Sociolinguistics Sociolinguistics is the study of the effect of a ny and all aspects of society, including cultural norms, expectations, and context, on the way language is used. It also studies how lects differ between groups separated by certain social variables , e.g., ethnicity, religion, economic status, gender, level of education, etc., and how creation and adherence to these rules i s used to categorize individuals in social classor socio-economic classes. As the usage of a language varies from place to place (dialect), language usage varies among social classes, and it is these sociolects that sociolinguistics studies. For example, a sociolinguist might determine through study of social attitudes that Black English Vernacular would not be considered appropriate language use in a b usiness or professional setting; he or she might also study the grammar, phonetics, vocabulary, and other aspects of this sociolect much as a dialectologist would study the same for a regional dialect. The study of language variation is concerned with social constraints determining language in its contextual environment . Code-switching Code-switching is the term given to the the use of different varieties of language language in different social situations. William Labov is often regarded as the founder of the study of sociolinguistics. Sociolinguistics differs from sociology of language in that the focus of sociolinguistics is the e ffect of the society on the language, while the latter's focus is on the language's effect on the society.
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Sociolinguistic variables Differences according to class Differences according to ethnic group Differences according to geography Differences according to gender 5.1 Minimal responses o 5.2 Questions o 5.3 Turn-taking o o 5.4 Changing the topic of conversation o 5.5 Self-disclosure 5.6 Verbal aggression o 5.7 Listening and attentiveness o 5.8 Dominance versus subjection o 5.9 Politeness o 5.10 Complimentary language o Differences according to nation References Further reading See also
Sociolinguistic variables Studies in the field of sociolinguistics typically take a sample pop ulation and interview them, assessing the realisation of certain sociolinguistic variables. Labov specifies the ideal sociolinguistic variable to
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be high in frequency, have a certain immunity from conscious suppression, be an integral part of larger structures, and be easily quantified on a linear scale.
Phonetic variables tend to meet these criteria and are often used, as are grammatical variables and, more rarely, lexical variables. Examples for phonetic variables are: the frequency of the Glottal stop, the height or backness of a Vowelor the realisation of word-endings. An exa mple for grammatical variables is the frequency of Double negative.
Differences
according to class
Image:Sociolinguistics dialect variation.svg The existence of differences in language between social classescan be illustrated by the following table: Speaker
... Speaker
1
2
I ain't done nothing
... I haven't done anything
I done it yesterday
... I did it yesterday
It weren't me that done it ... I didn't do it Any native speaker of English would immediately be ab le to guess that speaker 1 was likely of a lower social class than speaker 2. The differences in grammar between the two examples of speech is referred to as differences between social class dialects. It is also notable that the closer to standard English a dialect gets, the less the lexicon varies by region, and conversely.
Differences
according to ethnic group
Differences
according to geography
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article: Geolinguistics
Differences
according to gender
Minimal responses One of the ways in which the communicative competence of men and women differ is in their use of minimal responses, i.e., paralinguisticfeatures such as ?mhm? and ?yeah?, which is behaviour associated with collaborative language use. Men, on the other hand, generally use them less frequently and w here they do, it is usually to show agreement, as Zimmerman and West?s ( 1977) study of turn-taking in conversation indicates.
Questions Men and women differ in their use of q uestions in conversations. For men, a question is usually a genuine request for information whereas with women it can often be a rhetorical means o f engaging the other?s conversational contribution or of acquiring attention from others conversationally involved, techniques associated with a collaborative approach to language use (Barnes, 197 1). Therefore women use questions more frequently (Todd, 1983).
Turn-taking As the work of DeFrancisco ( 1991) shows, female linguistic behaviour characteristically encompasses a desire to take turns in conversation with others, which is opposed to men?s tende ncy towards centring on their own point or remaining silent when presented with such implicit offers o f conversational turn-taking as are provided by hedgessuch as "y? know" and "isn?t it". This desire f or turn-taking gives rise to complex forms of interaction in relation to the more regimented f orm of turn-taking commonly exhibited by men (Sacks et al., 1974).
Changing the topic of conversation According to Dorval (1990), in his study of same-sex frie nd interaction, males tend to change subject more frequently than females. This difference may well be at the root of the archaic conception that women chatter and talk too much, and may still trigger the same thinking in some males. In this way lowered estimation of women may arise. Incidentally, this androcentric attitude of women as chatterers arguably arose from the idea that any female conversation was too much talking according to the patriarchal consideration of silence as a womanly virtue common to many cultures.
Self-disclosure Female tendencies toward self-disclosure, i.e., sharing their problems and experiences with others, o ften to offer sympathy (Tannen, 1991:49), contrasts with male tendencies to non-self disclosure and professing advice when confronted with another?s problems.
Verbal aggression Men tend to be more verbally aggressive in conversing (Labov, 1972), frequently using threats, profanities, yelling and name-calling. Women, on the whole, deem t his to disrupt the flow of conversation and not (Eder?s 1990) as a means of upholding o ne?s hierarchical status in the conversation. Incidentally, where women swear, it is usually to demonstrate to others what is normal behaviour for them ( Eder, 1990).
Listening and attentiveness It appears that women attach more weight than men to the importance of li steningin conversation, with its connotations of power to the listener as confidant(e) of the speaker . This attachment of import by women to listening is inferred by women?s normally lower rate of interruption ² i.e., disrupting the flow of conversation with a topic unrelated to the previous one (Fishman, 1980) ² and by their largely i ncreased use of minimal responses in relation to men (Zi mmerman and West, 1975). Men, however, interrupt far more frequently with non-related topics, especially in the mixed sex setting (Zimmerman and West, 1975) and, far from rendering a female speaker's responses minimal, are apt to g reet her conversational spotlights with silence, as the work of DeFrancisco ( 1991) demonstrates. All of this suggests that men see conversation as a means by which to draw attention to themselves, either by interruption or by que stionably undermining what the woman has to say by non-paralinguistic response.
