L23B: Sociolinguistics 2005-2006

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L23B Sociolinguistics 2005-2006
Please Turn off all cellular phones pagers
L23B Website www.mona.uwi.edu/dllp/courses/l23b
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Topics for this Session

• Communication as a social activity
• Components of Communication
• Ethnography of Communication
• Readings Downes,Hymes, Gumperz(PT)
• Also relevant sections from Wardhaugh Holmes

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ACQUISITION OF LANGUAGE

• WHEN TO SPEAK
• WHEN NOT TO SPEAK
• WHERE TO SPEAK
• TO WHOM
• WHAT TO TALK ABOUT
• IN WHAT MANNER

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COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE

• underlying systems of knowledge and skill
  required for communication

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Components of Communication

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• Linguistic Knowledge
• Interaction Skills
• Cultural Knowledge

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Linguistic Knowledge

•  verbal elements
• non-verbal elements
• patterning of elements
• range of possible variants
• meaning of variants

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Interaction Skills

• selection of forms
• interpretation of forms
• discourse organization and processes
• norms of interaction and interpretation
• strategies for achieving goals  

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Cultural Knowledge

• social structure
• values and attitudes

e.g. Mary He cheated on me! John My father died
yesterday.
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Dell Hymes Social Units essential to
communication

• Speech Situations
• Speech Events
• Speech Acts

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Speech Situation

• contexts of language use
• such as ceremonies,
• fights, hunts, lovemaking

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Speech Events(main text chapter 10 speech
events)

• defined by a unified set of components through
  out
•  same purpose of communication
• same topic
• same participants
• same language variety (generally)

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Speech Acts(Wardhaugh, chapter 12)Searle
Austin

• group of utterances with a single interactional
  function
• e.g.
• request, command, a greeting,

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Speech Situation at the UWI bus stop

• Speech event (asking the time)
• Speaker A What is the time? (speech act 1)
• Speaker B Its 1 oclock (speech act 2)
• Speaker A Thanks (speech act 3)

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Speech Situation at the bus stop

• Speech Event (asking the time)
• Speaker A Can you tell me the time? (speech act
  1)
• Speaker B Yes! (speech act 2)

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Ethnography of Communication

• Hymes (1974)      
• components of communicative events
• relations among components
• the capacity and state of components
• the activity of the whole

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Hymes SPEAKING

• S refers to Setting and scene
• P refers to Participants
• E refers to Ends (outcomes)
• A refers to Act sequence
• K refers to Key (tone, manner)
• I refers to Instrumentalities(channel)
• N refers to Norms of interaction and
• interpretation
• G refers to Genre