Osong

Sociolinguistics Class: Lectures, Questions,

Handouts and Articles
Written and compiled by Todd M. Ferry
Starobilsk Department of Lugansk National Pedagogical University

The following are six sociolinguistics lectures I gave to 4th and 5th year University
students at the Starobilsk branch of Lugansk University. I compiled my information from
a number of sources including articles on Wikipedia, several books, and the book
Соціальні аспекти мовлення by А. Г. Ніколенко, which we used for the class. It is not
the best book, but it may be the easiest to get if you plan to teach a sociolinguistics
course, since it is a Ukrainian publication. I tried to emphasize sociolinguistics in the
ENGLISH language and in the different English speaking cultures, but I drew on other
cultures in the lectures as well. I apologize in advance for any typos you may find. I did
my best to edit the lectures when I wrote them, and I have not had time to re-edit them
since. Each lecture also has a handout and slides to accompany it. I could not include
ALL of the articles since some of them were in PDF format and others were taken from
books. I have supplemented this by adding some other good articles, but you will have to
come up with your own questions. You can find these resources however, on the net and
in the Peace Corps library—that’s where I found them. I also have PowerPoint
presentations for the last few lectures, but I don’t know if I can load them or not on to the
PC Ukraine website—we will see.

Introduction to the topic:

We are about to discuss one of the most fascinating subjects in language study. You can
learn the rules of any language, including your own native language, and sooner or later
you can speak it and write it pretty well, but do you understand what is happening when
you use the language? Do you know how your use of the language effects how your
perception of things, how you think about relationships, and how you think about
yourself? These are the topics we are about to discuss, and will continue to discuss, over
the course of the class.

Sociolinguistics: syllabus
Mr. Todd M. Ferry

1
Email me at: mrtoddferry@gmail.com

Introduction:
In this class we will cover the basic concepts of sociolinguistics as described in the book:
Соціальні аспекти мовлення by А. Г. Ніколенко. We will rely on this book throughout
the class, so I recommend you purchase it or make photocopies of the chapters. In
addition I will hand out other articles in class. I will assign each of you an article or part
of an article to read and to explain to us at each seminar. You will be responsible for these
articles at the seminars. You will lead us in a discussion of your article. You must do all
the readings, however, so that you can participate fully in the discussions.

There will be six lectures, three seminars, and one day for presentations. In lectures you
will at times be asked to participate by answering questions and taking part in short
exercises, and you must participate in the seminars. I expect your participation, and I will
grade you on your PARTICIPATION. There will also be 3 ESSAY TESTS, one at the end
of each seminar. You will be given a choice of topics to write about and about 15-20
minutes to write on that topic. In addition, you will write one short RESEARCH PAPER.
The details for the research paper are attached. One the last day of class we will have a
small CONFERENCE where you will turn in your research paper and give a short
PRESENATION [5-7 minutes] on what your paper is about.

Schedule:
Lecture 1: What is culture? What is society? What is language? What is sociolinguistics?
(SAM Ch.1)
Lecture 2: Language variety. (SAM Ch.3)
Seminar 1: Discussion, activity, essay test.

Lecture 3: What happens when languages collide? Mixture of varieties and language
planning (SAM Ch. 4 and 2)
Lecture 4: The relationship between language and society, part 1:speech as social
interaction, social identity, power and solidarity (SAM Ch. 5 and 6)
Seminar 2: Discussion, activity, essay test.

Lecture 5: The relationship between language and society, part 2: interesting variations in
the English language and what they mean (SAM Ch. 7)
Lecture 6: The relationship between language and society, part 3: sexism, racism and
linguistic inequality. (SAM Ch. 8 and 9)
Seminar 3: Discussion, activity, essay test.

Last Class: Sociolinguistics conference [paper and presentation due].

Rules:

1. English only: This will take some getting used to, but NO Russian is allowed!

2
 2. No cell phones in class: There are no exceptions. If you cannot wait 80 minutes
to use your telephone DO NOT come to class. If you have your cell phone out you
WILL BE ASKED TO LEAVE. Using a cell phone in class or any other
professional environment is considered very rude in the United States. This
includes cell phone dictionaries. Bring a classic, paper dictionary with you to
class. They are better for learning anyway.

3. Come to class, and do not be late: There is no reason to be late. You do know
what time class starts, don’t you? And again, this is considered very rude in the
United States. If you come to class late, you will lose 1 point off of whatever
points you earn that day.

Research assignment:
One papers 3-5 pages, typed, 12 pt, times new roman font, double-spaced. Your paper
will cover a problem related to sociolinguistics. You will research this problem on the
Internet. You will use at least three different sources. You will include at the end of your
paper, a complete bibliography of ALL the websites you looked at for your research. You
will footnote all of the quotations and paraphrased work you include in your paper. I have
attached a description of how best to do this. You will NOT cut and paste material from
someone else’s work into your paper without footnoting it—this is called PLAGARISM
and it will get you thrown out of ANY university in the United States or Europe. If you
do cut and paste someone else’s work without footnoting it and put it into your paper I
WILL GIVE YOU A “0”. You will have no grade. This is not a hard assignment for a fifth
year student and you have ten weeks to write the paper. Therefore, please do the required
work. For the paper:

1. Choose a problem to discuss in sociolinguisitics.

2. Describe the problem.
3. Discuss different scholars approaches to the problem.
4. USE at least THREE SOURCES.
5. Come to a conclusion of YOUR OWN.
6. Include a full BIBLIOGRAPHY OF ALL YOUR SOURCES.
7. FOOTNOTE ALL CITATIONS.

Every writing program contains a tool to create a “footnote” (English)= snoska (Russian).
If you need help doing this, please let me know. I WILL HELP YOU. Here is an
example of a footnote:

3
 …While his views changed over time, it seems that towards the end of his life Sapir came
to believe that language did not merely mirror culture and habitual action, but that
language and thought might in fact be in a relationship of mutual influence or perhaps
even determination.
Whorf gave this idea greater precision by examining the particular grammatical
mechanisms by which thought influenced language. He argued his point thus:

We dissect nature along lines laid down by our native languages. The categories and types that we
isolate from the world of phenomena we do not find there because they stare every observer in the
face; on the contrary, the world is presented in a kaleidoscopic flux of impressions which has to be
organized by our minds—and this means largely by the linguistic systems in our minds. We cut
nature up, organize it into concepts, and ascribe significances as we do, largely because we are
parties to an agreement to organize it in this way — an agreement that holds throughout our speech
community and is codified in the patterns of our language. 1

Whorf's formulation of this “principle of linguistic relativity” is often stereotyped as a

"prisonhouse" view of language in which one's thinking and behavior is completely and
utterly shaped by one's language. Whorf himself sought merely to insist that thought and
action were linguistically and socially mediated. In doing so he opposed what he called a
“natural logic” position which he claimed believed, "talking, or the use of language, is
supposed only to 'express' what is essentially already formulated nonlinguistically."2 On
this account, he argued, "thought does not depend on grammar but on laws of logic or
reason which are supposed to be the same for all observers of the universe."3

1
Language, Thought, and Reality: Selected Writings of Benjamin Lee Whorf. By Benjamin Whorf, edited by John
Carroll. MIT Press, pp. 212-214.

2
Language, Thought, and Reality: Selected Writings of Benjamin Lee Whorf. By Benjamin Whorf, edited by John
Carroll. MIT Press, pp. 207.

3
Language, Thought, and Reality: Selected Writings of Benjamin Lee Whorf. By
Benjamin Whorf, edited by John Carroll. MIT Press, pp 208.

4
Lecture 1. What is sociolinguistics? What is culture? What is society?
What is language?

These are some really big questions. But it is necessary to start with definitions of these
important words, so that we know what we mean when we use them.

If we start with the first question first, I think you will understand what I mean. What is
sociolinguistics?

Definition from your book:

“The study of language in relation to society” [repeat twice and slowly for everyone to
hear]

Fine, but how can we discuss sociolinguistics without first knowing what we mean by
“society”, and since society is part of a “culture” we need to know what that is, and
moreover, what do we mean by “language”? We will define these three things by the end
of the class and discuss their relationships to one another.

Let’s talk first about that sticky subject “CULTURE”

DEFINING CULTURE:
Culture is so infamously difficult to define that we will not be too definite in our
definition. I do want to talk about it though.

*ASK STUDENTS: WHAT IS CULTURE?

The best and simplest definition I found was this.

Culture:
1. The arts, customs, and habits that characterize a particular society or nation.
2. The beliefs, values, behavior and material objects that constitute a people's way of
life.

DEFINING SOCIETY:
Society is also difficult to define, but we know it’s a part of our culture, right?

The best and simplest definition I found was this:

Society:

5
People in general living together in organized communities, with laws and traditions
controlling the way they behave towards one another.

They may not all have the same original culture, but they are a part of a given culture—
for example the United States. People come to the society of the United States from all
over the world. They come with an original culture, but as citizens of the United States
they adopt “American” culture, however, loose a culture it is.

DEFINING LANGUAGE:
Let’s talk what we mean by language? What is language?

-ASK STUDENTS TO DEFINE LANGUAGE

Language is a system for communication. It is sometimes also called a “code” because it

has a set of rules that both people communicating must follow and understand to
communicate well.

Language is a way of communicating. And, until the 1950’s linguist thought that the
study of language should be devoted to a purely descriptive explanation. The analysis of
language took place over the course of several stages:

1. Phonology—the study of a languages sounds.

2. Morphology—the study of a languages forms and morphemes. For example, cats
would be described as containing two morphemes. Cat, the name for a kind of
animal and –s a morpheme indicating plurality.
3. Lexicon—the study of the words of a language and their meanings.
4. Syntax—the study of the arrangement and order of words in phrases and
sentences.

Certainly, all these things are an important part of any language as well, but looking at
language ONLY descriptively can give the impression that none of these elements of a
language are connected—which is obviously not true. Worse, it gives the impression that
language has no relationship to our culture and how we think.

**LANGUAGE IS CULTURAL—WHAT DO YOU THINK I MEAN BY THAT?

**PUT ANSWERS ON BOARD.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
LANGUAGE AND CULTURE

Around the 1950’s linguists began looking at language differently. They began to see how
closely related a person’s language and their culture really are.

6
DOCTRINE OF LINGUISTIC RELAVTIVITY
The beginnings of this change start with the doctrine of linguistic relativity. The doctrine
of linguistic relativity states that all known languages and dialects are effective means of
communication.
In the 19th century linguists used to rate languages as primitive and advanced based on an
evolutionary scale of a group’s society. They termed languages advanced and complex if
they were spoken by “civilized” people and if they were spoken by hunters and gatherers,
that is tribal peoples, the language was considered primitive and simple.

A very famous Anthropologist named Franz Boas proved this approach to understanding
language and culture in general to be very wrong.

It became evident to Boas and later others that languages could not be rated on a scale
from simple to complex and that there was no one-to-one relationship between
technological complexity or cultural complexity and linguistic complexity.

All languages known to linguists, regardless of their society are equally complex.

Languages spoken by tribal peoples are as systematically patterned as English or Latin.

This truth is known as linguistic relativity. The parallel concept when studying other
cultures is called cultural relativity. All things are equal and relative to one another.

We will adopt both these doctrine in this class. I do not want any discussions about one
language being better than another, or one dialect being better than another, because this
is simply NOT FACT. It is opinion. As sociolinguists we do not base anything on
opinions—only facts.

Boas also convincingly demonstrated that it was necessary to analyze each language in
terms of its own structure. This is not to say that there are no universals in language.
There have to be since all languages have a phonemic system, a morphology, and syntax.

There are two important theories about the nature of language that changed how we look
at and analyze language in any context. These are probably the two most difficult
concepts we will be discussing in the course, but discussing them will prepare you to
think in a necessarily different way about language than you might be use to.

Chomsky
The first, and one of the biggest influences on linguistics was a book by Noam Chomsky
called “Syntactic Structure.”

Noam Chomsky is considered one of the fathers of modern linguistics. He has been
studying languages for over fifty years, and is also very politically active, so you may
have heard his name in the news. He is also, interestingly, Ukrainian, on his father’s side.
I tried to find to out what Oblast his father was from, but it was taking too much time.

7
Maybe if someone decides to do their research paper on one of Chomsky’s linguistic
contributions—they can tell us.

Chomsky’s book advocated a new method of linguistic analysis called:

**TRANSFORMATATIONAL-GENERATIVE GRAMMAR [put on board]

Noam Chomsky is a very wordy person. His books are dense and difficult to
comprehend, hence the name Transformational-generative grammar.

Transformational grammar seeks to identify rules (transformations) that govern relations

between parts of a sentence, on the assumption that beneath such aspects as word order a
fundamental structure exists.

At it’s most basic, this approach to studying language says that language is more than the
surface phenomena, i.e. sounds, words, and word order. Beneath the surface all languages
share a limited set of organizing principles.

Draw diagram Surface layer: Sounds, word order, word function

-----------------------------------------
Deep structure Though/Culture

Chomsky believes that the brain contains a genetically transmitted outline or plan for
learning languages. He calls this plan a UNIVERSAL GRAMMAR [put on board]
When children learn a language they don’t start from scratch, they already have the
outline.

*DRAW A MAP ON THE BOARD (something like a grid)

As we learn to speak, we master a specific set of grammar, a particular set of grammatical

rules, the ones our language has taken from the UNIVERSAL SET.
These rules let us convert what we want to say into what we do say.

*SHADE ONLY A PART OF THE GRID—SHOW THAT OTHER LANGUAGES IN

ANOTHER PART OF THE GRID.

People who hear us and speak our language understand our meaning, but it also means
those who do not yet know our rules, can learn them because they are similar to theirs.
Our knowledge of the rules enables us to use language creatively, to generate an infinite
number of sentences according to a finite number of rules—we can produce sentences
that on one has ever said before and we can understand other people’s original statements
because we know our language plan. Other’s can learn our language “plan” because their
language “plan” has similar patterns.

8
Chomsky calls this level of language our language COMPETENCE, that is what we
know consciously or unconsciously about our language. He calls what we DO with our
language, that is the sounds, words, inflections, and usage, PERFORMANCE.

As Chomsky says,

Linguistic theory is concerned primarily with an ideal speaker-listener, in a completely

homogenous speech-community, who knows its language perfectly…To study actual
linguistic performance, we must consider the interaction of a variety of factors, of which
the underlying competence of the speaker-hearer is only one.

Chomsky is saying we have to look deeper than the PERFORMANCE level, deeper than
the surface sounds, words, and inflections, we make when we speak, to the level of
COMPETENCE, that is how we know what we just sort of know when we speak.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

SAPIR_WHORF HYPOTHESIS
A second important development in linguistics is the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis.

Sapir and Whorf were two linguists who believed that different languages produce
different ways of thinking. They argued that languages lead their speakers to think about
things in particular ways.

The central idea of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is that language

functions, not simply as a device for reporting experience, but also as a
way of defining experience for its speakers.
For example:

1. In English we use pronouns that distinguish gender: he, she, him, her, his, hers.
In the Paluang language of Burma, Gender is not distinguished in pronouns.
In the romance languages nearly every word has a gender.
WHAT ABOUT RUSSIAN?

Seeing this, it seems clear that people who speak romance languages probably pay more
attention to gender difference than the people of Paluang—this is true.

Another example:

2. English divides time into past, present, and future.

Hopi, a Native American language, does not. Hopi distinguishes between events
that exist or have existed. (aspectual)
WHAT ABOUT RUSSIAN? (Russian is somewhere between these two)

9
So, it would appear that the Hopi are less concerned with time and English speaking
peoples slightly obsessed with it—this is true.

Another example:

3. Eskimos have several distinct types of words for snow.

English has one.
WHAT ABOUT RUSSIAN?

Eskimos therefore should, and do indeed, think a great deal more about snow that English
speakers.

4. The Nuer people are a tribal people who live in Africa. Their whole world is
constructed around cattle. Since cattle is so important to their livelihood, they
have dozens of words to describe it.
English speakers do not use but a few words for cattle.
WHAT ABOUT RUSSIAN?

Cattle might therefore be more important to the Nuer than to the English world—this is
true.

5. Similarly, in Europe and the U.S. we have a wide variety of words to describe
different colors.
In Papua New Guinea they use only two basic terms: black and white or dark and
light.

Differentiating color is probably then, a great deal more important to Europeans and
Americans—this is true.

Now, that being said: Certainly English speakers can DEVELOP more words for snow
and cattle. Skiers in the U.S. for example have created more words for snow than are
normally used in English, and cattle ranchers in Texas have a wider variety of words for
this animal. This is one way, when further specialization is required, that variation can
occur in a language—we will discuss this later. But suffice it to say, the ways in which
people divide up the world—the contrasts they perceive as meaningful or significant—
reflect their experiences. And in turn, the limited set of words in ones language used for
describing things limits ones ability to perceive certain things as different.

*PLEASE LOOK AT THE HAND OUT:

As Sapir himself says,

Human beings do not live in the objective world alone, nor alone in the world of social
activity as ordinarily understood, but are very much at the mercy of the particular
language which has become the medium of expression for their society. It is quite an
illusion to imagine that one adjusts to reality essentially without the use of language and
that language is merely an incidental means of solving specific problems of

10
communication or reflection. The fact of the matter is that the 'real world' is to a large
extent unconsciously built upon the language habits of the group. No two languages are
ever sufficiently similar to be considered as representing the same social reality. The
worlds in which different societies live are distinct worlds, not merely the same world
with different labels attached... We see and hear and otherwise experience very largely as
we do because the language habits of our community predispose certain choices of
interpretation. (Sapir, 1958 [1929], p. 69)

And Whorf,

We dissect nature along lines laid down by our native languages. The categories and
types that we isolate from the world of phenomena we do not find there because they
stare every observer in the face; on the contrary, the world is presented in a kaleidoscopic
flux of impressions which has to be organized by our minds—and this means largely by
the linguistic systems in our minds. We cut nature up, organize it into concepts, and
ascribe significances as we do, largely because we are parties to an agreement to organize
it in this way - an agreement that holds throughout our speech community and is codified
in the patterns of our language. The agreement is, of course, an implicit and un-stated
one, but its terms are absolutely obligatory; we cannot talk at all except by subscribing to
the organization and classification of data which the agreement decrees. (Whorf, 1940,
pp. 213–14)

Now what happens if you speak more than one language? This is the part I find most
fascinating. If what these people say is true about language influencing our thought and
perception of the world, then knowing more than one language only makes you better
able to perceive and understand what happens in the world—you are that much smarter
and more aware than someone who can only see the world with a single language. At it’s
most basic, if the people of the world have limited vision those who know only one
language have only one pair of glasses. They can see okay, but not everything. People
who know more than one language have more than one pair of glasses. They can see a
great deal more and understand a great deal more.

What a gift! What an ability!

THE POINT

The point to discussing both of these theories, however, is that language is not just the
words, sounds, and sentences you create with it. IT IS MUCH MORE.

**PUT ON BOARD

 IT IS A DEEP SUBCONCIOUS STRUCTURE.

 ALL LANGUAGES FOLLOW A SIMILAR SET OF RULES: THE

UNIVERSAL GRAMMAR

11
  LANGUAGE IS A PART OF YOUR CULTURAL VIEW OF THE WORLD,
AND AFFECTS YOUR VIEW OF THE WORLD.

IN SUMMATION

We can now say that the knowledge that speakers have of the language or languages they
speak is knowledge of something quite abstract. It is knowledge of rules and principles
and of the ways of saying and doing things with sounds, words, and sentences, rather than
just knowledge of specific sounds, words, and sentences. It is about knowing what is IN
the language and what is not; it is about knowing the possibilities the language offers and
what is impossible. This knowledge explains how it is we can understand sentences we
have not heard before and reject others as being UNGRAMMATICAL, in the sense of
not being possible in the language. Communication among people who speak the same
language is possible because they share such knowledge.

SOCIOLINGUISTICS—AGAIN
Now what does this mean for sociolinguistics?

The inter-relationship of language and culture is continued in the process of socialization.

That is language is used to transmit culture from one generation to the next. Culture is
transmitted verbally. In fact language is our medium for learning most things. We learn
our cultural history through language, our cultural concepts, morals and values, and in
particular, our social norms and constraints.

CONCLUSION:
It is at this point that we can begin to discuss again, what sociolinguistics really is.
Sociolinguistics deals with the processes of socialization and social interaction—with the
relationships between language and society.

What are the possible relationships between language and society?

Here is a list:

There are several possible relationships.

1. First, Social structure (i.e.social classes) may either influence or determine

linguistic structure and or behavior.
2. Second, linguistic structure and or behavior may either influence or determine
social structure. This is the view behind the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis.
3. A third possible relationship is that language and society influence each other, that
the relationship is what is called dialectical.

***DRAW ON BOARD

Social structure  Linguistic structure

Social structure  Linguistic structure

12
Social structure  Linguistic structure

LANGUAGE DEFINITION part II.

Language is a code with a set of consciously and unconsciously known rules about
sounds, words, syntax and grammar used to communicate between people that is
culturally/socially influenced OR influences our culture/society OR both.

We must therefore be prepared to look into various aspects of the possible relationships
between language and society. Sociolinguistics aim is to move towards a theory which
provides an account of the way language is used in a community and of the choices
people make when they use language.

END
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Lecture 2: Linguistic Variation

TOWER OF BABEL STORY:

***PUT UP PICTURE OF THE TOWER OF BABEL
Engraving The Confusion of Tongues by Gustave Doré (1865),

There is a famous story in the Bible (Gen. Ch. 11) called the Tower of Babel where a
united humanity speaking only one language decided to build a giant tower to reach God
in the heavens. God viewed this as an act of definance and scattered the people across the
world, giving them all many different languages so that they could never again work
together to build a tower to heaven. I’ve mentioned this story because it is part of our
shared culture, we all know it, and because it is interesting to see how people even in the
ancient past viewed the many differences in languages. Even then, they wondered why
the world speaks so many strange and different languages.

Today’s topic is linguistic variation.

Language has changed over time and some language change has led to new languages
being created. For example, Latin was the original source language for many of the
modern romance languages including Italian, French, and Spanish.

Language change is the manner in which the phonetic, morphological, semantic,

syntactic, and other features of a language are modified over time. All languages are
continually changing. All languages have internal variation. At any given moment the
English language, for example, has a huge variety within itself. And since it is the
language you have been studying, I will try to draw most of our examples from the
English language in this and the remaining lectures.

13
Sociolinguists are interested in the origins of language change and want to explain how
society and changes in society influence language.

Most linguists distinguish between linguistic change and linguistic variation as follows:
Linguistic change occurs over time; for example, the differences in spelling and
pronunciation between Middle English niht and Modern English night represent
linguistic changes that developed between (roughly) the fourteenth and the sixteenth or
seventeenth centuries.

***WRITE ON BOARD NIHT and NIGHT

In contrast, linguistic variation exists at one given time.

For example, one variety is represented by the different pronunciations of a word like
barn. An Eastern New England American English speaker might say bearn and while a
speaker of the Great Lakes Northern dialect of American English who might say
something more like, born.

Another example is the difference between the chief British and American meanings of
the noun vest.

vest / B vest / noun [count]

1 BRITISH a piece of underwear for the top half of your body. American
undershirt
2 AMERICAN a WAISTCOAT
2a. a piece of clothing with no sleeves or collar worn over other clothes,
for example for protection:
a bulletproof vest

Or for that matter, we might take for example the different British and American words
for the same meaning such as:

American British
Appetizer Starter
Ground meat Mince
French fries Chips
Potato chips Crisps

One last example is simply the slang a Californian surfer might use:

Yo, what’s up dude! You just got a new board? Way cool! Let’s hit the waves! Hang-ten!

In fact all of the following are language variations: Standard English, Cockney, London
English, the English of football commentators, lower-class New York speech, Oxford

14
English, legalese, and cocktail party talk. They are NOT all dialects—but some of them
certainly are. They do ALL show variation in language.
Today we will be talking about: PUT ON BOARD

 Language variation
 Deciding what is a language and what is a dialect
 Talking about what makes a dialect
 Talking about regional dialects
 Talking about social dialects
 Talking about linguistic variables
 Accents
 And speech communities

SLIDE#1

Sociolinguistic variation is the study of the way language varies and changes in
communities of speakers and concentrates in particular on the interaction of:

Social factors (such as a speaker's gender, ethnicity, age, degree of integration into their
community, etc)

and

Linguistic structures (such as sounds, grammatical forms, intonation features, words, etc).

Let’s discuss linguistic variation in more detail.

WHAT IS A VARIETY?

SLIDE#2
Variety is when people who speak the same language speak it differently.

[Read SLIDE]

A specific variation within a language is called a dialect.

SLIDE #3

Let’s first discuss the difference between language and dialect.

15
LANGUAGE
A language should be the larger linguistic family that can contain several dialects and can
be considered the standard form of the language.

DIALECT
A dialect should be: A way of speaking a language that is used only in a
particular area or by a particular group and characterized by systemic
features, such as phonology, lexicon, or grammar, that distinguishes it from
other varieties of the same language.

SLIDE #4 and #5

PROBLEMS DEFINING LANGUAGE AND DIALECT

However, problems arise when we start to try to differentiate dialects from
languages.

First off, the term dialect in popular usage often carries a connotation of
substandard. That is, it is somehow not as good as the standard language.
The term itself is equally applicable to all varieties of a language—including
the dialect that might become the standard. REMEMBER: EVERY
DIALECT IS EQUAL

Linguists usually approach dialects as descriptively neutral terms, seeing

them as regionally or socially distinct varieties of a language that are
mutually intelligible with other varieties.

**PUT ON BOARD:
MUTUAL INTELLIGIBILITY Means speakers of two or more different
languages or dialects can converse with each other and understand each
other’s meanings.

Now, most speakers can give a name to whatever it is they speak. While
people do usually know what language they speak, they may not always
claim to be fully qualified speakers of that language.

They may experience difficulty in deciding whether what they speak should
be called a language proper or merely a dialect of some language. Such
indecision is not surprising, exactly how do you decide what is a language
and what is a dialect of a language?

Let’s look at some of the problems first.

16
SLIDE #6

There is often what are called asymmetries in intelligibility, that is one group can
understand another group but not the other way around.

For example:
Danish speakers can understand Swedish, but Swedish speakers cannot understand
Danish speakers.

For example:
Portuguese speakers from Brazil can understand Spanish, but Spanish speakers cannot
understand Portuguese speakers from Brazil.

SLIDE #7

Similarly nonlinguistic criteria such as political, historical, or geographic differences may

play a role.

For example:
Mandarin Chinese speakers and Cantonese Chinese speakers are NOT AT ALL
understandable to each other. They cannot have a conversation. Yet, they are considered
dialects of the same language. Why not two different languages?—because it might
politically divide China to admit the difference.

Another example:
Serbian and Croatian are very much mutually intelligible languages. A speaker of Serbian
could hold a conversation with a Croatian speaker and vice versa. However, they are
referred to as separate languages because the two peoples want to remain politically
separate—they don’t want to admit a shared language.

Swedish and Norwegian are also mutually intelligible—but considered two distinct
languages.

And finally, the same is true for Czech and Slovak.

What about English?

1. For example:
A speaker of Cockney, a London variety of English, may find it extremely difficult to
communicated with a person from the Ozark Mountains in the United States. Therefore,
do they speak separate languages?

2. What about English speakers from New Zealand and the Southern United States.

17
3. What about a speaker of African-American Vernacular English, also sometimes called
Black English Vernacular and the kind of English you hear in some rap songs, how well
would he converse with an English speaker from the Scottish Highlands?

4. For that matter, is one English spoken in Britain and another, different dialect, spoken
in America? The famous American journalist H.L. Menken thought there was as early as
the 1930’s. How much more different have American and British English become in the
past nearly 100 years? I have included an article by him in your readings.

How do the different varieties of English spoken in Jamaica relate to other varieties of
English in Canada? Would two English speakers from these diverse places understand
one another?

It’s even fun to picture these different speakers of English trying to speak to one another
because the English they speak is so different, but all of these questions are real examples
of how linguists try to understand variation and make sense of differences within a
language.

Perhaps some of the difficulties we have with trying to decide what constitutes a
language and a dialect of a language arise from trying to subsume various different types
of systems of communication under that one label.

Another approach would be to admit that there are different types of language. We can
differentiate these types of language following a certain set of criteria proposed by the
linguist R. T Bell in his book Bell, R.T. (1976). Sociolinguistics: Goals, Approaches 
and Problems. London: Batsford.

We can also speak of a language being more developed using these criteria, in terms of
fitting into more of the criteria’s categories. A dialect would then be a sub-variety of a
language fitting one of these categories.

To use the criteria, you take a given variety of a language and compare it to the seven
categories. The more categories the variety fits the more developed it is and the more
likely it is that it probably should be considered a language.

**PLEASE LOOK AT YOUR HAND OUT

Bell’s 7 categories are:

1. Standardization: A language that has been standardized.

2. Vitality: Whether a language is alive or dead.
3. Historicity: A language that has a long historical bond with its speakers.
4. Autonomy: A language must be felt by its speakers to be different from other
languages.
5. Reduction: Reduction is when the speakers of a particular variety of a language
regard it as a sub-variety or a dialect.

18
 6. Mixture: Mixture refers to how “mixed” a language’s speakers feel their language
has become.
7. Norms: Norms refers to the feeling that many speakers have that there are both
good speakers and poor speakers, and that the good speakers represent the norms
of proper usage.

Let’s look at an example:

An example of how these categories work is Serbian and Croatian, I have taken this from
a paper entitled Sociolinguistic Analysis of "Serbo-Croatian" published in 1996 by a
scholar named Sean McLennan, according to him:

From a linguistic standpoint, we must come to the conclusion that Serbo­
Croation are simply dialects of the same language. There are no more 
variations between Serbian and Croatian than there are between Canadian 
English and any other dialect of English, indeed, perhaps even fewer in some
cases. 

Syntactic and morphological constructions remain the same and the languages are mutually 
intelligible.

But, regardless of the linguistic facts presented, on the whole, the speakers of the language 
perceive the variants as being different languages

If we compare them:
1) Standardization: Both Serbian and Croatian are standardized. There are different standardized
spellings for the same words. As well, media and literature use both variants.

2) Vitality: Obviously, both variants have a living community of speakers.

3) Historicity: Although Serbian and Croatian have shared very similar histories and
at times, language was a basis for unity, this is not true now. In fact, historical differences are
being emphasized (primarily by Croats). For example the influence of Turkish on Serbian

4) Autonomy: Croats certainly feel that they speak a different language. 

5) Reduction: It cannot be claimed that either variant is seen as a sub­variety of the other. If 
anything, the feeling is that they have nothing to do with each other at all (Personal Consultation).

6) Mixture: In neither case do the speakers feel that their language is impure or is a
marginal variety of some other language. 

7) Presence of De Facto Norms: Both Croatian and Serbian have a continuum of

19
"good" and "poor" speakers. Unsurprisingly, the poorest speakers of Croatian are those
with a variant closest to Serbian.

So, therefore, according to these criteria the author finds that, at least from the perspective of
those involved, Serbian and Croatian can be considered different languages.

DIFFERENT LANGUAGES!!!

Now, some linguists rely only on the single category of Standardization to

differentiate one language from another—if both have a standard form then
they are both languages. Remember this is the first of Bell’s criteria.
Therefore, the chosen STANDARDIZED DIALECT becomes the
STANDARD LANGUAGE and every other dialect is considered a dialect of
the language only. This is the description in you book. For a language to be
considered Standardized it must fulfill the following requirements:

PUT ON BOARD

Standardization:

1. Selection: A particular variety is selected as the one to be developed into the

standard.
2. Codification: Some agency such as the academy creates dictionaries and
grammar books to fix the language variety so that everyone agrees on how to use
it and what is correct.
3. Elaboration of function: You can use this variety of the language for all the
functions you need it for. For example government documents, education,
literature etc.
4. Acceptance: Acceptance means that the RELEVANT population accepts this
variety of language as the community’s language.

The best example of this is French which has a governing body, called the Academie
Francaise, that was established in 1635 and still creates rules about usage, as well as new
words for things originating in other languages.

STANDARD ENGLISH
One more example of a standardized language is Standard English.

Standard English is a controversial term used to denote a form of written and spoken
English that is thought to be normative for educated users. There are no set rules or
vocabulary for "Standard English" created by a governing body like French. In fact it has
been tried in both American and Britain, but all attempts have failed. However, it does
have very well defined grammar rules written down in grammar books that you have all
studied, and as well, any number of dictionaries that define the languages words and are
published all over the world.

20
However, there are, as usual complications. Many contend that one should rather speak of
"standard Englishes", or "standard English dialects", given that there are large, distinct
English language communities with distinct standards—such as American English and
British English.

Another complication is that English has become the most widely used second language
in the world, and as such it is subject to the most alteration by non-native speakers, and
numerous "non-native dialects" are developing their own standards (those, for example,
of English language publications published in countries where English is generally
learned as a foreign language). All the English publications printed in Ukraine are an
example of this. You are in a sense, creating your own English as well.

Anyway, let’s see how Standardized English fits the categories for a standard language.

Selection: At the end of the 15th century the London dialect had established itself as the
dominant one and existed in two versions: a spoken one and a written one. The latter was
called Chancery Standard and developed quickly into the dialect which was to become
Standard English. Standard English has changed a great deal since then, but it remains the
known standard dialect.

Acceptance: The acceptance of the London dialect as the standard, however, is not so
much a result of the economic influence of the London merchants, but that of the students
who came from all over England to study in Oxford and Cambridge and here adapted the
fashionable dialect. This helped the variety to increase its social and geographical
mobility. Its employment by the court, as well as its political usefulness in the wake of
growing a national consciousness, led to its final adoption as the standard.

Elaboration: As the new standard began to spread into the domains of administration,
government and the Church, it became necessary to expand the linguistic means
by which this was to be carried out. As a result the vocabulary of Standard
English was also expanded.

Codification: The variety of Standard English became increasingly complex and as more
people aspired to use this particular variety, there emerged an enormous need to
know of what it consisted. Of the early dictionaries probably the best known is
that of Samuel Johnson, whose two volume Dictionary of the English Language
was published in 1755 and stands at the beginning of a long tradition of
dictionaries.

**ASK STUDENTS: Now, how does Standard English fit into BELL’S categories
for a language?
 Standardization: Highly standardized.
 Vitality: Living
 Historicity: Historical bond with most of its speakers but not all of them

21
  Autonomy: People who speak it feel it is different.
 Reduction: People view it has the language.
 Mixture: People do not feel it is mixed
 Norms: There are certainly good and bad speakers. The good speakers definitely
represent the norm.

So, it looks like language and usually does represent what the English language is.
Anyway, it is an interesting topic. Maybe one of you wants to write a paper about
this?

As we have seen, one way to characterize certain variations is to say that speakers of a
particular language speak different dialects of that language. Although we have noted
how difficult it is to define dialect, it is still a useful term. We can talk now about dialects
being regional, societal or class based, and or even very individual.

REGIONAL DIALECTS
A Regional dialect is a linguistic variation based upon membership in a
long-standing regionally isolated group. The most common way
sociolinguists look at regional dialects is to create dialect maps of various
dialects of a single language within the boundaries of that language.

SEE SLIDE #8

For example in seeking to determine features of the dialects of English and

to show their distributions, dalect geographers try to find answers to
questions such:

Is this an r-pronouncing area of English, as in the word “Car” or Cart, or is it

not.

What past tense form of drink to speakers prefer? Drank or Drunk?

What names do people give to particular objects in their surroundings, such

as Elevator or Lift—Petrol or Gas—Carousel or Roundabout?

Sometimes maps are drawn to show actual boundaries around such features
so as to distinguish an area in which a certain feature is found from areas in
which it is not found, these boundaries are called isoglosses.

**POINT TO SLIDE #8

22
ISOGLOSSES
Isoglosses are interesting because they show the boundary of different
dialects. Now, isoglosses should not intersect, but they sometimes do,
meaning variations can travel across dialect borders. The importance of
Isoglosses is that they show the dialect variations.

In fact, whole books of maps, or atlases, drawing out the different dialects of
English in the U.S. and Canada have been created. This map,

SLIDE #8 is one example of regional dialects in the U.S.

And if you were to draw a dialect map of English in the world, you would
see the many regional dialects of American, British, Australian, New
Zealand, Canadian, and South African, English are all different dialects.

I have a list of English dialects if you are interested in seeing them all.

**PASS OUT LIST

SOCIAL DIALECT
Dialect differences of course are not only regional. They can also be within a
society. Where as regional dialects are geographically based, social dialects
originate among social groups and are related to a variety of factors, but in
particular: social class, religion and ethnicity

A social dialect is a linguistic variation based upon membership in a long-

standing socially isolated group. That is people may be more similar in
language to people from the same social group in a different area than to
people from a different social group in the same area.

Examples of social dialects might include:

 Black Vernacular English: uses a number of different phrases, word

order changes and sound differences, some “rap” has these
characteristics changes. We will talk more about BEV later it is a
complex social dialect.
 Jewish Speakers of English in New York: for example might say the
word “dog” with a vowel sound more similar to book, so “doog.”

23
  Italian Speakers of English in New York: for example might say
words like bad and bag with a vowel sound resembling “beard” so
something like bead and beag.

Other examples are:

In southern dialects of the U.S. you might here the variant: “you-all” in use
among all social classes, but the variants “I might could” and “a apple” are
used only in the low and middle classes.

This is the case in Britain where social class takes precedence over geography as a
determinant of speech so that there is far more geographical variation among people in
the lower social classes than there is among those at the “top” of the social classes.

Sociolinguists primary concern is with social dialects and this will be the emphasis in the
remainder of the course.

VARIABLES
The American sociolinguist, William Labov devised the notion of the linguistic variable
to help capture this idea of difference between dialects. A linguistic variable is a set of
related dialect forms all of which mean the same thing and which correlate with some
social grouping in the speech community. Variety, in a language, can be defined as a set
of linguistic items, called VARIABLES, with a similar distribution. A VARIABLE is a
linguistic item that has identifiable variants. That is, when certain ways of saying things
or certain VARIABLES become a set way of expressing something, phonetically,
grammatically, or with expressions, etc.

 The distinct differences between how the same thing is said are VARIANTS.

 The actual difference is a VARIABLE.

For example words like singing and fishing are sometimes pronounced singin’ and
fishin’. The final sound in these words is the variable—fishing and fishin’/ singing and
singin’ are the variants.

The model of analyzing language variation and change that Labov developed has been
extremely popular and has been applied to many speech communities around the world.
Linguistic VARIABLES are used most often in determining social dialects, and we will
soon be discussing variables in more detail, so remember that term for social dialects.

Examples of other variants are:

 Farm and far without the r-being pronounced: so fam and fa
or

24
Bet and better, sometimes pronounced without the “t” like be-h and be-
hher

Or other examples
 He talks vs. he talk
or
 He’s happy, he be happy, and he happy

Or multiple negation:

He don’t mean no harm to nobody

Even the use or absence of the relative in relative clauses

 She is the girl whom I praised
 She is the girl that I praised
 She is the girl I praised.

IDIOLECT: REDIRECT TO SLIDE # 5

Finally, our last topic in dialects is the ideolect. What is an ideolect? An
idiolect is the speech difference of every individual person. The way you
speak is your own. NO ONE SPEAKS A LANGUAGE LIKE ANYONE
ELSE. This term is not useful other than as a way of discussing
individualism in a language.

MISCONCEPTIONS ABOUT DIALECTS: SLIDE # 9

Now, to finish up our discussion of dialects, let’s clear up some misconceptions:
 Dialects are NOT substandard
 Dialects are NOT incorrect
 Dialects are NOT slang (though they can include terms that are slang)
 EVERYONE SPEAKS A DIALECT
 ALL DIALECTS ARE EQUAL IN THE EYES OF THE SOCIOLINGUIST

We have so far then, discussed the difference between language and a dialect of a
language. The major types of dialects are regional dialects, social dialects, and idiolects.
Finally, we discussed the linguistic variable. But, there are still other variations we need
to consider.

ACCENT
Now that we have discussed dialect what is accent?
In linguistics, an accent is a pronunciation characteristic of a particular group of people
relative to another group. Accent should not be confused with dialect (q.v.), which is a
variety of language differing in vocabulary and grammar as well as pronunciation.

25
When a standard language and pronunciation are defined by a group, an accent may be
any pronunciation that deviates from that standard. However, accent is a relative concept,
and it is meaningful only with respect to a specified pronunciation reference. For
example, people from New York City may speak with an accent in the perception of
people from Los Angeles, but people from Los Angeles may also speak with an accent in
the perception of New Yorkers. Americans hear British people speaking with an accent
and vice versa. Thus the concept of a person having "no accent" is meaningless. The
language or dialect may be the same they just sound differently.

The best example of this is you and I.

When we both speak Standard English, I speak it with an American accent and you speak
it with a Russian accent, but we both still speak Standard English.

PROBLEMS WITH ACCENT

In some societies, a “standard” accent is defined that carries particular prestige in that
society; it may or may not be an accent that is widely spoken within the society, and
sometimes its prestige comes solely from its association with a specific real or theoretical
group within the society.

**PUT ON BOARD “RP” = RECEIVED PRONOUNCIATION

In the United Kingdom, for example, the so-called Received Pronunciation (or RP for
short) of English is established as the most prestigious accent, although only about three
percent of the people within the UK actually speak with that accent. This is the accent of
the British aristocracy and upper classes.

People want to sound like those they admire. Many English speakers admire British
culture and history and try to imitate the RP accent in particular. I have even heard it in
the English of a number of people from other countries who study abroad. They have an
extraordinarily thick British accent for non-native speakers.

Often the standard accent is simply the most widely spoken accent in a group; that is, the
one that is least likely to be perceived as “different". An example is General American
English, an accent (defined somewhat less rigidly than RP) that is spoken to a greater or
lesser extent by many native speakers of English in North America.

The General American accent is not thought of as a linguistic standard in the sense that
Received Pronunciation (RP) has historically been the standard, prestige variant in
England, but its speakers are perceived as "accentless" by most Americans.

General American is also the accent generally taught to individuals from other countries
learning English as a second language in the United States, as well as outside the country
to anyone who wishes to learn "American English." And, in general, this is the accent that
I speak with.

26
Accents, in particular, also show up often in different socio-economic classes. This is
very obvious in the English, Liverpool and Cockney accents, but also in the street speak
of the lower classes and working classes in the major cities of the U.S. People all react
differently to these accents. If you don’t speak the working class street accent in a bar in
the U.S. where this is more common, someone might actually laugh at you.

Some foreign accents are considered "sexy," such as French-accented English. With
American culture perceived to be on the rise in much of the world many youths in non-
Western cultures seek to assimilate American accents as a sign of social status. In these
countries a Western accent may be quickly associated with social and economic success.
Again, pronunciation seems in general to be more sensitive to regional and social differences than grammar and vocabulary so we
make a distinction between accent and dialect, with accent referring to nothing but pronunciation and dialect referring to every other
aspect of language.

REGISTER
The study of language variation is further complicated by the fact that
speakers can adopt different registers of speaking.

A register is:
REGISTER: the type of language that you use in a particular situation, or
when communicating with a particular group of people

The term register is widely used in sociolinguistics to refer to “varieties

according to use” in contrast with dialects defined as varieties according to
user.

You can speak very formally or very informally, and you choose which way
according to the circumstances. An example will make this more clear:

You would probably want to say to a king:

What do you intend to do your majesty?

And not,
Yo, waddya gone do, Rex?

This lecture is an example of a more formal, higher style of English than you
might normally hear me use on the street.

The same is true for specific ways of speaking with other more specific
groups of people.

27
The best examples of this are people in certain occupations. Airplane pilots,
similarly may have a specific way of speaking to each other because they
have to communicate information in particular ways. The same is true of
people in law, medicine, or business.

Each has a specific vocabulary and way of speaking: if you have any friends
in any of these fields listen to them talk to a colleague and see how well you
understand what they are talking about.

Each time we speak or write we not only locate ourselves in relation to the
rest of society, but we also relate our act of communication itself to how
informal or formal we need to be and what the situation is like. This
variation is NOT a dialect because a register can be used in any dialect.

The importance of register IS related to a larger more meaningful variation

in language called DIGLOSSIA

DIGLOSSIA
Diglossia can be described as two varieties within a language that are so
distinct they can almost be called two different languages. These two
varieties are often a standard form of the language which people use for
television news broadcasts, in writing, and in any other formal setting, and
sometimes also called the HIGH form. The other variety, is the form of the
language people speak at home, and is also sometimes called the LOW form.
It is possible that these two forms started, originally, as registers, but became
so different that the split created the more dramatically different varieties.
Arabic is a great example of this.

DRAW ON BOARD: ____Standard Arabic (Fusah)_____

Moroccan/Syrian/Egyptian/Saudi Arabian

First there is a Standard Arabic that is taught in schools and used in

newspapers and on television.
Then there are the local dialects of vernacular Arabic, such as Syrian, Egyptian,
Jordanian, Moroccan, that people speak at home and which can be so different from
Standard Arabic and each other that the dialects are not mutually understandable. But,
because all the people who speak different dialects of Arabic study Standard Arabic, they
can use that form of the language to communicate. That is why all Arabic newspapers and
television are in Standard Arabic, so everyone within the Arabic speaking world can read
the same papers and watch the same TV programs. NO ONE, however, SPEAKS

28
STANDARD ARABIC on the street, unless of course they are from two different dialects
and need to use standard Arabic to communicate.

In my opinion this sort of thing might eventually happen to English. Everyone is now
teaching what is called “Standard English”, but all English speakers from the U.S. to
Australia still have their vernacular English they speak with their friends and family.
Now, when two people from say, Australia and the U.S. meet, they can’t use all of their
vernacular dialect so they switch to Standard English. Its not a dramatic switch yet, but it
is a switch none the less.

SUM UP
So, to sum up, as we have said:

 Differentiating one language from another and a dialect from a language can be
very difficult but we have some guidelines to follow to make this process easier.

 Furthermore every speaker of a language speaks a dialect of that language.

 Also, the decided on standard for a language is still a dialect, but one that has
been chosen to represent that language.

 Moreover, there are different types of dialects including regional dialects, social
dialects, and individual dialects.

 We have also talked about accents. Accents are NOT dialects. They are only
different ways people pronounce words and may be regional or social.

 Finally, Other variations in dialects and language include register and diglossia.

SPEECH COMMUNITY
Now, to continue, you use your dialect with all the other people who you see
everyday and who also use your language and dialect. This is called your
speech community.

**PUT ON BOARD: SPEECH COMMUNITY: All the people you talk to who use your
language and dialect.

This is my simplified definition. There are a number of definitions for this term and a
lengthy discussion. I refer you to the book. But, this is an important term and we will
continue to use it—so memorize it.

What happens in different speech communities will be our topic in the next lecture, in
particular multilingual speech communities. Our next lecture will be on multilingualism
and what happens when languages collide.

29
So, we will stop here.

Now I would like to know if:

 Does anyone here have an accent?

 Does anyone here speak a dialect different from somebody else?

There are a number of different dialects of Ukrainian. If you would like to see how some
linguists have categorized them, I have a printout. I also have a list of English dialects if
you would like to see that.

This ends our discussion of linguistic variation. Next week is your first seminar, so
prepare for that. Look over the questions for each article.

END

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Lecture 3: When Languages Collide

Today we are going to talk about what happens when speakers of different languages
meet.

Let’s take for example English: PUT ON BOARD

Can anyone tell me all of the countries in which English has official status?

We can view the English-speaking world in terms of three circles:

1. Inner circle: U.S. Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand

2. Outer circle: the places where English has a long history of institutional use:
India [3rd largest English speaking population in the world], Nigeria, Singapore,
South Africa, etc. In the case of this outer circle, the use of English is partly a
response to Britain’s earlier conquest of some of these regions.

3. Expanding circle: China, Japan, Korea, and probably Ukraine.

Now, you can see by this model that English is spoken by a number of different peoples
as their second language. In fact, soon more people will speak English as their second
language than do people as their first language. Moreover, in each of these communities
the English language is a little different—it has been made a little different because
second language users have changed it and adapted.

Now, what is it called when you speak more than one language?

30
MULTILINGUALISM: Multilingualism is the ability to speak more than one
different language well. Notice this definition does not require you to be fluent.

Now, who are these multilingual people in the outer and expanding circles? What are
their speech communities like? What is it like to be a speaker of several languages and
what happens when a person speaks more than one language?

Before we go any further, we need to take a step back for a minute and review two
concepts.

 We need to review the concept of language as a code.

 We need to review the concept of a speech community.

REVIEW: CODE/LANGUAGE
I want you to remember that we can call a language a code. When two or more people
communicate with each other in speech we can call that system of communication they
employ a code. Now, when two speakers are multilingual, again, that is they speak two or
more languages, then they have access to two or more codes. If they switch between
those codes we call that code-switching. This can also be called a third code or language
that draws from the other two codes or languages.

SLIDE 1: CODE SWITCHING

Take for example Sasha and Lena.

When Lena says to Sasha: “Would you like some tea? And Sasha replies: “Why yes,
thank you.” They have just used a system of communication, or a code. We might call
that code English.

Now, if Lena and Sasha speak both English and Russian, and Lena asks Sasha the same
thing again in Russian, we would say they are employing two codes, and by moving back
and forth between the two codes, we would say they are code-switching.
Finally, there is code-mixing:

Ask a student: Excuse me, what’s your name? Really, well, ochen priyatna!

That was an example of code mixing, using two codes, and mixing the two codes
together in a single sentence.

Now all of us, whether multilingual or not, use our languages or codes and the dialect or
dialects of our languages or codes in our speech community.

31
REVIEW: SPEECH COMMUNITY
Do you remember speech community?

**ASK STUDENTS: What’s a speech community? We discussed it last lecture…

SPEECH COMMUNITY: All the people that you talk to everyday who use your
language and dialect and now we can add: people who you talk to everyday you who use
your language and dialect or languages and dialects.

