Sociolinguistics in Language

Teaching
Dr. Yunisrina Q. Yusuf, M. Ling.
 Source
Most notes in these slides are from:

Holmes, Janet. (2001). An Introduction to Sociolinguistics.

London: Pearson.

Holmes, Janet (2013). An Introduction to Sociolinguistics

(Learning about Language). London: Pearson.

And the examples are taken from various journal articles

and internet sources…
 An Introduction to Sociolinguistics
Sociolinguistics: a term that refers to the study of the
relationship between language and society, and how
language is used in multilingual speech communities.

Aspects of language in Sociolinguists

Sociolinguists are interested in explaining why people
speak differently in different social contexts. And the
effect of social factors such as (social distance, social
status, age, gender, class) on language varieties
(dialects, registers, genres, etc.), and they are
concerned with identifying the social functions of
language and the way they are used to convey social
meanings.
 An Introduction to Sociolinguistics
Variety: is a set of linguistic forms used under specific social
circumstances, with a distinctive social distribution.

* Formality increases between participants (speaker and

hearer) when the social distance is greater. Informality
(solidarity) increases when the social distance is little
between participants (speaker and hearer).

* Social status depends on a number of factors such as social

rank, wealth, age, gender and so on; therefore the person
with the higher social status has the choice of using
formality or informality (solidarity) when addressing other
persons of lower social status. But the person with the
lower social status uses only formality when addressing a
person of higher social status.
 Multilingual speech communities
Domains: domains of language use, a term popularized
by an American sociolinguist, Joshua Fishman (1972). A
domain of language involves typical interactions
between typical participants in typical settings about a
typical topic. Examples of these domains are family,
friendship, religion, education and employment.

Setting: the physical situation or the typical place where

speech interactions occur (code choice), settings such
as home, mosque, church, school, office, etc.
 Multilingual speech communities
Diglossia: communities rather in which two languages or
language varieties are used with one being a high
variety for formal situations and prestige, and a low
variety for informal situations (everyday conversation).

Diglossia has three crucial features; two distinct varieties

of the same language are used in the community, with
one regarded as high (H) variety and the other as low
(L) variety. Each variety is used for quite distinct
functions; H & L complement each other. No one uses
the H variety in everyday conversation.
 Multilingual speech communities
Examples of diglossia:
The standard classical Arabic language is the high variety in
Arab countries, and it is used for writing and for formal
functions, but vernacular (colloquial) Arabic is the low
variety (L) used for informal speech situations.

“In the classic diglossic situation, two varieties of a language,

such as standard French and Haitian Creole French, exist
alongside each other in a single society. Each variety has its
own fixed functions--one a 'high,' prestigious variety, and
one a 'low,' or colloquial, one. Using the wrong variety in
the wrong situation would be socially inappropriate, almost
on the level of delivering the BBC's nightly news in
broad Scots” (Nordquist, 2014)
 Multilingual speech communities
Polyglossia: basically polyglossia situations involve two
contrasting varieties (high and low) but in general it refers
to communities that regularly use more than two
languages.
It is a useful term for describing situations where a number of
distinct codes or varieties are used for clearly distinct
purposes or in clearly distinguishable situations.

For example:
Both Mandarin and formal Singapore English can be
considered H varieties alongside different L varieties.
Mandarin functions as an H variety in relation to at least
two L varieties, Hokkien and Cantonese. Informal Singapore
English is an L variety alongside the more formal H variety.
So for this speech community there are two H varieties and
a number of L varieties in a complex relationship.
 Multilingual speech communities
Code-switching: it is to move from one code (language,
dialect, or style) to another during speech for a number of
reasons.

Reasons for code-switching:

• to signal solidarity,
• to reflect one's ethnic identity,
• to show off,
• to hide some information from a third party,
• to achieve better explanation of a certain concept,
• to converge or reduce social distance with the hearer,
• to diverge or increase social distance or
• to impress and persuade the audience (metaphorical code-
switching).
 Multilingual speech communities
Lexical borrowing: it results from the lack of vocabulary
and it involves borrowing single words – mainly nouns.
When speaking a second language, people will often
use a term from their first language because they don't
know the appropriate word in their second language.
They also my borrow words from another language to
express a concept or describe an object for which there
is no obvious word available in the language they are
using.

* Code switching involves a choice between the words of

two languages or varieties, but lexical borrowing is
resulted from the lack of vocabulary.
 Language maintenance and shift
Language shift: it happens when the language of the
wider society (majority) displaces the minority mother
tongue language over time in migrant communities or
in communities under military occupation. Therefore
when language shift occurs, it shifts most of the time
towards the language of the dominant group, and the
result could be the eradication of the local language.

For example:
Chinese migrants to Hong Kong, where the native
language is Cantonese Chinese, generally lose their
native Mandarin Chinese in favour of Cantonese
Chinese.
 Language maintenance and shift
Factors that lead to language shift:
1. Economic, social and political factor
• The dominant language is associated with
social status and prestige
• Obtaining work is the obvious economic
reason for learning another language
• The pressure of institutional domains such as
schools and the media
 Language maintenance and shift
2. Demographic factors
• Language shift is faster in urban areas than rural
• The size of the group is some times a critical factor
• Intermarriage between groups can accelerate language
shift

3. Attitudes and values

• Language shift is slower among communities where
the minority language is highly valued, therefore when
the language is seen as an important symbol of ethnic
identity its generally maintained longer, and visa versa.
 Language maintenance and shift
Language death and Language loss:

When all the people who speak a language die, the

language dies with them.

