Language Attitudes Flashcards
What is accommodation?
The process by which speakers attune or adapt their linguistic behaviour in light of their interlocutors’ behaviour and their attitudes towards their interlocutors (may be a conscious or unconscious process); encompasses both convergence with or divergence from interlocutors’ norms
What is asymmetric accommodation?
A situation in which one interlocutor converges while the other diverges (can be motivated by a mismatch in how interlocutors perceive the interaction)
What is communication accommodation?
The full term for accommodation, as used in communication accommodation theory, in which accommodation between individuals’ linguistic behaviour is seen as only one way in which individuals may converge or diverge from each other
What is convergence?
Accommodation towards the speech of one’s interlocutors. Accentuates similarities between interlocutors’ speech styles, and/or makes the speaker sound more like their interlocutor. It is assumed to be triggered by conscious or unconscious desires to emphasise similarity with interlocutors we like, and to increase attraction.
What is divergence?
Accommodation away from the speech of one’s interlocutors. Accentuates differences between interlocutor’s speech styles, and/or makes the speaker sound less like their interlocutor. It is assumed to be triggered by conscious or unconscious desires to emphasise difference and increase social distance.
What are interlocutors?
People who are talking together
What are language attitudes?
What people think about different linguistic varieties and different users of language
What is perceptual dialectology?
The study of people’s subjectively held beliefs about different dialects or linguistic varieties
What is the definition of salient?
Term that refers to how readily a particular variant is perceived/heard but sometimes also refers to a non-linguistic factor that the context or participants appear to have foregrounded in discourse
What is semantic amelioration?
Meaning shift that results in a word acquiring more positive associations or meanings
What is semantic broadening?
A semantic change in which the meaning of a word becomes more extensive
Semantic derogation/pejoration
Meaning shift that results in a word acquiring more negative associations or meanings; the opposite process of semantic amelioration
What is semantic narrowing?
A semantic change in which the meaning of a word becomes less extensive
What is semantic shift?
Incremental changes to the meaning of a word or phrase over time; see also the subtypes of semantic narrowing, broadening, amelioration and pejoration/derogation
What is social meaning?
Inferences about speakers or the variety they use and the interpretations we draw about how those speakers are positioned in social space because of this