For example in any given day, a immigrant New York taxi driver may speak his regional
dialect, a social dialect (working-class), Standard English, and maybe a different native
language, for example Arabic.

VERBAL REPERTOIRE
Now, every person within his or her speech community has what is called a
verbal repertoire

SLIDE 2: Verbal Repertoire

VERBAL REPERTOIRE: The total range of linguistic resources a

person has at his disposal is called a verbal repertoire. This
could be another language, or it could be a regional or social
dialect.

Now, any speaker of a language/code chooses the words he needs, or just likes, from his
VERBAL REPERTOIRE.

SLIDE 3: EXAMPLE

For someone who is multilingual, one language might be better for one thing and another
for something else. Maybe you speak Russian at home and on the street, but you do a lot
of business in English. Later, when you discuss politics with a friend, you switch to
Ukrainian. Maybe you use a particular language with a different relative? This is an
example of how you might use your verbal repertoire.

THE POINT is YOU choose when to use a particular language, and when not to.

32
CODE-MIXING
To return to code-mixing:
Code-mixing, again, is the mixing of two distinct languages or codes in a sentence. It
usually happens in speech communities where people know more than one language very
well—in fact, it happens in your speech community. Right?

It is our first example of what happens when different languages meet. The purpose for
code-mixing seems to be to symbolize a somewhat unclear, ambiguous situation where
neither one or the other language will describe it best. I like the example from the book—
the author calls it a linguistic cocktail: a little of this language and a little of that language
mixed up to make something better. It is often used also as an identifying mark of a
persons multicultural origin. To suggest you come from both worlds—two worlds
represented by the two languages.

An interesting example of this is Surzhyk:

SLIDE 4: SURZHYK

Surzhyk: суржик, is currently the mixed language used by fifteen to twenty percent of
the population of Ukraine. It is a mixture of Ukrainian substratum with Russian
superstratum. Normally Russian vocabulary is combined with Ukrainian grammar and
pronunciation.

The most interesting aspect of code-mixing between languages is that there are certain
rules that still have to be followed. Only one particular syntactic constraint is possible.

Note that, the fact that there are rules suggests some underlying possibly universal rules
for using language that can apply to both languages at once. If you remember Chomsky’s
idea of a Universal Grammar, this is one of the places where it intersects with
sociolinguistics.

BORROWING
One of the most common ways that languages influence each other is the
exchange of words. This is called borrowing. Borrowing is different from
code-mixing that it is usually only a word or phrase and the user of the
borrowed word or phrase does not have to know the language it is borrowed
from. For example, in English we have many borrowed words and phrases
that most English speakers know from other languages:

Debris (French)
Restaurant (French)
Macho (Spanish) –also in Russian

33
Karaoke (Japanese) –also in Russian and at Express ayut on Fridays?

Much is made about the contemporary borrowing of English words into other languages,
but this phenomenon is not new, nor is it even very large by historical standards. The
large-scale importation of words from Latin, French and other languages into English in
the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was more significant. Some languages have
borrowed so much that they have become scarcely recognizable.

Armenian is a good example of this. It borrowed so many words from Iranian languages
that it was at first considered a branch of the Indo-Iranian languages, and was not
recognized as an independent branch of the Indo-European languages for many decades.

LANGUAGES COLLIDE
Now that we have discussed speech communities where people are multilingual, let’s turn
our attention to an earlier moment, where people who do not know each other’s
languages meet. If two people do not share a language in common how will they
communicate? Obviously people who do not speak the same language will have difficulty
communicating, but people need to communicate—don’t they?

**ASK CLASS: BRAINSTORM Why do people have to communicate?

[to do business with each other, to establish political relationships]

So, people will inevitably speak to one another, but how?

What happens when two completely different languages meet?

PIDGINS
There is yet another way in which two languages can become mixed
together. When people from two different languages do not understand each
other, that is they are not MUTUALLY INTELLIGIBLE with each other but
people want to communicate—they need to create a common code.

What they usually create is a brand-new variety out of the two existing languages. They
adopt something from one language and something from another to create something
new.

SLIDE 5: PIDGIN

This is called a Pidgin language:

34
PIDGIN: a language made up of two or more languages, used as a way of communicating
by people whose first languages are different from each other.

These are varieties created for the very practical and immediate purposes of
communication between people who otherwise would have no common language
whatsoever. They are learned by one person from another within the communities
concerned as the accepted way of communicating with members of the other community.
Again, these are usually languages created for the purposes of trade.

SLIDE 5.5 and SLIDE 6

The requirements of a Pidgin are:

1. The language is specially constructed by its users to suit the needs of its users. So
if it is for trading in cattle, there will be few words for discussing anything else,
like the weather, or vegetables, or your favorite painter.

2. It should be as simple and easy to learn as possible.

3. The vocabulary is usually based on the vocabulary of the dominant group—

wherever people are speaking the pidgin.

4. It is a compromise language between the language of one group and the other in
some way, whether its grammar from one vocabulary from the other, or a mix of
both of these.

SLIDE 7: RUNGLISH

RUNGLISH
One example of this is “Runglish” If we take it as a term for describing a Russian-English
pidgin language, it was popularized in 2000, when the language aboard the International
Space Station was described as "Runglish". Runglish is in fact also spoken in a number of
English-Russian communities, most notably the Russian-speaking Jewish community of
Brighton Beach in Brooklyn, New York.

SLIDE 8: CREOLES

CREOLES
Now, when a pidgin becomes so popular that it begins to have native speakers, people
begin to teach their children the language, it’s vocabulary expands, and it gradually
becomes the dominant language of communication it is called a Creole.

35
Creole: A language that is a mixture of two or more other languages and is spoken as the
FIRST language of a people.

SLIDE 8.5: CREOLE DIAGRAM

The process of a Creole becoming its own language is called Creolization.

MAP OF U.S.A

SLIDE 9: CREOLES AND U.S. HISTORY

Creoles are interesting for the social-historical information they provide

about their speakers. The majority of Creoles now in existence, in fact, are
usually a mix of ENGLISH and another variety. This is especially true of
Creoles in and around the continent of North America. There are a number
of Creoles spoken in the U.S. In particular, along the coast of South Carolina
(south eastern U.S) is a Creole called Gullah which is spoken primarily by
African American descendants of slaves. In Louisiana (southern U.S.),
French Creole is a mixture between French and English and spoken by a
diverse set of people. Finally, Hawaiian Creole, spoken in Hawaii is a mix of
the indigenous Hawaiian language and English.

SLIDE 10: Hawaiian Pidgin-Creole

Let’s look very briefly at some real creole languages in the United States. To
make all of this a little clearer.

Hawiian Pidgin-Creole

Hawaiʻi Pidgin English, Hawaiʻi Creole English, HCE, or simply Pidgin, is a creole
language based in part on English used by some residents of Hawaiʻi ("Hawaiian Pidgin
English" is considered an inaccurate label). Although English and Hawaiian are the co-
official languages of the State of Hawaiʻi, Hawiian Pidgin-Creole is used by many locals
in everyday conversation and is often used in advertising toward Hawaiʻi residents.

SLIDE 11: HAWAIIAN PIDGIN-CREOLE HISTORY

36
 History

Hawiian Pidgin-Creole (or Hawaiʻi Creole) originated as a form of communication used

between native and non-native English speakers in Hawaiʻi. It supplanted the pidgin
Hawaiian used on the plantations and elsewhere in Hawaiʻi. It has been influenced by
many languages, including Portuguese, Hawaiian, and Cantonese, one of the Chinese
languages. As people of other language backgrounds were brought in to work on the
plantations, such as Japanese, Filipinos, and Koreans, Hawiian Pidgin-Creole acquired
words from these languages. It has also been influenced to a lesser degree by Spanish
spoken by Mexican and Puerto Rican settlers in Hawaiʻi.

SLIDE 12: HPC SOCIOLINGUISTICS

Even today, Hawiian Pidgin-Creole retains some influences from all these languages. For
example, sometimes the structure of the language is like that of Portuguese grammar. For
instance, "You like one knife?" means "Would you like a knife?". The reason the word
"one" is used instead of "a" is because the word "um" in Portuguese has two meanings:
"um" translates to "one" and "a" in English.

In the 19th and 20th centuries, Hawiian Pidgin-Creole started to be used outside the
plantation between ethnic groups. Public school children learned Hawiian Pidgin-Creole
from their classmates, and eventually it became the primary language of most people in
Hawaiʻi, replacing the original languages. For this reason, linguists generally consider
Hawaiian Hawiian Pidgin-Creole to be a creole language.

Today, most people raised in Hawaiʻi can speak and understand Hawiian Pidgin-Creole to
some extent. At the same time, many people who know Hawiian Pidgin-Creole can code-
switch between standard American English and Hawiian Pidgin-Creole depending on the
situation.

Knowledge of Hawiian Pidgin-Creole is considered by many to be an important part of

being considered "local", regardless of racial and socio-economic background.

While most linguists agree that Hawaiʻi Hawiian Pidgin-Creole is a full-fledged language
with its own grammar, pronunciation, intonation, and use, it is viewed by some to be
"substandard", or as a "corrupted" form of English, or even as broken English. As a
result, it is widely believed that use of "standard" English is a key to career and
educational success, and that use of Hawiian Pidgin-Creole is a sign of lower socio-
economic status.

Its role in the schools of Hawaiʻi has been a subject of controversy due in part to the
popular perceptions of the language described above and as a result of critics blaming the
language's widespread use for poor results in reading and writing at schools. In 1987, the

37
state Board of Education implemented a policy allowing only standard English (most
particularly General American English) in schools; this sparked an intense debate.

SLIDE 13: HAWIIAN PIDGIN-CREOLE

GRAMMAR/PRO.

Pronunciation

Hawiian Pidgin-Creole has distinct pronunciation differences from standard American

English (SAE). Some key differences include the following:

 The voiced and unvoiced th sounds are replaced by d or t respectively. For

instance, that (voiced th) becomes dat, and think (unvoiced th) becomes tink.
 The sound l at the end of a word is often pronounced o or ol. For instance, mental
is often pronounced mento; people is pronounced peepo.
 Hawiian Pidgin-Creole is non-rhotic. That is, r after a vowel is often omitted,
similar to many dialects, such as Eastern New England, Australian English, and
English English variants. For instance, car is often pronounced cah, and letter is
pronounced letta.

Grammatical Features

Hawiian Pidgin-Creole also has distinct grammatical forms not found in SAE, but some
of which are shared with other dialectal forms of English or may derive from other
linguistic influences.

Forms used for SAE "to be":

 Generally, forms of English "to be" (i.e. the copula) are omitted when referring to
inherent qualities of an object or person, forming in essence a stative verb form.
[like Russian]

Da baby cute. (or) Cute, da baby.

The baby is cute.

 When the verb "to be" refers to a temporary state or location, the word stay is
used (see above).

Da book stay on top da table.

38
 The book is on the table.
Da water stay cold.
The water is cold.

For tense-marking of verbs, auxiliary verbs are employed:

 To express past tense, Hawiian Pidgin-Creole uses wen (went) in front of the verb.

Jesus wen cry. (DJB, John 11:35)

Jesus cried.

 To express future tense, Hawiian Pidgin-Creole uses goin (going) in front of the
verb.

God goin do plenny good kine stuff fo him. (DJB, Mark 11:9)
God is going to do a lot of good things for him.

 To express past tense negative, Hawiian Pidgin-Creole uses neva (never).

He neva like dat.

He didn't want that. (or) He never wanted that.

 Use of fo (for) in place of the infinitive particle "to". Cf. dialectal form "Going for
to carry me home."

I tryin fo tink.

or

I try fo tink."
I'm trying to think.

 Popular phrases:

A variety of phrases is present in the language of local Hawaiians, including:

"Ho, cuz, I like sample" translates to "Could I have some?"

"You like try dat?" = "Do you want to try it?"

"No can" = "I can't"

So, as you can see Hawiian Pidgin-Creole is a well developed language

separate from English, Hawaiian and the other languages that helped to
create it.

39
LET’S LOOK AT ONE MORE EXAMPLE OF A CREOLE AGAIN FROM THE U.S.
CALLED GULLAH

SLIDE: 14 GULLAH LANGUAGE

The Gullah language (Sea Island Creole English, Geechee) is a creole language spoken
by the Gullah people (also called "Geechees"), an African American population living
on the Sea Islands and the coastal region of the U.S. states of South Carolina and
Georgia.

Gullah is based on English, with strong influences from West and Central African
languages such as Yoruba, Igbo, Hausa, Mandinka, Wolof, Bambara, Fula, Mende, Vai,
Akan, Ewe, Kongo, Umbundu, and Kimbundu.

African origins

Like other Atlantic creoles, Gullah derives from the pdigins that developed along the
West African coast in the 1600s and 1700s as a way for Africans to communicate with
Europeans and with members of other African tribes with whom they traded.

Lorenzo Turner's research

In the 1930s and 1940s an African American linguist named Lorenzo Dow Turner did a
seminal study of the Gullah language. Turner found that Gullah is strongly influenced by
African languages in its sound system, vocabulary, grammar, sentence structure, and
semantic system.

Turner identified over 300 loanwords (BORROWED WORDS) from various African
languages in Gullah and almost 4,000 African personal names used by Gullah people. He
also found Gullahs living in remote sea-side settlements who could recite songs and story
fragments and do simple counting in the Mende, Vai, and Fulani languages of West
Africa.

Before Lorenzo Turner's work, mainstream scholars viewed Gullah speech as substandard
English, a hodgepodge of mispronounced words and corrupted grammar uneducated
black people developed in their efforts to copy the speech of their English speaking slave
owners.

But Turner's study was so well researched and so convincingly detailed in its presentation
of evidence of African influences in Gullah that academics soon reversed course. After

40
Turner's book was published in 1949, scholars began coming to the Gullah region on a
regular basis to study African influences in Gullah language and culture.

SLIDE 15: GULLAH VERBAL SYSTEM

Gullah verbs

The following sentences illustrate the basic verb tense and aspect system in Gullah:

Uh h'ep dem -- "I help them/I helped them" (Present/Past Tense)

Uh bin he'p dem -- "I helped them" (Past Tense)
Uh gwine he'p dem -- "I will help them" (Future Tense)
Uh done he'p dem -- "I have helped them" (Perfect Tense)
Uh duh he'p dem -- "I am helping them" (Present Progressive)
Uh binnuh he'p dem -- "I was helping them" (Past Progressive)

Gullah language today

The Gullah language is spoken today by about 250,000 people in coastal South Carolina
and Georgia. Although some scholars argue that Gullah has changed little since the 19th
century, it is clear that at least some decreolization has taken place. In other words, some
African-influenced grammatical structures that were present a century ago are no longer
found in the language today. Nonetheless, Gullah is still decidedly a creole language and
still quite distinct from English.

For generations, outsiders stigmatized Gullah speakers, regarding their language as a

mark of ignorance and low social status. As a result, Gullah people developed the habit of
speaking their language only within the confines of their own homes and local
communities, and avoided the possibility of being seen speaking it in public. Ironically,
the prejudice of outsiders was probably a factor in helping preserve the language.

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas was raised a Gullah speaker in coastal
Georgia. There are only 9 supreme court justices in the U.S. and they have life long terms
—you have to be very smart to be one and thus, again we see intelligence and language
are not always linked. When asked why he has little to say during hearings of the court,
he told a reporter that the ridicule he received for his Gullah speech as a young man
caused him to develop the habit of listening rather than speaking in public.

But in recent years educated Gullah people have begun promoting use of Gullah as a
symbol of cultural pride. In 2005, Gullah community leaders announced the completion

41
of a translation of the New Testament into modern Gullah, a project that took more than
20 years to complete.

SLIDE 16-17: NEW TESTAMENT AND

TRANSLATION

SLIDE 18: LANGUAGE SHIFT

LANGUAGE SHIFT

Finally what happens when one language in a mulitilingual speech community begins to
dominate and the other, native language begins to disappear?

This is called a language shift.

A language shift can be defined as:

The gradual or sudden move from the use of one language to another.

The result of the contact of two languages can be the replacement of one by the other.
This is most common when one language has a higher social position. This can lead to
the extinction of a dialect or a whole language entirely.

This is a major concern for some countries with the spread of English.

When a linguistic community ceases to use their original language, we speak

of language death.

I have included a reading about this for our seminar. It talks about how languages are
dying out and how some scholars are trying to save them before they completely
disappear. I think you will find it interesting.

SO LET’S SUM UP BRIEFLY:

So far we have talked about:
 multilingualism
 Language as a code and code-switching

42
  Speech communities, again
 Your verbal repertoire
 Code-mixing
 Borrowing
 Pidgins
 Creoles
 Hawiian Pidgin-Creole and Gullah
 And language shift

Now, I would like to talk about language planning and policy. This is obviously an
important issue right now in Ukraine
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

LANGUAGE PLANNING AND POLICY

One very natural response to the variation that often occurs when two
different languages meet is to call for a political solution.

When a nation considers or implements laws to control a language, this is

called language planning.

SLIDE 19: LANGUAGE PLANNING

Your book uses the International Encyclopedia of Linguistics’ definition of

language planning—I like this definition as well:

Language planning: a deliberate, systematic, and theory-based

attempt to solve the communication problems of a community
by studying the various languages or dialects it uses, and
developing a policy concerning their selection and use; also
sometimes called language engineering or language treatment.
Corpus (‘body’ of the language) planning deals with norm
selection and codification, as in the writing or grammars and
the standardization of spelling; status planning deals with
initial choice of language, including attitudes toward alternative
languages and the political implications of various choices.

There are two different parts to language planning mentioned in the

definition I just gave you of language planning: Corpus planning and Status
planning

43
SLIDE 20: TYPES OF LANGUAGE PLANNING

CORPUS LANGUAGE PLANNING

Corpus planning: is the planning, changing and standardizing the actual
components of the language: spelling, vocabulary, pronunciation, letter
system (orthography), grammar, etc. Efforts to rid English of gender bias is
an example of this, as is the different attempts to standardize the English
language.

STATUS LANGUAGE PLANNING

Status planning: is different. It is linked to the official recognition which a
national governments attaches to various languages, and or to restrict the use
of minority languages. This is where the government chooses a language and
a dialect of that language over other languages. This decision confers status
and privilege on both the language and dialect, and THE PEOPLE WHO
SPEAK THAT LANGUAGE AND DIALECT.

Status planning issues include: the designation of an official language or

languages of instruction in schools, in the government, on ballots etc.

LANGUAGE ACQUISITION LANGUAGE PLANNING

A third type of language planning is called:

Language acquisition planning:

That is, the language policy decisions concerning the teaching and use of
language and their careful formulation by those empowered to do so, for the
guidance of others.

For example how much Russian, Ukrainian, or even English is taught in

schools in Ukraine.

HOW ARE LANGUAGE POLICIES CREATED?

How are language policies created? Sometimes there are centralized groups
of scholars who work to create the policies either inside the country or
outside of it. Again though it is almost always the people in power who
create the policy. I have given you a brief description of a policy-planning
group in your readings. It is the INTAS paper.

44
INTAS is the International Association for the Promotion of Co-operation
with Scientists from the New Independent States of the Former Soviet
Union.

As we speak they are attempting to formulate a language policy for Ukraine

—take a look and see if you agree with their goals.

SLIDE 21: PROMOTING LANGUAGE POLICY

The stated reasons for promoting language change from one variety to
another, or from one language to another, often sound noble and usually cite
a greater good for all the people of a nation. There is, however, more at issue
than just language. Two important points to remember are:

 Remember, language involves social interaction and social behavior.

 Language can become a weapon for political power and social

control.

Motivations for using language as an instrument of social control are

influenced by scholarly and popular attitudes toward language variation and
multilingualism. The image of the Tower of Babel, that is of a fall from a
unified, holy language to the condition of language chaos, so many
languages, is frequently used in countries where there are deep majority
group fears and prejudices directed at a minority.

In societies where the majority of the population is monolingual—that is

they speak only one language—a good example is the United States, and
English, people view monolingualism as an ideal, natural state, where as
multilingualism is viewed as a temporary, unnatural condition.

Other people see multilingualism as the natural state and any language
defining policy as a dangerous threat to their own language, if its not the
majority.

This is interesting because language planning is most frequently done to

attempt to solve conflicts over language.

SLIDE 22: A COMMON SCENARIO

45
COMMON SCENARIO
A common scenario: A country is going through a period of rapid social and
demographic change. People who had previously enjoyed privilege and high
status feel threatened by a newly mobilized language minority group.
Fearing the lost of their position, the elite argue for a “unifying” official
language—theirs of course. Meanwhile the language minority people
become frustrated because they cannot rise to any prominent political,
social, or economic positions since they find themselves blocked by not
knowing the now dominant, official language. The minority begins to view
the official language policy with suspicion and promote their own language.
The majority in turn grows more nervous of the minority and promotes its
language…the cycle can continue and lead to even greater social unrest.

Finally, in defining language policies there is also a need to distinguish

between EXPLICIT or official language policies and IMPLICIT or
unofficial language policies.

EXPLICIT LANGUAGE POLICY

Explicit policies are the obvious stated language policies of a nation: for
example Ukraine. There is a stated official language, Ukrainian, used for all
government documentation.

IMPLICIT LANGUAGE POLICY

Implicit policies are the not so obvious language policies of a nation: for
example the U.S.A. where we have no stated official language, but everyone
knows you have to know English to fill out any government form, usually
even to get a job, certainly to get an education. It works to keep some
immigrants out of the country—to immigrate you usually need to know
English. And, it allows a legal form for discrimination, if you don’t speak
English why should we listen to you? This is a major issue right now with
the millions of Mexican, Spanish speaking immigrants who live and work in
the U.S. illegally. Part of the reason they can be forced to work for so little
money is that they cannot speak enough English to use the U.S. systems of
law and immigration to their own advantage.

46
There is another good example of the U.S.’s implicit language policies and
there effect on Native American culture in the book. I urge you to read it. It
is very interesting.

PAUSE

If the language policies of a group—whether implicit or explicit—are strong enough it

may result in a whole scale language shift from the minority language or languages to the
majority language.

LANGUAGE PLANNING IN UKRAINE

With all this in mind I want to talk very briefly about language planning in Ukraine. Now,
I am certainly no expert in Ukrainian history. I have tried to compile a short history on
language planning in Ukraine in the 20th century. I’m sure many of you already know
this history, I only mean for this to be a brief review and I thought you might find it
interesting to hear it in English. You may hear a mistake. Go ahead and correct me if my
history is completely wrong. Otherwise, listen and think about how what we have just
talked about affects your own country.

UKRAINIAN LANGUAGE (1917-1932)

Ukrainianization and tolerance
Following the Russian Revolution of 1917, the Russian Empire was broken up. In
different parts of the former empire, several nations, including Ukrainians, developed a
renewed sense of national identity. In the chaotic post-revolutionary years, Ukraine went
through several short-lived independent and quasi-independent states, and the Ukrainian
language, for the first time in modern history, gained usage in most government affairs.
Initially, this trend continued under the Bolshevik government of the Soviet Union.

The widening use of Ukrainian further developed in the first years of Bolshevik rule into
a policy called Korenization. The government pursued a policy of Ukrainianization
(Ukrayinizatsiya, actively promoting the Ukrainian language), both in the government
and among party personnel, and an impressive education program which raised the
literacy of the Ukrainian speaking rural areas.

Newly-generated academic efforts from the period of independence were taken over by
the Bolshevik government. The party and government was mostly Russian-speaking but
were encouraged to learn the Ukrainian language. Simultaneously, the newly-literate
ethnic Ukrainians migrated to the cities, which became rapidly largely Ukrainian
speaking—in both population and in education.

A string of local Ukrainian-language publications were started and departments of

Ukrainian studies were opened in colleges.

47
RUSSIAN LANGUAGE (1932-1953)
Soviet policy towards the Ukrainian language changed abruptly in late 1932 and early
1933, when Stalin established his firm control over the party and, therefore, the Soviet
state. In December, 1932, the regional party cells received a telegram signed by Molotov
and Stalin with an order to immediately reverse the korenization policies.

The telegram condemned Ukrainianization as ill-considered and harmful and demanded

to "immediately halt Ukrainianization in raions (districts), switch all Ukrainianized
newspapers, books and publications into Russian and prepare by autumn of 1933 for the
switching of schools and instruction into Russian".

The Stalinist era also marked the beginning of the Soviet policy of encouraging Russian
as the language of (inter-ethnic) Soviet communication.

Although Ukrainian continued to be used (in print, education, radio and later television
programs), it lost its primary place in advanced learning and republic-wide media.

Ukrainian was considered to be of secondary importance, and an excessive attachment to

it was considered a sign of nationalism and so "politically incorrect".

After the death of Stalin (1953), a general policy of relaxing the language policies of the
past was implemented (1958 to 1963).

UKRAINIAN LANGUAGE (1958-1970)

The Khrushchev era which followed saw a policy of relatively lenient concessions to
development of the Ukrainian language on the local and republican level, though it did
not go nearly as far as the Soviet policy of Ukrainianization in the 1920s.

Yet, the 1958 school reform that allowed parents to choose the language of primary
instruction for their children, meant that non-Russian languages would slowly give way
to Russian in light of the pressures of survival and advancement—speaking Russian
meant more opportunities.

RUSSIAN LANGUAGE 1970’s-1980’s

Parents were usually free to choose the language of study of their children (except in few
areas where attending the Ukrainian school might have required a long daily commute)
and they often chose Russian, which reinforced the resulting use of Russian only. In this
sense, some analysts argue that it was not the "oppression" or "persecution", but rather
the lack of protection against the expansion of Russian language that contributed to the
relative decline of Ukrainian in 1970s and 1980s.

According to this view, it was inevitable that successful careers required a good
command of Russian, while knowledge of Ukrainian was not NECESSARY, so it was

48
common for Ukrainian parents to send their children to Russian-language schools, even
though Ukrainian-language schools were usually available.

While in the Russian-language schools within the republic, Ukrainian was supposed to be
learned as a second language at comparable level, the instruction of other subjects was in
Russian and, as a results, students upon graduation had a more superior command in
Russian than in Ukrainian.

GORBACHEV AND PEROSTROIKA 1980’s-1991

The start of the Gorbachev reforms, was slower to liberalize in Ukraine than Russia itself.
Although Ukrainian still remained the native language for the majority in the nation on
the eve of Ukrainian independence, a significant share of ethnic Ukrainians used more
Russian than Ukrainian. The Russian language was the dominant language, not just of
government, but of the media, commerce, and modernity itself. This was substantially
less the case for western Ukraine. This region became the center of a hearty, if only
partial renaissance of the Ukrainian language during independence
in the modern era

Originally, all signs and voice announcements in the metro were in Ukrainian, but the
language was changed to Russian in the early 1980s. In the perestroika liberalization of
the late 1980s, the signs were changed to bilingual. This was accompanied by bilingual
voice announcements in the trains. In the early 1990s, both signs and voice
announcements were changed again from bilingual to Ukrainian-only during the
Ukrainianization campaign that followed Ukraine's independence.

INDEPENDENCE TO THE PRESENT

Since 1991, independent Ukraine has made Ukrainian the only official state language and
implemented government policies to broaden the use of Ukrainian. The educational
system in Ukraine has been transformed over the first decade of independence from a
system that is partly Ukrainian to one that is overwhelmingly so. The government has
also mandated a progressively increased role for Ukrainian in the media and commerce.

Russian language still dominates the print media in most of Ukraine and private radio
and TV broadcasting in the eastern, southern, and to a lesser degree central regions. The
state-controlled broadcast media became exclusively Ukrainian. There are few obstacles
to the usage of Russian in commerce and it is still occasionally used in the government
affairs.

SLIDE 23: CENSUS DATA

Census data and offical status

In the 2001 census, 67.5% of the country population named Ukrainian as their native
language (a 2.8% increase from 1989), while 29.6% named Russian (a 3.2% decrease). It
should be noted, though, that for many Ukrainians (of various ethnic descent), the term

49
native language may not necessarily associate with the language they use more
frequently. The overwhelming majority of ethnic Ukrainians consider the Ukrainian
language native, including those who often speak Russian and Surzhyk (a blend of
Russian vocabulary with Ukrainian grammar and pronunciation). For example, according
to the official 2001 census data [5] approximately 75% of Kiev's population responded
"Ukrainian" to the native language (ridna mova) census question, and roughly 25%
responded "Russian". On the other hand, when the question "What language do you use
in everyday life?" was asked in the sociological survey, the Kievans' answers were
distributed as follows [6]: "mostly Russian": 52%, "both Russian and Ukrainian in equal
measure": 32%, "mostly Ukrainian": 14%, "exclusively Ukrainian": 4.3%. Ethnic
minorities, such as Romanians, Tatars and Jews usually use Russian as their language of
communication. Emotional relationship towards Ukrainian is partly changing in Southern
and Eastern areas, too.

Ukrainian is the official language of Ukraine. The language is also one of three official
languages of the breakaway Moldovan republic of Transnistria (Source: The Constitution
of Transnistria, Article 12 [21]).

Ukrainian is also co-official, alongside Romanian, in ten communes in Suceava County,

Romania (as well as Bistra in Maramureş County). In these localities, Ukrainians, who
are an officially-recognised ethnic minority in Romania, make up more than 20% of the
population. Thus, according to Romania's minority rights law, education, signage and
access to public administration and the justice system are provided in Ukrainian,
alongside Romanian.

In the next lecture and series of lectures, we will discuss the social aspects of language in
more detail.

END
-------------------------------------------------------

Lecture 4. The relationship between language and society, part 1. Speech as

social interaction, social identity and solidarity

First: I want to re-add the Sterling article

It should not be necessary for me to point out how important speech is in our everyday
life. We all use it—both because we have to use it to get the things we need and want and
because we want to use it to communicate our feelings, emotions, and social membership.

Speech allows us to communicate with each other at a high level of sophistication and
since communication is a social activity it can be said that speech is also social.

Moreover, in order to use speech we have to learn a set of social conventions and
constraints that guide how we speak.

50
Sociolinguists study these social conventions and constraints for speaking in different
societies to better understand how people interact with one another.
Today we will discuss:

1.Speech acts.
2.Norms governing speech.
3.Social identity in speech.
Social interaction
All aspects of communicative behavior through which people influence and react to each
other. Examples are speech and body language.

Speech is only one part of social interaction—but it is a very important part.

Speech plays many roles in social interaction, and in that, it is more than just sounds and
grammar—it can be considered a human activity, a mode of action.

SPEECH MAKES THINGS HAPPEN!!!!!!!!!!

The book gives an excellent example of this with people moving furniture:

If two people were moving a really big desk from one room to another, their conversation
might go something like this:

To you…up a little higher…up a bit more…okay, to the left…no no no…to the right…
almost there…okay, let’s set it down.

Speech in this case acts to control a person’s physical activity.

Contrast that with listening to this lecture.

Here the speech is intended to influence your thoughts about language…that is, if you are
listening.

WE CAN CLASSIFY SPEECH ACCORDING TO ITS FUNCTION.

FOR EXAMPLE THESE VARIOUS CATEGORIES:

 To obtain information: Where is the toilet?

 For expressing emotions: I am so angry with you!
 Requests: Will you bring me a cup of tea please?

51
  Give orders: Move your car!
 Give thanks: Thank you so much.
 Offer apologies: I’m so sorry I scratched your CD.
 Small talk: nice day out, isn’t it?

SPEECH ACTS
One approach to the classification of speech is based on what are called SPEECH ACTS.
J. L. Austin in his book, “How to do things with words,” was the first to really describe
what a speech act is and does.

How to Do Things With Words is Austin's most influential work. In it he attacks the view
that the chief business of sentences is to state facts, and thus to be true or false based on
the truth or falsity of those facts. In contrast to this common view, he argues, true or false
sentences form only a small part of the range of utterances.

After introducing several kinds of sentences which he assumes are indeed not truth-
evaluable, he turns in particular to one of these kinds of sentences, which he deems
performative utterances. These he characterises by two features:

 First, to utter one of these sentences is not just to "say" something, but rather to
perform a certain kind of action.
 Second, these sentences are not true or false; rather, when something goes wrong
in connection with the utterance then the utterance is, as he puts it, "unhappy."

The action which performative sentences 'perform' when they are uttered belongs to what
Austin later calls a speech act :

The most cited example is:

If you say “I name this ship the Queen Elizabeth," and the circumstances are appropriate
in certain ways, then you will have done something special, namely, you will have
performed the act of naming the ship.

Other examples include:

"I take this man as my lawfully wedded husband," used in the course of a marriage
ceremony,

or

"I bequeath this watch to my brother," as occurring in a will.

In all three cases the sentence is not being used to describe or state what one is 'doing',
but being used to actually 'do' it.

52
IN EACH SENTENCE THE WORDS ARE ACTUALLY DOING SOMETHING.

HERE IS A MORE OBVIOUS EXAMPLE:

“EVERYONE STAND UP!”

Now, by saying those words, in the circumstances of a classroom AND a teacher-student relationship, my words actually had the effect
of making you stand up.

SPEECH ACTS:
The theory of speech acts aims to do justice to the fact that even though words (phrases,
sentences) encode information, people do more things with words than convey
information, and that when people do convey information, they often convey more than
their words encode.

The words in a SPEECH ACT are called the Utterance. The actions are called the
Performance. Almost any speech act is really the performance of several acts at once,
distinguished by the speaker’s intentions. Austin calls these:

PERFORMANCE:
 Locutionary act: This is the act of saying the words.
 Illocutionary act: What one does in saying the words.
 Perlocutionary act: What one does by saying the words, or how the words affect
the audience or are intended to affect the audience.

In general speech acts are acts of communication. To communicate is to express a certain

attitude and the type of speech act being performed corresponds to the type of attitude
being expressed. For example, a statement expresses a belief, a request expresses desire,
and an apology expresses regret.

A speech act succeeds if the audience identifies, in accordance with the speaker’s
intentions, the attitude, meaning, and action being expressed. It fails if someone does not
understand the whole attitude, meaning, and action of the sentence.

For example:

Let’s say, a bartender utters the words, “Last call! The bar will be closed in five minutes.”

Using Austin’s categories we can say that he is simultaneously:

 Locutionary act: Saying that the bar (the one he tends) will be closed in five
minutes (from the time of the utterance).
 Illocutionary act: The bartender is informing the patrons that the bar will close
soon and perhaps also the act of urging them to buy one last drink.
 Prelocutionary act: Causing the patrons to believe that the bar is about to close
and getting them to want and to order one last drink.

53
The bartender is performing all these speech acts, at all three levels, just by uttering
certain words.

Similarly, pretend you are in a cold room and you say to your friend: “It’s getting cold in
here.”

 Locutionary act: you, saying the words “It’s getting cold in here.”
 Illocutionary act: Notifying your friend that the temperature is dropping and that
you have noticed it.
 Prelocutionary act: Making the suggestion that someone should close the window.

Or for example ordering food at a restaurant

When you say, “Devushka, I’d like the borsch please.” You are simultaneously:

 Locutionary act: you, saying the words “I’d like the borsch please.”
 Illocutionary act: Notifying your waitress what you want to eat, that you want
nothing else, and asking her to bring you the food.
 Prelocutionary act: Potentially making the suggestion that you in a hurry
depending on how you say it.

Now, taking it a step farther, what if your speech act fails? What
if you do not say, “It is getting cold in here,” so that your
friend understands your meaning?

ASK STUDENTS: WHAT HAPPENS IF THE SPEECH ACT FAILS HERE? WHAT
WILL THE RESULTS BE?
The window will not be closed. The speaker will continue to get colder—and more annoyed. The listener will look very rude for not
doing something about the open window, etc.

PAUSE
Another different classification of speech acts are not primarily acts of communication
but have the function of affecting institutional states of affairs.

A judge making the ruling: “You are sentenced to life in prison for murder!” Actually has
the effect of sending someone to prison for life.

Or

A referee at a football match calling, “foul” has the effect of giving the other team the
ball.

54
These acts, again, must follow certain social constraints. They can only be performed in
certain ways and under certain circumstances.

 The judge MUST be in a court of law reading a sentence.

 The referee MUST be at a football match calling the game.

Now obviously, you know how to tell someone that you think it is cold in a room, and
you know how what Judge means when he sentences someone to life in prison, or what a
referee means when he calls a football match—but how do you know these things? How
do you know what they mean, and how do you know how to perform your own speech
acts?

The theory of speech acts underscores the importance of the distinction between language
use and linguistic meaning and sharpens the formulation of questions about the nature of
linguistic knowledge, that is Chomsky’s points about language competence—that is what
you just sort of know about how to perform a speech act.

In every example above, however, one must choose one’s words in such a way that their
utterance makes one’s intentions recognizable under the circumstances—that is
understood.

You have to know how to do this—if you don’t your full meaning will not be understood.

SPEECH AS SKILLED WORK

As we’ve said speech can be socially classified in terms of types of speech-acts and these speech act types are learned as part of our
socialization. You learn how to say things, the right way to perform speech acts, as you grow up. For example, we learn how to order a
meal in a restaurant by watching other people doing it in much the same way we learn vocabulary and grammatical constructions.

The clearest evidence for this learning is that rules and skills vary from society to society, from culture to culture. Speech acts are very
cultural and if you do not learn to perform them in another culture you will have trouble communicating.

For example:
In Ukraine it is okay to yell for the Devushka at a restaurant. That speech act will get you the food and drink you want.

In the U.S.A if you yell “girl” at your waitress, it will not have the same effect. In fact, you will likely NOT get any food or drink. She
will likely call you rude and refuse to serve you.

These cultural rules for “doing things” are part of our social norms governing speech.

NORMS GOVERNING SPEECH

Skilled speaking requires a number of factors, including a knowledge of the relevant rules
governing speech. These are often termed the speech norms. The rules vary from one
society to another, and as we said, they can be very different.

We call these speech norms, because they define the normal behavior for social
interaction, and thus speech interaction in a given society.

55
The book does a good job of discussing these. I will deal with each of these norms, one at
a time, and try to elaborate on what is said.

1. Norms governing what can be talked about: taboos and

euphemism.
The first speech norm we will discuss is NOT mentioned in your book, but it is an important norm. It is what we are allowed to talk
about. Topics that people do not discuss are called taboos. They exist in every culture, but they can be very different depending on the
culture.

Taboo:/ B tbu / noun [count] something that people in a given society or culture do not
do or talk about because it is very offensive or shocking

There are a number of subjects people do not talk about at certain times or with certain
people, for example in the U.S.A we usually are careful about who we talk to about
politics, religion, and sex. Are these different in Ukraine?

Similarly, in the U.S.A people never talk about how much money they are making, and it
is considered impolite to ask someone…is that the case in Ukraine?

Take the next ten seconds to think about all those terrible things you are not supposed to
talk about in public—Good. Those are your examples of language taboos.

2. Norms governing non-verbal communication: body language

The second social norm governing speech is non-verbal communication. Diversity in

norms is matched in the area of non-verbal communication or what is sometimes called
body language. Different actions can have different meanings in different societies, or be
non-existent.

SMILE
For example, a smile, in the U.S. is normal. We smile to be polite, so smiling at a stranger
is not strange at all.

ASK STUDENTS: What does a smile mean in Ukraine?

Similarly, some people you smile at, some people you don’t. If someone does not “look”
friendly, whether stranger or friend, you would not smile at him or her. If you do it will
likely be taken the wrong way.

RAISING EYEBROWS
The book offers the example of raising the eyebrows. In any given culture, it can mean: a
greeting, an invitation, a warning, skepticism, disdain, doubt, interest, intrigue, or disgust.

56
In America, it can mean interest, skepticism, and invitation, depending on how it is done
and its context.
ASK STUDENTS: What does it mean in Ukrainian culture?

WHAT DOES EYE CONTACT MEAN?

ASK STUDENTS: What about eye-contact? What does it say between strangers? What
about at a disco between a man and a woman?

PHYSICAL DISTANCE
Another non-verbal norm governing speech is the physical space between people in a
conversation.

Your status in society or your social closeness or solidarity to another person is also
reflected in the physical distance between speakers. It is safe to say that in most cases the
physical distance between speakers is proportional to social distance, so that people who
feel “close” to each other socially, generally stand physically nearer to each other in
conversation than people who are not close, or if there is a difference in their power
relationships.

What varies, often from culture to culture is the distance that is appropriate for a
particular degree of solidarity. For instance Arabs generally set the distance much lower
than Americans.

It is not strange to see two men who have a close relationship holding hands while
walking down the street. This is only suggestive that they know each other well as
friends.

In America, our distance between people, even people who are close, is much greater. I
will always give even my closest male friend about an arms length of space. The distance
is of course greater if I do not know the person.

ASK STUDENTS: What about in Ukraine?

CONVERSATIONAL STRUCTURE
Non-verbal communication also helps us structure our interactions. By this I mean how a conversation takes place.

What do we do when we “enter” into a social interaction with someone we know or have
just met for the first time?

We shake-hands. Often times, if it is a relative or someone we really like we might even

hug them or give them a kiss. If it is someone we see a lot of maybe we just nod, but
there is almost always some form of non-verbal communication that begins our social
interaction.

The same is true when we end or “exit” our social interaction. We might shake hands
again, or maybe just nod, or kiss someone goodbye.

57
What about during a conversation?

Nonverbal behavior is most noticeable during a conversation when we change turns.

TURN-TAKING
Turn-taking is when one person stops to allow another person to begin speaking during a
conversation. When we exchange turns we often signal our stopping in the conversation
for the other person to begin with a non-verbal cue. One way is through eye-movement.

If you want to let the other person speak:

Maybe we look into another person’s eyes to show our interest in listening.

Or maybe, if you are sitting in a chair, you scoot forward a little to let the person you
speaking to, know that you are ready to listen.

If you want to speak:

In formal situations, such as a classroom, maybe you raise your hand to let the teacher
know you want to speak.

Or another way to signal you are about to say something, is to clear your throat.

There are a number of these non-verbal cues. The next time you are talking with your
friends try to pay attention to what they do and you do to signal the different parts of a
conversation.

Finally, there are non-verbal ques for the content of a conversation. This is very obvious
and common. We usually signal our interest and more often our agreement or
disagreement by shaking or nodding our heads. This can be different in different cultures.
I know in Bulgaria, people nod their head and click their tongue when they disagree.
In Arab culture too, to disagree with someone you move your head back slowly, raise
your eyebrows, and also click your tongue.

Finally, there are a variety of non-verbal signals or gestures in every culture to suggest
many different things. Anger, happiness, everything is okay, etc. I don’t think I need to
elaborate on this. My favorite example, however, is the finger flick at the neck when
someone wants to drink in Ukraine—this does not exist in the U.S.A.

3. Norms governing the quantity of speech produced:

Now let’s talk about our third social norm governing speech. This is the amount of
speaking a person can do.

Americans, for example, usually talk a lot more compared to other societies. This is in
contrast to an Indian society where few people speak at all.

ASK STUDENTS:

58
What happens when someone starts talking to you and continues and continues…what do
you do?

How do you feel when you are the only person talking in a conversation? How do you
feel when you are in a conversation and the other person just doesn’t seem to want to say
much?

4. Norms governing the number of people who talk at once:

The fourth social norm governing speech is the number of people who can talk at once.
In America, it is usually one person at a time, each person must wait their turn to enter the
conversation. If there are too many people trying to speak at once, the conversation will
almost certainly end—and on bad terms. This is in contrast with Antiguan society, where
anyone can enter the conversation at anytime and everyone speaks at the same time

ASK STUDENTS: How many people are allowed to speak at once in Ukrainian society?

5. Norms governing the number of interruptions

The fifth and last social norm we will discuss is the number of interruptions that can
happen in a conversation. In American society, it is rude to interrupt someone who is
talking. If you do it more than a few times, they will certainly be offended and will likely
quit talking to you.

Again, in Antiguan society, it is quite different. Interruptions are the norm and do not
require an explanation or apology.

What about in Ukraine?

SUMMARY:
So, in summary we have talked about 5 Speech Norms:

1. Norms governing what can talk about.

2. Norms governing non-verbal communication.
3. Norms governing the quantity of speech produced (how much you can talk).
4. Norms governing the number of people who talk at once (one person at a
time?).
5. Norms governing the number of interruptions.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

SOCIAL IDENTITY
Now, I want to move on to the next topic: speech and social identity. All that being said, it should come as no surprise to hear me say
that speech is in essence very skilled work—you have to know the rules to do it well, and to do that it takes practice and studied,
learned knowledge. Speech requires effort, and its degree of success depends on the effort that is made.

59
Thus, speech is more successful at some times than others and some people are better at it than others. There is no doubt about this,
sometimes we just cannot say what we mean, our tongues, lips, and mouths won’t work, and no matter how hard we try, we can’t think
of the words we need or want.

If speaking takes so much work, and energy, and indeed we have all, I’m sure, felt a little tired after a long conversation, especially if
we are using our second languages, why do we bother to do it? And why are we willing to follow the constraints of our societies rules
for communication?

FACE-WORK
One answer to this is the theory of FACE-WORK (THIS IS IN YOUR BOOK). The linguist Erving Goffman, first discussed this
theory and it has remained popular.

“Face” in this theory means something like self-respect or dignity.

The idea behind this theory is that in any social interaction we have the potential either to
lose face or to save face. Our face is a very fragile thing that others can easily damage, so
we lead our lives according to the “golden rule” (do unto others as you would have done
unto you.) by respecting and looking after other people’s face in the hopes that they will
do the same to us.

ASK STUDENTS: Think about how you would feel if someone insulted you. Now think
about how you would feel if they insulted you in public, in front of all your friends. That
is losing face.

Face is something that other people give us, which is why we have to be so careful to
give it to them.

Before we go any further, I want to define two key concepts: POWER AND SOLIDARITY

Power: Power is not easy to define. In most cases it is the ability to influence or control
what people do or think, or the ability to achieve something or make something happen—
for yourself or someone else. In social interactions, power can be equal or it can be
unequal. A father usually has more power than his son. A boss has more power than an
employee, etc.
PAUSE
You have the power to do and say what you want according to the norms of your society
and your status within that society.
Solidarity: Not surprisingly solidarity is also difficult to define, but it at its essence it concerns the social distance between people—
that is how much experience people have shared; how many social interactions people have had; how many social characteristics
people share (for example a shared religion, social class, sex, age, region of origin, race, occupation, interest etc); and how close to
each other people are willing to get. The best way to think about this, in my mind is to view it simply as a “we are in this together,”
relationship.

Now using these terms, power and solidarity, face can be divided into two MAIN types each main type of face requiring a particular
kind of politeness:

Solidarity-face and Solidarity-politeness:

60
Solidarity face is the kind of respect we show someone for who they are. We give them
social approval and acceptance of their values and behavior.
We can say it more clearly as: I respect you for…
In showing solidarity-politeness we use intimate forms of address such as, mate, love,
darling, etc.

Power-face and Power politeness:

Power-face shows respect for the person’s right to do and be as they are. We give them the go ahead to do what they want to do.

We can say it more clearly as: I respect your right to…

In showing power-politeness we use forms of speech such as, Mr., Mrs, please, sir, etc.

We need to save our face by saving the face of everyone we talk to so we need to manage our behavior, both verbally and non-
verbally, very carefully.

This does not mean that our speech will be the same the world over, even if we ignore differences in vocabulary and grammar.

Each society recognizes its own norms for saving face, so our face-work consists in recognizing these norms and applying them
effectively.

SOLIDARITY AND POWER

The most obvious ways we show solidarity and power are how we refer to each other.

T/V PRONOUNS
Let’s talk about using the T/V pronouns first. The T/V pronouns are the tu and vous forms in French, that is the familiar tu and the
polite and plural form vous. Now, most of the literature on T/V pronouns centers around the French, but obviously, we know Russian
and Ukrainian both have these pronouns as well.

In fact, in most cases the French, Russian, Ukrainian, Latin, German, Italian, Swedish, and Greek, T/V pronouns all work in the same
way. This is for a very interesting reason—their history of use is the same. It is an interesting history that traces back to the 4 th century
A.D. and the splitting of the Roman Empire. If you are interested I have a short article about it that you can read.

English also had a distinction between a T and V pronoun at one time. In English we used “thou” for the familiar form and “ye” or
“you” as the polite term, obviously we now only use “you” which overtime took over the usage of thou as well. The history of this
would be an interesting research paper.

But to continue, in general, people use the T form to mark solidarity and the V form to mark power relationships. This should come as
no surprise. You use it all the time. The interesting part of all this is how and when people decide to use one form over the other.

ASK STUDENTS:
For example:
 When you meet someone for the first time which form do you use?
 How do you know when to switch to the T form?
 Which form do you use with a colleague at work, maybe a fellow teacher when you first meet them?
 What about people who are older than you?

A similar situation exists for what you call someone using his or her name.

61
NAMES
This way of showing solidarity and power is an especially obvious one in English and
Russian.

ASK THE CLASS: What form of a persons name do you use when you first meet them?

How do you introduce someone, in Russian and in English?

Polite names:
Let’s start at the beginning.

If you do not know someone’s name, you use the polite form of address “Sir” or “Miss”
for an older woman “Mam.” Or, if you know what they do for a living, Doctor, Professor,
Colonel, Mr. President, etc.

For example:
“Excuse me Sir, I think you dropped your keys.”

In an English introduction, in formal settings, for example for

business purposes, we usually use the most polite form of a
name with a title, and often include the first name:

So you have:

“Mr. Robert Jones, meet Ms. Helen Boswell.”

From this point on the two people will refer to each other using only their last names, Mr. Jones and Ms. Boswell in all formal
communications. This may change, however, as the two people get to know each other, and one of them gives the other person a cue
that it is okay if they wish, to become more informal—this is a switch to a more solidarity based relationship. A cue might be:

“Oh, call me Robert.” (or “Oh, call me Helen.”)

Or, it may be subtler. Perhaps one of them writes the other a letter and signs it Robert—this often happens in e-mail correspondence.
The other person may then address them by their first name in the next letter.

