Sociolinguistics 4th Year Primary Education PDF 1st Term 2024

Sociolinguistics 4th year, Primary Education 1st term, Sept-Dec 2024 Dr. Sāmeya Masʿūd 1  (2) socioolinguistics Dr. Sāmeya Masʿūd 2  SESSION 1 LANGUAGE, COMMUNICATION & SOCIOLINGUISTICS Dr. Sāmeya Masʿūd 3 Dr. Sāmeya Masʿūd 4 Dr. Sāme...

Sociolinguistics 4th year, Primary Education 1st term, Sept-Dec 2024 Dr. Sāmeya Masʿūd 1  (2) socioolinguistics Dr. Sāmeya Masʿūd 2  SESSION 1 LANGUAGE, COMMUNICATION & SOCIOLINGUISTICS Dr. Sāmeya Masʿūd 3 Dr. Sāmeya Masʿūd 4 Dr. Sāmeya Masʿūd 5 communication Vocal communication Verbal (Paralanguage) Types of communication non-verbal qualities of speech, which include rate, pitch, amplitude, and voice quality Non-verbal communication Non-vocal communication (body language) Dr. Sāmeya Masʿūd 6  Components of communication SPEAKING by DELL HYMES Setting: It refers to the physical location and social significance of the event. Participants: This includes their age, class, gender, education, etc. Ends: They are the goals of the participants and the event. Act sequences: It refers to the appropriate utterances, their functions and their order. Key: It means the mood of the event (informational, serious, ironic, etc). Instrumentalities: They refer to the modes/ channels used in the event (i.e. spoken, written, signed). Norms: They are the expectations and interpretations of the participants and the event. Genre: It is the type of the event (joke, prayer, chat, etc). Dr. Sāmeya Masʿūd 7  Functions of Language According to Brown & Yule: The interactional function has to do with using the language for social and emotional purposes. The transactional function has to do with using the language for exchanging experience, skills, knowledge, etc. Dr. Sāmeya Masʿūd 8  Language and Society Although many linguists believe that humans are genetically programmed to learn language, social contact is required to activate this innate predisposition/faculty. People shape the language in their linguistic interactions. How language is shaped in communication can be understood on observing that all natural languages are redundant. The one meaning can be signaled in more than one way. This is attributed to creativity. Dr. Sāmeya Masʿūd 9 Creativity of the human language means that: The language consists of a finite number of units, but humans can use them to create an infinite number of combinations. The human language is not stimulus-response based like animal language. Various ways of expressing one meaning are meant to fulfill different personal and communicative needs. Dr. Sāmeya Masʿūd 10  we can safely say that the creativity of the human language is attributed to the human nature and the effect of the surrounding society. However, language and society do not interact in isolation. Language has strong connections to: sociology (i.e. social groups and institutions), anthropology (i.e. culture), psychology (i.e. attitudes and perceptions), pragmatics (i.e. meaning in different situations) and politics (i.e. power and persuasion). Dr. Sāmeya Masʿūd 11  Sociolinguistics, thus, is a large interdisciplinary field because it is concerned with the study of language in its social contexts. Sociolinguistics is defined as the descriptive study of: 1. the effect of the aspects of society (e.g. cultural norms, expectations, and context) on the use of language; and 2. the effects of language use on society. Dr. Sāmeya Masʿūd 12 Dr. Sāmeya Masʿūd 13 12  The aim of sociolinguistics is to move towards a theory which provides an account of the way language is used in a community, and of the choices people make when they use language. These linguistic choices may be conscious or unconscious. However, speakers do not produce phrases and sentences in a social vacuum. To sociolinguists, linguistic forms always encode social identities. Dr. Sāmeya Masʿūd 14  WILLIAM LABOV is often regarded as the founder/father of sociolinguistics. 1.He gave status to forms of speech. 1.He focused his attention on modern dialects and accents rather than vanishing rural dialects. 1.He introduced the quantitative study of language variation and change. 