Lecture: Sociolinguistics

Professor Dr. Neal R. Norrick

_____________________________________

Sociolinguistics

Universitt des Saarlandes

Dept. 4.3: English Linguistics
WS 2008/09
Organization

Website: script, bibliography, PowerPoint presentation

attendance, quiz, certificates/credits
 1. Introduction
1.1 What is Sociolinguistics?

Sociolinguistics is the study of language in relation to

society.
Sociolinguistics studies:

the social importance of language to groups of people,

from small sociocultural groups to entire nations and
commonwealths
language as part of the character of a nation, a culture, a
sub-culture
the development of national standard languages and
their relation to regional and local dialects
attitudes toward variants and choice of which to use
where
 how individual ways of speaking reveal membership in
social groups: working class versus middle class, urban
versus rural, old versus young, female versus male
how certain varieties and forms enjoy prestige, while
others are stigmatized
ongoing change in the forms and varieties of language,
interrelationships between varieties

See Trudgill's "two Englishmen on a train" story

Sociolinguistics also studies:

language structures in relation to interaction

how speakers construct identities through discourse in
interaction with one another
how speakers and listeners use language to define their
relationship and establish the character and direction of
their talk
how talk conveys attitudes about the context, the
participants and their relationship in terms of
membership, power and solidarity
 Compare:

Could I ask you to bring me the paint, please?

Get me the paint, wouldja?

how listeners interpret talk and draw inferences from it

about the ongoing interaction
Sociolinguists describe how language works in society to
better understand society, but also to investigate the
social aspect of language to better understand its use,
structure and development
1.2 The Sociolinguistics of Society versus the
Sociolinguistics of Language

The Sociolinguistics of Society concerns the role of

languages in societies:

societal multilingualism
attitudes toward national languages and dialects
language planning, language choice, language shift, language
death, language education
 The Sociolinguistics of Language concerns language
function and variation in the social context of the speech
community:

forms of address
speech acts and speech events
language and gender, language and power, politeness,
language, thought and reality
language varieties and change
My treatment of Sociolinguistics of Society will focus on England, USA
and Commonwealth nations

Main focus on the Sociolinguistics of Language: particularly forms,

functions and varieties of English

Labov and Trudgill as premiere sociolinguists

hence: variation in New York City, Black English, language and
social stratification in Norwich

Really we'll be doing the Sociolinguistics of English

1.3 Sociolinguistics within Linguistics

Sociolinguistics as "hyphenated linguistics"

compare:
psycholinguistics, neurolinguistics, cognitive linguistics,
computational linguistics

Sociolinguistics as interdisciplinary:
roots in dialect geography
anthropology and sociology
philosophy of language
linguistic pragmatics and discourse analysis
 Since language is the basic vehicle of social cohesion
and interaction, any linguistics should be sociolinguistics

As Labov puts it:

sociolinguistics is "a somewhat misleading use of an
oddly redundant term

language always exists in varieties

language is always changing
any adequate linguistic theory should be sociolinguistic
describing variation by speaker, class, region and time
failure to account for variation and change should render
a linguistic description useless
but Sociolinguistics outside "mainstream linguistics" till
recently
1.4 Saussure's dichotomies and non-socio-linguistics

The Neo-Grammarians (Junggrammatiker) insisted:

speakers are unaware of change
and change can not be observed in progress
 Saussure inaugurated "modern linguistics" around 1900,
distinguishing synchronic and diachronic linguistics

This useful distinction in the 1900s became a program

for ignoring the fundamentally dynamic nature of
language

Like binary distinctions generally, this dichotomy

privileged one half of the pair, namely synchronic
linguistics
 Saussure also distinguished langue and parole

This dichotomy privileged langue, the language as a

system, and marginalized parole, language in use

this distinction became a program for ignoring the

fundamentally social and behavioral nature of language
 Linguistics as the synchronic study of langue:

language as an abstraction without variation by speaker, region

or time
language as a non-cultural, non-social, static, depersonalized
fact independent of context and discourse
 "Saussurian Paradox"
If we all share knowledge of the communal langue,
one can obtain all the data necessary for linguistic
description from a single person--perhaps oneself;
but one can obtain data on individualistic parole
only by studying linguistic behavior in the
community.

The social aspect of language is studied by

observing a single speaker, but the individual
aspect only by observing language in its social
context.

Labov (1972: 185-87)

 "categorial" versus "variationist" views with regard to
language history and description:

Phonological: room with long u as in pool

with short u as in book

Morphological: -ing with velar nasal ng (-ing)

with alveolar nasal n (-in)
1.5 Development of Sociolinguistics in USA

Structuralist linguistic theory in US (like Saussure)

stressed synchronic study of langue
focused on the system of language
 American structuralism also followed Logical Positivism

Bloomfield insisted on scientific linguistics

linguistic description as mathematical
formal rules
discrete input and output
no variables or "free variation"

But in descriptions of native Amerindian languages,

social factors appeared as part of the anthropological
context
 from late 1950's, Chomsky's generative transformational
grammar further marginalized sociolinguistics
grammar as creative aspect of language and the center
of linguistic attention
restatement of Saussure's dichotomy of langue and
parole as a distinction between competence and
performance
Competence: language user's innate knowledge of grammar,
and the only proper object of linguistic research
Performance: disorganized, error-ridden talk not amenable to
systematic description

the speaker was "an ideal speaker-listener, in a

completely homogeneous speech community, who
knows its language perfectly" (Chomsky 1965: 3)
 These idealizations:
banished variation from linguistics
removed talk from society and local context
made language an abstraction

But Ethnography of Speaking recognized:

language functions and speech events
linguistic behavior, social function, context

Communicative competence versus Chomsky's

grammatical competence
 Dialect geographers (or dialectologists, areal linguists)
continued to describe systematic variation by region
Sociological research on language and society:
Fishman on language contact, societal multilingualism
Goffman, Sacks on language in social interaction

From mid 1960's: Sociolinguistics of language:

Weinreich, Labov
Urban dialectology, Black English Vernacular
Linguistic Pragmatics, conversation analysis
Interactional Sociolinguistics
1.6 Development of Sociolinguistics in UK

Linguistic theory in UK never really followed Saussure;

philological tradition and applied linguistics in language
teaching and anthropology
Dichotomies of synchronic and diachronic, langue
and parole not systematically observed
 Malinowski:
phatic communion as social meaning
context of situation basis of meaning
Firth:
context of situation central to meaning
meaning central to language description
conversation as key to understanding language
Halliday:
interpersonal meaning alongside ideational
Language as a social semiotic
Trudgill: social stratification and variation
Sinclair, Crystal, Quirk et al.:
conversational organization
transactional analysis
 2. Linguistic Variation
Variation through time: stages or periods of a language
Old English 449-1150
Middle English 1150-1500

