2. 2
Overview of the session 1
Language and Society: What does it
mean?
Variation in language
What is a variable?
Problems with defining the term
‘language’
Language versus dialect
What is the difference between an
accent and a dialect?
3. 3
Overview of the session 2
Regional dialects
Social dialects
Learning outcomes
************************************************
4. 4
Language and Society: What does it
all mean?
As the name suggests, the study of
language and society examines some of
the complex inter-relationships between
language and society
These relationships take many forms
Sociolinguists (i.e. linguists who
specialise in the study of language and
society) focus on the co-variation of
linguistic and social phenomena
5. 5
Language and Society: What does it
all mean?
Language →
Language →
Language →
Language →
Language →
Age
Sex/Gender
Social class
Ethnicity
Education
6. 6
Language and Society: What does it
all mean?
At the heart of the study of language and
society is the notion that all languages vary
As Wardhaugh (2006) points out, ‘each
language exists in a number of varieties and is
the sum of those varieties’
Thus, when talk about ‘Canadian French’,
‘American English’, ‘Brazilian Portuguese’ we
need to recognise that these labels are an
abstraction: they give the impression that
languages are ‘discrete, self-contained entities
that are relatively uniform or homogenous’
(Trudgill 2000: 5), when in reality they are not.
7. 7
Language and Society: What does it
all mean?
In actual fact, however, all languages
subsume a considerable amount of
social and regional variation.
Consider the following examples.
Are they English? Are they French? Are
they invented examples? If they’re
genuine, where might they be spoken?
Who might use them?
8. 8
Variation in language
dem get wan uman we get
gyal pikni
orait na draiva i repotim
dispela bagarap long
plisman
tab la m te aste a
been I to park the have
Guyanese Creole
English (The
Caribbean)
Tok Pisin Creole
English (Papua
New Guinea)
Haitian Creole
French (Haiti)
INVENTED
EXAMPLE!!
9. 9
Variation in language
Let’s deal with the last example first.
Although you probably managed to
decode it, it clearly isn’t a native variety
of English
This underscores an important point:
human languages vary, but they do not
vary in a limitless way because they are
subject to constraints imposed by the
human language faculty
10. 10
Variation in language
Another valuable point
to emerge from
examples 1-3 is that
variation is RULE-
GOVERNED
As the famous
American sociolinguist,
William Labov, has
shown, language
exhibits
STRUCTURED
HETEROGENEITY
WILLIAM LABOV
11. 11
Variation in language
STRUCTURED HETEROGENEITY- What is that??!
Structured heterogeneity (Weinreich et al. 1968: 100-1) is
central to the study of language variation.
It means that language variation is NOT RANDOM but is
systematically patterned.
Furthermore, aspects of linguistic variation (linguistic
variables) have been found to correlate in interesting ways
with aspects of a person’s social identity (age, gender,
ethnicity, etc).
Correlations between aspect of linguistic variation and
social categories are referred to as SOCIOLINGUISTIC
PATTERNS
12. 12
What is a variable ?
Simply put, a variable
is alternative ways of
saying the ‘same’ thing
Variables can be:
(i) Vocabulary (lexical)
(ii) Sounds (phonology)
(iii) Grammatical (syntax)
LORRY TRUCK
13. 13
What is a variable?
The first diagram shows the relationship between a
variable and its variants
The second diagram gives an example, and illustrates
two VARIANTS of negation: a standard VARIANT and a
non-standard VARIANT
VARIABLE
VARIANT VARIANT
NEGATION
I haven’t got
any
I haven’t got
none
14. 14
Problems with defining the term
‘language’
Let’s now return to the examples we saw
earlier (Guyanese Creole, Tok Pisin, and
Haitian Creole)
In the case of Guyanese Creole and Tok Pisin,
some of you might have disagreed that these
are ‘varieties of English’. Aren’t they just
separate languages?
It may seem surprising, but defining the term
‘language’ is far from straightforward.
15. 15
Language versus dialect
Can we decide on purely LINGUISTIC
grounds what the difference is between a
language and a dialect? After all, English
is clearly a different language from
Russian.
There are many problematic cases,
however. Let’s first take a look at
Scandinavia.
16. 16
Language versus dialect
Danish: Hun sidder i vinduet og ser ud over
gaden
Norwegian: Hun sitter i vinduet og ser ut over
gatan
Swedish: Hon sitter i fönstret och ser ut över
gatan (source: Romaine 2000: 11)
What do you notice?
17. 17
Language versus dialect
Danish, Norwegian and Swedish are
conventionally distinguished from one another.
In other words, they are seen as separate
languages.
Danes and Swedes claim to understand
Danish well. To complicate matters, however,
Danes claim to understand Norwegians much
better than Norwegians claim to understand
Danes
Nevertheless, we can see from the examples
cited that there are minimal LINGUISTIC
differences between these varieties.
18. 18
Language versus dialect
Now consider the case of Javanese
spoken in Indonesia. Javanese reveals
a number of socially-sensitive levels of
speech which correlate with the social
status of the addressee.