1.He introduced the concept of linguistic variable (i.e. a recognisable dialect feature, the use of which varies in a community according to age, class and gender). This enabled him to provide a more accurate picture of dialect features than before. Dr. Sāmeya Masʿūd 15 “Armchair" linguistics Sociolinguistics Prescriptive study Descriptive study Selected samples Random samples Idealised utterances Actually-used utterances No informants/ subjects Real informants/ subjects Planned context Natural context Dr. Sāmeya Masʿūd 16 15 Why there should be sociolinguistics: HALLIDAY claims that language is to be studied as action because speakers produce forms and meanings by choosing from different options available to them. FISHMAN states that man is constantly using language, and man is constantly linked to others via shared norms of behaviour. LABOV resists using the term sociolinguistics because it implies, mistakenly, that there can be a sort of linguistics that is not social. He adds that there is no alternative to studying actual uses of language in its natural contexts. Dr. Sāmeya Masʿūd 17  The social meaning of language use: of Sociolinguistics Micro-sociolinguistics - who speaks, - what language, Subdivisions - to whom, when, and why The interaction of linguistic and social systems: - why there are different rates Macro-sociolinguistics of change in language use - and why there is change in behaviour toward language Dr. Sāmeya Masʿūd 18 17 Sociolinguistics 4th year, Primary Education 1st term, Sept-Dec 2024 Dr. Sāmeya Masʿūd 1  SESSION 2 MICRO- & MACRO SOCIOLINGUISTICS Dr. Sāmeya Masʿūd 2  Major Issues of Micro-sociolinguistics Small talk (or phatic communion as coined by MALINOWSKI) : It is the use of language to share feelings or establish a mood of sociability. It is usually represented by ritualised formulas, e.g. exchanges about the weather and time, intended to attract the attention of the listener or extend communication. In short, a phatic utterance communicates not ideas but attitude. Sequencing of utterances: It is the relationship between utterances. In some cases, the sequence of utterances is quite strictly regulated, as in greetings, but there is a range of possibilities depending on the situation. Dr. Sāmeya Masʿūd 3  Speech event: It is a particular instance when people exchange speech, such as an exchange of greeting, an enquiry, a conversation, etc. X. Hello, how can I help you? Y. I’m looking for a blue T-shirt. X. I’m awfully sorry. The blue T-shirts are out of stock. Y. It’s ok. Bye. Speech act: It is an utterance as a functional unit in communication. Utterances could have: 1. no meaning to communicate, 2. a surface meaning only, or 3. an underlying meaning (+ the surface meaning) Dr. Sāmeya Masʿūd 4 Types of speech acts by SEARLE: 1. Representative speech acts describe states or events, such as a claim or a report. 2. Expressive speech acts express the feelings or attitudes, such as thanking, complaining, apologising, etc. 3. Commissive speech acts commit the speaker to doing something in the future, such as a promise or a threat. 4. Directive speech acts get the listener to do something, such as a request, a command or a suggestion. 5. Declarative speech acts change the state of affairs in the world, such as the act of marriage. Dr. Sāmeya Masʿūd 5  Major Issues of Macro-sociolinguistics Language contact occurs because of adjacency of and communication between two (or more) languages/ dialects, leading to a change on the different levels of the languages/ dialects. Language variation is the study of distinctive forms of a language as a social activity. The several systems of a language is conditioned by such factors as regionality, personality, gender, social class, etc. Multilingualism/ bilingualism is knowing and using more than one language, usually not equally well. Language dominance is the greater ability/ importance of one language for an individual/for a community. Dr. Sāmeya Masʿūd 6  Language spread/ diffusion is the increased use of a language in a given area over a period of time. Language shift is a change from one language to another, e.g. because of migration. Language attitudes could be positive or negative, and they affect mainly learning and social status. Language loyalty refers to the continuity of using one’s mother tongue in multilingual communities. Language vitality is demonstrated by the extent that the language is used as a means of communication in various social contexts for specific purposes. Dr. Sāmeya Masʿūd 7  Language planning/ engineering is the systematic governmental efforts to solve communication problems. Language maintenance is the preservation done by the individuals of the minority. Language revival occurs when a language which has died out is revived. The most famous instance is that of Modern Hebrew which was formed from Classical