Embed Size (px)
Citation preview
1
Sociolinguistics is a branch of linguistics that studies all aspects of the relationship between
language and society. Sociolinguistics is the study of language in its social contexts. It offers
insights both into the structure of languages and the structure of societies. It covers a wide
range of topics and there are many methodological approaches and theoretical frameworks.
One of the approaches: variationist sociolinguistics (the statistical correlation of linguistic
variation with social variables such as socio-economic class, gender).
Phatic communication is a term introduced by the anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski and
used subsequently by many linguists to refer to language used for establishing an atmosphere
or maintaining social contact, rather than for exchanging information or ideas (for example:
comments on the weather, or enquiries about health). Phatic language (or the phatic function
of language) is of particular relevance to the sociolinguistic analysis of linguistic functions.
Language behavior: there are two aspects important from a social point of view:
(1) the function of language in establishing relationships
(2) the role played by language in conveying information about the speaker.
Both these aspects of linguistic behavior are reflections of the fact that there is a close inter-
relationship between language and society.
Language can be a very important factor in group identification, group solidarity and the
signaling of difference, and when a group is under attack from outside, signals of difference
may became more important and are therefore exaggerated.
Standard English
Standard English is the variety of English which is usually used in print, and which is
normally taught in schools and to nonnative speakers learning the language. It is also the
variety which is normally spoken by educated people and used in news broadcasts and other
similar situations. It is a superposed variety. All languages, and correspondingly all dialects,
are equally good as linguistic systems.
All varieties of a language are structured, complex, rule governed systems which are wholly
adequate for the needs of their speakers‘ value judgments concerning the correctness and
purity of linguistic varieties are social rather than linguistic any apparent inferiority of
nonstandard varieties is due to their association with speakers from under-privileged, low-
status groups.
Language and Social Class
Social distance may have the same sort of effect as geographical distance. Therefore, there
are: social-class dialects (sociolects), social-class accent. Other forms of social differentiation
include: class, age, sex, race, religion.
2
Social stratification - a term used to refer to any hierarchical ordering of groups within a
society, especially in terms of power, wealth and status. In the industrialized societies of the
West this takes the form of stratification into social classes, and gives rise linguistically to
social-class dialects.
Social classes are generally taken to be aggregates of individuals with similar social and/or
economic characteristics. It is a controversial issue, and it is not universal. The good example
of this is India, where the social stratifications takes the form of castes and gives rise to caste
dialects. There is a possibility of social mobility, which is the reason for the difficulty in
description of social class dialects. Earlier research in dialectology ignored these complexities
such as social mobility and many studies concentrated on the idiolect, which is the speech of
one person at one time in one style. The speech of rural informants was observed. These rural
informants were called NORMS, an acronym for „non-mobile older rural males―.
There were several reasons for studying the speech of rural informants: the aim was to record
many dialect features which were dying out. On the other hand, there was belief that in the
speech of older, uneducated people were the „real„ or „pure― dialects which were steadily
being corrupted by the standard variety. However, the speech of single speakers, or their
idiolects, may differ considerably from those of others like them. These idiolects may also be
internally very inconsistent.
In The Linguistic Atlas of the United States and Canada, informants were divided into three
categories, largely according to the education they had received. A social dimension was
added to their linguistic information. The speech of urban areas was also started being
investigated. The true investigations of social-class dialects and urban dialects happened only
after the Second World War. The methods of traditional rural dialectology could not be
applied, and therefore, the new methods of investigation begun to emerge.
William Labov in his work "The Social Stratification of English in New York City", took
samples of 340 informants. He employed the techniques for eliciting normal speech from
people in spite of the presence of the tape-recorder, as well as several methods for the
quantitative measurements of linguistic data. It was impossible to predict on any one occasion
whether individuals would one variant or the other. But if speakers were of a certain social
class, age and sex, they would use one or other variant approximately x per cent of the time,
on average, in a given situation. The idiolect might appear random, but the speech community
was quite predictable. What linguists have traditionally called ‗free variation‘ was shown not
to be free: the variation was not random but determined by extra-linguistic factors in a quite
predictable way.
Accent: unique position of RECEIVED PRONUNCIATION
Received Pronunciation is a social accent used by only 3-5% of the population of England.
When the term ‗received‘ was used in this context for the first time, it had approximately the
meaning ‗socially approved‘. It is also called: Public School English, BBC English, The
Queen‘s English, Oxford English, La-di-da accent. There is some variation within Received
Pronunciation, but not regionally determined.
3
Measuring linguistic and social phenomena
In obtaining a correct picture of the relationship between language and social stratification we
must be able to measure both linguistic and social phenomena, so that we can correlate the
two accurately.
Social class – the application of the sociological method of assigning individuals a numerical
index score on the basis of their occupational, income, educational and/or other characteristic,
and then grouping them together with others with similar indexes (although the justification
for different groupings may be controversial). Language - taking linguistic features which are
known to vary within the community being studied, and which are also easily countable in
some way.
For example, we can take a look at the third-person present-tense singular affix "s" in
African-American in Detroit, and in Norwich in England. In both of these two varieties, the
present-tense singular affix ―s‖ is not present.
In East Anglia, the area of England in which Norwich is situated, and in Detroit this -s is often
not present, at least in the speech of some people.
Example:
She like him very much.
He don‘t know a lot, do he?
It go ever so fast.
There are two possible explanations for this:
1.) Dialect mixture (two separate dialects mixed in different proportions by speakers from
different classes. In example: two different dialects mixed, one with and one without the the
affix "s")
2.) Inherent variability (the variation is an integral part of the variety itself)
The dialect of East Anglia and Standard English mixed OR the variation is a characteristic of
the dialect of East Anglia.
Therefore, in Detroit, Detroit Black English and Standard English mixed or the variation is a
characteristic of Detroit African American English.
