Sociolinguistics and Language Studies Lecture Notes

Comprehensive vocabulary flashcards covering linguistic anthropology, intergenerational transmission, language ideology, politics, and sociolinguistic theories.

Culture

An integrated system of mental elements (values, views, norms, attitudes), behaviors motivated by those mental elements, and the material items created by those behaviors; shared by members of society, learned (not innate), dynamic, and based on symbolic systems.

Symbol

Anything that refers to something else that has a meaning that cannot be guessed.

Arbitrariness

The characteristic of language where a symbol and what it refers to have no innate connection; its meaning changes based on interpretation.

Critical Age Range Hypothesis

The proposition that the innate ability to learn languages is easier prepuberty.

Kinesics

Nonverbal communication consisting of body language, facial expressions, and eye contact.

Proxemics

The study and use of appropriate social distance, which varies based on cultural norms.

Paralanguage

Features of language other than the words themselves, such as duration of sound, pitch, loudness, and tempo.

Semanticity

A feature shared by all languages in which signs carry meaning for users.

Pragmatic Function

A feature shared by all languages where signs serve a useful purpose, such as survival, influencing behavior, warning, or gaining attention.

Interchangeability

A feature found in only some communication systems where an individual can both send and receive messages.

Cultural Transmission

The process whereby some part of culture must be learned in order to understand the communication system.

Discreteness

A unique property of human language in which language is built from a small number of meaningless sounds.

Duality of Patterning

A unique property of human language where discrete, meaningless sounds combine into meaningful units.

Displacement

A property of human language granting the ability to communicate about the past, present, and future.

Creativity (Productivity)

A property of human language allowing speakers to produce and understand novel utterances that have never been said before.

Phonemes

Minimal units of sound that create a difference in meaning.

Morphemes

Minimal units of meaning within a language, distinct from tones.

Unbound Morphemes

Morphemes that can stand alone as independent words (e.g., 'dog', 'happy').

Bound Morphemes

Morphemes that must attach to other morphemes to carry meaning (e.g., 'un-', 're-', '-ly', '-s').

Syntax

The rules for combining morphemes into phrases and sentences.

Semantics

The study of how meaning is constructed at the word and phrase level.

Pragmatics

The study of how social context shapes linguistic meaning.

Dialect

A subordinate variety of a language whose speakers are assumed to mutually understand one another.

Language (vs. Dialect)

A standard, ideal form treated as mutually incomprehensible with other languages; the distinction between language and dialect often depends on political power.

Language Variation

A geographic continuum of speech differences without natural breakpoints, shaped by settlement patterns, migration, physical geography, and language contact.

Standard Language

A codified variety of a language whose spelling, grammar, and vocabulary are treated as the norm in society, holding the most social prestige.

Codeswitching

The practice of alternating between two or more languages in conversation.

Register

Switching between different styles of speaking based on social context, such as varying levels of formality.

Pidgin

A contact language that develops among groups of speakers who do not initially share a common tongue.

Creole

A fully developed language that arises from sustained contact and is acquired as a first language by a speech community.

Linguistic Relativity

The principle that the grammatical and lexical structures of a language reflect and influence how a culture thinks and behaves.

Lexicon

The vocabulary of a language.

Language Death

The event that occurs when a language loses its last remaining native speaker.

Language Shift

The process by which an entire community shifts from using one language to another, typically driven by economic, social, or political pressures.

Language Maintenance

Efforts made by a community to continue using their native language despite pressures to assimilate.

Language Revitalization

Deliberate efforts to halt, reverse the decline of, or bring back languages that are endangered or no longer in daily use.

Descriptive Research

Linguistic research focused on documenting and analyzing how people actually use language.

Prescriptive Research

Linguistic research or rules that dictate how language should or ought to be used.

Alterity

The state or quality of otherness.

Essentialism

The assumption that everyone within a particular social category is fundamentally similar to each other and fundamentally different from those outside the category.

Markedness

The sociolinguistic phenomenon where certain social categories are treated as unusual or marked, while others become the unmarked 'default'.

Local Positioning

The discursive practices through which speakers align with and differentiate themselves from one another in interaction.

Circulating Discourse

The ways media, societal institutions, and racial ideologies supply and propagate available identity categories.

Linguistic Performance

The use of language in a highly deliberate, self-aware social display (e.g., storytelling, stand-up comedy, political speeches).

Adequation

A tactic of intersubjectivity that involves constructing sufficient similarity between parties for a particular social purpose.

Distinction

A tactic of intersubjectivity that involves making perceived differences socially consequential.

Authenticity

A tactic of intersubjectivity centered on confirming and asserting genuine belonging within a specific group.

