LING 100 Week 10 PDF

L I N G 1 00 © S. Cho + M. Taboada + D. Gluhareva. This document is copyrighted material. Your copy is for your own personal use. No part of this document may be sold, reproduced, published, uploaded or re-shared on the internet. Week 10 o Homework 1 but grades will be released by November 9 o Ex...

L I N G 1 00 © S. Cho + M. Taboada + D. Gluhareva. This document is copyrighted material. Your copy is for your own personal use. No part of this document may be sold, reproduced, published, uploaded or re-shared on the internet. Week 10 o Homework 1 but grades will be released by November 9 o Exam 2 grades will be released by November 11 o Homework 2 is published  Sociolinguistics o Sociolinguistics is a branch of linguistics that studies the relationship between language and society o Questions o What are the social functions of language? o How does language convey social meaning? o How do languages work within communities? o How do people convey and construct aspects of their social identity through language? o Sociolinguistic norms: A set of social conventions shared by a group of people in their language use Solidarity and power o Even when participants in a conversation share sociolinguistic norms, the conversation may be unbalanced– depending on the relative status of the speakers o Status: the social position of a person in relation to others o Participants may express closeness or intimacy (solidarity) or signal the relative social standing of each participant (power)  Solidarity/power difference A father and his four- year-old son  Solidarity/power difference A father and his four- year-old son  Solidarity/power difference An undergraduate student and the Dean of the university  Solidarity/power difference You and your childhood best friend  Solidarity/power difference An unfamiliar SFU student sitting next to you in the library  Forms of address Forms of address: what conversation participants call each other o Social factors usually govern our choice of terms: o the particular occasion o social status or rank of the other o gender o age o family relationship o occupational hierarchy o transactional status (e.g.., a service encounter, or a doctor–patient relationship, priest–penitent) o degree of intimacy Forms of address Options (think of situations where each of these could be used) o First name: Ross o Last name: Geller o Full name: Ross Geller o Nickname: Dr. Monkey, Ross the Divorcer, Dino-Guy o Title/honorific o Title + LN: Dr. Geller, Mr. Geller o Title + FN: Dr. Ross, Mr. Ross o Term of endearment: sweetie, honey, baby o Kinship (family relationship) term: dad, Uncle Ross Forms of address o How would you address…? How would they address you back? a). Your best friend b). Your sibling c). Your doctor d). Your professor e). Your friend’s parents f). Your member of parliament/member of the legislative assembly  Forms of address Indicator of the solidarity and power relationship between people o Use of reciprocal first names (both call each other by their FNs): often expresses some degree of solidarity and shared status o Culture-dependent– e.g., in North America, reciprocal FN is relatively standard, doesn’t say much about solidarity o Reciprocal nicknames: even more solidarity o Reciprocal Title + LN (Mr. Geller/Mr. Tribbiani) o Low solidarity, equal power o Non-reciprocal naming: often indicates a perceived power difference oE.g.: you call your professor “Dr. Geller” and he calls you by your first name Forms of address: Pronouns o In English, you address you interlocutor with ‘you’, regardless of the distance: o Dear Dr. Pinker/Dear Steven/Dear Steven Pinker/Dear Prof. Pinker…how are you? o☞ 2nd person pronoun (only choice) o In other languages: o Two pronouns, formal pronoun (V form) and informal pronoun (T form) Forms of address: Pronouns o Many European languages have two different forms for the 2nd person singular pronoun → o Generally speaking: o T form used reciprocally among family and close friends (high solidarity) o V form used reciprocally among people of equal status who are not close (low solidarity) o When participants are of unequal status: o The powerful uses the T form to address the less powerful, while the less powerful uses the V form to address the powerful Reciprocal V Вы T/V usage examples Вы (will vary by language/culture) Non-reciprocal T-V ты ты ты Вы Reciprocal T Forms of address: Honorif ics o Honorific: a form of address that encodes the relative social status of the participants of a conversation o Tend to convey esteem, courtesy, or respect o English (these usually precede the person’s name): o Mr., Ms., Mrs., Mx., Sir, Lady, Lord o Dr., Professor, Chancellor, Principal, President o