Definitions - Linguistics

What is sociolinguistics?

The study of how social factors affect language use and variation, and how language reflects identity, power, and society.

What is multilingualism?

The ability of an individual or group to use more than one language. The level of ability is flexible and not strictly defined.

What is a multilingual society?

A community with two or more shared languages.

What is a domain in sociolinguistics?

The specific social or situational context in which a language or variety is used.

What is a lingua franca?

A shared language used between speakers of different native languages.

What is code-switching?

Alternating between two or more languages or varieties within a single conversation.

What is situational (domain-based) code-switching?

Language changes depending on the situation, setting, participants, or social factors to suit the communicative context.

What is conversational code-switching?

Alternating between languages within a single conversation or linguistic situation.

What is tag switching?

Adding tags to the end of an utterance (e.g., “…, aren’t you?”) to check agreement or add emphasis.

What is intersentential switching?

Switching languages at sentence boundaries; each sentence follows its own grammar.

What is intrasentential switching?

Switching between languages within a sentence, often automatic or used to fill vocabulary gaps.

What is metaphorical switching?

Topic-driven switching to discuss topics normally linked to another domain.

What is prestige switching?

Switching that conveys social meaning (e.g., high-prestige for authority, low-prestige for solidarity or identity).

What is solidarity (in language use)?

Using language to show closeness, familiarity, or shared background.

What is status (in language use)?

Social and power dynamics influencing language choice (e.g., high-prestige codes show authority).

What is diglossia?

The use of two distinct language varieties (H and L) for different purposes in a community.

What is the H (High) variety in diglossia?

Formal, stable, standardized variety used in official contexts like education, religion, and public addresses.

What is the L (Low) variety in diglossia?

Informal, everyday speech used at home and in conversation; prone to adaptation.

What is social variation?

Language changes across social groups and reflects social standing.

What are social factors in language variation?

Influences such as class, gender, age, and ethnicity that shape how people speak depending on their group.

What is social standing?

A person’s position in society based on prestige, wealth, or influence.

What is sociostratification?

The division of society into ranked classes that shape behaviour and language use.

What is social class?

A social grouping with access to similar resources, power, or status (economic, cultural, or religious).

What is sociolinguistic competence?

Unconscious awareness of how to use language appropriately in different social groups.

What is socioeconomic status (SES)?

A measure of social standing or class based on occupation, education, and income.

What is affective information?

Emotional or social meaning — how something is said.

What is referential information?

Literal or factual meaning — what is being said.

What is a sociolect?

A non-standard form of a language linked to a particular social class, profession, or group. Often features a restricted register or vocabulary.

What is change from above in language?

A conscious change where speakers are aware of adopting prestigious forms.

What is change from below in language?

A subconscious change where speakers are unaware of the shift.

What is hypercorrection?

When speakers of less prestigious varieties overuse prestige features, often to sound more “standard.”

What are prestige and non-prestige forms?

Varieties of language that differ in perceived social value. Prestige is socially assigned, not linguistically inherent.

What is gender (in sociolinguistics)?

A social identity (not biological sex) that influences linguistic choices like politeness, standardness, and formality.

How does age function as a social factor in language?

Language use varies across age groups, with differences in vocabulary, pronunciation, or grammar often reflecting generational change.

What is situational variation?

Variation in speech according to the situation.

What is intraspeaker variation?

Differences within one speaker’s speech across situations or contexts.

What is interspeaker variation?

Differences between different speakers, languages, or dialects (e.g., age, gender, class).

What is a variety (in sociolinguistics)?

A set of linguistic forms used in specific circumstances.

What is a variable?

Something that can vary in language.

What is a variant?

The different ways in which a variable appears.

What is accommodation?

When speakers adjust their language to match (converge) or distance from (diverge) their listeners’ speech, consciously or unconsciously.

What is convergence?

Adapting speech to become more similar to the listener’s speech.

What is divergence?

Adapting speech to become less similar to the listener’s speech.

What is prestige (in language use)?

The social value or status attached to a certain way of speaking.

What is overt prestige?

Prestige linked to standard, “correct” language that people are consciously aware of.

What is covert prestige?

Prestige valued within a group for non-standard or local language, often held unconsciously.

What is ethnosemantics?

The study of how a speech community organises and labels the things and experiences around them.

What is a speech community?

A group of people who share a language or way of speaking, and understand the same rules for using it in social situations.

What is a domain in ethnosemantics?

A group of related words that each culture organizes and labels differently.

What is the Sapir–Whorf Hypothesis (Linguistic Relativity)?