With the spread of a majority group language into

more and more domains, the number of contexts
in which individuals use the ethnic language
diminishes. The language usually retreats till it is
used only in the home, and finally it is restricted
to such personal activities as counting, praying
and dreaming.
 Language maintenance and shift
How can a minority language be maintained?
1. A language can be maintained and preserved,
when it's highly valued as an important symbol of
ethnic identity for the minority group.
2. If families from a minority group live near each
other and see each other frequently, their
interactions will help to maintain the language.
3. For emigrate individuals from a minority group,
the degree and frequency of contact with the
homeland can contribute to language
maintenance.
 Language maintenance and shift
4. Intermarriage within the same minority group is
helpful to maintain the native language.
5. Ensuring that the minority group language is used at
formal settings such as schools or worship places will
increases language maintenance.
6. An extended normal family in which parents, children
and grandchildren live together and use the same
minority language can help to maintain it.
7. Institutional support from domains such as education,
law, administration, religion and the media can make a
difference between the success and failure of
maintaining a minority group language.
 Language maintenance and shift
Language revival: some times a community becomes
aware that its language is in danger of disappearing
and takes steps to revitalizes it.

Example:
In 1840, two thirds of the Welsh people spoke Welsh, but
by 1980, only 20% of the population spoke Welsh,
therefore the Welsh people began a revival process of
Welsh language by using a Welsh-language TV channel
and bilingual education programs that used Welsh as
medium of instruction at schools.
 Linguistic varieties and multilingual
nations
Vernacular language: It generally refers to a language which
has not been standardized or codified and which does not
have official status (un-codified or standardized variety). It
generally refers to the most colloquial variety in a person's
linguistic repertoire.
For example: native language or native dialect of a specific
population, especially in the context of a second or foreign
language that is more widely spoken.

Standard Language: a standard variety is generally one which

is written, and which has undergone some degree of
regulation or codification (in a grammar and a dictionary).
 Linguistic varieties and multilingual
nations
* The development of Standard English illustrates
the three essential criteria which characterize a
standard: It emerged in the 15th as a delicate of
the London area and it was influential or
prestigious variety (it was used by the merchants
of London, it was codified and stabilized (the
introduction of the first printing press by Caxton
accelerated its codification), and it served H
functions in that it was used for communication
at Court, for literature and for administration.
 Linguistic varieties and multilingual
nations
World Englishes: world English languages are
classified into, inner circle Englishes as in the UK,
USA (English as a native or first language); Outer
circle Englishes as in India, Malaysia, Tanzania
(English as a second language with an official
status), and Expanding circle Englishes as China,
Japan, Russia (English as a foreign language).

See the journal World Englishes by Wiley Publisher.

* Discuss an article from the journal
 Linguistic varieties and multilingual
nations
Lingua franca: a language used for communication between
different language users, for people whose first languages
differ, such as pidgin between European colonizers and
African slaves (Swahili).

It is also called a bridge language, or vehicular language, is a

language systematically (as opposed to occasionally, or
casually) used to make communication possible between
persons not sharing a mother tongue, in particular when it
is a third language, distinct from both mother tongues.

In certain countries the lingua franca is also used as the

national language: e.g., Urdu is the lingua franca of Pakistan
as well as the national language.
 Linguistic varieties and multilingual
nations
Pidgin: it is a language which has no native
speakers. Pidgins develop as a means of
communication between people who don't have
a common language.

Creole: when a pidgin becomes the language of

newly-born generations as a mother-tongue or
first language, and acquires additional vocabulary
and grammatical structures to serve their various
necessary communicative needs (referential and
social functions) it becomes a Creole.
 Linguistic varieties and multilingual
nations
Because of their limited function, pidgin
languages usually do not last very long, rarely
more than several decades. They disappear
when the reason for communication
diminishes, as communities either move
apart, one community learns the language of
the other, or both communities learn a
common language (usually the official
language of the country).
 Linguistic varieties and multilingual
nations
For instance
Pidgin Russian spoken in Manchuria disappeared when
Russian settlers left China after World War II. The same
is true of Pidgin French which disappeared from
Vietnam after the French left the country. However,
this is not always the case. Chinese Pidgin English
(Chinglish) developed in the 17th century in Canton
(Guandong), China, and survived for almost three
centuries. Its use spread from master-servant
relationships to those between English and Chinese
traders and bureaucrats. It continued in use until about
the end of the 19th century, when the Chinese started
to switch to standard English.
 Linguistic varieties and multilingual
nations
• Ethnologue lists 18 pidgins used around the world. Four of them are
extinct and many are in the process of disappearing. There are no
estimates of number of speakers for many of them.
 Linguistic varieties and multilingual
nations
If a pidgin survives, and the next generation of
speakers learns it as their first language or if it
becomes a stable lingua franca, it becomes a
Creole.

