UMINAH
NPM : 10211210373
Subject : Writing in professional context 2
3rd Semester
evening
Meaning
of Sociolinguistics
Sociolinguistics
is the descriptive study of the effect of any and all aspects of society,
including cultural norms, expectations, and context, on the way language
is used, and the effects of language use on society. Sociolinguistics differs
from sociology of language in that the focus of
sociolinguistics is the effect of the society on the language, while the
latter's focus is on the language's effect on the society. Sociolinguistics
overlaps to a considerable degree with pragmatics.
It is historically closely related to linguistic anthropology and the
distinction between the two fields has even been questioned recently.
It also studies how language varieties differ between groups separated
by certain social
variables, e.g., ethnicity, religion, status, gender, level
of education,
age,
etc., and how creation and adherence to these rules is used to categorize
individuals in social or socioeconomic classes. As the usage
of a language varies from place to place, language usage also varies among
social classes, and it is these sociolects that
sociolinguistics. For example, a sociolinguist might determine through study of
social attitudes that a particular vernacular
would not be considered appropriate language use in a business or professional
setting. Sociolinguists might also study the grammar, phonetics,
vocabulary,
and other aspects of this sociolect much as dialectologists
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
is the term given to the use of different varieties of language in different
social situations. William Labov is often regarded as the founder of the study
of sociolinguistics. He is especially noted for introducing the quantitative
study of language variation and change, making the sociology of language into a
scientific discipline.
Sociolinguistic interviews are an integral part of collecting
data for sociolinguistic studies. There is an interviewer, who is conducting
the study, and a subject, or informant, who is the interviewee. In order to
get a grasp on a specific linguistic form and how it is used in the dialect of
the subject, a variety of methods are used to elicit certain registers of
speech. There are five different styles, ranging from formal to casual. The
most formal style would be elicited by having the subject read a list of
minimal pairs (MP). Minimal pairs are pairs of words that differ in only one
phoneme, such as cat and bat. Having the subject read a word list (WL) will
elicit a formal register, but generally not as formal as MP. The reading
passage (RP) style is next down on the formal register, and the interview style
(IS) is when an interviewer can finally get into eliciting a more casual speech
from the subject. During the IS the interviewer can converse with the subject
and try to draw out of them an even more casual sort of speech by asking him to
recall childhood memories or maybe a near death experience, in which case the
subject will get deeply involved with the story since strong emotions are often
attached to these memories. Of course, the most sought after type of speech is
the casual style (CS). This type of speech is difficult if not impossible to
elicit because of the Observer's Paradox. The closest one might come
to CS in an interview is when the subject is interrupted by a close friend or
family member, or perhaps must answer the phone. CS is used in a completely
unmonitored environment where the subject feels most comfortable and will use
their natural vernacular without overtly thinking about it. While the study of
sociolinguistics is very broad, there are a few fundamental concepts on which
many sociolinguistic inquiries depend. Speech community
is a concept in sociolinguistics that describes a more or less discrete group
of people who use language in a unique and mutually accepted way among
themselves.Speech communities can be members of a profession with a specialized
jargon,
distinct social groups like high school students or hip
hop fans, or even tight-knit groups like families and friends.
Members of speech communities will often develop slang or jargon to serve
the group's special purposes and priorities.Crucial to sociolinguistic analysis
is the concept of prestige; certain speech habits are assigned a positive or a
negative value which is then applied to the speaker. This can operate on many
levels. It can be realised on the level of the individual sound/phoneme, as
Labov discovered in investigating pronunciation of the post-vocalic /r/ in the
North-Eastern USA, or on the macro scale of language choice, as realised in the
various diglossias that exist throughout the world, where Swiss-German/High
German is perhaps most well known. An important implication of sociolinguistic
theory is that speakers 'choose' a variety when making a speech act, whether
consciously or subconsciously.
Understanding language in society means that one also has to
understand the social networks in which language is embedded.