Hebrew. Language endangerment occurs when the speakers of a language stop to use it, use it in fewer domains, use fewer of its styles, or stop passing it to the following generation. Dr. Sāmeya Masʿūd 8  Language loss could be a gradual decay in whole or in part or a sudden decay due to accidents or disease. Language death takes place when a language stops to be used and when the process is irreversible. Language suicide occurs when people feel that they would be better off economically, politically or socially if they stop using a ‘worthless’ variety and adopt a new ‘useful’ one. Language murder occurs when governments or other institutions try to ‘kill off’ minority languages by passing laws/ punishment. It also refers to when all language speakers are being murdered. Dr. Sāmeya Masʿūd 9  Language and thought Language shapes/ influences the way we think. SAUSSURE likens language and thought to the two faces of a sheet of paper. They are inseparable. EDWARD SAPIR states: Human beings are at the mercy of the language which they use as a medium of expression. We understand the real world through the language habits of the group. We feel we cannot thoroughly apprehend whatever we cannot put into words. Dr. Sāmeya Masʿūd 10  Language and Identity Speech is a form of social identity. It can separate insiders from outsiders. It is used, consciously or unconsciously, to indicate membership of different social groups or different speech communities. A speech community is a group of people who use the same variety and share specific rules for speaking and for interpreting speech. Dr. Sāmeya Masʿūd 11  Language and Culture Culture is the bulk of ideas, attitudes, beliefs, knowledge, and values. It is a social product, neither inborn nor will-less. It is learnt through relation with others. It has a set of shared meanings which facilitate communication. Meaning is produced and exchanged in the light of cultural and social agreement. Languages are learned and used in cultural context. This is why the use of the Esperanto as a constructed international auxiliary language failed. It was invented in the early 1880s by Dr. ZAMENHOF. Dr. Sāmeya Masʿūd 12  Language and Gender A sexist language is the language whose words and phrases demean/ignore members of either sex and which needlessly call attention to gender. A language is judged as being sexist : 1.when language users speak or write in distinctive ways that reflect their sex, and 2.when language reveals, embodies and sustains attitudes to gender.Dr. Sāmeya Masʿūd 13 Dr. Sāmeya Masʿūd 14  Language of ladies Language of gentlemen Women talk for solidarity. Men talk for status. Men’s speech move from Women’ s speech moves from discussion to decision. decision to discussion. Women are quiet in public but talkative in private. Men are talkative in public but quiet in private. Women use ‘trouble talk’ to create rapport. Men avoid trouble talk to protect status. Women's’ language has a lot of exaggeration. It is The language of men is fact-based and sometimes described as being baby-talk. not emotional. Women’s speech topics revolve around family affairs, Men are more likely to talk about such as the education of children, clothes, cooking, politics, sports, economy, stocks, fashion, etc. current news, etc. Women are more likely to initiate conversations. Men are less likely to initiate conversations. Women are interested in details. Men are not interested in details. Dr. DrSāmeya Masʿūd Sameya Masud 15 13  Language of ladies Language of gentlemen Women’s talk is usually diplomatic (usually indirect and Men’s speech is usually direct and to the implicit). point. Women tend to prefer indirect requests and decision- Men usually use explicit commands. making. The language of women lacks humour. Men speak more humorously than females. Women know lots of color words, such as mauve, Men do not use them. yellow, azure, beige and lavender. Women always use some adjectives, such as charming, divine, lovely, fantastic and cute to express Men seldom use them. their feelings. Women use tag questions specially when Men use less tag questions. expressing their opinions. Women prefer to use a rising intonation even in a Men like to use falling intonation to show declarative sentence. confidence and sometimes power. Dr. DrSāmeya Masʿūd Sameya Masud 16 14  Language of ladies Language of gentlemen Women usually speak in a formal manner and Men tend to use more vernacular. tend to use more standard speech. Women usually use