Variation in space: regional dialects

English as spoken in Norwich, Norfolk,
New England, New York City
 Variation by group: sociolects (social dialects)
English as spoken by upper working class women in Norwich,
by saleswomen in New York department stores

Variation by situation: register

English as spoken in television sports reporting
as written in business letters
in personal e-mail
 variation even occurs in the speech of a particular
person from a particular place in a particular group and
situation
so varieties often differ by high versus low probability for
specific items (this indicates necessity of counting!)

variety = set of linguistic items with characteristic social

distribution
 Varieties may differ in any kind of linguistic item:
pronunciation, word choice, word form and syntax

Working class men in Norwich tend to pronounce thin and thing

the same way in conversation
BE speakers say tube, while AE speakers say subway
White rural speakers in the Midwest U.S. say She come home
yesterday instead of the standard She came home yesterday
Black vernacular speakers say I aks her did she know him,
while standard speakers say I asked her if she knew him
 Sociolinguistic Variables are particular items known to
reflect particular social contrasts

Presence or absence of 3rd person singular -s in constructions

like: she goes versus she go

Presence or absence of [r] in pronunciations of words and

phrases like: theater theater is the idea of
 Again we find patterns of variation
from group to group
from one speaker to the next
from one style to the next in the group

(again indicates necessity for quantification)

2.1 Class and style
In sociolinguistic studies, class is determined by rating
status characteristics like occupation, education,
residence, and income on numerical scales
Styles reflect different degrees of formality and
awareness of speakers about how they're speaking
versus what they're saying
Most formal is word list style, next reading style, then
careful style as in an interview, and finally casual style
A particular sociolinguistic variable will display class
stratification across social classes and styles, as shown
in diagrams like the one below
Labov (1972: 239) ing
 In every style, class members differ predictably
In every class, style shifting occurs predictably
the same variable distinguishes classes and styles
a single signal has no fixed value
a single variable may mark
a casual middle-class speaker
a careful lower-class speaker
 Syntactic, morphological and phonological factors:

monosyllabic verb sing

indefinite something
present participle suffix ing
at the end of a phrase
preceding a vowel
preceding a consonant
She tried to find something
She tried to find something in town
She tried to find something she liked
2.2 Variation and change

Some variation leads to permanent change

one variant gains acceptance and others disappear

The "embedding problem"

describe the matrix of social and linguistic behavior (changes
and constants) in which language change takes place
 Linguistic factors

Universal constraints on change (based on past

changes)
front vowels tend to rise
stop consonants tend to lose voicing
Local changes may affect the whole system, e.g.
change in diphthong /ay/ leads to parallel change in /aw/
Social factors:
group member with high prestige provides model
pressure from outside group encourages solidary behavior
2.3 Prestige and stigmatization

Change begins as irregular fluctuation below level of

conscious awareness
no stylistic stratification

When variation comes to conscious awareness, due to

association with certain groups or speakers, one variant
gains prestige, another is stigmatized

Pronouncing "aitches" versus "dropping aitches" in

words like hotel and house
 General axiom of sociolinguistic structure:
uniform agreement in subjective reactions to a variable correlate
with regular stratification
one finds stylistic stratification
speakers use more prestige variants in careful styles than in
casual styles

hypercorrection
speakers insert prestige variants where they don't
belong (where prestige speakers don't use them)
pronouncing "aitches" in words like honor, hour and if
2.4 The actuation of change
"The actuation problem"
What sets change in motion?

Social factors account for change in a general way, e.g.

A. Pressure from new group produces greater solidarity in
original group, and members signal this through
distinctive behavior, including speech patterns
B. Commuters accommodate speech patterns to focal
point, usually a major city, and introduce patterns at
home
C. "Linguistic missionaries" return from living in focal point
city with high status and new speech patterns
 Linguistic factors may favor certain changes
regularizing a pattern
like /ay/ causing parallel change in /aw/
but even taken together they can't predict that change
will occur or in which direction
even knowing the linguistic and social matrix doesn't
explain why one specific feature changes and another
doesn't
 pronunciation of vowel in words like craft
changed from [] in OE to [a] in ME
back to [] in EModE
back to [a] in the 18th Century (in southern England, but not in
America or northern England)
speakers in southwest England drop -r in posh
pronunciation, careful speakers in NYC are reintroducing
the sound
historically stigmatized constructions like the
comparative and superlative forms funner and funnest
become standard in the course of a single generation (in
AE)
2.5 Variable rules
Language as a system of rules
Constitutive rules versus regulative rules
Assume full forms are stored in memory and reduced in
speech, e.g. by rules for contraction:
She + is she's
we + have + been we've been

and by rules for deletion:

we've been we been
last + time las' time
 Phonological rule for final consonant cluster
simplification, as in las' time:
C / C ___ ## C

Read: delete a consonant following a consonant at the end

of a word, if the next word begins with a consonant.
 Some dialects allow consonant cluster simplification
even if the next word begins with a vowel, as in las' of
all, so we could write:
C / C ___ ##

This rule fails to say that deletion is far more likely before
a consonant than a vowel - in every dialect; so we need
variable rules, relating differences in application to
differences in the environment, as in:
C <> / C ___ ## <C>

Read: delete a consonant following a consonant at the

end of a word, more often before a consonant than a
vowel.
 In addition, the rule is far less likely if the consonant to
be deleted represents the past tense suffix -t,d, as in:
liked [laykt]
seemed [simd])

This suggests a revision of the rule as:

C <> / C <~#> ___ ## <C>

Read: delete a consonant following a consonant at the

end of a word, more often if there's no morpheme
boundary between the consonants, and more often
before a consonant than a vowel.
 Further, deletion is more likely for speakers of Black
Vernacular than for white speakers, and more likely for
younger speakers than for older speakers.

Labov itemizes such constraints on variable rules in

tables includes both internal linguistic factors and
external social factors
 Labov 1972: 222

Thus variable rules can describe the behavior of a sociolinguistic

variable for a whole speech community.
 3. The social motivation of language
change (Labov 1972b)
Till Labov, no one had tried to explain language change
When linguists described change, they cited internal
(systematic linguistic), not external (social) factors

Linguists claimed language change was imperceptible,

its origins obscure to speakers and linguistics alike
(Saussure: language as mutable and immutable)
Linguists claimed language change proceeded from
above, from higher classes to lower classes
 But according to popular belief, vernacular speakers
cause language change, or language deterioration,
through lack of education, laziness, unclear thinking

Double negation: She never saw nobody try it

aint for am not, arent, isnt, hasnt, havent
I aint going, she aint seen them, it aint me

so-called language experts see change as corruption

any deviation from standard is undesirable
standard language is pure, better, more logical than
dialects
Labov's questions:

What causes language change?