The most obvious example of a power relationship using polite forms is the relationship between teacher and student.

Students use the polite form of their teacher’s names to acknowledge a certain giving up of power to the teacher. They allow the
teacher to be in charge and thus, they allow the teacher to have a certain amount of power over them. The teacher does after all have
the power to grade your work! The teacher uses first names in the same way, to show a difference in the level of knowledge and power
between student and teacher—it is an interesting relationship. I’m sure there is enough here for a sociolinguistics paper.

CHINA

62
Moreover, a whole society undergoing social change is also likely to show that change in the way people address each other. One such
society is modern China. The Communist Party of China has promoted the use of “comrade” to replace all other titles of power, such
as the titles of address for “boss”, i.e. the equivalents of “director”, “manager”, “chief”, and honorific titles such as the equivalent of
“mister.” The party wants to put everyone on an equal footing through encouraging the use of an address form that implies no social or
economic differences and unites all politically. Comrade is a term intended to invoke solidarity.

FIRST NAMES AND NICKNAMES (PET NAMES)

The most obvious names that show solidarity are the use of first names and pet or nicknames.

First names
When you are on a first name basis with someone, while it can often be for the sake of convenience, it is also a sign that you feel some
level of familiarity with them. In fact, it is really the first step to beginning any kind of closer relationship.

Nicknames or Pet names

Nicknames or pet names, show a particularly high level of solidarity. When you allow someone to call you by a “special” name you
are acknowledging a special level of solidarity. If you do not have that level of solidarity, using a pet name can be considered
extremely rude.

Would you let the person next to you call you, Moya Malenkaya Ribka?

Family role based names

A person also has a role-based name within his or her family. That name in English may be father or son, mother or daughter,
grandmother, grandfather, husband, wife, cousin, aunt, etc. Each name has a level of power and or solidarity that is part of that name
within the family structure. Older brother usually has more power than younger sister. Dad usually has more power than son. Brother
has more solidarity than cousin, depending on the culture.
Interestingly, these role names can be switched around as well. For example among Porte Ricans living in New York, U.S.A, an
interesting variation is that parents often times refer to their children as momma and papa—what does this mean socially? It is just
now being studied.

NUER
 In Nuer society, again our tribal people from Sudan, a person can have several names:
 A personal name or birth name, given by the parents
 A second name, given by the maternal grandparents
 A social name, when a child becomes an adult
 A clan name used only in wedding ceremonies and initiations.
 An “Ox” name chosen by the person to suggest some triumph in war or sport or hunting and used by friends.

All of these names are used at different times by different people.

Now what about in an English speaking society? I will use myself as an example.

ENGLISH SOCIETY: ME
 I have the same family names as you do: I am a brother, in particular an older brother, a son, a grandson, and a cousin
so far.
 I am Mr. Ferry to you and to my other classes.
 My first name is Todd, which is what my friends, acquaintances and some colleagues can call me.
 My middle name is Michael, which is my baptismal name that I received when I was baptized in the Catholic
tradition.
 When I was confirmed, also part of the Catholic tradition, I chose the name “Jerome.”
 Sometimes my friend’s call me by various nicknames I am not willing to share.

63
Each of these names suggests a different social relationship I have with the people who use them.

POLITENESS IN LANUAGE [FORMAL LANGUAGE]

Now, let’s move on to politeness in language.
Finally we show power and solidarity in our choice of politeness in language. You do not use a low level or more colloquial form of
speaking with your boss or your teacher. If you remember the term “REGISTER” from two lectures ago, this is basically what we are
talking about here.

Would you say to your boss:

“Good afternoon, Sir. Your secretary informed me that you wanted to speak to me about a new client and possibly some additional
work.” [Formal]

Or

“Hi there. Did you ask to see me? I heard we got a new client. That’s great.” [Normal]

Or

“Yo man, what’s happening? The chick who keeps you straight said you got somethin’
cookin’ and you want me on board. Cool. No problemo. Give me the lowdown.” [Very
informal]
That of course is an exaggeration, but you get the idea.

Moreover, there are certain forms we use expressly to be polite to people who have a higher level of power and with whom we share
less solidarity.
For example:

Would you mind…

or
Is it/would it be possible…

Some languages have highly developed systems of low and high registers used to speak to different people with whom you have
power and solidarity relationships. For example, in Javanese culture, it is almost impossible to say anything to anyone without directly
stating in the language you use their and your social positions. In this case YOU MUST state your difference in solidarity in your
language—This is not necessarily the case in English and again, it is one instance that is considered proof for the Sapir-Whorf
hypothesis.

GREETINGS AND FAREWELLS

Finally, power and solidarity are reflected in how we greet each and say farewell or
goodbye (GOD BE WITH YE)

64
Every language has some range of ways to greet a person and say goodbye. Linguists call
these:

Entry = greeting

Exit = Farewell

If you remember, we just discussed the importance of face. Well, the linguist Irving
Goffman believes that whenever you meet and have a social interaction with a person
your “face” may be affected by the meeting and your level of solidarity or power may
change.

Greetings:
He suggests the reason for a greeting is that it is needed to show that the relationship
which existed at the end of the last time you met is the same and unchanged, despite the
separation.

Farewells:
The reason for a farewell is to sum-up the effect of the time two people have spent
together so that they know what to expect the next time they meet.

This is why saying hello and goodbye are so important in every society. Without them
you do not know where stand socially with the person you are about to speak with and
with the person you are about to say goodbye to.

THINK ABOUT HOW YOU GREET EACH OTHER, YOUR FRIENDS, AND YOUR
TEACHERS. THINK ABOUT HOW IMPORTANT IT IS TO SAY HELLO AND
GOODBYE IN YOUR RELATIONSHIPS.

What would happen if you did not say hello to someone you usually say hello to?

With that we close this lecture on social interaction, speech acts, speech norms, social
solidarity and power. I bid you all a fond farewell until next time with the promise that
our level of social solidarity, as well as our inequality in power remain intact, but that
your face has not been compromised in anyway!

NEXT lecture is on language variables and various dialects.

END
---------------------------------------

Lecture 5. The relationship between language and society, part 2: interesting

variations in the English language and what they mean.

TODAY WE ARE GOING TO TALK ABOUT SOCIAL DIALECTS.

65
One of the most important aspects of sociololinguistics is discussing language variation
among various social groups within a single society.

People within a society are almost always organized into hierarchical social groups.
These are called classes. You may have heard the terms “Upper class, or high class”,
“Middle Class” or “Working class” or “White collar” and “Blue collar,” or the “Lower
classes.” All of these are examples of what are termed social classes.

SLIDE OF CLASSES (1):

Upper Class [High Class]

Upper Middle Class [White Collar]
Middle Middle Class
Lower Middle Class
Working Class [Blue Collar]
Lower Classes

Social classes are groups of people with similar social and economic characteristics.

Sociolinguists usually only divide a society into very broad social classes such as high
class vs. low class, or upper classes vs. middle classes vs. lower classes. To try to define
the classes anymore specifically than this leads to too many problems since so many
other social factors are involved in our place in society and in our language use.

But, that being said, it should be obvious to you that the way people talk has a lot to do
with their social position.

LABOV, LINGUISTIC VARIABLE, MIDDLE CLASS

One very interesting aspect of language and social class is how language variations
spread and change within a society. Again, one of the father’s of American
Sociolinguistics, William Labov, made several large-scale studies that determined where
this change occurs in most class-based societies.

He showed, by carefully plotting a speaker's social position alongside their use of

linguistic variables, [remember linguistic variables from the last lecture?] that linguistic
changes tended to be led by certain social groups. In particular, the upper working class
and the lower middle class.

LINGUISTIC VARIABLE:
A linguistic variable is a linguistic item that has identifiable variants. When a certain way
of saying something becomes a set way of expressing it, phonetically, grammatically, or
with expressions, etc, it is called a linguistic variable. The different ways a linguistic
variable is expressed are called variants.

66
Labov found that upper working class speakers tended to be the leaders of unconscious
linguistic changes that were more common in casual speech, and that the lower middle
class led changes towards overtly prestigious standard forms.

 That is, the working class is most responsible for creating the newest variations in
how we speak—the working classes create change.

 The lower MIDDLE class is most responsible for spreading the prestigious
standard forms of the language—the middle classes spread change.

Moreover, social and regional factors are very closely interrelated. The book uses the
example of British English:

**SLIDE: Social Variation in Britain (2)

These two pyramids deal with differences in accent and dialect and represent the
relationships between where a speaker is, both socially and geographically. At the top are
speakers of the highest social class: they speak the standard dialect with very little
regional variation. Also at the top are those who speak RP, the educated accent that
signals no regional information at all because it’s not regionally specific—its class based.

The further down you move on the social scale, and the further down the pyramid you go,
the more you encounter regional accents and dialect variation. When you reach the lowest
social class you encounter the widest range of local accents and dialects. As the book
says:

“Thus for example speakers from the top social class will all use the same
word, headache, and give it the RP pronunciation, but speakers from the
lowest class will use, skullache, head-wark, head-warch, sore head, and
other forms, in a variety of pronunciations, depending on where they are
from.”

U and non-U
There are a wide variety of social dialects in Britain, but the best example of the
difference between social dialects is the U and non-U study by A.S.C. Ross. The study
was very broad because it only studied the difference between what was upper class
speech and what was not upper class speech, but the results still stand. KEEP IN MIND
THE PYRAMID SLIDE. The book discusses this in a little more detail, but examples are:

SLIDE: U and Non-U (3)

U (upper class people say:) Non-U (lower class people say:)
“Have a bath” “Take a bath”
“Sick” “Ill”
“Vegetables” “Greens”
“Wireless” “Radio”
“Lavatory paper” “Toilet paper”

67
ENGLISH POLL

A 1972 survey carried out by National Opinion Polls in England provides an example of
how significantly speech differences are associated with social class differences.

SLIDE: ENGLISH POLL (4)

The following question was asked:

"Which of the these [eleven specified factors] would you say are most important in being
able to tell which class a person is?" Respondents were randomly chosen from the
British public.

 The factor that scored the highest was "the way they speak"

 followed by "where they live."

 At the bottom of the list was "the amount of money they have."

All this is evidence that: "speech is regarded as more indicative of social class than
occupation, education and income."

Other researchers also cite consistent findings of listeners evaluating anonymous British
speakers with the standard RP accent more favourably for such status traits as
intelligence, success, and confidence.

British speakers themselves often characterize other British accents as either "posh" or
"common" accents. Most speakers of British English would recognize these labels and
create a fairly accurate image of the sound of these far ends of the spectrum.

Received Pronunciation RP " representing the "posh" end and a less broad version of
Cockney representing the "common" accent.

As language change continues to take place within Britain and within England, there are
some who claim that a relatively newly established accent, "Estuary English" (EE) will
soon replace the traditional educated accent of England’s Received Pronunciation" (RP).
Estuary English is reported to be used by speakers who constitute the social "middle
ground.”

This is an interesting idea:

DRAW ON BOARD:

Received Pronunciation
 

68
Estuary English

Cockney

Let’s look more closely at some variations in different class based social dialects.

PRONUNCIATION AND CLASS

DROPPING THE G

G-dropping: G-dropping is when the final “ng” sound of a word ending in –ing is NOT
pronounced.

NEW YORK
“Dropping the g” is the variation and linguistic variable that we briefly discussed earlier
in the 2nd lecture with, the fishing, fishin’, Singing’ singin’ variants. It is used in a variety
of situations and differently in different dialects.

For instance, in a 1969 study done in New York City, William Labov found that in casual
conversation, g-dropping varied with social class as follows:

SLIDE: NEW YORK G-DROPPING (5)

Lower Working Lower middle Upper middle
class class class class

Percentage of g-
80% 49% 32% 5%
dropping

As class status "rises," percentage of g-dropping falls.

However, formality also matters: members of a given social stratum drop g's more often
in less formal speech. Thus for the lower class members it looks something like this:

SLIDE: NEW YORK G-DROPPING

In the 1969 NYC study, this pattern was maintained across the full interaction of social
class and degree of formality:

SLIDE: NEW YORK G-DROPPING

In the British Middle Class g-dropping has an interesting history and it takes on a
different significance.

In 19th- and early 20th-century England, the g-dropping pattern (which really was the
"not g-adding pattern") marked the rural aristocracy it was fashionable among the upper
classes.

69
As the standardization of written English began to take hold, people began to see the
dropping of the g as less prestigious. That is as it became more important to speak
phonetically correct English, dropping the g became less prestigious.

Educated people began to feel that if the g- was part of the spelling of the word, then it
should be pronounced.

Today, nearly all English speakers drop g's sometimes, but in a given speech community,
the proportion varies systematically depending on formality, social class, sex, and other
variables as well.

A particularly famous study of g-dropping was conducted in Norwich England, by Peter

Trudgill.
NORWICH, ENGLAND
A similar pattern in g-dropping as was found in Labov’s New York study, was found in
the Norwich, England study:

SLIDE:TRUDGILL’S
Casual speech Careful speech Reading NORWICH

Middle-middle class 28% 3% 10%

Lower middle class 42% 15% 10%

Upper working class 87% 74% 15%

Middle working class 95% 88% 44%

Lower working class 100% 98% 66%

STUDY (6)

SLIDE: TRUDGILL CHART (7)

One of the variables Trudgill studied was the final consonant in words like walking and
running.

Trudgill's study discovered the following:

70
1. In all social classes, the more careful the speech, the more likely people were to say
walking rather than walkin'.

2. The proportion of walkin' type forms was higher in lower social classes.

3. The nonstandard -in' forms occurred much more often in men's speech than in
women's, and this was true for all social classes.

4. When women were questioned about what they thought they were saying, they tended
to say they used the standard -ing forms more often than they really did.

5. When men were questioned about what they thought they were saying, they tended to
say they used the nonstandard -in' forms more often than they really did.

Overall g-dropping rates seem to be somewhat higher in Norwich compared to New

York. However, the general pattern of dependence on social status and formality is
maintained.

Similar studies have been done in many places, for many linguistic variables other than
g-dropping, and the pattern is always the same: there is a sort of systematic analogy
between social class and formality.

SLIDE: Los Angeles Study (8)

LOS ANGELES
Class is not the only social variable that tends to work this way. Another study of g-
dropping, this time in Los Angeles, compared males and females of similar socio-
economic status. Male speakers (other things equal) tend to use more informal (or lower-
class) modes of speech than females do, and this study was no exception. At the same
time, for both males and females, the percentage of g-dropping was greater in joking than
in arguing:
Joking Arguing

Males 46% 24%

Females 28% 21%

The difference between joking and arguing might be because joking creates a more
informal speech style, or it might because there is a dimension of friendliness or intimacy
that can also be involved in such things.

But, more generally, you drop your g’s in informal settings and usually keep them in
more formal settings. This is a difference in register. Your class level also usually

71
suggests how formal you have to be and how informal you can be. People in the working
classes do not usually need to be as formal as people in the aristocracy.

DROPPING THE H
Our next variable is called H-dropping.
H-dropping: H-dropping is when the “H” sound in words is not voiced.

H-dropping occurs initially in words like hit, hammer, happy, hedge. It can also (though
less frequently) occur medially in words such as Wolverhampton, Birmingham, Tatham.

Word initial h-dropping occurs in RP (Received Pronunciation) and CE (Cockney

English), though not in SE (Standard English) or EE (Estuary English)

In most accents of English H-dropping is realized phonetically as [h] (voiceless). Thus

we find hall vs. all and heat vs. eat, or sometimes as a glottal stop. This happens in most
of the working-class accents.

Not many studies of just H-dropping have been done yet, but it is a major and very
common variation among dialects.

DROPPING THE R or R-LESSNESS—INTRUSIVE R—RHOTICITY

Let’s move on to a different social variation—variations in R.

We will start with RHOTICITY

Rhoticity: is when the R sound in English is fully pronounced.

So in words like:
Car Par
Guard Fort
Nor Court
Sore

72
You can hear the “r” sound being fully pronounced.

In some varieties of American and British English, however, the English "r", is sometimes not
pronounced in surface forms.

This is called R-LESSNESS

R-lessness (“R-dropping”): Not completely pronouncing the “r” sound in some words.

For example, in some varieties of Southern States English and New England English, words such
as guard and car are pronounced with a lengthened vowel in place of the "r" (eg. SSE guard
and NEE car ). Other words, such as fear or bored, are pronounced with a glided , in
place of the "r" (eg. SSE fear ).—fi-ey.

guard = god par = pa

nor = gnaw fort = fought
sore = saw court = caught

LABOV’S NEW YORK DEPARTMENT STORE

SLIDE: NEW YORK DEPARTMENT STORE (9)

Our father of American Sociolinguistics, William Labov, again conducted some interesting
research on R-lessness in the Lower East Side of New York City.

He showed that individual speech patterns were part of a highly systematic structure of social
class speech. He studied how often the final or preconsonantal (r) was sounded in words like
guard, bare and beer. Saying the “r” in words is considered more prestigious in the speech of
New Yorkers because it is closer to Standard English. Most New Yorkers, especially those in the
middle and lower classes do NOT fully pronounce the “r” in most words.

The use of “r” can be measured very precisely, and its high frequency in speech makes it possible
to collect data quickly.

One part of the research has become particularly well known. It is a very clever study.

The speech of sales assistants in three Manhattan stores, drawn from the top (Saks), middle
(Macy's) and bottom (Klein's) of the price and fashion scale was analyzed. Each unknowing
sales assistant who worked in each department store was approached and asked a question so that
they had to answer - "Fourth floor" - which would or would not contain the (r). i.e. they would
say either Fourth floor or Fouth flo’

Pretending not to have heard it got the department sale’s assistant to repeat Fourth floor in a
careful, more emphatic style.

Sak’s Upper Class

$$$
Macy’s Middle Class
$$
Klein’s Lower Class
$

The findings were that the sales assistants from Saks used “r” the most, those from Klein's used
“r” the least and those from Macy's showed the greatest upward shift when they were asked to
repeat—that is they might not have said the “r” the first time, but when asked to repeat “Fourth
floor” they made sure to say the “r”.

The results from the department store study show that the use of “r” is considered more
prestigious, and saying it varied with level of formality and social class.

BRITISH ENGLISH R-Lessness

In British English R-lessness also exists—and in fact is more common. It is a big part of the RP
accent. In Britain about 250 years ago, the "r" started to be dropped in some dialects if it
occurred before a consonant such as in arm or farm. Where "r" occurred before a vowel, such as
in rack, track, or carry it was retained. The change is thought to have started in the southeast of
England and to have spread to other parts of the country and is continuing to spread. Older
people seem to retain the "r" in such words as tart, while younger people are losing it.

The process of ‘r’-loss has probably been accelerated by the fact it is very much a part of the
standard RP accent and thus pronouncing r’s has relatively low status in England, and omitting
them relatively high social status.

OTHER R-VARIATIONS
One last variation that occurs with “r” is called intrusive “r”.

Intrusive R: Intrusive “r”—is inserting an “r” sound in pronunciation of a word where there is
no “r” in the standard spelling of the word.
This variation occurs in a number of dialects and social dialects, in particularly Cockney English.

For example in Cockney, which we will talk more about in a minute:

America is sounds like “America-r-is”

Other examples of intrusive R are:

"I saw(r) a film today, oh boy" (The Beatles, "A Day in the Life")

and

"Vodka(r) and tonics" (Elton John, "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road")

Now that we have discussed some linguistic variables within dialects, let’s take a closer look at
some actual social dialects and how they sound. We will begin with Cockney in London.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
VARIOUS SOCIAL DIALECTS

IN BRITAIN

COCKNEY—LONDON, ENGLAND (class based social dialect)

The term cockney refers to working-class inhabitants of London, particularly east London, and
the slang used by these people. It is also often used in reference to the "cockney accent", the
accent common among London's working-class.

Cockney speakers have a distinctive accent and dialect, and frequently use Cockney rhyming
slang. Cockney ryhming slang has its own syntax that is incomparable to anything in common
Standard British, futhermore, several other features mark Cokney as a separate social dialect.

Typical features of Cockney speech include:

Dropped H, as in not 'alf pronounced [aːf], ("not half")

Boot – bute
The /u:/ (in 'tune') phoneme is centralised, for instance, /bʉːt/ for 'boot.'

Math -- maeth
/æ/ in 'bad' is lengthened somewhat. This feature, in addition to the Monophthongisation of the
/au/ phoneme, means that in some dialects the words 'math' and 'mouth' rhyme.

Th – f/v
Bother -- Bover
Merger of /θ/ with /f/, and [ð] with /v/, hence [mæfs] for ‘maths’, [bɒvə] for 'bother'.

Down -- Daewn
Monophthongisation of /aʊ/ to [æː], hence [dæːn] for ‘down’

Bottle – Bo’l
Butter—Bu’er
Use of a glottal stop for intervocalic 't', as in bottle or butter (but not when it precedes the stress,
as in deter); it can also occur between other sonorants, as in mental or in Feltham (the h of which
is silent even in RP)

Floor—floo-er
Considerable glide of the /ɔ:/ phoneme in 'cord' and 'thought.' In words with 'open' syllables like
'floor' and 'bore,' this vowel is pronounced with an upglide, similar to New York English. Hence
/kɔ:ə/ for 'core.' In words with 'closed' syllables, such as 'cord' and 'caught,' the vowel glides to
/ʊ/, hence /bɔ:ʊn/ for 'born.'

Intrusive 'R' after a vowel, hence 'America-r-is' for 'America is'

Use of me instead of my
Use of ain't instead of isn't, am not, are not, has not, and have not
Use of "In'it" to question a positive when making a statement, for example, "Good day today
in'it?"

Use of double negatives, for example "I didn't see nothing"

A whole sentence in Cockney might sound like this:

PUT ON BOARD: Forty thousand thrushes flew over Thornton Heath.

Faw'y fahsan' frushes flew ova fawn'n 'eaf ("[ˈfɔːʔi ˈfæːzənʔ ˈfɹʌʃɪz ˈfluː ˌəʊvə ˈfɔːnʔənˌiːf]") for
Forty thousand thrushes flew over Thornton Heath

Or "The wa'er in Majorca don' taste like wot it ough' a", for “The water in Mallorca doesn't taste
quite how it ought to."

Another famous example of Cockney still in use is Cockney rhyming slang in which, in the
simplest case, a given word or phrase is replaced by another word or phrase that rhymes with it.

For example= “Let’s have a little rabbit and pork = Let’s have a little talk.”

Often the rhyming replacement is abbreviated further, making the expressions even more
obscure.

So, for the last example you might just say “rabbit” for “talk” in Cockney slang.

A new rhyme may then be introduced for the abbreviation and the process continues.

Other examples of rhyming slang are apples (and pears), for stairs, and trouble (and strife), for
wife.

An example of truncation and replacement of rhyming slang starts with bottle and glass being
used for arse (ass). This was reduced to bottle, for which the new rhyme Aristotle was found;
Aristotle was then reduced to Aris for which plaster of Paris became the rhyme. This was, in
turn, reduced to plaster, and then "sticking plaster". Ergo, sticky means arse.

That being said, most of the features mentioned above have in recent years partly spread into
more general south-eastern speech and have partially helped to create the accent called Estuary
English; an Estuary speaker will use some but not all of the Cockney sounds.

THIS IS VERY INTERESTING and IMPORTANT BECAUSE COCKNEY SPEAKERS ARE

USUALLY THE MIDDLE AND LOWER CLASS OF LONDON. THEY ARE LEADING THE
WAY TO A NEW ACCENT, ESTUARY, WHICH IS COMPETEING WITH THE RP ACCENT
—THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT WILLIAM LABOV SAYS SHOULD HAPPEN.
Now let’s move on to the new world: What are some social dialects in America?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

R-LESS NEW YORK: NEW YORK CITY, U.S.A (class-based social dialect)

The New York dialect of the English language is spoken by most working class European
Americans who were raised in New York City and much of its metropolitan area including the
lower Hudson Valley, western Long Island, and in northeastern New Jersey. It is often
considered to be one of the most recognizable accents within American English

The New York dialect is closely confined to the geographically small but densely populated New
York City Dialect Region, which consists of the city's five Boroughs, the western half of Long
Island, and the cities of Newark and Jersey City in New Jersey.
The classic New York dialect is centered on middle and working class European Americans, and
this ethnic cluster now accounts for less than half of the city’s population.

All groups share the relevant features. It is possible that there are substantial differences, but
these have not been found.
There is a tendency for middle and upper middle class members of all groups to use more New
York dialect features and lower income residents to use fewer.

Not every American New Yorker uses the New York variety of English. Upper-middle class
European American New Yorkers and suburban residents from educated backgrounds often
speak with less conspicuous accents; in particular, many, though hardly all, use rhotic
pronunciations instead of the less prestigious non-rhotic pronunciations.
Characteristics
New York Dialect is predominantly characterized by the following sounds and speech patterns:

In the most old-fashioned and extreme New York–area accents, the vowel sounds of words like
girl and of words like oil both become a diphthong [ɜɪ]. This is often misperceived by speakers
of other accents as a "reversal" of the "er" and "oy" sounds, so that girl is pronounced "goil" and
oil is pronounced "erl"; this leads to the caricature of New Yorkers saying things like "Joizey"
(Jersey) and "terlet" (toilet).

r-lessness The traditional New York–area accent is non-rhotic; in other words, the sound “r” does
not appear at the end of a syllable or immediately before a consonant. Thus, there is no “r” in
words like park [paak], butter [buttə], or here [hiə].

Dark (l) onsets In New York dialect, the (l) is made before vowels with the tongue bunched
towards the back of the mouth as it is after vowels. In much US English, the prevowel version
has a light variant, with the tongue bunched more towards the front. In effect, this means that the
beginning sound of lull and level approximates the final one.

Dentalization (t) and (d) are often pronounced with the tongue tip touching the teeth so that
words like thing and this sound similar to "ting" and "dis".

Intrusive g. In most varieties of English, the velar nasal sound [ŋ], written as <ng> is pronounced
as [ŋ] rather than [ŋ-g]. However, in strong versions of New York dialect, the [ɡ] is variably
pronounced before a vowel as a velar stop. This leads to the stereotype of ‘’Long Island’’.

Syntax
Indirect questions. Word order of the original question is preserved in indirect questions, at least
those introduced by wh-words, for example: He wanted to know when will he come instead of
He wanted to know when he will come; or, She asked why don’t you want any instead of the
standard She asked why you don’t want any.

Lexicon
There are numerous words used mainly in New York, mostly associated with immigrant
languages. For instance, a "stoop" (from Dutch), is the front steps of a building entrance.

New York has been a major area for sociolinguistic study in the U.S. As mentioned above,
William Labov has worked extensively here, but New York is not just known for the R-less
dialect—it is also home to a number of other dialects such as, African American Vernacular
English, which we will discuss in a minute, spanglish, spoken by Porto Ricans, and it is a mixing
pot of multilingual people from all over the world.

Again, remember our New York Taxi driver?

In any given day, a immigrant New York taxi driver may speak his social dialect, in this case R-
less New York (working-class) English, and maybe a different native language, for example
Arabic, while speaking to someone who has a more Standard English dialect at the same time as
someone who speaks African American Vernacular English—New York is an enormous and
varied speech community.

Now, let’s turn our attention to another social dialect spoken in New York and many other major
cities called African American Vernacular English, or AAVE.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

AFRICAN AMERICAN VERNACULAR ENGLISH (AAVE): all of U.S.A. (ethnicall based

social dialect)
A more frequently discussed social dialect in the United States is African American Vernacular
English it is also sometimes called Black English Vernacular, or Ebonics, or its older and
derogatory name, “jive.” We will refer to it simply as AAVE.

This is not a class based social dialect like R-less New York or Cockney, but rather an ethincally
based social dialect.

About 80 to 90 percent of American blacks speak AAVE at least some of the time. Additionally,
AAVE shares many characteristics with various Creole English dialects spoken by black people
throughout much of the world. AAVE also has pronunciation, grammatical structures, and
vocabulary in common with various West African languages.

Speakers of AAVE are often bidialectal—which means they speak BOTH standard English and
AAVE. They code-switch [REMEMBER CODE-SWITCHING?] between Standard English and
AAVE and like any form of language, age, status, topic, and setting influence the use of AAVE.
For example, research has found that AAVE is used more often when discussing abstract
concepts, such as feelings, and when people speak to their friends and other African Americans.

The preponderance of code-switching indicates that AAVE and SAE are met with different
reactions or discernments. AAVE is often perceived by members of mainstream American
society as indicative of low intelligence or limited education. Furthermore, as with many other
non-standard dialects and especially creoles, AAVE sometimes has been called "lazy" or "bad"
English, although among linguists there is no such controversy, since AAVE, like all dialects,
shows consistent internal logic and structure.

That is why AAVE is considered a dialect—AAVE has rules that speakers follow. It is not just a
misunderstanding of how to speak Standard English.

AAVE and its cultural history serve as a symbol of ethnic identity and pride for African
Americans. AAVE's resistance to assimilation into Standard American English or other more
standard dialects is because of the cultural differences between blacks and whites—and a long
history of discrimination on the part of white people in the United States. Discrimination against
blacks has created some obvious tension, and Standard English can sometimes be seen as a more
“White” form of speaking English.

One of the most interesting aspects of AAVE is its uniformity across the country. AAVE is
spoken by African Americans from the West Coast to the East Coast with few differences in the
dialect. This is one way that linguists know it is not just incorrect English. The rules and changes
are so consistent that it is obvious there is a system for speaking in the dialect. The rules for
speaking AAVE in California are basically the same as in Boston. It is for this same reason that
some scholars have argued AAVE was once a creole language—this is a very interesting topic we
do not have time for here. You might want to write a research paper on it.

AAVE has survived and thrived through the centuries also as a result of various degrees of
isolation from Southern American English and Standard American English — through both self-
segregation from and marginalization—that is racism—by mainstream American society.

The traits of AAVE that separate it from Standard American English (SAE) include:

 changes in pronunciation along definable patterns.

 distinctive vocabulary, for example AAVE slang.
 differences in the use of tenses.

Let’s start with the sounds in the language.

Phonology
The uniformity of AAVE pronunciation, despite vast geographic area, may be due in part to
relatively recent migrations of African Americans out of the south as well as long-term racial
segregation. Phonological features that set AAVE apart from forms of "Standard English" (such
as General American) include:

Cab goes to cup

Word-final devoicing of /b/, /d/ and /g/ sounds, whereby for example cab sounds like cup.[2]

Thin goes to θi n or din or dis

AAVE speakers may use alternatives in what in SE are contexts for dental fricatives [θ] (the th in
thin) and [ð] (the th of then). This depends on the sound's position in a word.[3]
Word-initially, /θ/ is normally as in SE (so "thin" is [θɪn]).
Word-initially, /ð/ is [d] (so "this" is [dɪs]).
Word-medially and -finally, /θ/ is realized as either [f] or [t] (so [mʌnf] or [mʌnt] for "month");
/ð/ as either [v] or [d] (so [smuːv] for "smoothe").

Non-Rhotic: Story goes to stoi

AAVE is non-rhotic, so the rhotic consonant /r/ is usually dropped if not followed by a vowel.
Intervocalic /r/ may also be dropped, e.g. SE story ([stɔri]) can be pronounced [stɔ.i].

G-dropping: Tripping goes to trippin’

G-dropping here is consistent it is NOT just used sometimes—it is all the time. Other examples
include wedding → [wɛɾɪn], morning → [mɔɹnɪn], nothing → [ˈnʌfɪn].

Consonant clusters are reduced: Hand goes to han and tests goes to teses
More generally, reduction of vocally homorganic final consonant clusters (that is, clusters of
consonants that have the same place of articulation) that share the same laryngeal settings. E.g.
test is pronounced [tɛs] since /t/ and /s/ are both voiceless; hand is pronounced [hæn], since /n/
and /d/ are both voiced; but pant is unchanged, as it contains both a voiced and a voiceless
consonant in the cluster (Rickford, 1997). Note also that it is the plosive (/t/ and /d/) in these
examples that is lost rather than the fricative or nasal. Speakers may carry this declustered
pronunciation when pluralizing so that the plural of test is [tɛsəs] rather than [tɛsts].[5]

L is often deleted after a vowel: bold, bowl, and bow can all sound the same.
/l/ is often deleted after a vowel and, in combination with the above feature, can make bold,
bowl, and bow homophones.

Use of metathesised forms like "aks" for "ask"[6] or "graps" for "grasp." Both these examples
existed in Anglo-Saxon and more recent varieties of English, and may be survivals of non-
standard forms.

There are other sounds, but those are the major ones. Now lets look at the grammar.

Aspect marking
The most distinguishing feature of AAVE is the use of forms of be to mark aspect in verb
phrases. The use or lack of a form of be can indicate whether the performance of the verb is of a
habitual nature. In SAE, this can be expressed only using adverbs such as usually.[7] It is disputed
whether the use of the verb "to be" to indicate a habitual status or action in AAVE has its roots in
various West African languages.

TAKE A LOOK AT YOUR HANDOUT:

Example Name SE Meaning / Notes

He workin'. Simple progressive He is working [right now].
He be Habitual/continuative He works frequently or habitually. Better illustrated with
workin'. aspect "He be workin' Tuesdays all month."
He be steady Intensified
He is always working.
workin'. continuative
He been
Perfect progressive He has been working.
workin'.
He been had Remote phase (see
He has had that job for a long time and still has it.
that job. below)
He has worked. Syntactically, "He worked" is valid, but
He done
Emphasized perfective "done" is used to emphasize the completed nature of the
worked.
action.[8]
He's about to go to work. Finna is a contraction of "fixing
to"; though is also believed to show residual influence of
late 16th century archaism "would fain (to)", that
He finna go to persisted until later in some rural dialects spoken in the
Immediate future
work. Carolinas (near the Gullah region). "Fittin' to" is
commonly thought to be another form of the original
"fixin' (fixing) to", and it is also heard as fitna, fidna,
fixna, and finsta.[9]
I was walkin' Preterite narration. "Had" is used to begin a preterite narration. Usually it
home, and I occurs in the first clause of the narration, and nowhere
had worked else.
all day.

Finally, I just want to mention briefly some other characteristics of AAVE.

Other grammatical characteristics

Some of these characteristics, notably double negatives and the use of been for "has been", are
also characteristic of general colloquial American English.

The copula BE is often dropped, as in Russian, Hungarian, Hebrew, Arabic and other languages.
 For example: You crazy! ("You're crazy") or She my sister ("She's my sister").
 The phenomenon is also observed in questions: Who you? ("Who're you?") and Where
you at? ("Where're you at?").
 She write poetry ("She writes poetry").

The -s possesive ending may or may not be used. The genitive relies on adjacency. This is similar
to many creoles throughout the Caribbean. Many language forms throughout the world use an
unmarked possessive; it may, here, result from a simplification of grammatical structures.

Example: my momma sister ("my momma's sister")

The word it or iss denotes the existence of something, equivalent to Standard English there in
"there is", or "there are". This usage is also found in the English of the US South. Examples Iss a
doughnut in the cabinet ("There's a doughnut in the cabinet") and It ain't no spoon ("There isn't a
spoon", also "Dey ain't no spoon").

Altered syntax in questions: She actin' all hankty (snobbish). Who duh hell she think she be?
("She's acting like a snob. Who the hell does she think she is?").

Note also the use of "all" as an adverb of manner or degree, as well as the omission of the
dummy verb "do" (does). How you tol' him I'm try'na see her? ("Why did you tell him I want to
see her?").

Normal clause inversion of the past tense verb in forming questions is not practiced.

Use of say to introduce quotations, actual or otherwise. For example, "I thought, say, 'Why don't
he just rap wit' her?'" (I thought, 'Why doesn't he just speak with her?'") Say is also used to
introduce sounds where a SAE speaker might use go: He say, boom! ("It went, boom!").

One last and very interesting aspect of AAVE is its slang. AAVE is a major source of modern
American slang. This is especially true of slang from “hip hop” and “rap” music, but many other
slang words are derived from earlier forms of African American culture—including the words
cool, blues, and jazz.

So, as you can see AAVE is a very complex dialect with its own rules and syntax that can be
extremely different from Standard English.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Finally, let’s look at one last social variation in language--Slang

SLANG

Slang: words or expressions that are very informal and are not considered suitable for more
formal situations. Some slang is used only by a particular group of people.

BRAINSTORM: What slang words do you know?

The use of slang usually involves deviation from standard language, and tends to be very popular
among adolescents. However, it is used to at least some degree in all sectors of society. It often
involves the creation of new linguistic forms or the creative adaptation of old ones. It can even
involve the creation of a secret language understood only by those within a particular group. As
such, slang sometimes forms a kind of social dialect aimed at excluding certain people from the
conversation.

Slang words tend to function initially as a means of hiding the real and intended meaning of a
word from people who you do not want to understand you. Words are chosen to hide their real
meaning so that people who are not part of your group can not understand your speech. It keeps
people who are not in your group on the outside.

The use of slang is also a means of recognizing members of the same group, and to differentiate
that group from society at large. Slang terms are frequently particular to a certain subculture,
such as musicians, and members of a minority.

When slang expressions spread outside their original arena and become commonly understood
then they lose their meaning for the original group, that group then has to create a new word or
words; recent examples include "cool". While some such words eventually lose their status as
slang, others continue to be considered as such by most speakers.

According to Bethany K. Dumas and Jonathan Lighter an expression should be considered "true
slang" if it meets at least two of the following criteria:

 It lowers, if temporarily, the dignity of formal or serious speech or writing—it makes

speech immediately less formal.

 Its use implies that the user is familiar with whatever is referred to, or with a group of
people that are familiar with it and use the term—it is used by a particular group.

 It is a taboo term in ordinary discourse with people of a higher social status or greater
responsibility.

 It replaces a well known conventional synonym. This is especially to avoid the

discomfort caused by the conventional item [or by] further elaboration—it is used as a
euphemism.

Functions and origins of slang

One use of slang is simply to circumvent social taboos, as mainstream language tends to shy
away from explicitly evoking certain realities. For this reason, slang vocabularies are particularly
rich in certain domains, such as sexuality, violence, crime, and drugs.

There is not just one slang, but very many varieties—or dialects—of it. Different social groups in
different times have developed their own slang.
Slang very often involves the creation of novel meanings for existing words. It is very common
for such novel meanings to diverge significantly from the standard meaning. Thus, "cool" and
"hot" can both mean "very good or impressive." In fact, one common process is for a slang word
to take on exactly the opposite meaning of the standard definition. This process has given rise to
the positive meaning of the word "bad," as in the Michael Jackson song of that title, for example.

SLIDE: Slang associated with other groups (10)

Mahjong slang Computer hacker slang
Medical slang Engrish
Military slang Germanía
Polari Goth slang
Professional wrestling slang
Skateboarding Slang Grunge speak
CB slang Hyphy
Christianese Internet slang
Heavy metal slang Leet (online-gaming slang)
Software industry slang

As you can see, these are only a few of the many variations that occur just within the ENGLISH
language. Sociolinguists study variety in all languages and if we turned our attention to Russian
or Ukrainian, I am sure we would have a great deal more variation in social dialects and
variations among social dialects to discuss.

That concludes our discussion on different linguistic variables, variation in language, and
examples of social dialects. Next week we will be discussing discrimination in language. This
will be your last lecture. I hope everyone has begun researching for a possible paper topic so that
they do not have to cram that final week. REMEMBER I WANT YOU TO TALK TO ME
ABOUT YOUR PAPER TOPIC BEFORE YOU BEGIN!!!!!

END
----------------------------------------------------------

Lecture 6: Discrimination in Language.

Today we are going to talk about how language is used to discriminate against different groups
of people. We have already discussed some of these issues briefly in passed lectures, but the
topic is so important it deserves its own lecture.

As an introduction to discrimination in language, I want to read you the introductory paragraphs

from one of the articles I have assigned you. I think it describes language discrimination very
well:

Imagine this. You have persistently bad headaches. Aspirin and other miracle
products don’t make them go away. Your family doctor decides it’s time to have a
specialist’s opinion. He hasn’t said the words, but you turn the terrible possibility
over in your mind –‘Brain tumor!’
You appear at the New York City office of Dr. N.V. Cramden, Brain Surgeon; you sign in and
await the beginning of the process that will reveal your fate. Cramden approaches and speaks:

‘Hey, how’s it goin’? Rotten break, huh? Ya got a pain in da noggin’. Don’t sweat
it; I’m gonna fix ya up. Hey, nois! Ovuh heah! Bring me dat watchamacallit. How
 da hell am I gonna take care of my patient heah if you don’t hand me dem tools?
Dat’s a goil.’

You still have your clothes on (it’s a brain surgeon’s office, right?), so you just
head for the door, stopping at the front desk and tell the receptionist that someone
in the examining room is posing as Dr. Cramden. Maybe you never return to your
trusted family doctor, since he or she has sent you to a quack. Whatever your
decision, you do not continue under the care of Dr. Cramden.

Linguists know that language variety does not correlate with intelligence or
competence, so Dr. Cramden could well be one of the best brain surgeons in town.
Nevertheless, popular associations of certain varieties of English with
professional and intellectual competence run so deep that Dr. Cramden will not
get to crack many crania unless he learns to sound very different.

A primary linguistic myth, one nearly universally attached to minorities, rural people and the less
well educated, extends in the United States even to well-educated speakers of some regional
varieties. That myth, of course, is that some varieties of a language are not as good as others.

New York English and Southern American English

One dialect of English that is often discriminated against is the New York Dialect of English—in
particular the R-less variety of New York English that we talked about last lecture. In fact the
example I gave above, of Dr. Cramden’s speech, is an example of R-less New York. Many
speakers of R-less New York English even view it themselves as one of the “worst” sounding
dialects of English and a sign of lower intelligence.
Why is this? Probably because it is a working class dialect most often used by people with a
lower socioeconomic status, sometimes used by people who have less formal education, and also
more importantly, because it is so different from Standard American English. It is for exactly
these same reasons that the Southern dialects of North American English are also looked down
upon. People who speak these dialects are considered less intelligent as well—no doubt about it.
I should not have to go into a long and detailed explanation about how the dialect of a
language that someone uses has nothing to do with their intelligence. You should know that
already. However, the problem is an interesting one. In fact, millions of dollars are spent in the
U.S. alone, to pay for “voice” lessons, so that a person can change their accent, pronunciation,
and dialect to make it more “standard.” I have assigned a committee paper by the American
Speech-Language and Hearing Association stating that dialectical differences should not be
considered a pathology, that is an abnormal understanding of English, and that if someone wants
to learn Standard English, their original first dialect should be respected.

A really good example of this is the current president of the United States of America, George W.
Bush. George Bush speaks with a very thick Texas accent and to some extent a southern dialect.
While many people consider people of this dialect to be less intelligent than speakers of standard
English, the dialect is also more associated with the “common man,” that is the working class.
What makes this even more interesting is that George Bush is not from Texas, he is originally
from the East Coast, an area that has an entirely different sounding dialect and accent of English,
and he moved permanently to Texas in 1998—about a year or two before the 2000 presidential
elections. He also adopted the Texas accent—it is not real, or rather, it is a creation he uses to
seem like one of the guys, like a regular person—and many people think it is one of the reasons
he was elected. It is also one of the reasons that many other people in America and abroad think
George W. Bush is stupid. His accent makes people perceive him both as a “regular guy” and as
less intelligent because of its association with the working class and less well educated people.
George Bush has also made a number of English mistakes in his speeches, also adding to people
assuming he is not very intelligent.

Now, I think George W. Bush is stupid, but for policy reasons, not the way he speaks, so I am not
guilty of discrimination based on language.

Interestingly, taking on the accent of the common people happens very often in politics. Even in
Britain, some people have adopted the Estuary English accent as a means of "blending in",
appearing to be more working class, or more of a"a common man" —For example, Tony Blair,
the British Prime Minister, has been heard to adopt the accent at times in TV interviews. And, as
some Australian scientists have found out researching the Queen's anniversary speeches, even
she has shifted her accent slightly towards what is called Estuary. So much for the queen’s
English.

LINGUICISM

Linguicism is a form of prejudice, an "-ism" along the lines of racism, ageism or sexism.
Linguicism involves making judgments about one's wealth, education, social status, and other
traits based on his or her use of language. Parts of language which may go into this consideration
are accents, the size of vocabulary (whether the person uses complex and varied words), and
sentence structure or syntax.

Linguicism is a form of prejudice which is often more subconscious than other forms, possibly
because not much attention has been raised about it; it is not a cultural taboo like racism and
sexism are today. Furthermore, it is not clear that it is logically unjustifiable or morally
reprehensible to draw inferences about a person's education partly based on their linguistic
proficiency.

For example, in some parts of the United States, a person who has a thick Mexican accent and
uses only simple English words may be thought of as poor, poorly educated, and possibly an
illegal immigrant by many of the people who meet them. However, if the same person has a
diluted accent or no noticeable accent at all and can use a variety of words in complex sentences,
they are likely to be perceived as more successful, better educated, and a legitimate citizen.

You and me and discrimination

This last example is especially interesting for us, as second language speakers. It is very easy to
assume that someone who does not speak a language very well is not intelligent. You all speak
English very well, but if you go to an English speaking country, like the U.S. or Britain, you may
find yourselves discriminated against to some extent because of your accent or because of minor
mistakes you may make in speaking the English language.
I am in similar circumstances as a non-native speaker of Russian here in Ukraine. There is no
doubt in my mind that I have been discriminated against in small ways—thankfully nothing big
—because I do not speak the language well and people consider this some sort of mark against
me. Or, another example, if I do not learn the language in the amount of time people expect me
to—that is as fast as they think I should, then I also may not be considered very intelligent, even
though it is well known that it takes a very long time to learn a second language and that people
learn some things in a language faster than others.
This is a very important consideration in the study of sociolinguistics and you could write an
interesting paper on it, if you should so choose.

Linguicism or linguistic discrimination can also, at times, be combined with other forms of
discrimination. One particularly well know example of this in sociolinguistics is the language
discrimination against speakers of AAVE, African-American Vernacular English.

RACIAL DISCRIMINATION
Again, to review: African-American Vernacular English (AAVE)—as we discussed last week—is
used by many African Americans, particularly those from working-class or inner-city areas.
Black English clearly differs from other varieties of English in its vocabulary, grammar and
pronunciation, but simply attaching it to one population group oversimplifies a complex
situation.

Many African Americans do not speak Black English all the time and have an excellent
command of Standard English; many non-African Americans who live in inner cities also speak
AAVE. Complicating matters further, African American influence — music, fashion, and
language — on American culture is very strong. As a result, some white American teenagers
from the suburbs consciously imitate Black language features, to express their own group
identity and shared opposition to mainstream culture.

Many people — African American or not — look down on Black English as an undesirable or
ignorant form of the language. Others see it as a proud and positive symbol of the African-
American experience. A few political activists or Afro-centrists insist that Ebonics isn’t a dialect
of English at all but rather a separate language with roots in Africa. And many people accept
Black English as an important social dialect but argue that its speakers must also master Standard
English in order to succeed in America today.

Sociolinguistics has show that increasing segregation in cities of the United States are depriving
the black community of its basic resources, and is in danger of creating a permanent underclass.

This is true in every city in the country: while the white dialects are continuing to develop and
diverge from each other, the black community of the inner city holds aloof from all this, and has
developed a nationally uniform grammar that is more and more distinct from that of the
surrounding white dialects.

AAVE in Education

AAVE has been the center of controversy on issues regarding the education of African American
youths and the role it should play in public schools and education, as well as its place in broader
society. Educators have held that attempts should be made to eliminate AAVE usage through the
public education system. Criticisms from social commentators and educators have ranged from
asserting that AAVE is an intrinsically deficient form of speech to arguments that its use, by
being considered unacceptable in most cultural contexts, is socially limiting. It is often argued
that incorporating AAVE in schools would only impede the academic progress of young African
American children.

Changes in formal attitudes regarding the acceptance of AAVE as a distinct dialect correlated
with advancements in civil rights. One notable shift in the recognition of AAVE came in the
"Ann Arbor Decision" of 1979 (Martin Luther King Junior Elementary School Children et al., v.
Ann Arbor School District). In it, a federal judge ruled that a school board, in teaching black
children to read, must adjust to the children's dialect, not the children to the school.

Prior to this, the CCCC (Conference on College Composition and Communication), a sub-
division of NCTE (National Council of Teachers of English) issued a position statement on
students’ right to their own language. This was adopted by members of the CCCC in April 1974
and appeared in a special issue of CCC in the fall of 1974. The resolution is as follows: “We
affirm the students' right to their own patterns and varieties of language-the dialects of their
nurture or whatever dialects in which they find their own identity and style. Language scholars
long ago denied that the myth of a standard American dialect has any validity. The claim that any
one dialect is unacceptable amounts to an attempt of one social group to exert its dominance over
another. Such a claim leads to false advice for speakers and writers and immoral advice for
humans. A nation proud of its-diverse heritage and its cultural and racial variety will preserve its
heritage of dialects. We affirm strongly that teachers must have the experiences and training that
will enable them to respect diversity and uphold the right of students to their own language.”

The formal recognition of AAVE was revisited when a resolution from the Oakland, California
school board on December 18, 1996, wanted "Ebonics" officially recognized as a language or
dialect. At its last meeting, the outgoing Oakland school board unanimously passed the
resolution before stepping down from their positions to the newly elected board consisting of
members who held different political views. The new board modified the resolution and then
effectively dropped it. Had the measure remained in force, it would have affected funding and
education-related issues.

The Oakland resolution declared that AAVE was not English, and was not an Indo-European
language at all, asserting that the speech of black children belonged to "West and Niger-Congo
African Language Systems". This claim was quickly ruled inconsistent with current linguistic
theory, that AAVE is a dialect of English and thus of Indo-European origin. Furthermore, the
differences between modern AAVE and Standard English are nowhere near as great as those
between French and Haitian Creole, the latter being considered a separate language. The
statement that "African Language Systems are genetically based" also contributed to widespread
hostility. Supporters of the resolution later clarified that "genetically" was not a racial or
biological term but a linguistic one.

