Ch. 8 Sociolinguistics

Indirect Questions

Indirect questions in AAE preserve the word order of direct questions. - When a speaker of SAE reports a question, there are two choices available. The speaker can state the question exactly as it was originally stated, using quotation marks, with the verb (is) coming before the subject (the price): I asked, "What is the price?" - Or the speaker of SAE can restate the question as an indirect question: I wanted to know what the price is. - However, speakers of AAE use the interrogative word order for indirect questions: I wanted to know what is the price. SAE sentences about the existence of something are introduced by the words there is or there are. - In these cases, AAE sentences use the word it's or i's, contracted forms of it is: SAE There's a house at the corner. Is there a church nearby? There are a lot of movies on TV tonight. AAE It's a house at the corner. Is it a church nearby? It's a lot of movies on TV tonight.

Gender and Language

Another way in which people differ in how they use language is according to their gender. - Sex is the biological aspect of being male or female. - Gender is the learned complex of masculine or feminine behaviors as defined by culture. As males and females are learning the way that their culture expects them to behave, first as boys and girls and then as men and women, they also learn the correct way to use their language.

Stereotypes

Awareness of these stereotypes leads people to work on changing their accent so as to affect other people's perception of them. - Stereotypes really only describe the person making the judgments, not the reality of what the person or group being stereotyped is really like.

Dialect

Every dialect is a language, linguistically speaking, and social dialects depend on where you were brought up. - People often view the differences in other dialects as "mistakes," but as long as you know how to use it, and the message is decoded, it cannot be "wrong." - All meanings come from the outside world, and are a reflection of the environment and our interpretation of that environment. - Every generation gives and adds something to the language. Layer after layer, language "freezes" the environment and the culture in an acoustic manner. - Cultures differ because experiences, environments, and internal perceptions differ.

Gender Differences in English

In English, both men and women use the same lexicon and syntax. They use the same formal and informal, polite and indirect speech. - However, males and females use formal and informal speech under different circumstances and at different rates. - They differ in their use of certain forms of polite or indirect speech. They have different norms of conversation turn-taking and interruption. - And they have differing interpretations of the meaning of some words.

Lingua Franca

a common second language used for business and other communication needs by people speaking different first languages. - In many parts of East Africa, everyone speaks some Swahili, so that is the lingua franca. Among Eastern European Jews of all countries, Yiddish, a dialect of German, was the lingua franca. Today, English is the lingua franca of aviation and technology

Regional Dialects- Morphological Variation

In the United States, southerners distinguish between you (singular) and y'all (plural). People in other parts of the country use you for both singular and plural. So a southerner greeting several people at once would say: It's nice to see y'all. How y'all doing? But people in other parts of the country would say: It's nice to see you. How are you doing? - In some parts of the American South, northern England, and southern Wales, the third person present, singular inflectional bound morpheme (-s) is used with first and second person, singular and plural, as a present tense marker. So you can hear sentences such as: I likes to swim. We likes to dance. You eats at noon.

Deletions

Informal speech allows deletions that are not present in formal speech or written English. - The answer to the informal questions in the example above can be one or two words; the full sentence is implied: "Where are you going to be at?" "The mall." (versus: "I am going to be at the mall.") - Additional deletions, common in informal speech, produce such questions as: "You going to school today?" "Going to work today?"Another feature of informal speech in English is the use of simple sentences or clauses linked repeatedly with the coordinating conjunction and. - They would be considered run-on sentences in writing, but are common in informal speech.

Deborah Tannen

Linguist Deborah Tannen's research shows that in conversations between men and women: - Men interrupt other speakers more often than women do. - When women interrupt, it is more often to affirm what the speaker has said or to support it with an example. - But when men interrupt, it is often to change the subject or redirect the conversation.

Language (or speech) community

a group of people who live, work, socialize, and communicate with one another.

a Man of Words

a person in Africa or in the African American community who is respected for his oratorical skills. - Respect and admiration for a man of words is an African cultural value that the slaves brought with them and their descendants have preserved. - In Africa, this man might have been a chief or shaman whose oratorical skills convinced others to follow him. Or he might have been a griot, a learned elder in an African village who has memorized the oral history of the community in a sort of epic poem. - Excellent verbal performance and oratorical skills are highly valued in the African American community. - A man of words in the African American community may be someone skilled at Toasting--reciting in rhyme the history of his experience in important events, such as World War II or the civil rights movement. - Or he may be an expert at playing The Dozens, a rhyming game in which the participants jokingly trade insults. - Rap music is the direct descendant of this African tradition.