Internal versus external factors in change?
Who propagates language change?
Does it really proceed from above?
How can language change be imperceptible if people
talk about undesirable features and changes in
progress?
Is language change dysfunctional or does it have
positive influence?
Why do some groups maintain stigmatized features after
centuries of condemnation?
3.1 Social motivation versus free variation:
A case study of Martha's Vineyard, Massachussetts

In structuralist and generative phonology, sounds

(phonemes) written in / / to show variation is irrelevant
Audible differences count as "free variation"
Labov writes sounds in ( ) to show variation has social
significance
Apparent "free variation" increasingly tied to groups and
attitudes as analysis progresses
Case study: Martha's Vineyard

Island off Massachussetts coast, separate from mainland

Clear social structure: natives versus summer residents
Variables: (r) as elsewhere in New England
Diphthongs (ay aw) with clear local pattern
Geographic Occupation
Group/age
 Note quick rise, esp. in (aw) variable, for younger
speakers

table comparing four 15-year-old students

 Interviews include questions to determine attitudes about
Martha's Vineyard and staying on the island.

centralized diphthong marks identification as native

islander rather than as "Yankee" (of English descent)
Labov describes the stages of language change as:
 Apparently, pressure from outside causes language
change as a mechanism of group identity.
Immediate group status plays primary role, not status
within culture as a whole, i.e. not from above as such
Internal factors may play a role in spreading change:
change in (ay) stimulates parallel change in (aw)
Members of language community aren't explicitly aware
which features are in flux (though they may identify
someone's speech as "fishermen's talk" or "dockworkers'
talk")
But linguists can see change in progress; it's especially
clear in diagrams calibrated for age differences
3.2 Social stratification in New York

Hypothesis: any two subgroups of NYC speakers ranked

on a scale of social stratification will be ranked in the
same order by their differential use of (r)
Retroflex pronunciation of (r) is a change from above,
reflecting pattern of national standard
stigmatizing the traditional r-lessness of NYC speech

Note: loss of r in New York City was also change from

above, borrowing r-less pattern from London speech in
early 1800s
 Rapid and anonymous speech events as data

Employees of three large department stores as test

group:
Sacks
Macy's
S. Klein

Department stores ranked by pricing, advertising, wages,

working conditions, physical appearance of store
 Method: Ask question to elicit answer fourth floor
Say excuse me to elicit emphatic response

This gives four variants:

Preceding final consonant and word final
Casual and emphatic
Less differentiation shows greater security as a speaker
Greater differentiation shows less security as a speaker
Compare just white, native born saleswomen:
 Advantages of rapid and anonymous interviews
Easy access, breadth of data
Disadvantages of rapid and anonymous interviews
Not much differentiation between styles

Reading aloud and word list needed

In follow-up interviews Labov found for the (r) variable:

for a white female Sacks employee

STYLE A B C D
00 03 23 53 % retroflex r
STYLE A = casual, STYLE B = interview,
STYLE C = reading, STYLE D = word list

for a Jewish male taxi driver

STYLE A B C D
12 15 46 100 % retroflex r

for a Black middle class female

STYLE A B C D
00 31 44 69 % retroflex r
 Cross-over pattern in diagram of multiple styles and social classes:
Second highest class typically displays cross-over pattern,
hypercorrection and hypersensitivity
3.3 Social variation, language structure and change
Based on research on Martha's Vineyard and in NYC,
Labov summarizes "Mechanism of language change"
1. Change from below originates in subgroup due to
external pressure.
2. Change begins as generalization of feature to all
members of the subgroup. The variable acts as
indicator of membership, and it shows no stylistic
variation.
3. Succeeding generations carry variable beyond the model
set by parents (=hypercorrection from below).
4. The variable becomes a marker showing stylistic
variation.
5. Movement of variable in system leads to readjustments
in system, and hence to new change.
6. Other subgroups interpret first change as part of
community system and new change as stage 1.
This recycling stage is primary source for continual
origination of new changes.
7. If the change did not originate in the highest-status
group, this group will stigmatize the change through
control of institutions and communication network.
8. The highest-status group provides prestige model for all
speakers. The variable now shows social stratification as
well as stylistic variation.
9. Speakers shift, especially in careful styles, to imitate the
prestige model (=hypercorrection from above).
10. Extreme stigmatization can lead to stereotype, and the
stigmatized form may disappear.
11. Change originating in highest-class group (change from
above) usually represents borrowing or influence from
outside community.
12. When change originates in highest-class group, it
becomes prestige model for all speakers. The change is
then adopted by other groups in proportion to their
contact with the users of the prestige model.
3.4 Change and Gender
Women as traditional caregivers have special influence
over propagation of change
Women usually lead in change from above, while men
usually lead change from below.
Women show greater stylistic shifting, esp. to imitate the
prestige model (=hypercorrection from above).
Within a single class, women use more prestige forms,
fewer stigmatized forms.
3.5 Attitudes toward variation and change
Evaluation of variants are uniform across classes and
groups; they assign character traits to speakers and
groups, e.g.
New York dialect sounds impolite and tough
Bostonian sounds refined and snooty
Southern drawl sounds lazy and ignorant

Those who use highest degree of stigmatized form also

condemn it most
 Pre-adolescents are aware of prestige and stigmatized
forms, they monitor their speech accordingly; they
usually settle back into established class patterns

lower class group know prestige forms, but choose not to

use them; they continue to use forms they know to be
stigmatized

covert norms opposed to those of the middle class;

attribute positive values to use of the vernacular
3.6 Language change as positive influence
Language change as deterioration and leveling of
distinctions is only half the story; change also introduces
new distinctions and features
Language change must have value for the group,
because it requires extra learning and monitoring of
forms; change from below strengthens position of
vernacular
Language change appears dysfunctional only if we view
language as a purely ideational system; for language to
serve as a social marker, it must have variation and
undergo change
 4. Black English Vernacular
(Labov 1972a)
Black English Vernacular (BEV) versus Nonstandard
Negro English (cf. Ebonics)
Labov began from failure of Blacks in school, esp. in
reading
BEV as fully elaborated system but also symbol of
conflict
Participant-observer in Black street gangs
(Ethnomethodology)
BEV as regional southern dialect becoming class/ethnic
marker in northern cities
BEV versus Standard American English (SAE)
Phonological differences:

