Sociolinguistics Chapter 6 Regional and Social Dialects.
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Transcript of Sociolinguistics Chapter 6 Regional and Social Dialects.
Sociolinguistics
Chapter 6
Regional and Social Dialects
Regional variation
International varieties
PronunciationExample 2
VocabularyAustralia – sole parentBritain – single parentNew Zealand – solo parent
GrammarExample 3
Regional variation
Intranational or intra-continental variation Britain
Example 4 United States
Northern, Midland, Southern Australia and New Zealand
Less variation in English than in Maori
Regional variation
IsoglossesThe boundary lines that mark regional variation
Dialect chainsExample 5
Language vs. Dialect
What is a language?
What is a dialect?
Activity 6.1
Look at the use of the word ‘language’ in the four sentences. Try to work out the sense of the word in each sentence.
What is a language?
1 Chinese is his native language.2 When the teacher spoke to the class, the
language she used was very informal.3 If you want to know the rules of the language,
you should get a good grammar book.4 In England the language they speak is called
English; in China the language they speak is called Chinese.
What is a language?
1. The word ‘language’ is used in different ways by different people, e.g., writers, journalists, educationalists, teachers and linguists.
2. The meaning of the term ‘language’ is often very vague.
3. The meanings of ‘language’ often overlap.
Dialect
A regionally or socially distinctive variety of a language, identified by a particular set of words and grammatical structures. […] Any language with a reasonably large number of speakers will develop dialects. (Crystal, 1980)
More on dialect
“The term ‘dialect’ has generally been used to refer to a subordinate variety of a language. For example, we are accustomed to saying that the English language has many dialects.” (Romaine, 1994)
West Germanic Dialect Continuum
Netherlands Germany
German dialectsDutch dialects
German
Dutch
What makes a language?
Linguistic factors? Pronunciation Vocabulary Grammatical system
Mutual intelligibility?
What makes a language?
‘A language is a dialect with an army and navy.’ (Weinreich)
Language has a political dimension
Language is political, not a linguistic categorisation
What makes a language?
The Dutch dialects are heteronomous with respect to standard Dutch, and the German dialects to standard German. (Chambers and Trudgill, 1980: 10-11)
Influence of political factors on languages
Yugoslavia
Under communism,
Serbian and Croatian Serbo-Croatian
After civil war,
Serbo-Croatian Serbian and Croatian
Languages in Hong Kong
Languages in Hong Kong
Activity 6.2
Do languages develop from dialects or do dialects develop from languages? Answer this question from the perspective of Crystal, then Weinreich.
Variety/Code
Sociolinguists use the term variety (or sometimes code) to refer to any set of linguistic forms which patterns according to social factors.
Social dialects
Social dialects are varieties which reflect people’s social backgrounds: social prestige, wealth, education, occupation, income level, residential area.
Received Pronunciation (RP)
A prestigious social accent used by less than 5% of the population in Britain
Figure 6.2
Figure 6.3
Social dialects
Vocabulary
U vs. Non-U in 1950s England Pronunciation
[h]-dropping
Example 12
Figure 6.4
[in]
Table 6.2 Grammatical patterns
Department Store Study
Sociolinguistic study by William Labov in 1960’s
The phrase fourth floor was elicited from sales people at three department stores
Rise and fall of r
New York City was r-pronouncing in 18th century r-less in 19th century until World War II r-pronouncing again after World War II The prestigious New York dialect (and Standard
American English) is now rhotic
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W68VaOuY6ew
The Battleground
High prestige: Sak’s Fifth Avenue
Middle prestige: Macy’s
Low prestige: S. Klein
Percentage of r-use
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
Saks Macy's S.Klein
% of r-use
R-results
Social variation
Sak’s > Macy’s > S. Klein
floorwalkers > salesclerks > stockboys Gender
women > men Age
younger > older Level of formality
more “r”s in careful pronunciation
Arbitrariness
There is nothing inherently bad or good about the pronunciation of any sound.
The different status of [r]-pronunciation in different cities illustrates this point.
Figure 6.5
Social dialects
Grammatical patterns
Vernacular present tense verb forms
Figure 6.6
Figure 6.7
References
Chambers, J.K. and P. Trudgill. (1980). Dialectology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Crystal, D. (1980). A first dictionary of linguistics and phonetics. London: André Deutsch.
Labov, W. (1972b), Sociolinguistic patterns, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Romaine, S. (1994). Language in society: An introduction to sociolinguistics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.