Bureaucratese

also known as gobbledygook. It is an accumulation of many long words in many long sentences to impress the audience, not to communicate with the audience.

Word Choice

probably the single most important indicator of formality or situational dialect.

Cognates

similar words in two or more different languages that were derived from a similar root language and may have similar meanings. - Very often, cognates are so similar you can recognize them. - Spanish and English have many cognates that can facilitate language learning for those speakers of one language studying the other. - Nation in English is nación in Spanish. Probably in English is probablemente in Spanish. Problem in English is problema in Spanish. - But beware of false cognates! Don't expect to borrow a book from a libreria, that's the Spanish word for bookstore; you will have to pay for your book. A lectura is not a lecture but a reading selection. An advertencia is a warning, not an advertisement

Pidgin Languages

simplified languages developed for use in specific interactions, such as business, service, and trade. They developed when people who had no common language came into contact. - Among the wide variety of pidgin languages are those based on African/English, African/French, and Portuguese/Malaysian. - Pidgin languages have limited vocabularies, perhaps as few as 800 to 1500 words. Therefore they use explanations, which are often very colorful, to express concepts for which they have no words. Some examples from various pidgin languages are dog baby (puppy), and cow pig (sow).

Taboo Words

slang words that have cultural rules restricting their use. Some of these are for bodily functions and body parts. Small children are taught to say pee-pee or wee-wee instead of the more formal urinate. Very often families make up their own slang words for penis, vagina, breasts, and buttocks. Adults may use variations of these slang words or other, more adult slang, in informal settings. - However, they would use the formal words when discussing the bodily functions or the body part with a doctor.

Code Switching

the practice of changing from one style of language to another. - Changing your language to fit the situation.

Inflated Language

the use of terms to make everyday things seem more important. Inflated language calls used cars pre-owned or experienced cars.

Prestige Dialect

the variety of a language spoken by the high status people of a society.

Informal Register

One grammatical indicator of the informal register in English is the placement of a preposition at the end of a sentence: "Where are you going to be at?" "Who should I send it to?" - If they were written (or spoken) in a more formal register they would be: "Where are you going to be?" "To whom should I send it?"

Regional Dialects- Semantic Variation

One of the most colorful ways in which dialects vary is semantically. Many lexical items vary according to region. - Do you carry water in a pail or a bucket? Do you eat pancakes, johnnycakes, or flapjacks for breakfast? It depends on whether you live in the northern states or the southern states. - Do you drink tonic, soda, or pop? Do women carry purses or pocketbooks? These are distinctions between the West Coast and East Coast? In the United States, a light meal in the early evening is supper, but in Britain it's tea.

Forms of Doublespeak

Other forms of doublespeak are euphemisms, bureaucratese, and inflated language.

Gender and Language Ex.

Some languages have formal rules for each gender about the use of pronouns, verb conjugations, word pronunciation, and levels of formality. - In Hebrew: "I write" Males say: Ani kotev Females say: Ani Kotevet "I say" Males say: Ani omer Females say: Ani omeret - In the indigenous language of the Carib Indians, men and women had so many different words for everyday items, the early Spanish explorers reported that the men and women spoke different languages: "rain" Females say: kuyu Males say: kunobu "canoe" Females say: kuriala Males say: ukuni

I'm Sorry - Tannen

Tannen also explains that there is a difference in the way men and women understand the meaning of the expression "I'm sorry." - A man who says "I'm sorry" is accepting blame for what happened. By apologizing, he is also accepting the inferior position of one who has done something wrong or made a mistake. - Women, on the other hand, appear to be apologizing incessantly and without much serious thought behind it. - But a woman who says "I'm sorry" often means "I regret this happened, but I neither accept nor assign blame for it." - In fact, for women the apology is not an acceptance of blame; it is the beginning of a soothing ritual in which each person is expected to contribute a part.