1. r-lessness (like New England, New York, the South)

no post-vocalic r, e.g. in sore, fort
so that sore = saw fort = fought

but BEV may not pronounce r even between vowels, as in:

Carol, terrace which sound just like Cal, test

and BEV may not pronounce r after th, as in:

throw through throat
2. l-lessness (no post-vocalic l)
so that toll = toe all = awe fault = fought

3. Simplification of consonant clusters

e.g. -st -ft -nt -nd -ld -zd -md
in passed past soft bent bend hold raised aimed
so that past = pass meant = men hold = hole

Note: Consonant cluster simplification can combine with

l-lessness to yield: told = toll = toe
4. Other consonant variables
Some single consonants are glottalized or lost
completely:
seat = seed = see poor = poke = pope

Final th realized as /f/ or /v/:

death = deaf Ruth = roof
Grammatical correlates of phonological variables

1. Missing possessives (through cluster simplification, loss

of final r)
Mick book they book you book

2. Missing future markers (through loss of final l)

you'll = you they'll = they he'll = he
but gonna I'm'na I'ma
3. Missing copula, except with I
you're = you they're = they he's = he
but I'm

4. Missing past tense markers (through loss of final t d

following consonants)
passed = past = pass fined = find = fine
but irregular forms remain: told/tol' kept/kep'
4.1 BEV as a separate system

BEV negative inversion:

Ain't nobody gone let you walk
Don't nobody break up a fight

Embedded questions retain inversion in BEV (without

complementizers if and whether):
I asked Alvin could he go
She asked us did we know how
 BEV loss of r even before vowels, as in: our own
and word-internally, as in: borrow (= bow)

unlike any white New York dialect, BEV consonant

cluster simplification yields a distinct tense paradigm:

SAE kicks tells kicked told

BEV kick tell kick tol'
 Also special BEV tense and aspect forms:

Habitual be in: she always be messing around

If you be beating on him, he cry

Intensive done in: she done left him

Extended time been in: I been know you a long time

 Contraction and deletion of copula:
Where SAE can contract is/are, BEV can delete them,
and where SAE can't contract is/are, BEV can't delete
them:

SAE she's the first one BEV she the first one
SAE she's wild, though BEV she wild, though
SAE you're out of the game BEV you out the game
SAE *here he's/they're BEV *here he/they
Labov (1972: 64) concludes:

"The gears and axles of English grammatical machinery

are available to speakers of all dialects."
He explicitly rejects BEV as "dialect mixing" performance
General Principle of Accountability:
any variable form must be reported with the proportion of
cases where the form occurred in the relevant
environment compared with the number where it might
have occurred
 Labov accepts categorial challenge of describing a
homogeneous speech community
this makes it necessary to account for community
variation in explicit rules
Labov may be seen as overreacting to formalism of
generative grammar and to claim that BEV is a separate,
creolized language (and hence inferior to Standard
English)
4.2 Variability and variable rules
To describe BEV, Labov invented variable rules
The rule for contracting the copula (am/is/are) favored
by:
a preceding pronoun versus a full noun
a preceding vowel or glide versus a consonant
a following verb, esp. gonna
thus contraction is most likely in: she's gonna/they're
gonna
far less likely in: Ruth's tough/life's tough
and we could assign values to the probability of
contraction for each environment and for different styles
 The BEV rule deleting contracted forms ('s/'re but not
'm) is favored by:
a preceding consonant versus a vowel
a preceding pronoun
a following verb, esp. gonna

thus deletion is most likely in: it gonna

and somewhat less likely in: they gonna
again we could assign values to the probability of
deletion for each environment and for different styles
 As formulated in Labov's variable rules, BEV is a dialect
of SAE with its own characteristic constraints on general
rules.
Variable rules are integrated into the community
grammar, they operate within general grammatical
categories, so that they must represent competence
(rather than performance).
Thus, the grammar of the speech community as a whole
is more regular than the grammar of any dialect or
member.
Variation is part of competence: knowing a language
means knowing what varies, how and when.
4.3 Members versus lames, system versus ideolect
Lames are relative outsiders who act as informants for
linguists and sociologists to avoid the Observer's
Paradox

Observer's Paradox:
How can we observe the way people act/speak when
they're not being observed?
When members leave group, they generally orient
toward SAE and away from BEV; they lose insider's
knowledge of the group and its folklore, their intuitions
are no longer trustworthy
Labov found for lames versus members of Black street
gangs:
For ing versus in:
Lames use 25% ing members use 4% ing
For contraction and deletion of is/are:
Contraction about the same: lames 65% members 73%
But deletion: lames 12% members 52%
For 3rd person does versus do, doesn't versus don't
doesn't: lames 36% members 3%
does: lames 13% members 0

In each case the lames were closer to or even the same as

white SAE speakers.
 Linguists themselves tend to be lames vis-a-vis their own
speech community, they are bad informants on their own
dialect
even if some intuitions are correct, we can check them
only by researching the real community
This leads back to the participant-observer within group
to overcome Observer's Paradox (as ethnomethodology
suggests).
Only members are embedded in community, practice its
language skills and folklore
 Labov turns to members and their folklore

to defend BEV as systematic and valuable

to find clear examples of BEV unaffected by SAE

Hence: investigation of soundings/dozens and fight

stories
4.4 Analyzing narratives

Labov became interested in narrative as community

folklore and as a source of natural BEV speech
unaffected by observer

Narrative as method of recapitulating past experience by

matching a verbal sequence of clauses to the sequence
of events reported.
 narrative as a sequence of past tense clauses
sequentially ordered with respect to each other,

minimal narrative as at least two such clauses

So he get all upset.
Then I fought him.
Reversing the order destroys the sequence as a
narrative proper--or changes it into a different story:
Then I fought him.
So he get all upset.
 Beyond skeleton of temporally ordered narrative clauses,
other free clauses are typically found in stories,
assigned to specific function elements:
Abstract: answers the question What was this about?
Orientation: answers the questions Who, what, when,
where?
Complicating action
Evaluation: answers the question So what?
Resolution: answers the question What finally
happened?
Coda: puts off any further questions about what
happened or why it mattered.
A "fight story" illustrates the central elements

ABSTRACT

A When I was in fourth grade--no--it was third grade--

There was this boy, he stole my glove.
ORIENTATION

B He took my glove,
C and say that his father found it downtown on the ground.
COMPLICATING ACTION

D I told him that he--it's impossible for him to find

downtown, 'cause all those people were walking by, and
just his father is the only one that find it?
E So he get all upset.
F Then I fought him.
G I knocked him out all in the street.
H So he say he give.
I And I kept on hitting him.
J Then he start crying
K And run home to his father.
RESOLUTION

L And his father told him, he ain't find no glove.