A social network is another way of describing a particular speech community in
terms of relations between individual members in a community. A network could
be loose or tight depending on how members
interact with each other.[4]
For instance, an office or factory may be considered a tight community because
all members interact with each other. A large course with 100+ students would
be a looser community because students may only interact with the instructor
and maybe 1-2 other students. A multiplex
community is one in which members have multiple relationships with each other.[4]
For instance, in some neighborhoods, members may live on the same street, work
for the same employer and even intermarry. The looseness or tightness of a
social network may affect speech patterns adopted by a speaker. For instance,
Sylvie Dubois and Barbara Horvath found that speakers in one Cajun Louisiana
community were more likely to pronounce English "th" [θ] as [t] (or
[ð] as [d]) if they participated in a relatively dense social network (i.e. had
strong local ties and interacted with many other speakers in the community), and
less likely if their networks were looser (i.e. fewer local ties).A social
network may apply to the macro level of a country or a city, but also to the
inter-personal level of neighborhoods or a single family. Recently, social
networks have been formed by the Internet, through chat rooms, MySpace groups,
organizations, and online dating servicDifferences
according to class
Sociolinguistics as a field distinct from dialectology
was pioneered through the study of language variation in urban areas. Whereas
dialectology studies the geographic distribution of language variation,
sociolinguistics focuses on other sources of variation, among them class. Class
and occupation are among the most important linguistic markers found in
society. One of the fundamental findings of sociolinguistics, which has been
hard to disprove, is that class and language variety are related. Members of
the working class tend to speak less standard
language, while the lower, middle, and upper middle class will in
turn speak closer to the standard. However, the upper class, even members of
the upper middle class, may often speak 'less' standard than the middle
class.The looseness or tightness of a social network may affect speech patterns
adopted by a speaker. For instance, Sylvie Dubois and Barbara Horvath found
that speakers in one Cajun Louisiana community were more likely to pronounce
English "th" [θ] as [t] (or [ð] as [d]) if they participated in a
relatively dense social network (i.e. had strong local ties and interacted with
many other speakers in the community), and less likely if their networks were
looser (i.e. fewer local ties) This is because not only class, but class
aspirations, are important.
Studies in the field of sociolinguistics typically take a
sample population and interview them, assessing the realisation of certain
sociolinguistic variables.A commonly studied source of variation is regional
dialects. Dialectology studies variations in language based primarily on
geographic distribution and their associated features. Sociolinguists concerned
with grammatical and phonological features that correspond to regional areas
are often called dialectologists.There are several different types of age-based
variation one may see within a population. They are: vernacular of a subgroup
with membership typically characterized by a specific age range, age-graded
variation, and indications of linguistic change in progress.Variation may also
be associated with gender. Men and women, on average, tend to use slightly
different language styles. These differences tend to be quantitative rather
than qualitative. That is, to say that women use a particular speaking style
more than men do is akin to saying that men are taller than women (i.e., men
are on average taller than women, but some women are taller than some
men).connected discourse, spoken or written is one of the most promising and
rapidly developing areas of linguistics. Traditional linguistics has
concentrated on the analysis of single sentence or isolated speech acts. In
this important new book Michael Stubbs shows that linguistic concepts can be
extended to analyse spontaneous and informal talk in the home, classroom or
factory, and, indeed, written narrative. Using copious examples drawn from
recorded conversations, field work observations, experimental data and written
texts, he explores such questions as how far discourse structure is comparable
to sentence structure; whether it is possible to talk of 'well formed'
discourse as one does of 'grammatical' sentences; and whether the relation
between question and answer in conversation is syntactic, semantic or
pragmatic. He also demonstrates some of the limitations of contemporary
linguistics and speech act theory which neglect key aspects of native speaker
fluency and communicative competence. Although written from a predominantly
linguistic perspective, the book is informed by insights from sociology and
anthropology. Theoretical debate is accompanied by discussion of real life
implications, particularly for the teacher. A Final Chapter offers clear and
practical guidelines on methods of data collection and analysis for the student
and researcher; and the book includes a full bibliography and suggestions for
further reading.
The process of
learning sociolinguistic competence is challenging even in one’s first
language. Evidence of this can be found in the popularity of "Miss Manners"
columns. If we all had perfect sociolinguistic competence, we wouldn’t need
advice about the proper way to send wedding invitations or give a dinner party.
