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A study of linguistics that focuses on how language is produced and used in real life
What is variational linguistics?
The idea that the same thing can be expressed differently in different languages - ex. negation done syntactically or via affixation
What is crosslinguistic variation?
The variation within a language, or even within the same individual
Ex. “When you’re done your exam, when you’re finished WITH your exam”
q
What is sociolinguistic variation?
Dialect: Variation in language based on groups
Has a negative connotation as being ‘nonstandard’ and is thus dispreferred to the word ‘variants’
What is a dialect? What is the more accepted term? Why is it dispreferred?
A demographic with specific speech patterns
What is a sociolinguistic group?
A non-deterministic difference in speech, ex. specific changes to words (-ng vs -n’)
A set of variants
What is a linguistic variable?
Phonological rules are NOT linguistic variables, as they are deterministic and can be decided by the environment
Are phonological rules linguistic variables? Why or why not?
NO, not linguistically significant
Are categorical alternations (ex. the canadian raise) linguistic variables?
Yes, but are NOT synonyms
Can linguistic variables alternate in identical phonological environments without changing the meaning?
The causes of a linguistic variable that increase the chances for it to be chosen
What is a conditioning factor?
What the situation of the speaker, addressee is
What is a social factor?
Two or more linguistic variables being present, but not directly replacing one another
What is stable variation?
False, all languages are always changing slowly and gradually
T/F: Languages are static except for sudden changes
A change in language that speakers ARE aware of (ex. variant 1 → variant 1 + 2 → variant 2 (ex. r being added to english words)
What is a “change from above”?
Changes that people usually are NOT directly aware of
Ex. the vowel of a goose changing, from [u] → [y]
What is a change from below?
Examining the data of a community in 2 different times in real-time
What is a real-time analysis?
Comparing younger and older generations in a group within the same timeframe, with the assumption that your grammar stabilizes around 18 without conscious effort to change it
What is an apparent-time analysis?
Age, socioeconomic status, personal relationships, gender, interactional context, labels for addressee
verbal message → situation → broader society
What non-semantic/non-linguistic meaning can language convey?
Different forms of address for familial/informal addressees (ex. tu/vous)
What is the tu/vous distinction?
Degrading marginalized communities with less respectful words (ex. tu instead of vous)
What problems did tu/vous distinctions cause historically?
How dialect changes based on present situations
What is contextual style?
Dictates which variables are relevant, ex. power, distance, context
How does contextual style matter for socially relevant variables?
Style shifting
What is it called to change the method of speech based on context?
The idea that more formal contexts have us adjusting our speech to how we think we should speak
What is the attention-to-paid-speech model?
The idea that we change our speech around who may be listening at a given time (ex. a friend, eavesdropper, stranger)
What is the audience design model?
Designing our speech patterns around achieving specific interactional goals
What is the speaker-design model?
Collect speech data at varying-levels of self monitoring
What is the goal of sociolinguistic interviews?
Minimal pairs task - given 2 words that differ in a single way
What is the test in sociolinguistic interviews for high-awareness?
Reading a passage - Still self monitored, but needing to read coherently reduces self monitoring
What is the test in sociolinguistic interviews for moderate-awareness?
Casual speech - speaking with the objective to make someone forget they are being interviewed, ex. through storytelling or emotional recall
What is the test in sociolinguistic interviews for lower-awareness?
Because we are being monitored in a non-standard situation, it becomes difficult to use our vernacular
What is the observer’s paradox? Why does it affect linguistic studies?
Unmonitored, standard method of speaking
What is a vernacular?
A corpus is a collection of texts (of any medium), usually from data gathering, that can be used to make conclusions and annotate
What is a corpus? Why do sociolinguists use them?
A single occurrence of a word in a quantitative analysis
Define “token”
Analyzing numerical data to make conclusions
What is a quantitative analysis?
The idea that, when studying a variable, all possible occurrences need to be taken into account - instead of including just the values, add the fraction over total values (ex. if there were 100 tokens of ing, and was pronounced [in] 80 times, the occurrence = 80%)
What is the principle of accountability?
Place
Social status
Gender
Communities of practice
Chain shifts
Ethnicity
What are all of the sociolinguistic correlations?
Languages have regional variants based on location
Certain variants are seen as standard or prestigious, based on politics (ex. queens english)
Smaller-scale dialects can exist in larger-scale regional
In terms of sociolinguistic correlations, explain Place
Word is a sign that points to some sort of meaning
What is indexicality?