Labov identifies the primary sequence with the most
explicit statement of the a-then-b relation, as:

D I told him that he . . .

E So he get all upset.
F Then I fought him.
G I knocked him out all in the street.
H So he say he give.
I And I kept on hitting him.
J Then he start crying
K And run home to his father.
 Evaluation particularly important

establishes the point of interest

emphasizes its unusual character
demonstrates the teller's involvement with event reported elicits
interest and belief from listeners
EVALUATION

Semantic: Explains teller's attitude, suspends action

D I told him that he--it's impossible for him to find
downtown, 'cause all those people were walking by, and
just his father is the only one that find it?

Symbolic action: Hitting someone after he says he

gives indicates the teller's anger was great
H So he say he give.
I And I kept on hitting him.

External: Statement by third person

L And his father told him, he ain't find no glove.
 5. Developmental linguistics
By contrast with Labov, view of variation as one property
of a language system
Developmental linguistics is a comprehensive
linguistic theory
it includes variation and change as central facts of language
relates them to language acquisition, language death,
pidginization and creolization
C.-J. Bailey (1973, 1982 etc) sees
sociocommunicational factors like ethnicity, gender,
style etc balancing neurobiological factors in language
development
 Sociocommunicational factors depend on local speech
community
Neurobiological factors are universal and appear in
language acquisition and loss, pidginization and
creolization, e.g.Marking (or Markedness), as in:

Unmarked /t, d, n/ initial /k, g, ng/ final in syllable

Marked /k, g, ng/ initial /t, d, n/ final in syllable

Unmarked terms acquired first, lost last; found in more

languages; more robust in language contact
 Usually, marked term predicts presence of unmarked
term, e.g. syllable initial /k/ syllable initial /t/
In Developmental Linguistics:
Rules form a panlectal grammar predictive for language
acquisition and change
Categories are gradient,
not just + or -
variation is built into rules

gradient morpheme boundary in the rule for consonant

cluster simplification cited above:
C <> / C <~#> ___ ## <C>
 says deletion becomes more likely as the morpheme
boundary becomes less clear

from laughed to leftPst Tns to leftAdv to draft

rules reflect neurobiological influences, they describe

connatural change, versus abnatural change due to
sociocommunicational influence
 6. Community of Practice (CoP)
Communities of Practice (Wenger 1998)
fishermen on Marthas Vineyard
members of a Black street gang
We all participate in various CoPs:
in the family at home
at work
at school
in casual groups and organizations
CoP ways of speaking are the most closely coordinated
CoP is the primary place for doing gender; for
constructing social identity generally
 Newer research on variation focuses on the CoP and the
social meaning of speech styles (based on linguistic
variables)

By contrast, Labovs correlational sociolinguistics

uses survey and quantitative methods
examines correlations between linguistic variability and major
demographic categories (class, age, sex class, ethnicity)
develops the "big picture" of the social spread of sound change
across groups and regions.
Later variation studies

describe the relation between variation and local,

participant-designed categories.
give local meaning to the demographic categories,
still focus on some kind of speech community,
examine linguistic variables in their role as local/regional
dialect features
Newest research oriented to CoP

views practices and styles, rather than variables, as

directly associated with identity categories
explores the contributions of variables to styles
takes social meaning as primary
examines any linguistic material with a social/stylistic
purpose (not just changes in progress)
often explores the style in relation to gender
 Eckert (1998) shows how adolescents use language
practices to construct their social (gendered) identity
if CoP (rather than class) defines speech style, its no
surprise that women and men in the same class display
different styles.
re-interpret Labovs findings on Marthas Vineyard:
Fishermen as members of a CoP
use vowel quality to express social meaning
other islanders orient toward the shift to position themselves
socially
female identities and alignment among members of CoP
Notice: repetition, overlap, markers of agreement, tags,
details, dialogue
TIPSY
Annie: and I always thought
that her and Vance just were great [together.]
Jean: [yeah.]
used to [get s-]
Helen: [they were both] good.
Annie: yeah.
they were really good.
Jean: you could go over there
around the holidays
and get smashed before you left [the place.]
Helen: [oh yeah.]
Jean: we used to have the last appointment, right? remember, the
two of us would go?
Annie: yeah, yeah.
Jean: "want some wine girls?"
"sure we'll have a glass of wine."
you walk out of there you're half tipsy.
Annie: you were under the dryers.
Jean: well sure.
and he'd be pouring the wine
and we were tipsy
by the time we walked out of that place.
Annie: then he moved all the way out at Rand Road.
Jean: near the town show, remember?
Annie: yeah.
Jean: [we went there.]
Annie: [we used to go there.]
and then we went on to Union Road,
when he was there.
Jean: yeah.
yeah.
we followed him around.
 7. Ethnography of communication

Ethnography of communication (or Ethnography of

speaking)
studies uses, patterns and functions of speaking as an
activity in concrete social settings in the speech
community

Defining speech community:

shared rules for speaking and shared speech variety
we all inhabit different, overlapping speech communities
 Methodology: participant-observer description
Etic versus Emic (from phonetic versus phonemic)
Communicative competence versus Chomsky's
grammatical competence
7.1 Language functions
Bhler (1933) "Organon Modell": 3 factors, 3 functions
 Malinowski (1935): phatic communion, interaction, magic
language as instrument in "context of situation"
Jakobson (1960): 6 factors, 6 functions
 Hymes (1962, 1964): extends Jakobson,
expands Reference into: Topic & Setting
(hence: referential & contextual functions)
splits Sender into Speaker and Addressor
7.2 Speech acts and speech events

Speech situation: scene (cultural) and setting (physical)

Speech event: within Speech situation, composed of
Speech acts
Speech act: minimal unit of speech event
By contrast with turns, pairs, sentences etc
For example:
speech situation speech event speech act
market place transaction offer
conversation story preface
ceremony prayer invocation
Components defining speech events:
Participants: Addressor, Addressee, Audience
Form: dialect, variety, register
Ends: purpose of event, goals of participants
Key: mock versus serious, perfunctory versus
painstaking
 Form: dialect, register etc
Dialect is "what you speak" based on "who you are," i.e.
where you were born/where you live, your age, group
memberships etc;
Register is "what you are speaking" based on "what you
are doing," i.e. the particular activity and context
Genre: poem, proverb, lecture, advertisement
Norms: "no gap, no overlap" in conversation, "speak
only when you're spoken to" for children
 The SPEAKING GRID: a schema of the components of speech

