SOCIOLINGUISTICSAPPLIED LINGUISTICS / 3rd YEAR

1. WHAT IS SL?

“Time changes all things; there is no reason why language should escape this universal

law.”

Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913)

“Speech is not a personal possession but a social.”

Willian Dwight Whitney (1827-1894)

1. WHAT IS SL?

• It sounds too ‘academic’

• A clue: It must be related to society

• An Applied Linguistics branch dealing with the social factors which affect the use of language

1. WHAT IS SL?

Language changes constantly at different levels and at diverse places and times (Bright,

1998)

Language is a symbolic

indicator of behaviour = A

person's background, character,

and intentions are judged by the

use of language (“Linguistics

Program,” n.d.)

1. WHAT IS SL?

1. WHAT IS SL?

• SL channels the interest in the entwining (connection) of language and society

• Two key concepts in SL:

― Variation: Language is likely to change― Contact: Language changes spread through

contact (Eble, 2005)

1. WHAT IS SL?

Social factors bringing about change in language:

• Traditionally, class, ethnicity, age, and sex, together with educational level, growing up learning or religious beliefs = Attributes of the speaker

• But also, social attitudes, cultural differences, discriminatory language or language policies = Particular to a certain group of people

1. WHAT IS SL?

• SL studies both general issues, e.g. How do religious beliefs influence on language?, and more specific topics, e.g. What are the traces of French in Cajun Vernacular English?

2. THE ORIGINS OF SL

Sociolinguistics → developed over the last 50

years = a relatively modern discipline

Analysis of language and society in a systematic

way = clear relationship between the two

phenomena

Three progenitors → Anthropology, Linguistics

and Sociology (fields which somehow overlap) =

interdisciplinarity of SL

2. THE ORIGINS OF SL

Sociolinguistics → Fathers: William Labov (b. 1927) in the US, and Basil Bernstein (b. 1924) in the UK

Other terms proposed → Sociolinguistics, Sociology of Language and Linguistic Anthropology

SL first mentioned by English anthropologist Thomas Callan Hodson in 1939 (“The origin,” 1979)

2. THE ORIGINS OF SL

Basic notion underlying SL→ Language as a social

instrument (more than words)

It represents social behaviour (“Linguistics

Program,” n.d.)

SL → A prominent discipline today

Two trends have characterized SL development:

– a large number of specialized areas

– results applied to social, educational and political problems

3. ISSUES SL DEALS WITH

Pass the salt!

Would you mind passing the salt?

I think this food could use a little salt

Mm, not a simple matter of sentence structure

This is Sociolinguistics

SL studies both general questions

and particular problems

3. ISSUES SL DEALS WITH

A. Gender-mixed vs. Non gender-mixed conversations

Varieties of speech associated with a particular gender

• Men use less minimal responses (mhm, yeah)• Men use questions for information; women for

different purposes• Men are more verbally aggressive in

conversation• Men’s language is less formal than women's

B. Telling jokesIndividual variations: group, person, situation,

gender,

age, educational level. (Kuypers, 2006)

Universal patterns: setting and characters

a Dutchman, a German and a Belgian

a man walks into a bar

a married couple

a dumb blonde

a woman at the doctor's

a fly in the soup

3. ISSUES SL DEALS WITH

3. ISSUES SL DEALS WITH

C. Status of French and English in Canada

• Official languages since 1982• Mother tongue: 60% English vs. 24% French• Canadian English: British and American elements• Canadian French: Status worse than European

French + Many Anglicisms: anyway, checker, cute, whatever, etc.

• Before: English as the language of prestige and business

• Now: Canadian French in both social and economic life

3. ISSUES SL DEALS WITH

D. Status of English in the United States • 82% English / 12% Spanish• Several unsuccessful legislative proposals • American English + Canadian English = North

American English• Spanglish: bilingual speakers in the U.S.