Your Highness, The Honourable Forms of address: Honorif ics o Japanese has a much more complex system of honorifics (video) Conversation Analysis o Conversation involves much more than using language to convey facts o Through conversation, we establish and maintain relationships with others, while at the same time both reflecting and creating our social reality o Conversation Analysis (or ethnomethodology) studies how conversations are structured Turn-taking o How do we know when it is our turn to speak in a conversation? o Turn-taking is a part of conversation structure in which one person listens while the other person speaks o This is universal: all societies engage in turn-taking in conversation o In some speech events, turn-taking is spelled out in advance (e.g., ceremonies or formal debates) o But this doesn’t happen in ordinary conversations o So how do we know when to speak and when keep silent? Turn-taking o How do you signal that you are done speaking? o Linguistic signals for ending a turn o Addressing the other person directly: ‘honey’, ‘John’, ‘coach’ o Lengthening the final syllable of the utterance o Lowering pitch on the final syllable(s) o Expressions: you know, or something o Non-verbal signals o Relaxing of posture, gesturing with one hand, directing your gaze towards the listener Turn-taking o Differences in cultural norms o How much gap (silence) is accepted between speakers o Cree: longer pauses are standard (compared to English) o How much conversational overlap (interruption/interjection) is acceptable o High involvement style (e.g., New Yorkers, Jamaicans) o Speaker turns regularly overlap Interruption o A speech action in which one participant breaks in to interject while another person is talking o Types o Cooperative o A conversational partner joins the speaker’s utterance by supplying a word or a phrase for which the speaker is searching, e.g.: A: Well I’m not- I’m not fro- B: [overlap] London A: London. I’ve come down from Manchester Interruption o Types o Intrusive o Aims to disagree, change the topic, or take the floor o Example: A: And that’s when you uh called me— B: [overlap] But I didn’t call you that day A: Oh right. That was Monday Interruption o Types o Intrusive o Aims to disagree, change the topic, or take the floor o Example A: I was having a hard time with the assignment and um— B: [overlap] But you did well on the test, right? Interruption/overlap o Who interrupts more? o Research on gender and language from the 1970s and 80s: women tend to get interrupted more, by both men and women o More contemporary research: interruption is an issue of power difference/solidarity Interruption/overlap o Can also take the form of backchanneling o Backchannel: a way for a conversation participant to express their attention, understanding, or agreement without fully interrupting their partner’s turn o Can be verbal or non-verbal o Common backchannels in English: yeah, uh-huh, hmm, right o (not all backchannels overlap with the previous speaker’s turn) Hedges o Hedges: words or phrases that make a statement less forceful or assertive o Express probability, caution, or indecisiveness about the rest of the sentence o Examples o I think it will rain a little bit o Maybe it will rain o It will probably rain o I suppose it will rain o It might, like, rain o I kind of feel like it will rain Compare with: It will rain Hedges o Why use hedges? o Who uses hedges more? o Research on gender and language from the 1970s: women use hedges more frequently than men o More recent research: In situations of a large power difference, speakers with lower power will tend to use more hedges (though this isn’t always the case) Repair o Real-life conversations often involve repairs: false starts, stammers, errors, and corrections o Repairs occur when some kind of “trouble” arises in the conversation o Other-initiated repair: the listener interjects (Excuse me? What?) o Self-repair: the speaker tries to clarify what is being said and not being understood, or correct or further elaborate on something Assignment 3 o Task: analyze 2-3 minutes of an unscripted conversation from the perspective of sociolinguistics/Conversation Analysis o Instructions posted in Canvas Key terms accent dialect Differences in pronunciation Differences in pronunciation, lexical items and syntax Key terms idiolect o The unique characteristics of the language of an individual speaker o No two speakers of a language speak exactly alike o Language use depends on age, sex, state of health, personality, emotional state, physical characteristics and so on  Key terms “Standard” and “non-standard” varieties of a language o The standard dialect has the most power in wider society: taught