Terms for midterm

Question 1

code

Answer 1

speech system two people use to communicate

Question 2

code switching

Answer 2

bilinguals between langauges

Question 3

grammar

Answer 3

actual system that speakers know- both individual and shared knowledge

Question 4

I language

Answer 4

mental system that characterizes a person’s linguistic range and is represented in the individual’s brain

Question 5

E language

Answer 5

part of outside world, amorphous, not a system, fluid, in flux, not systematic

Question 6

competence

Answer 6

Chomsky term- what people know about their language

Question 7

performance

Answer 7

Chomsky term- what people do with their language

Question 8

unmarked

Answer 8

considered normal/ default characteristics

Question 9

marked

Answer 9

abnormal characteristics that stand out

Question 10

observer’s paradox

Answer 10

goal to find out how people talk when they are not being observed but need to collect data through obvservation.

Question 11

variety of language

Answer 11

set of linguistic items with similar distributions

Question 12

group

Answer 12

two or more people, group together for social, religious, etc. reasons, permanent or temporary, importance varies

Question 13

communities of practice

Answer 13

an aggregate of people who come together around mutual engagements in some common endeavor. Practices emmerge in the course of their joint activity around the endeavor

Question 14

networks

Answer 14

How and on what occasions does a specific individual A interact now with A, then with C, and again with D? How intensive are the relationships?

Question 15

dense network

Answer 15

people you know and interact with also know and interact with each other

Question 16

loose network

Answer 16

people you know and intereact with don’t know and interact with each other

Question 17

multiplex network

Answer 17

people within the network are tied together in more than one way

Question 18

speech repertoire

Answer 18

he or she controls a number of varieties of a language or two or more languages- range of linguistic varieties at disposal and which they may use as a member of speech community

Question 19

dialect atlases

Answer 19

show geographicalboundaries of the distribution of a particular linguistic feature by drawing an isogloss

Question 20

isogloss

Answer 20

on one side of the way people say one thing and on the toehr side they use a different pronunciation

Question 21

dialect boundary

Answer 21

a large number of isoglosses in a bundle of isoglosses in the same area create a boundary which often coincides with a geographical or political factor

Question 22

focal area

Answer 22

an area which posesses a set of linguistic features which spread into neighboring locations

Question 23

relic area

Answer 23

an area which shows characteristics of being unaffected by changes spreading from neighboring areas. For example, Martha’s Vineyard

Question 24

Rhenish fan

Answer 24

isogloss bundle in Europe setting off Low German to the north from High German to the south- run from north of Berlin east west to Rhine where they fan- aline with old political boundaries

Question 25

Transition area

Answer 25

area covered by isogloss fan- change is progressing in contrast to focal or relic area

Question 26

Linguistic variable

Answer 26

linguistic item which hs identifiable variants. For example, in’

Question 27

Labov 1966

Answer 27

• Study on New York r and th variables
• Labov chose 5 variables (th, dh, r, a, and o)
• used critera of education, ocucupation, and income to set up 10 social classes
• used 4 types of careful speech (reading list of close pairs, reading a list of words, reading a prose passage, formal interview) and 5 types of casual speech (outside formal interview, conversation with third party, responses to questions, childhood rhymes, fatal incident) Casual speech required channel cues. Also had subjects react to taped samples
• used a stratified sample- chose people for specific characteristics
• amount of r use increases by social class and formality of style, exception is cross over of lower middle class to upper class people in more formal circumstances- hypercorrection
• department store study- Saks (upper) Macy’s (middle) S. Klein (lower)
• sought out repetition of the phrase “fourth floor”
• r pronunciation was favored in higher end store
• repetition of the utterance increased r-pronunciation, and more r in floor than fourth
• older people used r less in Saks but in S. Klein the opposite; members of the highest and lowest groups don’t change their pronunciation after adolesence but middle class people do
• studied variants of t,th, and tth, nonstandard directly related to social class, sharp stratification