Gloria: Open my gift! Jay: Here we have a phone…in the shape of a mouth!Gloria: You´re welcome! Very sexy!Jay: Don´t tell me. I mentioned a few times that I would like to have a saxophone and you give me this…I got it! Is this a sexy-phone?Gloria: Happy birthday!!!(Taken from Modern Family)

4. BRANCHES OF SL

SL covers many sub-fields which are given several different names. Among the most known ones there are (Trudgill, 2003):

• Language Variation and Change

• Pidgin and Creole Languages

• Language Attitude Studies

4. BRANCHES OF SL

Dialectology: The study of regional or social varieties of a

language

Social Dialectology: The study of a variety of speech

associated with a particular group within a society

Functional Variation (Register): The study of how

language is used differently by individuals for a specific

purpose or in a particular social context

Language variation and change

4. BRANCHES OF SL

Nigeria English Pidgin

How bodi?

↓

How are you doing today?

no structure

no fixed rules

Hawaian English Creole

Ai neva du om

↓

I did not do it

its own grammar

invented by children

Pidgin and Creole Languages(Or Language Contact Studies)

4. BRANCHES OF SL

Study of how people evaluate others based

on the

language behaviour they observe

Two major approaches: Behaviourist → attitudes are in people's

responses to social situations Mentalist → attitudes as a reflection of an

internal state

Language Attitude Studies

4. BRANCHES OF SL

A question open to debate:

Does it make any sense to propose a classification on the basis of the aspect of

language affected, that is, vocabulary, grammar and/or pronunciation?

4. BRANCHES OF SL

Example: Vocabulary changeSlang → words that are non standard in formal

conversation

Jargon → words that are used in specialised environments

5. CONCLUSIONS

• An AL branch dealing with the social factors which affect the use of language

• Traditionally, class, ethnicity, age, and sex (Attributes of the speaker). But

also social attitudes, cultural differences, or language policies (Particular to a

group of people)

• A relatively modern discipline / The term was used for the first time in 1939

• Interdisciplinarity of SL steming from Anthropology, Linguistics and Sociology

• SL studies both general issues, e.g. How does humour work? and particular

problems, e.g. Which is the status of French in Canada?

• Many sub-fields within SL: Language variation and change + Pidgin and Creole

Languages + Language Attitude Studies, etc.

6. SOURCES

Part 1. What is SL?

Bright, W. (1998). Social factors in language change. In F. Coulmas (Ed.), The handbook of Sociolinguistics (pp. 82-91). Oxford: Blackwell Publishers.

Downes, W. (1998). Language and Society. (2nd ed.). Cambridge: CUP.

Eble, C. (2005). What is Sociolinguistics? Retrieved October 14, 2011, from http://www.pbs.org/speak/speech/sociolinguistics/sociolinguistics/#eble

Linguistics at NC State University. (n.d.). Retrieved October 11, 2011, from http://www.ncsu.edu/linguistics/aboutsociolinguistics.php

Part 2. The origins of SL

The origin of Sociolinguistics. (1979). In Language in society. Retrieved October 12, 2011 from http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayIssue?jid=LSY&tab=currentissue

Jaffe, A. (Ed.). (2009). Sociolinguistics perspectives. Oxford: OUP.

Meyerhoff, M. (2006). Introducing Sociolinguistics. Oxford: Routledge.

Part 3. Issues SL deals with

Bilous, F. R., & Krauss, R. M. (1988). Dominance and accomodation in the conversational behaviours of same- and mixed-gender dyads. Language & Communication, 8, 3, 183-194.

Bond, K. (2001). French as a minority language in bilingual Canada. In Karen ‘s Linguistics Issues Web page. Retrieved October 26, 2011.

Kuyper, G. (2006). Good humour, bad taste: A sociology of the joke. Berlín: Walter de Gruyter.

Part 4. Branches of SL

Ammon, U., Dittmar, N., & Mattheier, K. J. (2004). International handbook of the science of language and society. (2nd ed.). Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.

Trudgill, P. (2003). A glossary of Sociolinguistics. Oxford: OUP.

http://www.hevanet.com/alexwest/pidgin.html

Sociolinguistics: An invitation*

They worked as a team:

• Beatriz Guillén Velasco

• María García Parra

• Mari Carmen García Sánchez

• José Jimeno Serrano

We hope you have enjoyed the presentation

Thanks for your attention