The idea that language determines thought and shapes how people experience the world. (Largely discredited, but language can influence categorisation.)

What is etic knowledge?

Outsider perspective — objective observation of cultural or linguistic phenomena.

What is emic knowledge?

Insider perspective — subjective, culturally embedded understanding.

What is a semantic domain?

A group of related words with shared meaning (e.g., body parts, kinship, colours).

What is a folk taxonomy?

The way a culture organises or groups things in a hierarchical way, from general to specific.

What is visual discontinuity?

The idea that even though the physical world is universal, different languages divide it into categories differently (e.g., leg vs. foot).

What is a stratified society?

A society divided into ranked social classes.

What is a feudal system?

A hierarchical system where power is held by a few elites at the top (e.g., chiefs, nobles).

What is non-verbal communication?

The use of facial expressions, gaze, gesture, touch, and tone of voice, either alone or alongside speech.

What is proxemics?

A non-verbal form of communication conveyed by the amount of space that separates participants during conversation.

What is vertical distance?

How height differences communicate status, authority, and respect.

What is personal space (bubble)?

The physical distance individuals maintain around themselves, formed in early childhood and culturally variable.

What is haptics (touch)?

The use of touch as a form of non-verbal communication.

What is gesture?

The use of hands, arms, body, and facial movements to communicate non-verbally.

What is gaze (eye contact)?

The use of eye contact frequency, length, and direction as a non-verbal signal.

What are deictic gestures?

Gestures that point to or indicate a location or object.

What are iconic gestures?

Gestures that mimic objects or actions.

What are metaphoric gestures?

Gestures that represent abstract ideas.

What are emphatic gestures?

Rhythmic or beat gestures used to add emphasis.

What are emblems?

Gestures with culturally agreed meanings (e.g., peace sign).

What are adaptors?

Self-soothing or fidgeting gestures (e.g., pen clicking).

What are regulators?

Gestures that manage conversational flow and turn-taking (e.g., nodding).

What are affect displays?

Gestures combined with facial expressions to show emotion (e.g., shock, joy).

What is animal communication?

The transfer of information between animals through vocal and non-vocal signals.

What is displacement (in language)?

The ability to talk about things not present in time or space (past, future, abstract).

What is arbitrariness?

No natural connection between a word’s sound and what it represents.

What is structure?

The patterned and rule-governed nature of language.

What is productivity/creativity?

The ability to create new and infinite utterances.

What is cultural transmission?

Language or communication learned through interaction with others, not genetically fixed.

What is the Clever Hans effect?

When animals respond to unconscious cues from humans rather than understanding language.

What is language death?

When a language has no remaining speakers or is no longer used for communication.

What is a living language?

A language with native speakers that continues to adapt and change over time.

What is language vitality?

The degree to which a language is actively used and transmitted to new generations. The health and strength of a language; its capacity to survive and be passed on.

What is language endangerment?

When a language has few speakers and is no longer being passed to younger generations.

What is language extinction?

When a language has no speakers and is no longer in use, spoken or written.

What is language shift?

When speakers of a language gradually adopt a more dominant or prestigious language.

What is Artificial Intelligence (AI)?

Computers performing human-like intelligent tasks (e.g., ChatGPT, Netflix recommendations).

Why does the definition of AI shift over time?

As technologies become common and practical, they stop being labeled “AI.”

What is Generative AI?

A type of AI that creates new content (text, images, audio) using training datasets.

What are Large Language Models (LLMs)?

A type of generative AI that generates human-like text based on large training datasets and self-supervised learning.

What is Natural Language Processing (NLP)?

Computational techniques to analyze and represent natural language.

What is a supervised dataset?

Data annotated by humans.

What is a self-supervised dataset?

Data not annotated by humans, requiring the model to figure out patterns on its own.

What is Fishman’s GIDS?

A scale with 8 levels used to assess a language’s endangerment and vitality.

What is UNESCO’s Language Vitality and Endangerment (LVE) Framework?

A framework with 9 factors used to evaluate a language’s vitality and level of endangerment.

What is He Pā Tūwatawata?

A Māori-specific language vitality model with 5 key components focusing on identity, intergenerational transmission, education, corpus, and community/national support.

What is linguistic fieldwork?

Collecting linguistic data directly from native speakers to document, preserve, and study a language.

What is documentation (in language work)?

Recorded materials (audio, text, grammars, dictionaries) that preserve linguistic data for research and revitalisation.

What is salvage fieldwork?

Urgent documentation of moribund languages that have very few remaining speakers.