socio exam questions

courage mes amies

Which three paradigms of sociolinguistics did Bell (2013) envisage?

Comparative historical sociolinguistics, variationist sociolinguistics and ethnographic-interactional sociolinguistics.

What is a good definition of ‘Historical Sociolinguistics’?

The reconstruction of the history of a specific language in its socio-cultural context.

⦁ Which of the data types below are typically used in Historical Sociolinguistics?

Law, science, philosophical, sermons,

travel accounts, biographies, novels,

plays, personal letters, religious texts,

diaries, news reports, medical texts,

legal advice, grammars, usage guide

Which of the investigations below falls in the category of Historical Sociolinguistics?

The Helsinki Corpus of Early English Correspondence (investigating letters in early English),
Language of Leiden corpus (texts from Leiden in 7 domains (letters, plays, testaments etc.)),
“Ach schrijf mij toch! Brieven als vensters op het taalverleden” 2011-2018 (exhibition of letters through the 17th and 18th century).

⦁ What is the ‘Uniformitarian Principle’ (Walkden 2019)?

Current language mechanisms can be applied to the past (and vice-versa)

⦁ What is a ‘domain’ in Historical Sociolinguistics?

A specific sphere of experience in which a distinct type of language is used.

⦁ What was the motivation behind Elspaß’, ‘language history from below’, concept?

Certain linguistic groups (like the lower class) were underrepresented in data that was used to form theories

⦁ Which challenges do Historical Sociolinguists face?

• Class differences in language use (word choice, register, fixed phrases, errors, language change)

• Deal with micro level agency (individuals in a community, short-term)

• Deal with macro level agency (diffusion across communities, long-term, life span changes)

⦁ How can language norms from the past best be studied?

Studying lots of different texts using paradigms.

⦁ How did Grierson categorise North Indian dialects?

On the basis of /l/ in the past participle (e.g. 'beaten': mara vs mār-ilā and mār-el)

⦁ How did Weijnen’s (1946, 1966) ‘Arrows Method’ (‘Pijltjesmethode’) work?

Asking people who spoke certain dialects who they thought they sounded like, and marking that with arrows. This showed that arrows typically stayed in a certain area, thus marking a larger dialect-group

⦁ What was a weakness of Weijnen’s (1946, 1966) ‘Arrows Method’ (‘Pijltjesmethode’)?

The methodology was unclear, the results can be skewed since it's unclear how many people were investigated. Also he only looked at similarities, did not deal with contradictory results.

⦁ What is a good definition of contemporary ‘Sociolinguistics’?

The study of language use in a social context (contemporary)

⦁ What is the difference between Dialectology and Sociolinguistics?

Dialectology studies the language use of ordinary people (vocabulary, pronunciation), while sociolinguistics studies a whole language (syntax, phonology). Dialectologists studied uncodified language (not from dictionaries etc.)

⦁ What is ‘language performance’ and ‘language use’?

Describing the language itself and language in use

⦁ Which countries/regions does the coursebook mention as important places where pre-Labovian sociolinguistics was performed?

Japan, India, England, France

⦁ Why were certain sociolinguistic activities never noticed by mainstream journals?

Not written in international languages, the field wasnt socially/officially accepted everywhere

⦁ Which distinction did Ferdinand De Saussure (1858—1913) famously make in his ‘A Course in General Linguistics’?

Language and language use

⦁ How is Ferdinand De Saussure (1858—1913) relevant for sociolinguists today?

Langue et parole: langue is the ‘system’, parole is ‘language use by individuals

⦁ Which of the sociolinguistic investigations below was the earliest?

On the in/ing sound, Allsop

On language use, social class and educational success, Bernstein

On the Island of Martha’s Vineyard and NYC (Labov)

⦁ Which social variables did William Labov use in his famous New York study (1966)?

• store

• female/male

• estimated age

• race

⦁ Which linguistic variables did William Labov use in his famous New York study (1966)?

• initial: casual fourth floor

• -stressed: emphatic fourth floor

⦁ How did Labov determine the age of his participants?

Estimation (how professional and thorough!)

⦁ In what way is today’s research into language use in urban areas different from the research done by Labov in the mid-1960s?

