Language Variation 1

Question 1

What is linguistic repertoire and how does it differ?

Answer 1

Linguistic repertoire: different varietes of language we master

Variation through:

• Purpose: which goal? (academic, friends, commercial)
• Setting: which topic (everyday, legal), which location (school, court), what mode (spoken, written)
• Participants: who speaker, who addressee, further audience

Also influenced by:

• social factors: age, gender, education
• geographic factors: country, region

Question 2

What is register?

Answer 2

Speakers use different vocabulary, syntax, morphology… according to speech situation

• E.g. ing -> in
• preposition at the end -> informal (the street i live in)
• contractions -> informal (sorry, i can’t come)

Question 3

What is Jargon?

Answer 3

Specific language in specific profession or hobby

• legal jargon: hearing, sentence, suit
• medical jargon: IV, idk…

Question 4

What is Code-Switching and Translanguaging?

Answer 4

Code-switching:

• you change the language mid sentence

Translanguaging:

• you take a word from another language and grammatically change it, to fit the current spoken language

Question 5

What is Spoken and Written language characterized by?

Answer 5

Spoken language:

• Paralinguistic features (tone, loudness, rhythm)
• shared deictic space
• Can refer to surroundings

Written:

• complex vocab
• long sentences and phrases
• more nouns than pronouns

Question 6

What are accents and dialects?

Answer 6

Language:

• Collection of dialects
• No linguistic difference between dialect and language

Dialects:

• regional
• differ in vocab , grammar, pronounciation

Social Dialect:

• Socio-economic status (education, age, gender)
• Working class vs. High Class

Accent:

• Only pronunciation