CHAPTER 7 || Sociolinguistics: Language in Its Context Flashcards
ACCENTS
A variety of speech differing phonetically or phonologically from other varieties.
SPEECH ACCOMODATION
Adjustments speakers make in their speech to adapt it to features of their interlocutor’s speech.
Speakers often change the way they speak according to the person they are speaking with, adopting features of one another’s speech.
It is a way of reducing the social distance between the interlocutors.
BILINGUALISM
A person’s ability to speak two or more languages.
A range of types of bilingualism are distinguished depending on the time of acquisition of the languages, the person’s competence in each language, the contexts in which the languages are used and so on.
CODE-SWITCHING
The act of switching from one language or dialect to another within a single speech interaction or even turn of speech.
DIALECTS
A variety of language characterized by a particular set of words, grammatical structures, and phonetic or phonological characteristics that is associated with a particular geographical region, as in the New Zealand dialect of English.
The term dialect is sometimes used in reference to varieties associated with age, social class, gender, religion, etc. Thus, we could talk of a middle class dialect.
DIALECTAL VARIATION
Varieties of a language with their own peculiarities of grammar, phonology, phonetics or lexicon, and associated with their particular geographical regions are dialects.
No language with a reasonable number of speakers spread over a relatively wide territory will have a completely homogenous grammar and lexicon.
Differences in pronunciation, words or grammar are likely to be associated with different regions.
GENDER VARIATION
Some differences of speech have a biological foundation: across populations, males tend to have larger vocal folds than females. Thus, the fundamental frequency tends to be lower in speech for males than for females.
Differences in speech between the genders are often a matter of degree rather than kind, although in some languages there are features that are unique to either males or females. In English, the situation is of the former kind; that is, a matter of degree rather than kind.
IDENTITY
The languages and social varieties one controls, as well as the varieties associated with its uses, go together to construct a participant’s identity as a person.
They concern who the person is, the dimension of “being.”
ISOGLOSS
A line drawn on a map to show the boundary of an area in which a linguistic feature is found (a particular lexical item, a characteristic feature of pronunciation, grammatical feature, etc.).
LANGUAGE CHOICE
Certain choices of language correlate statistically with certain domains (factors that influence the choice of language).
The association between a language and a domain is a TENDENCY, not a rule.
Ex. Bilingual speakers can, and often do, vary their language within a single discourse, or across discourses of the same type.
LANGUAGE ENDANGERMENT / OBSOLENCE
The process by which the community of speakers of a language reduces signficantly, resulting in fewer children acquiring the language.
LANGUAGE DEATH
The process whereby a language loses its community of speakers, resulting in the extinction of native speakers.
LANGUAGE MAINTENANCE / REVIVAL
Strategies developed to maintain use of an endangered or dying language.
LANGUAGE SHIFT
The process in which habits of using a language in a bilingual community changes over time in favour of one of the languages, and against the use of another (or other languages).
Language shifts can result in language endangerment and ultimately death.
REGISTER / REGISTERIAL VARIATION
Speech varieties or variations in speech that are associated with different contexts of use.
Ex. Scientific English, legalese, bureacretese.
