Sarah Churng

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Day 15 Sociolinguistics (1
What is sociolinguistics? Language
variation Dialects

• Sarah Churng
• July 16, 2008
• Reading LF 10.0-10.3

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Outline
What is sociolinguistics? Language
variation Dialects

• What is sociolinguistics?
• Language variation
• Dialects

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Historical ling footnote
What is sociolinguistics? Language
variation Dialects
Pidgins vs. Creoles

• Pidgins
• Tolerate extensive grammatical variation
• Single set of pronouns
• Beginnings of complex sentences.
• Determiners? No
• Grammatical order? None.
• Inflectional morphology? None.
• Plurals noun 3rd pers. pron.

• Creoles
• Strict word order
• Single set of pronouns
• Complex sentences.
• Determiners? Yes.
• Grammatical order? None.
• Inflectional morphology? Yes.
• Plurals noun 3rd pers. pron.

Jamaican Creole Only one word order is
allowed Mi a-go tel shi se mi waa nyam di
bammy. 1sg FUT tell 3sg COMP 1sg want eat DET
cassava. I will tell her that I want to eat the
cassava.
Pidgin Signed English Word order of either
English or ASL allowed DOG CHASE CAT The dog
chased the cat (This order is not immediately ok
in actual ASL)
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Historical ling footnote
What is sociolinguistics? Language
variation Dialects

• Teh Historikulingz, can haz more??!!1!bbq?!
• Is lolcat speak a pidgin or creole?

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Historical ling footnote
What is sociolinguistics? Language
variation Dialects

• Teh Historikulingz, can haz more??!!1!bbq?!
• Is lolcat speak a pidgin or creole?

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Historical ling footnote
What is sociolinguistics? Language
variation Dialects

• Consider
• Consonant cluster simplification
• frenks thanks
• tranfer transfer
• errefing everything
• Assimilation
• teh nozez vs. deh nozez
• Lack of inflection?
• IZ MINE! You not rid of me yet. Your glowstix, we
  eated dem.
• Topicalization
• Joy, I can haz it. Crabby old man kitteh, tellz
  you boring storeez.

• nuffing nothing
• tehwowwa The Victrola

• o rly?, srsly, you go way

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Historical ling footnote
What is sociolinguistics? Language
variation Dialects

• Maybe the catch all is that there is no
  standardization yet
• Teh kittehznot haz teh baby kittehz to speak
  teh lolkitteh speak juzz yet

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What is sociolinguistics?
What is sociolinguistics? Language
variation Dialects

• Sociolinguistics
• The study of the relationship between language
  and society, of language variation, and of
  attitudes about language

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Language Variation
What is sociolinguistics? Language
variation Dialects

• Across languages
• No two speakers of two different languages speak
  the same
• Likewise, within a language
• No two speakers of a language speak exactly the
  same way
• No individual speaker speaks the same way all the
  time

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Dialect
What is sociolinguistics? Language
variation Dialects

• Dialect
• A variety of a language spoken by a group of
  people that is characterized by systematic
  features (e.g., phonological, lexical,
  grammatical) that distinguish it from other
  varieties of that same language
• Idiolect
• The speech variety of an individual speaker

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Dialect vs Idiolect
What is sociolinguistics? Language
variation Dialects

• Dialect vs. Idiolect
• Misconceptions about dialects
• Language vs. Dialect
• Variation

Language dialect dialect dialect
idiolect idiolect idiolect
Language a continuum of dialects Dialect a
continuum of idiolects
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(Mis)conceptions about dialect?
What is sociolinguistics? Language
variation Dialects

• Dialect vs. Idiolect
• Misconceptions about dialects
• Language vs. Dialect
• Variation

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Myths
What is sociolinguistics? Language
variation Dialects

• Dialect vs. Idiolect
• Misconceptions about dialects
• Language vs. Dialect
• Variation

• Dialects substandard
• Dialects incorrect
• Dialects slang

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FACT
What is sociolinguistics? Language
variation Dialects

• Dialect vs. Idiolect
• Misconceptions about dialects
• Language vs. Dialect
• Variation

• Everyone speaks a dialect.

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Language vs. Dialect
What is sociolinguistics? Language
variation Dialects

• Dialect vs. Idiolect
• Misconceptions about dialects
• Language vs. Dialect
• Variation

• Linguistic criterion
• Mutual intelligibility
• YES? ? dialects
• NO? ? languages
• e.g., British vs. American vs. Irish vs.
  Australian(dialects of English language)
• http//www.cnn.com/video/?/video/living/2007/09/07
  /heroes.john.smeaton.cnn

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Mutual intelligibility issues
What is sociolinguistics? Language
variation Dialects

• Dialect vs. Idiolect
• Misconceptions about dialects
• Language vs. Dialect
• Variation

• Degree of mutual intelligibility?
• Dialect continuum
• 1 2 5 8 9

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Mutual intelligibility issues
What is sociolinguistics? Language
variation Dialects

• Dialect vs. Idiolect
• Misconceptions about dialects
• Language vs. Dialect
• Variation