Regional Dialects- Phonological Variation

There is phonological variation (that is, words are pronounced differently) in different regions. - This is part of what makes up the regional accent. - These pronunciation differences can be traced back to the regional variation in the English of the early colonists, who came from different parts of England and spoke English differently. - Do you /pak yə ka/ or /park yɔr kar/? The deleted /r/ is characteristic of the Boston area. - Do you say /təmeto/ or /təmato/? Americans use the first pronunciation and British use the second.

Doublespeak

William Lutz invented the term doublespeak to describe language that is intended to confuse and deceive rather than to communicate. - Using jargon outside of its own language community, knowing that the person listening or reading will not understand, can be considered doublespeak. Chemists refer to glass as fused silicate Linguists refer to affixes as bound morphemes But as long as these terms are used among people who can be expected to know the jargon, it is not doublespeak. But when used in advertising, an insurance policy, a corporate annual report, or anything else intended for the general public to read, it is doublespeak.

Polite Questions

Women making indirect commands often use polite questions: "Would you mind...?" "Can you do...?" - So a woman manager might ask her secretary "Can you call the central office for me?"

Multiple Negotiation

a characteristic of AAE and many other varieties of English. - The negative word can appear before the noun, verb, and modifiers. See also double negation. Where SAE speakers say, "I have no dogs" or "I don't have any dogs," AAE speakers say "I don't have no dogs."

Hispanic English (HE)

a general term to describe the many varieties of English spoken by Americans of Hispanic descent. Phonological differences include the fact that English has 12 main vowels; Spanish has 5 main vowels, /i, e, u, o , a/. - For instance, because there is no /ɪ/ in Spanish, the vowel /i/ is substituted, so words like lip and leap are both pronounced /lip/. - There is no /š/ in Spanish; therefore it is very often rendered as /č/ when it comes at the beginning of a word, as in: SAE Chevy /šɛvi/ HE /čɛvi/ SAE Chicago /šəkago/ HE /čikago/ - Spanish words can never have a consonant cluster beginning with /s/ at the initial position. In a Spanish word, an /s/ consonant cluster must be preceded by a vowel. When this Spanish phonological rule is applied to English words, it produces the following pronunciations: SAE stop start HE /ɛ/stop /ɛ/start

idiolect

an individual's personal, individual way of speaking - Each person has a unique way of speaking that results from physical, social, and cultural factors: a certain tone of voice, often-used words, characteristic idioms and phrases. - This is why comedians can do impersonations of famous people speaking and the audience can guess who the comedian is imitating. - But an individual has to be able to communicate with other people. So the idiolects of people living and working together cannot be so different that they are not understandable to one another.

Social Dialects

are associated with classes and an upper class dialect often becomes the national standard. - A language is defined as a dialect, and vice versa, based on economic, financial, and military power. So each "dialect" can become labeled a "language" with the right circumstances. - The rule against the double negative in English came about by the idle minds of the upper classes. It used to be acceptable in Middle English and is still acceptable in many other languages. - Slang is often associated with the social dialect of the lower classes.

Creole Language

created when a pidgin language is passed on to the next generation and becomes the first language of a community. - Enslaved Africans who were brought to the Americas were isolated from others who spoke their language in order to prevent rebellion. In order to communicate with each other, they developed a pidgin language with the overseer's language as the superstrate. - Over the years, they developed a language community of their own, with the pidgin language as the means of communication among themselves and with their offspring born into slavery.

Regional Dialects

have come to have a social meaning, in that people make assumptions about the speaker based on the dialect that he or she speaks. - Dialects have been stereotyped. - It is not unusual for many upscale, high-end, expensive products to feature voices with British accents to advertise their products. They sound very elegant to an American audience. They give the product an air of elegance and exclusivity - as if by buying them the consumer can join the aristocracy. - However, if advertisers want to portray a product as earthy or down home, they may have the actors use a rural, Midwest accent. Or if they want to establish a character as not too smart, the actor will use a southern or "hillbilly" accent.

Dialect (or variety)

is the shared, unique linguistic characteristics of a language community. We sometimes think of a dialect as being a special regional characteristic peculiar to New York City or New England or the South. But everyone belongs to a language community; therefore everyone speaks a dialect.