Trudgill‘s position on this issue: this kind of variation takes place on a very wide scale,
involving all speakers and a very large number of other linguistic features. It is found even in
the speech of very young children who have not been exposed to other dialects. Linguistic
varieties appear to be inherently variable as a rule rather than as an exception, and inherent
variability is probably the linguistic counterpart of social heterogeneity.
4
The Social Stratification of English in New York City is probably the first study of
consonantal variation of this kind. In the study the occurrence of non-prevocalic "r" was
analyzed in the phrase "fourth floor". There are two possible occurrences of non-prevocalic
"r" sound in this phrase. The study gave the following results:
38 % of the high-ranking store assistants used no "r"
49 % of the middle-ranking store assistants used no "r"
83 % in the low-ranking store assistants used no "r"
Accents which lack non-prevocalic "r" include a number in the United States and West Indies,
many in England, most in Wales and New Zealand, and all in Australia and South Africa. In
these accents pairs of words like "ma" and "mar" are pronounced in exactly the same way.
This kind of information shows precisely what sort of information we are working with when
we assign a social status to a speaker on the basis of linguistic evidence. It also tells us
something about the social structure of the particular communities (e.g. in both Norwich and
Detroit, the biggest gap is between lower middle class and upper working class - a division
made largely but not entirely on the basis of the difference between manual and non-manual
occupations). It illustrates the point made previously about the idiolect. Although individuals
sometimes use one verb form, and sometimes they use another, the average percentage for
each group falls into a quite predictable pattern.
This also tells us a lot about social-class dialects (they form a continuum; popular stereotypes
of social-class dialects are almost always misleading) and it gives us a great deal of
information about, and insights into, the processes involved in linguistic change—one of the
biggest mysteries there is involving human languages, and one which sociolinguistics has
done much to help us to understand better in the last forty years.
Language and Ethnic Group
Substratum varieties are the languages or varieties spoken by groups or their ancestors
before they became speakers of a certain language.
A good example of this is Yiddish and Italian and their influence of the New York City
English. Therefore, there is the interference of the old language on the new language, for
example, ―Yiddish accent‖ in English. The first generation seems to have led to
hypercorrection of foreign features by the second generation. Another great example of this is
the English of Scotland.
AAVE (African American Vernacular English)
African American Vernacular English is one of the most striking examples of linguistic ethnic
group differentiation. The role of some kind of substratum effect might also be considered in
this example. African American Vernacular English is the nonstandard English spoken by
lower-class African Americans. Another term - Black English had the disadvantage that it
suggested that all Blacks spoke this one variety of English. Therefore, the use of the term
5
‗Vernacular‘ distinguishes those African Americans who do not speak Standard American
English from those who do.
There is a widely spread disagreement regarding the origin of the numerous differences
between African American Vernacular English and other varieties of English. Therefore, there
are two views:
(1) Most features of AAVE are derived historically from the English dialects of the
British Isles.
(2) The ancestors of modern black Americans came from Africa and they were native
speakers of different, mostly West African languages.
The argument goes further to suggest that many, at least, of the characteristics of African
American Vernacular English can be explained by supposing that the first American Blacks
spoke some kind of English Creole.
Grammatical features of AAVE:
1. Many African American Vernacular English speakers do not have -s affix in third-
person singular present-tense forms: he go, it come, she like
This is a form which is also typical of English-based pidgins and, crucially, it is found also in
the English based Caribbean creoles. But it is also a feature of the British English dialects of
East Anglia, including Norwich.
2. There is the absence of the copula (the verb ―to be‖) in the present tense.
She real nice.
They out there.
He not American.
However, Where the copula appears in ‗exposed‘ position, as in "Is she?", it is always present.
Therefore, creolists point out that the English creoles of the Caribbean have the copula
absence and that this is also a feature which does not occur in the English of the British Isles.
3. the use of the form be as a finite verb form („invariant be‟) to indicate ‗habitual
aspect‘
He usually be around.
Sometime she be fighting.
6
This is a verbal contrast which is not possible in Standard English. For example, in Caribbean
creoles, verb aspect, or the distribution of an event through time (whether it is repeated,
continuous, completed, and so on) — tends to be of greater importance than tense, or the
actual location of an event in time. But this sort of habitual-non-habitual distinction is not
unknown in British Isles dialects, although where it does occur it does so in by no means
exactly the same form. In the old-fashioned dialect of Dorset appear some constructions of the
similar kind.
There are, however, two other respects in which the aspectual system of AAVE differs from
that of Standard English (and more closely resembles that of some creoles).
4. AAVE and Standard English have in common a present perfect verb form: "I have
talked", as well as the past perfect form: "I had talked."
However, AAVE has two further forms: “I done talked‖, which has been called
―completive aspect‖, indicating that the action is completed; and ―I been talked”, the
―remote aspect‖, indicating an event that occurred in the remote past.
Completive aspect can be found in certain white dialects, but the remote aspect appears to be
peculiar to African American Vernacular English, although it is not, it must be said,
particularly common even there.
5. AAVE question inversion Rules for question inversion in indirect questions in
African American Vernacular English differ from those in Standard English:
I asked Mary where did she go.
I want to know did he come last night.
6. “Existential it” Existential it occurs where Standard English has there.
It‘s a boy in my class name Joey.
7. “negativized auxiliary preposition” In African American Vernacular English, if a
sentence has a negative indefinite like nobody, nothing, then the negative auxiliary
(doesn‘t, can‘t) can be placed at the beginning of the sentence:
Can‘t nobody do nothing about it.
Wasn‘t nothing wrong with that.
This is pronounced with the statement intonation.