SITUATION: setting physical circumstances

scene psychological setting; subjective
definition of an occasion
PARTICIPANTS: speaker or sender / address or
hearer or receiver or audience / addressee
ENDS: outcomes purpose of the event from cultural
point of view
goal purposes of individual participants
ACT SEQUENCE: message form and content
KEY: tone and manner
INSTRUMENTALITIES: Channel verbal, non-verbal, physical
Form variety of language drawn from
community repertoire
NORMS: of interaction
of interpretation
GENRE: Textual categories
 Apply the Speaking Grid to various speech events

written invitation to child's birthday party

internet chat room interaction
talk at work
telephone sex
 8. Interactional Sociolinguistics

Interactional Sociolinguistics grows out of

Ethnography of Speaking and Sociology of everyday life,
esp. the notion of the participant-observer
8.1 Sociology of everyday life
Order at every level of interaction
Garfinkle, Goffman
Through ways of speaking we define ourselves and
our relationships with others
we present a self for ratification in interaction, and we
take a line (or stance)
Goffman defines face as the positive social value a
person claims by the line others assume he/she has
taken: we can save face or lose face in interaction
 Social interaction is then face work
we have face wants and needs
positive face: desire to be liked
negative face: desire to be left alone
interaction may threaten our face in various ways
some acts are inherently face threatening acts (ftas)
e.g. requests, invitations
the requester risks loss of face, if addressee refuses, but
addressee also loses face in refusing
8.2 Involvement and Contextualization cues

Involvement is successful ongoing interaction

co-produced by interactants
negotiating selves, relationship and interactional goals
 Gumperz defines contextualization cues:

ways of signaling our attitudes toward what we say

prosody (tempo, volume, intonation, hesitation)
repetition
formulaicity
shifts in style
code-switching
 contextualization cues frame interaction
in terms of our contextual presuppositions:
serious/humorous
important/trivial
hurried/leisurely
contextualization cues bracket individual acts or
stretches of interaction
perception of contextualization cues allows us to draw
inferences about other participants and their interactional
goals
 So: Interactional Sociolinguistics studies:

prosody
disfluencies
discourse markers
repetition
formulaicity
code-switching
style
 and their effects on talk in interaction regarding:
construction of identity
power versus solidarity
control
alignment among participants
concern with intercultural and inter-ethnic communication
effects of sociolinguistic variables on communication:
male/female
old/young
insider/outsider
power/solidarity
 Consider an example from Gumperz: Following an informal graduate
seminar at a major (US American) university, a black student
approached the instructor, who was about to leave the room
accompanied by several other black and white students, and said:

Could I talk to you for a minute? Im gonna apply for a fellowship and I
was wondering if I could get a recommendation?

The instructor replied:

O.K. Come along to the office and tell me what you want to do.
As the instructor and the rest of the group left the room, the black
student said, turning his head ever so slightly to the other students:
Ahma git me a gig!
 the student frames his two utterances in different ways
his presuppositions about interaction with the instructor
differ from those about interaction with the other students
code-switch from Standard American to Afro-American
Vernacular English

appropriate contextualization cues (prosody, formulaicity,

lexis) align student first with the instructor, then with the
students, AAVE aligns him directly with other black
students.
8.3 Conversational Style
Tannen (1984) sees involvement as a scalar
factor, partially determined by social variables:
gender, age, background, profession, class
High-involvement: fast, no pause or overlap, joint
production
Low-involvement (High-considerateness): slow, long
pauses, no interruption
 High versus low involvement style
type of speaker
passage of talk
type of discourse
New Yorkers exhibit higher involvement than Californians
talk between friends exhibits higher involvement than
talk among strangers
women exhibit higher involvement than men,
storytelling exhibits higher involvement than a report
Style differences are heard as social (class) differences
high involvement between co-narrators:

James: we were in this

we were in a peat bog
Lois: uh
James: in Ire- in Ireland.
eh no it wasnt in Ireland
[it was on the Isle of Skye]
Lucy: [no, we were on the Isle of Skye]
James: [sorry, on the Isle of Skye]
Lucy: [right next to the west] coast of Scotland
James: we were right on the north-
[right in the north]
Lucy: [new years eve]
James: new years eve
Lucy: freezing cold
James: freezing cold
Lucy: in the middle of nowhere
just nothing
James: and we got stuck in this terrible bog.
{laughs} and jus-
as far as the eye could see
it was just bog
and we were like walking through it
and [it was quite late]
Lucy: [and it was late]
and it was becoming dark
about five oclock
Emma: aw
Lucy: and it was really really cold
and we were on our way home
after a long walk . . .

Note particularly overlap, joint production, speaker change, repetition

Tannen: womens and mens styles of involvement
systematic study of male versus female involvement
men and women engage in cross-cultural communication

Women higher involvement

closer together
more eye contact
more understanding checks
more attention signals
shorter gaps
more overlap
shorter turns
more frequent speaker change
more egalitarian
less appeal to expert knowledge
 Men lower involvement

farther apart
less eye contact
fewer understanding checks
fewer attention signals
longer gaps
less overlap
longer turns
less frequent speaker change
Less egalitarian
more appeal to expert knowledge
 Mens and womens conversational styles clash causing systematic
misunderstandings in everyday interaction
attention to stylistic differences and realization of their effects,
reframing and meta-talk about differences can smooth interaction
 9. Conversation
9.1 Conversation Analysis

Conversation Analysis (CA)

from ethnography and the Sociology of everyday life (Garfinkle,

Goffman)
order at every level of interaction, at every point in the system
Where others had seen conversation as too messy for analysis,
Sacks found it highly systematic at the micro-level
 Turn-taking system:
to avoid gaps and overlap
to determine who speaks next
Adjacency pairs: as basis of organization
first part: question
second part: answer
Preference structure: describes differences in form and frequency of
possible second pair parts
first part: invitation
preferred second part: acceptance
dispreferred second part: rejection
 preferred responses are more frequent and shorter

A: Please come to my party on Thursday.

B: Okay.
A: Please come to my party on Thursday.
B: Uh, Thursday, gee, thats a bad day for me.
 Conversational repair
system for handling problems, for clarification and correction

Self-repair:
I saw Judy last Tuesday- sorry, Monday.

Other-initiated repair:
A: I saw Judy last Tuesday.
B: Uh:, Tuesday?
A: Oh, yeah, I saw her Monday at the party.