Proponents of AAVE instruction in public education believe that their proposals have been
distorted by political debate and misunderstood by the general public. The underlying belief is
that black students would perform better in school and more easily learn standard American
English if textbooks and teachers acknowledged that AAVE was not a substandard version of
standard American English but a legitimate speech variety with its own grammatical rules and
pronunciation norms.

For black students whose primary dialect was AAVE, the Oakland resolution mandated some
instruction in that dialect, both for "maintaining the legitimacy and richness of such language...
and to facilitate their acquisition and mastery of English language skills.” Teachers were
encouraged to recognize that the "errors" in Standard American English that their students made
were not the result of lack of intelligence or effort, and indeed were not errors at all but instead
were features of a grammatically distinct form of English.

Rather than teaching Standard English by proscribing non-standard usage, the idea was to teach
Standard American English to Ebonics-speaking students by showing them how to translate
expressions from AAVE to Standard American English.
Framers of the Oakland resolution recognized that, when teaching anyone a language or variety
with which they are unfamiliar, it is important to differentiate between understanding and
pronunciation.

Pedagogical techniques similar to those used to teach English to speakers of foreign languages
appear to hold promise for speakers of AAVE. A group of educators developed a comprehensive
set of dialect readers, called bridge readers, which included the same content in three different
dialects: AAVE, a bridge version, which was closer to SAE without being prohibitively formal,
and a Standard English version. The results were very promising, but in the end the program was
not widely adopted for various political and social reasons related to the refusal of school
systems to recognize AAVE as a dialect of English. Opinions on Ebonics still range from
advocacy of official language status in the United States to denigration as "poor English”.

Teaching children whose primary dialect is AAVE poses problems beyond simply those
commonly addressed by pedagogical techniques, and the Oakland approach has support among
some educational theorists. However, such pedagogical approaches have given rise to
educational and political disputes. Despite the clear linguistic evidence, the American public and
policymakers remain divided over whether to even recognize AAVE as a legitimate dialect of
English, perhaps due to unfounded beliefs that AAVE is a degradation of English.

The overwhelming controversy and debates concerning AAVE in public schools insinuate the
deeper, more implicit deterministic attitudes towards the African-American community as a
whole. One scholar describes this as a reflection of the "power elite’s perceived insignificance
and hence rejection of Afro-American language and culture". It is also asserted that since African
Americans, in order to succeed, are forced to conform to European American society this
ultimately means the "eradication of black language…and the adoption of the linguistic norms of
the white middle class." Others say the necessity for a "bi-dialectialism" (AAVE and SAE)
creates problems as well. Some blacks contend that being bi-dialectal not only causes a schism in
the black personality, but it is also like saying black talk is 'good enough' for blacks but not for
whites.

Language discrimination or linguiscism can come in many different forms. Another type of
discrimination is sexism or gender descrimination in language. Now, I am not at all familiar
enough with the Russian and Ukrainian languages to understand how these languages may or
may not be guilty of gender descrimination. It would be interesting to find out more—I’d like to
suggest this as a possible paper topic. It is especially interesting because Russian and Ukrainian
have a gender system in the language—much like French which I will only discuss very briefly. I
can, however, tell you more about gender descrimination in English.

GENDER DISCRIMINATION

Gender-neutral language is an attempt to take gender bias out of the English language and
make it gender neutral, that is not favoring the male gender or the female gender.

Gender-neutral language reflects at least two different schools of thought.

 One is aimed at clarifying the inclusion of both sexes or genders (gender-inclusive

language).
 The other proposes that sex or gender as a category is rarely worth marking in language
(sex-neutral language) and should be eliminated all together.
An example of language that may contains assumptions about gender is the sentence:

 "Tomorrow I will meet my new doctor; I hope he is friendly."

If the speaker does not know what gender that the doctor is, in English, they might, according to
earlier grammatical rules assume that the doctor will be male. Even if there is no such actual
assumption intended by the speaker, some listeners might infer such an assumption—this is not
neutral language. Why shouldn’t the doctor be a woman? Why can’t a language reflect the
possibiliy that the doctor could be either a man or a woman?

Perhaps language like that in the example reflects a speaker's belief in, or support of, traditional
gender roles. Gender-neutral language is not concerned with judging the speaker's beliefs,
however; it is only concerned with proscribing forms of language that might be interpreted, by
some hearers, as acceptance of traditional stereotypes. It would recommend the following kinds
of alternatives.

 "Tomorrow I will meet my new doctor, who I hope is friendly."

 "Tomorrow I will meet my new doctor; I hope the doctor is friendly."
 "Tomorrow I will meet my new doctor; I hope he or she is friendly."

Another example shows the practical nature of the gender-neutral language proscription.

A business might advertise that it is looking for a new chair or chairperson rather than chairman.
Gender-neutral language would argue that you should not use chairman, on the grounds that
some readers would assume women are excluded from responding to an advertisment using this
word.

History

Various forms of gender-neutral language became a common feature in written and spoken
versions of many languages in the late twentieth century.

Various feminisms have argued that prior to this time, the practice of assigning masculine gender
to generic antecedents was due to every language "[reflecting] the prejudices of the society in
which it evolved, and English evolved through most of its history in a male-centered, patriarchal
society."

Belief in theial effects of language was largely a 20th century phenomenon in the English-
speaking world, and has been linked to the development of the concept of politically correct
language and the principle of linguistic relativity by Benjamin Whorf and others.

Gender-neutral language is supported widely by certain types of businesses and educational

institutions. Its stated purpose is typically social or ethical, such as promoting diversity or
opportunity. Some believe that the roles of men and women in society have changed in various
ways.

For example, gender-neutral language has gained support from major textbook publishers, and
from professional and academic groups such as the American Psychological Association and the
Associated Press. Newspapers like the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal now avoid
such language.
Recent employee policy manuals have begun to include strongly worded statements prescribing
avoidance of language that potentially could be considered discriminatory. The wording of this
statement from a policy manual is typical: "All documents, publications or presentations
developed by all constituencies…shall be written in gender neutral and/or gender inclusive
language. Employees are told that they need to be aware of their responsibilities to avoid
discriminatory language, and that they are required to implement the enterprise's commitment to
treat stakeholders equally and with courtesy. Institutional members are instructed, as a matter of
corporate policy, to avoid using language that may even appear to be discriminatory, or that may
give offense in verbal or written communication. They also provide guidance about how to
reflect the concept of valuing diversity in language usage.

Affirmative positions

Promoters of gender-neutral language argue that its motivation is not to favor either gender over
the other in contexts where the gender of a person or group of people is ambiguous. The
perceived need for inclusive language arises because, according to widely accepted norms of
current usage, masculine pronouns no longer communicate a generic sense of "anyone." Indeed,
many people find such usage not only inaccurate but offensive.

There is a growing awareness that language does not merely reflect the way we think: it also
shapes our thinking. (This is the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis again.) If words and expressions that
imply that women are inferior to men are constantly used, that assumption of inferiority tends to
become part of our mindset.

In some cases, Gender-neutral language may be achieved through the use of gender-inclusive,
gender-neutral or epicene words ("human being," "person," "individual," and so on) instead of
gender-specific ones ("man," "he," "businessman," etc.), when speaking of people whose gender
is unknown, ambiguous, or unimportant. If no gender-inclusive terms exist, new ones may be
coined (e.g., "businessperson"), or there may be parallel usage of the existing gender-specific
terms (as in "men and women," "he or she," "he/she," "(s)he," and so on).

Inclusive language follows the principles of gender-neutral language and extends them to other
areas of language, such as referring neither to adults nor children when discussing a person
whose age cannot otherwise be determined.

Some advocates of gender-neutral language argue that traditional language fails to reflect the
presence of women in society adequately. This is referred to as "symbolic annihilation." In
general, they are concerned about a number of issues:

 Use of exclusively gender-specific pronouns like "he" and "she." While English first
person pronouns("I"/"we"), second person ("you"), and third person plural ("they") are
gender-neutral,[6]
 Use of "man" to refer to all people. (e.g., "mankind.")
 Use of gender-specific job titles.
 Use of "Miss" and "Mrs." (see "Ms.")
 Non-parallel usage, such as "man and wife."
 Stereotypical words such as "virile" and "ladylike."
 Words with stereotypical derivations such as "hysterical."
 That the word "woman" appears to include the word "man," as though "man" were the
default or normal form.

Some reasons stated for these concerns are that gender-specific language:
  It marginalizes women and creates the impression of and reflects a male-dominated
society.
 It makes women invisible in language, which, it is claimed, reflects their reality
 It is demeaning, such as when the wording appears to treat women only as property of
marriage or calling other 'things' owned or operated by men by female adjectives (e.g.,
that car: "she's" a beauty, the "mother"land, etc.)
 It can perpetuate inaccurate and biased stereotypes about where men and women are
supposed to be [e.g., chairman, statesman, congressman, physician vs. secretary, waitress,
hostess]

Many people believe that the general use of the term "man" is offensive, or at least inaccurate.
Phrases like "no man is an island" or "every man for himself" seem to exclude women. Although
reading history as if every use of "man" or "he" was a deliberate insult to women is probably
excessive, today's culture calls for alternatives.

Gender neutral language is widely accepted. It is also new, which can lead to traditional language
sounding parochial or out-of-date to those who use the new forms. Some people, of both sexes,
take offense at traditional language that they interpret as suggesting stereotypical assumptions
about occupations. For example, when the language infers that all lawyers are men or that all
teachers are women.

A deeper variant of these arguments involves the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, the suggestion that our
language shapes our thought processes. Some scholars believe that in order to eliminate sexism,
we would do well to eliminate allegedly "sexist" forms from our language—this is an interesting
argument. Other scholars, however, have pointed out that in languages that do not make the
gender distinctions English makes there is still a high level of sexism. See for example, Japanese
and Tukish.

Some advocates support the enforcement of rules and policies against gender-specific language
by institutions including schools, governments and workplaces. Many editing houses,
corporations, and government bodies have official policies in favor of in-house use of gender-
neutral language. In some cases, laws exist regarding the use of gender-neutral language in
certain situations, such as job advertisements. The majority of advocates for gender-neutral
language generally prefer persuasion rather than enforcement. One method for such persuasion is
creating guidelines that indicate how they believe language should be used, or providing an
example through their own use of gender-neutral language.

Neutral positions

Many people have no recognition of any potential problem with gender-specific language. Thus,
they have no opinion on gender-neutral language and make no special effort to avoid what
advocates may describe as sexist language. However, many terms advocated or proposed by
advocates of gender-neutral language, such as "firefighter" or "he or she," have entered the
common lexicon and may be used by those who do not have any particular feeling about the
subject.

Negative positions

In an attempt to remain fair minded I am also including the other side of the gender-neutral
language debate. Those who say we do not need to bother changing the language. The criticisms
of promoting gender-neutral language extend from a "It's much ado about nothing," and "It's
political correctness gone mad, to "It's unnecessarily ruining the English language."
Some regard gender-neutral language as revisionist, as excessively politically correct, as
promoting poor or heavy writing, or simply a cosmetic change that does nothing to actually repel
sexism. They may consciously refuse to use forms of speech advocated by promoters of gender-
neutral language. Some critics have noted:

 Traditional use of the English language, and other Indo-European and Afro-Asiatic
languages, including using male pronouns when referencing both males and females, is
not sexist. They point out that the difference between, for example, "waiter" and
"waitress," is purely for specificity, not quality differentiation, and the difference is not
synonymous with judgment.
 Men and women are different and speakers need not be afraid to admit that.
 There is no reason to assume that the traditional linguistic gender hierarchies reflect a
bias against women. The female grammatical gender is simply marked and it could
actually reflect women being "more" valued than men.
 Rewriting text to eliminate gender-specific pronouns often results in an awkward and
ugly writing style.
 So long as the speaker does not intend a derogatory meaning then there is no issue and
the remnants of the past need not be changed.
 Traditional use of gender in English does reflect sexism. However, a change in language
should evolve organically from changing public attitudes towards gender issues, rather
than be achieved either by enforcement or by persuasion.

I would just as a last thought like to insert my opinion on this issue. There is no reason NOT to
change the English language and make it more gender-neutral. In my opinion it is better to go to
the trouble of changing the English language and making it free from gender bias, than have
someone feel devalued or discriminated against. It is not a difficult process and it only serves to
make the language more specific, clearer, and freer of discrimination. If something is this easy to
do and is this beneficial to both genders why not do it.

That being said, I have assigned as one of your readings the rules for writing in a neutral way.
The article I have assigned, “Avoiding discrimination” also includes information on how to refer
to African Americans, Native Americans, and other often times discriminated against groups—
please read it.

So ends the last lecture in our sociolinguistics class. I hope you have gotten something out of the
class and maybe it has helped you learn the English language a little bit better.
Now, our last seminar will be next week. Please read the short articles I have assigned and try to
answer the questions. You must answer at least one question to get any a participation grade.

The following class will be our sociolinguistics conference. You must hand your papers in at the
Sociolinguistic conference in 2 weeks to receive full credit. If they are late I MAY take a point
off of your total grade. There is no reason for a late paper. You will have had at least 10 weeks to
write it. The presentations should be no more than 7 minutes long. I will time you. You will be
presenting your work to the class so please make it interesting.
-------------------------------------------------------------

ARTICLES
Sociolinguistics
Walt Wolfram

Language as Social Behavior

Language is one of the most powerful emblems of social behavior. In the normal transfer of
information through language, we use language to send vital social messages about who we are,
where we come from, and who we associate with. It is often shocking to realize how extensively
we may judge a person's background, character, and intentions based simply upon the person's
language, dialect, or, in some instances, even the choice of a single word.

Given the social role of language, it stands to reason that one strand of language study should
concentrate on the role of language in society.

Sociolinguistics has become an increasingly important and popular field of study, as certain
cultures around the world expand their communication base and intergroup and interpersonal
relations take on escalating significance.

The basic notion underlying sociolinguistics is quite simple: Language use symbolically
represents fundamental dimensions of social behavior and human interaction. The notion is
simple, but the ways in which language reflects behavior can often be complex and subtle.
Furthermore, the relationship between language and society affects a wide range of encounters--
from broadly based international relations to narrowly defined interpersonal relationships.

For example, sociolinguists might investigate language attitudes among large populations on a
national level, such as those exhibited in the US with respect to the English-only amendment--
the legislative proposal to make English the 'official' language of the US. Similarly, we might
study the status of French and English in Canada or the status of national and vernacular
languages in the developing nations of the world as symbols of fundamental social relations
among cultures and nationalities. In considering language as a social institution, sociolinguists
often use sociological techniques involving data from questionnaires and summary statistical
data, along with information from direct observation.

A slightly different concern with language and society focuses more closely on the effect of
particular kinds of social situations on language structure. For example, language contact studies
focus on the origin and the linguistic composition of pidgin and creole languages. These special
language varieties arise when speakers from mutually unintelligible language groups need a
common language for communication. Throughout the world, there are many sociohistorical
situations that have resulted in these specialized language situations--in the Caribbean, Africa,
South America, Asia, and the Pacific Islands. In examining language contact situations, it is also
possible to examine not only the details of a particular language but also the social and linguistic
details that show how bilingual speakers use each language and switch between them.

Another approach to language and society focuses on the situations and uses of language as an
activity in its own right. The study of language in its social context tells us quite a bit about how
we organize our social relationships within a particular community. Addressing a person as 'Mrs.',
'Ms.', or by a first name is not really about simple vocabulary choice but about the relationship
and social position of the speaker and addressee. Similarly, the use of sentence alternatives such
as Pass the salt, Would you mind passing the salt, or I think this food could use a little salt is not
a matter of simple sentence structure; the choice involves cultural values and norms of
politeness, deference, and status

In approaching language as a social activity, it is possible to focus on discovering the specific

patterns or social rules for conducting conversation and discourse. We may, for example,
describe the rules for opening and closing a conversation, how to take conversational turns, or
how to tell a story or joke.
It is also possible to examine how people manage their language in relation to their cultural
backgrounds and their goals of interaction. Sociolinguists might investigate questions such as
how mixed-gender conversations differ from single-gender conversations, how differential power
relations manifest themselves in language forms, how caregivers let children know the ways in
which language should be used, or how language change occurs and spreads to communities. To
answer these questions related to language as social activity, sociolinguists often use
ethnographic methods. That is, they attempt to gain an understanding of the values and
viewpoints of a community in order to explain the behaviors and attitudes of its members.

Two trends have characterized the development of sociolinguistics over the past several decades.
First, the rise of particular specializations within this field has coincided with the emergence of
more broadly based social and political issues. Thus, the focus on themes such as language and
nationalism, language and ethnicity, and language and gender has corresponded with the rise of
related issues in society at large. Second, specialists who examine the role of language and
society have become more and more interested in applying the results of their studies to the
broadly based social, educational, and political problems that probably gave rise to their
emergence as sociolinguistic themes to begin with. Sociolinguistics thus offers a unique
opportunity to bring together theory, description, and application in the study of language.

Suggested Readings

Trudgill, Peter. 1995. Sociolinguistics: An introduction to language and society. London: Penguin
Books.

Wardhaugh, Ronald. 1992. An introduction to sociolinguistics. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell.

Wolfram, Walt. 1991. Dialects and American English. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall (to be
reissued by Basil Blackwell in 1998 as American English: Dialects and variation).

http://faculty.miis.edu/~rjourden/sociolinguistics/

------------------------------------------------

Which comes first, language or thought?

Babies think first

By William J. Cromie
Harvard News Office

It's like the chicken and egg question. Do we learn to think before we speak, or
does language shape our thoughts? New experiments with five-month-olds favor
the conclusion that thought comes first.

"Infants are born with a language-independent system for thinking about objects," says Elizabeth
Spelke, a professor of psychology at Harvard. "These concepts give meaning to the words they
learn later."

Speakers of different languages notice different things and so make different distinctions. For
example, when Koreans say that one object joins another, they specify whether the objects touch
tightly or loosely. English speakers, in contrast, say whether one object is in or on another.
Saying "I put the spoon cup" is not correct in either language. The spoon has to be "in" or "on"
the cup in English, and has to be held tightly or loosely by the cup in Korean.
These differences affect how adults view the world. When Koreans and Americans see the same
everyday events (an apple in a bowl, a cap on a pen), they categorize them in accord with the
distinctions of their languages. Because languages differ this way, many scientists suspected that
children must learn the relevant concepts as they learn their language. That's wrong, Spelke
insists.

Infants of English-speaking parents easily grasp the Korean distinction between a cylinder fitting
loosely or tightly into a container. In other words, children come into the world with the ability to
describe what's on their young minds in English, Korean, or any other language. But differences
in niceties of thought not reflected in a language go unspoken when they get older.

Spelke and Susan Hespos, a psychologist at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn., did some
clever experiments to show that the idea of tight/loose fitting comes before the words that are
used/not used to describe it.

When babies see something new, they will look at it until they get bored. Hespos and Spelke
used this well-known fact to show different groups of five-month-olds a series of cylinders being
placed in and on tight- or loose-fitting containers. The babies watched until they were bored and
quit looking. After that happened, the researchers showed them other objects that fit tightly or
loosely together. The change got and held their attention for a while, contrary to American
college students who failed to notice it. This showed that babies raised in English-speaking
communities were sensitive to separate categories of meaning used by Korean, but not by
English, adult speakers. By the time the children grow up, their sensitivity to this distinction is
lost.

Other experiments show that infants use the distinction between tight and loose fits to predict
how a container will behave when you move the object inside it. This capacity, then, "seems to
be linked to mechanisms for representing objects and their motions," Hespos and Spelke report.

Their findings suggest that language reduces sensitivity to thought distinctions not considered by
the native language. "Because chimps and monkeys show similar expectations about objects,
languages are probably built on concepts that evolved before humans did," Spelke suggests.

The researchers describe their experiments and conclusions in the July 22 issue of the scientific
journal Nature.

The sounds of meaning

Their findings parallel experiments done by others, which show that, before babies learn to talk
for themselves, they are receptive to the sounds of all languages. But sensitivity to nonnative
language sounds drops after the first year of life. "It's not that children become increasingly
sensitive to distinctions made in the language they are exposed to," comments Paul Bloom of
Yale University. Instead, they start off sensitive to every distinction that languages make, then
they become insensitive to those that are irrelevant. They learn what to ignore, Bloom notes in an
article accompanying the Hespos/Spelke report.

As with words, if a child doesn't hear sound distinctions that it is capable of knowing, the
youngster loses his or her ability to use them. It's a good example of use it or lose it. This is one
reason why it is so difficult for adults to learn a second language, Bloom observes. "Adults'
recognition of nonnative speech sounds may improve with training but rarely attains native
facility," Spelke adds.
 Speech is for communicating so once a language is learned nothing is lost by ignoring sounds
irrelevant to it. However, contrasts such as loose-versus-tight fit help us make sense of the world.
Although mature English speakers don't spontaneously notice these categories, they have little
difficulty distinguishing them when they are pointed out. Therefore, the effect of language
experience may be more dramatic at the crossroad of hearing and sound than at the interface of
thinking and word meaning, Hespos and Spelke say.

Even if babies come equipped with all concepts that languages require, children may learn
optional word meanings differently. Consider "fragile" or "delicately," which, unlike "in," you
can leave out when you say "she delicately placed the spoon in the fragile cup."

One view, Bloom points out, "is that there exists a universal core of meaningful distinctions that
all humans share, but other distinctions that people make are shaped by the forces of language.
On the other hand, language learning might really be the act of learning to express ideas that
already exist," as in the case of the situation studied by Hespos and Spelke.

There are lots of situations involving the relation between ideas and language that Hespos and
Spelke did not address, so the debate is still open. Do people think before they speak or do words
shape their thoughts?

---------------------------------

Language Myth #21

Americans are Ruining English

For more than 200 years, right up through Prince Charles, people have complained that Americans trash the English
language. But is it corruption — or simply normal change? John Algeo investigates how both American and British
Englishes have evolved. (The research in this essay was first published in 1999.)

America is ruining the English language – everyone knows that. We have heard it from early
days right up to the present. We have heard it from English men and English women, of course,
but from Americans as well – self-confessed linguistic vandals. We have heard it from the
famous and the obscure. So it must be true. But in what does the ruination lie? How are
Americans ruining English?

In the early days, British travelers in the American colonies often commented on the ‘purity’ of
the English spoken in the new world. It wasn’t until the American impertinence of 1776 that
Americans seem to have begun ruining English. Yet, as early as 1735, a British traveler in
Georgia, Francis Moore, described the town of Savannah: ‘It is about a mile and a quarter in
circumference; it stands upon the flat of a hill, the bank of the river (which they in barbarous
English call a bluff) is steep.’ The Americans had taken an adjective of nautical and perhaps
Dutch origin, meaning ‘broad, flat and steep’, to use as a noun for the sort of river bank that
hardly existed in England and for which, consequently, earlier English had no name.

American English is ‘very corrupting’

In 1995, in much the same vein as the comment of 260 years earlier, His Royal Highness the
Prince of Wales was reported by The Times as complaining to a British Council audience that
American English is ‘very corrupting.’ Particularly, he bemoaned the fact that ‘people tend to
invent all sorts of nouns and verbs and make words that shouldn’t be.’ By this time the barbarous
use of bluff for a steep bank had been civilized by being adopted into the usage of the
motherland, but doubtless if the Prince had lived about nine generations earlier, he would have
agreed with Francis Moore that bluff was a word that shouldn’t be. The Prince concluded: ‘We
must act now to insure that English – and that, to my way of thinking, means English English –
maintains its position as the world language well into the next century." His concern seems to be
as much commercial as merely ethnocentrically aesthetic, the English language being one of
England’s most popular exports, along with gossip about the escapades of the Royals. The
Prince, after all, was only doing his bit to keep the English pecker up.
One way Americans are ruining English is by changing it
One way Americans are ruining English is by changing it. Many of us, like Francis Moore and
Prince Charles, regard what is foreign to us as barbarous and corrupt. We owe the term barbarous
to the Greeks; they pitied the poor foreigner who could only stammer ‘bar-bar’ and hence was a
‘barbaros’. Barbarians are simply those who do not talk as we do, whether they are outsiders,
Yanks or fellow countrymen and countrywomen whose style we do not admire.

The journalist Edwin Newman is a linguistic prophet who sees the language style of his fellow
Americans as deadly. In 1974 he vaticinated in a book called Strictly Speaking, which was
subtitled Will America be the Death of English? In it, he too objected to the invention of all sorts
of nouns and verbs and words that shouldn’t be. In particular he objected to verbosity and
euphemism as bad style. A number of Americans bemoan the baleful influence of their fellow
citizens on the health or integrity of the language, but only a few, like Edwin Newman, have
been able to make a career of it.

In England, on the other hand, a perception that America is ruining the language pervades the
discourse of the chattering classes. Indeed, a fair number of British intellectuals regard ‘new’,
‘distasteful’, and ‘American’ as synonymous. A knowledgeable British author complained about
the supposedly American pronunciation conTROVersy and was surprised to hear that the
antepenult accent is unknown in the States, being a recent British innovation. The assumption is
that anything new is American and thus objectionable on double grounds.

Change in language is, however, inevitable, just as it is in all other aspects of reality. Particular
changes will be, in the eyes of one observer or another, improvements or degenerations. But
judgements of what is beautiful or ugly, valuable or useless, barbarous or elegant, corrupting or
improving are highly personal idiosyncratic ones.

There are no objective criteria for judging worth in language, no linguistic Tables of the Law, no
archetypical authority called ‘The Dictionary’, though there are wannabe authoritarians aplenty.

A language - or anything else that does not change - is dead

On the other hand, no one is required to like all or any particular changes. It is, in the great
Anglo-American tradition, our God-given right to have our own opinions and to take it or leave
it when it come to style in couture, diet, entertainment, religion and language. We need not be
equally enthusiastic about catsuits and muu-muus, macrobiotics, and haute cuisine, grunge rock
and Philip Glass, the World Wide Web and MTV, bank and bluff or conTROVersy and
CONtroversy. We don’t have to like particular changes, or even the fact of change itself. But a
language or anything else that does not change is dead.

The eighteenth-century hope that language could be ‘fixed’ – that is, improved, or changed in a
way some self-appointed linguistic judge would approve of until it reached a state of perfection
and then preserved so that it would not thereafter degenerate or change in a way the judge
disliked – was a chimera. It was an illusion based on misunderstandings about the nature of
language, values and human nature.

The earliest English we can catch sight of in manuscripts of the seventh century was the product
of millennia of change. We can only reconstruct its earlier history back through stages we call
Anglo-Frisian, Germanic, Indo-European, and maybe even Nostratic and Proto-World. During
the recorded history of English, the language has changed from something quite
incomprehensible to a present-day English speaker, which we call Old English (Hwaet! We Gar-
dena in geordagum theodcyninge thrym gehyrdon) to something equally incomprehensible to
many of us, computerspeak (Some memory resident programs steal too much of the CPU to
work with an asynchronous download).

During its roughly thirteen centuries of recorded history, English has diversified in many ways.
Any two varieties of a language become increasingly different from each other when their
speakers do not communicate with one other but more alike as those who use them talk among
themselves. That is the way language works.

British and American started to become different when English speakers first set foot on
American soil because the colonists found new things to talk about and also because they ceased
to talk regularly with the people back home. The colonists changed English in their own unique
way, but at the same time speakers in England were changing the language too, only in a
different way from that of the colonists. As a result, over time the two varieties became
increasingly different, not so radically different that they amounted to different languages, as
Italian and French had become a millennium earlier, but different enough to notice.

The differences between American and British are not due to Americans changing from a British
standard. American is not corrupt British plus barbarisms. Rather, both American and British
evolved in different ways from a common sixteenth-century ancestral standard. Present-day
British is no closer to that earlier form than present-day American is. Indeed, in some ways
present-day American is more conservative, that is, closer to the common original standard than
is present-day British.

Americans generally retain the r-sound in words like more and mother, whereas the
British have lost it
Some examples of American conservatives versus British innovation are these: Americans
generally retain the r-sound in words like more and mother, whereas the British have lost it.
Americans generally retain the ‘flat a’ of cat in path, calf, class,whereas the British have replaced
it with the ‘broad a’ of father. Americans retain a secondary stress on the second syllable from
the end of words like secretary and dictionary, whereas the British have lost both the stress and
often the vowel, reducing the words to three syllables, ‘secret’ry’. Americans retain an old use of
the verb guess to mean ‘think’ or ‘suppose’ (as in Geoffrey Chaucer’s catch-phrase ‘I gesse’).
Americans have retained the past participle form gotten beside got, whereas the British have lost
the former. (The British often suppose that Americans use only gotten, in fact they use both, but
with different meanings: ‘I’ve got a cold’ = ‘I have a cold’ and ‘I’ve gotten a cold’ = ‘I’ve caught
a cold’). Americans retain use of the subjunctivein what grammarians call ‘mandative’
expressions: ‘They insisted that he leave,’ whereas the British substituted for it other forms, such
as ‘that he should leave’ or ‘that he left’.

On the other hand, the British are more conservative than Americans in other ways. Thus, they
continue to distinguish atom (with a t-sound) and Adam (with a d-sound), whereas Americans
typically pronounce the two words alike, with a flap sound that is more d- than t-like. Similarly,
in standard British callous and Alice do not rhyme, whereas they usually do in standard
American, both having a schwa. So too, the British have different stressed vowels in father and
fodder, whereas Americans pronounce those words with the same first vowel. The British have
retained an old use of reckon in the sense ‘think’ or ‘suppose’in serious discourse, whereas that
use in America is old-fashioned or rural, a comic marker of ‘hick’ talk. The British have retained
the term fortnight, whereas Americans have lost it. The British have retained the primary
meaning of corn as ‘grain’, whereas Americans have changed it to ‘maize’ (the image many
Americans have of ‘Ruth amid the alien corn’ being both anachronistic and ectopic). The British
have retained the inversion of have with its subject in questions: ‘Have you the time?’ whereas
Americans use the auxiliary verb do with it: ‘Do you have the time?’

On balance, it is hard to say which variety of English, American or British, is the more
conservative and which the more innovative. A lot depends on how you look at the question. It is
clear that the British are keen on (Americans would say ‘fond of’) the pluperfect, whereas
Americans prefer the simple past: British ‘He had left before they arrived’ versus typical
American ‘He left before they arrived.’ But it is less clear which usage should be regarded as
older. Is the American preference a degeneration of the tense system? Or a preservation of the
English of the Anglo-Saxons, who had little truck with complex tenses?

Both American and British have changed and go on changing

Both American and British have changed and go on changing today. Among recent innovations
in British English, in addition to the pronunciation of controversy already cited, are such
vocabulary novelties as gazumping and gazundering, Essex man and Estuary English, toy boy,
and redundancy for ‘sacking’ or ‘firing’ (a bureaucratic euphemism fit to exercise the spleen of a
British Edwin Newman). Paralleling the American retention of the mandative subjunctive (‘They
insisted that he leave’) is a British innovative use of the indicative in such expressions: ‘They
insisted that he left,’ which in American use could only be a statement of fact (‘They insisted it
was a fact that he had left’).
British speakers have also been extraordinary fertile in expanding the range of use for tag
questions. Tag questions are little bobs at the end of sentences that can turn them into questions,
or sometimes into something else. The basic tag questions are general English, shared by British
and American:
 informational: ‘You don’t wear glasses, do you?’ (I’m not sure, but think you
don’t. Am I right?)
 inclusive: ‘It’s a nice day, isn’t it?’(It obviously is – I’m not really asking, but just
making polite remarks so you can join in the conversation).
 emphasizing: ‘I made a bad mistake, didn’t I?’ (This is a soliloquy. I’m not talking
to anybody but myself and don’t expect an answer to the rhetorical question. It’s the
verbal equivalent of underlining.)
The last of the above types is more characteristic of British than of American use, but the next
two are distinctively British and are relatively recent contributions of British English to the
rhetorical inventory of impoliteness:
 peremptory: ‘Is the tea ready?’ ‘The water has to boil, doesn’t it?’ (Everybody
knows you can’t make tea without boiling hot water, and you can see that the water has
not come to a boil yet, so stop bothering me with idiotic questions.)
 antagonistic: ‘I telephoned you this morning, but you didn’t answer.’ ‘I was in the
bath, wasn’t I?’ (The reason I didn’t answer was that I was in the bath, and it was a great
annoyance having you phone at that time; if you had any sense and consideration, you
would not have called then. [Never mind that the caller could not possibly know all that –
I was annoyed at the time and I’m even more annoyed now at what I perceive to be a
complaint when I am the one who was put upon.])

Both Americans and the British innovate in English pronunciation, vocabulary and grammar.
British people, however, tend to be more aware of American innovations than Americans are of
British ones. The cause of that greater awareness may be a keener linguistic sensitivity on the
part of the British, or a more insular anxiety and hence irritation about influences from abroad, or
the larger number of American speakers and their higher prominence in fields that require
innovation, or perhaps the fact that present-day Americans have cultural rootlets all over the
world and so are less aware of the British Isles.

Perhaps Americans do innovate more; after all, there are four to five times as many English
speakers in the United States as in the United Kingdom. So one might expect, on the basis of
population size alone, four to five times as much innovation in American English. Moreover,
Americans have been disproportionately active in certain technological fields, such as computer
systems, that are hotbeds of lexical innovation.

It is curious and remarkable that the present state of affairs was foreseen with great accuracy by
John Adams, who in 1780, even before it was obvious that the American Revolution would
succeed, wrote:

English is destined to be in the next and succeeding centuries more generally the language of the world than Latin
was in the last or French is in the present age. The reason of this is obvious, because the increasing population in
America, and their universal connection and correspondence with all nations will, aided by the influence of England
in the world, whether great or small, force their language into general use.

So is America ruining the English language? Certainly, if you believe that extending the
language to new uses and new speakers ruins it. Certainly, if you believe that change is ruin.
Certainly, if what John Adams foresaw was ruination.

John Algeo is Professor Emeritus at the University of Georgia and was Alumni Foundation
Distinguished Professor of English until his retirement. He has been a Fulbright Research Fellow
and a Guggenheim Fellow at the University of London. He is a past President of the American
Dialect Society, the American Name Society, and the Dictionary Society of North America. He
was editor of American Speech, the journal of the American Dialect Society, for ten years and is
the author of numerous academic books and articles dealing with the history of the English
language, British-American differences, and current usage. With his wife, Adele, for ten years he
co-edited "Among the New Words," a quarterly article concerning additions to the English
vocabulary. His most recent academic work is as editor and contributing author of volume 6 of
the Cambridge History of the English Language (Cambridge University Press) on the history of
English in North America. He is currently revising his and Thomas Pyles's textbook, Origins and
Development of the English Language for its fifth edition. He has spoken at academic and
Theosophical meetings throughout the United States and in Australia, Brazil, Canada, Denmark,
England, Finland, Germany, India, Israel, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Scotland, Spain,
Sweden, and Wales.
------------------------------

Sociolinguistics Basics

Language is basic to social interactions, affecting them and being affected by them. Connie Eble of the
University of North Carolina explains how the field of sociolinguistics analyzes the many ways in which
language and society intersect.

Sociolinguistics is the study of how language serves and is shaped by the social nature of
human beings. In its broadest conception, sociolinguistics analyzes the many and diverse ways
in which language and society entwine. This vast field of inquiry requires and combines insights
from a number of disciplines, including linguistics, sociology, psychology and anthropology.
Sociolinguistics examines the interplay of language and society, with language as the starting
point. Variation is the key concept, applied to language itself and to its use. The basic premise of
sociolinguistics is that language is variable and changing. As a result, language is not
homogeneous — not for the individual user and not within or among groups of speakers who
use the same language.

By studying written records, sociolinguists also examine how language and society have
interacted in the past. For example, they have tabulated the frequency of the singular pronoun
thou and its replacement you in dated hand-written or printed documents and correlated
changes in frequency with changes in class structure in 16 th and 17th century England. This is
historical sociolinguistics: the study of relationship between changes in society and changes in
language over a period of time.

What is dialect?
Sociolinguists also study dialect — any regional, social or ethnic variety of a language. By that
definition, the English taught in school as correct and used in non-personal writing is only one
dialect of contemporary American English. Usually called Standard American English or Edited
American English, it is the dialect used in this essay.
Scholars are currently using a sociolinguistic perspective to answer some intriguing questions
about language in the United States, including these:
Which speakers in urban areas of the North are changing the pronunciation of vowels in a
systematic way? For instance, some speakers in Buffalo, Cleveland, Detroit and Chicago
pronounce bat so that it sounds like bet and bet so that it sounds like but. Linguists call these
patterned alterations the Northern Cities Vowel Shift.

Which features of African American Vernacular English (AAVE) grammar are used by middle-
class white teen-agers who admire contemporary African-American music, entertainment and
clothing? For instance, white adolescents might speak approvingly of the style of a peer by
saying she money or he be jammin’ — sentence structures associated with African Americans.
Which stereotypical local pronunciations are exaggerated to show local allegiance? Such
language behavior has been pointed out recently for Pittsburgh, New Orleans and the barrier
islands off North Carolina known as the Outer Banks. At the end of the 20 th century, connections
between the isolated Outer Banks and the greater world increased. This changed the local
seafood industry and made the Outer Banks a destination for a growing number of tourists.
Using the typical way that the natives pronounce the vowel in the words high and tide, these
North Carolinians are called Hoi Toiders. They continue to use this distinctive vowel even
though in other ways their dialect is becoming more like other American dialects.
What will be the linguistic impact of the impending loss of monolingual French speakers in the
Acadian, or Cajun, region of southern Louisiana? What are the traces of French in Cajun
Vernacular English, the dialect of monolingual speakers of English who consider themselves
Cajun? Will these French features be sustained?

What slang terms do students use to show affiliation with subgroups of their peers and to
distinguish themselves from their parents’ generation? In 2002, for example, university students
in North Carolina described things that were great, pleasing or favorable as cool, hype, money,
phat, tight or sweet — but definitely not swell.
Variation in language is not helter-skelter. It is systematic. For instance, a speaker may
sometimes pronounce the word mind to sound just like mine through a process called
consonant cluster reduction. Pronunciation of the final –nd consonant cluster as –n tends to
occur before consonants; i.e., the speaker’s choice of saying mine instead of mind is
conditioned by a feature of the language itself (whether or not a consonant sound follows the
word).For instance, a speaker is likely to say “I wouldn’t mind owning a BMW” (with both n and d
pronounced before o), but “I wouldn’t mine borrowing your BMW” (with nd reduced to n before
b).
Variation also correlates with social factors outside of language. For example, Appalachian
working-class speakers reduce consonant clusters more often than northern Anglo-American
working class speakers and working-class African Americans, regardless of their region, reduce
consonant clusters more frequently than do other working-class speakers. Thus, the occurrence
of final consonant cluster reduction is conditioned internally by its position in the speech stream
and externally by the social factors of socioeconomic class and ethnicity.

Another example of an internal linguistic variable is the pronunciation of the words spelled pen,
ten and Ben so that they sound as if they were spelled pin, tin and bin. This variable correlates
with being Southern, regardless of age, gender, socio-economic class or ethnicity. However,
among Southerners, the pronunciation of ask as if it were spelled ax correlates with ethnicity,
because the pronunciation is used most often (but not exclusively) by African Americans.
Another pronunciation variant that correlates with a social category is heard in New Orleans. In
working-class neighborhoods, words spelled with oi are often pronounced as if spelled er. For
these speakers, then, the word point rhymes with weren’t. Age is another social variable. In
North Carolina, elderly speakers often pronounce duke, stupid and newspaper with a y-sound
before the vowel. Instead of the common pronunciations dook, stoopid, and nooz for these
words, they say dyuke, styupid, and nyuz. (This is basically the difference all English speakers
make between the words food and feud; feud has a y-sound before the vowel.) Speakers born
after World War II seldom use this pronunciation.

The examples above have all concerned pronunciation, but language also varies in vocabulary,
grammar and use.

Vocabulary sometimes varies by region

Vocabulary sometimes varies by region. The expression lost bread to refer to French toast is a
translation of French pain perdu, part of the vocabulary of southern Louisiana. Other vocabulary
is not regional but rather is old-fashioned, such as frock for ‘a woman’s dress’ or tarry for ‘wait.’
Some vocabulary may vary by degree of formality, as in the choice among the words barf,
upchuck, vomit and regurgitate.

Grammatical constructions also vary. In the Midland region of the United States, speakers use a
construction called positive anymore, as in “Anymore you see round bales of hay in the fields.”
In other regions, speakers would say, “Nowadays you see round bales of hay in the field.” A
grammatical variation associated with AAVE omits the verb be, as in “The teacher in the
classroom.” Another variation that is widespread in spoken American English is the double
negative, as in “We don’t want no more construction on this road.” Such sentences are not
Standard American English.

Putting It in Context
Considerations other than grammatical correctness often govern speaker choices. For example,
Sign this paper is a grammatically correct imperative sentence. However, a student approaching
a teacher to obtain permission to drop a course, for reasons having nothing to do with
grammar,will probably avoid the imperative — expressing the request instead as a statement or
a question, such as I need to get your signature on this paper or Will you please sign this drop
form?

Some social factors are attributes of the speaker — for example, age, gender, socio-economic
class, ethnicity and educational level. Many studies have shown that these factors commonly
correlate both with variation within the language itself (such as the pronunciation of final
consonant clusters) and with variation in the use of language (such as the use of more or less
formal vocabulary, depending on the audience). These findings match our everyday experience;
most people are well aware that men and women use the language differently, that poor people
often speak differently from rich people, and that educated people use language differently from
uneducated people.

People adjust the way they talk to their social situation

It is common knowledge that people also adjust the way they talk to their social situation. Socio-
situational variation, sometimes called register, depends on the subject matter, the occasion and
the relationship between participants — in addition to the previously mentioned attributes of
region, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, age and gender. Here are some examples.
Constraints on subject matter vary from culture to culture. In American English, it is fine to ask a
child or a medical patient, “Have you had a bowel movement today?” However, the same
question to an acquaintance might be coarse. Even a good friend would find it at the least
peculiar. American English speakers must approach other subjects with care. They wouldn’t
dare ask, for example, “Are you too fat for one plane seat?” “What’s your take-home pay?” “Are
you sure you’re only 50?” “Do you have a personal relationship with Christ?”
Any of these questions posed at a cocktail party might draw a prompt “None of your business”
— or something less polite. However, in other situations, between other participants, those
same questions might be appropriate. A public-health official encouraging Americans to lose
weight might well ask a general audience, “Are you too fat to fit in one plane seat?” A financial
planner speaking to a client certainly should ask, “What is your take-home pay?”

Contact
Contact is an important concept in sociolinguistics — social contact and language contact.
Language change spreads through networks of people who talk with one another. Tight-knit
groupsthat keep to themselves tend not to promote change. Networks whose members also
belong to other networks tend to promote change. People can live next door to one another and
not participate in the same network. In the segregated South, blacks and whites often lived on
the same piece of land; blacks worked in the homes of whites. The physical distance was
minimal, but the great social distance led to different varieties of American English.

Contact between languages brings about variation and change. Situations of language contact
are usually socially complex, making them of interest to sociolinguists. When speakers of
different languages come together, the results are determined in large part by the economic and
political power of the speakers of each language. In the United States, English became the
popular language from coast to coast, largely replacing colonial French and Spanish and the
languages of Native Americans. In the Caribbean and perhaps in British North America where
slavery was practiced, Africans learned the English of their masters as best they could, creating
a language for immediate and limited communication called a pidgin. When Africans forgot or
were forbidden to use their African languages to communicate with one another, they developed
their English pidgin into their native tongue. A language that develops from a pidgin into a native
language is called a creole. African American Vernacular English may have developed this way.
Bilingualism is another response to language contact. In the United States, large numbers of
non-English speaking immigrants arrived in the late 19 th and early 20th century. Typically, their
children were bilingual and their grandchildren were monolingual speakers of English. When the
two languages are not kept separate in function, speakers can intersperse phrases from one
into the other, which is called code switching. Speakers may also develop a dialect of one
language that is heavily influenced by features of the other language, such as the contemporary
American dialect Chicano English.
Sociolinguists: Subjects and Leaders
 Sociolinguists study many other issues, among them the values that hearers place on variations
in language, the regulation of linguistic behavior, language standardization, and educational and
governmental policies concerning language.
The term sociolinguistics is associated with William Labov and his quantitative methodology.
Around the world, many linguists study the intersection of language and social factors from
other perspectives. The most prominent is M. A. K. Halliday, whose approach is called systemic-
functionalist linguistics. Some other prominent sociolinguists are Guy Bailey, John Baugh, Jack
Chambers, Penelope Eckert, Lesley Milroy, John Rickford, Suzanne Romaine, Roger Shuy,
Deborah Tannen, Peter Trudgill, and Walt Wolfram.

Suggested Reading/Additional Resources

Chaika, Elaine. Language: The Social Mirror. 3rd ed. Boston: Heinle & Heinle, 1994.
Coulmas, Florian, ed. The Handbook of Sociolinguistics. Oxford: Blackwell, 1997.
Macaulay, Ronald K. S. The Social Art: Language and Its Uses. New York: Oxford University
Press, 1994.
Trudgill, Peter. Sociolinguistics: An introduction to language and society. London: Penguin
Books, 1995.
Wardhaugh, Ronald. An introduction to sociolinguistics. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell, 1992.
Wolfram, Walt. Dialects and American English. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1991.
(reissued by Basil Blackwell in 1998 as American English: Dialects and variation).
Connie Eble is Professor of English at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where
she has taught for more than thirty years. She is also Editor of American Speech, the quarterly
journal of the American Dialect Society. Her book Slang and Sociability (University of North
Carolina Press, 1996) reports her study of the slang of American college students. She has
recently completed terms as president of the South Atlantic Modern Language Association and
the Linguistic Association of Canada and the United States. Her current research project is a
study of the loss of French in Louisiana in the first part of the nineteenth century.

--------------------------------
State of American

What is 'Correct' Language?

What’s right or wrong about language, and who decides? Edward Finegan of the University of Southern
California delineates the difference between the descriptivists, who simply say what’s going on, and the
prescriptivists, who say the way it should be. Is English falling apart, or merely changing with the times?

Should road signs read ‘Drive Slow’ or ‘Drive Slowly’? Which is grammatically correct: They don’t
have none or They don’t have any? Given ‘books’ as the plural of ‘book’ and ‘they’ as the plural
for ‘she’ and ‘he,’, what's wrong with ‘y’all’ and ‘yous’ as plurals for ‘you’? Are ‘between you and I’
and ‘between you and me’ both right, and who decides what's right and wrong in language,
anyway? And who put ‘ain’t’ in the dictionary? Is English going to the dogs, and is that what the
fuss is all about?

Languages often have alternative expressions for the same thing (‘car’ and ‘auto’), and a given
word can carry different senses (‘river bank’ vs. ‘savings bank’) or function as different parts of
speech (‘to steal’--verb; ‘a steal’--noun). Because languages naturally adapt to their situations of
use and also reflect the social identities of their speakers, linguistic variation is inevitable and
natural. But given diverse forms, meanings, and uses, dictionary makers and grammarians must
choose what to include in their works--whose language to represent and for use in which kinds of
situations? In some nations, language academies have been established to settle such matters,
as with the French Academy, formed nearly four hundred years ago, but to date English speakers
have repudiated suggestions of a regulating body for their language. Instead, entrepreneurs like
Noah Webster have earned their living by writing dictionaries and grammars, usually with a mix of
description and prescription. Increasingly, though, scholarly grammars and dictionaries are
exclusively descriptive.

Descriptive vs. Prescriptive Grammar

Descriptivists ask, “What is English? “ …prescriptivists ask, “What should English be like?
Descriptive grammarians ask the question, “What is English (or another language) like--what are
its forms and how do they function in various situations?” By contrast, prescriptive grammarians
ask “What should English be like--what forms should people use and what functions should they
serve?” Prescriptivists follow the tradition of the classical grammars of Sanskrit, Greek, and Latin,
which aimed to preserve earlier forms of those languages so that readers in subsequent
generations could understand sacred texts and historical documents. Modern grammarians aim
to describe rather than prescribe linguistic forms and their uses. Dictionary makers also strive for
descriptive accuracy in reporting which words are in use and which senses they carry.

In order to write accurate descriptions, grammarians must identify which expressions are actually
in use. Investigating ‘slow’ and ‘slowly,’ they would find that both forms function as adverbs, and
they might uncover situational or social-group correlates for them. By contrast, prescriptive
grammarians would argue that ‘go slowly’ is the only correct grammatical form on the grounds
that it is useful to distinguish the forms of adverbs and adjectives, and 'slow' is the only adjective
form (a slow train), so ‘slowly’ should serve as the sole adverb form. Descriptivists would point out
that English has made no distinction between the adjective and adverb forms of ‘fast’ for over five
hundred years, but prescriptivists are not concerned about that. As to “They don't have none’ or
‘any,’’ descriptivists would observe both forms in common use, thereby demonstrating their
grammaticality. Descriptivists might also note that different social groups favor one expression or
the other in conversation, while only the latter appears in published writing. Prescriptivists have
argued that such “double negatives” violate logic, where two negatives make a positive; thus,
according to this logic, “They don't have none” should mean “They do have some” (which,
descriptivists note, it clearly does not mean). On logical grounds, then, prescriptivists would
condemn “They don’t have none,” while descriptivists would emphasize the conventional
character of ways in which meaning is expressed.
Prescriptivists argue that despite educated usage, pronouns should have objective forms after
preposition

About ‘ain’t,’ if lexicographers find it in use in the varieties of English they aim to represent, they
give it a dictionary entry and describe its use. Prescriptivists who judge ‘Ain’t’ wrong or inelegant
might exclude it altogether or give it an entry with a prohibition. Likewise, ‘y’all’ is frequently heard
in the American South and ‘yous’ among working-class northeastern urban residents of the
United States, as well as elsewhere in the English-speaking world. In those communities, a
distinct word for plural you has proven useful. (Most prescriptivists would condemn ‘yous’
because it is an innovation, disregarding the argument that distinct singular and plural forms are
desirable.) As to ‘between you and me’ and ‘between you and I,’, descriptivists would note that
both are used by educated speakers, though the latter seldom appears in edited writing.
Prescriptivists would argue that, despite educated usage, pronouns should have objective forms
after prepositions (“Give it to me/us/them”); thus, only “between you and me” is correct.