correct grammar and Men use less correct grammar and pronunciation. pronunciation. women employ a greater amount of active Men tend to dominate conversations through listening devices (mmm, yeah, etc.) the use of interruptions and overlaps. Females use more hedges. Men use less hedges. Women use such adverbs like awfully, Men like to use very, utterly, really. pretty, terribly, vastly, quite, so, etc. Women like to use diminutives. Men rarely/ never use diminutives. Women use more interrogative sentences as a Men use fewer interrogative sentences. strategy of continuing a good conversation. Women use eye contact. Men avoid eye contact. Women’s speech is more polite than men’s. Men use slang and swearing more frequently Dr. DrSāmeya Masʿūd Sameya Masud 17 15 Dr. Sāmeya Masʿūd 18 Sociolinguistics 4th year, Primary Education 1st term, Sept-Dec 2024 Dr. Sāmeya Masʿūd 1  SESSION 3 SOCIOLINGUISTICS & HEGEMONY SOCIOLINGUISTICS & LEARNING Dr. Sāmeya Masʿūd 2  The Hegemony of English English is the far leading language to be used by non-native speakers, addressing other non-native speakers. It is used worldwide in such areas as business, science, aviation, music, sport, and now the Internet. English is a major language because Great Britain and the United States have been powerful militarily, politically, and economically for the past two centuries. Dr. Sāmeya Masʿūd 3  The English language is becoming the language of international communication and is acquiring the status of a global language. It is also called the "hegemonic" and "neocolonialist" language. In spite of the popularity of English in the world, we should have in mind that English is not superior to other languages, and the use of other languages should be respected. Dr. Sāmeya Masʿūd 4  Language and Learning As teachers of English (as a foreign language), we need to know well enough how people in our society and the world think of learning English. People believe that knowing English permits one to open the linguistic gates to international business, technology, science and travel. In short, English is considered the means which can provide linguistic power. Many English learners believe that if they invest in English learning, they will reap the benefits of social and intellectual mobility. Dr. Sāmeya Masʿūd 5  While linguists believe learning a second language means learning another culture, they also feel it is not an automatic by-product of language learning. Learning another culture is a process of experiencing life in another culture and takes years to do. Culture in language learning is not a fifth skill. It is always there in the background. Thus, the EFL teacher is expected to be concerned with both linguistic competence and cultural competence. Dr. Sāmeya Masʿūd 6  Cultural competence can be taught in two ways: 1.teaching about the culture of a language descriptively 2. teaching how to apply cultural knowledge in given situations. To achieve any degree of real competency in any language, we need to create and enforce an integrated language policy that reflects the need for learners to be educated about both target culture and language. Dr. Sāmeya Masʿūd 7 LANGUAGE VARIATION Dr. Sāmeya Masʿūd 8  There are about 7,100 languages spoken around the world. Most of them have varieties. The variation exists in pronunciation, vocabulary and grammar. Moreover, the variation is found both in the verbal language and in the non- verbal language. All dialects are equally correct, systematic, logical, and meaningful. No one variety is better than another; they are simply different. Dr. Sāmeya Masʿūd 9  Language Varieties: causes & types Beside the formal language, there is the informal/colloquial language which is not used in formal situations. Sometimes, it is referred to as the vernacular, which describes everyday language. The existence of dialects (or regional varieties) is widely recognised. A dialect is a variety of a language that signals where a person comes from. The different features that distinguish a dialect from another are found in grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation. Dr. Sāmeya Masʿūd 10  Sociolects (or social varieties) are varieties of language used by groups defined according to class, education, age, sex, etc. Overt prestige refers to the recognised positively valued ways of speaking in social communities, while covert prestige refers to the negatively valued ones. On the other hand, the idiolect (or personal variety) is the variety of each individual