A word that only operates under specific conditions (ex. “tomorrow”
What is referential indexicality?
Anything with social meanings, such as place
What is non-referential indexicality?
Linking a feature of a language with some cultural expectation, ex. “eh” as a regional feature
What is enregisterment?
Based on both objective measures such as occupation, education, income, as well as subjective measures such as prestige, reputation
In terms of sociolinguistic correlations, explain social status.
Separate social groups are more likely to use specific terms (ex. education using in/ing)
What is social stratification?
Socially constructed counterpart of biological sex
In terms of sociolinguistic correlations, explain gender
Both biological and social - socially, where individuals pre-puberty often are taught to speak masculinely, femininely
Is pitch biological or social? How so?
In stable variation, women use more standardized variant
In changes from above, women favour incoming prestige variant more than men
In changes from below, women are most often innovators
What are the principles of linguistic change for gender?
Women are socialized to used standard, powerless language
What is the double-bind?
The adoption of non-prestigious working class language, often in men, to hide their level of prestige
What is covert prestige?
Women conform more closely to sociolinguistic norms that are prescribed, but less than men when they are not
*Not categorically true
What is the Gender Paradox?
A group with a common interest, concern, or goal (ex. a classroom, business)
What is a community of practice?
A domino effect in number of linguistic features based on a change in one, in an almost-circular fashion (ex. northern city)
What is a chain shift?
Dialect spoken by particular ethnicity, usually a minority
What is an ethnolect?
Multiple consonants in codas being reduced (ex. ing → in, toronto → toronno)
2 important factors: morphological complexity, following segment
What is consonant-cluster reduction?
Variable realization of were as was, weren’t as wasn’t
“you wasn’t there”, “if you was there you would have seen it”
What is was-were leveling?
Non-Mobile, Older, Rural, Male
What is a N.O.R.M?
The ability for words to do things (ex. I concede, I do)
What is performativity?
Something that serves a specific function for us
Define “performative”
Convey both information and perform a function - requires context, people to recognize said power and officialness of words and speaker
What is a performative speech act? What does it require?
Something in which use or mention is avoided in most circumstances, can be viewed as offensive
What is a Taboo?
Use of replacement words instead of taboos, generally maintaining the significance while reducing the taboo (shit → shoot)
What is taboo avoidance?
Use: Refer to something within the world, in a sentence (ex. she ate an apple)
Mention: speak about a phrase metalinguistically (ex. an apple consists of the syllables [ap . pl]
What is the difference between using and mentioning?
In some cases, it is taboo to use a specific word, but mentioning it is okay
What is the use-mention distinction?
A word meant to degrade, insult marginalized groups
What is a slur?
Social, psychological harm done to discourse participants in a context
What is offense?
Taboos generally involving bodily reference
What is a vulgarity?
A taboo used during outbursts (ex. DAMN IT!)
What is an expletive?
Yes
Can phrases be both vulgar and expletive
A phrase that disparages a person/group of people
What does it mean when something is derogatory/pejorative?
No - a person may take offense to a phrase without it being inherently derogatory
Is derogation the same thing as offense?
Ex. coded slurs, such as using the phrase ‘mondays’ to refer to people of colour
In what way can phrases be derogatory but not offensive?
Derogatory expressions that condemn a person for behaviour at specific times
What is a particularistic insult/general pejorative?
Reclaiming a slur as means of empowerment, ex. queer for lgbtq+ people
What is reclamation of a term?
The particular kind of offensive power given to a slur
What is toxicity?
Replacing someone’s name with an english name, or mispronouncing it to sound ‘more english’
What is indexical bleaching?
The very low sounds at low reverberation rates, usually at the end of a word or sentence
What is vocal fry?
The technical linguistic term for the sound produced by vocal fry
What is creak?
Women on radio received far more complaints about their vocal fry than men did
How was vocal fry in women stigmatized?
People having negative attitudes towards something, despite it being a neutral objective trait (sometimes)
What is stigmatization?
People are given an identical stimulus, and then the guise is changed but the stimulus is constant (ex. resumes with names from different regions of the world)
What is a matched-guise study?
The more experience we have with paying attention to someone who has a different accent, the better we understand them
What is perceptual adaptation?
The suppression of a language in order to suppress and quash a larger culture as a whole
What is linguistic imperialism?
Note 
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