Sociolinguistics

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Sociolinguistics

• LING 200
• Spring 2006

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Overview

• Language vs. dialect
• Language variation
• variation in different subareas (phonology,
  syntax, etc.)
• variation conditioned by different factors
  (region, socioeconomics, gender, age, etc.)
• Language and cultural identity, attitudes about
  language

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Speech communities

• language
• egi
• dialect dialect dialect
• egi
• idiolect idiolect idiolect

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Idiolect

• Language at the individual level
• I need you to be a helperous one. (request for
  favor)
• Hes just repeaterous of the same bad animal
  things that he does. (talking about the cat)
• I think Ill be jeanerous today. (getting
  dressed for work on a Friday)
• -erous N,V__Adj

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Dialect (linguists definition)

• Mutually intelligible varieties e.g.
• English spoken in Seattle, English spoken in
  Newcastle, UK
• Sahaptin spoken in Toppenish WA and Sahaptin
  spoken in Pendleton OR
• Not dialects of same language
• W. Germanic (English) spoken in Seattle and W.
  Germanic (Dutch) spoken in Amsterdam
• Sahaptian (Sahaptin) spoken in Toppenish and
  Sahaptian (Nez Perce) spoken in Coeur DAlene ID

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Some sources of confusion re dialect

• Language/dialect ? socioeconomic development
• indigenous people vs. industrialized societies

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Some sources of confusion re dialect

• Politically distinct ? linguistically distinct.
• 200 countries vs. 6000 languages
• Chinese languages spoken in same country,
  mislabeled dialects
• Spoken in different countries, mislabeled
  languages
• Czech, Slovak
• Serbian, Croatian
• Norwegian, Swedish, Danish

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Difficulties with mutual intelligibility
definition

• 1. There are degrees of mutual intelligibility
  what is criterion 100? 90? 50
• Birmingham, UK vs. Seattle, WA
• 2. Asymmetries in intelligibility
• Danish speakers find it easier to understand
  Swedish than vice versa.

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• 3. Is intelligible with is not transitive
• Dialect continua
• Inuit (Eskimo family)
  
• egi
• Iñupiaq Inuktitut Greenlandic
• Iñupiaq speakers can understand Inuktitut,
  Inuktitut understand Greenlandic, Iñupiaq
  intelligibility of Greenlandic much less

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Inupiaq Inuktitut
W. Greenlandic
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Language variation

• Some factors contributiong to variation
• geography (region)
• socioeconomic class
• gender
• age
• Types of variation
• lexical/morphological
• phonological
• syntactic
• etc.

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Regional variation
Some Canadian lexical items
wicket next wicket please
hydro our hydro was really high last year
local if you do not know the local of the party you wish to speak to
washroom restroom
skidoo snowmobile, snow machine
grade ones The grade ones have not gone to recess yet.
head The headship search has just been announced at U. Alberta Linguistics.
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Regional variation
Phonological differences between American,
Canadian English 1. Canadian Raising
Canadian US
cow k?w k?w
ice ?ys ?ys
eyes ?yz ?yz
scout sk?wt sk?wt
light l?yt l?yt
lied l?yd l?yd
/?w/, /?y/ ? ?w, ?y / ___ voiceless
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Regional variation
Phonological differences between American,
Canadian English. 2. Borrowed words with ltagt
Canadian US
pasta pæst ("It Hasta be Pasta") p?st
Mazda mæzd m?zd
taco tæko t?ko
avocado æv?kædo æv?k?do/ ?v?k?do
Takla (lt th?t??t tækl t?kl
Babine (ltFr.) bæbin b?bin
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Socioeconomic conditioning variation

• Socioeconomic factors as defined by (e.g.)
• occupation (white collar, blue collar)
• education (college?)
• income

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Socially conditioned variation in NYC

• Background
• Rhotic vs. non-rhotic dialects of English
• stAr (rhotic), stA (non-rhotic)
• NYC has both rhotic and non-rhotic dialects
• Some within-speaker variability
• Rhotic dialects are more prestigious in NYC, used
  by speakers belonging to higher socioeconomic
  classes