speaker of a language. One's idiolect is the product of where he/she was born, his/her age, sex, education, race, and nationality. Dr. Sāmeya Masʿūd 11  There is a gradation of style of speech, from the very formal to the very informal. People may adjust their speech styles according to factors. A style (or social-psychological variety) whether spoken or written, may be a characteristic feature of individuals, especially advertisers, writers, intellectuals, politicians, etc. Register (or professional/ situational variety) is attributed to use in specific situations. There are religious, legal, political and scientific registers. Register is also used to indicate degrees of formality within language use, i.e. there are formal, informal, friendly, and frozen registers. Dr. Sāmeya Masʿūd 12  A major feature of a register is the use of special jargon, which can be defined as technical vocabulary associated with a special group or activity. The slang is the very informal variety whose words carry some sort of non-neutral social meaning. Such words are usually short-lived. A dialect is to be distinguished from the accent. Every language-user speaks with an accent, which refers to the aspects of pronunciation. Dr. Sāmeya Masʿūd 13  A situation when two different varieties coexist in a speech community is called diglossia. A form of diglossia exists in most Arabic-speaking countries where the high variety is used in lectures, religious speech and formal political talk, while the low variety is the local dialect of colloquial Arabic. Dr. Sāmeya Masʿūd 14  A pidgin is a variety of a language which developed for some practical purposes, such as trading, among groups of people who had a lot of contact, but who did not know each other's languages. Each approximates the obvious features of the other's language. Thus, it would have no native speakers. History shows that the major causes of pidgin formation can include migration, slavery, and insufficient education. Dr. Sāmeya Masʿūd 15  When a pidgin develops and becomes the mother language of a social community, it is described as creole. Creolisation expands the structural and stylistic range of the expanded pidgin. It develops as the mother language of the children of pidgin speakers. Thus, unlike pidgins, creoles have large numbers of native speakers. Dr. Sāmeya Masʿūd 16  Standard variety It is the one comprehensible more widely than localised dialects are. The features of the standard form: It has a bulky canon of literature. It forms the basis of printed language. It is the variety used in the mass media. It is the medium of teaching at schools. It is the variety taught to native and non-native speakers. Dr. Sāmeya Masʿūd 17  It is the variety used in public life, e.g. courts and legislatures. It is codified in dictionaries and grammars. It has a system of pronunciation free from regional marking and considered “proper” or “educated”. Because it requires active maintenance, there is an institution for promoting the use of this form. This institution is given some authority in defining the norms of use. The Constitution gives that form an official legal status. The authoritative translations of important sacred texts are produced in the standard language. Dr. Sāmeya Masʿūd 18 The correctness of the standard form means: This variety should not undergo change. All the speakers should: ✓pronounce sounds in the same way. ✓use the same grammatical forms in the same way. ✓use the same vocabulary items in the same way. Standardness = minimum variation of form + maximum variation of function Dr. Sāmeya Masʿūd 19 Dr. DrSāmeya Masʿūd Sameya Masud 20 8 Sociolinguistics 4th year, Primary Education 1st term, Sept-Dec 2024 Dr. Sāmeya Masʿūd 1  SESSION 4 LANGUAGE CHANGE Dr. Sāmeya Masʿūd 2  Language change All languages change. There is no such thing as a language which is not changing. The rate of change may vary considerably due to both internal and external factors. Language is constantly changing to reflect our changing lives, experiences and cultures. Language change enables us to accommodate new ideas, inventions and technologies. It is not just the words themselves which change; the way in which we use them can change, too. Dr. Sāmeya Masʿūd 3  Why languages change Social and political change New inventions and discoveries Fashion/ Imitating famous figures Regularisation and seeking ease Group loyalty and language contact These various reasons tell us about the way language is used in society, and about how