Lecture (1)
What do sociolinguists study?
• study the relationship between language and society
• are interested in explaining why we speak differently in
different social contexts,
• are concerned with identifying the social functions of language
and the ways it is used to convey social meaning.
• The way people talk is influenced by the social context in
which they are talking.
• a speaker’s awareness of the social factors which influence the
choice of appropriate ways of speaking in different social
contexts
• The way a speaker expresses
himself indicates that his
relationship with his addressee is
an intimate, friendly one, or a
formal, distant or respectful one.
• We also indicate aspects of our
social identity through the way we
talk. Our speech provides clues to
others about who we are, where we
come from, and perhaps what kind
of social experiences we have had.
addressing and greeting
o Example 3
Every afternoon my friend packs her bag and leaves her Cardiff office in southern Wales
at about 5 o’clock. As she leaves, her business partner says goodbye Margaret (she
replies goodbye Mike), her secretary says see you tomorrow (she relies bye Jill), and
the caretaker says bye Mrs. Walker (to which she responds goodbye Andy). As she
arrives home she is greeted by hi mum from her daughter, Jenny, hello dear, have a
good day? from her mother, and simply you’re late again! from her husband. Later in
the evening the president of the local flower club calls to ask if she would like to join
the club. Good evening, is that Mrs Billington? she asks. No, it’s Margaret Walker, but
my husband’s name is David Billington, Margaret answers. What can I do for you?
Finally a friend calls Hello Meg, sut wyt ti?
Sociolinguists are also interested in the different types of linguistic variation used to
express and reflect social factors.
Vocabulary or word choice is one area of linguistic variation (e.g. that bastard
Sootbucket vs my teacher Mr Sutton , Margaret vs dear ).
But linguistic variation occurs at other levels of linguistic analysis too: sounds, word-
structure (or morphology), and grammar (or syntax) as well as vocabulary.
Styles
Dialects (Varieties)
Languages
Styles
Dialects (varieties)
Dialects (varieties)
o The linguistic variation involved in Hemnesberget is not different in kind from the
variation which distinguished Sam and Jim’s accents in example 4 , or the choice of
vocabulary and grammar in example 5;
o it is simply a matter of scale.
o the reasons for the choice of one dialect rather than another involve similar social
considerations – the participants, the social setting and the topic or purpose of the
interaction.
Dialects (varieties)
o Because of these similarities, sociolinguists use the term variety (or sometimes code) to
refer to any set of linguistic forms which patterns according to social factors.
o Variety is a sociolinguistic term referring to language in context.
o A variety is a set of linguistic forms used under specific social circumstances, i.e., with
a distinctive social distribution.
o Variety is therefore a broad term which includes different accents, different linguistic
styles, different dialects and even different languages which contrast with each other
for social reasons.
Languages
Languages
These examples illustrate the range of linguistic variation which can be observed in
different speech communities.
People may use different pronunciations, vocabulary, grammar, or styles of a language
for different purposes.
People may use different dialects of a language in different contexts.
And in some communities people select different languages according to the situation
in which they are speaking.
In any community the distinguishable varieties or codes (another term sometimes used for
this concept) which are available for use in different social contexts form a kind of
repertoire of available options.
The members of each community have their distinctive linguistic or verbal repertoires .
In other words, in every community there is a range of varieties from which people select
according to the context in which they are communicating. In monolingual
communities these take the form of different styles and dialects.