Example:
Creole is a language spoken in the Caribbean
(Caribbean Creole) . It is a mix of French
Language and African dialects, resulting from the
immersion of African slaves in a French
environment.
 Linguistic varieties and multilingual
nations
From Dickerton (1970s):

Examples of the Hawaiian Pidgin spoken by people who

immigrated around the turn of the century:
• "Inside dirt and cover and blanket, finish"
• "They put the body in the ground and covered it with a
blanket and that's all."

Examples of the Hawaiian Creole spoken by the children of

the immigrants.
• "Da firs Japani came ran away from Japan come."
• 'The first Japanese who arrived ran away from Japan to
here.'
 National languages and language
planning
National language: it is the main language of
political, social and cultural practices, where
people use it as a symbol of their national unity.
Official language is the language used by
governments for formal functions.
In a monolingual community, a national language is
usually also the official language, but in bilingual
or multilingual communities, it may or may not
be the official language. For example: English and
French are both official languages in Canada.
 National languages and language
planning
Planning for a national official language:
1. Selection: selecting the variety or code to be
developed.
2. Codification: standardizing its structural or
linguistic features.
3. Elaboration: extending its functions for use in
new domains.
4. Securing its acceptance: acceptance by people in
terms of attitude and prestige.
 National languages and language
planning
* Linguists have played an important role at the micro level
of language planning activation. Many of them work as
members of communities with a lot of influence on
language planning, and especially on the standardization or
codification of a particular variety. Example: Samuel
Johnson's (1755) 40,000-word dictionary was a landmark in
the codification of English.

Acquisition planning: sociolinguists can make a contribution

to organize efforts to spread a language by increasing the
number of its users, by using it in the education system
(language-in-education planning) or in the media domains
such as news papers, radio, etc.
 Regional and social dialects
Accent: accents are distinguished from each other by pronunciation.

Dialects: linguistic varieties which are distinguishable by their

vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation.

* Examples of different regional dialects:

Example one: in British English: pavement, boot, bonnet, petrol,

baggage. But in American English: sidewalk, trunk, hood, gas,
luggage.

Example two: the word tog in English refers to clothes one wears in
formal dinner, but in New Zealand, it refers to clothes one wears to
swim in.
 Regional and social dialects
Social dialects: a variety of language that reflects social
variation in language use, according to certain factors
related to the social group of the speaker such as
education, occupation, income level (upper-class
English, middle-class English and lower-class English.
For example: Standard English can be classified as a
type of social English spoken by the well-educated
English speakers throughout the world.

* Received Pronunciation (the Queens English) or BBC

English (the accent of the best educated and most
prestigious members of English society) is classified as
a social accent.
 Regional and social dialects
Is there a relationship between one's language
and one's social identity?

The language one uses often reflects one's social

identity and education, for example: dropping the
initial h in words like house can indicate a lower
socioeconomic background. On the other hand,
pronouncing the letter r in the city of New York is
considered as a prestigious feature, but the
opposite is true in London.
 Regional and social dialects
Isogloss: a term that refers to the boundary lines
that mark the areas in which certain dialect
words are used.

Sharp Stratification: it refers to the pattern that

certain pronunciation features such as h-dropping
and grammatical features such as mutable
negation divide speaking communities sharply
between the middle class and the lower classes.
 Gender and age
* It is claimed that women are linguistically more polite than
men

How are the language forms used by men and women different
in western societies?
In western societies, women and men whose social roles are
similar do not use forms that are completely different, but they
use different quantities or frequencies of the same form. For
example: women use more standard forms than men, and men
use more vernacular forms than women / women use more ing-
forms than men in words like coming or running. But in western
communities, such differences are also found in the speech of
different social classes, therefore the language of women in the
lower and higher classes is more similar to that of men in the
same group.
 Gender and age
Women's linguistic behavior (using forms that are more
standard):
1. Social status: women generally have a lower social status
in society; therefore they try to acquire social status by
using Standard form of their respective language.
2. Women's role as guardian of society's values: women use
more standard forms than men, because society tends to
expect 'better' behavior from women than from men
(women serve as modals for their children's speech).
3. Subordinate groups must be polite: women use more
standard forms than men, because children and women
are subordinate groups and they must avoid offending
men, therefore they must speak carefully and politely.
 Gender and age
4. Vernacular forms express machismo: men prefer
vernacular forms because they carry macho connotations
of masculinity and toughness. Therefore women might
not want to use such form, and use standard forms that
are associated with female values or femininity
5. Women's categories: not all women marry men from the
same social class, however it is perfectly possible for a
women to be more educated then the man she marry, or
even to have a more prestigious job than him.
6. The influence of the interviewer and the context: women
tend to become more cooperative conversationalists than
men.
 Ethnicity and social networks
* It is often possible for individuals to signal their
ethnicity by the language they choose to use. Even
when a complete conversation in an ethnic language is
not possible, people may use short phrases, verbal
filers or linguistic tags, which signal ethnicity. For
Example: In New Zealand many Maori people routinely
use Maori greetings such as kia and ora, while speaking
in English, to signal their ethnicity.

African American Vernacular English: a distinct variety or

dialect that was developed by African Americans as a
symbolic way of differentiating themselves from the
majority group.
 Ethnicity and social networks
Some of AAVE linguistic features (pp186-187)
• Complete absence of the copula verb be in
some social & linguistic contexts
• The use of invariant be to signal recurring or
repeated actions
• Mutable negation
• Constant cluster simplifications
 Ethnicity and social networks
British Black English

1. Patois: a Jamaican Creole in origin, which is used by Jamaican

immigrants in London and by young British Blacks in group talks as a
sign of ethnic identity.