Who’s Right?
So what is right and wrong in language, and who decides? Some observers claim that the real
issue about linguistic right and wrong is one of deciding who wields power and who doesn't.
Viewing language as a form of cultural capital, they note that stigmatized forms are typically those
used by social groups other than the educated middle classes--professional people, including
those in law, medicine, and publishing. Linguists generally would argue that the language of
educated middle-class speakers is not better (or worse) than the language of other social groups,
any more than Spanish, say, is better or worse than French, Navaho better or worse than
Comanche, or Japanese better or worse than Chinese. They would acknowledge that some
standardization of form is useful for the variety of a language used, especially in print. They would
also insist, however, that expressions appearing in dictionaries and grammars are not the only
grammatical forms and may not be suitable for use in all circumstances. They are merely the
ones designated for use in circumstances of wider communication.

Is English falling apart?

Is English falling apart, then, as some prescriptivists claimed in their efforts to help mend it? Well,
the descriptivists’ answer is that English is indeed changing, as it must, but that such change is
not debilitating. In fact, English is now changing in exactly the same ways that have contributed to
making it the rich, flexible, and adaptable language so popular throughout the world today. Living
languages must change, must adapt, must grow. Shakespeare could not have understood
Chaucer without study, nor Chaucer the Beowulf poet. Whether change is good or bad is not the
question, descriptivists say, for change is inevitable. The only languages no longer in flux are
those no longer in use. The job of grammarians is to describe language as it exists in real use.
This includes describing the positive and negative values attached to different ways of speaking.

Reprinted courtesy: Dr. Edward Finegan

Suggested Reading/Additional Resources

Andersson, Lars G., and Peter Trudgill. 1990. Bad language. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell
Baron, Dennis. 1994. Guide to home language repair. Champaign, IL: National Council of
Teachers of English.
Cameron, Deborah. 1995. Verbal hygiene. London and New York: Routledge.
Finegan, Edward. 1980. Attitudes toward language usage. New York: Teachers College Press.
Milroy, James, and Lesley Milroy. 1991. Authority in language. London and New York: Routledge.
2nd edn.
Edward Finegan is professor of linguistics and law at the University of Southern California. He is
author of Language: Its Structure and Use, 4th ed. (Thomson Wadsworth, 2004) and Attitudes
toward English Usage (Teachers College Press, Columbia University, 1980) and co-editor (with
John R. Rickford) of Language in the USA (Cambridge University Press, 2004). He has written
extensively on register and style variation in English and contributed chapters on grammar and
usage in Britain and America to the Cambridge History of the English Language. His interests
range across usage, attitudes toward language, and style variation; he also serves as an expert
consultant in forensic linguistics.

--------------------------------------

Sapir–Whorf hypothesis

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

(Redirected from Sapir-Whorf hypothesis)
Jump to: navigation, search

In linguistics, the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis (SWH) states that there is a systematic relationship
between the grammatical categories of the language a person speaks and how that person both
understands the world and behaves in it. Although it has come to be known as the Sapir–Whorf
hypothesis, it rather was an axiom underlying the work of linguist and anthropologist Edward
Sapir and his colleague and student Benjamin Whorf.
Put simply, the hypothesis argues that the nature of a particular language influences the habitual
thought of its speakers. Different patterns of language yield different patterns of thought. This
idea challenges the possibility of representing the world perfectly with language, because it
acknowledges that the mechanisms of any language affect its users. The hypothesis emerged in
many formulations, some weak and some strong.

Contents
[hide]

 1 History
 2 Experimental support
 3 Criticism
 4 Linguistic determinism
 5 Fictional presence
 6 Quotations
 7 Computer parallel
 8 References
 9 See also
o 9.1 Topics
o 9.2 People
 10 Further reading

 11 External links

[edit] History
This article or section does not adequately cite its references or sources.
Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. (help, get involved!)
This article has been tagged since February 2007.

The position that language anchors thought (thinking is shabdanA or 'languaging') was argued
cogently by Bhartrihari (6th c. AD) and was the subject of centuries of debate in the Indian
linguistic tradition. Related notions in the West, such as the axiom that language has controlling
effects upon thought, can be traced to Wilhelm von Humboldt's essay Über das vergleichende
Sprachstudium ("On the comparative study of languages"), and the notion has been largely
assimilated into Western thought. Karl Kerenyi began his 1976 English language translation of
Dionysus with this passage:

The interdependence of thought and speech makes it clear that languages are not so
“ much a means of expressing truth that has already been established, but are a means
of discovering truth that was previously unknown. Their diversity is a diversity not
of sounds and signs but of ways of looking at the world. ”
[1]

The origin of the SWH as a more rigorous examination of this familiar cultural perception can be
traced back to the work of Franz Boas, the founder of anthropology in the United States. Boas
was educated in Germany in the late 19th century at a time when scientists such as Ernst Mach
and Ludwig Boltzmann were attempting to understand the physiology of sensation.

One important philosophical approach at the time was a revival of interest in the work of
Immanuel Kant. Kant claimed that knowledge was the result of concrete cognitive work on the
part of an individual person—reality ("sensuous intuition") was inherently in flux and
understanding resulted when someone took that intuition and interpreted it via their "categories
of the understanding." Different individuals may thus perceive the same noumenal reality as
phenomenal instances of their different, individual concepts.

In the United States, Boas encountered Native American languages from many different
linguistic families—all of which were quite different from the Semitic and Indo-European
languages which most European scholars studied. Boas came to realize how greatly ways of life
and grammatical categories could vary from one place to another. As a result he came to believe
that the culture and lifeways of a people were reflected in the language that they spoke.

Sapir was one of Boas' star students. He furthered Boas' argument by noting that languages were
systematic, formally complete systems. Thus, it was not this or that particular word that
expressed a particular mode of thought or behavior, but that the coherent and systematic nature
of language interacted at a wider level with thought and behavior. While his views changed over
time, it seems that towards the end of his life Sapir came to believe that language did not merely
mirror culture and habitual action, but that language and thought might in fact be in a
relationship of mutual influence or perhaps even determination.

Whorf gave this idea greater precision by examining the particular grammatical mechanisms by
which thought influenced language. He argued his point thus:

"We dissect nature along lines laid down by our native languages. The categories and
types that we isolate from the world of phenomena we do not find there because they
stare every observer in the face; on the contrary, the world is presented in a kaleidoscopic
flux of impressions which has to be organized by our minds—and this means largely by
the linguistic systems in our minds. We cut nature up, organize it into concepts, and
ascribe significances as we do, largely because we are parties to an agreement to organize
it in this way — an agreement that holds throughout our speech community and is
codified in the patterns of our language... all observers are not led by the same physical
evidence to the same picture of the universe, unless their linguistic backgrounds are
similar, or can in some way be calibrated."
— (Language, Thought and Reality pp. 212–214).

Whorf's formulation of this "principle of linguistic relativity" is often[citation needed] stereotyped as a

"prisonhouse" view of language in which one's thinking and behavior is completely and utterly
shaped by one's language. While some people[citation needed] might make this "vulgar Whorfian"
argument, Whorf himself sought merely to insist that thought and action were linguistically and
socially mediated. In doing so he opposed what he called a "natural logic" position which he
claimed believed "talking, or the use of language, is supposed only to 'express' what is essentially
already formulated nonlinguistically" (Language, Thought and Reality p. 207). On this account,
he argued, "thought does not depend on grammar but on laws of logic or reason which are
supposed to be the same for all observers of the universe" (Language, Thought and Reality p.
208).

Whorf's close analysis of the differences between English and (in one famous instance) the Hopi
language raised the bar for an analysis of the relationship between language, thought, and reality
by relying on close analysis of grammatical structure, rather than a more impressionistic account
of the differences between, say, vocabulary items in a language. For example, "Standard Average
European" (SAE) – i.e., Western languages in general – tends to analyse reality as objects in
space: the present and future are thought of as "places", and time is a path linking them. A phrase
like "three days" is grammatically equivalent to "three apples", or "three kilometres". Other
languages, including many Native American languages, are oriented towards process. To
monolingual speakers of such languages, the concrete/spatial metaphors of SAE grammar may
make little sense. Whorf himself claimed that his work on the SWH was inspired by his insight
that a Hopi speaker would find relativistic physics fundamentally easier to grasp than an SAE
speaker would.

As a result of his status as a student and not as a professional linguist, Whorf's work on linguistic
relativity, conducted largely in the late 1930s, did not become popular until the posthumous
publication of his writings in the 1950s. The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis influenced the development
and standardization of Interlingua during the first half of the 20th century, but this was largely
due to Sapir's direct involvement. In 1955, Dr. James Cooke Brown created the Loglan
constructed language (Lojban, a reformed variant of Loglan, still exists as a living language) in
order to test the hypothesis. However, no such experiment was ever conducted. Linguistic
theories of the 1960s— such as those proposed by Noam Chomsky —focused on the innateness
and universality of language. As a result Whorf's work fell out of favor. An example of a recent
Chomskian approach to this issue is Steven Pinker's book The Language Instinct. Pinker argues
from a contravening school of thought that holds that some sort of universal grammar underlies
all language. The most extreme proponents of this theory, such as Pinker, argue that thought is
independent of language, and that language is itself meaningless in any fundamental way to
human thought, and that human beings do not even think in what is called “natural” language,
which is to say in any of the languages that we actually speak or write, but rather, we think in a
meta-language that precedes any spoken language; this language of thought is called
“mentalese”. Pinker refers to "Whorf’s radical position," and argues vehemently against the
Whorfian idea that language contains thought and culture, going so far as to declare, "the more
you examine Whorf’s arguments, the less sense they make." (1994, p. 60)

A more 'Whorfian' approach is represented by George Lakoff, who has argued all language is
essentially metaphor.[citation needed] For instance, English employs many metaphorical tropes that in
one way or another equate time with money, e.g.:

spend time
waste time
invest time

A Whorfian interpretation would be that this usage influences the way English speakers conceive
the abstract quality of "time". For another example, political arguments are shaped by the web of
conceptual metaphors that underlie language use. In political debates, it matters a great deal
whether one is arguing in favor of the "right to life" or against the "right to choose"; whether one
is discussing "illegal aliens" or "undocumented workers".

In the late 1980s and early 1990s advances in cognitive psychology and anthropological
linguistics renewed interest in the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. Today researchers disagree — often
intensely — about how strongly language influences thought. However, this disagreement has
sparked increasing interest in the issue and a great deal of innovative and important research.

[edit] Experimental support

The opposing idea — that language has absolutely no influence on thought at all — is widely
considered to be false (Gumperz: introduction to Gumperz 1996). But the strong version of the
Sapir/Whorf hypothesis, that language determines thought, is also thought to be incorrect. The
most common view is that the truth lies somewhere in between the two and current linguists,
rather than studying whether language affects thought, are studying how it affects thought.
Earlier, the bulk of the research was concentrated on supporting or disproving the hypothesis; the
experimental data have not been able to disprove it.

Investigation into the recall of linguistic entities confirms that the brain stores associations
between semantic concepts (like the idea of a house) and phonetic representation (the sounds that
make up the word "house"). The initial sounds are more important for recall purposes than later
sounds. Relationships between semantic concepts are also stored, but indirect relationships
between unrelated concepts can be inadvertently triggered by a "bridge" through a phonetic
relationship. For example, the recall of the idea of a house can be sped up by exposure to the
word "Home" because they share the same initial sound.[citation needed]

[edit] Criticism

Many psychological experiments concern the means by which the brain processes, stores, and
recalls information. Some studies[citation needed] concerning the storage of linguistic utterances (e.g.
when listening to someone speak, or when reading a book) suggest that in most cases the brain
stores the actual words recorded by the senses for only a very short period of time and that for
people with the capability to hear spoken language, this representation is phonetic, even for
written language. (This is related to, for example, the relatively high frequency of spelling
mistakes involving homophones like "there" and "their".) Unless special effort is made at rote
memorization, longer term storage of utterances involves distillation into a simpler semantic
representation. Thus when people are asked to recall an utterance, they are generally able to
easily replicate the meaning - they capture the "gist" of what was said or written - but are unable
to reproduce the exact wording (though in many cases they do not realize they are using slightly
different words than the original speaker [see Chinese Whisper]). The existence of a semantic
representation distinct from phonetic representation raises questions about how closely tied the
two layers are, or need to be.

The processing and storage of spatial information (one aspect of "thought") appears to involve
some non-linguistic aspects. For example, some experiments[citation needed] consider the problem of
object comparison. Imagine a cartoon drawing of a house. Now imagine two copies of that
drawing. The first is rotated clockwise 90 degrees, so the house is lying on its side. The second is
only rotated 45 degrees, so the house is simply tilted. Suppose that these three drawings are
mixed in with similar drawings in random rotations, which do not actually represent houses. The
experimental subject is shown the picture of the house and asked to identify which drawings in
the lineup are the same. Studies which have performed this experiment show that the time it
takes for someone to correctly recognize the tilted versions of the same picture is proportional to
the amount of rotation. This leads to the hypothesis that the brain is "mentally rotating" the
candidate pictures to attempt to match the reference copy, and that it takes longer to rotate
through 90 degrees than 45. Experimenters assert that this process is possibly independent of
either the semantic concept of "house" or the word that represents it and this raises doubts about
the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. Psychological studies of animals indicate that they are able to
process and store certain types of spatial information (such as geographical information about
territory and food sources). This and the close relationship between spatial memory and the
visual system suggests to some researchers that these aspects of the brain may have evolved
before spoken language.

[edit] Linguistic determinism

Among the most frequently cited examples of linguistic determinism is Whorf's study of the
language of the Eskimo people, who were thought to have numerous words for snow. He argues
that this modifies the world view of the Eskimo, creating a different mode of existence for them
than, for instance, a speaker of English. The notion that Arctic people have an unusually large
number of words for snow has been shown to be false by linguist Geoffrey Pullum; in an essay
titled "The great Eskimo vocabulary hoax", he tracks down the origin of the story, ultimately
attributing it largely to Whorf and suggesting the triviality of Whorf's observations. (Whatever
the conclusion to the snow debate, it should be noted that Whorf's developed thought focused on
ubiquitous grammatical categories, especially covert ones, not lexical sets.) See Eskimo words
for snow.

These ideas have met with some resistance in the linguistic community. Numerous studies in
color perception across various cultures have resulted in differing viewpoints. (Berlin & Kay,
1969; Heider, 1972; Heider & Oliver, 1973; Rosch, 1974; Miller & Johnson-Laird, 1976)

A recent study by Peter Gordon examines the language of the Pirahã tribe of Brazil. According to
Gordon, the language used by this tribe only contains three counting words: one, two and many.
Gordon shows through a series of experiments that the people of the Pirahã tribe have difficulty
recounting numbers higher than three (Gordon, 2004). However, the causal relationship of these
events is not clear. Critics have argued[citation needed] that if the test subjects are unable to count
numbers higher than three for some other reason (perhaps because they are nomadic
hunter/gatherers with nothing to count and hence no need to practice doing so) then one should
not expect their language to have words for such numbers. That is, it is the lack of need which
explains both the lack of counting ability and the lack of corresponding vocabulary.

[edit] Fictional presence

George Orwell's classic novel Nineteen Eighty-Four is a striking example of linguistic

determinism and linguistic relativity in fiction, in which a language known as Newspeak has
trimmed and supplanted Modern English. In this case, Orwell says that if humans cannot form
the words to express the ideas underlying a revolution, then they cannot revolt. All of the theory
of Newspeak is aimed at eliminating such words. For example, bad has been replaced by
ungood, and the concept of freedom has been eliminated over time. According to Nineteen
Eighty-Four's appendix on Newspeak, the result of the adoption of the language would be that "a
heretical thought ... should be literally unthinkable, at least so far as thought is dependent on
words."

Jack Vance's science fiction novel The Languages of Pao centers on an experiment in modeling a
civilization by tweaking its language. The future planet of Pao, inhabited by peasant cultivators
who bow passively to absolute monarchy and are prey to foreign invaders, creates three castes -
of warriors, merchants, and technicians - each with a specifically-tailored language designed to
instill the appropriate skills and mindsets. As a result the planet overcomes its foreign military
invaders and economic exploiters, but becomes dangerously divided into mutually-hostile castes
- and this is overcome by developing yet another language, a "pastiche" which combines
elements from the languages of the three castes as well as the planet's original language, this
Pastiche becoming the language of the reunified, versatile society.

In Frank Herbert's science fiction novel Dune and its sequels, the Principle of Linguistic
Relativity first appears when a character (Lady Jessica) with extensive linguistic training
encounters a foreign tribe (the Fremen). She is shocked by the "violence" of their language, as
she believes their word choices and language structure reflect a culture of enormous violence.
Similarly, earlier in the novel, her late husband, Duke Leto, muses on how the nature of Imperial
society is betrayed by "the precise delineations for treacherous death" in its language - the use of
highly specific terms to describe different methods for delivering poison.
Samuel R. Delany's novel Babel-17 is centered on a fictional language that denies its speakers
independent thought, forcing them to think purely logical thoughts. This language is used as a
weapon of war, because it is supposed to convert everyone who learns it to a traitor. In the novel,
the language Babel-17 is likened to computer programming languages that do not allow errors or
imprecise statements.

Neal Stephenson's novel Snow Crash revolves around the notion that the Sumerian language was
a programming language for the human brain. According to characters in the book, the goddess
Asherah is the personification of a linguistic virus similar to a computer virus. The god Enki
created a counter program or nam-shub that caused all of humanity to speak different tongues as
a protection against Asherah.

In Iain M. Banks's science fiction series, the Culture has a shared language, Marain. The Culture
believes (or perhaps has proved, or else actively made true) the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis that
language affects society, and Marain was designed to exploit this effect. A related comment is
made by the narrator in The Player of Games regarding gender-specific pronouns in English.
Marain is also regarded as an aesthetically pleasing language.

Suzette Haden Elgin's science fiction novel Native Tongue describes a patriarchal society in
which the overriding priority of the oppressed women is the secret development of a "feminist"
language to aid them in throwing off their shackles.

Ursula K. Le Guin's novel The Dispossessed takes place partly on a world with an anarcho-
communist society whose constructed language contains little means for expressing possessive
relationships, among other features.

Gene Wolfe's novel The Citadel of the Autarch (part of The Book of the New Sun) presents a
counter-example to the SWH: one of the characters (an Ascian) speaks entirely in slogans, but is
able to express deep and subtle meanings via context. The narrator, Severian, after hearing the
Ascian talks, remarks that "The Ascian seemed to speak only in sentences he had learned by rote,
though until he used each for the first time we had never heard them . . . Second, I learned how
difficult it is to eliminate the urge for expression. The people of Ascia were reduced to speaking
only with their masters' voice; but they had made of it a new tongue, and I had no doubt, after
hearing the Ascian, that by it he could express whatever thought he wished."[2]

Ayn Rand's novel Anthem presents a collectivist dystopia where the word "I" is banned, and any
that speak it are put to death.

Robert Silverberg's novel A Time of Changes describes a society where the first person singular
is considered an obscenity.

Ryan North's webcomic Dinosaur Comics discusses the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis in its
September 27th, 2005 strip.

In Robert A. Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land, Mike is able to do things that most other
humans can't do, and is unable to explain any of this in English, however, once others learn
Martian, they start to be able to do these things - those concepts could only be explained in
Martian.

In Jorge Luis Borges's Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius the author discovers references in books to a
universe of idealistic individuals whose language lacks the concept of nouns and has other
peculiarities that shapes their idealism. As the story progresses the books become more and
better known to the world at large, their philosophy starts influencing the real world, and Earth
becomes the ideal world described in the books.

[edit] Quotations
Human beings do not live in the objective world alone, nor alone in the world of
“ social activity as ordinarily understood, but are very much at the mercy of the
particular language which has become the medium of expression for their society. It
is quite an illusion to imagine that one adjusts to reality essentially without the use
of language and that language is merely an incidental means of solving specific
problems of communication or reflection. The fact of the matter is that the 'real
world' is to a large extent unconsciously built upon the language habits of the group.
No two languages are ever sufficiently similar to be considered as representing the
same social reality. The worlds in which different societies live are distinct worlds,
not merely the same world with different labels attached... We see and hear and
otherwise experience very largely as we do because the language habits of our
community predispose certain choices of interpretation. (Sapir, 1958 [1929], p. 69) ”
We dissect nature along lines laid down by our native languages. The categories and
“ types that we isolate from the world of phenomena we do not find there because
they stare every observer in the face; on the contrary, the world is presented in a
kaleidoscopic flux of impressions which has to be organized by our minds—and this
means largely by the linguistic systems in our minds. We cut nature up, organize it
into concepts, and ascribe significances as we do, largely because we are parties to
an agreement to organize it in this way - an agreement that holds throughout our
speech community and is codified in the patterns of our language. The agreement is,
of course, an implicit and unstated one, but its terms are absolutely obligatory; we
cannot talk at all except by subscribing to the organization and classification of data
which the agreement decrees. (Whorf, 1940, pp. 213–14) ”
[edit] Computer parallel
Kenneth E. Iverson, the originator of the APL programming language, believed that the Sapir–
Whorf hypothesis applied to computer languages (without actually mentioning the hypothesis by
name). His Turing award lecture, "Notation as a tool of thought", was devoted to this theme,
arguing that more powerful notations aided thinking about computer algorithms.[3]

[edit] References

1. ^ Kerényi, Carl; translated from the German by

Ralph Manheim (1996). Dionysos: Archetypal Image of
Indestructible Life. Princeton, N.J: Princeton University
Press, xxxi.

2. ^ Wolfe, Gene, The Book of the New Sun (New

York: SFBC, 1998) pg. 776.
 3. ^ Iverson K.E.,"Notation as a tool of thought",
Communications of the ACM, 23: 444-465 (August 1980).

[edit] See also

[edit] Topics

 Sapir-Whorf and programming languages

 Language and thought
 Eskimo words for snow
 The Pirahã language lacks any words for specific numbers (not even 'one' or 'two') and
tribe members seemingly cannot count.
 E-Prime—avoids the verb "to be" in terms of general semantics
 non-sexist language—often promoted on the grounds that sexist attitudes are aided by
sexist language
 gender-neutral pronouns such as spivak pronouns and sie and hir
 Newspeak - the crafted language used in George Orwell's 1984 to control the freedom of
expression.

[edit] People

 Walter Benjamin
 Jacques Derrida
 Hans-Georg Gadamer
 Johann Gottfried von Herder
 Wilhelm von Humboldt
 Ferdinand de Saussure
 Alfred Korzybski
 Uku Masing
 Lera Boroditsky

[edit] Further reading

 Kay, P. and W. Kempton. 1984. "What is the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis?" American

Anthropologist 86(1): 65-79.
 Language, Thought, and Reality: Selected Writings of Benjamin Lee Whorf. By Benjamin
Whorf, edited by John Carroll. MIT Press.
 Selected Writings of Edward Sapir in Language, Culture, and Personality. By Edward
Sapir, edited by David G. Mandelbaum. University of California Press.
 Language Diversity and Thought: A Reformulation of the Linguistic Relativity
Hypothesis. By John A. Lucy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
 Grammatical Categories and Cognition: A Case Study of the Linguistic Relativity
Hypothesis. By John A. Lucy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
 Rethinking Linguistic Relativity. Edited by John Gumperz. Cambridge University Press.
1996
 The Language Instinct: How the Mind Creates Language. By Steven Pinker. Perennial.
 "What are the nine Eskimo words for snow?", 1979-02-16, The Straight Dope — Cecil
Adams answers this question by saying that due to the polysynthetic nature of Inuktitut
(which he and his interrogator term "Eskimo"), it is impossible to pin down a number of
words.
 "Are there nine Eskimo words for snow (revisited)?", 2001-02-02, The Straight Dope —
Cecil Adams responds to criticism by listing 15 of the words that English has for snow,
 concluding "Whatever may be said for the S-W hypothesis in general, the notion that it's
supported by Eskimo words for snow is bunk.".
 Lakoff, George. Women fire and dangerous things.
 "Cultural Constraints on Grammar and Cognition in Piraha: Another Look at the Design
Features of Human Language", in Current Anthropology, August-October, 2005 (the
piraha math experiments)
 Golubkov, Sergey V. 2000. "The language model of personality and its perspectives
within psychology". PsychNews International, 5 (1).
 Golubkov, Sergey V. 2002. "The Language Personality Theory: An Integrative Approach
to Personality on the Basis of its Language Phenomenology". Social Behavior and
Personality, 30 (6): 571-578.

[edit] External links

Speech act

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search

The notion speech act is a technical term in linguistics and the philosophy of language. There
are several different conceptions of what exactly "speech acts" are; following the usage of, for
example, Peter F. Strawson and John R. Searle, it is often meant to refer just to the same thing as
the term illocutionary act, which John L. Austin had originally introduced in "How to Do Things
With Words".

According to a preliminary characterisation Austin gives of the "illocutionary act", it can be

captured by emphasising that "in saying something, we do something", such as when a minister
joins two people in marriage saying "I now pronounce you husband and wife". (However, note
that Austin eventually defines the "illocutionary act" in a more exact manner, as an act for the
occurrence of which an audience must learn that the act is performed, and the performance of
which entails "conventional effects" as, e.g., duties, obligations, and rights).

Greeting (in saying "Hi John!", for instance), apologizing ("Sorry for that!"), describing
something ("It is snowing"), asking a question ("Is it snowing?"), making a request and giving an
order ("Could you pass the salt?", "Drop your weapon or I'll shoot you!"), or making a promise
("I promise I'll give it back") are typical examples of "speech acts" or "illocutionary acts".
 Contents
[hide]

 1 Examples
 2 History
 3 Indirect speech acts
o 3.1 Illocutionary acts
o 3.2 John Searle's theory of "indirect speech acts"
 4 In language development
 5 In computer science
 6 Notes
 7 Bibliography

 8 External links

[edit] Examples
In saying "Watch out, the ground is slippery" Peter performs the speech act of warning
Mary to be careful.
In saying "I will try my best to be at home for dinner" Peter performs the speech act of
promising to be at home in time.
In saying "Ladies and gentlemen, may I have your attention, please?" Peter requests the
audience to be quiet.
In saying "Can you race with me to that building over there?" Peter challenges Mary.

[edit] History

For much of the history of linguistics and the philosophy of language, language was viewed
primarily as a way of making factual assertions, and the other uses of language tended to be
ignored. The acclaimed work of J. L. Austin, particularly his "How To Do Things with Words",
led philosophers to pay more attention to the non-declarative uses of language. The terminology
he introduced, especially the notions "locutionary act", "illocutionary act", and "perlocutionary
act", occupied an important role in what was then to become the "study of speech acts". All of
these three acts, but especially the "illocutionary act", are nowadays commonly classified as
"speech acts".

Austin was by no means the first one to deal with what one could call "speech acts" in a wider
sense. Earlier treatments may be found in the works of some church fathers[citation needed] and
scholastic philosophers[citation needed], in the context of sacramental theology[citation needed], as well as
Thomas Reid[1], and C. S. Peirce[2].

Adolf Reinach (1883–1917) has been credited with a fairly comprehensive account of social acts
as performative utterances dating to 1913, long before Austin and Searle. His work had little
influence, however, perhaps due to his untimely death at 33 (having immediately enlisted in the
German Army at the onset of war in 1914).

The term "Speech Act" had also been used already by Karl Bühler in his "Die Axiomatik der
Sprachwissenschaften”, Kant-Studien 38 (1933), 43, where he discusses a Theorie der
Sprechhandlungen and in his book Sprachtheorie (Jena: Fischer, 1934) where he uses
"Sprechhandlung" and "Theorie der Sprechakte".
Austin distinguishes between illocutionary and perlocutionary speech acts. An interesting type of
illocutionary speech act is that performed in the utterance of what Austin calls performatives,
typical instances of which are "I nominate John to be President", "I sentence you to ten years
imprisonment", or "I promise to pay you back." In these typical, rather explicit cases of
performative sentences, the action that the sentence describes (nominating, sentencing,
promising) is performed by the utterance of the sentence itself.

The study of speech acts forms part of pragmatics, an area of linguistics.

In philosophy, especially in ethics and philosophy of law, speech act theory is often treated as
related to the study of norms.

[edit] Indirect speech acts

In the course of the performance of speech acts we ordinarily communicate with each other. The
content of communication may be identical, or almost identical, with the content intended to be
communicated, as when I request Peter to wash the dishes in saying "Peter, could you please do
the dishes".

However, the meaning of the linguistic means used (if ever there are ones, for at least some so-
called "speech acts" can be performed non-verbally) may also be different from the content
intended to be communicated. I may, in appropriate circumstances, request Peter to do the dishes
in just saying "Peter ...!", or promise to do the dishes in saying "Me!" One common way of
performing speech acts is to use an expression which indicates one speech act, and indeed to
perform this act, but additionally to perform a further speech act, which is not indicated by the
expression uttered. I may, for instance, request Peter to open the window in saying "Peter, will
you be able to reach the window?", thereby asking Peter whether he will be able to reach the
window, and at the same time requesting him to do so if he can. Since the request is performed
indirectly, by means of (directly) performing a question, it counts as an indirect speech act.

Indirect speech acts are commonly used to reject proposals and to make requests. For example a
speaker asks, "Would you like to meet me for coffee?" and another replies, "I have class." The
second speaker used an indirect speech act to reject the proposal. This is indirect because the
literal meaning of "I have class" does not entail any sort of rejection.

This poses a problem for linguists because it is confusing to see (using a rather simple approach)
how the person who made the proposal is able to understand that his proposal was rejected.
Following substantially an account of Paul H. Grice, Searle suggests that we are able to derive
meaning out of indirect speech acts by means of a cooperative process out of which we are able
to derive multiple illocutions; however, the process he proposes does not seem to accurately
solve the problem. Sociolinguistics has studied the social dimensions of conversations. This
discipline considers the various contexts in which speech acts occur.

[edit] Illocutionary acts

The concept of an illocutionary act is central to Searle's understanding of speech acts. An

illocutionary act is the expression of a proposition with the purpose of doing something else.
This is a bit more complex than a simple locutionary act (such as "It is raining") because an
illocutionary force is attached to the utterance that indicates how the expression should be taken.
Examples of illocutionary acts are: "I will return this book to you next week" and "Please hand
me that pencil." In the first example the illocutionary act has the force of a promise to return a
book. The second example is an illocutionary act with a force of the form I request that in which
the speaker is soliciting a reaction.

In most instances of language, the speaker's meaning and the literal meaning of an utterance are
identical. For example if a speaker says: "I will return this book to you next week" or "When will
you need this book returned?" the speaker's intention and the literal meaning are the same. In
either example, a third person that happens to overhear this portion of a conversation and has no
prior experience in the conversation would be able to understand the correct meaning of the
utterances. However, there are some cases in which the speaker’s meaning of an utterance is
different from the literal meaning of an utterance. Consider this situation:

Speaker (S) asks hearer (H), "Would you mind turning down the volume on your radio?" and H
responds by lowering the volume.

Both S and H spoke and behaved in a way that we would expect: S performed the perlocutionary
act of getting H to turn down the volume. However, this case is problematic for linguists because
the speaker's meaning differs from the literal meaning. The literal meaning of the question is that
S is soliciting a verbal response of yes or no from H (perhaps followed by an explanation).
However, S intended H to understand the question as a command to turn down the volume and H
understood the question as S intended it. This exchange, while not uncommon, is troubling
because one questions how it is possible (1)for a speaker to say something and mean something
different from the meaning of the utterance, and (2)for a hearer to understand both meanings.
Utterances of this nature are troubling for linguists and the problems caused by such statements
are the concern of Searle in his article Indirect Speech Acts. Further examples of indirect speech
acts include:

 "Can you hand me that

pencil?"
 "I hope you will arrive
on time."
 "Would you remove
your hat?"
 "Do you want me to
drop that off for you?"
 "It might help if you
turn on the lights."
 "I might ask you to
observe silence in the
library."

Although many indirect speech acts are softened or polite commands, indirect speech acts can
also include apologies, assertions, congratulations, promises, and thanks.

[edit] John Searle's theory of "indirect speech acts"

Searle proposes a set of structural rules that generalize the steps that take place during indirect
speech acts. His proposition is, "In indirect speech acts the speaker communicates to the hearer
more than he actually says by way of relying on their mutually shared background information,
both linguistic and nonlinguistic, together with the general powers of rationality and inference on
the part of the hearer." Searle's solution will require an analysis of mutually shared background
information about the conversation that will be pieced together with a theory of speech acts and
linguistic convention.
Searle begins by making a distinction between primary and secondary illocutionary acts. A
primary illocutionary act is not literal rather it is what the speaker means to communicate. The
secondary illocutionary act is the literal meaning of the utterance (Searle 178). In the example:

(1) Speaker X: We should leave for the show or else we’ll be late.
(2) Speaker Y: I am not ready yet.

The primary illocutionary act is Y's rejection of X's suggestion and the secondary illocutionary
act is Y's statement that she is not ready to leave. By dividing the illocutionary act into two sub-
parts, Searle is able to explain how we can understand two meanings from the same utterance
while at the same time knowing which is the correct meaning to respond to.

Searle attempts to explain how we are to separate the primary illocution from the secondary
illocution by means of a set of steps that the speaker and hearer must subconsciously complete.
For the previous example a condensed process would look like this:

Step 1: A proposal is made by X and Y responded by means of an illocutionary act (2).

Step 2: X assumes that Y is cooperating in the conversation, being sincere, and that she
has made a statement that is relevant.
Step 3: The literal meaning of (2) is not relevant to the conversation.
Step 4: Since X assumes that Y is cooperating; there must be another meaning to (2).
Step 5: Based on mutually shared background information, X knows that they cannot
leave until Y is ready. Therefore, Y has rejected X's proposition.
Step 6: X knows that Y has said something other than the literal meaning and the primary
illocutionary act must have been the rejection of X's proposal.

Searle argues that a similar process can be applied to any indirect speech act as a model to find
the primary illocutionary act (178). His proof for this argument is made by means of a series of
observations that he takes to be facts.

Observation 1: Indirect speech acts should not be confused with imperatives.

Observation 2: Indirect speech acts "are not ambiguous as between an imperative
illocutionary force and a nonimperative illocutionary force" (180).
Observation 3: Indirect speech acts are usually used as directives.
Observation 4: Indirect speech acts are not idioms of a particular language since they can
be translated without losing their original meaning.
Observation 5: Indirect speech acts are idiomatic because a paraphrase may not produce
the same primary illocution.
Observation 6: Indirect speech acts have a secondary illocution that have meaning when
taken literally but do not have any sort of indirect meaning.
Observation 7: When a request is made using an indirect speech act whose literal
meaning is also a request, the speaker adds meaning so that he may respond
appropriately.
Observation 8: When a request is made using an indirect speech act whose literal
meaning is also a request, the speaker responds to both the primary and secondary
illocution by virtue of responding to the primary illocution (Searle 180–182).

The last two observations (7 and 8) seem to not be indirect speech acts because both illocutions
are requests; however, while they are both requests they may still have different meaning.
Consider the example of a telephone call:

(3) Speaker P: Is Tom there?

Possible appropriate responses include:

(4) Speaker Q: No, he’s not here right now.

(5) Speaker Q: Yes, I’ll hand him the phone.

Observation 7 notes that there are two possible ways in which the speaker can respond while
fulfilling the requirements laid out in Searle's process (cooperation, relevance, sincerity, etc.).
The question in 3 can be taken either as a question about Tom’s location or as a request to speak
with Tom. Observation 8 notes that in Q's responding to 3 by handing Tom the phone he has
answered the primary illocution (P's request to speak with Tom) and at the same time the
secondary illocution (the location of Tom).

Searle has shown that his series of steps form a framework by which we can understand requests;
however, he has yet to show that this process will work to help us point to the meaning of other
indirect speech acts. To use this process on other indirect speech acts he will have to prove that
there are two illocutionary forces for each utterance, one that is the speakers intent (primary) and
one that is the literal meaning of the utterance (secondary). He will also have to propose a system
by which we can differentiate the illocutionary forces. Searle offers the following process for
doing this:

Step 1: Understand the facts of the conversation.

Step 2: Assume cooperation and relevance on behalf of the participants.
Step 3: Establish factual background information pertinent to the conversation.
Step 4: Make assumptions about the conversation based on steps 1–3.
Step 5: If steps 1–4 do not yield a consequential meaning, then infer that there are two
illocutionary forces at work.
Step 6: Assume the hearer has the ability to perform the act the speaker suggests. The act
that the speaker is asking be performed must be something that would make sense for one
to ask. For example, the hearer might have the ability to pass the salt when asked to do so
by a speaker who is at the same table, but not have the ability to pass the salt to a speaker
who is asking the hearer to pass the salt during a telephone conversation.
Step 7: Make inferences from steps 1–6 regarding possible primary illocutions.
Step 8: Use background information to establish the primary illocution (Searle 184).

With this process, Searle concludes that he has found a method that will satisfactorily produce
two illocutionary forces that explain how we can act upon indirect speech acts.

[edit] In language development

Dore (1975) stated that children's utterances were realizations of one of nine primitive speech
acts:

1. labelling
2. repeating
3. answering
4. requesting (action)
5. requesting (answer)
6. calling
7. greeting
8. protesting
9. practicing
[edit] In computer science

Speech act theory has been influential in computer science since the early 1980s, particularly in
the design of artificial languages for communication between software entities ("agents" or
"softbots"). The theory was used, for example, to give a semantics to Agent Communication
Language (ACL), an agent language developed by the standards body Foundation for Intelligent
Physical Agents (FIPA). This semantics built on the work of Phil Cohen, Hector Levesque and
David Sadek, among others. The FIPA ACL speech act semantics, expressed semi-formally using
epistemic modal logic, defines utterances in ACL in terms of the certain beliefs, uncertain
beliefs, desires and intentions of the speaker. In principle, therefore, it enables agents using FIPA
ACL to be sure that other agents will understand the meaning of utterances in the same way as
the speaker. However, the FIPA ACL language syntax and semantics, although now widely used
in agent systems, have been heavily criticized on theoretical and practical grounds.

"A man may see, and hear, and remember, and judge, and reason; he may deliberate and
form purposes, and execute them, without the intervention of any other intelligent being.
They are solitary acts. But when he asks a question for information, when he testifies a
fact, when he gives a command to his servant, when he makes a promise, or enters into a
contract, these are social acts of mind, and can have no existence without the
interventionof some other intelligent being, who acts a part in them. Between the
operations of the mind, which, for want of a more proper name, I have called solitary,
and those I have called social, there is this very remarkable distinction, that, in the
solitary, the expression of them by words, or any other sensible sign, is accidental. They
may exist, and be complete, without being expressed, without being known to any other
person. But, in the social operations, the expression is essential. They cannot exist
without being expressed by words or signs, and known to the other party."
(Reid 1969, 437-438)
From Mulligan, K. Promisings and other social acts - their constituents and structure. in
Mulligan, K., editor Speech Act and Sachverhalt: Reinach and the Foundations of Realist
Phenomenology. Nijhoff, Dordrecht/Boston/Lancaster 1987.

 Also see: Karl

Schuhmann and Barry
Smith "Elements of Speech
Act Theory in the Work of
Thomas Reid" in History of
Philosophy Quarterly, 7
(1990), 47–66.

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speech_act"

Performative utterance

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search

It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with Performative. (Discuss)

The notion of performative utterances was introduced by J. L. Austin. Although he had already
used the term in his 1946 paper "Other minds", today's usage goes back to his later, remarkedly
different exposition of the notion in the 1955 William James lecture series, subsequently
published as How to Do Things with Words. The starting point of the lectures is Austin's doubt
against a widespread philosophical prejudice, namely, the implicit presumption that utterances
always "describe" or "constate" something and are thus always true or false. After mentioning
several examples of sentences which are not so used, and not truth-evaluable (among them non-
sensical sentences, interrogatives, directives and "ethical" propositions), he introduces
"performative" sentences as another instance.

Contents
[hide]

 1 Austin's definition
 2 Distinguishing performatives from other utterances
 3 Are performatives truth-evaluable?
 4 Sedgwick's account of performatives
 5 Naming
 6 Descriptives and promises
 7 Examples
 8 Performative writing
 9 Sources

 10 See also

[edit] Austin's definition

In order to define performatives, Austin refers to those sentences which conform to the old
prejudice in that they are used to describe or constate something, and which thus are true or
false; and he calls such sentences "constatives". In contrast to them, Austin defines
"performatives" as follows:

(1) Performative utterances are not true or false, that is, not truth-evaluable; instead when
something is wrong with them then they are "happy" or "unhappy". (2) The uttering of a
performative is, or is part of, the doing of a certain kind of action (Austin later deals with them
under the name illocutionary acts), the performance of which, again, would not normally be
described as just "saying" or "describing" something (cf. Austin 1962, 5).

For example, when Peter says "I promise to do the dishes" in an appropriate context then he
thereby does not just say something, and in particular he does not just describe what he is doing;
rather, in making the utterance he performs the promise; since promising is an illocutionary act,
the utterance is thus a performative utterance. If Peter utters the sentence without the intention to
keep the promise, or if eventually he does not keep it, then although something is not in order
with the utterance, the problem is not that the sentence is false: it is rather "unhappy", or
"infelicitous", as Austin also says. In the absence of any such flaw, on the other hand, the
utterance is to be assessed as "happy" or "felicitous", rather than as "true".

The initial examples of performative sentences Austin gives are these:

 'I do (sc. take this

woman to be my lawful
wedded wife)' -- as uttered
in the course of the marriage
ceremony.
  'I name this ship the
"Queen Elizabeth"'
 'I give and bequeath
my watch to my brother' --
as occurring in a will
 'I bet you sixpence it
will rain tomorrow' (Austin
1962, 5)

As Austin later notices himself, these examples belong (more or less strikingly) to what Austin
calls, explicit performatives; to utter an "explicit" performative sentence is to make explicit what
act one is performing. However, there are also "implicit", "primitive", or "inexplicit"
performatives. When, for instance, I say "Go!" in order to command you to leave the room then
my utterance is part of the performance of a command; and the sentence, according to Austin, is
neither true nor false; hence the sentence is a performative; -- still, it is not an explicit
performative, for it does not make explicit that the act the speaker is performing is a command.

[edit] Distinguishing performatives from other utterances

Austin found great difficulty in drawing a completely clear distinction between "performatives"
and "constatives"; among other things he came to the conclusion that to state something is to
perform an illocutionary act, which renders all constatives as performatives; for reasons like
these, he eventually suggested abandoning the dichotomy, replacing it by a trichotomy speech
acts, namely, the so-called "locutionary", "illocutionary" and "perlocutionary acts".

There is a most thorough and accurate study of how "performatives" might be defined following
Austin by Jan S. Andersson, "How to define 'Performative'". (However, unfortunately it has been
almost completely ignored by the scholarship of the Anglo-American tradition -- perhaps
because it is both very densely written and accurately worked out, and thus not easy to read.)
Furthermore, during the 1970s there was much dispute about questions such as whether
performatives are truth-evaluable or not, whether there are non-explicit performatives at all,
whether performatives can be reduced to truth-evaluable sentences (and vice versa), and several
others; however, nowadays many of these issues appear to have lost some of their attraction.

Incidentally, some components of Austin's remarks about promising were anticipated by David
Hume in his discussion of promising in A Treatise of Human Nature, and even earlier by Thomas
Hobbes in Leviathan.

[edit] Are performatives truth-evaluable?

According to Austin's original account, it is an essential characteristic of performative sentences

that they are neither true, nor false, that is, not truth-evaluable. However, in his 1989 article How
Performatives Work John R. Searle argues that performatives are true/false just like constatives.
Searle further claims that performatives are what he calls declarations; this is a technical notion
of Searle's account: according to his conception, an utterance is a declaration, if "the successful
performance of the speech act is sufficient to bring about the fit between words and world, to
make the propostional content true." Searle believes that this double direction of fit contrasts the
simple word-to-world fit of assertives.

Bach and Harnish (1991) agree with Searle that performatives are true/false, but for different
reasons. They hold that performatives are truth-evaluable because they are directly statements,
but only indirectly promises, apologies etc. While Searle sees performatives as declarations,
Bach and Harnish [citation needed] claim that only some performative utterances are declarations, such
as, "I pronounce you man and wife." -- This, however, is perhaps not really an objection to
Searle; it might rather be the result of their different conception of what a "declaration" is
supposed to be. For in their conception, "declarations" are institutional in character; and,
accordingly´, the point of their argument is that most performatives are not bound to particular
institutional situations; this, however, is something Searle does not intend to deny in the paper
under consideration.

But Bach and Harnish attack Searle's account in a more fundamental way. They dispute Searle’s
explanation of what the question concerning performatives is about. According to Searle the
question concerning performatives is that they are sentences that perform an explicit action
specified by the verb, just by saying that the action is being performed. Bach and Harnish feel
that this is the wrong approach to inquiries into the nature of performatives. They feel that an
approach such as the one Searle posits, assumes incorrectly that performatives are conceptually
distinct from other utterances. This type of assumption is unfavorable according to Bach and
Harnish because it rules out the null hypothesis without foundation. They feel the null hypothesis
in this case is that there may not be in fact, any need for a special justification for an utterance’s
performative effect.

According to Bach and Harnish, ordinary performatives do not need distinctive rationalization,
because they are ordinary acts of communication that are successful only if an audience can infer
your communicative intention to be expressing a distinct position. They feel that this description
of performatives contrasts Searle’s view of performatives as declarations, because declarations
are only ‘incidentally communicative’ and are successful only if they fulfill the applicable
conventions.

Bach and Harnish also reject Searle’s view that the performative force of performatives is
contained in its literal meaning. They feel that Searle incorrectly confounds performative force
with its communicative accomplishment. Bach and Harnish argue that although the
communicative success of performatives relies on the fact that they are statements, the
performative force of performatives do not.

[edit] Sedgwick's account of performatives

When performative utterances are explicit, then they are usually in the first person present tense.
Those features are indexical, reflecting features of the immediate context. The particular verbs
used in performative utterances tend to be verba dicendi—verbs of speaking—or "metapragmatic
verbs," verbs that draw attention to a particular relation between the utterance or speech form
and context. While some linguists and theorists might describe explicit performative utterances
as rare occurrences, Eve Sedgwick argues that there are performative aspects to nearly all words,
sentences, and phrases. (Notice, however, Sedgwick does not use Austin's notion in a really
accurate manner and thus is -- despite of her use of Austin's term -- most probably speaking
about a subject matter different from Austin's.) According to Sedgwick, performative utterances
can be 'transformative' performatives, which create an instant change of personal or
environmental status, or 'promisory' performatives, which describe the world as it might be in the
future. These categories are not exclusive, so an utterance may well have both qualities. Some
performative speech may be socially contested. For instance, two gay men saying "I do" in a
wedding ceremony may be accepted as a performative act by some, but not by others. As
Sedgwick observes, performative utterances can be revoked, either by the person who uttered
them ("I take back my promise"), or by some other party not immediately involved, like the state
(for example, gay marriage vows).
Words on a list can be either descriptive or performative. 'Butter' on a shopping list implies that
"I will buy butter" (a promise to yourself). But 'Butter' printed on your till receipt means "you
have purchased butter" (simply a description).

[edit] Naming

Naming can also be both performative and descriptive, in certain superstitious circles. Macbeth
is a simple name that describes the Shakespeare character and is the title of the play. But uttering
the name Macbeth among actors who are performing the play is thought to trigger instant ill
fortune in the production. The well known phrase "Speak of the devil and he will appear"
follows similar superstitious logic. It is a relic of magical thinking, along with, and much like,
the idea that making utterances over a representative fragment (a lock of a person's hair) will
cause something to happen in the wider world (the person will fall in love).

[edit] Descriptives and promises

Even descriptive utterances can be construed as being 'promisory' performative. For instance,
someone standing on a street corner and describing to you a place you are trying to get to. Their
description of the place takes the form of a 'promise' - the words are the place for you, for the
moment - but you only know if the 'promise' of the words have been fulfilled when you
personally reach the place in question.

[edit] Examples

 "I now pronounce you

man and wife." (conferred
personal status change)
 "I christen you"
(conferred personal status
change)
 "I accept your
apology" (conferred
personal status change)
 "I divorce you, I
divorce you, I divorce you"
(conferred personal status
change) (Islamic: see: Talaq-
i-Bid'ah or triple Talaq)

 "I do" – wedding (self-

actuated personal status
change)
 "I swear to do that"
(self-actuated personal
status change - you are now
bound)
 "I promise to be there"
(self-actuated personal
status change - you are now
bound)
  "I apologize" (self-
actuated personal status
change)

 "This meeting is now

adjourned" (conferred
environment status change)
 "The court is now in
session" (conferred
environment status change)
 "This church is hereby
de-sanctified" (conferred
environment status change)
 "War is declared"
(conferred environment
status change)

 "I sentence you to

death" (conferred, will prove
true or false in the future)
 "I promise to be there"
(self-actuated, will prove
true or false in the future)
 "I swear to do that"
(self-actuated, will prove
true or false in the future)
 "I apologize" (self-
actuated, will change your
status if the apology is
accepted)

[edit] Performative writing

The above ideas have influenced performative writing; they are used as a justification for an
attempt to create a new form of critical writing about performance (often about performance art).
Such a writing form is claimed to be, in itself, a form of performance. It is said to more
accurately reflect the fleeting and ephemeral nature of a performance, and the various tricks of
memory and referentiality that happen in the mind of the viewer during and after the
performance.

