Language

Slag

informal language used in groups

Generic

everyone understands it

Group slang

only certain groups understand

How was slang created

New words, Recombination (combining words), Systemic Shift (old words have new meaning)

Relexification

Grammar stays the same, but the meaning changes

Temporal Instability

Slang that dies quickly

Relativity

means depends on who is speaking (same words = different meaning across groups)

Social Function

The main purpose of slang is not communication

Cryptonets

when people intentionally change their language so others don’t understand

What does it do

Protection, Power, Identity

Argot

Temporary secret language (flexible, changes fast, quickly, small groups), friends making codes

Cants

Stable, long-term secret (used by organized groups, passed down generations)

How Cryptolec’s are Created

1. Borrowing for other languages

2. Changing meaning

3. Affixation

4. Recombining words

5. Abbreviation

Cockney Rhyming (boat race: ) (Lemon & = time)

(boat race: face) (Lemon & lime = time)

Good & Bad Grammar (what people think grammar is)

rules & rights vs wrong (a social system)

Linguistis Competence

Your brain’s ability to form sentences

Sociolinguistics

knowing when to speak formally/casually

Bad grammar

happens when you use the wrong language for the context

Sapir Whorf

linguistic determinism & relativism

linguistic determinism

controls how you think

linguistic relativism

influences how you think

Speech community

a group of people who share the same language norms

speech network

is the connection between individuals in a group

speech discourse

patterns of communication in context

Density Rate

how connected people are

Markedness Theory

normal vs. special forms of language

Unmarked

default/neutral

marked

special/extra meaning

Glottochronology

How long have languages been separated from a common ancestor

Time Depth

How far back in time we can trace a language

How is glottochronology connected to Time depth

comparing core vocabulary

Mutual Intelligibility

the ability of speakers of different languages to understand each other

Symmetrical Mutual Intangibility

Both groups understand each other equally

Asymmetrical

One group understands the other but not vice versa

Ethnography

Researchers observe people in real life

Quantitative methods

Use numbers + data

Regional variation

Language changes based on location

Social variation

Language changes based on social class, age, gender

Variationist studies

Look at patterns between language and social factors

Independent Variable

the social factor that might influence language

Dependent Variable

The language feature that changes