Other-repair:
A: I saw Judy last Monday.
B: You mean Tuesday.
A: Yeah, I saw her at Nancys.
 Sequentiality

Insertion sequence

Nan: what time do you get to work?

Aaron: Friday?
Nan: yeah.
Aaron: oh, between seven thirty and eight, quarter to eight.
Nan: well, I might not be there the second you get to work
Double insertion sequence

A: Where can I catch the Saarbahn?

B: Do you know where Landwehrplatz is?
A: Is it just over on Mainzer Strasse?
B: Yeah.
A: Then I know how to get there.
B: Well, thats where you catch the Saarbahn.

Recurrent pairs, sequences, exchange types, preferences, repair, cues

and signals all work together to create coherence in conversation
9.2 Conversation as a type of discourse

Conversation is a special speech event or discourse type

characteristic cohesive devices
coherent structure

Understanding checks: y'know, right?, huh?, tags

Attention signals: m'hm, uh-huh, wow, really?
move, turn, pair, exchange; pre-sequence
Sue: Hi. greeting
Jill: Hi. greeting
Sue: So, how have you been. question
Jill: Not so well really. answer
Sue: Oh I'm sorry to hear that. response
Jill: How about you? question
Sue: Not too bad, I guess. answer
Jill: Yes, one muddles through. response
Sue: By the way, Im looking for Al. statement/request
Jill: I just saw him at Lous. response
Sue: Really? Who else was there? response, question
Jill: Fred. answer
Sue: Wow. Are you busy right now? response, question
(pre-sequence)
Jill: Not really. answer
Sue: Would you do me a favor? question
(pre-request)
Jill: Sure. answer (commitment)
Sue: Would you call Al for me? request
Jill: Sure. No problem. agree, comment
Sue: Great. Thanks. comment, thanks
Jill: No problem. comment
 10. Politeness
Politeness as a historical phenomenon (recall Brown & Gilman)
Politeness as in-group behavior
Politeness as code of civility

Politeness in Linguistic Pragmatics

Grice: politeness as a "social maxim"
Lakoff: revises Grice's account of implicature
 Cooperative Principle and Maxims as Negative politeness:
Negative politeness:

Maintain distance, don't impose (respect)

Give options (deference)

Positive politeness:

Be friendly (solidarity)

Lakoff introduces Power and Solidarity into description of inference

in conversation

Paradox of power and solidarity (Tannen)

 Brown and Levinson: Positive and negative face, face wants and
face threats going off record, embedding, pre-sequences
 politeness and politic behavior (Watts)

politeness, impoliteness and identity (Spencer-Oatey)

 11. Language and Gender
Gender as social construct versus biological sex

Grammatical gender as a linguistic feature

11.1 Sexism in language

So-called "generic" man; also chairman, congressman

Cf. you guys plural
"generic" 3rd person pronoun he
gender-marked forms of address: Mrs/Miss versus Mr, Madam
chairman
gender-marking in noun pairs: governor versus governess, major
versus majorette, poet versus poetess, steward versus
stewardess
vocabulary unbalanced toward male body, male point of view
 Binary Distinctions and Markedness

Langue versus parole (competence versus performance)

Synchrony versus diachrony
Man versus Woman Male versus Female
Feminist Linguistics

1st Stage: Accept binaries, attempt to eliminate bias

eliminate man, generic he,

introduce Ms for Mrs/Miss,
introduce "splitting": she or he his/her (s)he
eliminate stewardess (substitute flight attendant)
eliminate poetess in favor of poet
invent new female-oriented vocabulary: herstory
 Note:English drops differences; German accentuates them

Chairperson or chair versus Vorsitzenderin

Judy and Jill are authors versus Judy and Jill sind Autorinnen

Splitting with nouns:

alle Autoren und Autorinnen

alle Autor/innen or alle AutorInnen
 2nd Stage: Question binaries, reduce to power differential
Argue for women's language as more involved, more
cohesive, women as better listeners, linguistic
Innovators

3rd Stage: Reject Binary Thinking

Reveal traditional male/white/hetero-sexual bias in prevailing
discourses
Study power relations in particular texts
Ask how language system and practice construct gender
11.2 Women's talk versus men's talk

Traditional gender stereotypes

Women talk faster, more expressively, more overall, interrupt more,
swear less, use more color words, more hedges, tags
all signs of lower status
 Rules for feminine speech

From etiquette books to self-help manuals

Little girls taught to talk "like ladies"
Polite speech as women's key to success
Women as "better communicators"
Women as responsible for successful conversation

Early linguistic writing on gender and language

Jespersen, Lakoff: largely introspective, confirms stereotypes, looks for

differences, finds deficiencies
 Research on gender and language

general results are contradictory

must look at specific types of interactions
specific groups of speakers:

female and male executives in business meeting

two women college students talking about shared problems

Black male gang members telling stories to interviewer

 11.3 Gayspeak

Sexism in language:
not just male bias
hetero bias
pejoration of homoerotic terms

Homosexuals multiply marginalized:

default male/he,
default "male or female",
men and women, boys and girls, he and she, him and her
 Functions of Gayspeak

Gayspeak as a secret language

Simultaneous mutual recognition and exclusion of outsiders

Gayspeak as an in-group language

the "closet metaphor
flaming
 Gayspeak as a political instrument

As with feminists:

Reject binary thinking

Attempt to disrupt traditional male/hetero-sexual bias
Invent new vocabulary: gay, transgendered, straights, breeders
Reclaim pejorative terms: queer, dyke, faggot
 12. Language and Power
Power and Solidarity
Power: superior, equal, inferior
Solidarity: solidary versus unsolidary

Solidarity implies closeness, unsolidarity implies distance

closeness also implies control (power), distance renders power
differences irrelevant

Paradox of Power and Solidarity (Tannen)

 power as a transitive feature of relationships, though power is
ultimately reciprocal (Foucault)
power as socially constructed through language/discourse, not given
a priori in nature
power is encoded in the discourses of a community
12.1 The PC debate
Political Correctness (PC) is a label from opposed side
Those in favor of practices labeled PC favor:
guidelines for non-discriminatory language
affirmative action in hiring and admissions etc
PC as public, community stance
style sheets,
company and college policies,
court cases
 Miss + Mrs Ms
queers/homosexuals gays
Colored People Negros Blacks African-Americans
Crippled handicapped physically challenged

Note: people in power decide which features of PC to enforce

PC as public etiquette versus "linguistic hygiene" (Cameron)
 As public etiquette
PC = avoiding offense to addressees through exclusion or through
differential treatment
exclusion: mankind; the right man for the job
differential treatment: host versus hostess
poet versus poetess
12.2 Linguistic hygiene

"linguistic hygiene" or "linguistic interventionism"

PC attracts attention to naming,

solicits political or moral judgments,
forces speakers/writers to take sides and go on record

Do public naming and forms of address influence attitudes?