[edit] Sources

 Austin, J.L. How to Do

Things with Words Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1962.
ISBN 0-19-824553-X
 Andersson, Jan S. How
to define 'Performative'.
Stockholm: Libertryck.
1975
------------------------------------------------------------------------

English is spreading, changing other

languages and being changed by them – in
Internet time.

We are the world. Not everyone is thrilled. Paul Johnson, Forbes Magazine columnist
explains:
The French educational world is convulsed by a report on the future of its school
system. A commission headed by education expert Claude Thélot has recommended
that the teaching of English be mandatory in all French schools and that it be accorded
the same importance as the French language and mathematics. The commission takes
the position that English is now the "language of international communication" and that
French young people must be taught to speak and write it fluently.
Another report on the level of knowledge of English attained by youngsters in eight
European countries gives France the lowest rating, claiming the French actually
regressed between 1996 and 2002. The Spanish, traditionally the least polyglot of
western European nationalities, are now doing better than the French. Under a 1990
law, all Spanish schoolchildren are now taught a foreign language (98% choose
English) from the age of 8 and in some regions start at 6. In the Madrid region there are
26 bilingual schools and colleges in which courses--with the exception of Spanish
literature and mathematics--are taught in English; by 2007 there will be 110.
Unlike the Americans and British, who simply allow the spread of English to take its
course, the French have spent billions on promoting their language in French-speaking
territories in Africa and the Pacific. Pushed by the Académie Française, the French
government has imposed sanctions on officials or agencies financed by taxes that are
found using Americanisms or English phrases where a French equivalent exists. Some
French parliamentarians have raised an angry fuss over the Olympic Games' press
conferences being held in English and over a recent report by the European Central
Bank to the European Parliament given in English. It was not so long ago that the EU
Secretary-General, when asked why he invariably gave press conferences in French
(with no translation), replied: "Because French is the language of diplomacy," adding,
under his breath, "and civilization." Recently the academician Maurice Druon, together
with a group of elderly French lawyers, demanded that French be made the judicial
language of Europe.
Professor Claude Hagège of the Collège de France has come to agree with the idea of
teaching English in French primary schools but only if another language is taught at the
same time. Both Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin and Minister of Education François
Fillon support the proposal to make teaching English mandatory. However, Jacques
Chirac--who hates the spread of English--has made what he sees as a high-minded
plea for cultural diversity and the richness of language. "Nothing," he says, "would be
worse for humanity than to move toward a situation where we speak only one
language." That's an odd statement coming from a man committed to an EU in which
the harmonization process is being extended to all laws and administration that have
the slightest impact on economies and whose aim is the "United States of Europe."
Must not a superstate of a score of nations have a common language? The Germans,
the principal allies of the French in the EU, have allowed English to replace French as
 their country's second language in schools and in business. Indeed, some German
firms with big export interests already hold board meetings in English. They find it "more
convenient." That is also an increasing practice in Sweden and the Netherlands.

The Inevitable Spread

As the author of more than 40 books--most of which have been translated, some into as
many as 30 languages--I have some insight into the process whereby English spreads.
The Dutch and the Swedes no longer bother to bring out local-language editions of my
books. However, some languages present particular problems. There have to be two
Portuguese-language editions, one translation done in Lisbon for Portugal proper,
another in Rio de Janeiro for Brazil, evidence of strong linguistic bifurcation. The same
happens with Spanish--one translation in Madrid for Spain, another in Buenos Aires for
Latin America. For China there have to be three editions: one Big Letter, one Small
Letter and one for Hong Kong.
Languages are things of beauty. But linguistics students know perfectly well that
language cannot be dictated by elites ruling from above. It is the one naturally
democratic force in the world--surging up from below. That is why French
schoolchildren, no matter what the Académie Française orders, say "Yeah" instead of
"Oui." As for the further spread of English, much will depend on what happens in India,
a subcontinent of countless languages and dialects. The British promoted Hindi as a
common language for India. But under mid-19th-century reforms, English was
promulgated as the language of administration. Educated Indians today speak and write
English fluently, and it is spreading faster in India than in any other country. Indians,
even those from poor families, recognize English to be their passport to affluence, not
least through telephonic outsourcing. Today millions earn their living by speaking
English.
India will soon be the world's most populous country. By 2050 India, with a population of
1.6 billion, will have overtaken China (1.4 billion). If India becomes a predominantly
English-speaking country, as I expect will happen, China will have to follow suit or risk
relegation. There are high stakes in the global language game. But there's not much we
can do about it. Events will take their course. Everyone should calm down--and learn
English.

------------------------------------

INCONSISTENT LANGUAGE POLICY CREATES PROBLEMS IN UKRAINE

By Oleg Varfolomeyev

Wednesday, May 24, 2006

The Party of Regions (PRU), which strengthened its grip on Ukraine's

Russophone east and south after the March 26 parliamentary election,
continues to probe the government's weaknesses, challenging it on the
sensitive issue of language.

The PRU-dominated Donetsk regional council has followed the example of

the PRU-dominated Luhansk, Kharkiv, and Sevastopol councils, approving
regional-language status for Russian. The government, in response,
threatened to come up with tough measures against all those who violate
the constitution, according to which Ukrainian is the only language having
official status. The government's position is that the councils' language
decisions are a threat to national security, part of a plan to exacerbate
tension in society and downgrade the status of Ukrainian. The government
also argues that language matters are the remit of the national -- rather
than regional -- bodies of power.

The PRU, meanwhile, looks set to raise the issue at the national level. On
May 17, the party's governing body -- the political council -- issued a
statement, "On the Protection of Constitutional Rights of the Russian-
speaking Citizens of Ukraine," promising to raise the Russian language issue
soon after the new parliament convenes on May 25. In the statement, the
PRU pledged "to continue to defend the right of people to think, speak, and
educate their children in the mother tongue." The PRU brushed aside the
Justice Ministry's protests against the decisions of Luhansk, Kharkiv, and
Sevastopol on the status of Russian, saying that only the Constitutional
Court is entitled to rule on language matters. Incidentally, the PRU has been
among the parties blocking the election of new judges to the Constitutional
Court, fearing that the Court might take President Viktor Yushchenko's side
and reverse the recent constitutional reforms that diminished the president's
authority.

On May 18, the Donetsk region council voted by 122 votes to three (with
one abstention) to give Russian the status of regional language. As in the
cases of Luhansk, Kharkiv, and Sevastopol, Donetsk deputies said they were
guided by the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. The
council not only ruled that Russian may be used in business, official
documents, and educational establishments on a par with Ukrainian, but it
also called on parliament to give Russian state-language status along with
Ukrainian. The council said that the current constitution ignores the fact that
Russian is the mother tongue for about one-third of Ukrainians, equating
Russian to the many minority languages spoken by small communities inside
Ukraine. Along with the PRU, the Communists and the radical left-wing
Progressive Socialists in the Donetsk council supported the language
decision.

Official reaction followed immediately. Donetsk Region Prosecutor Oleksiy

Bahanets, who is subordinated to Kyiv, promised to appeal the council's
decision in court as soon as he obtains official documents on the matter from
the council. On May 18, the cabinet gathered for a meeting to condemn the
eastern councils on language matters. Deputy Prime Minister for
Humanitarian Affairs Vyacheslav Kyrylenko blamed "certain forces" for trying
to "downgrade and practically fully exclude the state language from usage,
rather than protect minority languages." President Yushchenko's legal
adviser, Mykola Poludyonny, went even further, warning of a separatist
threat.

The Justice Ministry was instructed to come up with amendments to

language laws and regulations in order to toughen penalties for language-
legislation violators. It was also decided that the next meeting of the
National Security and Defense Council would be on the language issue. It
 may, however, take some time for the council to convene, as its secretary,
Anatoly Kinakh, resigned last week. Kyrylenko apparently found it difficult to
explain, speaking on television on May 22, why exactly the elevation of the
Russian language status in the eastern regions was a national security
threat. "The state has certain principles, and state language is an element of
national security… very important for state institutes," he offered.

The language row reveals the lack of understanding regarding how deep the
language problem runs in Kyiv. It has been ignored for years, and President
Yushchenko continues to insist that there is no language problem at all,
despite the fact that pro-Communist and pro-Russian forces have been
regularly using the language issue against the government in all sorts of
elections. There has been no consistent policy of Ukrainianization, famous
Ukrainian philosopher Myroslav Popovych believes. Commenting for the
website Forum, he noted that it is sometimes difficult to admit that the issue
is actually about the "assimilation of the Russian-speaking population,"
which has to be "logical and unforced," but so far has been forcible. Media
expert Mykola Knyazhytsky told Forum that the main mistake of the
government has been imposing Ukrainian in those regions where it is
traditionally barely spoken, instead of financing Ukrainian culture in the
traditionally Ukrainian-speaking areas, such as Lviv.

(Interfax-Ukraine, May 17, 18; Channel 5,

---------------------------------------

The International Association for the Promotion of Co-operation with Scientists from the New
Independent
States (NIS) of the Former Soviet Union is an independent International Association formed by
the European Community, European Union Member States and like-minded countries to promote
East-West scientific co-operation between INTAS members and INTAS-NIS partner countries.

INTAS Project: Language policy in Ukraine

The project aims to develop fundamentals of a concrete language policy for Ukraine and a model
for language policy which can be applied also in other countries, especially the former Soviet
republics. The approach is interdisciplinary and comprises anthropological, linguistic, legal,
political and sociological research.
Ukraine has been chosen because it combines several challenging problems. The most important
are: Ukrainian is the only state language, but half of the population prefers Russian in daily
communication, especially in the workplace. Ukraine hosts the largest Russian minority of all
former Soviet republics and the largest group of Non-Russians, declaring Russian their mother
tongue.

The methods applied in the project are: a Ukraine-wide survey, aiming to collect information
about language and identity, prestige of Russian and Ukrainian, language use in different
domains and regions, assessment of the present language policy and expectations concerning the
 future, etc.; focus group research in five Ukrainian cities, structured and in-depth interviews,
ethnographic fieldwork, sociolinguistic analysis, legal analysis of valid legislation and drafts
submitted to the parliament, comparative political research and discourse analysis of legal,
political and media texts.

The results will be: a description and analysis of the current language situation in Ukraine, an
outline of fundamental principles for a Ukrainian language policy which protects Ukrainian and
furthers the minority languages including Russian, a model of language policy which will be
applicable to other countries, primarily to other newly independent states, a final conference in
Kiev and two major publications (one in English, one in Ukrainian), and finally a sustainable
platform for further research.

=----------------------------------

Language Myth # 17
They Speak Really Bad English Down South and in New York City
Southern pride falters in the face of linguistic stereotyping … and New Yorkers are uncharacteristically
abashed about their accents. Regional residents buy into the idea that something’s wrong with their
dialect, reports Dennis R. Preston. (The research cited in this essay was first published in 1999.)

Imagine this. You have persistent bad headaches. Aspirin and other miracle products don’t make them go away. Your
family doctor decides it’s time to have a specialist’s opinion. He hasn’t said the words, but you turn the terrible
possibility over in your mind –‘Brain tumor!’

You appear at the New York City office of Dr. N.V. Cramden, Brain Surgeon; you sign in and await the beginning of
the process that will reveal your fate. Cramden approaches and speaks:

‘Hey, how’s it goin’? Rotten break, huh? Ya got a pain in da noggin’. Don’t sweat it; I’m gonna fix ya up. Hey, nois!
Ovuh heah! Bring me dat watchamacallit. How da hell am I gonna take care of my patient heah if you don’t hand me
dem tools? Dat’s a goil.’

You still have your clothes on (it’s a brain surgeon’s office, right?), so you just head for the door, stopping at the front
desk and tell the receptionist that someone in the examining room is posing as Dr. Cramden. Maybe you never return
to your trusted family doctor, since he or she has sent you to a quack. Whatever your decision, you do not continue
under the care of Dr. Cramden.

Linguists know that language variety does not correlate with intelligence or competence, so Dr. Cramden could well
be one of the best brain surgeons in town. Nevertheless, popular associations of certain varieties of English with
professional and intellectual competence run so deep that Dr. Cramden will not get to crack many crania unless he
learns to sound very different.

A primary linguistic myth, one nearly universally attached to minorities, rural people and the less well educated,
extends in the United States even to well-educated speakers of some regional varieties. That myth, of course, is that
some varieties of a language are not as good as others.

Some varieties of a language are more standard than others

Professional linguists are happy with the idea that some varieties of a language are more standard than others; that
is a product of social facts. Higher-status groups impose their behaviors (including language) on others, claiming
theirs are the standard ones. Whether you approve of that or not, the standard variety is selected through purely
social processes and has not one whit more logic, historical consistency, communicative expressivity or internal
complexity or systematicity than any other variety. Since every region has its own social stratification, every area also
has a share of both standard and nonstandard speakers.
I admit to a little cheating above. I made Dr. Cramden a little more of a tough kid from the streets than I should have.
The truth is, I need not have done so. Although linguists believe that every region has its own standard variety, there
is widespread belief in the US that some regional varieties are more standard than others and, indeed, that some
regional varieties are far from the standard – particularly those of the South and New York City (NYC).

Please understand the intensity of this myth, for it is not a weakly expressed preference; in the US it runs deep,
strong and true, and evidence for it comes from what real people (not professional linguists) believe about language
variety. First, consider what northern US (Michigan) speakers have to say about the South:

(Mimics Southern speech) ‘As y’all know, I came up from Texas when I was about twenty-one. And I talked like this.
Probably not so bad, but I talked like this; you know I said “thiyus” [“this”] and “thayut” [“that”] and all those things.
And I had to learn reeeal [elongated vowel] fast how to talk like a Northerner. ’Cause if I talked like this people’d think
I’m the dumbest … around.

‘Because of TV, though, I think there’s a kind of standard English that’s evolving. And the kind of thing you hear on
the TV is something that’s broadcast across the country, so most people are aware of that, but there are definite
accents in the South.’

Next, consider NYC, which fares no better, even in self-evaluation, as the American sociolinguist William Labov has
shown. Here are some opinions he collected in the mid 1960s:

‘I’ll tell you, you see, my son is always correcting me. He speaks very well – the one that went to [two years of]
college. And I’m glad that he corrects me – because it shows me that there are many times when I don’t pronounce
my words correctly.’

‘Bill’s college alumni group – we have a party once a month in Philadelphia. Well, now I know them about two years
and every time we’re there – at a wedding, at a party, a shower – they say, if someone new is in the group: “Listen to
Jo Ann talk!” I sit there and I babble on, and they say, “Doesn’t she have a ridiculous accent!” and “It’s so New
Yorkerish and all!”’

Such anecdotal evidence could fill many pages and includes even outsider imitations of the varieties, such as mock
partings for Southerners – ‘Y’all come back and see us sometime now, ya heah?’ – and the following putative NYC
poem which plays on the substitutions of t- and d-like for th-sounds and the loss of the r-sound (and modification of
the vowel) in such words as ‘bird’:

T’ree little boids sittin’ on a coib,

Eatin’ doity woims and sayin’ doity woids.

These informal assessments are bolstered by quantitative studies. Nearly 150 people from south-eastern Michigan
(of European-American ethnicity, of both sexes and of all ages and social classes) rated (on a scale of one to ten) the
degree of ‘correctness’ of English spoken in the fifty states, Washington, DC, and NYC. Figure 1 shows the average
scores for this task.

These responses immediately confirm what every American knows – the lowest ratings are for the South and NYC
(and nearby New Jersey, infected by its proximity to the NYC metropolitan area). Only these areas score averages
below ‘5’; Alabama, the heart of the horrible South, scores in the ‘3’ range.
Figure 1: Mean scores of the rankings for ‘correct English’ of the fifty states, Washington, DC, and NYC by
south-eastern Michigan respondents (‘1’ = ‘worst English’; ‘10’ = ‘best English’)

Although it is not the major focus here, it is also clear that the Michiganders doing these ratings think pretty well of
themselves; they give their home state a ranking in the ‘8’ range, the only area so rewarded. Linguists call such local
hubris ‘linguistic security’. It is not hard to determine why: Michiganders believe another interesting myth – that they
do not speak a dialect at all (although, as any linguist will assert, if you speak a human language, you must speak
some dialect of it, even it is a bland Michigan one). When Michigan respondents carry out another task, which asks
them to draw on a blank map of the US where they think the various dialect areas are and label them, results such as
Figure 2 emerge, confirming their local linguistic pride.

Figure 2: Hand-drawn map of a Michigan respondent’s idea of the dialect areas of the US

The respondent who drew Figure 2 places only Michigan in the ‘normal’ area and, as we would expect from the
rankings of Figure 1, impolite things are said about the South (although not NYC). If one studies a large number of
such hand-drawn maps, it is possible to produce a generalized map such as Figure 3. This map shows not only
where Michigan respondents draw lines for the areas of the US but also how many respondents drew a boundary
around each one. The most important thing to note about Figure 3 is the number of Michigan respondents who drew
a South – a 138 out of 147 (94 per cent). Even the home area (which houses the uniquely correct Michigan speech)
is registered as a separate speech region by only 90 respondents (61 per cent). The third most frequently drawn area
is, not surprisingly, the area which contains NYC (80; 54 per cent).

These Michiganders seem, therefore, to hear dialect differences not as linguists do – on the basis of objective
differences in the language system – but on the basis of their evaluation of the correctness of areas. The linguistic
South, the area perceived most consistently as incorrect, quite simply exists for these respondents more than any
other area.

Figure 3: Generalized map of 147 Michigan respondents’ idea of the dialect areas of the US

Michiganders are not unique; in other areas where this work has been done, a South is always drawn by the highest
percentage of respondents – South Carolina 94 per cent, NYC 92 per cent, western New York 100 per cent, southern
Indiana 86 per cent and Oregon 92 per cent. Only Hawai’ians recognize another area (their own) more frequently,
and only marginally (97 per cent of Hawai’i; 94 per cent South)

NYC is the other place where the respondents believe bad English is spoken
Also important to these respondents is the other place where they believe bad English is spoken. A ‘North-east’ (a
small area with a focus in NYC) or NYC itself figures very high in the percentages—South Carolina 46 per cent, NYC
itself 64 per cent, western New York 45 per cent, southern Indiana 51 per cent, Oregon 75 per cent and Hawai’i 57
per cent, nearly all of these second-place scores (after the South).

A study of labels on hand-drawn maps, such as the one shown in Figure 2, by fifty respondents each from south-
eastern Michigan, southern Indiana, South Carolina and Oregon further confirms these stereotypes. The intensity of
recognition of the South and NYC as separate speech areas parallels the idea that they are the regions where the
most incorrect English is spoken. Of the labels assigned to Southern speech by Michigan respondents 22 per cent
are negative; 36 per cent by Indiana respondents are negative; 31 per cent by Oregon respondents and even 20 per
cent by South Carolina respondents. Similarly, the ‘North-east’ area (which contains NYC) fares poorly: 15 per cent
negative labels by Michigan respondents; 18 per cent by Indiana; 24 per cent by Oregon and a whopping 65 per cent
by South Carolina.

Negative labels assigned to speech areas overall were low (13 per cent for Michigan respondents; 22 per cent for
Indiana, 18 per cent for Oregon – but 32 per cent for South Carolina, a reflection of their evaluation of much non-
Southern territory for the entire US, e.g. 33 per cent for California and 30 per cent for the Midwest). One South
Carolina respondent identifies everything north of the Mason-Dixon line with the notation ‘Them –The Bad Guys’ in
contrast to the label for the entire South: ‘Us – The Good Guys’. Other Southerners note that Northern speech is
‘mean’ or ‘rude’, and one calls it ‘scratch and claw’. A common caricature of NYC speech refers to its ‘nasal’ quality
and its rate (fast).

There are labels for Southerners, like ‘Hillbillies’ and ‘Hicks’, but there are far more ‘linguistic’ designations—‘drawl’,
‘twang’, ‘Rebel slang’, and many references to speed (slow).

Finally, what about a quantitative analysis of Southerners’ views of the correctness issue? Figure 4 shows the ratings
by thirty-six Auburn University students (principally from Alabama, a few from Georgia, and South Carolina).

NYC fares even worse here than in the Michigan ratings; it is the only area to fall in the ‘3’ range. Antipathy to NYC
from the South is obvious. Other ratings for correctness, however, show none of the strength and certainty of the
Michigan opinions seen in Figure 1. Michigan respondents consider their speech the best and steadily assign lower
ratings the farther South a state is. Imagine a Michigander’s disdain for an evaluation of correct English which, as
Figure 4 shows, rates the territory from Michigan to Alabama as an undifferentiated ‘5’!

Figure 4: Mean scores of the rankings of fifty states, Washington, DC, and NYC for ‘correct English’ by
Auburn University (Alabama) students (ratings as in Figure 1)

These ‘eastern’ Southern respondents, however, also find parts of the South especially lacking in correct English,
namely the Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas areas just to the west of them, which they put in the ‘4’ range. Their own
areas (rated in the ‘5’ and ‘6’ ranges) are neither fish nor fowl, and they reserve the best ratings (only one step up at
‘7’) for Maryland and the national capital, Washington, DC, both areas within a more general southern speech region.

Southerners pretty clearly suffer from what linguists would call ‘linguistic insecurity’, but they manage to deflect the
disdain of Northerners to adjacent areas rather than suffer the principal shame locally. They do not rate themselves at
the top of the heap (as Michiganders do), and they appear to associate ‘correct English’ with some official or national
status (Washington, DC).

If Southerners don’t find their own speech correct, can they find anything redeeming about it? Figure 5 shows what
these same Southerners believe about language ‘pleasantness’.
Figure 5: Mean scores of the rankings for ‘pleasant English’ by Auburn University (Alabama) students (‘1’ =
‘least pleasant English’; ‘10’ = most pleasant English’)

Here is the neat reversal of Figure 1 which did not emerge in Figure 4. Just as Michiganders found their variety ‘most
correct’ (‘8’), these principally Alabama students find theirs ‘most pleasant’ (also ‘8’). As one moves north, a steady
disapproval of the ‘friendly’ aspects of speech (what linguists like to call the ‘solidarity’ aspects) emerges, leaving
Michigan part of a pretty unhospitable northern area, itself a ‘4’.

There is one thing, however, that Michiganders and Alabamians agree on. NYC (and its partner in linguistic ‘grime’,
nearby New Jersey) are at the bottom of the scale for both ‘correctness’ and ‘pleasantness’. (In fact the ‘2’ in Figure 5
for New Jersey is the lowest average rating for any area ever assigned in these tests.)

In summary, respondents from all over the US confirm the myth that some regions speak better English than others,
and they do not hesitate to indicate that NYC and the South are on the bottom of that pile.

Students of US culture will have little difficulty in understanding the sources of the details of this myth. The South is
thought to be rural, backward and uneducated; its dialect is quite simply associated with the features assigned its
residents. NYC fares little better. As one of Labov’s respondents told him in the mid 1960s, ‘They think we’re all
murderers.’ Just as US popular culture has kept alive the barefoot, moonshine-making and drinking, intermarrying,
racist Southerner, so has it continued to contribute to the perception of the brash, boorish, criminal, violent New
Yorker. Small wonder that the varieties of English associated with these areas have these characteristics attributed to
them.

Like all groups who are prejudiced against, Southerners (and New Yorkers) fight back by making their despised
language variety a solidarity symbol, but there is no doubt they suffer linguistic insecurity in spite of this defensive
maneuver.

Since you now understand that a belief in the superiority or inferiority of regional varieties is simply a US language
myth, you can apologetically approach your good old family doctor about the headache problem again. Of course,
you are too embarrassed to return to Cramden’s office, so you ask for another referral and are sent to Dr. B.J.
(‘Jimmy’) Peaseblossom. You are relieved to hear his dulcet tones as he approaches:

‘Bubba, haw’s it hangin’? Cain’t buy no luck, kin yuh? Yore hay-ud ailin’ yuh? Don’t git all flustrated; I’m gonna fix yew
up good. Sweetheart! Looka hyeah! Bring me that thayngamabob, wouldja? How kin Ah take keer of ol’ Bubba
without mah thayngs? Thank yuh honey!’

Your headaches turn out to be hangovers.

Reprinted courtesy: Language Myths, Penguin Press.

Language Prejudice Index
 Suggested Reading/Additional Resources

 Dr. Preston writes: The maps and data are taken from my collections. Readers who want an introduction to
the folk perceptions of regional speech in the United States may consult my Perceptual Dialectology
(Dordrecht: Foris, 1989). A current survey of recent and earlier work in this area (including research from the
Netherlands, Japan, Germany, Wales, Turkey and France) appears under my editorship as A Handbook of
Perceptual Dialectology (Beverly Hills, CA: Sage, 1997). The quotations from New Yorkers are taken from
William Labov’s seminal work on NYC speech, The Social Stratification of English in New York City
(Arlington, VA: The Center for Applied Linguistics, 1966). The work on Oregon has been carried out by Laura
Hartley and is reported in Oregonian Perceptions of American Regional Speech (East Lansing, MI: MA
thesis, Department of Linguistics and Languages, Michigan State University, 1996).
 A quantitative method for calculating linguistic insecurity is first introduced in Labov’s work cited above but
refined and extended to gender in Peter Trudgill’s ‘Sex, covert prestige and linguistic change in the urban
British English of Norwich’ in Language in Society 1 (1972), pp. 179-95. A good introduction to the
techniques and principal findings of the study of language attitudes (and to the functions of language for
‘status’ and ‘solidarity’) may be found in Ellen Bouchard Ryan and Howard Giles (eds.), Attitudes Towards
Language Variation (London: Arnold, 1982).

Dennis R. Preston (University Distinguished Professor of Linguistics, MSU; Ph.D., UW-Madison) has been visiting
professor at the Universities of Indiana Southeast, Hawaii, Arizona, and Michigan and Fulbright Senior Researcher in
Poland and Brazil. He was Co-Director of the 1990 TESOL Institute and Director of the 2003 LSA Institute, both at
MSU. He was President of the American Dialect Society (2001-2) and served on the Executive Boards of that Society
and the International Conference on Methods in Dialectology, the editorial boards of Language, the International
Journal of Applied Linguistics, and the Journal of Sociolinguistics, and as a reader for numerous other journals,
publishers, and granting agencies. His work focuses on sociolinguistics, dialectology, and ethnography, and minority
language and variety education . His is perhaps best known for the revitalization of folk linguistics, particularly
perceptual dialectology, and attempts to provide variationist accounts of second language acquisition. He has
directed three recent NSF grants, two in folk linguistics and one in language variation and change and is invited
frequently for presentations in both academic and popular venues. His most recent book-length publications are, with
Nancy Niedzielski, Folk Linguistics (2000), with Daniel Long, A Handbook of Perceptual Dialectology, Volume II
(2002), and Needed Research in American Dialects (2003). He is a fellow of the Japan Society for the Promotion of
Science and will be awarded the Officer's Cross of the Order of Merit of the Polish Republic in 2004. He is a recipient
of the MSU Distinguished Faculty Award and the Paul Varg Alumni Award of the College of Arts and Letters at MSU.

----------------------

Language & Society

Language in Its Social Setting Language is a social phenomenon. In America — as anywhere — it’s
shaped by contact, conflict and incredible cultural complexity. Dennis Baron explains how. Read
Summary

Is E-mail ruining the language?

Can I be fired for speaking Spanish on the job?

Are we less literate than we used to be?

These questions reflect how language is a social phenomenon. Although many linguists
believe that humans are genetically programmed to learn language, it takes social
contact to flip the switch that makes us talk. So, linguists study not simply the sounds,
grammars and meanings of the world’s languages, but also how they function in their
social settings

Language varies according to the social structure of a local speech community. For
example, American English has varieties, dialects that are subsets of the larger
linguistic whole called English. Some dialects vary by geography: In the North, you put
the groceries in a bag; in the South, you put them in a sack.

Language expresses group identity

Language also expresses solidarity or group identity. Language can separate insiders
from outsiders, those in the know from those who didn’t get the memo, the cool from the
pathetically unhip, and, in the case of the Biblical shibboleth, friend from foe.

Members of small groups such as families, couples, friends, roommates and work
groups all give their language a spin suited to the group’s interests and experience.
Members of a profession develop a jargon, an internally efficient job-related shorthand
that permits them to impress, mystify or stonewall outsiders. In simple two-person
conversation, language may reflect power differentials: One person may take charge
while the other plays a subordinate role.

We sometimes label the language of larger social groups a social dialect, with
differences in pronunciation and usage based on social class, ethnic factors, contact
with other languages, gender or age. Let’s take a look at some issues in social dialects.

Ebonics Emerges

African-American Vernacular English (AAVE) — sometimes known as Black English or

Ebonics — is used by many African Americans, particularly those from working-class or
inner-city areas. Black English clearly differs from other varieties of English in its
vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation, but simply attaching it to one population group
oversimplifies a complex situation.

Many African Americans do not speak Black English; many non-African Americans who
live in inner cities do. Complicating matters further, African American influence — music,
fashion, language — on American culture is very strong. As a result, some white
American teenagers from the suburbs consciously imitate Black language features, to
express their own group identity and shared opposition to mainstream culture.

Many people — African American or not — look down on Black English as an

undesirable or ignorant form of the language. Others see it as a proud and positive
symbol of the African-American experience. A few political activists or Afro-centrists
insist that Ebonics isn’t a dialect of English at all but rather a separate language with
roots in Africa. And many people accept Black English as an important social dialect but
argue that its speakers must also master standard English in order to succeed in
America today.

The debate illustrates a larger sociolinguistic point. We all master several different
varieties of our language, standard and less so, that we deploy depending upon social
contexts. In unfamiliar social situations, we feel linguistically inadequate and “don’t know
the right thing to say.” Yet we can pick up the lingo of a new context if we are exposed to
it long enough.

Word Wars Between the Sexes

Gender differences in the use of English are subtle. Nonetheless, notions of men’s and
women’s language use abound: Men are said to swear a lot, to be more coarse and
casual. Studies claim that American women know more color terms and men know tool
names; that women use more qualifiers and diminutives; and that young women are
more likely than men to end a declarative sentence with a rise in pitch, as if it were a
question? In meetings or other professional contexts, men are said to speak more than
women and interrupt them more often. On the other hand, women seem to carry the
burden in mixed-gender conversations.

Clearly, these stereotypes aren’t very trustworthy. It’s probably not so much gender as
gender roles that influence linguistic behavior. As gender roles change, gender
differences in speech frequently disappear. Women who work as mechanics know the
names of tools, and men who paint and decorate have to know their color terms.

Gender roles change, but they may not disappear. For example, although the taboo
against women swearing has eased, both men and women students still report some
degree of discomfort when women swear in mixed company.

Department of Ms. Information

In the 1970s, the U.S. Department of Labor rewrote its extensive list of job titles to
eliminate gender bias, making language less patronizing, more accurate and inclusive
— by, for example, replacing “stewardess” with “flight attendant.”
The case of the missing “Miss” illuminates more change. For some time people sought
an alternative to Miss or Mrs. that did not indicate marital status, a title that would
parallel the masculine title Mr. “Ms.” took root (after decades of failed starts) in
American usage in the 1970s, pronounced Miz to distinguish it from Miss. Since then,
Ms. has undergone an interesting shift. Many young women use it either as a trendy
alternative to Miss, or to indicate an unmarried woman (widowed or divorced) of their
mother’s generation. It’s a good example of what can happen when planners decide a
word should mean one thing, but users of the language adapt it to mean something
else.

Another interesting development in gender-neutral vocabulary is the rise of you guys as

a new kind of second person plural in American speech. Even though guy is usually
masculine, the plural guys has become, for most people, gender neutral — and can
even refer to an all-female group.

Minority Report

Human history can be viewed as what happens when groups of people speaking
different languages encounter one another. The result isn’t always pretty: language
contact can lead to mutual understanding but also social conflict. Although it’s the
speakers who unite or clash, language often symbolizes what unites or divides people
— and linguistic minorities often find their right to use their native language severely
restricted by laws requiring the majority language in all sorts of situations.

In the U.S., diversity tends to give way to one common language: English
The United States is founded on diversity and difference. In religion and ethnicity, we
are a composite people. However, when it comes to language, diversity tends to give
way to one common language: English. And although the very title Do You Speak
American? suggests the broadness of American speech, there have always been
Americans who feel that if you don’t speak the “American” language, you may not really
be an American.

Americans initially accepted French in Louisiana and Spanish in California and the
Southwest territories, but soon began requiring English-only in all public transactions.
Government policy initially eradicated Native American languages, but has recently
switched — in an effort that may come too late — to try to preserve them and
encourage growth. Similarly, depriving African slaves of their linguistic roots was one
way of controlling them.

Language loss is common for immigrants to the United States. During the pre-World
War I waves of immigration from non-English-speaking countries, it was common for
second-generation speakers to be bilingual in English and the language of the land they
came from, and the third generation to be monolingual English speakers, unable to
converse with their grandparents. There is some evidence that the switch to English has
speeded up since the 1960s, skipping the bilingual middle generation altogether.
Parents are monolingual in Spanish or Hmong or Ukrainian. Their children speak only
English.

American schools have never dealt comfortably with their non-Anglophone students. In
the 19th century, bilingual schooling was common, particularly in the heavily German
areas of the Midwest. As immigration increased, public schools shifted overwhelmingly
to English as the language of instruction. The Americanization movement of the early
1900s reinforced assimilation to English, often punitively. But there was no concerted
effort to teach these students how to speak English. It should not be surprising that in
this sink-or-swim environment, many students simply sank: More than half of students
dropped out at the height of the great wave of Eastern European immigration.
Teddy Roosevelt warned the U.S. was in danger of becoming a polyglot boarding house

Teddy Roosevelt once warned that the United States was in danger of becoming a
polyglot boarding house. Instead we became a nation of monolingual English speakers.
Language teachers tell a joke: What do you call a person who speaks two languages?
Bilingual. What do you call a person who speaks one language? American.

Immigration reforms in the 1960s brought an influx of speakers of Spanish, as well as

Russian and a variety of Asian languages — yet English continues to dominate the
United States. In the 1970s, court-ordered bilingual education attempted to deal with the
problems faced by minority-language speakers in the schools. Ideally, such programs
use the students’ native languages to instruct them in basic subjects (reading, writing,
math, science and social studies) so that they don’t fall behind while they get up to
speed in English.

Highly effective when done well, bilingual education has been controversial because
many people fear the programs are designed to preserve minority language, not to
teach children English. California voters recently rejected bilingual education in favor of
English immersion programs. Supporters of bilingual education fear that this reduction
in language support services that signals a step back to the isolationism of the early 20 th
century.

Americans will continue to face issues of assimilation and minority language rights.
Opponents of immigration see the English language as endangered and call for laws to
make English the nation’s official language. Still, the U.S. Census has reported for
several decades that English is spoken by 95 percent or more of U.S. residents.
Although bilingualism may be on the rise, the children of non-English-speaking
immigrants are abandoning their heritage languages, becoming monolingual speakers
of English with record speed.

Sociolinguistic Short-Takes

 Do people swear more today than they used to? We have no way to quantify how
much people used to swear, or even how much they swear today. It would be fair
to say that people today swear more in public (and on radio and television and in
film) than they did in the 1940s or 50s.
 Is the language of blacks and whites diverging? Some observers worry that the
social distance between whites and African Americans may be increasing, which
could in turn lead to greater linguistic differences.
 Is E-mail ruining the language? Critics object that it encourages misspelling and
grammatical error, makes people lazy, and is impersonal and overly informal.
Even so, standards for e-mail started to emerge as soon as it became common.
E-mail programs come with spell- and grammar- checkers, advanced formatting
capabilities, and graphics and sound. Many e-mail writers want their e-mails to
read as if they have been written by someone who knows how to do things right.
 Where do language standards come from? Language standards — ideas about
correct spelling, usage, grammar, and style — emerge by consensus within
communities of language users. In some countries, government offices or
language academies devise language policy, draw up standards and attempt to
enforce them. There are no such mechanisms for English, though teachers,
editors, writers, and self-appointed experts serve as language guardians,
transmitting ideas of correctness and attempting to secure their adoption. Despite
their efforts, there is no single standard of correctness in English. Instead, there
are multiple standards that emerge from fluid communication contexts.
 Can I be fired for speaking Spanish on the job? That depends. Federal courts
frequently side with the workers’ right to use any language they want, particularly
when on breaks or talking privately. The courts also allow employers to specify
the language to be used when employees deal directly with the public, and more
than half the states have adopted English as their official language — a
 designation more symbolic than enforceable. English doesn’t need the protection
of being an official language: the number of English speakers in America is rising
and will not decline anytime soon. No other language, including Spanish, is
positioned to become the majority national language. However, designation of
English as official can put a chill on the use of other languages. In a period of
increased globalization, a knowledge of the world’s languages should help rather
than hurt the U.S. position among the nations of the world.
 Are literacy rates really too low? We all agree that literacy — the ability to read
and write — is one of the most important things that people need to succeed. Yet
as experts disagree over how to define and measure literacy, the stakes have
gone up. Is a high-school education enough? Can we say that a given score on a
standardized test guarantees a comparable level of performance in real-world
reading, writing, and calculating?

Every few years we have a literacy scare. Most recently, a report in the 1990s warned
that almost half of American adults couldn’t read, write, or calculate at adequate levels.
At the same time, the vast majority of people interviewed considered their reading,
writing and math perfectly adequate for their jobs and other everyday tasks. So, the
assessment could simply mean Americans are too complacent about their literacy … or
that testing doesn’t really measure what we need to know.

After a report on literacy in crisis, politicians legislate more standardized testing. This
forces schools to redirect their efforts to get students past the standardized tests.
Scores go up, things settle down for a while, then the next report comes out and the
crisis cycle starts again.

Standardized tests have some ability to predict actual performance. But when schools
devote too much time to test-taking skills and too little time to the actual literacy
practices the tests are supposed to measure, actual progress is stymied. A more reliable
measure of literacy might be the amount of time spent in and out of class on reading,
writing, and numeracy. A 2003 report from the Brookings Institution indicates that two-
thirds of American high school students spend less than an hour a day on homework.
This suggests that students don’t spend enough time on actual literacy tasks — and that
is something that no test can address.
Sez Who? Index

Suggested Reading/Additional Resources

 Chaika, Elaine. Language: The Social Mirror. 3rd ed. Boston: Heinle & Heinle,
1994.
  Wolfram, Walt and Natalie Schilling-Estes. American English. Malden, Mass.:
Blackwell, 1999.

Dennis Baron is professor of English and linguistics at the University of Illinois at

Urbana-Champaign. He is the author of several books on the English language,
including The English-Only Question: An Official Language for Americans? (Yale Univ.
Press, 1990); Grammar and Gender (Yale, 1986); Grammar and Good Taste:
Reforming the American Language (Yale, 1982); Declining Grammar (National Council
of Teachers of English, 1989); and Guide to Home Language Repair (NCTE: 1994). He
writes for academic journals but his essays have also appeared in the New York Times,
Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, and other newspapers, and he
speaks about language issues both on his local public radio station, WILL-AM, and on
radio and TV programs in other cities around the country. He is currently writing a book
on the impact of technology on our reading and writing practices.

---------------------------------------------------------------
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~jlawler/ebonics.lsa.html

Resolution On The Oakland "Ebonics" Issue

Unanimously Adopted at the Annual Meeting of the
Linguistic Society of America

Chicago, Illinois January 3, l997

Whereas there has been a great deal of discussion in the media and among the
American public about the l8 December l996 decision of the Oakland School Board to
recognize the language variety spoken by many African American students and to take
it into account in teaching Standard English, the Linguistic Society of America, as a
society of scholars engaged in the scientific study of language, hereby resolves to
make it known that:

1. The variety known as "Ebonics," "African American Vernacular English"

(AAVE), and "Vernacular Black English" and by other names is systematic and
rule-governed like all natural speech varieties. In fact, all human linguistic
systems -- spoken, signed, and written -- are fundamentally regular. The
systematic and expressive nature of the grammar and pronunciation patterns of
the African American vernacular has been established by numerous scientific
studies over the past thirty years. Characterizations of Ebonics as "slang,"
"mutant," "lazy," "defective," "ungrammatical," or "broken English" are
incorrect and demeaning.
2. The distinction between "languages" and "dialects" is usually made more on
social and political grounds than on purely linguistic ones. For example,
different varieties of Chinese are popularly regarded as "dialects," though their
 speakers cannot understand each other, but speakers of Swedish and
Norwegian, which are regarded as separate "languages," generally understand
each other. What is important from a linguistic and educational point of view is
not whether AAVE is called a "language" or a "dialect" but rather that its
systematicity be recognized.
3. As affirmed in the LSA Statement of Language Rights (June l996), there are
individual and group benefits to maintaining vernacular speech varieties and
there are scientific and human advantages to linguistic diversity. For those
living in the United States there are also benefits in acquiring Standard English
and resources should be made available to all who aspire to mastery of
Standard English. The Oakland School Board's commitment to helping students
master Standard English is commendable.
4. There is evidence from Sweden, the US, and other countries that speakers of
other varieties can be aided in their learning of the standard variety by
pedagogical approaches which recognize the legitimacy of the other varieties of
a language. From this perspective, the Oakland School Board's decision to
recognize the vernacular of African American students in teaching them
Standard English is linguistically and pedagogically sound.

Resolution Links

Selected references (books only)

Baratz, Joan C., and Roger W. Shuy, eds. 1969.
Teaching Black Children to Read.
Washington, DC: Center for Applied Linguistics.
Baugh, John. 1983.
Black street speech: Its History, Structure and Survival.
Austin: University of Texas Press.
Bloome, David, and J. Lemke, eds. 1995.
Special Issue: Africanized English and Education.
Linguistics and Education 7.
Burling, Robbins. 1973.
English in Black and White.
New York: Holt.
Butters, Ron. 1989.
The Death of Black English: Convergence and Divergence in American
English.
Frankfurt: Peter Lang.
Dandy, Evelyn. 1991.
Black Communications: Breaking Down the Barriers.
Chicago: African American Images.
DeStephano, Johanna 1973, ed.
Language, Society and Education: A Profile of Black English.
Worthington, OH: Charles A. Jones.
Dillard, J. L. 1972.
Black English: Its History and Usage in the United States.
New York: Random House.
Fasold, Ralph W., and Roger W. Shuy, eds. 1970.
Teaching Standard English in the Inner City.
Washington, DC: Center for Applied Linguistics.
Gadsden, V. and D. Wagner, eds. 1995.
Literacy among African American Youth.
Creskill, NJ: Hampton Press.
Jones, Regina, ed. 1996.
Handbook of Tests and Measurements.
Hampton, VA; Cobbs.
Kochman, Thomas. 1981.
Black and White Styles in Conflict.
NY: Holt Rinehart.
Kochman, Thomas, ed. 1972.
Rappin' and Stylin' Out.
Urbana: University of Illinois Press.
Labov, William 1972.
Language in the Inner City: Studies in the Black English Vernacular.
Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Lippi-Green, Rosina. 1997.
English with an Accent.
London: Routledge.
Mufwene, Salikoko S., John R. Rickford, Guy Bailey and John Baugh, eds. 1998.
African American English.
London: Routledge.
Rickford, John R., and Lisa Green. 1999.
African American Vernacular English.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Shuy, Roger W., ed. 1965 .
Social Dialects and Language Learning.
Champaign, Ill., National Council of Teachers of English.
Simpkins, G., G. Holt, and C. Simpkins. 1977.
Bridge: A Cross-Cultural Reading Program.
Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
Smith, Ernie A. 1994.
The Historical Development of African American Language.
Los Angeles: Watts College Press.
Smitherman, Geneva. 1986.
Talkin and Testifyin: The Language of Black America.
Detroit: Wayne State University Press.
_____ 1994
Black Talk: Words and Phrases from the Hood to the Amen Corner.
Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
_____, ed. 1981.
 Black English and the Education of Black Children and Youth.
Detroit: Center for Black Studies, Wayne State University Press.
Taylor, Hanni U. 1989.
Standard English, Black English, and Bidialectalism: A Controversy.
NY: Peter Lang.
Williams, Robert L. 1975
Ebonics: The True Language of Black Folks.
St Louis: Institute of Black Studies.
Wolfram, Walt 1969.
A Linguistic Description of Detroit Negro Speech.
Washington, DC: Center for Applied Linguistics.
_____ 1991.
Dialects and American English.
Englewood Cliffs, NJ; Prentice Hall and Center for Applied Linguistics.
Wolfram, Walter A., Carolyn Temple Adger, and Donna Christian 1999.
Dialects in Schools and Communities.
Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Wolfram, Walter A., and Donna Christian 1989.
Dialects and Education: Issues and Answers.
Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Wolfram, Walter A. and Nona Clarke, eds. 1971.
Black-White Speech Relationships.
Washington: Center for Applied Linguistics.

----------------------------------------------
Talking New York
It’s Not Just the Accent
That Makes Us Different
Well-known author and sociolinguist Deborah Tannen shows what happens to couples when he’s from
New York and she ain’t. All too often, linguistic roles are reversed — and she’s the one who complains that
her partner just won’t shut up! It’s just the tip of the linguistic iceberg. (The research cited in this essay
was first published in 1990.)

Allison broke up with Manny at the end of a long car ride back from the Adirondacks to Manhattan. He had driven her
crazy by talking the entire trip. After giving his assessment of all the people they had met, lecturing about the local
flora and fauna, and listing options for their next vacation, he provided a running commentary on what he saw out the
window and read road signs out loud. Hadn’t Manny heard of the strong, silent type? To Allison, his monologue
underscored how different they were.

This apportionment of talk and silence was the reverse of the pattern I’ve discovered in most places in America.
Generally, it’s women who complain that the men in their lives don’t talk to them, and men who gripe that the women
they live with talk too much and insist on conversation when they want to read the newspaper or watch television.
Why are Allison and Manny so different? You guessed it: He’s a New Yorker and she’s from Minnesota.

Native New Yorkers sometimes feel like a unique species

Native New Yorkers (I know, because I’m one) sometimes feel like a unique species. In this way, we are: Gender
differences in conversational style are exaggerated or reversed if one partner is from New York and the other is not. If
the woman is from New York and the man isn’t, the widespread tendency for the woman to talk at home while the
man clams up increases. If he is from New York and she isn’t—as with Allison and Manny—the opposite can happen.

Since the publication of my new book, You Just Don’t Understand: Women and Men in Conversation, most of the
people who have written to me, or called in to talk shows I’m on, have told me that their relationships fit the pattern I
describe: The woman comes home and tells all to a man who has nothing to say. But every now and then I get a call
—as I did on Donahue recently—from a woman who complains that her husband talks constantly and doesn’t let her
get a word in edgewise, or a man who complains that his wife never talks. A male television-talk-show host asked me,
“Why do women leave the room and refuse to discuss a problem when you’re trying to talk it out?” —just the question
countless women ask me about men. In these exceptional cases, it almost always turns out that the man is from New
York, and the woman isn’t.

We look to a primary relationship as a haven in a hostile world; we expect our partner to be our best friend. But if our
primary relationship is with a person of the other gender, we’re likely to have different assumptions about what it
means to be best friends. Women assume that the essence of friendship is talk: a free-wheeling exchange of
thoughts and feelings, daily experiences and impressions. In contrast, many men feel it means doing things together,
or simply being together; talk isn’t required. In fact, they feel that one of the benefits of being close is not having to
talk, since talk is something you have to do to prove yourself in the outside world. But New Yorkers—both men and
women—are often big talkers, at home as well as outside. What’s more, conversational style differences between
New Yorkers and others make it hard for a non-New Yorker to get into a New York conversation.

Here’s how it works: Allison herself was partly responsible for Manny’s verbal onslaught. He believes that talk is a
sign of goodwill in a friendly situation and silence is evidence of a lack of rapport. So it was her silence that made him
resort to scenery and road signs to fill the conversational space. But Manny wasn’t blameless. Each indication that he
intended to keep talking reinforced Allison’s determination not to talk in order to demonstrate the behavior she
considered appropriate: companionable silence.

Conversational-style differences are often what attract New Yorkers and non-New
Yorkers to each other
As it happens, conversational-style differences that cause grief in a long-term relationship are often what attract New
Yorkers and non-New Yorkers to each other in the first place. It was his talkativeness that drew Allison to Manny. She
thought of it as openness, a willingness to do his share of relating. And Manny was drawn to Allison precisely
because of her tendency to listen rather than talk, which he saw as calm reserve, as being “centered.” But the
conversational-style differences that bring New Yorkers and non-New Yorkers together can eventually drive them
apart.

Another bone of contention is contentiousness. Men are, by and large, more comfortable with opposition and
argument than women, who are inclined to support and agree with each other. Many women resent it if their partners
disagree with them in public or correct them on points of fact. If a woman tells another woman about a problem with
her boss, her friend is likely to join her in criticizing the boss.

But if a woman comes home and tells her male partner the same story, he may explain the boss’s point of view. She
thinks he’s being disloyal; he thinks he’s being helpful. Indeed, men often take oppositional stances when they feel
friendly, by arguing about sports and politics, for example, or just razzing and teasing each other.

In New York, friendly contentiousness is common among women and men

In New York, however, friendly contentiousness is common among women as well as men. A New Englander who
arrived in New York and took a cab from the train station was immediately offended by a cabdriver who gruffly took
him to task for slamming the cab door. But a New Yorker told me she loves nothing better than to fly into La Guardia
and have a porter chide her for having heavy suitcases or to go to a delicatessen and have a waiter tell her she
ordered the wrong thing. Since New Yorkers assume a no-holds-barred directness with intimates, we regard offhand
brusqueness (as distinguished from downright nastiness) from strangers or acquaintances as a sign of friendliness:
They are treating us like family.
This can result in a tendency to disagree and question, rather than agree and support, in conversation with friends.
And contentiousness can get New York women into trouble, because women are expected to be agreeable. For
example, women often enact a routine I call “trouble talk”: One woman tells a trouble, and the other offers a matching
one. A woman from Massachusetts complained that a woman friend from New York was always putting her down. It
turned out that when she mentioned a problem, her friend often said, “That’s not a problem for me.” This violates the
rules of troubles talk, which require that if you can’t say, “I’m the same way,” you should at least say, “I know how you
feel.” Refusing to admit to being the same seems to imply thinking you’re better.

