and ‘lavatory’ whereas non-upper
.’class people used ‘lounge’ and ‘toilet
 Pronunciation Differences
The speakers’s different social backgrounds
were clearly reflected in a feature of their speech
which is known as h-dropping. In a study in
England it was found that the highest social
group dropped the least number of hs and the
.lowest social group dropped the most
 Grammatical Patterns
As with pronunciation, there is a clear pattern to
the relationship between the grammatical speech
forms and the social groups who use them. The
higher social groups use more of the standard
grammatical form and fewer instances of the
non-standard form. For example, standard she
walks vs non-standard she walk and multiple
.negation Nobody don’t want no chips
 Gender and Linguistic Choice
The linguistic forms used by men and women
contrast – to different degrees – in all speech
communities. The Amazon Indians provide an
extreme example. In any longhouse the language
used by a child’s mother is different from her
father’s language because men must marry outside
their own tribe and each tribe is distinguished by a
different language. In this community women and
.men speak different languages
 Shared language
There are communities where the language is
shared by women and men, but particular
linguistic features occur only in the women’s
speech or only in men’s speech. These features
are usually small differences in pronunciation or
morphology. For example, in Bengali the women
use an initial ‘l’ where the men use initial ‘n’ in
.some words
 Gender-Preferential Speech Features

In Western urban communities where women’s

and men’s social roles overlap, the speech forms
they use also overlap. They do not use
completely different forms. They use different
quantities or frequencies of the same forms. For
example: women use more –ing [ɪŋ]
pronunciations and fewer –in [in] pronunciations
.than men in words like swimming and typing
 Gender-Preferential Speech Features

Both the social and the linguistic patterns in

these communities are gender-preferential rather
than gender exclusive. Though both women and
men use particular forms, one gender shows a
greater preference for them than the other. It has
also been found that women prefer the standard
.form and men prefer the vernacular
Why do women use more standard forms
?than men
:Four explanations
The Social Status Explanation .1
Woman’s role as guardian of society’s values .2
Subordinate groups must be polite .3
Vernacular forms express machismo/mə .4
/ˈtʃɪz.məʊ
 The Social Status Explanation
Some linguists have suggested that women use
more standard speech forms than men because
they are more status-conscious than men.
Standard speech forms are generally associated
with high social status and women use more
standard speech forms as a way of claiming such
status. Further studies questioned this
.explanation and found it inadequate
 Woman’s role as guardian of society’s
values
Another expalantion for the fact that women use
more standard forms than men points to the way
some societies tend to expect ‘better’ behavior
from women than from men. Women are
designated the role of modelling correct behavior
in the community. Therefore, society expects
women to speak more correctly and standardly
than men, especially when they are serving as
.models for children’s speech
Relevance of the previous explanation

It may be relevant in some social groups, but it is

certainly not true for all. Interactions between a
mother and a child are likely to be very relaxed
and informal, and it is in relaxed informal
contexts that vernacular forms occur most often
in everyone’s speech. Standard forms are
associated with more formal and less personal
.interactions
 Subordinate groups must be polite

According to this explanation, women as a

subordinate group must avoid offending men–
and so they must speak carefully and politely.
Moreover, it also suggests that women use
standard forms to protect their ‘face’. By using
more standard speech forms women are looking
.after their own need to be valued by society
Relevance of the previous explanation

It is clear why polite speech should be equated

with standard speech. It is perfectly possible to
express yourself politely using a vernacular. It is
equally possible to be very insulting using RP.
Moreover, to say that women use standard forms
to protect their face is similar to saying that they
.are claiming more status then they are entitled to
Relevance of the previous explanation

This explanation also begins from the

assumption that it is women’s behavior which is
aberrant and has to be explained. Men’s usage is
taken to be the norm against which women’s is
.being measured
Vernacular forms express machismo

Men’s preference for vernacular forms is

because of macho connotations of masculity and
toughness attached to the vernacular forms. This
implies that standard forms tend to be associated
with female values and femininity. This
explanation seems consistent with much of the
.sociolinguistic evidence which has accumulated
 Age-graded features of speech
Besides ‘pitch’, there are other features of
people’s speech which vary at different ages too.
These are vocabulary, pronunciation, and
grammar. There are patterns which are
appropriate for 10-year-olds or teenagers which
disappear as they grow older. These are age-
.graded patterns
 Examples
The extensive swear word vocabulary which
some teenagers use changes over time when they
begin to have children and socialize with others
.with young families
Slang is another area which reflects a person’s
age. Current slang is the linguistic prerogative of
young people and generally sounds odd in the
mouth of an older person. It signals the
.membership of a group - the young
 Language Change
Languages change over time. When English
spelling became relatively fixed by printing, the
printer recorded the pronunciations current at the
time. So the k in knit and knight was not silent in
the 15th century, and knight not only began with a
k, it had a fricative sound in the middle
.represented by the letters gh
 Assignments
Received Pronunciation
Standard English
American versus British English
World Englishes
 Variation and Change