• Asymmetries in intelligibility, e.g.,
• Danish speakers understand Swedish, but not vice
  versa
• Brazilian Portuguese speakers understand Spanish,
  but not vice versa

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Mutual intelligibility issues
What is sociolinguistics? Language
variation Dialects

• Dialect vs. Idiolect
• Misconceptions about dialects
• Language vs. Dialect
• Variation

• Nonlinguistic criteria (political, historical,
  geographic etc.) may play a role
• Mandarin, Cantonese are mutually unintelligible,
  but are referred to as dialects of Chinese
• Serbian and Croatian are mutually intelligible,
  but are referred to as separate languages
• Czech vs. Slovak
• Norwegian vs. Swedish

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Ways that dialects vary
What is sociolinguistics? Language
variation Dialects

• Dialect vs. Idiolect
• Misconceptions about dialects
• Language vs. Dialect
• Variation

• Phonologically (accents)
• Morphological
• Syntactic/grammatical
• Semantic/lexical

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Ways that dialects vary
What is sociolinguistics? Language
variation Dialects

• Dialect vs. Idiolect
• Misconceptions about dialects
• Language vs. Dialect
• Variation

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Ways that dialects vary
What is sociolinguistics? Language
variation Dialects

• Dialect vs. Idiolect
• Misconceptions about dialects
• Language vs. Dialect
• Variation

• Exercise LF section 10.5 12.

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Factors that contribute to variation
What is sociolinguistics? Language
variation Dialects

• Dialect vs. Idiolect
• Misconceptions about dialects
• Language vs. Dialect
• Variation

• Social situation
• Occupation
• Age
• Geography
• Social status/class
• Ethnicity
• Gender

(today)
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Speech style
What is sociolinguistics? Language
variation Dialects

• Dialect vs. Idiolect
• Misconceptions about dialects
• Language vs. Dialect
• Variation

• A linguistic variant appropriate to a particular
  social context
• Topic
• Setting
• Participants
• Usually reflects level of formalityCasual Carefu
  l
• Informal Formal

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Markers of style Phonological
What is sociolinguistics? Language
variation Dialects

• Dialect vs. Idiolect
• Misconceptions about dialects
• Language vs. Dialect
• Variation

• Casual, informal style marked by
• unstressed vowels deleted or replaced with schwa,
  e.g.,
• casual pthe??? vs. careful phothe??o?
• Deletion of word final consonants
• jus, don
• Use of contractions
• wanna, gonna, coulda

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Markers of style Lexical
What is sociolinguistics? Language
variation Dialects

• Dialect vs. Idiolect
• Misconceptions about dialects
• Language vs. Dialect
• Variation

• Jargon specialized (or technical) vocabulary
  of a particular profession or group (e.g., hobby,
  sport, etc.)
• e.g. Computer jargon
• gigahertz, RAM, CDRW-DVD ROM, USB
• e.g. Medical jargon
• -itis, -ectomy, hypo-, hyper-, hemo-, etc.

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Markers of style Lexical
What is sociolinguistics? Language
variation Dialects

• Dialect vs. Idiolect
• Misconceptions about dialects
• Language vs. Dialect
• Variation

• Slang words and expressions used in very
  informal settings (common slang), often to
  indicate membership in a particular social group
  (in-group slang)
• usually characterized by short lifespan
• swell, neat-o, groovy, daddy-o, It stinks!
• can become standardized
• phone, fridge, fan, blimp, hot dog

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Markers of style Lexical
What is sociolinguistics? Language
variation Dialects

• Dialect vs. Idiolect
• Misconceptions about dialects
• Language vs. Dialect
• Variation

• Lexical marking can often identify level of slang
  of speaker
• ex words for drunk
• intoxicated
• faded
• wasted
• under-the-influence

• shit-faced
• blitzed
• pissed
• inebriated

• Casual Careful
• slang not slang

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Markers of style Syntactic
What is sociolinguistics? Language
variation Dialects

• Dialect vs. Idiolect
• Misconceptions about dialects
• Language vs. Dialect
• Variation

• Casual speech characterized by
• Increased use of non-standard constructions
• Dont be a nobody (double negative)
• I could might go (double modals)
• Shorter, more concise sentences

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Style Differences
What is sociolinguistics? Language
variation Dialects

• Dialect vs. Idiolect
• Misconceptions about dialects
• Language vs. Dialect
• Variation

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Factors that contribute to variation
What is sociolinguistics? Language
variation Dialects

• Dialect vs. Idiolect
• Misconceptions about dialects
• Language vs. Dialect
• Variation

• Social situation
• Occupation
• Age
• Geography
• Social status/class
• Ethnicity
• Gender

(a sneak preview)
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The English Dialect Survey
What is sociolinguistics? Language
variation Dialects

• Dialect vs. Idiolect
• Misconceptions about dialects
• Language vs. Dialect
• Variation

• http//www.ling.cam.ac.uk/survey/

Sarah Churng
Day 15 Sociolinguistics