Transcript Sociolinguistics 3 - UCL Department of Phonetics & Linguistics

Sociolinguistics 3
Classification: social groups,
languages and dialects
The story so far
• General knowledge includes knowledge of
language (‘I-language’) as well as of
society (‘I-society’). (I = internal)
• General knowledge is an inheritance
network so we store general ‘prototypes’
for people and for language.
– E.g. American, Student, Woman
– English, London English, Casual English
Language and knowledge
• Our knowledge is influenced by:
– ‘external’ reality, including ‘E-language’ and ‘E-society’
– Our language.
• Language can distort reality, e.g. it is ‘digital’, so
doesn’t always fit the ‘analog’ world. E.g:
– Shingle or pebbles?
– Drizzle or rain?
– Classical music or jazz or pop?
What about languages and
dialects?
• We all think about language (mass) in
terms of languages (count) and dialects.
• How accurate are these concepts?
– Are they based on fact or on the terms
language and dialect?
• Can we use them in sociolinguistics for
saying who uses what kind of language?
Some terminology for language
varieties
• A variety is a distinct language system,
with grammar, vocabulary, etc.
• A language is a variety which is
incomprehensible to speakers of other
languages.
• A language may include sub-varieties.
Sub-varieties of a language
• A dialect is a sub-variety based on social
groups, e.g. geography, social class.
– An accent is a way of pronouncing a dialect
e.g. RP.
• A register is a sub-variety based on social
situations, e.g. chat, essay, prayer
• A standard dialect/register is a sub-variety
with high social status.
Varieties of language variety
language variety
language
part
accent
dialect
register
part
standard
What are varieties good for?
• Crude explicit comment about the social
distribution of language items.
• Language variety X is used by social type
Y.
– English is spoken by Brits, Americans, …
– Londoners speak Cockney.
– The language of Egypt is Arabic, not
Egyptian.
• Better than nothing …
The social distribution of
languages.
Languagecount
English
speaker
Brit
French
.....
speaker
American
French-person ...
Person
What language is this?
…and this …
… and this …
So what? (1)
• We organise our knowledge about
language (mass) in terms of languages.
• But is that how the world organises them?
Now what language is this?
Transcription
• And so couldn’t gather their own supper
and another of the fairies said er ???
supper ???
…and this …
• Holide Karent Affairs:
Thursday January 15, 2004
• = Holiday current affairs
continued
• long despela program....I luk olsem Papua
New Guinea bai mari mari long ol "illegal
immigrants" -- pipal bilong narapela kantri
husat i bin burukim loa na go stap long
PNG
• = About this programme …It shows that
PNG will ?? because of … people of
another country who have broken the law
to live in PNG …
…and this?
• Wæs dis ealond geo gewurƿad mid ƿam
æƿelestrum ceastrum, twega wana
ƿrittigum, ƿa ƿe wæron
• Was this island once made-splendid with
the noblest castles, two less-than thirty,
that there were.
So what? (2)
• Intelligibility is a matter of degree.
• Intelligibility depends on prior experience.
• Varieties can vary continuously in
– Space
– Time
• New varieties such as pidgins and creoles
are especially hard to classify.
• So languages are fictions, not fact.
Are dialects any more real?
• We think and talk about divisions within a
language in terms of dialects and
registers.
– E.g. London dialect
– Standard English
– Academic English
• But are dialect boundaries fact or fiction?
Which dialect is this …
…and this?
So what? (3)
• All native speakers of a language
recognise some dialects.
• But these are learned from experience, so
we recognise different dialects.
• The more experience we have, the more
distinctions we make.
• So how do these mental distinctions
compare with reality?
Dialect geography
• Dialectologists traditionally recorded the
words and pronunciations of elderly
speakers in remote villages.
• They showed their findings on maps, with
a different map for each feature.
• They drew lines separating different areas
of use: isoglosses.
ARM = [ɑ:m] or [ɑ:rm]?
SUN = [sʊn] or [sʌn]?
LAST = [last], [la:st] or [lɑ:st]?
HOUSE = [haus] or [aus]?
So what? (4)
• Every isogloss follows a different path.
• Every variable linguistic feature has a
different social distribution.
• Dialect boundaries can’t be defined by
bundles of isoglosses.
• Dialects are fictions, not facts.
• But they have some value in thinking and
talking about language variation.
And standard dialect?
• This is at least as real as any other variety.
• Standard English is defined by publishers.
– It’s the language of education – especially at
university level.
• In some countries the standard variety is a
register, used only in public.
– Called ‘diglossia’, e.g. German Switzerland
And registers?
• Folk sociolinguistics recognises some
registers by name:
– Slang
– Baby-talk
– Chatting, lecturing, preaching, etc.
• But individual linguistic features are
related to individual situation features.
So what?
• Folk sociolinguistics recognises global
categories as related to each other:
– varieties of language
– social categories (people, situations)
• But these are fictions rather than facts.
• The facts show much more complex
relations between linguistic items and
social characteristics.
Coming shortly
• Week 4: How we look after each other’s
faces.
• Week 5: Power and solidarity.