Instead of studying characteristics (accents) of language groups, language uses and sociolects among other things are studied.

⦁ In which socio-communicative setting is sociolinguistic research in cities usually done?

Public spaces

⦁ What does it mean if someone says that the public space is an ideological space?

In this space ideologies are formed through negotiation (reactions to behaviours, comments, ways of speaking) and naturally adjusted to changes in the space when necessary

⦁ What does it mean if someone says that the public space is partly shaped by communication?

Building public space is associated with rules that this space must comply with, but those rules are an outgrowth of communication between ordinary people. (go fucking figure)

⦁ What are ‘rituals’ in an urban sociolinguistics context?

Interactional practices to maintain the moral order of things

(e.g. greeting & closing sequences in conversations)

⦁ What does ‘liminality’ in an urban sociolinguistics context refer to?

The stage of transition and disorientation for non-residents and newcomer

(note: non-linguistic definition of liminality = relating to a transitional or initial stage of a process.)

⦁ What are ‘language regimes’?

The relation between the management of language in public spaces (language policies), actual language use, and attitudes towards this use

(HOW. how. is that what it means)

⦁ What could a linguistic effect of political correctness be?

Talking around a topic, not getting to the core of a conflict/subject

⦁ How do ‘covert messages’ work?

Subtle articulatory or lexical features convey messages that we cannot help but send out, cause by the people we associate or interact with

⦁ Which of the definitions below best describes the so-called Second Wave in sociolinguistics?

Research in the correlation between language and speaker/listener characteristics, going deeper than during the first wave by trying to grasp the mechanisms behind variation and change

⦁ What does ‘essentialism’ mean?

‘Essentialism’ refers to the view that people have a fixed set of basic attributes, including language, that determine their identity.

⦁ What does the ‘shift from language to resources’ mean?

Research going from describing the language to describing the way individuals apply it and then finding out why language is the way it is.

⦁ What is the difference between ‘synchronic variation’ and ‘diachronic variation’?

• synchronic variation’ (in the present time)

• ‘diachronic variation’ (occurring over time)

⦁ What does ‘Superdiversity’ mean in Sociolinguistics?

refers to the fact that nowadays levels of diversity in certain places (especially urban ones) are higher than ever before; culturally, ethnically, and in many other ways (and inguistically as a result).

⦁ What was Bourdieu’s main message in his book ‘Language and Symbolic Power’?

language is used as a power symbol in interactions.

• Power, then, is ‘discursive’, meaning that our practices of using language – i.e. our ‘discourse’ – express and shape it.

• e.g. the way you talk can put you in a certain position of power

⦁ What does ‘metamorphosis of identity’ mean?

we live in an age of) ‘fascination for the renewal, recalibration and reinvention of identities’
(note: is this not the most magicalfantasticalwhimsical piece of writing in this whole course !! my lord)

⦁ What does ‘intra-speaker variation’ mean?

Variation within the language of a single speaker

⦁ What is an important contribution of sociolinguistics in explaining the unexplained?

Showing that wanting to be understood does not result in all languages starting to sound the same, but that people want to remain a sense of individuality
(note: god. isn’t this field just the fucking best. please god)

What is the definition of ‘indigenous language’?

a language that it native to a region and spoken by indigenous peoples’

⦁ Which website gives you relatively reliable information on numbers of languages in countries and regions?

ethnologue

⦁ Which of the descriptions below of a dividing line between dialects is identity-based?

Social production of identity through language use. The same word can have two different meanings depending on where you are.

⦁ What is a perceptual dialect border?

The borderline varies on who you ask it to, individual speakers define the border/dialect differently. This concept refers to how people perceive differences between languages or dialects based on their own linguistic experiences.

⦁ What is a language border based on social connotations?

dialect border is based on speaker image, such as how a rural dialect speaker of croatian is seen as socially attractive but with low social status, and a standard croatian speaker is seen as highly competent, but not of high social attractiveness

What is an ‘isogloss’?

a line on a map marking an area having a distinct linguistic feature.

historically derived from the same source as another language/form. in this case, it can help determine dialect/language border types

What does ‘etymological relatedness’ mean?

related based on the form and meaning of the history of the world

Which of the pairs of words below are etymologically related?