7
Recent investigations support the point of view that differences between African American
Vernacular English and White dialects of American English are the result of relatively recent
independent developments. Shana Poplack and co-workers on the ‗African American
diaspora‘, communities of people who are of African American origin but who have lived for
many generations outside the United States, e.g. small settlements in Nova Scotia, Canada,
and in Samaná in the Dominican Republic. Their speech is supposed to be more conservative
than that of modem African American Vernacular English in the United States and some
typical African American Vernacular English features such as invariant be, are not found in
their speech. An increased knowledge of the grammar of British Isles dialects of English has
led to a comparison of these dialects with conservative forms of African American Vernacular
English. In a number of features African American Vernacular English resembles, or at least
resembled, British Isles dialects. Trudgill's view is that many of the features of African
American Vernacular English must probably be ascribed to the fact that many of the first
Blacks in the United States spoke some kind of English Creole or at least a variety with
creole-like features —the resemblances between African American Vernacular English and
West Indian creoles are at some points too striking to ignore. This, however, does not exclude
the very strong possibility that other features of African American Vernacular English have
been directly inherited from British dialects and that in some cases archaisms lost in white
speech may have been preserved in African American Vernacular English.
The divergence hypothesis
The divergence hypothesis is the suggestion is that African American Vernacular English and
white dialects of English are currently beginning to grow apart. In other words, changes are
taking place in white dialects which are not occurring in AAVE, and vice versa. For example,
sound changes that are occurring in the vowel systems of white speakers in, for example,
Philadelphia — such as the raising of vowels in words like write and type are not occurring in
the English of black speakers in the same city.
African American Vernacular English appears to be undergoing some grammatical changes
which are not affecting white dialects at all. For example, usage of future resultative be done
appears to be a new and increasingly common grammatical device in the speech of younger
AAVE speakers:
I‘ll be done killed that motherfucker if he tries to lay a hand on my kid again.
Sociolinguistics and education
Educational sociolinguistics is the subfield of sociolinguistics dealing with relationships
between language and education. Most research has examined these relationships within
classroom settings, though recent interests in informal education, community-centred
instruction and media/distance education raise interesting questions about language and
education relationships outside of the schools.
8
Classroom-based teaching and learning is heavily dependent on language. Home and school
language and cultural differences are one of the sources of classroom-related educational
problems, and are a topic of great interest for educationally focused sociolinguistics research.
There are differences between language used in the classroom and language used commonly
found in the students‘ homes and communities. There is also a problem of bilingual education
for minority and immigrant children. Differences between classroom language and
home/community language and cultural tradition are one of the most widely cited
explanations for classroom related language difficulties experienced by pupils.
Language and nation
Multilingualism
Societal multilingualism is a widespread phenomenon and is the rule rather than the
exception. There seem to be few countries that are genuinely monolingual. A good example
of such country is Iceland. There are also multilingual societies where many speakers never
become bilingual to any significant degree, for example - Switzerland. In a society where the
minorities are relatively large, the state usually has more than one official language. An
example of thjis is Belgium: Dutch, Flemish and French, as well as Switzerland: German,
French, Italian and Romansch; Finland: Finnish and Swedish. Where the minority is smaller
or less influential, the minority language or languages are unlikely to have official status, and
their speakers, often out of sheer practical necessity, will tend to be bilingual.
Multilingualism and problems for states and individuals or groups of individuals:
There are numerous problems of multilingualism. Members of linguistic minorities have to
acquire proficiency in at least two languages before they can function as full members of the
national community in which they live. There is also a great deal of educational issues.
It is also important to mention here the concept of "lingua franca".
UNESCO defined a lingua franca as ―a language which is used habitually by people whose
mother tongues are different in order to facilitate communication between them‖. There are
several processes that characterize lingua franca including: simplification, mixing and
reduction.
Another term associated with lingua franca is the process of pidginization. A pidgin language
is a lingua franca with no native speakers. It is used in limited-contact situations, for example
in trade and business. Pidgin languages are most likely created in contact situations involving
three or more languages: one ‗dominant‘ language, and at least two ‗non-dominant‘
languages. They are genuine languages with structure and most of the attributes of other
languages. Most of the better-known pidgin languages are the result of travel on the part of
European traders and colonizers. They are typically based on languages like English, French,
Spanish, Portuguese, and Dutch and are located on the main shipping and trading routes.
There are also some indigenous pidgins in Africa, including German-based pidgin, developed
in cities such as Berlin and Frankfurt among workers from Turkey, Greece, Italy, Spain, and
Portugal.
9
English-based pidgins were formerly found in North America, at both ends of the slave trade
in Africa and the Caribbean, in New Zealand and in China.
Tok Pisin (literally 'pidgin talk‗) is probably the most widely spoken pidgin derived from
English. It has official status in Papua New Guinea and is used on the radio, in newspapers
and in schools. It is undergoing quite considerable creolization. A creole is often defined as a
pidgin that has acquired native speakers.
The two important processes that must be underlined, therefore, are pidginization and
creolization.
Pidginization is characterized by simplification, for example in morphology (word structure)
and syntax (grammatical structure), tolerance of considerable of the phonology phonological
variation (pronunciation), reduction in the number of functions (no novel written in a pidgin)
and extensive borrowing of words from mother tongues.
Creolization is characterized by the expansion of the morphology and syntax (for example,
development of relative clauses), regularization of phonology, deliberate increase in the
number of functions in which the language is used, development of a rational and stable
system for increasing vocabulary.
Language and Sex
The sex difference in language became lexicalized. This can be seen in kinship terms,
occupational descriptions etc. to a different extent in different languages. The sex differences
are also very often signaled grammatically (pronouns, articles, adjectives, verb forms).
The obligatory grammatical expressions of one‘s own sex in the languages of the world vary
from one language to another. For example, there are languages where there are no such
obligatory grammatical expressions of one's own sex. These include, for example, English
and Hungarian. Other languages show this by the adjectival gender marking (many Slavic
languages).