Another way that many New York women differ from women at large has to do with directness. Most women don’t
give orders in the form of direct demands; instead, they suggest and hint. This works fine if everyone understands the
system. Jane asks, “Shall we go to the movies tonight?” and Susan answers, “I’m tired, but if you want, we can go.”
Jane then lets Susan off the hook: “If you’re tired, we’ll go another time.” Susan gets her way without demanding it,
and Jane feels she chose not to go. But a man might take Susan’s statement literally: You said you’d go, so let’s put
on our coats.

New Yorkers of both genders assume directness is appropriate when two people are
close
New Yorkers of both genders assume directness is appropriate when two people are close. So women and men may
reverse roles if the woman is from New York and the man’s family is from a culture that prefers indirectness, such as
Greek or Japanese. This is what happened when a Greek man accused his New York-bred wide of selfishness
because she never did what he wanted. He would send out hints about his preferences, which she’d miss because
she assumed that married people tell each other directly what’s on their minds. For instance, whenever they were in a
department store, he would suggest they visit the furniture department. He was certain she knew he wanted to buy
new furniture, yet she refused to do so; though she had wondered why he was so interested in furniture, she was
genuinely surprised to learn he wanted to buy some, since he hadn’t said so. This man also picked up signals his
wife hadn’t sent out. For example, when she asked if he wanted to go to a party, he assumed she wanted to go—
otherwise, why would she ask? He agreed to go for her sake and was angry and incredulous when she later said
she’d gone because he’d wanted to.

There’s also a discrepancy between New York women and their non-New York sisters in terms of raising topics.
When I studied conversations between Louisiana children and their best friends, which had been videotaped by
psychologist Bruce Dorval of Long Island University, I found that the girls’ centered on one girl’s problems; the
conversations between boys jumped from topic to topic. There was one pair of boys who did discuss problems, but
each talked about his own problem and dismissed the other’s. Yet the boys didn’t seem to mind. For them, dismissing
the other’s problem was a way of implying, “You shouldn’t feel bad because your problems aren’t so bad.” When it
comes to switching subjects, New York women resemble these Louisiana boys more than the girls. New Yorkers trust
others to get back to a topic if they have more to say about it. So New York women may be seen as self-centered by
non-New Yorkers. This is just what women say of men who start following their own agenda rather than exploring and
pursuing the topics raised by them.

What’s the logic behind these New York conversational strategies? The style can be understood as “high
involvement.” You show you’re a good person by demonstrating enthusiastic participation in the conversation. You
offer talk as a gift. You convert minor commonplace experiences into long, dramatic stories full of acted-out dialogue
and exaggerated facial expressions. You talk along when you listen, offering little (or big) expressions of interest or
disbelief or even mini-stories showing your understanding through shared experience. You toss out new topics to
forestall any lulls. All this conversational exuberance is intensified by loud volume and fast pacing, to reinforce the
enthusiasm and participation. The risk of offending by not talking is deemed greater than the risk of offending by
talking too much.

High-involvement seems intrusive to those who have “high-considerateness” styles

Unbeknownst to well-intentioned New Yorkers, high-involvement strategies seem intrusive to those who have what I
call “high-considerateness” styles. They’re showing they are good people not by demonstrating eager involvement,
but by not imposing. With volume held in check, they leave nice long pauses to make sure other speakers are
finished before they start to talk. They are circumspect in dealing out talk, often waiting to be asked to speak, to make
sure that others want to hear what they have to say. They state the points of their stories rather than acting them out,
and the points are less likely to be personal. This leaves New Yorkers wondering whether the story has a point at all.
Non-New Yorkers also make a lot less noise when they listen, causing New Yorkers to wonder if they’ve fallen asleep.
They make sure a topic is exhausted before introducing a new one—a strategy that can exhaust a New Yorker who
thinks the topic has been talked to death—and they would rather risk offense by saying too little than too much.

These differences wreak havoc in close relationships when only one partner is from New York. The New York-bred
partner ends up doing all the talking and accuses the other of not holding up his or her end of the conversation. The
non-New York partner ends up seething: “You only want to hear yourself talk; you’re not interested in me.” Both
attribute their dissatisfaction not to differences in conversational style, but to the other’s personality flaws and bad
intentions.

So much for talk in close relationships. What of the time spent talking “in public”—in social situations with people we
know less well, and at work? Most women use language to create connection and intimacy, so they are more
comfortable talking in private, with people they feel close to. Men use language to negotiate status in a group. It goes
back to the way boys and girls learn to use language growing up. In a study of working-class black children in
Philadelphia, anthropologist Marjorie Harness Goodwin has found that boys tend to play outside, in hierarchical
groups. High-status boys give orders, and low-status boys get pushed around, so boys learn to negotiate status by
displaying their abilities and accomplishments. But girls’ groups operate on more egalitarian principles; Goodwin
observed girls ostracizing one girl who dressed better than her friends and another who did “too” well in school. So
girls tend to avoid boasting or appearing better than others.

These gender differences put women at a disadvantage in public situations. At a meeting, say, men are more likely
than women to jump in, hold forth, and state their opinions as fact. The high-involvement style of New York men
reinforces this advantage by making them even more comfortable speaking up and speaking out, though if they go
too far, they may be considered abrasive by non-New Yorkers. High-involvement style also gives New York-bred
women an advantage in this regard, but the advantage is not as clear-cut.

Whereas the New York man is considered assertive, the New York woman is seen as
aggressive
The tendency to speak up at meetings, to be comfortable with argument and conflict, to put oneself forward and
make one’s accomplishment known, may make New York women more forceful in positions of authority. But all
women are judged by the same expectations. Whereas New York style reinforces a man’s masculinity as well as his
authority, it may reinforce a woman’s authority but compromise her femininity in the eyes of non-New Yorkers. She
may be respected and taken seriously, but she may also be disliked. Whereas the New York man is considered
assertive, the New York woman is seen as aggressive. Whereas he is a take- charge person, she is called—as
Geraldine Ferraro was by Barbara Bush—the word that “rhymes with rich.”

The obvious question is “Why are New Yorkers different?” Many people suggest that because there are so many of
us in so little space, we have to get closer and move faster. But it is just as logical to say that because there are so
many of us, we have to be extra considerate of one another. Tokyo is quite crowded, but Japanese style is as high-
considerate as you can get: maximally indirect and talk-aversive. Whereas many New Yorkers will exchange fleeting
remarks with just about anyone within hearing distance, an American living in Japan was hurt when his neighbor
walked within inches of his open front door without showing any sign of having noticed him. The American was told
that this was the Japanese way of not imposing in an overcrowded setting. So crowding in itself doesn’t account for
New York style. Instead, I believe that our way of talking results from the conversational styles of cultures that settled
in large numbers in New York: East European and Mediterranean. More recently arrived immigrants, such as
Hispanics, Africans, and West Indians, fit right in. Class plays a role, too. The fast-paced, stand-close style of ethnic
New Yorkers seems as alien to patrician New Yorkers as it does to Americans from other parts of the country.

Because of these cultural influences, moreover, not all New Yorkers have the same conversational style. For
example, an Irish New Yorker may talk as quickly and exuberantly as a Jewish one but about less personal topics.
 Even two New York Jews may differ. One woman grumbled that her husband doesn’t believe she can tell a story by
herself. When they have guests, and she begins to talk, he takes over. I explained that he probably isn’t trying to tell
the story for her but with her. He expects them to toss the narrative ball back and forth, speaking on the same team.
By participating in her story, he’s showing his interest and his caring, not trying to take over. The reason he ends up
telling her story is that she withdraws, leaving him to carry the ball. To understand why this happened, I asked about
their backgrounds. “We have the same background,” she said.” “We’re both from New York, and we’re both Jewish.”
But I wasn’t licked. “Is he East European Jewish, and are you German Jewish?” Her mouth fell open: “Yes.” New York
Jews of German background often show the northern European influence of high considerateness, whereas East
European Jews share high-involvement style with other East Europeans.

So what’s a person to do? When your partner is driving you mad, before accusing him or her of a flawed character or
evil motives—or maybe right afterward—stop and ask yourself if the culprit might be different conversational styles. If
only one of you is a native New Yorker, chances are especially great that the answer will be yes. With the burden of
blame lifted, you can start to make small adjustments. Take heart: Allison and Manny got back together and lived
happily ever after. (Well, as happily as any of us.) And on long car rides, they’re both busy trying to quiet their
children, who overwhelm Allison’s silence and Manny’s talk with their noisy arguments.

------------------------------------------------
Ebony + Phonics
Comprehending Ebonics
Immigrant groups from every part of the world have routinely brought their languages to the
United States, save one: African Americans. John Baugh explains how the African slave trade
impacted this unique variety of American, and how the term "Ebonics" came into being.

Ebonics is greatly misunderstood, largely because of how it gained global attention

during a racially charged education controversy in Oakland, California. On Dec. 18,
1996, the Oakland School Board passed a resolution declaring Ebonics to be the
language of 28,000 African-American students within that school district. Few people
had ever heard of the term Ebonics prior to the passage of that resolution, to say
nothing of how it was created or originally defined.
Dr. Robert Williams, an African-American social psychologist, coined the term Ebonics
in 1973. His goal was to combine the words “ebony” with “phonics” to refer to “black
sounds.”Williams and several other African-American social scientists had gathered that
year at a conference sponsored by the National Institutes of Health to discuss the
psychological development of black children. Williams and his associates had been
displeased with the term Black English and began to ponder the alternatives.
Williams recounted the creation of Ebonics as follows:
We need to define what we speak. We need to give a clear definition to our language.
…We know that ebony means black and that phonics refers to speech sounds or the
science of sounds. Thus, we are really talking about the science of black speech
sounds or language. (Williams, 1997a)
Although the preceding statement offers an early, vague conception of Ebonics, the
term was formally defined in 1975 when Williams published an edited volume, Ebonics:
The True Language of Black Folks. In it, he classified Ebonics as the
…linguistic and paralinguistic features which on a concentric continuum represent the
communicative competence of the West African, Caribbean, and United States slave
descendant of African origin. (Williams, 1975)

The original Ebonics construct was intended to reflect the multinational linguistic results
of the African slave trade. Prior to its coining, no single term described the linguistic
consequences of this period in history. The vast majority of pertinent studies had all
been in the United States, and terminology varied from year to year. “Nonstandard
Negro English” was common during the 1960s, succeeded by “Black English” or “Black
English Vernacular” (BEV) during the 1970’s and most of the 1980’s. Eventually the
term African American Vernacular English (AAVE) was introduced as yet another
synonym for the speech of most blacks in America. However — unlike Ebonics —
“Black English” or “AAVE” never explicitly referred to the linguistic legacy of the African
slave trade beyond the United States.
The practices underlying Williams' definition of Ebonics were indeed devastating. But
even after slavery was abolished in the U.S., a recurrent combination of racial
segregation and inferior educational opportunities prevented many African Americans
from adopting speech patterns associated with Americans of European ancestry. As a
result, generations of white citizens maligned or mocked speakers of AAVE, casting
doubt on their intelligence and making their distinctive speaking patterns the object of
racist ridicule.
The Oakland School Board did not expect the hostility that followed their ill-advised
linguistic assertion that Ebonics was the authentic language of their African-American
students. Facing a scornful public, they argued that their ultimate objective was to
recognize Ebonics as a means to increase standard English proficiency among black
students, many of whom were in dire need of culturally relevant linguistic enrichment.
Competing Definitions
Very few professional linguists beyond those who were familiar with the BEV/AAVE
research knew of Ebonics or how it was originally defined. A series of coincidences
triggered a transformation in the definition of Ebonics, from its original international
orientation to multiple and sometimes contradictory definitions, including the following:
Williams’ original (1975) international definition, extending the linguistic consequences
of the African slave trade from West Africa to all countries where African slave
descendants now reside.
Ebonics is the equivalent of Black English and is considered to be a dialect of English
(Tolliver-Weddington 1979).
Ebonics is the antonym of Black English and is considered to be a language other than
English (Smith 1997).
Ebonics refers to language among all people of African descent throughout the African
Diaspora (Blackshire-Belay 1996).
The Oakland School board began by adopting Smith’s non-English definition for
Ebonics, but they modified their position in January 1997, more closely hewing to
Tolliver-Weddington’s assertion that Ebonics is a dialect of English. Indeed, the best
available evidence regarding Ebonics usage in the United States (i.e. AAVE) is that it is,
undoubtedly, a dialect of English — albeit a very distinctive dialect born of the African
slave trade (Williams 1975).
The 1997 resolution states Ebonics is a dialect of English
Scholars who gathered at the 1997 annual meeting of the Linguistic Society of America
attempted to guide this discussion by passing a resolution that indirectly asserted the
prevailing linguistic opinion — namely, that Ebonics (viewed in the American context) is
without question a dialect of English. By this thinking, Ebonics in Brazil is a dialect of
Portuguese, and Ebonics in Haiti would be a dialect of French.
In the heat of that politicized moment, linguists attempted not only to redefine Ebonics,
but also to illustrate some of the problems that can arise when one considers how
languages in different parts of the world are actually defined. They stated:

That the variety known as “Ebonics,” “African American Vernacular English” (AAVE),
“Vernacular Black English” and by other names is systematic and rule-governed like all
natural speech varieties.
And:
The distinction between “languages” and “dialects” is usually made more on social and
political grounds than on purely linguistic ones. For example, different varieties of
Chinese are popularly regarded as “dialects,” though their speakers cannot understand
each other. But speakers of Swedish and Norwegian, which are regarded as separate
“languages,” generally understand each other. What is important from a linguistic and
educational point of view is not whether AAVE is called a “language” or a dialect” but
rather that its systematicity be recognized.
When viewed from a purely scientific perspective, the relative linguistic or educational
value of Ebonics depends upon its precise definition, including the specific criteria by
which we come to identify the “systematicity” of a language (or dialect) and those who
nurture it through their daily speech. Williams, a social scientist, explicitly pinpointed
“African slave ancestry” as the common thread connecting all Ebonics speech
communities. From a purely linguistic perspective, linguistic speech communities have
never been defined based upon the race of their speakers. However, because all
African slaves were selected, at least in part, because of their shared physical
characteristics, Ebonics forces scholars, educators, policy makers and others to ponder
the special linguistic circumstances of African slave descendants.
Colonization, wars, a growing world economy and other factors of capricious human
intervention have altered the global linguistic map in defiance of simplistic racial
classifications. Speakers of Chinese, French, English, Ibo and Italian (to name just a
few) illustrate that language boundaries and racial groupings rarely coincide. Ironically,
attempts to classify Ebonics overtly combine racial considerations (resulting from the
African slave trade) with linguistic considerations regarding precise distinctions between
“a language” and “a dialect.”
Effects on Education

Many educational policies and services are determined based on a child’s native
language. Students who speak languages other than English may be eligible for special
programs to help advance their English fluency. Oakland educators realized correctly
that many of their African-American students were at a severe educational disadvantage
because they lacked adequate proficiency in standard English. Rather than argue that
AAVE speakers were in greater need of standard English fluency, however, Oakland
educators argued that black students were linguistically akin to others for whom English
is not native.
Depending upon which definition of Ebonics one chooses, ensuing policy and economic
decisions can have profound social, educational, legal and political consequences.
Imagine the budgetary impact of expanding bilingual education programs to include
African Americans; clearly, neither educators nor politicians had ever pondered or
planned for such a prospect. Moreover, the highly articulate speech of African
Americans who are in the public eye, such as Bryant Gumble, Colin Powell,
Condoleezza Rice and Oprah Winfrey serve as constant reminders that many blacks
have mastered standard English without any benefit of (or apparent need for) special
educational programs.
And so, we still do not have one single definition of Ebonics. Few Americans who use
the term know the care with which Robert Williams painstakingly described the linguistic
plight of enslaved Africans. Of more immediate educational importance, efforts to
increase standard English proficiency among American slave descendants of African
origin have never been fully addressed. Yet, I know of no fair-minded U.S. citizen who
would claim that black students are any different from other American students who are
far more likely to succeed if they can be helped to obtain greater standard English
fluency.
Back to Top
African American English Index
Suggested Reading/Additional Resources
Coalition on Language Diversity in Education
Proceedings of the Coalition’s 1998 conference: Language Diversity and Academic
Achievement in the Education of African American Students.
Stanford University Ebonics Page
Links to writings by scholar John Rickford, as well as many useful links
Ebonics and Linguistic Science: Clarifying the Issues
Walt Wolfram lays out some of the arguments surrounding the controversy
Ebonics, Math Scores, and the Way Children Learn
by Richard "Doc" Rioux - “No matter how I've tried to understand the logic of declaring
Ebonics a language, I can't escape the view that the effort is demeaning to American
children of African descent”
Double Standards
Geoffrey Nunberg discusses press coverage of the Oakland controversy and linguists'
reactions.
Baugh, John. Beyond Ebonics: Linguistic Pride and Racial Prejudice. Oxford University
Press, 2000.
Blackshire-Belay, Carol. “The Location of Ebonics within the Framework of the
Africological Paradigm.” Journal of Black Studies, 27 (no. 1) (1996): 5-23.
Linguistic Society of America. “Resolution on the Oakland ‘Ebonics’ Issue.” Washington,
D.C.: Linguistic Society of America, 1997.
Smith, Ernie. “What Is Black English, What is Ebonics?” The Real Ebonics Debate:
Power, Language and the Education of African American Children. Eds.Theresa Perry
and Lisa Delpit. Boston: Beacon Press, 1997. 49-58
Toliver-Weddington, Gloria. “Ebonics (Black English): Implications for Education.”
Journal of Black Studies 9 (no. 4) [special issue] (1979).
Williams, Robert. Ebonics: The True Language of Black Folks. St. Louis: Robert
Williams and Associates, 1975.
Back to Top

John Baugh joined Stanford University as Professor of Education and Linguistics in

1990. Prior to his tenure at Stanford, Dr. Baugh served as Associate Professor of
Linguistics and Foreign Language Education at the University of Texas at Austin and as
Assistant Professor of Linguistics, Black Studies, Sociology, and Anthropology at
Swarthmore College. Dr. Baugh has published extensively in the fields of Anthropology,
Education, Legal Affairs, Linguistics, Sociology and Urban Studies. His work bridges
theoretical and applied linguistics, with particular attention to matters of policy and social
equity in the fields of education, medicine, and the law. He has conducted extensive
research regarding the social stratification of linguistic diversity within the U.S., Austria,
Brazil, Hungary, South Africa, and the UK, and is actively engaged in ongoing research
that examines the evolution and dissemination of English and other European
languages in post-colonial contexts throughout the world. Dr. Baugh is a past president
of the American Dialect Society and a member of the usage advisory committee for the
American Heritage English Dictionary. He has also served as consultant on several
documentary films related to American language and as an expert witness in court
cases where matters of voice recognition and language attitudes have been central. Dr.
Baugh received his B.A. in Speech and Rhetoric at Temple University and his M.A. and
Ph.D. in Linguistics at the University of Pennsylvania. He currently sits on the Boards of
the Consortiuum of Social Science Associations, Eastside Prep, Raising a Reader, and
Project Pericles.
---------------------------------------------------------
Managing Language in a Multicultural Nation

In a global economy, the need to nurture, cultivate and manage multilingual resources within the
United States is more pronounced than ever. John Baugh explains why.

Although American English, in all its diversity, is unquestionably our dominant national
language, this country has always had a complex multilingual history. Long before
European settlers colonized North and South America, thousands of indigenous
languages thrived from coast to coast. As colonists and slaves populated the area,
multilingualism in America increased — albeit under the growing domination of
provincial American English dialects. And with each new wave of immigrants from every
conceivable point on the globe, the linguistic and cultural diversity of the United States
has continued to grow.
Given the demands of the birth of the American nation, language planning tended to be
neglected. As a result, the political and economic clout of the early English settlers in
the original 13 colonies established a sociolinguistic hierarchy that still prevails.
Linguistics helps us to understand our polygot nation
Today, the academic endeavor called linguistics helps us to understand our polyglot
nation. Scholars who study applied linguistics, anthropological linguistics, educational
linguistics, historical linguistics, dialectology, sociolinguistics and more, have contributed
to our understanding of multilingual America.
Although many citizens are deeply committed to the role played by American English as
our pre-eminent national language, we should never lose sight of the fact that this
nation of immigrants continually experiences ever-changing linguistic tides as new
residents yearn to share the American dream. A dream that often exceeds their English
fluency.
The European nations that colonized the Americas left indelible linguistic impressions
on their former colonies (including many African countries, Australia, India and parts of
Asia). Today, the global spread of the English era owes much of its vibrancy to the
economic and technological advantages gained by the U.S. after World War II. Since
that time, educators and politicians in nearly every other industrialized country have
devoted considerable resources to the teaching of English — in striking contrast to how
the vast majority of American schools have reduced or eliminated foreign-language
educations as extraneous, if not superfluous.
Today, given the global economy, the need to nurture, cultivate and even manage
multilingual resources within America is more pronounced than ever. Some of this
linguistic management is being addressed by market forces, as advertisers and
broadcasters strive to appeal to the ever growing numbers of non-English speakers who
as U.S. residents and citizens are increasingly important consumers of goods and
services. Politicians have been keen to learn new languages to demonstrate their
empathy for non-English speaking voters. Some employers, including many
multinational corporations, have begun to recognize the value of linguistic diversity
among their employees; service businesses in particular place great value upon the
prospect of hiring bilingual or trilingual workers. Diplomats and military strategists have
always recognized the importance of knowing other languages, but rarely have they
managed linguistic resources adequately.
The consequences of strategic linguistic mis-management have been devastating. For
instance, firefighters, ambulance drivers, and hospital workers across the United States
bemoan the fact that many human tragedies could be averted or diminished if it weren’t
for communication gaps between those in need of emergency services (who frequently
do not speak English) and first responders who lack ready access to vital linguistic
translation.
Unfortunately the work of linguists is often overlooked when it comes to managing
linguistic diversity in this nation of immigrants. Taking full advantage of America’s
tremendous multilingual resources should not be neglected; by doing so we are truly
shortsighted. Sociolinguists can play an important role in building a national linguistic
infrastructure that can enhance our prospects for multilingual communication along with
our well-being.

Managing Language, from Lab to Label

Under some circumstances, such as the teaching of reading or foreign languages in
schools, linguistic management is explicit and controlled by a formal authority figure,
such as a teacher. Under other circumstances, such as when immigrants from the same
place cluster in the same neighborhood, language management may be an organic by-
product of circumstances that are not explicitly or externally controlled. Linguists who
study the forms of language management in schools, businesses and society at large
can explore these different facets of human language and linguistic interaction.
Linguists investigate their topic in a variety of ways, depending on the question at hand.
Theoretical linguists may be interested in varied cognitive and developmental questions
pertaining to the speed and accuracy with which children learn one or more languages,
whereas sociolinguists are likely to be concerned about the circumstances under which
people encounter the various languages that they either acquire or learn.
(Linguists make an essential distinction between natural language acquisition, which
takes place after birth without the aid for formal linguistic instruction, and language
learning, which typically results from formal language instruction; it does not result from
the same natural language acquisition processes that give rise to the first languages
that children adopt natively.)
Linguistic analyses can be qualitative or quantitative
Some language research lends itself to precise quantitative analyses that can often be
validated in controlled experiments. Other linguistic analyses are qualitative; a linguist
may observe and/or record the relevant evidence with little or no effort to control the
language behaviors under study.
These general methods of observation are used not only in linguistic inquiry, but
throughout the social sciences. However, when viewed in terms of their relevance to
real-world multilingual management, they take on a slightly different tenor. One can
easily imagine that corporations selling to international markets need to hire people who
have the linguistic and cultural knowledge to effectively communicate within the
organization while simultaneously possessing the skills to advance sales and
advertising in the desired foreign market. In many instances, a global corporation may
strive to develop a targeted advertising campaign that does not call undue attention to
the fact that the product in question is imported; this can only be done with skillful
linguistic management.
American consumers are familiar with this trend, as when products made in China or
Germany are marketed in the United States under labels that masquerade as home-
grown commodities. The inverse is also true; domestic U.S. products are given foreign
names to imply exotic origins. The controversy over whether it is permissible to label
any sparkling wine “champagne” if it doesn’t come from France’s Champagne region
further illustrates the significance of language management in the global marketplace.
Non-U.S. consumers are often treated to similar experiences when products developed
in the United States are repackaged to appeal to local consumers in distant lands. At
first blush, these kinds of business issues would seem to be the obvious province of
economists, executives or international bankers, but they demand acute linguistic
attention if they are going to succeed. Businesses that ignore the importance of
linguistic details are much less likely to win customers — and could make embarrassing
gaffes.

Linguistics: An Artful Science

Linguistic analyses can be used for everything from instruction to national security
International trade, diplomacy, tourism, education and many other endeavors demand
explicit linguistic attention. Linguists use a variety of procedures to explore these and
other language-related topics. Some studies are devoted to minute linguistic details,
such as pronunciation. Using controlled and natural recordings of the languages or
dialects, linguists can measure with precision how phrases, words, or particular sounds
(e.g. vowels, consonants, or diphthongs) are pronounced by speakers from different
groups. These analyses can be used for everything from instruction to national security,
because they can even alert experts to possible threats posed by speakers of
designated languages or dialects. Psychologists who study anger management often
benefit from sensitivity to linguistic circumstances — and the knowledge that what may
sound like an angry diatribe in one language may sound simply like aggravated speech
in another.
Some linguistic principles are sacrosanct, not disputed among reputable linguists, such
as the universality of syntax in human languages, or the developmental stages of
primary language acquisition by infants. Even so, professional proclivities and honest
differences of opinion have produced a broad array of methods that are more-or-less
well suited to studies of language management. What’s more, different lines of inquiry
look for answers that rest in different types of evidence. As a result, linguistics is
perpetually and intellectually, rather eclectic, with scholars differing in their methods and
opinions — occasionally in public, as when two linguists are expert witnesses in
opposite sides of a trial.
The ultimate test of the scientific validity of expert analyses depends, in large measure,
on having results that can be reproduced. However, precise replication is difficult (if not
impossible) under circumstances in which the critical evidence is beyond the control of
the researcher. Be that as it may, we can make every effort to recreate the conditions
under which scientific analyses are conducted, including times when language planning
and linguistic management are central.
Language planners are people who strive to engineer linguistic circumstances and chart
the future course of linguistic events. By contrast, those who seek to manage languages
may be less concerned with manipulating linguistic behavior — if they want to do it at
all. They are primarily interested in understanding the linguistic complexity of situations
or institutions that fall under their guidance or leadership.Multinational corporations,
diplomats, military leaders, and entrepreneurs who serve clients from diverse
backgrounds exemplify the vast array of social circumstances where effective language
planning and linguistic management are vital assets.
Many people harbor strong feelings about language and have corresponding ideologies
about how they use and speak their language, but linguists have to stay impartial. It falls
to us to provide precise accounts of how people use language day to day — and, in so
doing, to advance our knowledge of language use in all of humankind.

Suggested Reading/Additional Resources

Chaika, Elaine. Language: The Social Mirror. 3rd ed. Boston: Heinle & Heinle, 1994.
Coulmas, Florian, ed. The Handbook of Sociolinguistics. Oxford: Blackwell, 1997.
Macaulay, Ronald K. S. The Social Art: Language and Its Uses. New York: Oxford U.
Press, 1994.
 John Baugh joined Stanford University as Professor of Education and Linguistics in
1990. Prior to his tenure at Stanford, Dr. Baugh served as Associate Professor of
Linguistics and Foreign Language Education at the University of Texas at Austin and as
Assistant Professor of Linguistics, Black Studies, Sociology, and Anthropology at
Swarthmore College. Dr. Baugh has published extensively in the fields of Anthropology,
Education, Legal Affairs, Linguistics, Sociology and Urban Studies. His work bridges
theoretical and applied linguistics, with particular attention to matters of policy and social
equity in the fields of education, medicine, and the law. He has conducted extensive
research regarding the social stratification of linguistic diversity within the U.S., Austria,
Brazil, Hungary, South Africa, and the UK, and is actively engaged in ongoing research
that examines the evolution and dissemination of English and other European
languages in post-colonial contexts throughout the world. Dr. Baugh is a past president
of the American Dialect Society and a member of the usage advisory committee for the
American Heritage English Dictionary. He has also served as consultant on several
documentary films related to American language and as an expert witness in court
cases where matters of voice recognition and language attitudes have been central. Dr.
Baugh received his B.A. in Speech and Rhetoric at Temple University and his M.A. and
Ph.D. in Linguistics at the University of Pennsylvania. He currently sits on the Boards of
the Consortiuum of Social Science Associations, Eastside Prep, Raising a Reader, and
Project Pericles.

------------------------------------

From “Ukrainian language” in Wikipedia

Ukrainianization and tolerance

Following the Russian Revolution of 1917, the Russian Empire was broken up. In different parts
of the former empire, several nations, including Ukrainians, developed a renewed sense of
national identity. In the chaotic post-revolutionary years, Ukraine went through several short-
lived independent and quasi-independent states, and the Ukrainian language, for the first time in
modern history, gained usage in most government affairs. Initially, this trend continued under the
Bolshevik government of the Soviet Union, which in a political struggle with the old regime had
their own reasons to encourage the national movements of the former Russian Empire. While
trying to ascertain and consolidate its power, the Bolshevik government was by far more
concerned about many political oppositions connected to the pre-revolutionary order than about
the national movements inside the former empire.

The 1921 Soviet recruitment poster. It uses traditional Ukrainian imagery with Ukrainian-
language text: "Son! Enrol in the school of Red commanders, and the defence of Soviet Ukraine
will be ensured."

The widening use of Ukrainian further developed in the first years of Bolshevik rule into a policy
called Korenization. The government pursued a policy of Ukrainianization (Ukrayinizatsiya,
actively promoting the Ukrainian language), both in the government and among party personnel,
and an impressive education program which raised the literacy of the Ukrainophone rural areas.
This policy was led by Education Commissar Mykola Skrypnyk. Newly-generated academic
efforts from the period of independence were co-opted by the Bolshevik government. The party
and government apparatus was mostly Russian-speaking but were encouraged to learn the
Ukrainian language. Simultaneously, the newly-literate ethnic Ukrainians migrated to the cities,
which became rapidly largely Ukrainianized—in both population and in education.

The policy even reached those regions of southern Russian SFSR where the ethnic Ukrainian
population was significant, particularly the areas by the Don River and especially Kuban in the
North Caucasus. Ukrainian language teachers, just graduated from expanded institutions of
higher education in Soviet Ukraine, were dispatched to these regions to staff newly opened
Ukrainian schools or to teach Ukrainian as a second language in Russian schools. A string of
local Ukrainian-language publications were started and departments of Ukrainian studies were
opened in colleges. Overall, these policies were implemented in thirty-five raions
{administrative districts) in southern Russia.

[edit] Persecution and russification

Anti-russification protest. The banner reads “For Ukrainian children - Ukrainian school!”.

Soviet policy towards the Ukrainian language changed abruptly in late 1932 and early 1933,
when Stalin had already established his firm control over the party and, therefore, the Soviet
state. In December, 1932, the regional party cells received a telegram signed by Molotov and
Stalin with an order to immediately reverse the korenization policies. The telegram condemned
Ukrainianization as ill-considered and harmful and demanded to "immediately halt
Ukrainianization in raions (districts), switch all Ukrainianized newspapers, books and
publications into Russian and prepare by autumn of 1933 for the switching of schools and
instruction into Russian".

The following years were characterized by massive repression and many hardships for the
Ukrainian language and people. Some historians, especially of Ukraine, emphasize that the
repression was applied earlier and more fiercely in Ukraine than in other parts of the Soviet
Union, and were therefore anti-Ukrainian; others assert that Stalin's goal was the generic
crushing of any dissent, rather that targeting the Ukrainians in particular.

The Stalinist era also marked the beginning of the Soviet policy of encouraging Russian as the
language of (inter-ethnic) Soviet communication. Although Ukrainian continued to be used (in
print, education, radio and later television programs), it lost its primary place in advanced
learning and republic-wide media. Ukrainian was considered to be of secondary importance, and
an excessive attachment to it was considered a sign of nationalism and so "politically incorrect".
At the same time, however, the new Soviet Constitution adopted in 1936 stipulated that teaching
in schools should be in native languages.

The major repression started in 1929–30, when a large group of Ukrainian intelligentsia was
arrested and most were executed. In Ukrainian history, this group is often referred to as
"Executed Renaissance" (Ukrainian: розстріляне відродження). "Ukrainian bourgeois
nationalism" was declared to be the primary problem in Ukraine. The terror peaked in 1933, four
to five years before the Soviet-wide "Great Purge," which, for Ukraine, was a second blow. The
vast majority of leading scholars and cultural leaders of Ukraine were liquidated, as were the
"Ukrainianized" and "Ukrainianizing" portions of the Communist party. Soviet Ukraine's
autonomy was completely destroyed by the late 1930s. In its place, the glorification of Russia as
the first nation to throw off the capitalist yoke had begun, accompanied by the migration of
Russian workers into parts of Ukraine which were undergoing industrialization and mandatory
instruction of classic Russian language and literature. Ideologists warned of over-glorifying
Ukraine's Cossack past, and supported the closing of Ukrainian cultural institutions and literary
publications. The systematic assault upon Ukrainian identity in culture and education, combined
with effects of an artificial famine (Holodomor) upon the peasantry—the backbone of the nation
—dealt Ukrainian language and identity a crippling blow from which it would not completely
recover.

This policy succession was repeated in the Soviet occupation of Western Ukraine. In 1939, and
again in the late 1940s, a policy of Ukrainianization was implemented. By the early 1950s,
Ukrainian was persecuted and a campaign of Russification began.

[edit] The Khrushchev thaw

While Russian was a de facto official language of the Soviet Union in all but formal name, all
national languages were proclaimed equal. The name and denomination of Soviet banknotes
were listed in the languages of all fifteen Soviet republics. On this 1961 one-ruble note, the
Ukrainian for "one ruble", один карбованець (odyn karbovanets’), directly follows the Russian
один рубль (odin rubl’).

After the death of Stalin (1953), a general policy of relaxing the language policies of the past
was implemented (1958 to 1963). The Khrushchev era which followed saw a policy of relatively
lenient concessions to development of the languages on the local and republican level, though its
results in Ukraine did not go nearly as far as those of the Soviet policy of Ukrainianization in the
1920s. Journals and encyclopedic publications advanced in the Ukrainian language during the
Khrushchev era.

Yet, the 1958 school reform that allowed parents to choose the language of primary instruction
for their children, unpopular among the circles of the national intelligentsia in parts of the USSR,
meant that non-Russian languages would slowly give way to Russian in light of the pressures of
survival and advancement. The gains of the past, already largely reversed by the Stalin era, were
offset by the liberal attitude towards the requirement to study the local languages (the
requirement to study Russian remained). Parents were usually free to choose the language of
study of their children (except in few areas where attending the Ukrainian school might have
required a long daily commute) and they often chose Russian, which reinforced the resulting
Russification. In this sense, some analysts argue that it was not the "oppression" or
"persecution", but rather the lack of protection against the expansion of Russian language that
contributed to the relative decline of Ukrainian in 1970s and 1980s. According to this view, it
was inevitable that successful careers required a good command of Russian, while knowledge of
Ukrainian was not vital, so it was common for Ukrainian parents to send their children to
Russian-language schools, even though Ukrainian-language schools were usually available.
While in the Russian-language schools within the republic, the Ukrainian was supposed to be
learned as a second language at comparable level, the instruction of other subjects was in
Russian and, as a results, students upon graduation had a superior command in Russian than in
Ukrainian. Additionally, in some areas of the republic, the attitude towards teaching and learning
of Ukrainian in schools was relaxed and it was, sometimes, considered a subject of secondary
importance and even a waiver from studying it was sometimes given under various, ever
expanding, circumstances.

Soviet Union's order in general contributed greatly to the brain drain from the national republics,
particular to the two major cities of Russia: Moscow (a Soviet capital) and Leningrad. These
cities had the best-stocked stores, top theaters and museums, better financed scientific and
educational institutions and better exposure to whatever scarse international exchange of ideas.
Thus, moving there was usually advantegeous for the careers not just for politicians (as in free
countries), but also for artists, engineers, and scientists alike. All parts of the USSR have lost
many of their brightest to this brain drain, Ukraine is not alone in this, of course.

The complete suppression of all expressions of separatism or Ukrainian nationalism also

contributed to lessening interest toward Ukrainian. Some people who persistently used Ukrainian
on a daily basis were often perceived as though as they were expressing sympathy towards, or
even being members of, the political opposition. This, combined with advantages given by the
Russian fluency and usage, made Russian a primary language of choice for many Ukrainians,
while Ukrainian was more of a hobby. In any event, the mild liberalization in Ukraine and
elsewhere was stifled by new suppression of freedoms at the end of the Khrushchev era (1963)
when a policy of gradually creeping suppression of Ukrainian was re-instituted.

Later, the Soviet Ukrainian language policy was divided into two eras: first, the Shelest period
(early 1960s to early 1970s), which was relatively liberal towards the development of the
Ukrainian language. The second era, the policy of Shcherbytsky (early 1970s to early 1990s),
was one of gradual suppression of the Ukrainian language.

[edit] The Shelest period

The Communist Party leader Petro Shelest pursued a policy of defending Ukraine's interests
within the Soviet Union. He proudly promoted the beauty of the Ukrainian language and
developed plans to expand the role of Ukrainian in higher education. He was removed, however,
after only a brief reign, for being too lenient on Ukrainian nationalism.

[edit] The Shcherbytsky period

The new party boss, Shcherbytsky, purged the local party, was fierce in suppressing dissent, and
used the Russian language at official functions even at local levels. His policy of Russification
was lessened only slightly after 1985.
[edit] Gorbachev and perestroika

The management of dissent by the local Ukrainian Communist Party was more fierce and
thorough than in other parts of the Soviet Union. As a result, at the start of the Gorbachev
reforms, Ukraine under Shcherbytsky was slower to liberalize than Russia itself.

Although Ukrainian still remained the native language for the majority in the nation on the eve
of Ukrainian independence, a significant share of ethnic Ukrainians were Russified. The Russian
language was the dominant vehicle, not just of government function, but of the media,
commerce, and modernity itself. This was substantially less the case for western Ukraine, which
escaped the artificial famine, Great Purge, and most of Stalinism. And this region became the
piedmont of a hearty, if only partial renaissance of the Ukrainian language during independence

[edit] Independence in the modern era

Modern signs in the Kiev Metro are in Ukrainian. The evolution in their language followed the
changes in the language policies in post-war Ukraine. Originally, all signs and voice
announcements in the metro were in Ukrainian, but their language was changed to Russian in the
early 1980s, at the height of Shcherbytsky's gradual Russification. In the perestroika
liberalization of the late 1980s, the signs were changed to bilingual. This was accompanied by
bilingual voice announcements in the trains. In the early 1990s, both signs and voice
announcements were changed again from bilingual to Ukrainian-only during the
Ukrainianization campaign that followed Ukraine's independence.

Since 1991, independent Ukraine has made Ukrainian the only official state language and
implemented government policies to broaden the use of Ukrainian. The educational system in
Ukraine has been transformed over the first decade of independence from a system that is partly
Ukrainian to one that is overwhelmingly so. The government has also mandated a progressively
increased role for Ukrainian in the media and commerce. In some cases, the abrupt changing of
the language of instruction in institutions of secondary and higher education, led to the charges
of Ukrainianization, raised mostly by the Russian-speaking population. However, the transition
lacked most of the controversies that surrounded the de-russification in several of the other
former Soviet Republics.

With time, most residents, including ethnic Russians, people of mixed origin, and Russian-
speaking Ukrainians started to self-identify as Ukrainian nationals, even though remaining
largely Russophone. The state became truly bilingual as most of its population had already been.
The Russian language still dominates the print media in most of Ukraine and private radio and
TV broadcasting in the eastern, southern, and to a lesser degree central regions. The state-
controlled broadcast media became exclusively Ukrainian but that had little influence on the
audience because of their programs' low ratings. There are few obstacles to the usage of Russian
in commerce and it is de facto still occasionally used in the government affairs.
In the 2001 census, 67.5% of the country population named Ukrainian as their native language (a
2.8% increase from 1989), while 29.6% named Russian (a 3.2% decrease). It should be noted,
though, that for many Ukrainians (of various ethnic descent), the term native language may not
necessarily associate with the language they use more frequently. The overwhelming majority of
ethnic Ukrainians consider the Ukrainian language native, including those who often speak
Russian and Surzhyk (a blend of Russian vocabulary with Ukrainian grammar and
pronunciation). For example, according to the official 2001 census data [5] approximately 75% of
Kiev's population responded "Ukrainian" to the native language (ridna mova) census question,
and roughly 25% responded "Russian". On the other hand, when the question "What language do
you use in everyday life?" was asked in the sociological survey, the Kievans' answers were
distributed as follows [6]: "mostly Russian": 52%, "both Russian and Ukrainian in equal
measure": 32%, "mostly Ukrainian": 14%, "exclusively Ukrainian": 4.3%. Ethnic minorities,
such as Romanians, Tatars and Jews usually use Russian as their lingua franca. But there are
tendencies within minority groups to prefer Ukrainian in many situations. The Jewish writer
Aleksandr Abramovic Bejderman from the mainly Russian speaking city of Odessa is now
writing most of his dramas in Ukrainian language. Emotional relationship towards Ukrainian is
partly changing in Southern and Eastern areas, too.

Dialects of Ukrainian

Several modern dialects of Ukrainian exist [2], [3]:

 Northern (Polissian) dialects [4]:

o Eastern Polissian is spoken in Chernihiv (excluding the southeastern districts), in
the northern part of Sumy, and in the southeastern portion of the Kiev Oblast as
well as in the adjacent areas of Russia, which include the southwestern part of the
Bryansk Oblast (the area around Starodub), as well as in some places in the
Kursk, Voronezh and Belgorod Oblasts. [5]. No linguistic border can be defined.
The vocabulary approaches Russian as the language approaches the Russian
Federation. Both Ukrainian and Russian grammar sets can be applied to this
dialect. Thus, this dialect can be considered a transitional dialect between
Ukrainian and Russian. [6].
o Central Polissian is spoken in the northwestern part of the Kiev Oblast, in the
northern part of Zhytomyr and the northeastern part of the Rivne Oblast [7].
o West Polissian is spoken in the northern part of the Volyn Oblast, the
northwestern part of the Rivne Oblast as well as in the adjacent districts of the
Brest Voblast in Belarus. The dialect spoken in Belarus uses Belarusian grammar,
and thus is considered by some to be a dialect of Belarusian. [8]
 Southeastern dialects [9]:
o Middle Dnieprian is the basis of the Standard Literary Ukrainian. It is spoken in
the central part of Ukraine, primarily in the southern and eastern part of the Kiev
Oblast). In addition, the dialects spoken in Cherkasy, Poltava and Kiev regions
are considered to be close to "standard" Ukrainian.
o Slobodan dialect is spoken in Kharkiv, Sumy, Luhansk, and the northern part of
Donetsk, as well as in the Voronezh and Belgorod regions of Russia. [10]. This
dialect is formed from a gradual mixture of Russian and Ukrainian, with
progressively more Russian in the northern and eastern parts of the region. Thus,
there is no linguistic border between Russian and Ukrainian, and, thus, both
grammar sets can be applied. This dialect is a transistional dialect between
Ukrainian and Russian.[11]
o Steppe dialect is spoken in southern and southeastern Ukraine. This dialect was
originally the main language of the Zaporozhian Cossacks. [12].
 o Kuban (known locally as Balachka) is spoken in the Kuban region of Russia, by
the Kuban Cossacks, descendants of the original Zaporozhian host, which had
migrated here. This dialect features a predominant Russian vocabulary and
grammar. It varies greatly from one area to another. [13]
 Southwestern dialects [14]:
o Podillian is spoken in the southern parts of the Vinnytsia and Khmelnytskyi
Oblasts, in the northern part of the Odessa Oblast, and in the adjacent districts of
the Cherkasy Oblast, the Kirovohrad Oblast and the Mykolaiv Oblast. [15]
o Volynian is spoken in Rivne and Volyn, as well as in parts of Zhytomyr and
Ternopil. It is also used in Chelm in Poland.
o Pokuttia (Bukovynian) is spoken in the Chernivtsi Oblast of Ukraine. This dialect
has some distinct volcabulary borrowed from Romanian.
o Upper Dniestrian is considered to be the main Galician dialect, spoken in the
Lviv Ternopil and Ivano-Frankivsk Oblasts. Its distinguishing characteristics are
the influence of Polish and the German vocabulary, which is reminiscent of the
Austro-Hungarian rule. Some of the distinct words used in this dialect can be
found here [16]
o Upper Sannian is spoken in the border area between Ukraine and Poland in the
San river valley.

 The Rusyn language is considered by Ukrainian linguists to be a dialect of Ukrainian:

o Hutsul is spoken in the extreme southern parts of the Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast (as
well as in parts of the Chernivtsi and Transcarpathian Oblasts, and on the northern
slopes of the Carpathian Mountains.
o Boyko is spoken on the northern side of the Carpathian Mountains in the Lviv and
Ivano-Frankivsk Oblasts. It can also be heard across the border in the
Subcarpathian Voivodship of Poland
o Lemko is spoken outside Ukraine in the Prešov Region of Slovakia along the
southern side of the Carpathian Mountains.
o Dolinian Rusyn or Subcarpathian Rusyn is spoken in the Transcarpathian
Oblast.
o Pryashiv Rusyn is the Rusyn spoken in the Prešov (in Ukrainian: Pryashiv)
region of Slovakia, as well as by some émigré communities, primarily in the
United States of America.
o Bačka Rusyn is spoken in northwestern Serbia and eastern Croatia. Rusin
language of the Bačka dialect is one of the official languages of the Serbian
Autonomous Province of Vojvodina).

Ukrainian is also spoken by a large émigré population, particularly in Canada (see Canadian
Ukrainian), United States and several countries of South America like Argentina and Brazil.
The founders of this population primarily emigrated from Galicia, which used to be part of
Austro-Hungary before World War I, and belonged to Poland between the World Wars. The
language spoken by most of them is the Galician dialect of Ukrainian from the first half of the
twentieth century. Compared with modern Ukrainian, the vocabulary of Ukrainians outside
Ukraine reflects less influence of Russian, but often contains many loan words from the local
language.

[edit] Ukrainophone population

Ukrainian is spoken by approximately 36,894,000 people in the world. Most of the countries
where it is spoken are ex-USSR where many Ukrainians have migrated. Canada and the United
States are also home to a large Ukrainian population. Broken up by country (to the nearest
thousand):

1. Ukraine 31,058,000
2. Russia 4,363,000 (1,815,000 according to the 2002 census [17])
3. Kazakhstan 898,000
4. United States 844,000
5. Brazil 760,000
6. Moldova 600,000
7. Belarus 291,000
8. Canada 175,000 (probably a low estimate; there are 1,071,060 Canadians of Ukrainian
descent, 326,195 exclusively Ukrainian, according to StatsCanada [18] )
9. Uzbekistan 153,000
10. Poland 150,000
11. Kyrgyzstan 109,000
12. Argentina 120,000 [citation needed]
13. Latvia 78,000
14. Portugal 65,800
15. Romania 57,600
16. Slovakia 55,000
17. Georgia 52,000
18. Lithuania 45,000
19. Tajikistan 41,000
20. Turkmenistan 37,000
21. Australia 30,000
22. Azerbaijan 32,000
23. Paraguay 26,000
24. Estonia 21,000
25. Armenia 8,000
26. Hungary 4,900 (according to the 2001 census [19])
27. Serbia 3,000

(Source, unless specified: Ethnologue [20])

Ukrainian is the official language of Ukraine. The language is also one of three official
languages of the breakaway Moldovan republic of Transnistria (Source: The Constitution of
Transnistria, Article 12 [21]).

Ukraine is also co-official, alongside Romanian, in ten communes in Suceava County, Romania
(as well as Bistra in Maramureş County). In these localities, Ukrainians, who are an officially-
recognised ethnic minority in Romania, make up more than 20% of the population. Thus,
according to Romania's minority rights law, education, signage and access to public
administration and the justice system are provided in Ukrainian, alongside Romanian.[citation needed]

------------------------------------------

QUESTIONS FROM ARTICLES FOR SEMINARS

Sociolinguistics
Discussion questions for seminar one:
Answer questions at the end of chapters 1 and 3 in the book CAM.

Eble, Connie. Do you speak American? What is sociolinguistics? “Sociolinguistic basics,” from
the PBS special on sociolinguistics, MacNeil/Lehrer productions (2005).
http://www.pbs.org/speak/speech/sociolinguistics/sociolinguistics/ (accessed March 20, 2007)

1. What is Eble’s definition of a dialect?

2. What are some dialects found in the U.S?
3. What are some variations found in the U.S?
4. How does vocabulary vary by region?
5. How do people adjust the way the talk in social situations?
6. Why does contact matter in sociolinguistics?
7. What do you think about this article? Was it a useful article? Why? Why not?

Algeo, John. Language Change. Language Myth #21. “Americans are ruining English,” from the
PBS special on sociolinguistics, MacNeil/Lehrer productions (2005).
http://www.pbs.org/speak/ahead/change/ruining/ (accessed March 20, 2007)

1. How is America supposedly ruining English?

2. What is the history of American corruption of the English language?
3. How do some British scholars view American English?
4. What are some ways American and British English has changed?
5. Why does language change? How is change inevitable?
6. Do you think American and British English are two different languages or dialects?
7. Are Americans ruining English? What is your opinion?

