Chapter 8 Sociolinguistics

Instructor:

School of Foreign Languages, Southwest University

Warm-up Question

1. What do you think of the following sentences: 哪款 AOC，卖到了 VDP？ 我今天早上吃了一个 apple. 2. In the recent CPPCC (2010), some members of the

11th CPPCC National Committee in Beijing propose that we should have law passed against the invasion of English into the Chinese language. What do you think of it?

3. Do you think that it is necessary to promote putonghua in every aspect of our social life?

1. Introduction: What is sociolinguistics?

When we study language in relation to society, it is called sociolinguistics.

In sociolinguistics we are interested in how social factors influence the structure and use of language.

It is the field that studies the relations between language and society, between the uses of language and the social structures in which the users of language live.

It is also a field of study that assumes that human society is made up of many related patterns and behaviors, some of which are linguistic.

Discussion Questions:

In what way does language interrelate with society?

How can language inform you of any information about the social backgrounds of the user?

2. Language varieties

Language varieties are related to region, social class, educational background, and the degree of formality of a situation in which language is used.

Such varieties of language include standard language, dialects, register, pidgins, creoles, and so on.

2.1 Standard language

Standard language, also termed as standard variety or standard dialect, is the variety of a language which has the highest status in a community or nation and which is usually based on the speech and writing of educated native speakers of the language.

For example: In China, the standard language is putonghua. The standard language of British English is Stand

ard British English. And the standard language of American English is

known as Standard American English (SAE) .

2.2 Dialects

A variety of a language used recognizably in a specific region or by a specific social class is called a dialect.

A dialect is not necessarily less complete, less logical, less language than a language.

It is a variation of language different enough to be classed as a separate entity, but not different enough to be classed as a separate language.

The study of dialects is called dialectology.

Dialects can be categorized into the following types:

Regional/geographical dialects Temporal dialects Social dialects or sociolects Idiolects

Regional/geographical dialects: varieties of a language spoken in a geographical a

rea, such as Cockney dialect, and Yorkshire dialect in Britain.

A regional dialect carries a lot of information about the speaker.

In some Chinese films, Mao Zedong speaks Hunan dialect, which makes the story more authentic with a special flavour.

Temporal dialects varieties of a language used at particular

stages in its historical development. There are two major temporal dialects in

Chinese — classical Chinese and modern Chinese.

In English, there are marked differences between Old English and Middle English, and between Middle English and Modern English.

Social dialects or sociolects varieties of a language used by people belo

nging to particular social classes Sociolects may be categorized as high or lo

w in status as illustrated by the following in English

For example: (1) He and I were going there. (higher soci

olect) (2) ’Im ’n me was goin’ there. (lower s

ociolect)

Idiolects: varieties of a language used by

individual speakers, with peculiarities of pronunciation, grammar and vocabulary

Each individual in a speech community speaks in a characteristically individual way and makes special choice of words to express his thoughts.

Idiolects underscore the personal peculiarities.

When we speak of “Shakespeare’s language” or “Lu Xun’s language” we are referring to their idiolects respectively.

Discussion question:

What is the possible relationship between dialects and social status of the language user?

2.3 Register

Most speakers of a language speak one way with friends, another on a job interview or presenting a report in class, another talking to small children, still another with their parents.

These varieties classified according to use are called registers.

Registers can differ in vocabulary, phonology, grammar, and semantics.

Registers vary along certain dimensions.

For example, people generally speak (and write) in quite different ways in formal and informal situations.

Note that the use of an inappropriate register is one source of humour in English:

(3) Scintillate, scintillate, globule lucific, Fain would I fathom thy nature specific. (4) Twinkle, twinkle, little star, How I wonder what you are.

In the above examples, (3) seems amusing because it is a formal style used to translate a rhyme (4) which is associated with an informal nursery setting.

Many linguists have tried to work out theories to describe the relationship between social variables and linguistic features.

A well-known version of these theories is M. A. K. Halliday’s register theory.

In Halliday’s systemic functional grammar, the term register is regarded as specifically opposed to varieties of language defined according to the characteristics of the users (e.g. their regional dialect), and is determined by three factors:

field of discourse, mode of discourse tenor of discourse.

The field of discourse refers to what is happening, including what is being talked about,

e.g. the fields of linguistics, religion, and advertising.

The mode of discourse refers to the medium of language activity which determines the role played by the language in a situation,

e.g. speech vs. writing.

The tenor of discourse refers to the relations among the participants in a language activity, especially the level of formality they adopt,

e.g. colloquial, or formal English. For example, a lecture on linguistics in a

school of foreign languages can be analyzed as follows:

Field: linguistics Mode: oral (academic lecturing) Tenor: participants (teacher-students)

2.4 Pidgins and creoles

A pidgin is a variety of a language that is not a native language of anyone, but is learned on contact situations such as trading.

The process by which a pidgin develops is called pidginization.

A pidgin is usually based on one language, though it soon takes on substances of other languages.

For example, Tok Pisin is based on English, and many of the words sound somewhat like English ones:

(5) Mi go long taun. (I go/went to the town.) (6) Yu wokabaut long rot. (You walk/ walked alo

ng the road.) A pidgin usually has a limited vocabulary and ve

ry reduced grammatical structure which may expand when it is used over a long time or for many purposes.

When a pidgin develops beyond its role as a trade language and becomes the first language of a social community, it becomes a creole.

The process of by which a pidgin becomes a creole is called creolization.