Linguistic research has shown that in many societies the speech of men and women differs in
all sorts of ways:
1. phonological differences - Gros Ventre, an American Indian language
2. lexical differences - the Carib Indians in Lesser Antilles.This may be the result of the
mixing of two language group divided on sex lines, as the result of an invasion or due
to the phenomenon of taboo
3. different phonological and morphological features - Some Amerindian languages
(some of the female forms appeared to be older historically than the male forms; older
speakers tended to say that they thought the women‘s variety was better than that used
by men)
10
Gender differences in English
The gender differences that can be observed in the English language are generally much
smaller, less obvious and more subconscious. These differences are mostly phonetic and
phonological, and they are not absolute distinctions, but only statistical tendencies.
Also, there are a number of words and phrases that tend to be sex-bound. Most of these seem
to be exclamations of some sort and taboo may be involved in some way. For example, it is
traditionally more acceptable for men to swear and use taboo words than it is for women.
Besides this, some grammatical differences may also be involved, but these differences are
not always very apparent.
The evidence for gender differences has come from some of the sociolinguistic research
carried out in Britain and America, but there is also evidence from Australia, South Africa and
New Zealand. One extremely striking feature that is the common characteristic of many
speakers of English is that women on average use forms closer to those of the standard variety
or the prestige accent than those used by men, although we cannot predict which form a given
man or woman is going to use on a given occasion. In other words, female speakers of
English tend to use linguistic forms which are considered to be „better‟ than male forms.
A good illustration for this could be the research of multiple negation in Detroit. Higher-class
speakers use fewer instances of non-standard multiple negation (for example: I don‘t want
none) than lower class speakers. Women on average use fewer such forms than men do,
allowing for social class. Women seem to be far more sensitive to the stigmatized nature of
this grammatical feature than men. In Detroit Black speech, women use a far higher
percentage of non-prevocalic /r/, allowing for social class. The study of (ng) variable (walking
or walkin') in Norwich, revealed that women use a higher percentage of ‗better‘ forms than
men. In the study of glottal stop usage in London English, it has been shown that men are
more likely than women to use glottal stops.
Female speakers have been found to use forms considered to be ‗better‘ or more ‗correct‘ than
those used by men. This phenomenon has also been found in many other languages in Europe
and elsewhere. However, in communities where the standard variety is acquired only through
education and/or through contact with outside communities, women who are denied education
and/or travel will obviously not use more standard forms than men. Gender differentiation of
this type is the single most consistent finding to emerge from sociolinguistic work around the
world.
There is no definitive explanation for this phenomenon, but many societies seem to expect a
higher level of adherence to social norms - better behavior - from women than they do from
men. Social pressures to acquire prestige or to appear ‗correct‘ tend to be stronger on women.
Higher-class forms are more statusful or ‗correct‘ than lower-class forms. Therefore, women
employ the higher-class forms.
Using less prestigious nonstandard variants can signal group solidarity and personal identity.
These pressures will tend to be stronger on men because of concepts of masculinity current in
11
the society. Working - class speech culture and connotations of or associations with
masculinity and ‗toughness. Therefore, there are two types of prestige that are important to
mention:
overt prestige (Standard English and the RP accent have high prestige)
covert prestige (lower-class, nonstandard linguistic varieties also have some kind of prestige,
particularly so in the case of men)
Covert prestige can be subconscious and attitudes of this type are not usually overtly
expressed, and depart from the mainstream societal values of schools and other institutions of
which everyone is consciously aware.
In covert prestige, forms belonging to vernacular dialects are positively valued, emphasizing
group solidarity and local identity. This kind of prestige is covert, because it is usually
manifested subconsciously between members of a group, unlike the case of overt prestige,
where the forms to be valued are publicly recommended by powerful social institutions.
Covert prestige is the status of a linguistic form or a speech variety which is publicly
stigmatized in the community but which is recognized as a sign of membership in a particular
social group.
To show this, a research has been conducted in the urban dialect survey of Norwich. A self-
evaluation test has been made to show what informants believed they said to as opposed to
what they actually did say. Words were read aloud to the informants with two or more
different pronunciations, and they were asked to say which of the pronunciations they
normally use themselves. A majority of informants were accurate in their self-reporting, but
the figures for those that were not accurate were revealing. 40 % of the informants claimed to
use lower-status pronunciation, even though they normally do not – ‗under-reporters‘ (half
were men and half women.) 16% were ‗over-reporters‘ – all were women.
Therefore, women tend to over-report themselves as using RECEIVED PRONUNCIATION;
while men tend to under-report themselves (they report themselves as using a lower-class
form more than they normally do).
Women‟s style of speaking:
Women use more descriptive adjectives, fewer profane words, more intensifiers, hedges,
hesitations, hypercorrect grammar, more polite forms. Women are also more indirect in
making requests and expressing opinions. Female speakers more frequently use features that
provide support and encouragement for other speakers, for example ‗minimal responses‘.
There are claims that female speakers use features that make their speech appear tentative and
uncertain, such as ‗hedges‘ that weaken the force of an utterance ( ‗I think maybe, ‗sort of‘,
‗you know‘) and certain types of tag questions.
12
Singular they
The promotion of singular they in formal and standard English is one of the very few
examples of almost instantly successful feminist-inspired language planning, its success
probably being due to the fact that language reform in this instance did not involve the
promotion of a new usage but merely the removal of stigma from an existing one.
The form "He" has traditionally been regarded as the grammatically ‗correct‘ choice in
opposition to singular they; it is characteristic of relatively formal style. The issue of the
choice between he and they has concerned writers on usage for some 200 years, but since this
use of he represents one of the most obvious and central cases of sexism in language, the
matter has received much more widespread attention since the early 1980s in the context of
social changes in the status of women.