***Crombie, William J, “Which comes first, language or thought? Babies think first.” Harvard
University Gazette (2004). http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/2004/07.22/21-think.html
(accessed March 20, 2007)

1. Which does the author say comes first, though or language?

2. How does the author say language affects our view of the world?
3. What does the author say about a baby’s distinction between categories?
4. What happens when the babies grow-up?
5. What does Paul Bloom say about a child’s sensitivity to distinctions?
6. What do you think this says about Chomsky’s ideas about universal grammar?
7. What do you think this says about Sapir-Whorf’s hypothesis about language and thought?
8. What do you think about Paul Bloom’s conclusions?

Wolfram, Walt. “Sociolinguistics.” Linguistic Society of America (2004)

http://www.lsadc.org/info/ling-fields-socio.cfm (accessed March 20, 2007)

1. How does Wolfram describe sociolinguistics?

2. What do sociolinguists investigate?
3. What sorts of investigations might a sociolinguist make?

Kottack, Conrad Phillip, Anthropology: the Exploration of Human Diversity, Ch. 21 “Language.”
McGraw Hill, Inc. 6th ed. (1994) pp. 426-431.
1. What are the four main structures of language used to analyze language?
2. What is Transformational-Generative Grammar?
3. What is the universal grammar?
4. What is competence?
 5. What is performance?
6. What is deep structure vs. surface structure?
7. What is the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis?
8. What are the main examples used to illustrate the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis?
9. What does the author say is the concern of sociolinguistics (pg 430)? What does he mean
by this?
10. What is linguistic relativity? (look at the glossary on pg 442)
11. What do you think about the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis? Do you agree or disagree? Why?
12. What do you think of Chomsky’s notions of transformational-generative grammar and
universal grammar? Do you agree or disagree with his ideas? Why?

Wardhaugh, Ronald, An Introduction to Sociolinguistics. Ch. 6 “Regional and Social Variation.”

Cambridge, MA: Blackwell, 3rd ed. (1992) pp 131-148.
1. What is a regional dialect?
2. What is dialect geography?
3. What is an isogloss?
4. What is a linguistic variable?
5. What is a social dialect?
6. How does social dialect relate to social class?
7. Do you see any of this in your own society? What are some examples?
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sociolinguistics
Discussion Questions for Seminar Two:

 Answer the questions at the end of SAM chapters 2, 4, 5, and 6.

 Tannen, Deborah. “New York Style. It’s Not What You Say, It’s the Way That You Say
It,” from the PBS special on sociolinguistics, MacNeil/Lehrer productions (2005).
http://www.pbs.org/speak/seatosea/americanvarieties/newyorkcity/ (accessed 3/27/2007)

1. Why do New Yorkers like to talk?

2. Why do New Yorkers like to complain?
3. How do New Yorkers ask questions?
4. Why do New Yorkers interrupt in a conversation?
5. How is the way a New Yorker talks different or similar to YOUR culture’s way of
speaking?

 Varfolomeyev, Oleg. “Inconsistent language policy creates problems in Ukraine.” from

the Jamestown Foundation website. http://www.jamestown.org/publications_details.php?
volume_id=414&issue_id=3737&article_id=2371110 (accessed 3/27/2007)

1. Why does the PRU want regional-language status for Russian?

2. What has been the Ukrainian government’s response? Why do they say regional-
language status for Russian is a “threat to national security”?
3. The Justice Ministry was instructed to come up with amendments to language laws
and regulations in order to toughen penalties for violations, why?
4. What does the author say is the source of the language problem in Ukraine?
5. What do you think is the solution to the language problem in Ukraine?

 Sterling, Polly. “Identity in Language: An Exploration into the Social Implications of

Linguistic Variation.” TAMU press (2000)
www.tamu.edu/chr/agora/winter00/sterling.pdf (accessed 3/27/2007)
 1. How is language used in society?
2. How do we show solidarity in language?
3. How do we show power in language?
4. How does a speaker construct his/her identity?
5. Why is this story of Emmett Till important for the study of sociolinguistics?
6. What does Sterling say about language standardization? What does she say about
Standard American English?
7. What happened to James Kahakua?
8. What was one of the linguistic causes of the war of 1812?

 Johnson, Paul. “We are the world. Not Everyone is Thrilled.” Forbes Magazine.
Wednesday, May 24, 2006.
http://www.forbes.com/columnists/free_forbes/2004/1129/039.html (accessed 3/27/2007)

1. Why do people in France want to keep French free from English words?
2. What has France done to preserve the French language?
3. Why does the author say legislation against English will not work in France?

 Kottack, Conrad Phillip, “In the News: Using Modern Technology to Preserve Linguistic
Diversity.” From Anthropology: the Exploration of Human Diversity, Ch. 21 “Language.”
McGraw Hill, Inc. 6th ed. (1994) pp. 438-439.

1. Why are world languages in danger of being lost?

2. What are some anthropologists doing to preserve these languages?
3. How is bilingualism a sensitive political issue, according to the author?

 The International Association for the Promotion of Co-operation with

Scientists from the New Independent States (NIS) of the Former Soviet Union, “INTAS
Project: Language Policy in Ukraine.” University of Vienna website.
http://forschung.univie.ac.at/en/portal/aktuelles/sprachenpolitik/ (accessed 3/27/2007)

1. What are the aims of the INTAS project?

2. Is this a sociolinguistics project?
3. Does this look like a well-designed project or not?
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Sociolinguistics
Discussion Questions for Seminar Three:

Baron, Dennis. “Language In Its Social Setting” from the PBS special on sociolinguistics,
MacNeil/Lehrer productions (2005).
1. How does language express group identity?
2. What are some of the social issues facing AAVE?
3. What are some of the gender issues in the English language?
4. Explain what has happened with the title “Ms”.
5. How has the United States responded to different languages and dialects?

Preston, Dennis R. “They speak really bad English down South and in New York City” from the
PBS special on sociolinguistics, MacNeil/Lehrer productions (2005).
1. What is the linguistic myth the author is talking about?
2. What two dialects do people consider bad English?
3. What is one dialect considered good English?
 4. What are some of the things people say about Southern English? How do Southerners
view their dialect?
5. What are some of the things people say about New York City English?

Kottack, Conrad Phillip, Anthropology: the Exploration of Human Diversity, Ch. 21 “Language:
Black English Vernacular” McGraw Hill, Inc. 6th ed. (1994) pp. 434-435.
1. What is BEV/AAVE?
2. What are some of the differences between BEV/AAVE and Standard English (SE)?
3. What conclusions does the author make about BEV/AAVE?

Linguistic Society of America. “Resolution on the Oakland ‘Ebonics’ Issue Unanimously

Adopted at the Annual Meeting of the Linguistic Society of America, Chicago, Illinois, January
3, 1997.”
1. What does the Linguistic Society of America (LSA) say about the rules in AAVE?
2. What does the LSA say about AAVE and schools?

“New York Dialect” entry from Wikipedia.

1. Who speaks the classic New York dialect?
2. How was the New York dialect formed?
3. What is interesting about Jewish-Americans who speak with a New York accent?
4. How do New Yorker’s phrase indirect questions?
5. What are some of the pronunciation patterns for the New York dialect?

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

HANDOUTS

Lecture 1. Definitions, Chomsky and Sapir-Whorf

Descriptive terms for language:
5. Phonology—the study of a language’s sounds (phonemes)
6. Morphology—the study of a language’s forms and morphemes. (For example, cats would be described as
containing two morphemes. Cat, the name for a kind of animal and –s a morpheme indicating plurality.)
7. Lexicon—the study of the words of a language and their meanings.
8. Syntax/Grammar—the study of the arrangement and order of words in phrases and sentences.

As Chomsky says,
Linguistic theory is concerned primarily with an ideal speaker-listener, in a completely
homogenous speech-community, who knows its language perfectly…To study actual linguistic
performance, we must consider the interaction of a variety of factors, of which the underlying
competence of the speaker-hearer is only one.

As Sapir says,
Human beings do not live in the objective world alone, nor alone in the world of social activity as
ordinarily understood, but are very much at the mercy of the particular language which has
become the medium of expression for their society. It is quite an illusion to imagine that one
adjusts to reality essentially without the use of language and that language is merely an incidental
means of solving specific problems of communication or reflection. The fact of the matter is that
the 'real world' is to a large extent unconsciously built upon the language habits of the group. No
two languages are ever sufficiently similar to be considered as representing the same social reality.
The worlds in which different societies live are distinct worlds, not merely the same world with
different labels attached... We see and hear and otherwise experience very largely as we do
 because the language habits of our community predispose certain choices of interpretation. (Sapir,
1958 [1929], p. 69)

And Whorf,
We dissect nature along lines laid down by our native languages. The categories and types that we
isolate from the world of phenomena we do not find there because they stare every observer in the
face; on the contrary, the world is presented in a kaleidoscopic flux of impressions which has to be
organized by our minds—and this means largely by the linguistic systems in our minds. We cut
nature up, organize it into concepts, and ascribe significances as we do, largely because we are
parties to an agreement to organize it in this way - an agreement that holds throughout our speech
community and is codified in the patterns of our language. The agreement is, of course, an implicit
and un-stated one, but its terms are absolutely obligatory; we cannot talk at all except by
subscribing to the organization and classification of data which the agreement decrees. (Whorf,
1940, pp. 213–14)

CULTURE
3. The arts, customs, and habits that characterize a particular society or nation.
4. The beliefs, values, behavior and material objects that constitute a people's way of life.

SOCIETY
People in general living together in organized communities, with laws and traditions controlling the way they
behave towards one another.

LANGUAGE
Language is a code with a set of consciously and unconsciously known rules about sounds, words, syntax and
grammar used to communicate between people that is culturally/socially influenced OR influences our
culture/society OR both.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Lecture 2. Linguistic Variation

SOCIOLINGUISTIC VARIATION is the study of the way language varies and changes in communities of
speakers and concentrates in particular on the interaction of:
 Social factors (such as a speaker's gender, ethnicity, age, degree of integration into their
community, etc)
 Linguistic structures (such as sounds, grammatical forms, intonation features, words,
etc).
LANGUAGE
A language, as a category, is the larger linguistic family that can contain several dialects and can be considered the
standard form of the language.

SEVEN CATEGORIES OF LANGUAGE

8. Standardization: A language that has been standardized.

9. Vitality: Whether a language is alive or dead.
10. Historicity: A language that has a long historical bond with its speakers.
11. Autonomy: A language must be felt by its speakers to be different from other languages.
12. Reduction: Reduction is when the speakers of a particular variety of a language regard it
as a sub-variety or a dialect.
13. Mixture: Mixture refers to how “mixed” [that is mixed with another language or dialect]
the speakers of a language feel it has become.
14. Norms: Norms refers to the feeling that many speakers have that there are both good
speakers and poor speakers, and that the good speakers represent the norms of proper
usage.
DIALECT
A way of speaking a language that is used only in a particular area or by a particular group and
characterized by systemic features, such as phonology (accent), Morphology (word shape),
lexicon (words), or grammar (sentence structure), that distinguishes it from other varieties of the
same language.

REGIONAL DIALECTS
A Regional dialect is a linguistic variation based upon membership in a long-standing regionally isolated group.

SOCIAL DIALECT
A social dialect is a linguistic variation based upon membership in a long-standing socially isolated group.

IDIOLECT
The speech of any individual speaker is called his idiolect.

LINGUISTIC VARIABLE
A variable is a linguistic item that has identifiable variants. When a certain way of saying
something becomes a set way of expressing it, phonetically, grammatically, or with expressions,
etc, it is called a linguistic variable. The different ways a linguistic variable is expressed are
called variants.

SPEECH COMMUNITY
All the people you talk to everyday that use your language and dialect.

---------------------------------------------------------
Lecture 3. When languages collide
CODE: When two or more people communicate with each other in speech we can call that
system of communication they employ a code. When two speakers are multilingual, that is
they speak two or more languages, then they have access to two or more codes. If they
switch between those codes we call that code-switching.

MULTILINGUALISM: Multilingualism is the ability to speak several different languages well.

Notice this definition does not require you to be fluent.

SPEECH COMMUNITY: All the people that you talk to everyday who use your language and dialect
and now we can add: people who you talk to everyday you who use your language and dialect or
languages and dialects.

VERBAL REPERTOIRE: The total range of linguistic resources a person has at his disposal is
called a verbal repertoire. This could be another language, or it could be a regional or
social dialect.

CODE-MIXING: The mixing of two distinct languages or codes in a sentence.

PIDGIN: a language made up of two or more languages, used as a way of communicating by people
whose first languages are different from each other.
The requirements of a Pidgin are:
5. The language is specially constructed by its users to suit the needs of its users. So if it is for
trading in cattle, there will be few words for discussing anything else, like the weather, or
vegetables, or your favorite painter.
6. It should be as simple and easy to learn as possible.
7. The vocabulary is usually based on the vocabulary of the dominant group—wherever people are
speaking the pidgin.
 8. It is a compromise language between the language of one group and the other in some way,
whether its grammar from one vocabulary from the other, or a mix of both of these.

CREOLE: A language that is a mixture of two or more other languages and is spoken as the first
language of a people.

Gullah verb tenses:

Uh h'ep dem -- "I help them/I helped them" (Present/Past Tense)
Uh bin he'p dem -- "I helped them" (Past Tense)
Uh gwine he'p dem -- "I will help them" (Future Tense)
Uh done he'p dem -- "I have helped them" (Perfect Tense)
Uh duh he'p dem -- "I am helping them" (Present Progressive)
Uh binnuh he'p dem -- "I was helping them" (Past Progressive)

LANGUAGE PLANNING: a deliberate, systematic, and theory-based attempt to solve the

communication problems of a community by studying the various languages or dialects it uses, and
developing a policy concerning their selection and use; also sometimes called language engineering or
language treatment. Corpus (‘body’ of the language) planning deals with norm selection and codification,
as in the writing or grammars and the standardization of spelling; status planning deals with initial choice
of language, including attitudes toward alternative languages and the political implications of various
choices.
-------------------------------------------------------------------

Lecture 4. The relationship between language and society, part 1. Speech as social
interaction, social identity and solidarity
Social interaction
All aspects of communicative behavior through which people influence and react to each other. Examples
are speech and body language.

Speech acts
The theory of speech acts aims to do justice to the fact that even though words (phrases and sentences)
encode information people do more things with words than convey information, and when people do
convey information, they often convey more than their words encode. The words in a speech act are
called the utterance. The actions of the speech are called the performance. Almost any speech act is
really the performance of several acts at once, distinguished by the speaker’s intentions. Austin calls
these:

Performance
 Locutionary act: This is the act of saying the words.
 Illocutionary act: What one does in saying the words.
 Perlocutionary act: What one does by saying the words, or how the words affect the audience or
are intended to affect the audience.

In general speech acts are acts of communication. To communicate is to express a certain attitude, and the
type of speech act being performed corresponds to the type of attitude being expressed. For example, a
statement expresses a belief, a request expresses desire, and an apology expresses regret.

A speech act succeeds if the audience identifies, in accordance with the speaker’s intentions, the attitude,
meaning, and action being expressed. It fails if someone does not understand the whole attitude, meaning,
and action of the sentence.

For example, pretend you are in a cold room and you say to your friend: “It’s getting cold in here.”
 Locutionary act: you, saying the words “It’s getting cold in here.”
 Illocutionary act: Notifying your friend that the temperature is dropping and that you have
noticed it.
  Prelocutionary act: Making the suggestion that someone should close the window.

The norms governing speech

6. Norms governing what you can talk about.
7. Norms governing non-verbal communication.
8. Norms governing the quantity of speech produced (how much you can talk).
9. Norms governing the number of people who talk at once (one person at a time?).
10. Norms governing the number of interruptions.

Taboo:/ B tbu / noun [count] something that people in a given society or culture do not do or talk about
because it is very offensive or shocking

Face-work
“Face” in this theory means something like self-respect or dignity.

Power: Power is not easy to define. In most cases it is the ability to influence or control what people do
or think, or the ability to achieve something or make something happen—for yourself or someone else. In
social interactions, power can be equal or it can be unequal. A father usually has more power than his son.
A boss has more power than an employee, etc. You have the power to do and say what you want
according to the norms of your society and your status within that society.
Solidarity: Not surprisingly solidarity is also difficult to define, but it at its essence it concerns the social
distance between people—that is how much experience people have shared; how many social interactions
people have had; how many social characteristics people share (for example a shared religion, social
class, sex, age, region of origin, race, occupation, interest etc); and how close to each other people are
willing to get. The best way to think about this, in my mind is to view it simply as a “we are in this
together,” relationship.

Solidarity-face and Solidarity-politeness:

Solidarity face is the kind of respect we show someone for who they are. We give them social
approval and acceptance of their values and behavior.
We can say it more clearly as: I respect you for…
In showing solidarity-politeness we use intimate forms of address such as, mate, love, darling, etc.

Power-face and Power politeness:

Power-face shows respect for the person’s right to do and be as they are. We give them the go ahead to do
what they want to do.

We can say it more clearly as: I respect your right to…

In showing power-politeness we use forms of speech such as, Mr., Mrs, please, sir, etc.
Greetings and Goodbyes
Every language has some range of ways to greet a person and say goodbye. Linguists call these:

Entry = greeting

Exit = Farewell

The linguist Irving Goffman believes that whenever you meet and have a social interaction with a person
your “face” may be affected by the meeting and your level of solidarity or power may change.

Greetings: He suggests the reason for a greeting is that it is needed to show that the relationship which
existed at the end of the last time you met is the same and unchanged, despite the separation.
 Farewells: The reason for a farewell is to sum-up the effect of the time two people have spent together so
that they know what to expect the next time they meet.

This is why saying hello and goodbye are so important in every society. Without a greeting and a farewell
you do not know where you stand socially with the person you are about to speak with and with the
person you are about to say goodbye to.
-------------------------------------------------------

Lecture 5: The relationship between language and society, part 2: interesting variations in
the English language and what they mean

Today we will be talking about:

 Class and social dialects
 Common variations: G-dropping, H-dropping, R-based variations.
Class based social dialects: Cockney and R-less New York
 Ethnic based social dialect: African American Vernacular English.
 Slang

SOCIAL DIALECT: A social dialect is a linguistic variation based upon membership in

a long-standing socially isolated group.

LINGUISTIC VARIABLE: A variable is a linguistic item that has identifiable variants. When a
certain way of saying something becomes a set way of expressing it, phonetically, grammatically,
or with expressions, etc, it is called a linguistic variable. The different ways a linguistic variable
is expressed are called variants.

VARIABLES:
G-dropping: G-dropping is when the final “ng” sound of a word ending in –ing is NOT
pronounced.
H-dropping or underlying /h/: H-dropping is when the “h” sound in words is not voiced.
Rhoticity: Rhoticity is when the “r” sound in English is fully pronounced.
R-lessness (“R-dropping”): R-lessness is not completely pronouncing the “r” sound in some
words.
Intrusive R: Intrusive “r”—is inserting an “r” sound in the pronunciation of a word where there
is no “r” in the standard spelling of the word.
African American Vernacular English, or Black English Vernacular, or Ebonics as it is sometimes
called, or its older and derogatory name, “jive.” We will refer to it simply as AAVE.

AAVE aspectual system

Example Name SE Meaning / Notes
He workin'. Simple progressive He is working [right now].
Habitual/continuative
He be workin'. He works frequently or habitually. Better illustrated with "He be workin' Tuesdays all month."
aspect
He be steady Intensified
He is always working.
workin'. continuative
He been workin'. Perfect progressive He has been working.
He been had that Remote phase (see
He has had that job for a long time and still has it.
job. below)
 He has worked. Syntactically, "He worked" is valid, but "done" is used to emphasize the
He done worked. Emphasized perfective
completed nature of the action.[8]
He's about to go to work. Finna is a contraction of "fixing to"; though is also believed to show
residual influence of late 16th century archaism "would fain (to)", that persisted until later in
He finna go to
Immediate future some rural dialects spoken in the Carolinas (near the Gullah region). "Fittin' to" is commonly
work.
thought to be another form of the original "fixin' (fixing) to", and it is also heard as fitna, fidna,
fixna, and finsta.[9]

Slang: words or expressions that are very informal and are not considered suitable for more
formal situations. Some slang is used only by a particular group of people.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Lecture 6: The relationship between language and society, part 3: sexism, racism
and linguistic inequality.
Our topics:
Subjective inequality: AAVE.
Strictly linguistic inequality: ESL speakers and technical language.
Communicative inequality: Speech norms and register.

Subjective inequality: subjective inequality is judging a person’s character, ability, and intelligence
based on their speech—think intelligence and character.

Strictly linguistic inequality: strictly linguistic inequality relates to the judgment of a person based on
the quantity of linguistic items a person knows, that is how much “knowledge” a person has about the
language they are using—think how many words.

Communicative inequality: Communicative inequality is judgment based on a person’s ability to use the
language in social situations/interactions—think speech norms.

AAVE:Perhaps the best example of subjective inequality is African American Vernacular English.
African-American Vernacular English (AAVE) is a dialect used by many African Americans,
particularly those from working-class or inner-city areas. It is variously called Black English, Black
Vernacular English, Ebonics, and in a durogatory way, “jive”. We will call it AAVE the abbreviation
of African-American Vernacular English. It clearly differs from other varieties of English in its
vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation, but simply attaching it to one population group
oversimplifies a complex situation.

Gender-neutral English.
Gender biased: "Tomorrow I will meet my new doctor; I hope he is friendly."

Alternatives:

 "Tomorrow I will meet my new doctor, who I hope is friendly."

 "Tomorrow I will meet my new doctor; I hope the doctor is friendly."
 "Tomorrow I will meet my new doctor; I hope he or she is friendly."

Gender neutral words: “human being," "person," "individual,” "businessperson."

Or collectively: "men and women," "he or she," "he/she," "(s)he."
In general, people are concerned about a number of issues:
 Use of exclusively gender-specific pronouns like "he" and "she." While English first person
pronouns("I"/"we"), second person ("you"), and third person plural ("they") are gender-neutral.
 Use of "man" to refer to all people. (e.g., "mankind.")
 Use of gender-specific job titles.
  Use of "Miss" and "Mrs." (see "Ms.")
 Non-parallel usage, such as "man and wife."
 Stereotypical words such as "virile" and "ladylike."
 Words with stereotypical derivations such as "hysterical."
 That the word "woman" appears to include the word "man," as though "man" were the default or
normal form.
--------------------------------------------------------

ADDITIONAL MATERIALS

Dialect Map of American English

Click on the map for a larger version

Not all people who speak a language speak it the same way. A language can be subdivided into
any number of dialects which each vary in some way from the parent language. The term,
accent, is often incorrectly used in its place, but an accent refers only to the way words are
pronounced, while a dialect has its own grammar, vocabulary, syntax, and common expressions
as well as pronunciation rules that make it unique from other dialects of the same language.
Another term, idiolect, refers to the manner of speaking of an individual person. No two people's
idiolects are exactly the same, but people who are part of the same group will have enough
verbal elements in common to be said to be speaking the same dialect.

Three things are needed for a new dialect to develop: a group of people living in close proximity
to each other; this group living in isolation (either geographically or socially) from other groups;
and the passage of time. Given enough time, a dialect may evolve to the point that it becomes a
different language from the one it started as. English began existence as a Germanic dialect
called Anglo Saxon that was brought to England by invaders from Germany. The Anglo Saxon
peoples in England were now geographically isolated from their cousins in Germany which
allowed the dialects to evolve in different directions. Other invaders would also influence the
development of English with their languages until the modern English we speak today has
become so different from the modern German spoken in Germany that a speaker of one cannot
understand a speaker of the other. Thus English and German are considered to be two different,
though related, languages. The other modern languages in this family are Dutch, Swedish,
Danish, Norwegian, and Icelandic.
This issue of mutual understandability is what in theory is used to determine what is a dialect
and what is a language, but in reality there are social and political issues involved too. The
government of a country might declare that all the languages spoken in that country are actually
dialects of one language in order to create the illusion of polital unity, while the government of
another country might declare that the dialect spoken by its people is actually a unique language
from other countries that speak dialects of the same language in order to create a sense of
national pride. History is full of governments that have tried to impose a single language on all
of its people with varying results: sometimes the minority languages go entirely extinct,
sometimes they are reduced to surviving only as dialects of the majority language, and
sometimes new languages are unintentionally created by a blending of the two languages.

This brings us to three other language terms that are worth mentioning here. When two or more
groups of people who speak different languages need to communicate with each other on a
regular basis and do not want to actually learn each others' language (such as when the European
merchants started trading with other peoples around the world), they may develop what is called
a pidgin language. This is a simplified language that usually has as few words as possible in its
vocabulary (taking some from both languages) and has been stripped of any fancier grammatical
rules like the use of multiple verb conjugations and tenses - a kind of "Me Tarzan, you Jane" way
of talking. A pidgin is nobody's native language and is used only in business settings. In fact, the
word "pidgin" may be derived from the way Chinese merchants mispronounced the English
word "business." However, in some cases, the children in one of these areas might grow up
learning the pidgin as their first language. When this happens, the pidgin can grow in complexity
into a creole language with a larger set of grammatical rules and a much larger vocabulary that
share elements of all the languages that went into creating it.

Finally, jargon is a specialized vocabulary used by people within a particular discipline such as
medical jargon for doctors, legal jargon for lawyers, or academic jargon for college professors.
While jargon words occasionally filter up into a mainstream dialect, they are usually used only
by experts and only when they are discussing their particular field. Critics argue, with some
justification, that jargon needlessly complicates a statement that could be expressed in a more
clear manner. Users of it argue, also with justification, that it is a more precise manner of
speaking, although many examples can be found (especially in politics and business) where it
has been used intentionally to obscure the fact that the speaker is trying to avoid being precise.

The modern development of communications technology may possibly slow down the evolution
of dialects and languages. For the first time in history, a single dialect (sometimes called
Network Standard) can be broadcast over an entire country, so very few people are actually
living in geographic isolation anymore. However, the existence of racism, poverty, and class
distinctions cause some groups to remain socially isolated from the mainstream of a culture,
giving rise to social dialects like Black English (Ebonics) spoken by some African Americans in
urban areas. There was recently a great deal of political controversy (ignoring the linguistic
facts) over whether Ebonics should be considered a unique language, a "legitimate" dialect of
English, or "illegimate" gutterspeak. Also, teenagers enjoy creating their own dialects that they
can use to quickly determine who is or is not part of the "in crowd" and as a "secret language" in
front of their parents. These dialects tend to go in and out of fashion very quickly; by the time an
expression has filtered up to the mainstream dialect adults understand, the teenagers have moved
on to something else. Even the Internet has given birth to what might be called a new social
dialect (derived from hacker jargon) containing words like IMHO, IIRC, and ROTFLMAO.

Contrary to what your teachers probably tried to tell you, there is no such thing as "correct
English." Any manner of speaking that is following the rules of a dialect is equally "correct."
Words like ain't are "real" words in some dialects and perfectly acceptable to use. However,
people are judged by the way they speak, and dialects carry different levels of social prestige
with them based on the prejudices within a society. Generally, the southern dialects of American
English carry a lower prestige, at least among northerners who will assume that a person
speaking a southern dialect is less intelligent and less educated than they are. Some educated
southerners even feel this way and will "correct" their speech to meet northern standards. The
New York City dialect carries the lowest prestige of all (Received Standard, a dialect of British
English used by the BBC and the royal family, carries the highest prestige - even among
Americans). For this reason, schools try to rid children of the local dialects they learned from
their family and friends in favor of a more prestigious one. (Of course, some sentences like, "Me
are a educated person," would be incorrect in every dialect.)

American dialects come in many flavors. The map and list below show the major (and a few
minor) geographic dialects and subdialects of English spoken in the United States. Many of these
may be further subdivided into local subdialects that are not shown here. Obviously, the borders
between dialect regions are not well defined lines, as a map like this would imply, but a gradual
transition extending on both sides of the line. Also, as we enter the 21st century, many of the
features described below have become much less prevalent than they were during the first half of
the 20th century.

Click on the map for a larger version

General Northern (green, yellow, and blue)

This is sometimes also refered to as General American and is used in almost two-thirds of the
country. It breaks down into the dialect regions below.
Northern
New England
Many of the Northern dialects can trace their roots to this dialect which was spread
westward by the New England settlers as they migrated west. It carries a high prestige
due to Boston's early economic and cultural importance and the presence of Harvard
University. A famous speaker is Katherine Hepburn. They sometimes call doughnuts
cymbals, simballs, and boil cakes.
New England, Eastern (1)
This is one of the most distinctive of all the American dialects. R's are often dropped, but
an extra R is added to words that end with a vowel. A is pronounced AH so that we get
"Pahk the cah in Hahvahd yahd" and "Pepperidge Fahm remembuhs."
Boston Urban (2)
Like many big cities, Boston has its own dialects that are governed more by social factors
like class and ethnicity than by geographic location. Greater Boston Area is the most
widely spoken and is very similar to Eastern New England. Brahmin is spoken by the
upper aristocratic class like Mr. Howell on Gilligan's Island. Central City Area is what
most of us think of as being the "Boston Accent." In the last few years, Saturday Night
Live has featured this dialect among a group of rowdy teenagers who like to videotape
themselves. Also think of Cliff on Cheers, the only character on this Boston-based show
to actually speak a Boston dialect.
New England, Western (3)
Less distinctive than Eastern, but more influential on the other Northern dialects.
Hudson Valley (4)
New York was originally a Dutch colony, and that language influenced this dialect's
development. Some original Hudson Valley words are stoop (small porch) and teeter-
totter. They call doughnuts (which were invented by the Dutch) crullers and olycooks.
New York City (5)
Unlike Boston and other urban dialects, New York City stands by itself and bears little
resemblence to the other dialects in this region. It is also the most disliked and parodied
of any American dialect (even among New Yorkers), possibly because many Americans
tend dislike large cities. When an R comes after a vowel, it is often dropped. IR becomes
OI, but OI becomes IR, and TH becomes D as in "Dey sell tirlets on doity-doid street"
and fugedaboudit (forget about it). This pronounciation is particularly associated with
Brooklyn but exists to some extent throughout the city. The thickness of a speaker's
dialect is directly related to their social class, but these features have been fading within
all classes over recent decades. Famous speakers are Rosie Perez, Joe Pesci and Marisa
Tomei in My Cousin Vinnie, Archie Bunker, Bugs Bunny, and (if you're old enough to
remember) the Bowery Boys.
Bonac (6)
Named for Accabonac Creek in eastern Long Island, this dialect is rapidly dying out due
to the influx of people from other areas. Back when New York City belonged to the
Dutch, this area was part of New England, and Bonac shows elements of both dialects.
Inland Northern (7)
Combines elements of Western New England and Upper Midwestern. Marry, merry, and
Mary are pronounced the same. They call doughnuts friedcakes.
San Francisco Urban (8)
Unlike the rest of California, which in the early twentieth century saw an influx of people
from the South and other parts of the West, San Francisco continued to be settled by
people from the Northeast and Northern Midwest, and elements of their dialects (North
Midland, Upper Midwestern, Inland Northern) can be found. Mission dialect, spoken by
Irish Catholics in a specific part of the city is very much like the New York City dialect.
Upper Midwestern (9)
Originally settled by people from New England and New York State who brought those
dialects, this area was also influenced by Southerners coming up the Mississippi River as
well as the speech patterns of the German and Scandinavian immigrants and the
Canadian English dialects from over the border. It's sometimes referred to as a
"Midwestern twang." They call jelly doughnuts bismarks. Minnewegian (Minnesota /
Norwegian), a subdialect spoken in the northernmost part of this region was spoofed in
the movies Fargo and Drop Dead Gorgeous.
Chicago Urban (10)
Influenced by the Midland and Southern dialects. Often spoken by the late John Belushi
(Chicago's Second City comedy theater supplied many Saturday Night Live actors). SNL
used to spoof it in the "Da Bears, Da Bulls" sketches. They call any sweet roll doughnuts.
North Midland (11)
Created as the people in Pennsylvania migrated westward and influenced by Scotch-Irish,
German, and English Quaker settlers. This and the South Midland dialect can actually be
considered a separate Midland Dialect region that serves as a transition zone between the
north and south. They call doughnuts belly sinkers, doorknobs, dunkers, and fatcakes.
Pennsylvania German-English (12)
This was strongly influenced by Pennsylvania Dutch, a dialect of German spoken by
people in this area (in this context, "Dutch" is actually a mispronunciation of the German
word, "Deutsch," which means "German"). Its grammar allows sentences like "Smear
your sister with jam on a slice of bread" and "Throw your father out the window his hat."
They call doughnuts fasnacht, and they also invented dunking - from the German
"dunken" (to dip).
Western
Compared with the Eastern United States, the Western regions were settled too recently
for very distinctive dialects to have time to develop or to be studied in detail. Many
words originally came from Spanish, cowboy jargon, and even some from the languages
of the Native Americans: adobe, beer bust, belly up, boneyard, bronco, buckaroo,
bunkhouse, cahoots, corral, greenhorn, hightail, hoosegow, lasso, mustang, maverick,
roundup, wingding.
Rocky Mountain (13)
Originally developed from the North Midland and Northern dialects, but was then
influenced by the Mormon settlers in Utah and English coal miners who settled in
Wyoming. Some words that came from this dialect are kick off (to die), cache (hiding
place), and bushed (tired). They also call jelly doughnuts bismarks.
Pacific Northwest (14)
Influenced by settlers from the Midwest and New England as well as immigrants from
England, Germany, Scandinavia, and Canada. Much earlier, a pidgin called Chinook
Jargon was developed between the languages of the Native American tribes of this area.
It would later also be used and influenced by the European settlers who wished to
communicate with them. A few words from Chinook Jargon like high muckamuck
(important person) are still used in this dialect today. (Note that, in this case, the word
"jargon" has a different meaning from the one discussed above)
Alaska (not shown)
Developed out of the Northern, Midland, and Western dialects. Also influenced by the
native languages of the Alutes, Innuit, and Chinook Jargon. Some words that originated
here are: bush (remote area), cabin fever, mush (to travel by dog sled), parka, stateside.
Pacific Southwest (15)
The first English speakers arrived here from New York, Ohio, Missouri, New England,
and other parts of the Northeast and Midwest in the 1840s, bringing the Northern and
North Midland dialects with them. Words originally used by the gold miners of this
period are still used today: pay dirt (valuable discovery), pan out (to succeed), and goner
(doomed person). The early twentieth century saw an influx of people from the South and
 other parts of the West. The people here are particularly fond of creating new slang and
expressions, and, since Hollywood is located here, these quickly get spread to the rest of
the country and the world (the influence of Buffy the Vampire Slayer was examined in
Verbatim : part one, part two). During the late 1970s and early 1980s, an extreme
exaggeration of this dialect that came to be known as "Valley Girl" or "Surfer Dude" was
popular among teenagers and much parodied in the media with phrases like "gag me with
a spoon" and "barf me back to the stone age." Sean Penn in Fast Times at Ridgemont
High and Whoopie Goldberg in her one women show are two famous examples.
Southwestern (16)
By the time this area became part of the United States, there had already been as many as
ten generations of Spanish speaking people living here, so the Mexican dialect of Spanish
had an important influence on this area that became a melting pot for dialects from all
over the USA. Some local words are: caballero, cantina, frijoles, madre, mesa, nana,
padre, patio, plaza, ramada, tortilla.
Hawaii (not shown)
The original language of the Native Hawaiians is part of the Polynesian family. English
speakers arrived in 1778, but many other settlers also came from China, Portugal, Japan,
Korea, Spain, and the Philippines to influence the modern dialect. Hawaiian Creole
developed from a pidgin English spoken on the sugar plantations with workers from
Hawaii and many other countries. Some words are: look-see, no can, number one (the
best), plenty (very). It isn't widely spoken anymore. Nonstandard Hawaiian English
developed from Hawaiian Creole and is spoken mostly by teenagers. Standard
Hawaiian English is part of the Western dialect family but shows less influence from the
early New England dialect than any other American dialect. It has many words borowed
from the original Hawaiian as well as some from the other Asian languages mentioned
above: aloha, hula, kahuna, lei, luau, muumuu, poi, ukulele.

Click on the map for a larger version

General Southern (purple and red)

This dialect region matches the borders of the Confederate states that seceded during the
"Confederate War" and is still a culturally distinct region of the United States. Since it was
largely an agricultural area, people tended to move around less than they did in the north, and as
a result, the subdialects are much less uniform than those of the General Northern regions and
have much more clearly defined boundaries. Other languages that had an important influence on
it are French (since the western region was originally French territory) and the African languages
spoken by the people brought over as slaves. People tend to speak slower here than in the north
creating the famous southern "drawl." I is pronounced AH, and OO is pronounced YOO, as in
"Ah'm dyoo home at fahv o'clock." An OW in words like loud is pronounced with a slided
double sound AOO (combining the vowel sounds in "hat" and "boot"). Some local words are:
boogerman, funky (bad smelling), jump the broomstick (get married), kinfolks, mammy,
muleheaded, overseer, tote, y'all.
South Midland (17)
This area, dominated by the Appalachian Mountains and the Ozark Mountains, was
originally settled by the Pennsylvania Dutch moving south from the North Midland areas
and the Scotch-Irish moving west from Virginia. A TH at the end of words or syllables is
sometimes pronounced F, and the word ARE is often left out of sentences as they are in
Black English. An A is usually placed at the beginning of verb that ends with ING, and
the G is dropped; an O at the end of a word becomes ER. ("They a-celebratin' his
birfday by a-goin' to see 'Old Yeller' in the theatah"). A T is frequently added to words
that end with an S sound. Some words are: bodacious, heap, right smart (large amount),
set a spell, and smidgin. American English has retained more elements of the Elizabethan
English spoken in the time of Shakespeare than modern British English has, and this
region has retained the most. Some Elizabethan words that are now less common in
England are: bub, cross-purposes, fall (autumn), flapjack, greenhorn, guess (suppose),
homely, homespun, jeans, loophole, molasses, peek, ragamuffin, reckon, sorry (inferior),
trash, well (healthy).
Ozark (18)
Made famous by the Beverly Hillbillies, this isolated area was settled by people from the
southern Appalachian region and developed a particularly colorful manner of speaking.
Southern Appalachian (19)
Linguists are still studying the specific differences with South Midland, but most of the
research has concentrated on the many archaic words that are still alive in its vocabulary
rather than on its grammar and usage. A popular myth is that there are still a few remote
regions here that speak an unchanged form of Elizabethan English, but it isn't true.
Smokey Mountain English (25)
One such region that is notable for the many archaic features in its pronunciation,
vocabulary, and grammar is the Smoky Mountains, a small, thirty by sixty mile area
located on the border between North Carolina and Tennessee (the size is exaggerated on the
maps). However, while it has preserved a great many elements that once were - but no
longer are - used in Britain, it has also developed a large number of unique features of its
own. "They" is used in the place of "there"; subject-verb agreement can differ; and plural
nouns may not end with an "s" ("They's ten mile from here to the school"). An "-est" can
be placed at the end of a word instead of "most" at the beginning (workingest,
completest). Irregular verbs may be treated as regular verbs and vice versa, or they may
be treated as irregular in a different way from more general dialects (arrove, blowed,
costed). Like many of the other dialects discussed on this page, the decrease in isolation
caused by the increases in mobility and literacy has caused Smoky Mountain to be much
less spoken today than it was at the beginning of the twentieth century. Some local words
are withouten (unless) and whenevern (as soon as).
Southern
As the northern dialects were originally dominated by Boston, the southern dialects were
heavily influenced by Charleston, Richmond, and Savannah. They tend to drop Rs the
way New Englanders do, but they don't add extra Rs. Some words are: big daddy
(grandfather), big mamma (grandmother), Confederate War (Civil War), cooter (turtle),
fixing to (going to), goober (peanut), hey (hello), mouth harp (harmonica), on account of
(because).
Virginia Piedmont (20)
When an R comes after a vowel, it becomes UH, and AW becomes the slided sound,
AH-AW. Thus, four dogs becomes fo-uh dah-awgs. Some local words are: hoppergrass
(grasshopper), old-field colt (illegitimate child), school breaks up (school lets out), weskit
(vest).
Coastal Southern (21)
Very closely resembles Virginia Piedmont but has preserved more elements from the
colonial era dialect than any other region of the United States outside Eastern New
England. Some local words are: catty-corner (diagonal), dope (soda, Coca-Cola), fussbox
(fussy person), kernal (pit), savannah (grassland), Sunday child (illegitimate child). They
call doughnuts cookies.
Ocracoke (26)
Named for the island off the coast of North Carolina where it is spoken, this dialect is
also called Hoi Toide (because of the way its speakers pronounce the long I sound in
words like "high" and "tide") and Outer Banks English to include the coastal regions of
North Carolina and Virginia where it is also sometimes heard. OW becomes a long A so
that "town" becomes "tain". Unlike other Southerners who tend to drop their Rs, Hoi
Toiders actually emphasize their Rs. Overall it tends to resemble the Scottish and Irish
dialects and is another area that is often incorrectly believed to be speaking an unchanged
form of Elizabethan English. Some local words are mommuck (to bother) and quamished
(nauseous).
Gullah (22)
Sometimes called Geechee, this creole language is spoken by some African Americans on
the coastal areas and coastal islands of Georgia and South Carolina and was featured in
the novel on which the musical, Porgy and Bess, was based. It combines English with
several West African languages: Mende, Yoruba, Wolof, Kongo, Twi, Vai, Temne, Ibo,
Ewe, Fula, Umbundu, Hausa, Bambara, Fante, and more. The name comes either from
the Gola tribe in Liberia or the Ngola tribe in Angola. The grammar and pronunciation
are too complicated to go into here, but some words are: bad mouth (curse), guba (peanut
- from which we get the English word goober), gumbo (okra), juju (magic), juke
(disorderly, wicked), peruse (to walk leisurely), samba (to dance), yam (sweet potato).
Gulf Southern (23)
This area was settled by English speakers moving west from Virginia, Georgia, and the
Carolinas, as well as French speaking settlers spreading out from Louisiana, especially
the Acadians (see "Cajuns" below). Some words are: armoire (wardrobe), bayou (small
stream), bisque (rich soup), civit cat (skunk), flitters (pancakes), gallery (porch), hydrant
(faucet), neutral ground (median strip), pecan patty (praline).
Louisiana (24)
There's a lot going on down here. Many people in southern Louisiana will speak two or
three of the dialects below. Cajun French (the Cajuns were originally French settlers in
Acadia, Canada - now called Nova Scotia - who were kicked out when the British took
over; in 1765, they arrived in New Orleans which was still French territory) carries the
highest prestige of the French dialects here and has preserved a number of elements from
the older French of the 1600s. It has also borrowed some words from the Spanish who
once controlled this area. There are many local variations of it, but they would all be
mutually understandable with each other as well as - with some effort - the standard
French in France. Cajun English borrows vocabulary and grammar from French and
gives us the famous pronunciations "un-YON" (onion) and "I ga-RON-tee" as well as the
phrase "Let de good times role!", but movies about cajuns usually get the rest wrong. A
 famous authentic speaker is humorist Justin Wilson, who had a cooking show on PBS,
with his catch phrase, "How y'all are? I'm glad for you to see me." New Orleans is
pronounced with one syllable: "Nawlns." There is another dialect of English spoken in
New Orleans that is informally, and some would say pejoratively, called Yat (from the
greeting, "Where y'at"), that resembles the New York City (particularly Brooklyn) dialect
(more info). Provincial French was the upper class dialect of the pre-Cajun French
settlers and closely resembles Standard French but isn't widely spoken anymore since this
group no longer exists as a separate social class. Louisiana French Creole blends French
with the languages of the West Africans who were brought here as slaves. It is quite
different from both the Louisiana and standard dialects of French but is very similar to
the other creoles that developed between African and French on various Caribbean
Islands. Married couples may speak Creole to each other, Cajun French with other
people, and English to their children.

References:
Success with words: a guide to the American language / Reader's Digest; prepared in
association with Peter Davies; David Rattray, project editor. Pleasantville, NY: Reader's Digest
Association, 1988.

The Cambridge encyclopedia of the English language / David Crystal. Cambridge, England :
Cambridge University Press, 2000. (emphasizes British English but also covers American)

What is a dialect? - The Sci.Lang FAQ: Frequently Asked Questions About Linguistics /
Michael Covington and Mark Rosenfelder. Mark Rosenfelder's Metaverse, March 3, 2002.
<http://www.zompist.com/lang9.html#12>

Dictionary of Smoky Mountain English / Michael B. Montgomery and Joseph S. Hall.

Knoxville : University of Tennessee Press, 2004.

Hoi toide on the Outer Banks : the story of the Ocracoke brogue / Walt Wolfram and Natalie
Schilling-Estes. Chapel Hill : University of North Carolina Press, 1997.

The Oxford companion to the English language / Tom McArthur, editor; Feri McArthur,
managing editor. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 1992. (for additional information
on Cajun English)

A lexicon of New Orleans terminology and speech / Chuck Taggart. The Gumbo Pages,
accessed May 7, 2001. <http://www.gumbopages.com/yatspeak.html>

For Further Information:

American dialect links (courtesy of Evolution Publishing's American Dialects Page)

Dialect Survey Maps (maps out locations where different pronunciations of particular words are
used and where different expressions are used for the same concept)

Do you speak American? (extensive website to accompany the PBS documentary)

IDEA: International Dialects of English Archive (audio files of each dialect)

 The great pop vs. soda controversy / Alan McConchie. (maps out locations where different
terms for carbonated beverages are used)

The English-to-American Dictionary / Chris Rae. (translates words from British English into
American English)

Robert Delaney, last updated March 27, 2007

L.2 Handout: Modern Dialects of Ukrainian4

Northern (Polissian) dialects:
Eastern Polissian is spoken in Chernihiv (excluding the southeastern districts), in the northern part of
Sumy, and in the southeastern portion of the Kiev Oblast as well as in the adjacent areas of Russia,
which include the southwestern part of the Bryansk Oblast (the area around Starodub), as well as in
some places in the Kursk, Voronezh and Belgorod Oblasts. No linguistic border can be defined. The
vocabulary approaches Russian as the language approaches the Russian Federation. Both Ukrainian
and Russian grammar sets can be applied to this dialect. Thus, this dialect can be considered a
transitional dialect between Ukrainian and Russian.
Central Polissian is spoken in the northwestern part of the Kiev Oblast, in the northern part of
Zhytomyr and the northeastern part of the Rivne Oblast.
West Polissian is spoken in the northern part of the Volyn Oblast, the northwestern part of the Rivne
Oblast as well as in the adjacent districts of the Brest Voblast in Belarus. The dialect spoken in Belarus
uses Belarusian grammar, and thus is considered by some to be a dialect of Belarusian.
Southeastern dialects:
Middle Dnieprian is the basis of the Standard Literary Ukrainian. It is spoken in the central part of
Ukraine, primarily in the southern and eastern part of the Kiev Oblast). In addition, the dialects spoken
in Cherkasy, Poltava and Kiev regions are considered to be close to "standard" Ukrainian.
Slobodan dialect is spoken in Kharkiv, Sumy, Luhansk, and the northern part of Donetsk, as well as in
the Voronezh and Belgorod regions of Russia. This dialect is formed from a gradual mixture of Russian
and Ukrainian, with progressively more Russian in the northern and eastern parts of the region. Thus,
there is no linguistic border between Russian and Ukrainian, and, thus, both grammar sets can be
applied. This dialect is a transistional dialect between Ukrainian and Russian.
Steppe dialect is spoken in southern and southeastern Ukraine. This dialect was originally the main
language of the Zaporozhian Cossacks.
Kuban (known locally as Balachka) is spoken in the Kuban region of Russia, by the Kuban Cossacks,
descendants of the original Zaporozhian host, which had migrated here. This dialect features a
predominant Russian vocabulary and grammar. It varies greatly from one area to another.
Southwestern dialects:
Podillian is spoken in the southern parts of the Vinnytsia and Khmelnytskyi Oblasts, in the northern
part of the Odessa Oblast, and in the adjacent districts of the Cherkasy Oblast, the Kirovohrad Oblast
and the Mykolaiv Oblast.
Volynian is spoken in Rivne and Volyn, as well as in parts of Zhytomyr and Ternopil. It is also used in
Chelm in Poland.
Pokuttia (Bukovynian) is spoken in the Chernivtsi Oblast of Ukraine. This dialect has some distinct
volcabulary borrowed from Romanian.
Upper Dniestrian is considered to be the main Galician dialect, spoken in the Lviv Ternopil and Ivano-
Frankivsk Oblasts. Its distinguishing characteristics are the influence of Polish and the German
vocabulary, which is reminiscent of the Austro-Hungarian rule. Some of the distinct words used in this
dialect can be found here.
Upper Sannian is spoken in the border area between Ukraine and Poland in the San river valley.
The Rusyn language is considered by Ukrainian linguists to be a dialect of Ukrainian:
4
Ukrainian is spoken by approximately 36,894,000 people in the world.
Hutsul is spoken in the extreme southern parts of the Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast (as well as in parts of the
Chernivtsi and Transcarpathian Oblasts, and on the northern slopes of the Carpathian Mountains.
Boyko is spoken on the northern side of the Carpathian Mountains in the Lviv and Ivano-Frankivsk
Oblasts. It can also be heard across the border in the Subcarpathian Voivodship of Poland
Lemko is spoken outside Ukraine in the Prešov Region of Slovakia along the southern side of the
Carpathian Mountains.
Dolinian Rusyn or Subcarpathian Rusyn is spoken in the Transcarpathian Oblast.
Pryashiv Rusyn is the Rusyn spoken in the Prešov (in Ukrainian: Pryashiv) region of Slovakia, as well
as by some émigré communities, primarily in the United States of America.
Bačka Rusyn is spoken in northwestern Serbia and eastern Croatia. Rusin language of the Bačka
dialect is one of the official languages of the Serbian Autonomous Province of Vojvodina).