TEXT: Intro to SL Glossary 1 (A-D) Flashcards
accommodation
a way of speaking, often identified with a region or social group; refers to pronunciation only.
Compare with dialect and variety
achievement gap
the disparity in academic performance between different groups of students (often defined by racial or ethnic group membership), usually measured in terms of the dropout rate or standardized test scores
acquisition planning
language planning which focuses on the teaching and learning of a language
act sequence
in ethnography of communication research, the term used to refer to the linguistic form and content of the communicative event
actuation problem
the reason(s) why language changes occurs when and how it does
adjacency pair
a term used in discourse analysis to refer to a single stimulus-response sequence (e.g., a question and an answer, a greeting and another greeting, etc.)
affricate
a sound which combines a stop with a fricative (e.g., the ‘ch’ sound in English)
African American Vernacular English (AAVE)
a variety of US English that is associated with African American speakers and has certain nonstandard features
See creole origin and Anglicist hypothesis
Afrogenesis hypothesis
a hypothesis about the origins of creole languages which suggests that Portuguese-based pidgins which developed in Africa are the basis of most creole languages
age-grading
the idea that some aspects of language use change over time within the speech of an individual; that is, they may use a particular feature when younger and then not use this feature when they reach adulthood
/ai/ monophthongization
the pronunciation of the diphthong /ai/ (found in words like ‘pie’ or the pronoun ‘I’) without the glide (i.e., /a/)
allophone, allophonic variation
an allophone is a phonetic realization of a phoneme; allophonic variation is different phonetic realizations which do not change meaning in a particular language (e.g., [p] and [p^h] (i.e., aspirated and unaspirated /p/) in English)
Anglicist hypothesis
the idea that AAVE grew up in the context of many different English dialects in contact
apparent time
a construct used in SL studies which is based on the idea that a speaker’s core linguistic features do not change over time, thus comparing the speech of different age groups at a given point in time shows language change
applied
the use of theories, methods, and findings to address issues and solve problems having to do with language in society
the term ‘applied linguistics’ is used in some cases to refer to language teaching in particular, but may also be used to refer to other domains of application, for instance, language policy or translation
arbitrary, arbitrariness
a feature of language; the relationship between linguistic form and meaning is random
audience design
an approach to studying language variation based on the idea that speakers orient their speech based on their audience
awareness program
a type of educational program for children whose home variety is not the variety used in mainstream education; makes use of the home variety of the children for some tasks and also incorporates learning about the social process through which a particular variety becomes the standard and language of education
axiom of categoricity
the idea that a speaker always (i.e., categorically) uses certain linguistic features
Compare with variation
backchanneling
the responses interlocuters make to indicate they are listening; includes minimal responses such as ‘mhm’ or ‘uhuh’, phrases such as ‘oh’, ‘okay’, or ‘I see’, and nonverbal cues such as nodding or gaze
banal nationalism
See nationalism
basilect
a term used in creole linguistics to refer to the variety of a creole language most remote from the prestigious superstrate
Compare acrolect and mesolect
bilingual mode
when a speaker of two languages has both languages activated for use
change from above
language change that comes from above the level of consciousness, usually because speakers want to sound like a higher-status group; appears in more formal speech first
change from below
language change that occurs without speakers being aware of it; appears in the vernacular first
chronotope
how language represents or indexes a particular time and space
cisgender, cisnormativity
used to refer to people whose sex category is perceived as matching their gender
Compare with transgender
citizen sociolinguistics
the engagement of non-professional linguistics in linguistic research
closing
a term used in discourse analysis to describe the turns which end a conversation
code
a word used in SL to mean a variety of a language; it is intentionally neutral and does not specify if the variety is a particular dialect (e.g., ‘Cockney’) or a broader category (e.g., English)
Compare with language, dialect, register, genre, and style
codeswitching
a term used to describe the use of two or more varieties, or codes, in an interaction
See code, multilingual discourse
codeswitching constraints
rules which govern the structure of codeswitching
collective identity
identification of long-standing, socially established groups
Compare with personal identity and group identity
collocation
words which occur together; often, part of a corpus of linguistics analysis
common ground
a factor in a relationship which focuses on similarities in background and experience among speakers
commonsense knowledge
understanding of everyday life which allows people to operate in and understand the world around them; relies on a static idea of social reality
communicative competence
the ability to produce and understand utterances which are socially appropriate in particular contexts
Contrasts with competence
communicative event
a sequence of related turns in communication
community of practice
a group defined according to interaction around a common endeavor; although speakers may have different linguistic repertoires and backgrounds, common linguistic practices emerge through regular interaction
competence
a person’s unconscious knowledge of the grammatical rules of a language
Contrasts with performance and communicative competence
constative utterance
an utterance which is a descriptive statement which can be said to be either true or false
constitutive rules
rules which are necessary to make something what it is, that is, constitute it
construction of social identities
the concept of social identities as not being fixed attributes of the self but as things which emerge out of linguistics (and other social) behavior
See also social constructionist
contact languages
a general term used to describe languages which have developed in multilingual contexts; includes pidgins, creoles, and mixed languages
contextualization
signals (verbal and nonverbal) which help interlocutors to process and interpret the utterances in a conversation
convergence