Dominance
versus subjection
This in turn suggests a dichotomy between a male desire fo r conversational dominance - noted by LeetPellegrini (1980) with reference to male expert s speaking more verbosely than their female counterparts ? and a female aspiration to group conversational participation. One corollary of this is, according to Coates (1993: 202), that males are afforded more attention in t he context of the classroom and that this can lead to their gaining more attention in scientific and technical subjects, which in turn can lead to their achieving better success in those areas, ultimately leading to their having more power in a technocratic society. However, women have, on average, higher verbal intelligence than men (Eysenck, 1966: 4).
Politeness Politeness in speech is described (Brown and Levinson, 1978) in terms of positive and negative face: respectively, the idea of pandering to the other?s desire to be liked and admired and not to suffer imposition. Both forms, according to Brown?s study of the Tzeltal language ( 1980), are used more frequently by women whether in mixed or s ingle-sex pairs, suggesting for Brown a greater sensitivity in women than have men to the face needs of others. In short, women are to all intents and purposes largely politer than men. However, negative face politeness can be pote ntially viewed as weak language because of its associated hedgesand tag questions, a view propounded by O?Barr and Atkins ( 1980) in their work on courtroom interaction.
Complimentary language Compliments are closely linked to politeness in that, as Coates be lieves (1983), they cater for positive face needs. Yet, because they do not account for negative face needs, they c an be consternating for those not wishing to be imposed upon, especially where t his is in a mixed-sex setting. Nevertheless, an increased use of compliments by a women in relation to me n (Holmes, 1982) could be held by some men to be indicative of her supposed need for assurance, which may be interpreted as a sign o f weakness, resulting in a poorer opinion of her.
Language functions Using a language as a primary means of communicating our thoughts is so natural for many people that it is often difficult to realize what in fact are language functions. Some of the roles of language are so mundane that they are hardly ever noticed, others are very elevated, or even abstract. Due to their diversity the functions of language might be divided into two categories: micro functions which refer to specific individual uses, and macro functions which serve more overall aims. MICRO FUNCTIONS: y
Physiological function (releasing physical and nervous energy)
Although
it might be striking this use of language is fairly common. It is easily recognizable when devoted fans of sports are observed while watching their favourite discipline on TV. Such fans often shout instructions, express support, or disappointment and while as a means of communicating with sportsmen they are useless, such cheers are to release repressed energy. Similarly curse words are used to serve this purpose, as they rarely convey any meaning and are only to make the speaker feel better. y
Phatic function (for sociability)
The use of such phrases as µnice day today¶, or µhow do you do¶ is characterized by lack of any informative content and is intended to link people and make the coexistence peaceful and pleasant. The phatic use of language is characteristic mainly of speech, however, in certain types of writing it can also be noticed, as in letters for example, where the beginning Dear Sir/Madam and ending Yours faithfully also serve that purpose. y
Recording function
ecording R ecording
function denotes using language to make a durable record of things that ought to be remembered. Owing to its omnipresence writing is probably the most significant function of language.
There is evidence that the first writing system was developed in the Middle East as early as 4000 BC. At the beginning writing systems took forms of pictures representing the things they referred to, gradually developing into the alphabets in their present forms. y
Identifying function
Language
is used also to identify the objects and events in the world we live in. Without this function language would be almost useless, as it is thanks to the names of things that we know what is talked about. Many primitive societies unable to write believe that names hold great power. Even in western culture names are thought to be immensely important: the God¶s name ought not to be used in vain, before giving a name to a newborn child parents consider the choice deeply. We use names to classify different types of things, whether we call a car anautomobile, a lorry, a van or a truck makes a big difference. y
Reasoning function
(instrument of thought)
Before we say something we think and to do that we necessarily use language. In most cases it is extremely difficult to think about anything without any use of words. In fact is it also difficult not to think for a longer period of time as human brains work all the time processing information, thus providing us with concepts formulated by means of language. y
Communicating function
This function would probably be pointed at by most language users without major consideration. Indeed it is in all likelihood most commonly used language function by majority of speakers. R equesting, equesting, apologizing, informing, ordering as well as promising and refusing are all reasons for communicating our ideas. y
Pleasure functions
The fact that language often gives pleasure both to the speakers and listeners is not only supported by the frequent use of assonance, alliteration and onomatopoeia in poetry. Depending on the sounds of languages some are perceived as being mild as English for example, others crude as German. People also derive pleasure from unusual use of syntactic rules, as well as novelties of meanings juxtapositions and language games, which is often used by skilful writers. MACR O FUNCTIONS: y
Ideational function
Ideational function refers to the conceptualizing process involved in our mental activities. Thanks to language we are able to understand what happens around us. y
Interpersonal function
Interpersonal function emphasizes that language is mainly a social phenomenon, but apart from enabling communication with other people it enables to project the speaker in the desired way and to represent the speaker.
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Poetic function
Here,
the word poetic does not refer to the ability to write poetry, but the ability to manipulate language in a creative way. With the use of jokes and metaphors we can play with words and meanings simply for joy. y
Textual function
Textual competence refers to our ability to create long utterances or pieces of writing which are both cohesive and coherent. Unlike animals people, by use of certain linguistic devices, are able to produce long sentences and text, and not only simple phrases. The above mentioned functions are only one point of view on language. Most certainly there are many other functions that natural languages fulfill, yet depending on approach to this issue the number of functions and their names might vary