in school and to L2 learners, used in formal writing, and heard in the media (e.g., “newscaster speech”) o In the UK, Received Pronunciation (RP) has historically been the variety of power and seen as the standard o In North America, things are less clear re: the standard o Standard American English: encompasses the varieties that are perceived “as lacking any distinctly regional, ethnic, or socioeconomic characteristics” o Standard Canadian English: generally the variety spoken by urban middle- class speakers  Time Place Variables that Community: influence linguistic Class variation Ethnicity Gender Contact Isolation Sociolinguistics: A few terms o Sociolinguistic markers o A linguistic variable that is noticeable to speakers, and has a particular social meaning o Examples o Syllable-final (or post-vocalic) /r/ o What impression do you get when someone doesn’t pronounce the /r/ in car? o North American varieties of English tend to be rhotic (pronouncing post-vocalic /r/) o Varieties in England: mostly non-rhotic → S o c i o l i n g u i s t i c s : A few t e r m s o Sociolinguistic markers: Syllable-final (or post-vocalic) /r/ oVarieties in England: mostly non- rhotic o A sociolinguistic trend in progress in England oDifferent social meanings ascribed to rhoticity in North America and England Sociolinguistics: A few terms o Sociolinguistic markers o A linguistic variable that is noticeable to speakers, and has a particular social meaning o Examples o -ing as [ɪn] not [ɪŋ] o What impression do you get when someone says swimmin’ vs. swimming? Sociolinguistics: A few terms o Sociolinguistic indicators o A feature that people are unaware of and that carries little or no social significance o Example: saying ‘we used to always go’ or ‘we would always go’  Time Place Variables that Community: influence linguistic Class variation Ethnicity Gender Contact Isolation  1. Place (Regional variation)  Regional variation in action How “BC” is your vocabulary? Canadianisms Variants that are distinctly Canadian 1. What do you call this? 2. What do you call this? 3. What do you call this? 4. What do you call this? 5. What do you call these things?  Regionalisms Variants that show strong regional differences across Canada 6. What do you call the meal that is eaten in the evening? 7. What do you call these? 8. What do you call a small, cozy home that people visit for a weekend or a vacation?  Canad ian Ra isin g o The most distinctive pronunciation feature of Canadian English o Quick test! Do you have Canadian Raising in your speech? o Say the following pairs of words carefully. Do the vowels sound the same or different? o lout – loud If the vowel in the first word in o clout -- cloud each pair sounds “more o writer – rider raised” than the vowel in the second word, then congrats! o bout – bowed → You have Canadian Raising o ice -- eyes Video  Canad ian Ra isin g Canadian Raising is a phonological process in which some diphthongs are raised when they occur before a voiceless consonant (e.g., before /t/) o Loud: the diphthong sounds like the one in how [aw] o Lout (for speakers with CR): first part of the diphthong sounds like the vowel in cut [ʌ]  Preve lar [æ] Raising A distinctive phonological feature of Western Canadian English is the raising of the [æ] (trap) vowel before velar consonants (before [g]) o If the vowels in bag and bad sound different for you → you have [æ] raising sounds like beg  Dialectology and dialect geography o Geographical location in probably the most-studied social factor affecting sociolinguistic variations o Dialectology (oldest branch of sociolinguistics) is the study of regional differences in language o Early linguistics had a major historical focus o Sociolinguists were interested in how languages and dialects evolved over time o Dialect geography o Certain speech features are found in certain geographical areas or dialect regions o Goal: to discover the boundaries between dialect regions  Whose speech to study? Suppose you are a dialectologist who would like to collect samples of the most traditional speech in each region of Canada. Who would you recruit as your participants? o Age? Male or female? Living in an urban or rural environment?  Whose speech to study? Historically, dialectal research has studied the speech of NORMs (non-mobile older rural males) o Believed to have retained the most traditional speech o Least outside influence Contemporary dialectology looks at a broader range of speakers o E.g., younger people, non-rural environments  Dialect geography: Methods 1. Find the speakers with the least outside influence → NORMs 2. With each speaker, run through a questionnaire of lexical features known to show regional differentiation o E.g., running shoes, tennis shoes or sneakers? Soda, pop or soft drink? 