Social Linguistics

Social Linguistics

1. Is the study of language in society and the study of variation in language

   • Effects of gender and age
     • Effect of age: Young speakers use something more frequent than old speakers.
     • Effect of gender: Females use something more frequent than males speakers = Tag questions
     • Interaction of effects
       • There is an effect of gender, but only in young age: Young females = the use of like = It was like, totally awesome. Young males = the use of dude.
   • Factors that explain variation
     • Language internal factors
       • They say ‘‘I gave the book to the old man at the counter’’, rather than ‘‘I gave the old man at the counter the book’’ because there is a long and heavy constituent at the middle (Syntactic explanation)
       • They use ‘‘more clever’’ rather than ‘‘cleverer’’ since it is awkward to pronounce (Phonological explanation)
       • They say ‘‘the cost of living’’, not ‘‘the living’s cost’’ because living is not a prototypical possessor – Things that do not live. (Semantic explanation).
     • Language external factors
       • Related to the social world / non-linguistic issues
         • Young speakers use gonna instead of going to (Age as explanation). Females use more tag questions (isn’t it, aren’t they) than males (Gender as explanation).
         • Americans say tomayto. British say tomahto (Geography as explanation). British upper class are more likely tah middle class speakers to produce a trill in very (Economic class as explanation).
   • H – Dropping
     • Hammer Vs. ‘ammer
     • Effect of class
     • Lower class correlate with more h-dropping
   • Socio Linguistic variable
     • Speakers – internal – variation = Sometimes produce one variant, sometimes another = I’m not Vs. I ain’t.
     • People’s dialects cannot by divided in discrete categories, but need to be placed in a continuum.
     • Possibility of doing one thing or another = /kar/ Vs. /ka:/.

2. Speech and Society

   • The way you talk (pronunciation, word choice, grammar)
   • Social beliefs and attitudes associated with certain ways of speaking
   • Attitudes are social norms, not objective facts about language itself
   • All of them says something about who you are as a person your social identity

3. Dialects

   • It is the varieties of language characteristic of group of speakers
     • Regional dialects: groups defined geographically
     • Social dialects: groups defined by social factor (socio-economic class, ethnicity, gender, age, sexual orientation
     • Myths about dialects
       • •Myth: Dialects reflect failure to speak correctly. •Reality: Dialects are acquired by adopting the speech features of other speakers, not by failing to adopt standard languages features
       • •Myth: A dialect is what someone else speaks •Reality: Everyone who speaks a language speaks a dialect of the language.
       • •Myth: Dialects inherently carry negatives social connotations •Reality: The social value of a Dialects is derived form the social evaluation of its speakers.

4. Idiolects

   • Varieties of language within a single speaker
     • Style: language variety of specific to a situation/context
       • There are no single style speakers and changes in situational context lead to "style shifting"
     • Linguistic repertories: Languages, dialects of the same language and styles and registres

5. Things that vary by style

   • People "style-shift" by adjusting their:
     • Pronunciation
       • Full vs. contracted forms (He would have / He'd' a)
       • Runnin' vs. running (using [-In] or [ -In])
     • Word choice
       • Formal vs. informal; polite vs rude
     • Grammar
       • Sentence length and complexity

6. Pronunciation variation

   • Lexical variation
     • It is the use of different words to refer to something without making changes in the meaning
   • Grammar variation = Double negation
     • Socio linguistics = the study of variation in language
       • Phonology = Tomayto - Tomahto. Morphology = I’m not - I ain’t. Syntax = my brother car’s - The car of my brother.
     • Language allow us to say the same thing in two or more different ways

7. William Labov’s 1966 New York City ‘’Fourth floor’’ study

   • Does the use of post - vocalic [r] correlates with social prestige in New York City?
     • Where are the ladies’ coats? On the fourth floor - Excuse me? ... On the fourth floor - Excuse me? ... ON THE FOURTH FLOOR
       • Percentages of [r] pronounced

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