Intro to

Sociolinguistics
An exploration into the relationship
between language and culture.

Fundamental Question

a.What is the relationship between language and

culture?
b.Humans are the only animal to have culture.
c.Humans are the only animal to have language.
d. How do the two connect?
e. What is language? what members of a particular
society speak (Wardhaugh 1).

Different cases
a.I know I don't speak English correctly.
b.Most French-Canadians prefer to speak
French, even though they can speak English too.
c.The treaty wasn't ready to sign until both sides
had a chance to look over the language.

continued
d. A polyglot is someone who knows many
languages. A linguist is someone who
can analyze language structure.
e. English is the most widely-spoken
language in the world.
f. When Fred speaks to Sam, sometimes
he uses English and sometimes Arabic.

Lets have a go at
discussion question 4 on
page 7 of Wardhaugh.

Three Views of Language

Language as Grammar:
Language as communication:
Language as thing:

Language as Grammar
The object of a science of linguistics (Saussure).

Noam Chomsky
(1928)
SyntacticStructures
ReviewofSkinner:Verbal
Behavior(1959)

UniversalGrammar
differencebetweensurfacestructureand
deepstructureinlanguage

Grammar
Three sub-systems

Representational
Phonology (sounds), graphic, gestural

Lexical

morphology; words and morphemes

(Syn)tactic = syntax

Language as communication
Language as Text.
The Interaction of People
The Interpretation of Texts
What do you communicate?

Ideas? Emotions?

Intentions?
How do you communicate?
Messages:
The interpretation of messages
The construction of messages

Language as thing
Language as an element in social constructs.
Language planning, code switching, dialect

debates.

Note: to distinguish between and language

and communication,
look at the following questions:
1. Is language as Dawkins suggests part of the
DNA of homosapiens?
2. Is there a creative component (the horrible
honeybee story)

Competence v. Performance
Langue
v parole
Structure
v event
Structural v communicative
universal v dialect

Approaches to language and culture

Wardhaugh, quite sensibly, argues that sociolinguistics is

both macrolinguistic and microlinguistic:
Microlinguistic-- language emphasis
Macrolinguistics social emphasis
Whorf, Politeness; French Structuralism (Lvi-Strauss).
Communicative approaches: p. 14
Language and power (Fairclough), Social construction of
reality (Berger and Luckmann); Language and Symbolic
Power (Bourdieu); Pragramatics (Austin)
Use Approaches:
Language Planning, Multilingualism

Relations between language and

culture Wardhaugh pp. 9-11
1.

2.

Social structure may influence or

determine linguistic structure
and/or behaviour
Linguistic structure/behaviour
influences or determines social
structure (Whorfian hypothesis)

3. Language and society

affect each other
4. No relationship at all
between language and
culture

Sociolinguists
whatever it is, is about
asking important questions
concerning the relationship
of language to society
(Wardhaugh 11)