3. Record each speaker’s responses o In the days before tape recorders, fieldworkers would write these responses down, and make notes on pronunciations  Dialect geography: Methods 4. Tabulate the results from lots of questionnaires o Map out each variant and draw boundaries between different areas (these boundary lines are called isoglosses) 5. Use your data to propose dialect areas and boundaries o If there are a lot of isoglosses in the same place (an isogloss bundle), then it seems likely that there is a boundary between dialect areas Example of an isogloss Another interesting isogloss: Say pin and pen. Are the vowels same or different? o Speaker demo (video) o Pin/pen o Him/hem o Tint/tent  Dialect geogra phy: Results The Phonological Atlas of North America (1996) outlined these dialect zones: Do you notice any pattern between length of European settlement and dialect diversity? → More distinct dialect zones in older-settled areas But! “Canada” is not just one dialect zone…  How do dia lects develop ? In general, dialect boundaries reflect… o the settlement patterns in a given area (where were early settlers from?) o amount of contact with other varieties (e.g., are there natural boundaries separating different areas?)  How do dia lects develop ? Dialects in England o Had hundreds of years to develop → more dialectal diversity  How do dia lects develop ? o Dialect differences in North American English can be partially explained by which part of the British Isles early settlers came from o Each group brought with it the speech patterns of its home area o E.g., Newfoundland (England’s oldest North American colony) o Settled by fishermen from southwest England and later by Irish seamen o Newfoundland English retains some distinctive features as a result of its isolation  How do dia lects develop ? o What happens when speakers of different dialects intermix? o Dialect levelling: distinctive features are worn down over time o Process in three stages: Generation 1 Generation 2 Generation 3 (original settlers) Use their home Many linguistic Diversity is levelled out; dialects options available; usually the most speakers choose frequent variants are these somewhat kept randomly  Canad ian English A lot of the linguistic input to Canada came from the U.S. (e.g., waves of British Loyalists moving to Canada after the American Revolutionary War) + continued economic and cultural influence of the U.S. = in many ways, Canadian English (CanE) resembles that of parts of the U.S. …but it has several distinct features, as well (link) - lexical (e.g., the Canadianisms in the previous slides) - phonological (e.g., Canadian Raising) What are some other “distinctly Canadian” linguistic features?  Canad ian English o Compared to British and American English, CanE is relatively homogenous, but there five distinct dialect zones: o West (B.C., Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba) o B.C. is considered to be a sub-zone on the lexical level o Ontario o Quebec o (re: the Anglophone speakers in the province, not the francophone speakers of English) o Maritimes (P.E.I., N.S., N.B.) o Newfoundland 2. Isolation  Isolation and linguistic variation o Speech communities that are isolated in some way tend to preserve older way of speaking o A “linguistic time machine”  Isolation and linguistic variation Isolation can be o Physical o Isolated because of geographical factors o E.g., Newfoundland English o Linguistic o Isolated from speakers of the same or a similar language o E.g., Quebec French o Social o Isolated by conventions or attitudes o E.g., African Nova Scotian English  P h y s i c a l i s o l a t i o n : N ew f o u n d l a n d E n g l i s h o A “perfect storm” for dialectologists o Settled very early: beginning of the 17th century o Most immigration occurred before the mid-1800s o Settlers came from two clearly-defined areas o Southwestern England and southeastern Ireland o Physically isolated from any other heavily populated areas o Communities were also often isolated from each other o A lot of regional variation within Newfoundland  P h y s i c a l i s o l a t i o n : N ew f o u n d l a n d E n g l i s h o Very distinct from the rest of Canada o Video (especially the speaker at 0:57) o Features: link  Linguistic isolation: Quebec French o Retains many older features of French while also undergoing its own internally motivated processes of language change o “An island of French surrounded by a sea of English” o Some English words have been borrowed into Quebec French (e.g., toast, bill, bines ‘beans’) o Some words have developed distinct meanings in Quebec French (‘ma blonde’ = my girlfriend; in France = my blonde) o More regular verb marking system than France French (e.g., ‘je vas’ instead of ‘je vais’ = I go) Linguistic isolation: Quebec French 3. Time  Evolution of English Old English (449 - 1100) Drihten me raet, ne byth me nanes godes wan. And he me geset on swythe good feohland. And fedde me be waetera stathum. Middle English (1100-1500) Our Lord gouerneth me, and nothyng shal defailen to me In the sted of pastur he sett me ther. He norissed me upon water of fyllyng. Early Modern English (1500-1710) The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures. He leadeth me beside the still waters. Modern English The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters.  Evolution of English Old English (449 - 1100) Drihten me raet, ne byth me nanes godes wan. And he me geset on swythe good feohland. And fedde me be waetera stathum. Middle English (1100-1500) Our Lord gouerneth me, and nothyng shal defailen to me In the sted of pastur he sett me ther. He norissed me upon water of fyllyng. Early Modern English (1500-1710) The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures. He leadeth me beside the still waters. Modern English The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters.  Evolution of English Old English (449 - 1100) Drihten me raet, ne byth me nanes godes wan. And he me geset on swythe good feohland. And fedde me be waetera stathum. Middle English (1100-1500) Our Lord gouerneth me, and nothyng shal defailen to me In the sted of pastur he sett me ther. He norissed me upon water of fyllyng. Early Modern English (1500-1710) The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures. He leadeth me beside the still waters. Modern English The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters.  Evolution of English Old English (449 - 1100) Drihten me raet, ne byth me nanes godes wan. And he me geset on swythe good feohland. And fedde me be waetera stathum. Middle English (1100-1500) Our Lord gouerneth me, and nothyng shal defailen to me In the sted of pastur he sett me ther. He norissed me upon water of fyllyng. Early Modern English (1500-1710) The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures. He leadeth me beside the still waters. Modern English The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters.  Evolution of English Old English (449 - 1100) How does this… Drihten me raet, ne byth me nanes godes wan. And he me geset on swythe good feohland. And fedde me be waetera stathum. Middle English (1100-1500) Our Lord gouerneth me, and nothyng shal defailen to me In the sted of pastur he sett me ther. He norissed me upon water of fyllyng. Early Modern English (1500-1710) The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures. He leadeth me beside the still waters. Modern English The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. …become this?  Variation over time o All living languages change over time o Sociolinguists are interested in the relationship between change over time and the variation found in a community at a single point in time o Two observations o Change over time results in variation in each time period o People’s basic grammar does not change that much during their lifetime  Variation over time o Therefore, we can ‘see’ change happening by looking at the differences between old and young speakers (apparent time hypothesis) o We can use the present (variation) to explain the past (change) o The findings of apparent time studies can sometimes be confirmed in real time studies: record speakers and revisit them over a period of several years/decades  Generational change o A change that has taken place (relatively) recently in most dialects of North American English: the merger of /w/ and /ʍ/ o Test yourself again! Do you pronounce whale and wail in the same way? Percentage of speakers with [w] and not [ʍ] in words like which and whine  Generational change o Another merger in action in many parts of North America: cot and caught  Generational change …on the lexical (word) level o Which intensifier do you prefer? o That is ____ cool! o This study was done in 2009. What do you think intensifiers will look like in 2049?  Slang o Slang: words that are either new to the language or old words/phrases with new meanings o Usually associated with younger speakers and is usually short-lived o Young people tend to stop using slang words once they are picked up by the wider society  Slang Most slang is short-lived, but some slang words stick around and become part of the standard language o E.g., mob, freshman, glib, rip-off  Review Homework 2 Instructions Sign up to see your exam on Tuesday TO-DO LIST Weekly Participation Exercise Read Chapter 10 of Textbook