All language change has its origins in variation. The

possibility of a linguistic change exists as soon as
new forms develop and begin to be used alongside
existing forms. If the new form spreads, the change
is in progress. If it eventually displaces the old form,
the change has gone to completion. One area of
vocabulary where this is very easy to see is in the
slang words used by young people to mean really
good. Super, spiffing, bonzer, groovy, cool, neat,
.fantastic, magic, excellent, wicked, hot, rad
 Change from above
Changes which people are aware of have been
described as ‘changes from above’. These are
changes where people are conscious of their
social significance as desirable or prestige
features of speech. It also shows the arbitrariness
of the language forms which happen to be
.standard in any community
Example: post-vocalic [r] as in star and start
 Rhoticism
Accents with post-vocalic [r] are called ‘rhotic’.
In large areas of England rhotic English accents
are regarded as rural and uneducated. In large
parts of America post-vocalic [r] is extensively
used. Many American accents are rhotic.
Moreover, [r]-less speech is the prestigious form
in England and in America the rhotic variety is
prestigious and both of them are increasing in
.their respective countries
 Change from below
Changes in the pronunciation of vowels are often
changes from below. They are changes below
people’s level of conscious awareness. The
spread of vernacular forms in some communities
is one such change. In matters of identity
construction people unconsciously value
vernacular features of speech. For example:
Martha’s Vineyard [light, house]
 ?How do changes spread
:From group to group
Many linguists have used the metaphor of waves
to explain how linguistic changes spread through
a community. Any linguistic change spreads
simultaneously in different directions, though not
necessarily at the same rate in all directions.
Social factors such as age, status, gender and
region affect the rates of change and the
.directions in which the waves roll most swiftly
 From group to group
In any speech community different sets of waves
intersect. You belong simultaneously to a particular
age group, region and social group. A change may
spread along any of these dimensions and into another
group. Linguistic changes infiltrate groups from the
speech of the people on the margins between social or
regional groups – via the ‘middle’ people who have
contacts in more than one group. These people seem
.to act as linguistic stockbrokers or entrepreneurs
 From style to style
This change spreads from one style to another
(say from more formal speech to more casual
speech) while at the same time it spreads from
one individual to another within a social group,
and subsequently from one social group to
another. For example: the spread of the
.prestigious post-vocalic [r]
 From word to word – lexical diffusion

Sound changes also spread from one word to another.

Sound changes spread through different words one
by one. This is called lexical diffusion. When a sound
change begins, all the words with a particular vowel
don’t change at once in the speech of a community.
People don’t go to bed one night using the sound [u:]
and wake up using [au] in house, how and out.
Instead, the sound change occurs first in one word,
.and then later in another, and so on
 style, context and register
Language varies according to its uses as well as
its users, according to where it is used and to
whom, as well as according to who is using it.
The addressees and the context affect our choice
of code or variety, whether language, dialect or
style. The focus here is on the ways in which
speech reflects and constructs the contexts in
.which language is used
 Addressee as an influence on style

The better you know someone, the more casual

and relaxed the speech style you will use to
them. People use considerably more standard
forms to those they don’t know well, and more
vernacular forms to their friends. In a study in
Northern Ireland, for instance, people used more
standard English forms with an English stranger
visiting their village than they did talking to a
.fellow villager
 Age of addressee as an influence on
style
People generally talk differently to children and
to adults. Talking to younger brothers and sisters
have been heard using sing-song intonation and
baby-talk. When talking or writing to a 6-year-
old as opposed to a 30-year-old, most people
choose simpler vocabulary and grammatical
.constructions
 Social background of addressee

It has also been found that people adapt their

speech style according to the social background
of the addressees. For example the contrasting
styles of newsreaders on different New Zealand
radio stations. When the addressees are from the
lower end of the social spectrum we find
simplification of consonant clusters, voiced
pronunciations, omission of definite article and
.honorifics, and contractions
 Accommodation Theory
Speech accommodation is the process of
converging one’s speech towards the speech of
the person one is talking to. It tends to happen
when the speakers like one another, or where one
speaker has a vested interest in pleasing the other
or putting them at ease. It is also considered a
polite speech strategy. It implies that the speech
of another person is acceptable and worth
.imitating
How do speakers accommodate
Upward convergence: It refers to convergence
towards the speech of someone with more power
or status, or someone deserving respect in the
.context
Downward convergence: It refers to convergence
towards the speech of someone with less power
or status. It is done when you are aware of the
.lesser linguistic proficiency of your addressees
 Speech Divergence
Deliberately choosing a language not used by
one’s addressee is speech divergence. For
example, when the Arab nations issued an oil
communique to the world not in English, but in
Arabic, they no longer wished to be seen as
accommodating to the Western English-speaking
.powers
 Accommodation Problems
It is possible to overdo convergence and offend
listeners. Over-convergent behavior may be
perceived as patronizing and ingratiating, as
sycophantic, or even as evidence that the speaker
is making fun of others. We look for possible
reasons for changes in other people's speech. If
the reasons appear manipulative, we are less
.likely to feel positive about convergence
 Register
The term ‘register’ describes the language of groups
of people with common interests or jobs, or the
language used in situations associated with such
groups. Journalese, baby-talk, legalese, the
language of auctioneers, race-callers, sports
commentators, the language of airline pilots,
criminals, financiers, politicians, disk jockeys, the
language of the courtroom and the classroom, could
.all be considered examples of different registers
 The functions of speech
Expressive utterances express the speaker’s .1
.feelings, e.g. I’m feeling great today
Directive utterances attempt to get someone to .2
.do something, e.g. Clear the table
Referential utterances provide information, e.g. .3
.At the third stroke it will be three o’clock
Metalinguistic utterances comment on language .4
.itself, e.g. ‘Hegemony’ is not a common word
Poetic utterances focus on aesthetic features .5
of language, e.g. a poem, an ear catching motto,
a rhyme, Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled
.peppers
Phatic utterances express solidarity and .6
empathy with others, e.g. Hi, how are you, lovely
!day isn’t it
.Etc