Cameron's example: Pardon me, Madam. versus Hey, bitch!
Linguistic prescription, language change and backlash
 13. Forms of Address
Forms of Address as socially (not linguistically) motivated variation

13.1Speech as social marker

2nd person pronouns: Sie versus du, vous versus tu, Lei versus tu
honorifics and 1st person pronouns
last name versus first name (and nick names)
Titles like Mrs, Ms, Dr, Professor, Herr Oberregierungsrat
Kin terms like Aunt Mary and Oma Schmidt
Address versus reference versus summons
reciprocal versus nonreciprocal
13.2 Power and solidarity

Brown & Gilman (1960): semantics of power and solidarity in use of

2nd person pronouns in European languages
In clearly stratified society, "power semantic" developed:
non-reciprocal V to mark deference
then reciprocal V spread among nobility
In more mobile society, "solidarity semantic" developed
reciprocal "non-solidary" V even among common people
reciprocal "solidary" T even among powerful people
Also: reciprocal T to mark "shared fate"
 "power semantic" still determines who initiates T
"shared fate" only works when fate is lack of power
pronoun use interacts with other systems
English lost 2nd person pronoun distinction
13.3 American English address

FN (first name) versus TLN (title last name)

FN includes common nicknames like Cindy, Penny, Jim, Bill
MN (multiple names) to signal intimacy
Factors:
Age difference (15 years or more)
Status (e.g. boss - secretary; executive - shop worker)
Age more important in kinship groups; status more important at work, in
public
Ervin-Tripp's flow chart
 System fails if FN is unknown
Title + = Title e.g. professor, father (priest)
Mr, Ms + =

But also Generic Terms of address:

First Names like Bud, Mac, Jane
Informal titles like chief, sister, brother, dude
Terms of endearment like dear, honey
13.4 Universals of address
Intimacy and Solidarity: FN, T-Pronoun
T-Pronoun (versus V-Pronoun) for solidarity
FN more significant for intimacy than T-Pronoun
MN even more significant for intimacy

Age and Power determine Nonreciprocal forms of address

But Age and Power may be contradictory, e.g. Grandmother receives
TLN but lacks real power

Gender and Politeness may also contradict power

e.g. Women receive more TLN even when men have more power

Politeness as code calling for certain forms despite power

differences; PC as Politeness in public behavior generally
 14. Critical Discourse Analysis
Critical Discourse Analysis

(Fowler, Fairclough, Coulthard) analytical tool and mode of social

engagement
opposed to Correlation Socio-linguistics (Labov, Trudgill)
Power is constructed in the discourses of a community, Discourse
Analysis can reveal it
Deconstruction, demystification can influence power (hence
linguistics is essential, and socially responsible)
Linguistic Indicators (Fowler's Checklist)

(1) Lexical processes:

abstract versus concrete:
Force may be used - The cops will be there
general versus specific:
The media expect - The SZ predicts

(2) Transitivity
John opened the door - The door opened
Circumstances dictate the raising of taxes
(3) Syntax: deletion, nominalization, passivization
We want you to arrive early - Please arrive early -
Early arrival will be appreciated

(4) Modality: modals, permit, predict, likelihood

(5) Implicature:
The party is low on funds > Please send money
(6) Presupposition

BY how much were you exceeding the speed limit when you
ran the stop sign?
> you were exceeding the speed limit
> you ran the stop sign

(7) Turn taking:

length and number of turns, selection of next speaker, back-
channeling and interruption etc
 15. Language, culture and thought
Language as expression and medium of thought
Language behavior as mirror and basis of culture

15.1 Concepts and propositions

"Culture" consists in what a person must know and believe to

function as a normal member of society
Knowing-how versus knowing-that
 "Culture" breaks down into concepts like family and walking and
propositions like People live in houses

Concepts usually correspond to words in a language, while

propositions usually correspond to sentences

Thus language serves as the medium of expressing and

understanding culture, and functioning in society
 Jakobson: Languages differ not in what they can express but in what
they must express, e.g. grammatical gender and number

The red table is high no gender;

Der rote Tisch ist hoch
Il tavolo rosso alto
singular number in verb
gender & number in subject NP;
number in verb
gender & number in subject NP and in
predicate adjective;
number in verb
15.2 The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis

Sapir: Language not just guide to social reality for linguist, but
shaper of reality for members of the language community; The "real
world" is unconsciously built up on language habits

Whorf: Standard Average European (SAE) versus Hopi, Nootka,

naming and segmentation of reality, e.g. snow, colors, but also
grammar, esp. nouns versus verbs, duration, tense

Strong versus weak versions of the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis:

Strong: Language determines the way we think
Weak: Language influences the way we think
15.3 Linguistic relativity

"New principle of relativity, which holds that all observers are not led
by the same physical evidence to the same picture of the universe,
unless their linguistic backgrounds are similar." (Whorf 1940)

Cultural relativity versus Linguistic relativity

Compare: kinship systems and vocabulary

Norwegian: Spanish:

farfar 'father-father = abuela 'grandmother'

paternal grandfather' abuelo 'grandfather'
farmor 'father-mother =
paternal grandmother' tia 'aunt
mormor 'mother-mother = tio 'uncle'
maternal grandmother' prima cousin, female
morfar 'mother-father = primo cousin, male
maternal grandfather'
farbror 'father-brother =
paternal uncle'
morbror 'mother-brother =
maternal uncle'
 Gaps in vocabulary and culture, evident in borrowing and translating
problems:

Cooking terminology: saut marinate grill filet

German animal terms: fressen saufen trchtig

15.4 Prototypes and basic-level concepts

As Wittgenstein noted, no list of properties suffices to identify all the

activities we call games.

Apparently, we learn prototypes and extrapolate from them.

Labov's cups:
Prototype effects (in grammar):
My daughter's a real fish/a regular fish
Strictly speaking, a dolphin isn't a real/regular fish

Basic-level concepts (lowest level where single term applies):

pine in hierarchy: plant - tree - pine - ponderosa pine
chair in hierarchy: piece of furniture - chair - kitchen chair

"basic-level = single term" holds even when hierarchy differs

city dweller: tree - pine tree - ponderosa pine
forester: tree - pine - ponderosa