13. Linguistic chapter 19 Flashcards
What is sociolinguistics?
Sociolinguistics is generally used for the study of the relationship between language and society. The investigation in its social context such as anthropology, sociology and psychology.
What are social dialects?
The study of social dialects has been mainly concerned with speakers in towns and cities. In the social study of dialects it is social class that is mainly used to define groups of speakers- “middle class” those who have more years of education and perform non-manual work and the “working class” those who have fewer years of education and perform manual work of some kind. When we are talking about social dialect the terms “upper” and “lower” are used to divide groups, mainly on economic basis, making “upper-middle-class speech” another sociolect. “I ain’t finished yet” -working class.
What is the difference between social variable and linguistic variable?
The characteristics of a social dialect is treated as the “social variable” and the pronunciation or word as the “linguistic variable”. We investigate systematic variation in usage by counting how often speakers in each class use each version. It is usually an all-or-nothing situation; so we find out one group uses a certain form more or less than another.
What is idioloct when it comes to education and occupation?
Every person’s life results in each of us having an individual way of speaking, a personal dialect called idiolect and we tend to sound like others with whom we share similar education backgrounds/occupations with. As adults the outcome of our time is reflected in our occupation and socio-economic status.
“Labov ‘’ went into each of these stores and asked” Where are the women’s shoes? in order to elicit answers with the expression fourth floor. In the department stores, there was a regular pattern in the answers. The higher the socio-economic status of the store, the more /r/ sounds were produced, and the lower the status, the fewer /r/ sounds were produced.
What are some social markers in working class and middle class?
The use of particular speech sound functions as a social marker. That is, a particular social group, whether you realize it or not. There are other pronunciation features throughout the English-speaking world such as the pronunciation of -ing with (n) rather than (ng) at the end of words such as sitting and thinking. The words sittin and thinkin´ are associated with working-class speech. Another feature associated with lower class and less education is called “H-dropping” which makes utterances like at and hat sound the same and sentences like I’m so ´ungry I could eat an ´orse.
Working Class Middle class
we was too late were
I don’t want none any
he don’t know how doesn’t
she weren’t too happy wasn’t
hes went to bed already gone
it wasn’t us what don’t that who did
them boys throwed those…..threw
What is style-shifting and hypercorrection?
The most basic distinction in speech style is between formal uses and informal uses. Formal style is when we pay more careful attention to how we are speaking and informal style is when we pay less attention. They are sometimes described as “careful style” and “casual style”. A change from one to the other by an individual called style-shifting. Labov also pretended not to hear by saying “Excuse me” to elicit a repetition of the same expression which the repetition “fourth floor” the frequency postvocalic /r/ increased- pronounced with more careful style. When a middle-status group tries to use a prestige form associated with a higher-status group in a formal situation, they have a tendency to overuse the form. This pattern has also been observed in studies of “hypercorrection”.
What is overt prestige and covert prestige?
When individuals change their speech in the direction of a form that is more frequent in the speech of those perceived to have higher social status we are dealing with overt prestige, or status that is generally recognized as “better” or more valued in the larger community.
Some lower-working-class speakers do not change their speech style from casual to careful as frequently as lower-middle-class speakers. This “hidden” status of a speech style does not exhibit style-shifting to the same extent as other groups. The answer may be that they value the features that mark them as a member of their own social group and value group solidarity. This is called covert prestige.
What is speech accomodation?
Variation in speech style is not only based on speakers´ social class and attention to speech, but it is also influenced by their perception of their listeners. This type of variation is described in terms of “audience design” but is more generally known as speech accommodation- defined as our ability to modify our speech style toward or away from the perceived style of the person(s) we are talking to. The process by which participants in a conversation adjust their accent, diction, or other aspects of language according to the speech style of the other participant.
What is convergence?
Convergence refers to the process through which an individual shifts speech patterns in interaction so that they more closely resemble the speech patterns of speech partners.
(to friend) C´mon Tony, gizzalook, gizzalook.
(to my friend´s mother) Excuse me. Could I have a look at your photos too, Mrs. Hall?
What is divergence?
When a speech style is used to emphasize social distance between speakers, the process is called divergence and we can make our speech style diverge from another´s by using forms that are different.
“I can’t do it, sir.”
“Oh, come on. If I can do it, you can too”
“Look, ah cannae dae it so…”
The sudden divergence in style seems to be triggered not only by a need to add emphasis and repeat his statement and using speech style to mark that they are not the same.
What is register?
A register is a conventional way of using language that is appropriate in a specific context. It may be identified as situational (church) or occupational (among lawyers) or topical (talking about language). Religious register “Ye shall be blessed by Him in times of tribulation” The legal register “The plaintiff is ready to take the witness stand” or the linguistic register “In this dialect there are fewer inflectional suffixes”.
What is jargon?
Jargon is a special technical vocabulary, typically nouns (plaintiff, suffix) associated with a specific area of work or interest. In social terms jargon helps to create and maintain connections among those who see themselves as “insiders” in some way and exclude “outsiders”. In many ways, it is the learning of the appropriate jargon of a profession that qualifies an individual as a valid profession within that area of expertise.
What is slang and who uses it?
Slang is more typically used among those who are outside of established higher-status groups. Slang/ colloquial speech describes words or phrases that are used instead of more everyday terms among younger speakers and other groups with special interest. The word bucks for “dollar or money” or mega “for a lot off”. Really good; dope, kickass, phat, awesome, rad, wicked. Physically attractive man became “hottie” and instead of something being really bad; bummer, harsh! or that´s sucky!
What are taboo terms and how are they prohibited?
The use of slang can vary within the younger social group. Taboo terms are words and phrases often involving body parts, bodily functions and sexual acts. That people avoid for reasons related to religion, politeness and prohibited behavior. They are often swear words and typically “bleeped” in public broadcasting. (What the bleep are you doing, you little bleep) or starred in print (St! F* off! f*ing ahole!).
Tell me about African American English.
African American English also known as Black English or Ebonics. AAE is a variety used by many/not all African Americans in different regions of the USA. Its characteristic features that, taken together, form a distinct set of social markers. Large geographical barriers separating groups of people, foster linguistic differences in regional dialect and these social barriers such as discrimination and segregation are treated as “abnormal” by those dominant groups who have decided that they are in charge of defining “normal”. Although AAE speakers experience the effect of discrimination, their social dialect often has covert prestige.