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Post-vocalic r in NYC (vs. Reading)
NYC Reading social class
32 0 upper middle
20 28 lower middle
12 44 upper working
0 49 lower working
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NYC Findings

• Effects on pronunciation by register
  (formal/polite vs. normal/casual/conversational)
• Careful pronunciations contain more post-vocalic
  r than casual pronunciations (perhaps more
  self-monitoring during careful speech?)
• Post-vocalic r borrowed from one group
  (customers) to another (salespeople)
• speaker awareness of prestige features, effect of
  use (or lack thereof) on others perceptions
• speakers at middle and lower levels of social
  scale in NY are more aware of prestige features

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Variation in 3sS -s
verbs without s he go
class Detroit, MI Norwich, UK
upper middle 1 0
lower middle 10 2
upper working 57 70
middle working 87
lower working 71 97
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Grammaticization of register

• Formal/polite vs. less polite
• Spanish tú (vos) vs. usted
• Japanese, Korean honorific morphemes
• honorific suffixes which honor the subject
  (benefactive, etc.)
• Korean -si (added to verbs)
• Korean -keso (added to nouns)
• register/politeness suffixes which indicate
  social rank/distance between speaker and listener
• Korean -yo (added to verbs)

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Some honorific morphemes in Korean
plain honorific
-i/ka -keso subject
o-ta come-declarative o-si-ta come-hon-decl to come
o-a come-pres o-a-yo come-pres-pol is coming
m?k-ta eat-declarative t?-si-ta eat-hon-decl to eat
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Korean

• uri tonse?-i neil o-a
• our yo.sibling-sub tomorrow come-pres
• Our little brother/sister is coming tomorrow.
  (talking to friends)
• uri tonse?-i neil o-a-yo
• our yo.sibling-sub tomorrow come-pres-pol
• Our little brother/sister is coming tomorrow.
  (talking to respected individual)
• uri halm?ni-kes? neil o-sy-?-yo
• our grandmother-hon.sub tomorrow
  come-hon-pres-pol
• Our grandmother is coming tomorrow. (talking to
  respected individual)
• uri s?nse?-nim-kes? neil o-sy-?-yo
• our teacher-hon-hon.sub tomorrow
  come-hon-pres-pol
• Our teacher is coming tomorrow. (talking to
  respected individual)
• (-nim is an honorific title reserved for kings,
  gods and teachers)

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(No Transcript)
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Effect of gender on language variation

• Some standard vs. nonstandard forms
• -ing vs. in
• Whos playing? vs. Whos playin?
• single vs. double negative
• I dont have any money. vs. I dont have no
  money.
• negative auxiliary aint (lt am not)
• I havent done anything wrong. vs. I aint done
  nothing wrong.
• Women tend to use more standard forms

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Effect of gender and socio class
double negatives, Detroit
male female
upper middle class 6.3 0
lower middle class 32.4 1.4
upper working class 40.0 35.6
lower working class 90.1 58.9
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Effects of gender on language variation

• Other differences between mens, womens speech
• intonation (women have more pitch variation)
• lexical (adjectives, intensifiers)
• Thats so gorgeous.
• That looks nice.
• use of tag questions (isnt it?) (women use
  more)

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Grammaticization of gender

• Male and female forms of lexical items in Yana, a
  Native American language
• Hokan language family
• Extinct in early 20th century

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Yana language area
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Male and female forms in Yana
hearer hearer
male female
speaker male male forms female forms
speaker female female forms female forms
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Male vs. female forms in Yana
1. Unpredictable differences
male female
go ni/nii- ?a-
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Male vs. female forms in Yana
2. Predictable differences. Root gt 1 syllable,
ends in short vowel
male female
eat mo/i- mo/i?-
inside iiwuulu iiwuulu?
man /iisi /iisi?
place phati phathi?
snow phatsa phatsha?
Devoice final vowel, aspirate final stop in female
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Male vs. female forms in Yana
2. Predictable differences. Root ends in long
vowel, or 1 syllable
male female
tree, stick /i-na /ih
shelled acorn yu-na yuh
deer pa-na pah
Add na to male forms devoice final vowel to
form female forms, unless final vowel only
vowel (add h)