We can distinguish three different levels:
HIGH
MIDDLE
LOW
19. 19
Language versus dialect
Javanese speech registers
Menapa pandjenengan badé dahar sekul kalijan kaspé?
Napa sampéjan adjeng neda sekul lan kaspé?
Apa kowé arep mangan sega lan kaspé?
Are you going to eat rice and cassava?
(source: Romaine 2000: 21)
20. 20
Language versus dialect
If we compare the Javanese examples to the
Scandinavian ones, we can see that the
differences between speech levels in
Javanese can be greater than the differences
that exist between languages such as Danish,
Swedish and Norwegian (Romaine 2000: 21)
As Trudgill (2000: 3) points out, neither
language nor dialect ‘represents a particularly
clear-cut or watertight concept.’
Romaine (2000: 1) observes that notions such
as ‘language’ or ‘dialect’ are not LINGUISTIC
but essentially SOCIAL matters
21. 21
Language versus dialect
To refine our understanding of the
notions ‘language’ and ‘dialect’, we need
to invoke two very useful terms:
AUTONOMY and HETERONOMY
To illustrate these terms, let’s consider
the linguistic situation along the border of
Germany and the Netherlands
22. 22
Language versus dialect
Both German and Dutch exist as national
standardized varieties. However, along the
border between the two countries, the dialects
on either side are very similar (Trudgill 2000)
and MUTUALLY INTELLIGIBLE. The
geographical boundaries between the dialects
do not correspond with sharp breaks between
the border dialects, rather we can talk of a
DIALECT CONTINUUM in social and
geographical space (Romaine 2000).
23. 23
Language versus dialect
In the case of German and Dutch dialects, we
can say that although the standard national
varieties of these language are
AUTONOMOUS (i.e. independent) because
they are codified in dictionaries, grammar
books and are disseminated through the
respective educations systems, the dialects
are HETERONOMOUS (i.e. dependent). Thus
speakers in the Netherlands look to standard
Dutch as their reference point, whereas
speakers of German look to standard German
(Hochdeutsch) as theirs.
24. 24
Dialect versus accent
Just as the term ‘language’ can be
problematic, so can the term ‘dialect’
In everyday usage, people often use the term
‘dialect’ and ‘accent’ interchangeably, to mean
one and the same thing
However, there are important differences
between these two concepts. An accent refers
to PHONOLOGICAL/PHONETIC differences
(i.e. pronunciation). Thus there are distinct
accents associated with Newfoundland,
Liverpool English (Scouse), Texan English,
Tyneside English (Geordie).
25. 25
Dialect versus accent
A dialect, however, refers to differences
on at least TWO additional levels of
linguistic organization: LEXIS
(vocabulary) and SYNTAX (grammar, or
the arrangement of words in sentences)
26. 26
Dialect versus accent illustrated
SCOTS
PRONUNCIATION
/r/ pronounced in
bird
VOCABULARY
bairn kirk
GRAMMAR
She isnae at home
SOUTHERN
BRITISH ENGLISH
PRONUNCIATION
/r/ not pronounced
in bird
VOCABULARY
child church
GRAMMAR
She isn’t at home
ACCENT DIALECT
27. 27
Regional dialects
Dialects vary regionally. Dialects tend to differ
from one another the more geographically
distant they are from each other.
CANADIAN ENGLISH
VANCOUVER TORONTO St. John’s, NF
28. 28
Regional differences
Maps are
sometimes
drawn to show
the regional
boundaries
between dialect
forms. These
boundaries are
known as
ISOGLOSSES.
ISOGLOSSES
for regional
forms of YOU
Trudgill 1990
29. 29
Social dialects
Finally, the boundaries between different social
groups or classes mark differences in the
social dialects spoken by these groups.
Another word for a social dialect is a
SOCIOLECT.
In order to see how different social groups use
language, let’s consider the case of g-
dropping. Many people, at least in casual
speech, pronounce words such as singing as
singin’, and laughing as laughin’. There are
important QUANTITATIVE DIFFERENCES in
g-dropping between social groups too.
31. 31
The use of dropped g-forms (i.e. talkin’, laughin’, cursin’ in
Norwich, UK [source: Trudgill 1974])
0
20
40
60
80
100
MMC LMC UWC MWC LWC
social class
% [n]
females males
32. 32
Learning Outcomes
I can give some examples of what the study of
language and society encompasses
I can explain the term ‘orderly heterogeneity’
I can explain what a sociolinguistic variable is
I understand the term ‘sociolinguistic pattern’
and I shall read more about this in Romaine
2000
I can explain some of the problems associated
with defining the term ‘language’
33. 33
Learning outcomes
I shall read find out more about these
problems in Romaine (2000), Chapter 1
I understand the terms AUTONOMY and
HETERONOMY
I shall research the terms AUSBAU and
ABSTAND
I know the difference between an
ACCENT and a DIALECT, and can
explain this clearly with examples
34. 34
Learning Outcomes
I understand how language varies
REGIONALLY and SOCIALLY and can
exemplify this.
I’ll read the Milroy article about ‘Bad
Grammar’ in the reading pack in
preparation for the next class