Introduction to

Sociolinguistics

Chapter One: Overview: What is

sociolinguistics?
What do sociolinguists study?
Defining sociolinguistics
 Sociolinguistics is the study of
the complex relationship
between language and society
 It is concerned with describing
how people use language in
social contexts
 It is based on ‘real-life’ data of
language use
 Research in sociolinguistics
often tries to address social
problems such as
miscommunication, bias,
oppression, success and
failure, effectiveness, conflicts,
professional training.
 No single or dominant ‘theory’ or method of
analysis in sociolinguistics: diverse and eclectic
field
 Broad field of study, looking at language-in-use,
based on analyses of naturally-occurring, ‘real-
life’ empirical data materials (recordings,
surveys, questionnaires, etc.)
Defining sociolinguistics
 Sociolinguistics and the sociology of language
(see Hudson, p. 12)
 Macro- and micro-sociolinguistics (see
Coulmas, p. 13)
 Wardhaugh’s position on the relationship (p. 13)
 Discussion p. 15, esp 1, 2, 4, 5 and 6
Relation between language and
society
 ‘Society’: a fuzzy notion in
sociolinguistics.
 It can mean ‘the national group’ (i.e.
the conventional definition), but can
also be more loosely defined as
‘community’, ‘group’ or ‘network’.
 This collectivity may vary in size and
be formed by such things as age,
interest, family, gender, ethnicity,
occupation, geography, social
position, etc.
 ‘language’ and ‘society’
connections ...
 Several possible connections, or relationships:
 1. Social structure (e.g., age, region, education, class,
religion, occupation) determines linguistic structure
 2. Linguistic structure (a specific language) determines
social structure (this is known as ‘The Sapir-Whorf
Hypothesis’)
 3. Dialectical relationship between ‘language’ and ‘society’:
state of flux
 4. No relationship (e.g. Chomskian view) worth studying
Knowledge of language use
 A major theme in sociolinguistics is
being able to discover, and describe,
what it entails to use and understand
language appropriately - within the
group
 Appropriacy is centrally concerned
with the choices the people make: of
codes, topics, turn-taking styles,
‘registers’, jargon, politeness markers,
swear words, etc. (Holmes, p. 11)
Cultural knowledge
 Cultural knowledge is therefore all-important
 Cultural knowledge entails knowing how groups (family,
friends, colleagues, fellow citizens, etc.) behave (or are
likely to behave), what is ‘normal’ (and ‘abnormal’)
behaviour (remember that using language is a form of
behaviour!), what is ‘expected’ in a multiplicity of social
settings.
 Norms, values, attitudes (which are all cultural
products and thus culturally constructed in
different communities) are reflexively related to
language; that is, they are all displayed through
language, but also sustained, or changed,
challenged and modified through language.
 These are dynamic and collectively defined
 Discussion, p. 12
Noam Chomsky

 One of the most influential

linguists of the 20th century
 Interested in grammaticality:
how humans use a finite set of
structures and rules to produce
an infinite number of
grammatically correct
sentences
 We are ‘hard wired’ to learn
abstract ‘deep structures’; this
ability is innate to humans
Chomsky
 Knowledge of language: ‘competence’ and ‘performance’
 But linguistics should concern itself with the former, rather than
the latter, argued Chomsky (see p. 3)
 Study of linguistics should focus on ‘Ideal speaker-listener,
homogeneous speech community, possessing perfect
knowledge of language’
Dell Hymes: Challenges Chomsky
ideas on language ..
 Dissatisfied with Chomsky’s
definition of ‘competence’: too
narrow, too abstract, too sterile,
and most importantly: too asocial
 Hymes broadened the
‘competence’ notion to include
knowledge of appropriate
language use in the social and
cultural context (i.e. not only
syntactic correctness, which
Chomsky emphasized)
Hymes’ views (cont’d)
 Knowing a language: not only grammar but also
knowing about use in contexts, hence ‘communicative
competence’ (major influence on foreign language
teaching in 1970’s and 1980s)
 Hymes: We need to merge ethnography (the study of
humans in social and cultural groups) and linguistics
(the study of language), to produce an ‘ethnography of
speaking’ - the forerunner of sociolinguistics
 A good deal of sociolinguistic research has adopted
Hymes’ ‘ethnography of speaking’ approach
Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-
1913)
 Chomsky’s competence-
performance distinction was
taken from Ferdinand de
Saussure’s distinction between
langue (group knowledge) and
parole (individual knowledge)
 de Saussure: “the father of
modern linguistics”, saw the study
of language in new ways
 Language is organic, (not
atomistic) and should be studied
as such
 Diachronic and synchronic
 Paradigmatic and syntagmatic
Major topics in sociolinguistic
research (since the mid 1960’s)
 Like linguistics, sociolinguistics is a broad and eclectic field:
 Although sociolinguists are united by their interest in the social use
of language, their fundamental belief in empirical data collections,
and insist on focusing on how people USE language in the social
contexts
 there is nevertheless no single dominant analytic method or
‘theory’, no specific ‘goal’ or ‘leader’ figure in the field, no one
dominant research topic
 There is a cluster of major topics. These include:
 Dialects and regional variation: What? Where? Why? Social
significance?
 Describing styles of talking (amongst certain groups in various
contexts): informal, friendly chat, job interviews, doctor-patient
consultations, teaching, etc.
 Bilingualism and multilingualism: How learned? How used? Social
meaning of using more than one language?
 Networks and language use within the network: How are new
members acculturated, sanctioned, what are the rules of the
network, etc.
Major research areas, continued
 Culture and language: how the two interrelate, and why (Sapir-Whorf
Hypothesis)
 Intercultural communication: problems and solutions
 Politeness: How? Mapping and explaining gradations of politeness
 Child language, sub-group discourse (elderly, teenagers, hiphoppers,
truckers, gays, etc.)
 Language and identity (how identity is accomplished via language)
 Talk and conversation - how talk ‘works’: topics, beginnings, turns, ends ..
 Gender and language - men and women interacting: differences?
 Racism, sexism, ageism, and disadvantage - how language plays a role,
and how it can alleviate problems
 Language planning - for educators, teacher trainers, schools, nation states,
regions, etc (What should be taught and what not? How? Why?)
Principles for sociolinguistic
investigation (p. 18)
 The cumulative principle
 The uniformation principle
 Principle of convergence
 Subordinate shift
 Styleshifting
 Attention
 Vernacular
 Formality