Chapter 14: Sociolinguistics Flashcards
Sociolinguistics
The study of the relationship between society and language
Speech Community
A group of people who share sociolinguistic norms
Sociolinguistic Norms
Social conventions about language use
Salient Features/Social Markers
Noticeable features of language recognized in a community as having a specific social meaning
Sociolinguistic Indicators
Discrete characteristics of a language that can be shown by large-scale studies
Standard Variety
The language taught in school, used in formal writing/situations (‘pure’ form of the language)
Non-Standard Variety
All informal dialects (seen as broken and impermanent)
Slang
New words in a language, or old words given new meanings
Variationist Sociolinguistics
Branch of linguistics that studies the connections between language varieties
Structured Variation
Language variation that is related (by age, sex, education, etc.)
Variable
A word with several pronunciations
E.g. ‘brother’
Dialectology
The study of regional differences in language
NORMs
Non-mobile Older Rural Males
Believed to have the most traditional speech
Isogloss
A line on a map dividing dialect regions
Dialect Levelling
Dialect differences decrease with frequent interaction
Apparent Time Hypothesis
Historical language change is associated with variation beginning in childhood that remains until adulthood
E.g. pronouncing the h in whale
Physical Isolation
Isolation from everyone due to geography
Linguistic Isolation
Isolation from speakers of the same language
Social Isolation
Isolation due to differences in conventions/attitudes
Code-Switching
Phenomenon when people who share more than one language get together and use 2+ languages to communicate
Situational Code-Switching
Using different languages for different situations
Lexical Gap Theory
Theory that people use code-switching because they cannot think of the correct word in one language
Matrix Language
A sentence’s predominant language
Nonce Borrowing
Words from another language that are inserted into the matrix language
Lingua Franca
A language used for the primary purpose of communicating across speech communities
Pidgin
A language in its most simplified form
Has a small vocabulary and simple grammar
Creole
A pidgin that becomes a community’s main language
Relexification Hypothesis
The theory that creoles have developed from the same template, just with different words
Distinctions Within a Community are Caused by
Gender, class, ethnicity, situation
Community of Practice
A group of people who engage in a shared activity can develop shared language practices
E.g. Jocks, burnouts, nerbs
High Involvement in a conversation leads to
Overlapping turns