In the late 20th century, the feminist movement expressed concern regarding the use of
generic form ―he‖ in the English language. The feminist claim was that such usage contributes
to an assumption that maleness is "standard," and that femaleness is "different". It also
claimed that such use is misogynistic. One response to this was an increase in the use of
generic ―she‖ in academic journal articles from around this time. However, the more common
response has been prescriptive, with many institutions publishing gender neutral style guides,
notably in government, academia and publishing. For example, The Cambridge Guide to
English Usage (2004) expresses several preferences. Generic their provides a gender-free
pronoun, avoiding the exclusive his and the clumsy his/he.
In recent years it has gained greater acceptance in other styles as the use of purportedly sex-
neutral he has declined. It is particularly common with such antecedents as everyone,
someone, no one; indeed its use in examples like No onei felt that theyi had been misled is so
widespread that it can probably be regarded as stylistically neutral. Somewhat more restricted
is its use with antecedents containing common nouns as head:
1) The patient should be told at the outset how much they will be required to pay.
2) But a journalist should not be forced to reveal their sources.
3) A friend of mine has asked me to go over and help them with an assignment.
Example 3 is a rare case where the antecedent is referential: the speaker knows the sex of the
referent but uses they to avoid indicating whether the friend is male or female.
Singular they has two reflexive forms, themselves and themself:
1) Everyone promised to behave themselves.
2) Someone had apparently locked themself in the attic.
Themselves is morphologically marked as plural, and hence creates a number conflict with
the singular antecedent. Such a conflict is of little consequence with everyone as antecedent
since this implies a plural set, but is potentially more problematic with an antecedent like
someone. Examples of the morphologically singular themself are attested in the standard
dialect from the 1970s onwards, but they are very rare and acceptable only to a minority of
13
speakers; the use of this form is, however, likely to increase with the growing acceptance of
they as a singular pronoun.
Among younger speakers today, semantically singular they is extending its scope: some
people use it even with definite NOUN PHRASE antecedents, sidestepping any presumptions
about the sex of the person referred to, as in:
1) You should ask your partner what they think
2) The person I was with said they hated the film.
Political correctness
The question of political Correctness arises when talking about groups of people perceived to
be disadvantaged or oppressed. The most sensitive domains are race, gender, sexual affinity,
ecology, and physical or mental personal development. During the 1980s, an increasing
number of people became concerned to eradicate what they saw to be prejudice (especially
language prejudice) in these areas. Many of the critics were members of progressive or
activist groups (e.g. advocates of minority rights), especially in universities, and thus, as the
movement grew, attracting hardline extremists alongside moderates, it drew down upon itself
the antagonism of conservative academics and journalists. By the 1990s, this hard-line
linguistic orthodoxy was being referred to, pejoratively, as political correctness (PC).
Anyone who used vocabulary held to be 'politically incorrect' risked severe condemnation by
PC activists. Organizations, fearful of public criticism and litigation, went out of their way to
avoid using language which might be construed as offensive. The word black, for example,
was felt to be so sensitive that some banned its use in all possible contexts (including such
instances as blackboard and the black pieces in chess). The generic use of man was widely
attacked. Mentally handicapped people were to become people with learning difficulties.
Disabled people were to be differently abled. Third World countries were to be developing
nations. All but the most beautiful or handsome were aesthetically challenged. An in the
academic literary world there would need to be safeguards against the unhealthy influence
wielded by DWEMs ('Dead White European Males') as Shakespeare, Goethe, and Molière.
In the 1980s, the public use of many expressions in the language for talking about this group
of people was radically constrained by those maintaining a doctrine of political correctness
…. The current respectability of African-American (which dates from the 1860s) has replaced
such forms as Afro-American, Africo-American, Afro (all in evidence from the 1830s),
coloured (preferred in the period after the Civil War), negro (preferred after the 1880s, and
with a capital N some 50 years later), and black/Black which became the preferred form
during the 1960s, and is still the commonest use). Black is now often proscribed, and
language conflicts have grown as people strive to find fresh forms of expression lacking the
pejorative connotations they sense in earlier usage.
14
Language and context
Language varies according to the social characteristics of speakers (social class, ethnic group,
gender) and also according to the social context in which speakers find themselves. A very
important term in this context is verbal repertoire.
Verbal repertoire is the totality of linguistic varieties used in this way by a particular
community of speakers different. Verbal repertoire includes linguistic varieties in different
situations and for different purposes.
A community‘s verbal repertoire may encompass:
- registers
- different styles of the same dialect (e.g. Standard English speakers)
- different dialects of the same language (for example Lowland Scots speakers:
Lowland Scots and Standard English)
- a special case of different dialects of the same language – diglossia: two relatively
standardized varieties in a diglossic relationship (for example, Arabic speakers)
- varieties which are not related - totally different languages
Registers are linguistic varieties linked to particular occupations or topics. For example,
technical registers are typically accompanied by Standard English, but, in principle registers
are independent of dialect.
Styles are varieties of language which differ from one another in terms of formality. Styles
can be ranged on a continuum ranging from the very formal to the very informal. Formality is
a term that is not easy to define; it subsumes very many factors: situation, social familiarity,
kinship-relationship, politeness, seriousnes and many other factors. However, most people
have a good idea of the relative formality and informality of particular linguistic variants in
their own language. Styles in English are mostly characterized by vocabulary differences
(tired - fatigued), but also by grammatical differences (the passive voice is more frequent in
formal styles in English), and differences in pronunciation.
Slang is a vocabulary which is at the extremely informal end of the continuum. The type of
language referred to as slang is more than a level of formality. Slang is, rather, first and
foremost, group language. This restriction – at least in its origins – is the key feature of slang.
That is, slang has an extremely important social function to fulfill with regard to the groups
that create it: it helps to establish solidarity and is associated with group identity. An elderly
white American woman who talks about dissing (‗to show disrespect toward someone‘) may
be using (relatively) recent slang, but she is violating numerous restrictions on its use, chief
among which is that this is typical of young black males. While slang usage such as this may
drift upward into the language of the more powerful and outward into that of out-group users,
this is far from automatic; and by the time this happens, the original group will probably have
long since turned to a different expression. The fact that slang is typically connected with the
subcultures of youth is perhaps what leads many people to see it as informal, colloquial,
15
careless, or sloppy, for that is how many people evaluate young people‘s language, the
language of the (as yet) weak, the (as yet) outsiders.
