001.Introduction Sociolinguistics

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Intro to Sociolinguistics

An exploration into the relationshipbetween language and culture.


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Fundamental Question

a.What is the relationship between language and culture?

b.Humans are the only animal to have culture.

c.Humans are the only animal to have language.

d. How do the two connect?

e. What is language? what members of a particular

society speak (Wardhaugh 1.


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Different Meanings of Language

a.! know ! don"t speak #nglish correctly.

b.$ost %rench&'anadians prefer to speak %rench even though they can

speak #nglish too.

c.The treaty wasn"t ready to sign until both sides had a chance to look over

the language.

d. ) polyglot is someone who knows many languages. ) linguist is someone

who can analy*e language structure.

e. #nglish is the most widely&spoken language in the world. f. )merican thought and language.

g.! need to work on my language skills.

h. When %red speaks to +am sometimes he uses #nglish and sometimes )rabic.


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Three #iews of Language

o Language as Grammar:

o Language as communication:o Language as thing:


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Language as Grammar

,he ob-ect of a science of linguistics (+aussure.


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Syntactic Structures

Review of Skinner: VerbalBehavior(1959)

Universal Grammar

difference between surface structure and

deep structure in language

$oa% &ho%s'(

(1928-)


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)ra%%ar

Three sub-systems

Representational* /honology (sounds graphic gestural

Lexical

morphology0 words and morphemes

* (Syn)tactic synta2


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Language as communication

3anguage as ,e2t.

,he !nteraction of /eople

,he !nterpretation of ,e2ts What do you communicate? !deas? #motions?

!ntentions?

How do you communicate?

$essages4 ,he interpretation of messages

,he construction of messages


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Language as thing

3anguage as an element in social constructs.

3anguage planning code switching dialectdebates.


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5ote4 to distinguish between and language

and communicationlook at the following 6uestions4

1. !s language as 7awkins suggests part of the75) of homosapiens?

8. !s there a creative component (the horrible

honeybee story


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'ompetence v. /erformance

3angue v parole

+tructure v event

+tructural v communicative

universal v dialect


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)pproaches to language and culture

Wardhaugh 6uite sensibly argues that sociolinguistics isboth macrolinguistic and microlinguistic4

$icrolinguistic&& language emphasis

$acrolinguistics 9 social emphasis

Whorf /oliteness0 %rench +tructuralism (3:vi&+trauss.'ommunicative approaches4 p. 1;

3anguage and power (%airclough +ocial construction ofreality (


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Lets ta'e five %ore %inutes to

chat about discussion questions

+, -, and on pp. /- and / of"ardhaugh.


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0elations between language and

culture "ardhaugh pp. 12//

/. Social structure %a( influence or

deter%ine linguistic structureand3or behaviour

+. Linguistic structure3behaviour

influences or deter%ines socialstructure 4"horfian h(pothesis5


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6. Language and societ( affecteach other

. $o relationship at all between

language and culture


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Desperate Definitions7

Sociolinguistics is an atte%pt to

find correlations betweenlinguistic structure and social

structure


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Sociolinguists

8whatever it is, is about as'ing

i%portant questions concerningthe relationship of language to

societ(9 4"ardhaugh //5


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This is not reassuring

* :ven our textboo' see%s unable to give us

a straightforward, agreed upon definition of

sociolinguistics.* Lets tr( the discussion questions on page

/+ of "ardhaugh. )et into groups of or -

and ta'e /- %inutes to go over questions /and +.


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Methodological principles"ardhaugh p. /;

/. &u%ulative

+.


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More Discussion

* There is a connection between questions /

and on p. /1 of "ardhaugh. "hat can we

sa( about historical vs s(nchroniclinguistics, about written vs spo'en

language>


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Squish(

* I told (ou sociolinguistics is squish(. &an

(ou all re%ind %e what we learn about our

topic of stud( fro% chapter / of "ardhaughand this pitiful powerpoint> "hat is %ost

i%portant> 6 things> - things> /? things>

* "hat will (ou re%e%ber in /? (ears aboutit>


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Irrelevant but interesting


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L. 0on @ubbard

All men are your slaves," he oncewrote in a diary entry unearthed

during a 1984 lawsuit.

Hereportedly once claimed to havewritten a manuscript that containedsuch brutal truths that anyone who

read it went insane or committedsuicide.
http://www.slate.com/id/2122835/sidebar/2122838/http://www.slate.com/id/2122835/sidebar/2122838/

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001.Introduction Sociolinguistics