Some of Patois linguistic features (p190)

• Lexical items such as lick meaning 'hit' and kenge meaning 'week,
puny‘
• Different pronunciation like then and thin are pronounced 'den' and
'tin'.
• Plural forms don't have s on the end.
• Tenses aren't marked by suffixes on verbs, so forms like walk and
jump are used rather than walked, walks, jumped, and jumps.
• The form mi is used for I, me and my (mi niem / my name).
• The form dem is used for they, them and their (dem car / their car).
 Ethnicity and social networks
2. Midland Black English: a variety of Standard
English with a west midland accent which is an
informal variety with some Patois features.

3. Multi-cultural London English: a variety used by

adolescents (teenagers) from a range of ethnic
backgrounds, including Jamaican & Asian
backgrounds. Its features include using
monophthongs instead of diphthongs and a
distinctive vocabulary, for example: blood / mate
and nang / good and yard / house.
 Ethnicity and social networks
Some important terms

Social networks: who we talk and listen to regularly is an

important influence on the way we speak (regular patterns
of informal social relationships among people).

Density: it refers to whether members of a person's network

are in touch with each other.

Plexity: is a measure of the range of different types of

transaction people are involved in with different
individuals.
 Ethnicity and social networks
Uniplex relationship: is one where the link with the
other person is in only one area.

Multiplex relationship: it involves interactions with

others along several dimensions.

Community practice: the activities that group

members share, and their shared objectives and
attitudes (one belongs to many communities of
practice such as family, workgroup, sports team,
etc.).
 Language change
All languages change over time, and vary from place to
place

Resulted from:
• social or political pressures (e.g. invasion,
colonisation and immigration)
• new vocabulary – for the latest inventions (e.g.
transport, domestic appliances and industrial
equipment, or for sporting, entertainment and
leisure pursuits)
 Language change
A. Social or Political Pressures, e.g. the phenomena of the
post-colonial societies.

1. New Zealand
• Caused by the “reconstructions of group identities”
(Schneider, 2003; Trudgill, 2008) by settlers in the new
lands.
• Individual made adjustment in their everyday interaction
with each other and the outsiders.
• These constant bilinguals lead the language assimilation
where acceptance of structures from interference of the
receiving language takes place.
 Language change
2. Indonesia and Malaysia
• Malaysia declared its independence from British
colonization on 31 August 1957
• Indonesia had earlier declared its independence on 17
August 1945
• In 1959, Indonesia and Malaysia signed an agreement to
standardise the Malay spelling system of both countries
(Rozan, 2010).
• Due to the influence of different colonial languages;
Dutch in the case of Indonesia and English (British rule) in
the case of Malaysia (also Singapore and Brunei).
• In Indonesia, the Malay language is now called Bahasa
Indonesia, and in Malaysia, the Malay language is
officially called Bahasa Malaysia.
 Language change
Immigration, e. g. newcomers adapt themselves into the
existing speech community rather than setting up a new
one. In this situation, linguistic assimilation is common and
rapid.

When the contact happens within a short duration, borrowing

into the immigrant languages usually happens – such as
expatriates, workers.
Whilst in longer duration, it leads to broader structural
changes of their languages – such as Kampung Aceh in
Kedah; they speak Acehnese words, but spiced them up
with the Kedah dialect. The most apparent change in the
Acehnese words are the production of the vowels.
 Language change
Moore (1999, as cited in Trudgill, 2008, p. 243),
“With language one of the most significant
markers of national identity, it’s not surprising
that post colonial societies like Australia, the
United States, Canada and New Zealand, should
want to distinguish their language from that of
the mother tongue”.

What about Acehnese in Aceh 100-200 years in the

future? Possibility of language change?
 Language change
B. New Vocabulary, e. g. for the latest inventions:

“We couldn’t listen to the latest tunes because we

hadn’t a wireless”.

Social trend:
 Language change
Changes that occurs in the aspects of:

1. Phonology
In the fifteenth century: knit, knife and knight
Not only it began with [k], but with a fricative sound of gh
in the middle.
Now..the [k] is ‘silent’.

John Wells (Accents of English , 1982): concept of lexical sets is

a group of words that share a specific form or meaning.
This means each word in the group refers to a similar
pronunciation of a particular group of words in a language.
 Language change
In New Zealand, new and nuclear were once
pronounced [nju:] and [nju:kliǝ].
Nowadays, there is a variation in the
community. Younger generation are
introducing the American pronunciation
without the [j]: [nu:] and [nu:kliǝ].
Over time, [j] can displace the [j]
pronunciation in most people’s speech.
 Language change
2. Grammar
- The use of “so not” (so = emphatic intensifier)
Common: “That’s so last year”.
Nowadays: “I mean the dress sense in this lot is whacky down here
and I’m so not used to it!”
“That’s so not cool”.