Dialects - In the anglophone world, it is rather unusual for nonstandard dialects to occur in
formal situations.
The old man was bloody knackered after his long trip (very informal vocabulary, but
no nonstandard grammatical forms)
Father were somewhat fatigued after his lengthy journey. (a formal style, but a
nonstandard dialect, e.g. the grammatical form were)
There is no necessary connection between style and dialect. Similarly, register and style are
also in principle independent. In some languages styles may be rather more inflexible than in
English.
Pronunciation (phonological styles)
Many English speakers change their pronunciation from situation to situation depending on
formality. There were numerous problems regarding to how to investigate these changes.
W. Labov and the New York study used, as a controlling factor, the amount of attention paid
to speech at any time during the interview. In William Labov's research there were four
different styles of pronunciation elicited by the informants:
1. word-list style
2. reading-passage style, formality
3. formal speech
4. informal, casual speech
It has been concluded that speakers of all classes increase the percentage of high-status forms
in their speech in the same context. All classes change their pronunciation in exactly the same
direction. The only exception was the the lower middle class in word-list style. They used
more /r/ than the highest class. The lower middle class went beyond the normal pattern of
class differentiation in the style where most attention is paid to speech. They overdo it. This
suggests that they are, as the second highest class, linguistically and presumably socially
somewhat insecure and pay more attention to speech than other classes. Prestige features
appear to have more importance for them than for other class groups. It seems probable that
they lead the way in introducing forms of this type to the rest of the community, more so than
the highest class.
T-V usage and formality
Most European (and many other) languages distinguish, especially in the singular, between a
polite and a familiar second-person pronoun.
16
Stage 1: original situation, only singular and plural distinguished
Stage 2: introduction of the power factor, non-reciprocal usage between (c) and (d)
Stage 3: introduction of the solidarity factor (the usage generalized to symbolize all
types of social difference and distance), points of conflict of the two factors
Stage 4: resolution of the conflict in favour of the solidarity factor (reciprocal usage)
Solidarity has today become the major factor involved, presumably because of the gradual
rise of democratic egalitarian ideology. There are still some interesting differences between
language communities in T- and V-usage. These differences are also often linked to usage of
first names as opposed to family names as address forms. Roger Brown and Albert Gilman
investigated the extent of T- and Vusage by students from different countries. Pronoun usage
is now always reciprocal in relationships such as father-son, customer-waiter, boss-clerk in
modern French, German or Italian (formerly this was not the case).Afrikaans speakers in
South Africa made several non-reciprocal power-coded distinctions in these situations (‗less
developed egalitarian ethic‘ on the part of Afrikaans speakers). French and Italian speakers
are more likely to use T to acquaintances than German speakers.German speakers are more
likely to use T to distant relations. Norwegian schoolchildren are more likely than Dutch or
German pupils to use T to their teachers (some Norwegian pupils also address their teachers
by their first names).Italians generally use more T than the French, who in turn use more T
than the Germans.Between individuals: other things being equal, politically more
conservative speakers tended to use fewer T forms than others.
In some linguistic communities it is not only names or address pronouns that are involved. In
both Japanese and Korean, there is grammatical and lexical variation depending on the
relationship between the two people involved, their relative statuses. Korean speaker may
have to choose one out of six different verb suffixes, depending on their relationship to the
person addressed
Different dialects
In some language communities situational switching must take place between different
dialects. One dialect will occur in formal situations, and another in informal situations. A
good example of this is Lowland Scots dialects and Standard English. The difference
between the varieties involved in the switching is much greater. Co-occurrence restrictions are
involved: it is not usual to use Lowland Scots forms when speaking Standard English, or vice
versa, whereas other English speakers switch from one variety of their vernacular to another,
Scots dialect speakers switch from their own vernacular to that of others —a linguistic variety
that they normally learn only at school. There is thus probably no question, in the case of
many Scots speakers, of being able to shift along a scale of formality.
17
Diglossia
Diglossia is a kind of language standardization where two distinct varieties of a language exist
side by side throughout the speech community. Diglossia, therefore, is a situation in which
two dialects or languages are used by a single language community. In addition to the
community's every day or vernacular language variety (labeled "L" or "low" variety), a
second, highly codified variety (labeled "H" or "high") is used in certain situations such as
literature, formal education, or other specific settings, but not used for ordinary conversation.
There are differences between the high and low varieties in vocabulary, grammar and
phonology. The high variety is typically used in sermons, formal letters, political speeches,
university lectures, news broadcasts, newspaper editorials, and ‗high‘ poetry. The low variety
is used in conversation with family and friends, radio serials, political and academic
discussions, political cartoons, and ‗folk‘ literature. An example of diglossia can be found in
Arabic language. The high variety has no native speakers and in all cases has to be learnt as a
school language (typically written language or, if spoken language is involved - situations
where preparation is possible). When an individual attempts to use the high variety in
everyday speech it is felt to be artificial, pedantic, snobbish or reactionary. The high variety
has greater prestige than the low; often regarded as more beautiful, even if it is less
intelligible. In Arabic, for instance, it has been considered good form by some to write an
editorial or poem containing rare or old-fashioned expressions which no one can understand
without consulting a dictionary. Greek was a diglossic language until the 1970s with
Katharevousa as a high variety Dhimotiki that resembled the modern spoken language.
Katharevousa now is almost completely disappeared (since the restoration of democracy).
