Sociolinguistic Quiz 1

-individual: style (casual, careful, formal)

-situational (setting, paricipants, ends, norms, genres)

-social (class, sex, age)

-regional (varieties, "dialects")

Any linguistic unit realized by more than one norm. 

Any linguistic feature that occurs regularly in the speech of more than one speaker in the community. 

Any linguistic variable sensitive to social context. 

welllll.....

- pioneered by William Labov

- a structured interview

-attempt at eliciting different styles, ranging from formal to casual

-different tasks during the interview:

• a list of minimal pairs (formal) 

• a word list (formal)
• reading passage (formal)
• the interview style (informal/casual)

What can you study with data derived from the sociolinguisEc interview?

• •  Phonological (rhoticity, short front vowels, consonant clusters, /ing/)

• •  Morphological (dived vs. dove)

• •  Syntactic (ain’t or isn’t)

• •  Lexical (pavement - sidewalk, bloody - very, etc.)

• •  What can you not study

•  many speech acts (apologies, compliments, etc.)

•  interacEonal pracEces 

when people of different varieties of language or dialect are able to understand each other, their varieties are mutually intelligible.

standard: codiefied cariety of a language; taught in school, used in formal writing, often heard in TV news or people/things that try to project authority or ability.

non-standard: varieties of language that differ from standard.

descriptivist: non-evaluative approach to language, focused on how language is actually used, without deciding if it is 'right' or wrong.

prescriptivist: approach to language that is focused on rules of correctness; how language 'should' be used.

degree of intimacy or familiarity between interlocutors.

Inner circle: norm-providing

outer circle: norm-developping (in the process of standartisation)

expanding circle: norm-depending

it is based on geography and genetics, it leaves out performance of language and social differences.

EIL = English as an International Language.

EIL is a core of features common to all varieties..

second circle consists of features which may become internationally comprehensible or fall into obscurity.

outer area consits of five groups with features each peculiar to the own speech community.

smaller analytical domain than social network

characterised by 3 traits:

-mutual engagement

-jointly negotiated enterprise

-shared repertoire

different groups of people that each of us has interacted with over the years.

linguistic equivalent to street credibility. a norm or target that speakers unconsciously orient to, with a sprt of hidden positive evaluation that speakers give to other (presumably non-standard) forms.

variants associated with higher status groups are considered prestige forms.

actual realisations of variables. i.e. pronouncing the -ing as -in'

to use language features associated with a particular class because of a setting/role of the speaker.

when speakers overdo what they see as the linguistic requirements of a situation.

marked: a feature that gets noticed, 'weird'

unmarked: feature that does not get noticed.

positive or negative assessment (bewertung) of variants that are in line with the dominant norms ('sounding proper)

a test designed to elicit unexpressed language attitudes by asking people to rate recorded speakers on a scale according to traits like social class, friendliness, intelligence. however, the people often listen to the same speaker several times, using different accents or speaking different languages.

• includes the selection, codification, elaboration of function & acceptance of a variety of a language; the variety that undergoes the process of standardization is referred to as the standard variety 

 set of discrete locations in a socioeconomic hierarchy 

social positions that society assigns to its members, or the differences between social groups, in terms of the prestige associated with them by others.

class is represented as a socioeconomic scale combining three class indicators - education level, family income, occupational rank (see Labov 1966) 

jenny cheshire text.

the use of non-standard features is controlled by the norms of the vernacular subculture.

an adequate sample of non-standard forms is more likely to be found where speakers conform more closely to the vernacular forms that to the overt forms of the dominant mainstream culture.

the index shows what factors are idicators for belonging to the vernacular culture.

i.e. in Cheshire, there were 6 factors: skill at fighting, carrying of a weapon, participation in minor crimes, job hopes, style, swearing.