lecture 7

Question 1

what is a language?

Answer 1

• system of communication and expression that uses vocal, visual, or tactil signs
• used for social behavior
• always changing

Question 2

How do we study language?

Answer 2

• linguistics
• sociolinguistics

Question 3

what is linguistics?

Answer 3

a scientifical dicipline interested in all aspects of language, such as
- syntax ( grammer and word order)
- semantics & pragmatics (meaning)
- Phonology & Phonetics (sounds+)
- morphology (word structure)
- cognitive and psycholinguistics (the brain)
- historical (how language changes over time)

Question 4

what is sociolinguistics?

Answer 4

the study of language in social lige, the social meaning od language (sometimes called linguistic anthropology)

Question 5

what might sociolinguists study?

Answer 5

• How language, communication and interaction create the social world
• the social meaning of linguistic variation
• language and power
  
  • authority
  • discrimination
  • language policy
• language and identity
  
  • identity formation, performance, and uptake
  • self-presentation
• differentiation
  
  • group formation, boundary creation

Question 6

what is language the key to?

Answer 6

social interaction, which is what makes up our world, especially in cities

Question 7

what comes together when we look at languages?

Answer 7

governance, power, self-expression

Question 8

what is the key to any form of communication and sociolinguistics to help negotiate all sorts of interaction, even if you don’t speak a language?

Answer 8

paying attention

Question 9

what is a dialect?

Answer 9

• mutually intelligible regional varieties
• regional varieties that are not mutually intelligible
• has inspired other -lects: sociolect, ethnolect, multiethnolect
• implies non-standard

Question 10

what does “patois” mean?

Answer 10

regional variety that lacks a strong literary tradition and/or is not a national language
- such as: Welsh, Catalan etc
- what are today officially called a regional or minority language

Question 11

what does creoles mean?

Answer 11

language that develop through mixing two or more languages , frequently in colonial context

Question 12

what is variety?

Answer 12

a term that linguists use to try to be more neutral when speaking about a way of speaking

Question 13

what is a standard language?

Answer 13

• an ideal version of the language, usually codified by a national institution
• ideal of standard language grew out of the Enlightenment and modern nationstate
• goal of all speakers, yet created by (and accessible to) educated elite
• a way of codiyfing not only language, but also social hierarchies and differneces

Question 14

what is indexicality?

Answer 14

part of language that points to the context of the utterance, or the characteristics of the speaker