Different languages
In many communities the verbal repertoire may contain varieties which are not related (totally
different languages). Luxembourg (German and French), language-switching will take place
according to the social situation, like style or dialect switching. A similar situation is also
found in Paraguay, with Spanish and Guarani, an indigenous Indian language. Guarani is the
mother tongue of approximately 88 % of the population, and Spanish of only 6 %. 92% of the
population knows Guarani, and most speakers continue to use it after learning Spanish. Both
of these languages are official languages. Many features of the social situation seem to be
involved in determining which language is to be used. For example, Spanish is not really
necessary in the countryside and it is used in speaking to the village schoolteacher, and is
taught and used in school. If the occasion, or the relationship between the participants, is a
formal one, then the language used is Spanish. If it is informal, then other factors come into
play, notably the degree of intimacy. If the relationship between speakers is not an intimate
one, then Spanish is used (it is said that courting couples begin in Spanish, for example). But
if the relationship is an intimate than the language used will depend on the topic of
conversation.
18
Language and social interaction
1) style-shifting
2) dialect-switching,
3) diglossia
4) language-switching
Speakers use different kinds of switching for their own purposes: to manipulate or influence
or define the situation as they wish, and to convey nuances of meaning and personal intention.
A very important widespread phenomenon which must be mentioned is code-switching – it
enables signaling two identities at once.
The term code in sociolinguistics is mainly used as a neutral label for any system of
communication involving language – and which avoids sociolinguists having to commit
themselves to such terms as dialect, language or variety, which have a special status in their
theories. The linguistic behavior referred to as code-switching (sometimes code-shifting or,
within a language, style shifting), for example, can be illustrated by the switch bilingual or
bidialectal speakers may make (depending on who they are talking to, or here they are)
between standard and regional forms of English, between Welsh and English in parts of
Wales, or between occupational and domestic varieties. Code-mixing involves the transfer of
linguistic elements from one language into another: a sentence begins in one language, and
then makes use of words or grammatical features belonging to another. Such mixed forms of
language are often labeled with a hybrid name, such as (in the case of English) Spanglish,
Franglais and Singlish (Singaporean English), and attract attitudes ranging from enthusiastic
community support (as an expression of local identity) to outright condemnation (from some
speakers of the related standard languages). Several sociologists and sociolinguists have given
‗code‘ a more restricted definition.
,
19
Varieties of English
1. AUSTRALIAN ENGLISH
Pronunciation:
1. /i:/ rather than /I/ in very, many
like south-of-England non-RP accents
2. /ǝ/ rather than /I/ in unstressed syllables (horses, honest)
like south-of-England non-RP accents but to a much greater extent
3. The Weak Vowel Merger – rabbit and abbot rhyme
4. AusEng has /ɑ:/ in laugh, path, grass but it often differs from RP in having /æ/ in
dance, sample, branch
5. No RP smoothing of /ɑuǝ/ -> /ɑ:/
6. Non-rhotic with linking and intrusive /r/
7. /l/ is darker than in RP
8. Front vowels tend to be closer than in RP
9. Some diphthongs are wider
10. Diphthongs tend to be slower
11. /ɑ:/ is a very front [a:]
12. Word final /ǝ/ is often very open /ʁ/ - ever [evʁ]
13. The /ʊ/ vowel usually received much more lip rounding
14. Monday is pronounced with /eI/ rather than RP /I/
15. “memo” is pronounced as /mI: moʊ/
Grammatical features and Usage:
1. Shall/Should with 1st person subjects are not usual as in EngEng. Will/Would are used
instead.
2. Usedn’t – more usual in AusEng than in EngEng
He usedn‟t to go. (AusEng)
He did not use to go; He used not to go (EngEng)
3. GOT used more than have
I‟ve got a new car. (AusEng)
I have a new car. (EngEng)
4. Collective nouns take singular verbs.
The government has made a mistake. (AusEng)
The government have made a mistake. (EngEng)
5. She can be used to refer to inanimate nouns.
She‟s a stinker today. (the weather)
6. “Thanks” rather than ―please” in requests
Can I have a cup of coffee, thanks?
7. Abbreviation of nouns ending in /i:/
truckie, tinnie
20
2. NEW ZEALAND ENGLISH
Pronunciation:
1. /i:/ rather than /I/ in very, many
2. /ǝ/ rather than /I/ in naked
3. No RP smoothing of /ɑuǝ/ -> /ɑ:/
4. Non-rhotic accent
5. /l/ is dark in all positions (may be pronounced with lip rounding)
6. Unlike in AusEng, the /ʊ/ vowel does not receive lip rounding
7. /ɑ:/ is a very front [a:]
8. Some diphthongs are wider than in RP
9. Diphthongs tend to be slower than in RP
10. / Iǝ/ and /ɛǝ/ tend to merge - bear and beer sound the same
11. /ʍ/ is preserved in which
Grammatical features and Usage:
1. Shall/Should with 1st person subjects are not usual as in EngEng. Will/Would are used
instead.
2. Collective nouns take singular verbs.
The team is playing badly. (NZEng)
3. in the weekend (NZEng)
at the weekend (EngEng)
on the weekend (NAmEng)
4. “Thanks” rather than ―please” in requests
Can I have a cup of coffee, thanks?
5. Abbreviation of forms ending in in /i:/ - postie, boatie
Lexis:
lolly – sweet
an identity – character
to flat – to live in a shared flat
a Kiwi – a New Zealander
a bach – cabin, cottage
21
3. WELSH ENGLISH
Pronunciation:
1. Unstressed ortographic “a” tends to be /æ/
2. Unstressed ortographic “o” tends to be /ɒ/
3. tune, music are pronounced as /tIʊn/, /mIʊzik/
4. Non-rhotic with intrusive and linking /r/
5. /l/ is clear in all positions
6. The Welsh consonants [ɬ] and [x] occur in place names and loan words from
Welsh
[ɬ] – a voiceless lateral fricative
[x] – a voiceless velar fricative
Grammatical features and Usage:
1. Universal tag question “isn‟t it?‖ invariable for person, tense or auxiliary
You are going now, isn‟t it?
