Intro to Human Language Week 7 Flashcards: Sociolinguistics

Speech Situations

The coming together of significant situational factors that influence language choice.

Purpose

Activity, goal.

Setting

Topic, location, mode.

Participants

Speakers, an addressee, social roles, and relationships among participants.

Language Variation

Language is not homogeneous; it is not the same across all speakers, regions, or situations.

Language Change

Variation across speakers, groups of speakers, is one of the reasons why language change occurs.

Language Choice

Register: aka style; language varieties characteristics of situations of use.

Dialect

Language variations, characteristics of particular regional groups or social groups.

Registers

A term that describes how language carries across situations.

Situation Speech

Conversational vs. formal.

Careful Speech

Fast speech.

Varieties of Language

Considered appropriate to specific situations.

Jargon

Specialized vocabulary associated with professions such as medicine, finance, engineering, and with activities such as sports, music, etc.

Dialects

A regionally or socially distinct variety of a language, identified by a particular set of words (vocabulary) and grammatical structures, as well as a certain phonology.

Linguistic Variety

Most linguists use this term to avoid the stigma of dialect.

Prestige Variety

A dialect associated with mainstream social prestige (e.g., dialects that sound educated or sophisticated).

Stigmatized Variety

A dialect associated with negative features, from a mainstream social perspective (e.g., uneducated or lower class).

Dialects and Social Identity

Dialects are important ingredients in social identity; they have symbolic value.

Lexical Markers

Example: pop, or soda, or Coke, depending on the region.

Phonological Markers

Patterns of speech characterize different socioeconomic status groups.

Grammatical Markers

Morphosyntactic markers (e.g., I went to the start and Jon came with).

Double Modals

Examples of grammatical markers.

Semantic Markers

Slang: the register used in situations of extreme informality is called slang.

Slang Words

Can become mainstream.

Language Alteration

We all alter the way we use language based on the situation.

Markers of Language

Lexical, grammatical, & phonological markers.

Language Styles

The styles we use reflect how we want to position or identify ourselves in relation to others.