Common origin seen in the root

Which of the investigations below is an example of ‘Dialectometry’ research?

dialectometry: Statistical method of dialect analysis, linguistic distance between localities in a dialect region by counting the number of contrasts in a large sample of linguistic features

• e.g. Levenstein algorithm/distance, statistical method of dialect analysis, linguistic distance (phonetic stops)

Which research field uses empty maps of countries or regions for participants to draw on?

Perceptual dialectology

Which of the factors below is least likely to affect dialect borders?

Tourism, (online) trends,

How does ‘Social production of locality through language use’ work?

speakers give different meanings/connotations to existing languages

e.g. saying bodega instead of corner shop

14.Is the dividing line between ‘friet’ and ‘patat’ similar to the dividing line between ‘chips’ and ‘fries’?

Both are based on identity, nationality/regionalism, and culture, but patat and friet are both in the same language whereas chips and frie are between two large languages (uk and us english)

15.Which of the language varieties below is a sociolect?

sociolect: a variety defined on the basis of social grounds and is associated with a group of people who share certain qualities, like valley speak or surfer talk

17.What is another word for ‘posh’ speech?

Hyperlect

18.Which of the examples below describes ‘stylistic variation’?

stylistic variation: vary the use of language use systems in specific ways; could even systematically mix systems under certain circumstances. ‘style’ refers to ways of speaking that are a result of accommodation of the language of the speaker to, amongst others, social circumstances (like degree of formality), qualities of the person to whom they are talking (e.g., the social status of that person), or goals of the conversation (e.g., persuading or discouraging)

19.Which of the examples below is a dialect?

dialect: ‘dialect’ typically refers to a language from a certain region, city, town, or village. It is often contrasted with a larger and codified language. ex: brooklyn accent

• e.g. Obecná čeština (common czech), tussentaal, transcarpathian

20.What do the terms NORM and MYSF stand for?

• NORM: non-mobile older rural males

• MYSF: mobile young suburban female

Why are the terms NORM and MYSF sociolinguistically relevant?

NORMs are the stereotypical speakers of a dialect, while MYSFs are the urban equivalent of this

Which of the dividing lines separating dialects described below is an ‘isogloss’?

isogloss: dividing line of dialects

23.What is the relationship between the Dardic dialect in India and the rest of the Indo-Aryan languages?

dardic is really just a bundle of aberrant indo-aryan languages in a hilly region — they have fuck all in common

What type of language do ‘global nomads’ oftentimes speak?

transnational languages like english, spanish, arabic, malay, portuguese, or swahili

What is an important feature of so-called ‘new dialects’?

variant pronounciatation of a vowel are simply reallocated to two different social classes

They emerge in new communities that are formed by people who come from all over to live in a newly formed town; tend to level their language or have different types of pronunciation to indicate different statuses, as a result of all the different dialects that have come together. It is also common for them to speak a generalized official language instead of a dialect

What is the difference between a ‘creole’ and a ‘pidgin’?

pidgins are newly formed varieties (e.g. french and an african language) that are linguistically primitive

creoles are evolved from pidgin languages and are much more linguistically complex with native speakers

Which of the phenomena below describes ‘language shift’?

lang shift: when one language overtakes a community of language speakers

Running the chance of a language ending up with no speakers because of (5) factors

What is ‘ethnolinguistic vitality’?

that which makes a group likely to behave as a distinctive and collective entity within the intergroup setting

Which of the answers below describes ‘codeswitching’?

the social and communicative circumstances under which an admixture of languages is produced by individuals

What does Hofstede’s ‘Masculinity’ dimension refer to?

“What motivates people: wanting to be the best (masculine)

• as opposed to the feminine, “liking what you do”

Which countries below are closest to a Linear-active communication style, according to Lewis’s model?

germany, switzerland, luxembourg

What are the main reasons for the fact that not all languages have the same structure?

type of speech community, nature of the language, physical location

What is a likely reason that Japanese has an extensive system of honorifics?

they have a stratified society in which relative social status determines speech register

How is the endangered Njamal language (Australia) ‘un-European’?

generational distance measures words for relatives

Which factor is an important determinant of the language choices of Canadian Old Order Mennonite Pennsylvania Dutch speakers?

religion

Which of the examples below is an illustration of language reflecting the physical culture in which that language is spoken?

you have twenty words for snow, but none for cactus since you live in fucking antarctica

Which of the examples below is an illustration of language reflecting the social culture in which that language is spoken?

ex: jp having honorifics system thanks to their stratified society

Which of the definitions below best illustrates ‘linguistic relativism’?