- The use of full verb “to have” (speaker uses the word have with the
negative particle, not, but without the support of the auxiliary verb,
do)
In some parts of the UK:
Common: “Do you have any money?” and “I don’t have any
money.”
Nowadays: “Have you got any money?” and ”I haven’t got any
money.”
 Language change
3. Lexical
Older generation: courting, e. g. “It is time for our
courting now.”
Younger generation: going out with, e. g. “Tonight is my
time to go out with Nina.”

Common: wicked – mean, cruel, e. g. “She is a wicked

woman.”
Nowadays: bears another meaning of wicked – really
good, e. g. “Her invention is wicked!”
 Language change
During Shakespeare (1616-1664):
Before: entertain ‘keep occupied’ – success of the army in protecting
their territory
Now: entertain ‘efforts of singers and comedians to provide
amusement’
Why? Change in culture?

In Acehnese
Before: sabah ‘thank you’
Now: teurimong geunaséh ‘thank you’
Why? Influence from another language?

Before: lagöina ‘very’ – still used by rarely, esp. in spoken language

Now: that, keudéh, lepah ‘very’ --- more common
Why? Economical articulation?
 Language change

But…a language can also change by less obvious means.

For example:
• Whenever speakers come into contact with each other.
• No two individuals speak identically: different geographical places,
even within the same small community there are variations
according to age, gender, ethnicity, social and educational
background.
• Through interactions: we encounter new words, expressions and
pronunciations and integrate them into our own speech.
• A family who lives in the same area for generations: differences
may occur between the language they use and of their
grandparents.
 Language change
So…remember!

Every successive generation makes its own small

contribution to language change and when
sufficient time has gone by…the impact of
these changes becomes more obvious.

Kanopka and Pierrehumbart (2011) – sound

change occurs every 30 years.
 Language change
How do languages spread?

1. From group to group

Social factors: age, status, gender and region

a. Age

Bigham (2012):
An ‘emerging adult’ is aged 18 – 25, in higher education, unmarried,
moves around a lot and has a large, although not necessarily close,
social network.
 Language Change
What is ‘emerging adults’?

Not all 18-25 year old young adults are ‘emerging

adults’. The ‘emerging’ label is dependent on a
particular psychological state, defined by the following
factors: identity exploration, instability, self-
focus, feeling in-between and feeling that anything is
possible. The first two factors challenge sociolinguistic
notions of place and social network whilst the last
three challenge ideas about social identity (Bigham,
2012).
 Language change
b. Status

Social class
Socioeconomic status
Educational level
Race/ethnicity
Culture
 Language change
c. Gender

Gender differences in spoken English, Keith and Shuttleworth’s

(1999) records suggest that:
• women - talk more than men, talk too much, are more polite,
are indecisive/hesitant, complain and nag, ask more
questions, support each other, are more co-operative,
whereas
• men - swear more, don't talk about emotions, talk about
sport more, talk about women and machines in the same way,
insult each other frequently, are competitive in conversation,
dominate conversation, speak with more authority, give more
commands, interrupt more.
 Language change
d. Region:
See the wave-like spread of linguistic change in Holmes (2001, p.
201)

“…nearby towns and cities will adopt the feature before the
more rural parts in between” (Kerswill, 2002: 188).
 Language change
2. From style to style
Formal to casual
3. From word to word – lexical diffusion
Refers to the way a sound change affects the lexicon
(Bybee, 2002); the sound first occurs in one word and
then later in another.
Belfast: pull – put – should
East Anglia: must – come – uncle

From Indonesian to Acehnese: gulai – gule, sampai –

sampe, ramai - rame
Sounds don’t change if the words have meanings in the
other language: (Ind) pakai – pake X
(Ach) paké – to fight,
quarrel
 Language change
How do we study language change?

1. Apparent-time studies of language change

2. Language change in real time

They differ from each other in the way they

approach the detection of language change in
a speech community.
 Language change
Apparent time studies of language change
• Focus on a comparison between the speech patterns of
different age groups (i.e. younger and older speakers)
within the same speech community at a certain moment in
time.
• For example: if younger speakers show linguistic differences
to older speakers in a speech community, this can be
interpreted as an indication of linguistic change taking
place in this community.
• Have to make a clear distinction between linguistic
differences that are based on speaker age and differences
that truly reflect language change in progress.
 Language change
Real time studies of language change
• Focus on detecting change not in apparent time but in real
time.
• The speech of different age groups is compared at different
moments in time in order to detect historical change in the
community, i.e. to find out about linguistic change in a
community as it progresses through time.
• Language change in real time can be illustrated by the
repetition of a community study.
• Significant deviations from the originally found speech
patterns within a community are interpreted as signs of
linguistic change over time.
 Language change
Example
Sankoff (2006): In the case of glottal stops, both Chambers (1995) and Sankoff (2005) proposed
the age grading interpretation to account for the differences Macaulay (1977) found between
10 year olds, 15 year olds and adults.

