Sociolinguistics

Introducing
Sociolinguistics
Dr. Emma Moore

Contents

What

is sociolinguistics?
Why study sociolinguistics?
What is the scope of sociolinguistics?

What is Sociolinguistics?
What

the academics say

We can define
sociolinguistics as the
study of language in
relation to society.

Hudson
(1996: 1)

What is Sociolinguistics?
What

the academics say

Sociolinguistics is that part

of linguistics which is
concerned with language as a
social and cultural
phenomenon. It investigates
the field of language and
society and has close
connections with the social
sciences

Trudgill
(2004:
21)

What is Sociolinguistics?
What

the academics say

The sociolinguists aim is to

move towards a theory which
provides a motivated account
of the way language is used
in a community, and of the
choices people make when
they use language

Holmes
(1992: 16)

What is Sociolinguistics?
No

set definition or single approach, but a set

of reoccurring themes

Combining linguistic AND social theory

Drawing

upon our knowledge of the social world to

better understand language

What is Sociolinguistics?

Language

Society

Attitudes

What is Sociolinguistics?
Language

Setting:
formal,
casual

Attitudes:
religious,
gender,
education

Politics:
capitalist,
communist,
sexist,
democratic,
fascist
Power:
rights,
norms,
judgements
History: war,
change,events

Why did sociolinguistics emerge?

The

legacy of formal
linguistics

Constructs models of the

linguistic system
Phonetics and phonology,
syntax, semantics
Interested in humans
underlying knowledge of
language structure

Isolating language structure

Chomskys

competence/performance

distinction

Competence = underlying knowledge of language

structure
Performance = language output which is affected
by language-external conditions

Colorless green ideas sleep

furiously
10

Something that makes sociolinguists

cross

Linguistic theory is concerned primarily

11

with an ideal speaker-listener, in a

completely homogenous speechcommunity, who knows its language
perfectly and is unaffected by such
grammatically irrelevant conditions as
memory limitations, distractions, shifts of
attention and interest, and errors (random
or characteristic) in applying his knowledge
of the language in actual performance. This
seems to me to have been the positions of
the founders of modern general linguistics,
and no cogent reason for modifying it has
been offered (Chomsky 1965).

Lets think about that

Do

ALL speakers share the same underlying

knowledge of language?

Is

12

How do we know?

language solely a cognitive process?

What do we use language to do?

Communication

AND achievement of social

goals

Language without social knowledge = a social

monster (Hymes 1974: 75)
Attitudes
Stances
Judgements

13

How do we know what to say?

Not

just important to know the linguistic rules,

but the social rules too

When is it appropriate to speak?

Who is able to speak?
Which speech forms are affective in getting what
you want done?

Our

14

sociolinguistic knowledge is structured

Communicative competence (Hymes 1971)

Exercise
You

want someone to pass you a copy of the

bus timetable. How would you ask:

15

a friend?
someone at the bus stop?

So, what do sociolinguists want to do?

Provide

a socially realistic linguistics

To do this we must:

Represent all speakers

Not rely upon speaker intuition
Be descriptive not prescriptive

This

16

allows us to learn more about language

Example of a socially-realistic
linguistics

Developing the work of dialectologists

To represent all sorts of social identities, social groups and

individuals

Region
+ social class
+ age
+ gender
+ social group

How do linguistic features pattern according social

groupings?

17

Also known as: Variationist sociolinguistics or quantitative

sociolinguistics

Anything else?
Solve

social problems involving language

To do this, we must:
Think

about the role of power in language

Look to language for evidence of social inequality
Examine social policy with respect to language

This

18

allows us to learn more about society

Examples of policy implications

Sexism/racism in language
Does

Dialect and education research and inequality

Is it harder for nonstandard children to achieve academic

success?

Language policy and planning affects social policy

19

our language render women invisible

Multilingualism; Standardisation; Education; Globalisation

The structure of language variation

Variation

based on social factors is not FREE

VARIATION
Free Variation:
Whether or not one
form or another
form is used is
linguistically
insignificant

20

She were
a good
laugh

She was a
good laugh

Sociolinguists believe in structured

heterogeneity
Social

constraints
Linguistic constraints

Social:
Social class

21

She were a
good laugh

Linguistic:
Type of pronoun?

Social constraints on language

We learn to speak in
different ways because
of our place in society

22

Social class
Gender
Ethnicity
Age
Region of origin

Language is indexical:
It reflects our social
memberships
It also helps to
construct and define
our social memberships

Are we all experts?

We

all have stories about our experience of

language and its interaction with society

Sociolinguistics: a target for disparagement?

Sociolinguistics:

as scientific and rigorous as

any other academic field

23

Summing Up
Sociolinguistics

is interdisciplinary
It emerged from a particular stance towards
formal linguistics
Well focus on the branch of sociolinguistics
that aims to provide a socially-realistic
linguistics

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References and Additional Reading

Hudson, R.A. (1996) Sociolinguistics. Cambridge: CUP.
Meyerhoff, Miriam (2006) Introducing Sociolinguistics. Edinburgh:
EUP.
Trudgill (2000) Sociolinguistics, Fourth edition. London: Penguin
books.
Holmes, Janet (1992) An Introduction to Sociolinguistics. London:
Longman.
Hymes, Dell (1971) On Communicative Competence. Philadelphia:
University of Pennsylvania Press.
Hymes, Dell (1974) Foundations in Sociolinguistics. Philadelphia:
University of Pennsylvania Press.
Required Reading: Meyerhoff (2006: Chapter 1)

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