modifying one’s speech so that in resembles that of interlocutors
conversation analysis (CA)
a particular method of discourse analysis which studies conversational structure and coherence, based on ethnomethodology
conversational overlap
when more than one speaker is talking at the same time in a conversation; may be cooperative or an attempt to interrupt
cooperative principle
from Gricean pragmatics; the principle that participants in a conversation are assumed to be trying to communicate
copula (see also zero copula)
the verb -to be-
corpus linguistics
the study of language in real-world texts comprising large, electronically readable corpora, which are analyzed using computerized analytical tools
corpus planning
a type of language planning which involves the selection and codification of language norms
correlational studies
research which shows a relationship between a particular social variable (e.g., age) and the use of a particular linguistic variable (e.g., the lexical item ‘ice box’); it does not imply a causal relationship
cosmopolitan
drawing on different cultural influences
covert prestige
prestige (of a linguistic variety or form) which is derived from its importance in ingroup interaction; this variety or form does not have prestige in the wider society
CRAAVE
stands for Cross-Race African American Vernacular English, AAVE, which is used by non-African Americans who have picked up some features of this dialect
See crossing
creole (language)
a type of contact language, usually assumed to be elaborated and nativized
Compare with pidgin and mixed language
creole continuum
a construct which is based on the idea that a creole language contains a spectrum of varieties from those most similar to the superstrate language to those quite different from it
See basilect, mesolect, and acrolect
creole formation
the process of the development of a creole language
creole origin
a term used in discussion of the development of AAVE to refer to the theory that a plantation creole developed in the Southern US during times of slavery, and features of contemporary AAVE can be traced back to this creole language
critical analysis
an analysis that seeks to find underlying ideologies in social practices, particularly those that mask and naturalize the reproduction of inequalities
critical discourse analysis (CDA), critical discourse studies
an approach to discourse analysis which seeks to discover how inequalities are encoded in and reproduced through language use
critical SL
the branch of SL that examines how language functions in society to reproduce ideologies, particularly those related to social inequalities
crossing
use of a variety associated with a group in which the speaker is not considered a member
See also CRAAVE
cultural borrowings
loanwords which are brought into a language because they denote new concepts or items entering the culture
culturally transmitted
a property of language; it is learned from other people, and is not innate (although the ability to learn language is innate)
culture
knowledge about how a society works, its values and practices
Cyrillic script
an alphabetic writing system; currently used for Russian, among other languages of Europe and Asia
decontextualization
a term used in discourse analysis to describe taking language use out of its original context
See also recontextualization
decreolization
a concept from creole linguistics which describes a situation in which the standard language which provided the superstrate for the creole language begins to exert influence on the creole, making it become more like the standard; this concept is criticized by some scholars
deficit model
used to refer to work on language and gender which portrays women’s language as deficient in comparison with men’s language
dense social network
a social network in which the people who have ties to ego also have ties to each other
Compare with loose social network
dependent variable
See under variable
descriptive
a systematic analysis of the structure of language as it is spoken in a particular group
Compare with prescriptive
Devanagari script
an alphabetic writing system; currently used to write Hindi and Sanskrit, among other languages of India
diachronic (linguistics)
the study of languages from a historical perspective
dialect
the term used to refer to a particular way of speaking a language which is associated with a particular region or social group
dialect atlas
collections of maps showing regional patterns of language use
dialect boundary
a bundle of isoglosses; the border between two varieties of a language
dialect continuum
gradual change of language over space; while the varieties at either end of the continuum may not be mutually intelligible, the adjacent varieties are
dialect geography
the study of regional dialects
dialect mixture
a variety which has features associated with distinct regional dialects
dialogical
involving a dialogue or exchange
difference (or two cultures) approach
in the study of language and gender, an approach which focuses on men and women as members of different subcultures, with differences in how they use language
diffusion
the spread of a linguistic feature through a language, region, or period of time
diglossia
the use of two languages (in the original definition, two dialects of the same language) with strict separation by domains
diphthong
a vowel which is comprised by two sounds within one syllable
Discourse(s)
language use combined with other social practices which produce and reproduce social categories and their values
discourse analysis
a term used to describe a wide range of approaches to the study of texts and conversation, some of which are sociolinguistic in nature
See conversation analysis and critical discourse analysis
discreteness
a property of language, meaning that it is made up out of discrete units which can be combined to form larger units: e.g., sounds form morphemes, morphemes form words, words form sentences
displacement
a property of language; humans can communicate about things in the past and future, and hypotheticals
dispreferred responses
a term used in discourse analysis to describe responses to speech acts which are not the unmarked or hoped-for reply; for instance, the refusal of a request
divergence
adjusting one’s language use to make it less like that of the interlocutors
divergence hyptohesis
the hypothesis that AAVE is become less like dialects of American English spoken by White speakers in the same regions
domain
a concept which refers to language use as determined by topic, setting, and speakers; often used to the discuss the choice of a particular variety of language
dominance approach
an approach to the study of language and gender which is based on the idea that men’s dominant position in society is reflected and reproduced in conversation