Percentage of glottal stop variants of /t/ used by female speakers in Glasgow [adapted from
Macaulay 1977].
 Language change
Reasons for language change

1. Social status and language change

The angles of social network and social stratification:

Social stratification concerns the hierarchical structure of
a society, arising from inequalities of wealth and
power.
Social network concerns the dimensions of solidarity
between individuals in their everyday contacts.
 Language change
2. Gender and language change
Women are found to lead the process of
linguistic change:
“In any society where males and females have
equal access to the standard form, females
use standard variants of any stable variable
which is socially stratified for both sexes more
often than males do” (Nevalainen, 2002: 186).
 Language change
3. Interaction and language change
• Through interactions, new words and sayings are
picked up and speakers integrate them into their
speech. Teens and young adults for example, often use
different words and phrases from their parents. Some
of them spread through the population and slowly
change the language.
• Children serve as agents for language change when, in
the process of learning the language of previous
generations, they internalize it differently and
propagate a different variation of that language.
 Style, Context and Register
Language varies according to use and users and according to
where it is used and to whom, as well as according to who
is using it. The addresses and the context affect our choice
of code or variety, whether language, dialect or style.

1. Addressee's influence on style: many factors influence

the addressee's style such as social distance / solidarity /
age / gender / social background.
2. Formal contexts and social roles: the formal setting
where the social roles of participants override their
personal relationship in determining the appropriate
linguistic form (style).
3. Topic or function: style is sometimes determined by the
function which language is used for.
 Style, Context and Register
Audience design: the influence of the audience
(listeners) on a speaker's style, for example:
the same news is read differently by
newsreaders on different radio stations during
the same day, therefore producing different
styles for each audience.

Observe – Flamboyan radio and Oz radio in

Aceh which both focus on young audiences.
 Style, Context and Register
Accommodation Theory (Giles & Coupland, 1991)

1. Speech converges: each person's speech converges

towards the speech of the person they are talking to.
It tends to happen when the speakers like one
another, or where one speaker has a vested interest in
pleasing the other or putting them at ease.
2. Speech diverges: deliberately choosing a different
language style not used by one's addressee, it tends
to happen when a person wants to show his cultural
distinctiveness, social status, ethnic identity, etc.
 Style, Context and Register
Examples (Schofield, 2011):

Speech convergence: Police force; when attempting to build

relationships with potentially disruptive members of the
public in potentially threatening or dangerous
environments, a Police Officer can partially adopt the same
level of local accent, grammar, tone of voice etc. as the
member of public.

Speech divergence: if an Anti-Royalist met with Prince Charles,

he/she could distance him/herself from him by
strengthening their dialect and speech patterns, so that the
audible difference between the well spoken Prince Charles
and themselves is more evident – making them seem
worlds apart, and not able to cooperate.
 Style, Context and Register
Some important terms
Hypercorrection: it is the exaggeration of some lower
class speakers in imitating middle class standard
speech. For example: the use of 'I' rather than 'me' in
constructions such as 'between you and I'.

Register: occupational style using specialized or technical

jargon, it describes the language of groups of people
with common interests or jobs, or the language used in
situations associated with such groups, such as the
language of doctors, engineers, journals, legalese, etc.
 Speech functions, politeness & cross-
cultural communication
Functions of Speech
1. Referential function: to convey information and this is
done through different forms of speech, such as
declarative or interrogative statements.
• Declarative statements (After this semester, I'm going
to visit London)
• Interrogative statements using Wh-questions (what is
your name?)
• Interrogative statements using yes/no questions (do
like London?)
• Alternative questions with answer choices (do like tea
or coffee?)
 Speech functions, politeness & cross-
cultural communication
2. Directive function: giving orders or making requests by
using imperative statements. An imperative statements
may express a strict demand such as saying (open the
door) or it can seem less demanding by using the
politeness strategy such as saying (open the door, please)
or through using question tags in the case of informality
between mother and son (Max the TV is still on!)

3. Expressive function: to express personal feelings, thoughts,

ideas and opinions, with different choice words,
intonation, etc. These expressions are submissive to social
factors and to the nature of the expression as negative
(I'm very gloomy tonight) or positive (I'm feeling very good
today).
 Speech functions, politeness & cross-
cultural communication
4. Phatic or Social function: it is one of the most common
speech acts in everyday interactions; it consists of
greetings, complements, gossip, etc. for greeting a
friend, a speaker can say (hi/hello). As for greeting a
stranger, the speaker can use (hello), but the more
formal greetings between strangers are (good
morning/afternoon/evening).

5. Metalinguistic Function: it is used to describe parts of

language such as grammar, or words that describe
language itself (I is a personal pronoun)
 Speech functions, politeness & cross-
cultural communication
6. Poetic Function: using poetic features such as rhyming
words, alliteration or paronomasia and antithesis (An
apple a day keeps the doctor a way).

7. Heuristic Function: Halliday (2003) identified this function

of language which concerned with learning, the main
concentration of researching this function of speech is to
identify the spoken language of learning children (We
could make a water thing to tell how much rain we got).

8. Commissives: it involves using threats and promises (I will

clean my room, I promise).
 Speech functions, politeness & cross-
cultural communication
Politeness: it is the consideration of social factors
(social distance in terms of solidarity or
formality), social status, type of situation or
context, intonation, etc when communicating
with others.

* One may ask somebody to sit down by using

different utterances:
Sit down / please sit down / I want you to sit
down / won't you sit down / you sit down / why
don't you make yourself more comfortable?
 Speech functions, politeness & cross-
cultural communication
1. Positive politeness: a type of politeness based on solidarity between speakers
and hearers who share values and attitudes, and in which formal expressions in
addressing are avoided.
These strategies include juxtaposing criticism with compliments,
establishing common ground, and using jokes, nicknames, honorific, tag
questions, special discourse markers(please), and in-group jargon and slang.