Creoles have large numbers of native speakers and are not restricted at all in their uses.

For example: A French-based creole is spoken by the majority o

f the population in Haiti, and English-based creoles are used in Jamaica an

d Sierra Leone.

Once a creole is in existence, it may (i) continue almost without change, as app

ears to be the case for Haitian creole; (ii) become extinct; (iii) evolve further into a normal language; (iv) gradually merge with its base language

(e.g. the Standard English) through decreolization.

2.5 Language planning

The importance of language can never be overstated, because

it is central to social life; it is a ladder to power and influence; and it is a symbol for social status and

ethnic identity.

It is for this very reason that governments carefully examine all the languages and dialects in the country and decide which is the standard, official language or languages and specify their scope of use.

They also make plans for the regional use and/or development of other languages and dialects.

This is now called language planning or language engineering.

Language planning may involve two aspects:

status planning corpus planning.

Status planning changes the function of a language or a variety of a language and the right of those who use it.

Corpus planning seeks to develop a variety of language or a language, usually to standardize it, that is, to provide it with the means for serving most language functions in society.

Corpus planning may involve such matters as the development of a writing system, new sources of vocabulary, dictionaries, and a literature and the deliberate cultivation of new uses so that the language may extend its use into such areas as government, education, law and trade.

Our central government has helped many minority languages in corpus planning.

Discussion questions:

What is the relationship between standard language and nonstandard language?

What examples of language planning do you know? What effect do they have?

3. Choosing a code

3.1 Diglossia Diglossia refers to the situation in which wi

th a handful of languages, two very different varieties of the same language are used, side by side, for two different sets of functions.

Usually, the more standard variety is called the High variety (H) or H-variety, the other is called the Low variety or L-variety.

The High variety is learnt in school, tends to be used in sermons, political speeches, lectures, in the media, and in poetry and letters; and as a result it has greater social prestige.

The Low variety is used in family conversations, and other relatively informal contexts.

Diglossia used to occur in China when classical Chinese (文言文 ) and its spoken form (白话文 ) co-existed and their social functions were clearly distinguished, with the former as the H-variety and the latter the L-variety.

3.2 Bilingualism and multilingualism Bilingualism refers to a situation

where two languages are used by an individual or by a group of speakers.

Canada, for example, is an officially bilingual country, with both French and English as official languages

Two sub-categories of bilingualism can be identified:

horizontal bilingualism: If the languages spoken in a bilingual society have equal status in the official, cultural, and family life of the society;

diagonal bilingualism: if only one language has official standard status

Multilingualism refers to a situation where three or more languages are used by an individual or by a group of speakers such as the inhabitants of a particular region or a nation.

Discussion questions:

What is the difference between bilingualism and diglossia?

3.3 Code-switching Bilinguals often switch between their

two languages or language varieties in the middle of a conversation. This phenomenon is called code-switching.

It can take place between or even within sentences, involving phrases or words or even parts of words.

There are two major kinds of code-switching:

situational code-switching metaphorical code-switching

Situational code-switching occurs when the language used changes according to the situation in which the participants find themselves.

They speak one language in one situation and another in a different one.

No topic change is involved.

Metaphorical code-switching takes place when a change in topic requires a change in the language used we have.

It has been found speakers bilingual in Swahili and English would use Swahili when talking about education and English when talking about racial prejudice.

Discussion questions:

Do you know any examples of code-switching?

Can you summarize the possible reasons for code-switching?

4. Linguistic taboos and euphemisms

In our daily life, our attitudes towards something may be so strong that we are reluctant to refer to them directly.

Some words are rarely used in formal contexts because they are socially unacceptable in such contexts.

A word that we are reluctant to use may be called a taboo word.

A more acceptable substitute of a taboo word may be called a euphemism.

A euphemism is a polite or more pleasant word or expression you use instead of a more direct one in order to avoid upsetting others.

In English, for example, there are many ways to talk about death and dying:

E.g. to pass away, to expire, to be no more, to rest in peace, etc.

The source for euphemisms is the power of the connotations and associations that a word or expression carries.

It is accepted because it is more indirect and less unpleasant.

However, when it is used too often or for too long, it becomes direct and therefore loses its euphemistic function.

For discusison What is the possible negative effect of

excessive use of euphemism?

5. Language and gender

The study of language in relation to gender has two main focuses:

First, it has been observed by many linguists that men and women speak differently;

secondly, it has been observed by many feminists and by some linguists that men and women are spoken about differently, and it is often claimed that the language is discriminatory against women.

In contemporary English, many marked differences between male and female speech have been reported.

For example, in the same gender pairs having conversations, women generally discuss their personal feelings more than men. Men seem to prefer non-personal topics such as sports and news.

Language reflects sexism in society. Language itself is not sexist, but it can encode sexist attitudes.

Dictionaries often give cues to social attitudes.

In the 1969 edition of the American Heritage Dictionary, examples used to illustrate the meaning of words include “manly courage” and “masculine charm”. Women do not fare as well, as exemplified by “womanish tears” and “feminine wiles”.

One striking fact about the asymmetry between male and female terms in many languages is that when there are male/female pairs, the male form for the most part is unmarked and the female term is created by adding a bound morpheme or by compounding.

E.g. prince/princess, author/authoress, count/countess, actor/actress, host/hostess, poet/poetess, hero/heroine, heir/heiress.

Discussion question:

Can you list Chinese examples that may reflect sexism in society?