Having good sociolinguistic competence means knowing how to "give every
person his or her due." It means knowing when to be quiet, and when to
talk, when to give compliments to others, and when to apologize. It also means
being able to read situations and know what is the right thing to say or do.
There are an infinite number of combinations of roles, tasks, contexts, and
feelings that govern what is appropriate in any given encounter. For example,
the job of persuading a friend to go with you to a concert will require
completely different skills than trying to persuade the president of the company
to begin selling a new product line.
Good sociolinguistic skills in a second language are
important because if you make serious mistakes in this type of competence,
people will not simply think that you are ignorant (which they may think if you
have poor grammar); rather, they will think that you are ill-mannered,
dishonest, insincere, rude, pushy, etc. If your grammar is excellent, you will
be judged all the more severely for sociolinguistic gaffes. Misunderstandings
result in amusement, contempt, disappointment, shock, bewilderment, serious
insult, or ethnic stereotypes.Improving sociolinguistic competence needs to be
a part of the language learning process from the beginning. Many language
schools and language learning programs focus almost exclusively on language
components such grammar, vocabulary, and pronunciation, and very little
attention is paid to helping students understand how to be appropriate in a new
cultural context. An assumption is often made that language learners will pick
up sociolinguistic competence simply by being exposed to the culture.
Unfortunately, this is not often the case. The following are some suggestions
for increasing one’s sociolinguistic competence. These suggestions are
applicable not just for those living abroad, but also for those who need to
interact and work with people from other cultural backgrounds:
1.
Learners need to take individual responsibility for seeing that this dimension
of the language learning process is included in their program of study from the
beginning. When an individual takes responsibility for this part of the
language learning process, he or she is in a good position to develop
meaningful relationships with members of the target culture. These
relationships can lay a foundation for meaningful language learning for years
to come. By taking language learning into their own hands, language learners
are assured that their learning will not end when their formal instruction
comes to a close (often long before learners are fluent in their target languages).
2.
Language learners need to remember that sociolinguistic competence is part of a
larger system. When learning new grammatical structures, the learner should
immediately try to practice the new structures with the goal of testing
sociolinguistic appropriateness. Some learners have even gone so far as to
deliberately say something wrong so that native speakers would correct them,
and they would learn something new about what was appropriate.
3.
As language learners become more proficient in a second language, they also
need to be increasingly committed to becoming observers of the interactions of
native speakers around them. They should watch how people stand when talking to
each other. They should watch for the kinds of physical touching people do (handshaking,
kissing, gentle punches on the shoulder, etc.) Are such things influenced by
the gender of the speakers? How does language change when someone important
enters a room? By knowing what to look for, learners can discover a great deal
through observation.
4.
Another suggestion for developing sociolinguistic competence is to keep a
language journal which records questions, problems, and discoveries. If there
is some feature of the target language which is troubling or frustrating to a
language learner, it may be the key to an insight about the communication
process. For example, what led to Berry’s (1994) study of backchannel behavior
and turn-taking was an unsettling feeling that all Spanish speakers were rude
to her, never letting her complete a sentence or express a thought without
interruption. Her initial reaction was a judgment that Spanish speakers were
rude, but because that was an unacceptable conclusion for her, she pursued the
topic until she realized that Spanish speakers expect co-speakers to begin
speaking before they finish as a means of demonstrating interest. Far from
being rude and pushy, the listeners were trying to show their engagement in the
conversation. It is, of course, possible that a few people intend to be rude,
but when it seems like everyone, including friends, are acting rude, it is time
to explore one’s definition of rudeness to see if an underlying sociolinguistic
expectation is not being met. In general, if it seems as though some
characteristic of the way speakers of the target language are communicating is
routinely offensive, one should begin looking for a sociolinguistic
explanation. There is a good chance that the reverse is also true—what seems
natural in the learner’s first language may be offensive to speakers of the
target language.
5.