Examples from Brown and Levinson (1987):

• Attend to H’s interests, needs, wants: You look sad. Can I do anything?
• Use solidarity in-group identity markers: Heh, mate, can you lend me a dollar?
• Be optimistic: I’ll just come along, if you don’t mind.
• Include both speaker (S) and hearer (H) in activity: If we help each other, I guess,
we’ll both sink or swim in this course.
• Offer or promise: If you wash the dishes, I’ll vacuum the floor.
• Exaggerate interest in H and his interests: That’s a nice haircut you got; where did
you get it?
• Avoid Disagreement: Yes, it’s rather long; not short certainly.
• Joke: Wow, that’s a whopper!
 Speech functions, politeness & cross-
cultural communication
1. Negative politeness: a type of politeness based on formality between speakers
and hearers in which formal expressions in addressing are used in order to
protect hearers' face and avoid intruding on them.
These strategies include questioning, hedging, and presenting disagreements as
opinions.

Examples from Brown and Levinson (1987):

• Be indirect: Would you know where Oxford Street is?
• Use hedges or questions: Perhaps, he might have taken it, maybe.Could you please
pass the rice?
• Be pessimistic: You couldn’t find your way to lending me a thousand dollars, could
you?So I suppose some help is out of the question, then?
• Minimize the imposition: It’s not too much out of your way, just a couple of blocks.
• Use obviating structures, like nominalizations, passives, or statements of general
rules:
➢ I hope offense will not be taken.
➢ Visitors sign the ledger.
➢ Spitting will not be tolerated.
• Apologize: I’m sorry; it’s a lot to ask, but can you lend me a thousand dollars?
• Use plural pronouns: We regret to inform you.
Gender, politeness and stereotypes
Women's language and confidence

Lakoff's (1975) linguistic features of women's speech:

1. Lexical hedges or fillers (you know, sort of, well, you see)
2. Tag questions (she's very nice, isn’t she?) -- According to
Lakoff, Tag questions are syntactic devices that are used
more by men to express uncertainty (she's very nice, isn't
she) and they are used more by women to express
positive politeness (you will study for the exam, won't
you?).
3. Rising intonation on declaratives (it's really good)
4. 'Empty' adjectives (divine, charming, cute)
Gender, politeness and stereotypes
5. Precise colour terms (magenta, aquamarine)
6. Intensifiers such as just and so (I like him so much)
7. 'Hypercorrect' grammar (consistent use of standard
verb forms)
8. 'Super-polite' forms (indirect requests, euphemism --
the substitution of a mild, indirect, or vague
expression for one thought to be offensive or harsh,
e.g. ‘downsizing’ as a euphemism for ’cuts)
9. Avoidance of strong swear words (fudge, my
goodness)
10. Emphatic stress (it was a BRILLIANT performance)
Gender, politeness and stereotypes
• Studies showed that men, and even boys
interrupt more, due to women's gender rather
than to their role or occupation.
• Studies show that women are more cooperative
and give more feedback.
• Gossip is a social not a referential function to
affirm solidarity, and relieve feelings. The
equivalent activity for gossip to men is mock-
insults and abuse, with the function of expressing
solidarity & maintaining social relationships.
 Language, cognition and culture
Language and perception

• Verbal hygiene is a thought–provoking term, used by

Deborah Cameron (1995), to describe how people respond
to the 'urge to meddle in matters of language'. She finds
specific examples of verbal hygiene in the:
➢ regulation of ‘style' by editors, e.g. the producer of the
guide engages in verbal hygiene by codifying the norms
of “good” or “correct” style, while the copy editor
engages in verbal hygiene by applying or enforcing the
norms.
➢ teaching of English grammar in schools.
➢ politically-correct language.
➢ advice to women on how they can speak more
effectively.
 Language, cognition and culture
Concealing mechanisms in language:

Language users employ a range of so-called

concealing mechanisms available in any natural
language, such as euphemism or a dysphemism
(Duda, 2011).
They are based on the prejudiced social attitudes
to the situation in which they believe a given
expression is uttered. It is the socio-cultural
setting that creates and gives it meaning
(Burridge, 2012).
 Language, cognition and culture
• Euphemism: substituting unacceptable terms with
nicer words or terms, such as disabled instead of
crippled, cosmetically different instead of ugly.

Other examples in verbal forms:

➢ She passed away (instead of “she died”)
➢ Lady of the evening (for “prostitute”)
➢ Water closet or rest room (for “toilet”)

More towards POSITIVE WORDS

 Language, cognition and culture
• Dysphemism: using derogatory terms of language to reflect society's
perceptions of particular groups, such as referring to a colored person as a
nigger or a homosexual male as gay or queer. It is harsher than the
original word or phrase.

Other examples in verbal forms:

➢ Loony bin instead of mental hospital
➢ "Oh, damn!" instead of "Oh, dear!“
➢ "Hey, Barack!" rather than "Mr. President“

Other examples in non-verbal forms (vary culturally):

➢ raising the middle finger to mean "fuck you" in Western culture
➢ raising a fist to another to mean “I’m going to get you back!” in both
the Western and the Eastern culture
➢ Pointing the thumb down to indicate “you failed” to another

MORE TOWARDS NEGATIVE WORDS

 Language, cognition and culture
On euphemism and dysphemism, it is further said…

Benjamin Lee Whorf (1946)

In his analysis of Native American languages, Whorf noticed
that the particular words selected to describe or label
objects often influenced people's perceptions and behavior.

