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• Sociolinguistics


  The subfield of linguistics that examines the relationship between language and society
• Language


  A purely human and non-instinctive method of communicating ideas, emotions and desires by means of a system of voluntarily produced symbols
• Modern Linguistics


  Language is a system of arbitrary vocal symbols (sound and meaning vary in language) used for human communication
• Types of relationship between sign and object

  • Onomatopoeic/sign
  • Symbol
  • Index
  • Icon
• Linguists see language as an instinct, as a manifestation of an ability that is specific to humans
• History of Sociolinguistics


  1. 500BC: First linguistic study by Pánini and his followers in India

  2. 1786: Modern Linguistics founded by Sir William Jones

  3. Early 20th century: Structuralism predominated linguistics

  4. 1957: Generative Linguistics founded by Chomsky
• Chomsky's view on linguistic theory

  Primarily concerned with an ideal speaker-listener, in a completely homogeneous speech community, who knows its language perfectly and is unaffected by such grammatically irrelevant conditions as memory limitations, distractions, shifts in attention and interest, and errors
• Break between Psycholinguistics (interest in language use within human societies) and Sociolinguistics (focuses on what can be said, to whom, in whose presence, when and where, in what manner etc.)
• Language


  Not just denotational (refers to the process of conveying meaning), but also indexical for someone's social class, status, religion, gender etc.
• Sapir-Whorf hypothesis


  Using a language forces us into habitual grooves of thinking, language influences our way of perceiving things. Real translation between widely different languages is not possible.
• Boundaries between languages


  Often unclear, due to geographical or historical links
• Variety


  A neutral term of any particular kind of language or dialect which linguistics wish to consider as a single entity
• Mutual intelligibility


  A relationship between languages or dialects in which speakers of different but related varieties can readily understand each other
• Continuum


  A range of language varieties that differ from each other but are linked by degrees of mutual intelligibility
• Register


  Variation of language according to the context in which it is used
• Descriptive approach


  Characterize a language of specific groups of people in a range of situations, without bringing any preconceived notions of correctness to the task, or favoring language
• Prescriptive approach


  How a language should be spoken, enforcing the rules of a language, what's correct or proper
• Reasons for Prescriptive approach

  • One form is more logical than another
  • Appeal to classical forms
  • Preference for older forms of the language
  • Injunction against the use of foreign words
• Linguists want linguistic equality in asserting that all varieties of a language are valid system with their own logic and conventions
• Standardize


  One dialect is chosen (most likely of high class people) to be the official form of language, with rules made for it to become the standard
• Standard language


  Not 'native' to anyone, because it's a higher cultural endowment serving functions and has linguistic features that cannot be mastered after the age of 4/5
• Received Pronunciation (RP)


  Accent that has non-localized prestige and is something of a standard for teaching (British) English to foreigners
• Writing


  An invention that came late in human history and until recent times applied to a minority of languages
• Bloomfield


  Writing is not language, but merely a way of recording language by means of visual marks
• Coulmas


  Writing is a mode of verbal communication in its own right, it changes the nature of verbal communication as well as the speaker's attitude to, and awareness of, their language
• Functionalism


  The view that a society may be understood as a system made up of functioning parts, to understand any of these parts, the part must be examined in relation to the society as a whole
• Concepts


  • Culture
  • Socialization
  • Norms and values
  • Status and role
• Community


  Used in sociology and suggests a dimension of shared knowledge, possessions or behaviors
• Speech Community


  A group of people with shared norms or common evaluations about language forms. People are in habitual contact with each other by speech.
• Language situations in a society

  • Monolingualism
  • Bilingualism
  • Multilingualism
• Diglossia


  A situation where two varieties of a language exist side by side throughout a speech community, with each being assigned a definite but non-overlapping role
• Idiolect


  An individual's distinctive way of speaking
• Regional Dialectology


  The systematic study of how a language varies from one area to another
• Dialect


  Subdivision of a language, the speech characteristic of a region (Regional Dialect) or of a group of people defined by social or occupational characteristics rather than by region alone (Social Dialect). It can also describe the speech characteristics of ethnic groups (Ethnic Dialect).
• Social class often takes precedence over geography in speech
• The distinction between language and dialect is a political rather than a linguistic one
• Many linguists consider all dialects of a language to be equal, unless proven otherwise
• The standard form of a language is a sociohistorical product rather than an entity that necessarily pre-dated other varieties of that language
• It can be said that everyone speaks a dialect. The dialect of the most prestigious speakers however, is seldom labelled a dialect by non-linguists
• Accent


  The way a speaker pronounces things and refers to a variety that is phonetically different from other varieties