The process of building sociolinguistic competence will not go far without the
language learners establishing relationships with a few people who are native
speakers of the target language and have lived most if not all of their lives
in the target culture. These people will be essential to discovery of the
sociolinguistic dimensions of language. When language learners acquire new
lexical items and grammatical forms. It is vital that they examine with their
language helpers the kinds of changes which would be made to the new language
data as a result of changes in the context. If they have learned something new,
they can ask a language helper, "Could I say this to a man? Towoman? Would
I say this to a teacher? to a neighbor?" etc. Or, if the language helper
is also sensitive to the kinds of restrictions which might apply to a given
utterance, a more general question might be sufficient: "Should I avoid
saying this with any particular group of people or in any context?" Also,
if language learners are able to find more than one helper, and if they are
fairly confident in the appropriateness of an utterance, they might try out the
utterance on a number of different individuals to see if there is any adverse
reaction. The importance of language helpers as a resource for building
sociolinguistic competence cannot be over stressed. In many cases, the only way
to understand what is happening sociolinguistic ally will be through the
insights of language helpers. However, one should try to avoid being frustrated
when it seems that language helpers offer contradictory advice on
sociolinguistic issues. It is essential to test the language one is learning in
different contexts with different kinds of people, and it is very helpful to
get feedback from language helpers who can offer differing insights and
interpretations, but it should not be surprising that in an enterprise as
dynamic and human as using language, generalizations may be more complicated
than they initially appear. If contradictory explanations of appropriate
behavior seem to be emerging, one explanation for it may be that the language
learner has not recognized some higher-level generalization or framework which
encompasses both contradictory statements. For example, if one helper says that
an utterance is acceptable without qualifications and another finds what is
said to be highly offensive, then there must be a variable at work which
explains the apparent contradiction. Perhaps the two helpers come from
different regions of the same country, and in one region the utterance is
acceptable, while in the other it is not. The helper who comes from the area in
which the utterance is acceptable may be completely unaware that the utterance
in question is offensive elsewhere. Along similar lines, it is also important
to recognize that within any society, even a society which shares only one
language, there is always variation in the speech produced by individual
speakers. This variation, in itself, can account for differences in the advice
language helpers might give.
Another explanation for contradictory explanations may be
found in the imaginations of different helpers. When a person is asked for a
comment about the appropriateness of a given utterance, he or she usually tries
to form a scenario in his or her mind in which the utterance would be used. If
two (or more) helpers imagine a scenario for the same utterance, they will
almost certainly come up with scenarios which are different, and the
differences in their imagined scenarios will influence their perception of the
appropriateness of the utterance. For example, if one takes a sentence like,
"You’re getting so skinny!", it is possible for one helper to imagine
a case in which this sentence is spoken in an American context to a friend who
is trying to lose weight, in which case it might be viewed as an appropriate
comment. On the other hand, if a helper imagined the sentence being spoken to
someone in an American context who had a serious problem with trying to gain
weight (i.e., he or she was too thin already), this expression could be viewed
as an insult. Because decisions of appropriateness are so contextually
constrained, it is very easy to get contradictory advice from different
language helpers. A fourth consideration in this vein is the possibility that
the language helper may be lacking in sociolinguistic competence in his or her
own first language. Native speakers of any language have different levels of
sensitivity to sociolinguistic considerations. If it seems as though one language
helper consistently gives different answers from the rest of a language
learner’s contacts, it is possible that the different language helper is either
not as competent as the others or is simply not able to perceive such issues as
accurately. Of course, it is possible that the one who differs is the only one
with insight, but if one finds that the advice of one particular helper
consistently results in awkward or painful situations, it is probably best to
seek for help in other quarters.
6.
As one way to bring together the suggestions made above, language learners
should make a focused effort to learn the speech acts they need in order to
function in the target language. (Speech acts are the things people do with
language such as apologize, invite, accept and refuse invitations, compliment,
sympathize, and complain.) They should then assess the kinds of variables which
will influence the performance of specific speech acts, and discuss the speech
acts with their language helpers. Finally, working with their helpers, they can
practice the language and skills they are learning.
Conclusion of Sociolinguistics is the study of the relation
between language and society. There are some sociolinguistic factors such as,
social factors, social dimensions, and explanation factors. Every person has a
unique way of speaking called as idiolects, and dialects which are
grammatically (and perhaps lexically) as well as phonologically different from
other varieties. The language in contact consists of Lingua Franca, Bilingualism,
Pidgin and Creol. The language education can be seen in second-language
teaching method. Language in use includes styles and jargons.