Linguistic determinism
The medium is the message, Sapir-Whorf (1961) hypothesis
(linguistic determinism) is that people from different
cultures think differently because of differences in their
languages.
 Analysing discourse
Discourse
• For sociolinguists, the term discourse is generally used to refer to
stretches of spoken or written language, which extend beyond an
utterance or a sentence.
• For philosophers, discourse is a broader term; it is regarded as a
means of structuring knowledge and social practice, and language is
just one symbolic form of discourse.

Discourse viewed by pragmatics

Pragmatics are concerned with the analysis of meaning in interaction,
context is crucial in interpreting what is meant, and pragmatics
extends the analysis of meaning beyond grammar and word
meaning to the relationship between the participants and the
background knowledge they bring to a situation, which is analyzed
in terms of conversation maxims and politeness.
 Analysing discourse
Conversation Maxims

Paul Grice (1975) formulated four maxims of cooperative talk:

1. Quantity: say as much as but no more than necessary

2. Quality: do not say what you believe to be false, or that
for which you lack evidence
3. Relation: be relevant
4. Manner: be clear, unambiguous, brief and orderly
 Analysing discourse
The politeness rules introduced by Lakoff (1975)
1. Don't impose: use modals and hedges: I wonder
if I might just open the window a little.
2. Give options: use interrogatives including tag
questions: do you mind if I open the window? It
would be nice to have the window open a little
wouldn't it?
3. Be friendly: use informal expressions
endearments: Be a honey and open the window
darling.
 Analysing discourse
Ethnography of speaking: or ethnography of communication,
it is an approach developed by the sociolinguist Dell Hymes
(1964), for analyzing language, which has been designed to
heighten awareness of culture-bound assumptions.

The frame work that Hymes (1975) developed for the analysis
of communicative events involved the following
components:
1. Genre type of event: phone call, conversation, business
meeting, etc.
2. Topic of what people are talking about: holidays, sports,
politics, etc.
3. Purpose of function: the reason(s) for the talk.
 Analysing discourse
4. Setting: where the talk takes place.
5. Key of emotional tongue: serious, jocular, sarcastic, etc.
6. Participants: characteristics of those present and their
relationship.
7. Message form: code and/or channel (telephone, letter,
email, etc).
8. Message content: specific details of what the
communication is about.
9. Act sequence: ordering of speech acts.
10. Rules for interaction: prescribed orders of speaking.
11. Norms for interpretation: what is going on?
 Analysing discourse
Interactional sociolinguistics (Gumperz, 1982):
Interactional sociolinguists typically make use of
the detailed tools of conversation analysis, by
paying careful attention to turn-taking behavior,
hesitations, pauses, and paralinguistic behavior
(sights, laughter, in-breaths, etc.) to interpret
what the speaker intended -- contextualization
cues.

Very generally, contextualization cues are any

linguistic or paralinguistic signals that give
meaning to an utterance.
 Analysing discourse
Ways of analyzing discourse

1. Conversational analysis: CA researchers approach communication as a

jointly organized activity like dancing, or cooperative musical. Discourse is
conversation (talk) which has its own structure (openings, closings,
overlaps, turn-taking, interruptions, etc.).

For example: let’s look at the article, “Conversation Analysis and the Study
of Bilingual Interaction” by Steensig (2003) -
file:///C:/Users/sony/Downloads/Steensig2003.pdf

2. Critical Discourse Analysis: it is concerned with investigating how language

is used to construct and maintain power relationships in society; the aim is
to show up connections between language and power, and between
language and ideology.

For example: let’s look at the article, “A Critical Discourse Analysis of Barack
Obama’s Speeches” by Wang (2010) -
http://www.geotek.or.id/Journal/2853-7384-1-PB.pdf
 Attitudes and applications
Attitudes to language
* Language attitudes (positive or negative) towards a language or a
variety have much impact on language and education

Overt prestige & covert prestige from a sociolinguistic perspective

The meaning of overt prestige is reasonably self-evident; it is
associated with the standard variety in a community 'the best way
of speaking in a community'. In contrast the term covert prestige
refers to positive attitudes towards vernacular or non-standard
speech varieties.

For example: Let’s look at the article, “Attitudes towards

English Language Learning” by Soleimani (2013) -
www.irjabs.com/files_site/paperlist/r_1375_130914103018.pdf
 Attitudes and applications
Methods of collecting attitude data:
1. Direct observation
2. Direct questions
3. Indirect measures
An indirect measure is an unobtrusive measure that occurs
naturally in a research context. The researcher is able to collect
the data without introducing any formal measurement procedure.
Example:
*radio station listening preferences: rather than conducting an
obtrusive survey or interview about favourite radio stations, the
researchers went to local auto dealers and garages and checked all
cars that were being serviced to see what station the radio was
currently tuned to.
*magazine preferences: rummage through the trash of your
sample or even stage a door-to-door magazine recycling effort.
 That’s all, folks!

Thanks for attending this course!