Language and Society: Dr. Ansa Hameed
Language and Society: Dr. Ansa Hameed
Language and Society: Dr. Ansa Hameed
• Or, is it both?
LINGUISTIC RELATIVISM and DETERMINISM
• Example:
• North: You need your hair cutting.
• South: You need your hair cut
English: Scottish:
Social class
Education
Ethnicity/race
Age
Religion
Gender
Language and Social Class
• When we look at the language used by two
speakers A and B, we can estimate roughly
their relative social status:
• Speaker A speaker B
• I did it yesterday. I done it yesterday.
• He hasn’t got it. He ain’t got it.
• It was she that said it It was her what said it.
Language and Sex
• Differences between women and men have always been a
topic of interest to the human species and supposed
linguistic differences are often enshrined in proverbs:
• A woman's tongue wags like a lamb's tail.
• (England)
• The North Sea will sooner be found wanting in water than
a woman at a loss for a word.
• ( Jutland )
• Foxes are all tail and women are all tongue.
• ( England-Cheshire)
a. Oh dear, you've put the peanut
butter in the refrigerator again.
idiolect social
functional
Diglossia