Introduction in Sociolinguistics

Question 1

What is language?

Answer 1

American anthropologist-linguist Edward Sapir (1921):

“Language is a purely human and non-instinctive method of communicating ideas, emotions and desires by
means of voluntarily produced symbols. These symbols are, in the first instance, auditory and they are
produced by the so-called ‘organs of speech’.” (p. 9)

• not the most inclusive, but the most enduring

Question 2

Chomskyan Linguistics

Answer 2

Chomsky (1957, 1965) set the goals of linguistics as accounting for the child’s capacity to acquire the
language or languages in common use in the environment.

Chomskyan linguistics seeks to ascertain what general properties of language exist and what aspects are
specific to individual languages.

The Chomskyan approach to the study of language is:

• generative: it seeks to formulate a small core of principles which “generate” the sentences possible in a
  language
• modular: it analyses language as composed of distinct yet interlocking components (syntax, semantics,
  phonology and the lexicon) → a necessarily abstract view of language

Question 3

Brief History of Sociolinguistics

Answer 3

the term “sociolinguistics” was apparently coined by Thomas C. Hudson in the title of the article “Sociolinguistics
in India” (1939), published in Man in India

first used in linguistics by Eugene Nida in the second edition of his Morphology

in the late 1960s, the same phenomenon – the study of the intersection and interaction between language and
society – was referred to via two words which were used interchangeably: sociolinguistics and the sociology of
language

The study of sociolinguistics in the West was pioneered by linguists such as William Labov in the US and Basil
Bernstein in the UK.

Question 4

Definition of Sociolinguistics

Answer 4

Sociolinguistics emphasizes and focuses on the fact that people use language and language is a part of society. It tries
to describe, and account for, the different ways that different people use language.

Sociolinguistics looks at the relationship between language and society.

SOCIOLINGUISTICS = LINGUISTIC VARIABLES MAPPED AGAINST SOCIAL VARIABLES

Question 5

Linguistics =

Answer 5

= the study of language