Slang Words

newly coined words or those that have never been completely accepted in formal speech. - The use of slang is another way that speakers indicate the informal register and their social identity

African American English (AAE)

one of several names for the varieties of English used in the African American Community. - It has been referred to by several names: Black English, Spoken Soul, Ebonics, "down home" speech, and African American Vernacular English. - Just like all varieties of English, it varies from one region of the country to another, from one social status to another, and from one generation to another. - The characteristics of AAE have often been misunderstood as incorrect, sloppy English, and the speakers of AAE have often been stigmatized as uneducated and lazy. To avoid these negative stereotypes, many African Americans will use SAE while conducting business or working in the white community, but use AAE in the African American community as a sign of ethnic pride and neighborhood solidarity.

/r/ and /l/ deletion

one of the phonological characteristics of some varieties of African American English. - Like the speakers of some dialects of Boston and New York, the speakers of these AAE varieties delete the /r/ in words such as car, guard, and York. They pronounce these words /ka/, /gad/, and /yɔk/. - The liquid sounds /r/ and /l/ form a natural class, so it is not surprising to find that /l/ can also be deleted by speakers of some AAE varieties. In these varieties, help is pronounced /hɛp/ and soul becomes /so/.

Expletives

other taboo words that express affective meaning. - Some taboo words that are expletives include son of a B- , and ********. Their main function is to express affective meaning, that is, the feeling of the speaker. - Racial epithets are also slang taboo words-- such as wop to describe Italian immigrants or wetbacks to describe Mexican immigrants. - Expletives and racial epithets are not used in the formal register.

Tag Questions

short questions like "isn't it?" and "don't you?" that are added to the end of declarative statements. - Although all people use tag questions occasionally, women, more often than men, are thought to use affective tag questions that have the effect of making a direct statement or command seem more polite or that engage the listener in the conversation: "I think we should contact the central office, don't you?" "I think it's great, don't you?" A popular stereotype is that women talk more than men do. But observation shows that this stereotype is untrue. - In most conversation groups that include both men and women, men talk more. - They take more turns at speaking and speak for a longer period of time than women do.

Superstrate Language

the dominant language. - a large part of the vocabulary of a pidgin comes from this language.

Jargon

the in-group expression of a profession, sport, hobby, or field of expertise. - For instance, for a computer programmer, it is quicker and easier to say one word, such as ROM, than to give a definition for Read-Only Memory. - People in the field respect those who are knowledgeable in that field, and knowledge is often demonstrated by the correct use of jargon.

Substrate Language

the native language of the subordinate people learning the dominant language; they retain many of the syntactic features of this language. - For instance, in the pidgins that developed because of European colonization of countries in other parts of the world, the European language will provide most of the lexicon, but much of the grammar will come from the indigenous language. - One explanation for this is that because pidgins develop very quickly out of necessity, the speakers of the substrate language will just learn the vocabulary of the superstrate language, but will incorporate it into the grammar of their own language.

Standard American English (SAE)

the prestige dialect or variety of American English. It is used in business, education, and the media.

BBC English

the prestige variety of British English, so-called because the British Broadcasting Corporation uses it.

Sociolinguistics

the study of how language and social factors, such as ethnicity, social class, age, gender, and educational level, are related - The minute you hear a person begin to speak, certain information about that person's position within the social system is revealed to you.

Double Negation

the use of more than one negative word to negate a sentence. Spanish, just like French, Middle English, AAE, and many other languages, uses a negative word before the verb even if there is also another negative in the sentence. - When this is translated into English, it results in double negation: SAE I don't have any help. You don't need a car. I didn't see the sign. HE I don't have no help. I don't need no car. I didn't see no sign.

Indirect Language

the use of statements rather than commands, and hints and suggestions rather than orders. - It is used by everyone at various times and circumstances. - Women tend to use indirect language more often than men. A woman manager might tell her secretary, "I need to speak to the central office on the phone today." A polite man would say, "Call the central office for me, please."

Nativization

when a language that had not been anyone's native language becomes the native language for a generation of speakers. - During this process, vocabulary is added to the language so that the full range of human experience can be expressed.

Euphemisms

words that make something seem less offensive or unpleasant than it is. It is not doublespeak when they are used to spare someone's feelings, as in substituting the phrase passed away for the word died.