2014-04-09
Sources
" Crystal, David. The Cambridge Encyclopaedia of
language, pp. 24-25, 28-33, 38-43.
" Fromkin, Victoria, Robert Rodman, Nina Hyams.
Introduction to linguistics
2003. An introduction to language.
 Chapter 10: Language in society.
" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYHTsmvdth
Lecture 8: Sociolinguistics 1
c (Social Class and Accent)
" http://www.ello.uos.de/field.php/Sociolinguistics
/Majordialectregions (dialects of the UK and the
USA)
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Sociolinguistics Sociolinguistics
" Language is not uniform, but differs among
" Studies the relationship between language
social groups and individual speakers.
and society, that is:
" Sociolinguistics focuses on performance and
 The linguistic identity of social groups - the sense
how it changes under the influence of:
of belonging to a particular group speaking the
same language as you.  status,
 age,
 Social attitudes to language.
 sex,
 Standard and nonstandard forms of language.
 religion,
 Social varieties of language.
 education.
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Terms Lg varieties: accents
" Accent  a variety of language indentified by
" Speech community  a group of people who
pronunciation.
share a set of norms and expectations regarding
 The term refers to pronunciation only.
the use of language (Yule 2006).
" Regional accents:
" Language area  a place where a common
 spoken by rural or urban communities within a
language is spoken.
country (e.g. 'West Country', 'Liverpool')
" Language variety  a specific form of a language:
 and national groups speaking the same language (e.g.
'American', 'Australian).
 Regional and occupational varieties (e.g. London
English, religious English).
" Social accents  relate to the cultural and
educational background of the speaker.
 Varieties caused by sex, age, status, etc.
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Social accents Social accents: RP
" Social accents are believed to reflect the " In the UK, the best example of a social accent
social structure of a society. has been Received Pronunciation (RP):
 regionally neutral;
" E.g. the British society is stereotypically
 prestigious because it is associated with the
divided into these classes:
middle (and above) classes in the South East, the
 working class, middle class and upper class.
wealthiest part of England.
" The way people speak a language may show
 Speaking RP indicates a certain educational
which social class they belong to.
background, such as public school or elocution
lessons.
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Social accents: RP Regional accents
" RP is also called BBC English or Queen s English.
" In England, the upper class or prestige accent
" However, now the accent that the Queen uses is
is almost always a form of RP;
seen as old fashioned.
" however, some areas have their 'own' prestige
 Phoneticians call this accent Conservative RP.
accent, different from both RP and the
" Todays discussions of social accents include the
working class accent of the region.
influence of immigrants languages, e.g.:
 Upper-caste Indians have become a prosperous social " There are plenty of regional accents there,
group  but are they speaking RP?
 many have working class or lower middle class
 What about the accent of well-educated Polish
connotations.
immigrants?
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Regional accents: some examples Dialect
" The London accent  a working and lower middle class
" Dialect  a variety of language indentified by a
accent.
particular set of words, grammar and
" Estuary English  a working class and lower middle pronunciation.
class accent from S-E England; a milder (closer to RP)
 So accent is one of the aspects of a dialect.
form of the London accent.
" Examples of lexical differences:
" Multicultural London English  appeared in the late
 Pop, soda and coke  refer to the same thing but
20th c., used mainly by young, inner-city, working-class
come from different dialects.
people in inner London.
" Examples of syntactic differences:
" Brummie  the accent and dialect of Birmingham and
 My car needs washed (eastern Ohio and
surrounding areas.
Pennsylvania).
" Mackem An accent and dialect of Sunderland and
 My car needs to be washed / needs washing
surrounding areas.
(Standard English).
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Standard dialect Dialect vs. language
" Standard dialect  a prestige variety of lg used " Deciding what is a language and what is a
within a speech community. dialect is not always easy.
 There are some criteria but neither of them is
" It cuts across regional differences and
universally accepted.
provides a unified means of communication.
" The criterion of mutual intelligibility:
" It constitutes a norm which can be used in
 if speakers of two varieties can understand each
mass-media or teaching the lg to foreigners.
other, they speak two dialects of the same
" Sub-standard (pejorative) / non-standard
language.
varieties  dialects which do not conform to
 If they don t understand each other, they speak
this norm.
different languages.
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Dialect vs. language Dialect vs. language
" When two varieties share a writing system, they are
" However, there are counterexamples, e.g:
dialects of the same language.
 Mandarin and Cantonese are mutually
" If communities have separate histories, cultures,
unintelligible, but they are considered dialects of literatures and political structures, they speak different
languages.
Chinese.
 E.g.: Serbian and Croatian used to be treated as dialects of
 Norwegian and Swedish are mutually intelligible,
one language, Serbo-Croatian.
but they are considered different languages.  Now they are spoken in separate countries, so they are
separate languages.
" A sociolinguistic criterion:
 Different writing systems: Serbian  Cyrillic script, Croatian
 Latin one.
 Dialects become languages for political and social
" Poland: uncertain status of Kashubian and Silesian.
reasons.
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Dialect continuum Dialect continuum
Some dialect continua in Europe:
" In some regions there is no clear dialect
" Continental West Germanic continuum: modern
boundary but rather a dialect continuum (or a
dialects of German and Dutch  Belgium  the
dialect area)  a chain of dialects spoken
Netherlands  Germany  Austria  Switzerland.
throughout an area.
" Romance / Italic dialect c.(Calais/Paris  Rome).
 At any point in the chain, speakers of a dialect can
" South Slavic dialect c. (Croatian, Bosnian,
understand the speakers of other neighbouring
Serbian, Macedonian).
dialects.
" North Slavic dialect c. (Russian, Ukrainian, White
 People who live further away may be difficult or
Russian, Polish, Czech).
impossible to understand.
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