Question 28

Trudgill 1974

Answer 28

• Study on Norwich speech
• three consonant variables and thirteen vowel variables- n vs ng, and t variants
• used 5 social classes (MMC, LMC, UWC, MWC, LWC) 60 informants were classified on 6 factors and graded 0-5- occupation, educationm income, type of housing, locality, father’s occupation and he decided the cut off points.
• Required subjects to answer questions, read word lists naturally then rapidly, read word pairs, questions about specific local words, judgments about norwich speech
• Higher social class more frequent use of standard variants, more standard variants with more formality, more females with standard variant

Question 29

indicator

Answer 29

linguistic variable to which little or no social import is attatched- only trained observer is aware of them

Question 30

marker

Answer 30

linguistic variable which carries social significance, like dropping gs on ing

Question 31

stereotype

Answer 31

popular and therefore conscious characterization of the speech of a particular group- pahk the cah in Hahvahd yahd

Question 32

hypercorrect

Answer 32

overextend a particular usage in order to emulate others’ speech

Question 33

Contextual styles for data collection

Answer 33

• Casual conversation (including speech outside interview, conversation with a third party, responses to general questions, recall of childhood, narration of stories about life in peril)
• Interview conversation
• Reading aloud of a story
• Reading aloud of lists of words and pairs of words

Question 34

Wolfrom 1969

Answer 34

• Detroit study, multiple negation
• 48 black informants divided into four social classes, and each group of 12 further divided into 3 agre groups
• 12 white informants from upper middle class, divided by age and sex
• Very close relationship between social class and multiple negation
• Children less standard than adults, males less standard than females
• Gradient stratification applied to phonological variables
• Sharp stratification applied to gramatical variables

Question 35

Apparent-time studies

Answer 35

subjects are grouped by age and changes in behavior associated with language changes

Question 36

Real-time studies

Answer 36

elicit same kind of data after period of time with same or different informants

Question 37

Fischer 1858

Answer 37

• Study of the ng variable
• Interviewed young children- boys used -in’ more
• Model vs. typical boy, model much more likely to use -ing, model more likely to use -in’ in less formal environments
• in’ more used with verbs like hit or swim, everyday activities, and -ing more used with more formal verbs like correct or read
• conclusion: choice of -ing variant relates to sex, class, personality, mood of speaker, formality of conversation, and verb spoken

Question 38

Cheshire 1978

Answer 38

• Studied third person verb marking on other persons in Reading, England
• Used non-standard forms with know and call on over half, non-standard has on a third, and non-standard does on a quarter, has never as an aux.
• Vernacular verbs more likely to take -s ending on all forms- constraints on usage
• high frequencies of s with high toughness index- more correlation with boys

Question 39

Jahangiri 1980

Answer 39

• Study of Persian in Tehran
• Separated by gender and education level
• Hyper consistent pattern
• Too perfect, shows forced nature of study

Question 40

Milroy 1978

Answer 40

• Working class areas in Belfast, Northen Ireland
• Importance of social networks
• Vernacular norms emerge and maintain themselves in Belfast communities- perceived as signs of solidarity
• Placed each participant on six point scale indicating strength of networks
• correlation between network strength and variant usage on 5/8 variants
• first community had greater variant variation based on network strength and gender

Question 41

Phonemic coalescence

Answer 41

situations where contrast existed at one time but was later lost

Question 42

Phonemic split

Answer 42

there was no contrast but a contrast developed

Question 43

Age-grading

Answer 43

the phenomenon of using speech appropriate to your age group

Question 44

real-time panel study

Answer 44

A survey of younger people 20-30 years later when they become middle-aged to see if they maintain the innovations

Question 45

real-time trend study

Answer 45

A survey of people drawn from the same population after 20 years to see if comparable groups have changed their behavior

Question 46

Labov 1963

Answer 46

• Martha’s Vineyard study- dipthongs by native Vineyarders
• Labov finds exaggeration of tendency to centralize first part of dipthong- characteristic of those who identify most closely with the island
• Non-standardness used to show difference from summer population
• Youngest generation (because they couldn’t choose to live on island or not) were most ambivelent
• Middle age had most commitment to island