The structure of a language to some extent determines the cognitive and behavioral habits of its speakers

(note: linguistic relativity = the proposal that the particular language we speak influences the way we think about reality)

Which of the people below is associated most with linguistic relativism?

Benjamin Lee Whorf and Edward Sapir

What are two important determinants of the rate of linguistic change?

degree of contact and (in)stability of society

Which of the statements below about contact and simplification/complexification is true?

simplification may occur because the language is mostly learned by adults, and more complex because it’s learned by children

What does the ‘Anglo-Western bias’ that the book speaks of refer to?

WEIRD countries are usually seen as the basis of all sociolinguistic arguments

What is ‘social constructionism’?

departing from ideas and notions that are obvious to those who accept them, but they may not necessarily represent reality because they are inventions of societies

(e.g. gender)

What is an important limitation of the three culture models mentioned in the book (The World Values Survey, The Hofstede Model, and the Lewis Model)?

they ignore low-level differences

Which three features are an intrinsic part of the design of language, according to Hockett (1958)?

• interchangeability (people can be senders or receivers),

• the option of speakers to correct and self-monitor their language

• the ability to refer to things that are not present in space and time.

Which of the examples below demonstrates ‘glocalisation’?

a tendency of local worlds interconnecting in a global world, like Metropop Fiction from Jakarta

What is ‘translocality’?

the notion that today’s local cultures are connected to surrounding cultures and that their existence and definition in fact depend on each other

What is ‘metro-ethnicity’?

‘a hybridized “street” ethnicity deployed by a cross-section of people with ethnic or mainstream backgrounds who are oriented towards cultural hybridity, cultural/ethnic tolerance, and a multi- cultural lifestyle in friendships, music, the arts, eating and dress’

What is ‘Ethnography of Communication/Speaking’?

the analysis of communication in which social and cultural beliefs and practices are taken into consideration of members of a smaller community or of a larger culture

⦁ Why is it useful to explain exceptions in sociolinguistic approaches to describing language (change)?

Individuals’ language behaviours need to be observed in detail to understand language (change)”

Many theories try to generalise about groups based on certain personal characteristics and that is less insightful and also less socially accepted these days

Which of the examples below demonstrates socially motivated language use patterns?

Speech influenced by social factors, so for example because people look up to a certain group or because they are introverted they might speak quieter

people from martha’s vineyard spoke more with their accent if they wanted to stay on the island; avoided the accent if they wanted to leave

What were important motivations for Martha’s Vineyard inhabitants to centralise diphthongs?

to distinguish themselves from mainlanders

What was Labov’s explaining for interspeaker variation in his Martha’s Vineyard study?

Connection with love for the mainland and ambitions to return to the mainland or stay at Martha’s Vineyard

In what way are young urban Bangladeshi males leaders of language change in Fox and Sharma’s research (phonetic tendencies)?

preference for innovative variants

In what way are young urban Bangladeshi males leaders of language change in Fox and Sharma’s research (role in social environment)?

I'm going to give you some features of their language and ask you to point out which of them seems to have an influence on other speakers, who see these men as role models. So you need to know the linguistic features.

Which of the features below belong to Multicultural London English?

⦁ Constructed in the last two decades

⦁ origins in East London, non-white residents

⦁ Features stem from many heritage languages

L2 speech (native tongue accent)

- postcolonial englishes

- vernacular british

- MLE was displacing (cockney, spoken by young working-class people of many ethnicities)

How is Southall speech different from Multicultural London English?

Almost all influences from Punjabi, , use of asian features by gender and age

Due to which factors could the language of two or more siblings who all grew up in the same social environment still be different?

they have different social networks; having traumatic experiences at different ages; different personalities; occupation; level of education

What does ‘human agency’ mean?

independently and individually constructuing & re-constructing languages