Sociolinguistics

Introducing
Sociolinguistics

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 What is Sociolinguistics?

 What the academics say…

“We can define Hudson

sociolinguistics as the (1996: 1)
study of language in
relation to society.”

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 What is Sociolinguistics?

 What the academics say… Trudgill

(2004:
21)
“Sociolinguistics… is that part
of linguistics which is
concerned with language as a
social and cultural
phenomenon. It investigates
the field of language and
society and has close
connections with the social
sciences…”
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 What is Sociolinguistics?

 What the academics say… Holmes

(1992: 16)
The sociolinguist’s aim is to
move towards a theory which
provides a motivated account
of the way language is used
in a community, and of the
choices people make when
they use language

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 What is Sociolinguistics?

 No set definition or single approach, but a set

of reoccurring themes
– Combining linguistic AND social theory
 Drawing upon our knowledge of the social world to
better understand language

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 What is Sociolinguistics?

Language Society

Attitudes

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 What is Sociolinguistics?

Language Politics:
capitalist,
communist,
sexist,
Setting: democratic,
formal, fascist…
casual…
Power:
rights,
norms,
Attitudes: judgements
religious,
gender,
education… History: war,
change,events
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 Why did sociolinguistics emerge?

 The legacy of formal

linguistics
– Constructs models of the
linguistic system
– Phonetics and phonology,
syntax, semantics
– Interested in humans’
underlying knowledge of
language structure

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 Isolating language structure

 Chomsky’s competence/performance
distinction
– Competence = underlying knowledge of language
structure
– Performance = language output which is affected
by language-external conditions

Colorless green ideas sleep furiously

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 What is a Sociolinguist?

 Sociolinguist study the relationship between

language and society.
 Interested in explaining why we speak
differently in different social contexts
 Concerned with identifying the social
functions of language and the ways it is used
to convey social meaning.

Holmes, Janet. An Introduction to Sociolinguistics, 2nd edition. London: Longman, 2001, p. 1.

 What do Sociolinguists do?

1. “Identify clearly the linguistic variation involved

(e.g. vocabulary, sounds, grammatical
constructions, dialects, languages)”

2. “Identify clearly the different social or non-

linguistic factors which lead speakers to use
one form rather than another (e.g. features
relating to participants, setting or function of
the interaction).”
Holmes, Janet. An Introduction to Sociolinguistics, 2nd edition. London: Longman, 2001, p. 11.
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 Exercise 1

a) Identify the words in examples 1 and 2 which reflect

the fact that Ray’s relationship with his mother is a
friendly one compared to his relationship with the
principal. What does this suggest about the social
significance of choice or words?
b) Ray greeting the principal with the words Good
afternoon, sir. How do or did you greet your school
principal? Would you use the same words to your
father? Would you use the same greeting to your
best friend? Why or why not?
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 Ray: Hi mum.
Mum: Hi, You’re late.
Ray: Yeah, that bastard Sootbucket kept us in
again.
Mum: Nana’s here.
Ray: Oh sorry. Where is she?

Ray: Good afternoon, sir.

Principal: What are you doing here at this time?
Ray: Mr. Sutton kept us in, sir.
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 Something that makes sociolinguists
cross…

“Linguistic theory is concerned primarily

with an ideal speaker-listener, in a
completely homogenous speech-
community, who knows its language
perfectly and is unaffected by such
grammatically irrelevant conditions as
memory limitations, distractions, shifts of
attention and interest, and errors (random
or characteristic) in applying his knowledge
of the language in actual performance. This
seems to me to have been the positions of
the founders of modern general linguistics,
and no cogent reason for modifying it has
been offered” (Chomsky 1965).
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 Let’s think about that…

 Do ALL speakers share the same underlying

knowledge of language?
– How do we know?
 Is language solely a cognitive process?

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 What do we use language to do?

 Communication AND achievement of social

goals
– Language without social knowledge = “a social
monster” (Hymes 1974: 75)
 Attitudes
 Stances
 Judgements

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 How do we know what to say?

 Not just important to know the linguistic rules,

but the social rules too
– When is it appropriate to speak?
– Who is able to speak?
– Which speech forms are affective in getting what
you want done?
 Our sociolinguistic knowledge is structured…
– Communicative competence (Hymes 1971)

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 Exercise

 You want someone to pass you a copy of the

bus timetable. How would you ask:
– a friend?
– someone at the bus stop?

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 Why do we say the same thing in
different ways?

Every afternoon my friend packs her bag and leaves her Cardiff
office in southern Wales at about 5 o’clock. As she leaves, her
business partner says goodbye Margaret (she replies goodbye
Mike ), her secretary says see you tomorrow (she replies bye
Jill ), and the caretaker says bye Mrs Walker (to which she
responds goodbye Andy ). As she arrives home she is greeted
by hi mum from her daughter, Jenny, hello dear, have a good
day? from her mother, and simply you’re late again! from her
husband. Later in the evening the president of the local flower
club calls to ask if she would like to join the club. Good evening,
is that Mrs Billington? she asks. No, it’s Margaret Walker, but
my husband’s name is David Billington , Margaret answers.
What can I do for you? Finally a friend calls Hello Meg, sut wyt
24 ti?
 Exercise 2

 Make a list of all the names you are called by

people who know you. For each name note
who uses it to you and when or where.
 Do some people call you by more than one
name?
 What are the reasons why people choose
one name rather than another for you?

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 What are the different ways we say
things?

Example 4:
Sam : You seen our ‘enry’s new ‘ouse
yet? It’s in ‘alton you know.
Jim : I have indeed. I could hardly miss it
Sam. Your Henry now owns the biggest
house in Halton.

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 Example 5

(a) Refuse should be deposited in the

receptacle provided.
(b) Put your rubbish in the bin, Jilly.
(c) Please tender exact fare and state
destination.
(d) Give me the right money and tell me where
you’re going.

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 Exercise 3

1. Identify the linguistic features which

distinguish (c) and (d) in example 5 . What
levels of linguistic analysis does the
variation involve?
2. What non-linguistic and social factors are
likely to account for the different ways of
saying the same thing illustrated in example
5?

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 So, what do sociolinguists want to do?

 Provide “a socially realistic linguistics”

 To do this we must:
– Represent all speakers
– Not rely upon speaker intuition
– Be descriptive not prescriptive
 This allows us to learn more about language

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 Anything else?

 Solve social problems involving language

– To do this, we must:
 Think about the role of power in language
 Look to language for evidence of social inequality
 Examine social policy with respect to language
 This allows us to learn more about society

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 Examples of policy implications…

 Sexism/racism in language
 Does our language render women invisible
 Dialect and education research and inequality
– Is it harder for nonstandard children to achieve academic
success?
 Language policy and planning affects social policy
– Multilingualism; Standardisation; Education; Globalisation

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 Social constraints on language

 We learn to speak in  Language is indexical:

different ways because It reflects our social
of our place in society memberships
– Social class  It also helps to
– Gender construct and define
– Ethnicity our social memberships
– Age
– Region of origin

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Factors in Sociolinguistic Variation
(Alternative to SPEAKING Model)

1. Participants: Who is speaking to whom?

2. Setting: Where are they speaking?
3. Topic: What is being talked about?
4. Function: Why are they speaking?
5. When
6. How
 Summing Up…

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

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 References and Additional Reading

Hudson, R.A. (1996) Sociolinguistics. Cambridge: CUP.

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

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