2. “Will” for “will be”
Is he ready? No, but he will in a minute.
3. Predicate object inversion (for emphasis)
He is coming home tomorrow. (EngEng)
[Coming home tomorrow] he is. (WEng)
4. Negative “too”
I can‟t drive a car, too. (WEng)
I can‟t drive a car, either. (EngEng)
5. Adjective and adverb reduplication
It was high, high. (WEng)
It was very high. (EngEng)
22
4. NORTH AMERICAN ENGLISH
Pronunciation:
1. NAmEng /ɑ/ in pot, top, nod (RP /ɒ/)
2. NAmEng /ɑ/ in words that seem to be foreign: Milan, Datsun (RP /æ/)
3. Foreign words spelled with “o” tend to have /oʊ/ Bogota, Carlos
4. /i:/ rather than /I/ in very, many
5. Rhotic-accent
6. /l/ is dark in all positions
7. No glottal reinforcement
8. Intervocalic /t/ is normally a vocalic flap [d]
9. Reduction of /lj/ to /j/ (million)
Grammatical features and Usage:
1. A number of irregular verbs became regularized
burn-burned, learn – learned, spell – spelled
2. Derivational affixes more productive
-ize, -ify
3. Shall is rarely used except in formal styles / replaced with will
4. dare/need rarely used as auxiliaries but as lexical verbs
The Northern Cities Chain Shift :
/ɛ/ retracting and becoming a more central vowel: best may sound as bust
/æ/ lengthening and moving upwards: speakers from other accents may
misinterpret Ann as Ian
/ɑ/ mowing forwards: speakers from other accents may misinterpret John as Jan.
23
5. SCOTTISH ENGLISH
Pronunciation:
1. A rhotic accent
2. /l/ dark in all positions
3. the velar fricative /x/ occurs in ScotEng words such as loch
4. preserved the distinction between /ʍ/ and /w/ (which, witch)
5. Initial /p/, /t/, /k/ are often unaspirated
6. ScotEng vowels are monophtongs. Exceptions : /aI/ /aƱ/ /oI/
7. All vowels are approximately of the same length
NO RP DISTINCTION BETWEEN /æ/ and /ɑ:/
NO RP DISTINCTION BETWEEN /ʊ/ and /u:/
NO RP DISTINCTION BETWEEN /ɒ/ and /o:/
Grammatical features and Usage:
1. HAVE does not require a DO support
Have you coffee with breakfast?
2. No NOT contraction
Is he not going?
Did you not see it?
3. NEED is used as a full/lexical verb, like in US English
I don‟t need to do that.
4. NEED can occur with a passive participle as its object
My hair needs washed.
5. NEED/WANT can be used in the progressive
I‟m needing a cup of tea.
Lexis:
aye – yes
folk– people
wee – small
How are you keeping?/ How are you?
That‟s me away. / I am going now.
To go the messages . / To go shopping
24
6. SOUTHERN IRISH ENGLISH
Pronunciation:
1. A rhotic accent
2. /l/ CLEAR in all positions
3. preserved the distinction between /ʍ/ and /w/ (which, witch)
4. distinctive SIrEng stress placement in some words
5. the final /p/, /t/, /k/ are often aspirated, no glottal stop usage
6. /u:/ instead of /ʊ/ in book, rook, cook
7. /o:/ instead of /ɒ/ in some words
Grammatical features and Usage:
1. SHALL is relative rare / WILL is used
2. Progressive verb forms are more frequent (they occur even with stative verbs)
I‟m seeing it very well.
3. SIMPLE PAST is used where PAST PERFECT should be used in other varieties
4. Loan translation (calque) from Irish is usual. (for example, adverb “after”)
5. LET can be used with 2nd
person imperative
Let you stay here. (SIrEng)
Stay here. (EngEng)
6. The less frequent use of Yes and No. Ellipted phrases are used instead.
Q: Are you going? A: I am.
Q: Is it time? A: It is.
25
7. INDIAN ENGLISH
Pronunciation:
1. Non-rhotic accent (educated speakers)
2. /p/, /t/, /k/ are unaspirated
3. word-initial /sk/, /st/ or /sp/ tend to receive a preceding /i/: speak /ispi:k/.
4. /ei/ and /ou/ tend to be monophtongal /e:/ and /o:/
5. Considerable differences in stress, rhythm and intonation
Grammatical features and Usage:
1. Pluralization of many EngEng mass nouns
fruits, furnitures
2. Extended usage of compound formation
chalk piece (a piece of chalk)
key-bunch (a bunch of keys)
3. Different usage of prepositions
4. The use of could and would instead of can and will. The past forms are thought to
be more tentative.
5. The use of “isn’t it?” as a universal tag question.
6. A non-English use of YES/NO in answering questions
Q: Hasn‟t he come yet?
A: Yes. He hasn‟t come home yet.
Lexis:
- Many borrowings from Indian languages. ―lakh‖-one hundred thousand
- Alternation of meaning of EngEng words:
hotel – restaurant, café
biodata – CV
26
8. SINGAPOREAN ENGLISH
Pronunciation:
1. Non-rhotic accent, lacks linking and intrusive /r/
2. Word-final consonants tend to be voiceless
3. All word-final consonants can be realized as /ʡ/
4. /0/ and /đ/ merged with /t/ and /d/
Grammatical features and Usage:
1. Mass nouns usually treated as countable
fruits, furnitures
2. The use of “is it? / isn’t it?” as an invariable tag question
3. The use of “can or not?” as an interrogative tag
She wants to go. Can or not?
4. The rare use of indefinite article
He is teacher.
5. The use of the form “lah” as a feature of informality and solidarity
Please lah come to the party.
OK lah.