it is shaped in communication. Dr. Sāmeya Masʿūd 4  CMC (computer mediated communication) CMC refers to various forms of human communication through networked computers, which can be synchronous (at the same time) or asynchronous (not at the same time) and involve one- to-one, one-to- many, or many-to-many exchanges of text, audio, and video messages. CRYSTAL believes that technology has established a linguistic revolution. The interaction takes place by exchanging messages over network-linked computers both in a verbal (i.e. spoken) form and in a written form. Moreover, communication over the internet goes faster than traditional means of contact. Dr. Sāmeya Masʿūd 5  Netspeak Netspeak is an informal form of written language used on the Internet. Netspeak is characterised by: using emoticons for expressing feelings, using lots of abbreviations and acronyms, using lots of coined words and phrases, ignoring correct spelling and grammatical rules, ignoring punctuation and capitalisation, and writing words without vowels, English dominates CMC. Some linguists consider this a danger to (extra hegemony over) other languages. Dr. Sāmeya Masʿūd 6  Meaning and Value Change Meaning does not exist within words. It exists in our minds. It is agreed upon through communication among the members of a speech community. Words are born and die. They move in and out of fashion, or up and down the social ladder. Etymology is the discipline which studies the history of words: origin, change of meaning and period of use. Dr. Sāmeya Masʿūd 7  Types of Meaning Change Regeneration: It refers to attaching a positive meaning to a word, e.g. nice & brave. Degeneration: It refers to attaching a negative meaning to a word, e.g. idiot & powder. Generalisation: It means widening the word meaning, e.g. Kleenex, sandwich, hand, business, wolf & dove Specialisation: It means narrowing the word meaning, e.g. doctor, meat & corn. Dr. Sāmeya Masʿūd 8 LANGUAGE & PRESCRIPTION Dr. Sāmeya Masʿūd 9  Prescriptivists tend to be found among the ranks of language educators and journalists. They may assign themselves the responsibility of ensuring that the next generation uses a proper variety of language. An extreme version of prescriptivism can be found among censors, whose personal mission is to eradicate words and structures which they consider to be destructive to society. The etiquette of language use is an aspect of prescription. It refers to the best linguistic manners. They are the linguistic manners that a person follows intuitively in consideration of others. Dr. Sāmeya Masʿūd 10  Politeness Taboo words are those that are considered in bad taste by some people or that are to be avoided entirely (or at least avoided) in mixed company or polite company because they mention realities that are stark or vulgar. Tabooed subjects, in many societies, can vary widely to include sex, death, sickness, bodily functions, religious matters, magic, and politics. Dr. Sāmeya Masʿūd 11  The avoidance of taboo words is the main cause of euphemism. Euphemism is the replacement of a taboo expression by another that is not coarse, e.g. pass away, cloakroom and big C. On the other hand, dysphemism is using a more offensive word or phrase in place of a less offensive one. Dysphemism is the use of negative language in order to express frustration or anger. When directed towards others, it is meant to insult or hurt. Dr. Sāmeya Masʿūd 12 The uses of euphemisms are: to dignify an occupation or labor, e.g., sanitary engineers instead of “garbage collectors”; to dignify a patient or a painful situation, e.g., seniors instead of “old people”; an expecting lady instead of a “pregnant woman”; visually impaired instead of “blind” using political correctness, e.g., developing countries instead of “Third World countries”; ethnic cleansing instead of “genocide” to avoid ethnic harm, e.g., African American instead of Negroes; Dr. Sāmeya Masʿūd 13 Dr. Sāmeya Masʿūd 14  Orthophemism refers to direct or neutral expressions that are not sweet-sounding, overly polite (i.e. euphemistic), nor harsh or offensive (i.e. dysphemistic). Dr. Sāmeya Masʿūd 15 20  Techniques that show politeness Using tag questions in requests, such as "Hand me that thing, could you?" Using euphemisms (which make use of ambiguity as well as connotation) Expressing uncertainty and ambiguity through hedging and indirectness Using polite lying, e.g. to decline invitations because of "scheduling difficulties" Dr. Sāmeya Masʿūd 16 Dr. Sāmeya Masʿūd 17