Denaturalization

A tactic of intersubjectivity that disrupts an assumed, 'natural' link between a specific language and identity.

Authorization

A tactic of intersubjectivity wherein an institutional authority grants formal recognition to a language or identity.

Illegitimation

A tactic of intersubjectivity involving the institutional denial of recognition or validity to a language or identity.

Tactics of Intersubjectivity

The discursive strategies through which identity relations are negotiated, comprising adequation, distinction, authenticity, denaturalization, authorization, and illegitimation.

Ethnography

The qualitative study of culture through close, immersive observation of everyday life, objects, and social practices.

Autoethnography

A research method and written product that utilizes personal, first-person experience to analyze and critique wider cultural patterns.

Language Biography

An account that traces how an individual acquires, loses, performs, and translates between languages across their lifespan.

Tsinoy

A hybrid Philippine identity term combining 'Tsino' (Chinese in Filipino) and 'Pinoy' (slang for Filipino).

Lannang

A term meaning 'our people,' used historically by early Chinese immigrants in the Philippines to recognize and identify one another.

Simultaneity

The experience of inhabiting multiple cultural identities concurrently, allowing access to more than one cultural tradition.

Hybridity

The continuous negotiation and blending of diverse cultural or linguistic identities.

Linguistic Repertoire

The complete set of linguistic skills, styles, and resources an individual can draw upon across various communicative contexts.

Lánnang-uè

A Philippine hybrid linguistic variety that blends Hokkien, Tagalog, English, and Mandarin.

Indexicality

The semiotic process by which a specific linguistic feature acquires social meaning or points to social characteristics.

Thick Description

An anthropological method of interpreting the deep social and cultural significance of actions rather than merely documenting physical behaviors.

Heritage Language

A language connected to an individual through ancestral, familial, or community ties, which is not necessarily their dominant language.

Issei

The first-generation Japanese immigrants who were born in Japan.

Nisei

Second-generation Japanese Americans, born to immigrant parents.

Sansei

Third-generation Japanese Americans.

Yonsei

Fourth-generation Japanese Americans.

Shin Issei / Shin Nisei

Post-World War II Japanese immigrants and their descendants.

Receptive Learning

A language learning stage where an individual develops the capacity to comprehend and read a language without having oral speaking proficiency.

Language Pedagogy

The methods and practices involved in teaching and acquiring a second or additional language.

Heritage Language Learner (Narrow Definition)

A learner who was exposed to a heritage language at home, but did not develop dominance in it because another societal language became dominant.

Heritage Language Learner (Broad Definition)

A learner who possesses a strong cultural and familial connection to a language through regular social interaction.

Intergenerational Transmission

The passing down of language knowledge and usage from older to younger generations within families and communities.

Family Language Policy

The conscious or unconscious beliefs, goals, and daily practices within a household that encourage or discourage the use of specific languages.

Familylect

The unique blend of languages, speech codes, and communicative habits that develops among members of a multilingual household.

Sociocultural Learning

Cognitive and linguistic development achieved through participation in socially organized collaborative activities.

Scaffolding

Instructional or interactive support provided by an adult or expert peer that enables a learner to accomplish a task beyond their independent capability.

Funds of Knowledge

The historically accumulated bodies of knowledge, skills, and cultural wisdom developed within households and community networks (e.g., from grandparents).

Synergy

The collaborative, dynamic way different languages interact and support one another in multilingual interaction.

Syncretism

The process by which language practices and knowledge are amalgamated from diverse cultural traditions and sources.

Prolepsis

The intergenerational transmission mechanism wherein adults' recollections of their past and projections of imagined futures shape how they interact with children in the present.

Cultural Deprivation

The state or condition of experiencing restricted access to ancestral cultural and linguistic knowledge.

Cultural Security

Deliberate community practices designed to sustain cultural grounding, centered on ancestry, indigeneity, relational bonds, and mindfulness.

Conditionmaking

The intentional labor that makes cultural and linguistic knowledge accessible, meaningful, and usable, shifting focus toward sustaining relational bonds for future learners.

Diaspora

Communities formed through geographical dispersal and migration that actively sustain cultural, emotional, and social connections to their ancestral homeland.

Putonghua

The standardized national variety of Mandarin Chinese.

Fangyan

Regional speech varieties or dialects spoken across China.

Language Ideology

A shared set of cultural beliefs and values that link language use to moral, social, and political evaluations.

Standard Language Ideology

The belief that an institutionalized, codified standard form represents the only correct, proper, and prestigious variety of a language.

Linguistic Hierarchy

The structured social ranking of languages and dialects based on perceived prestige, political power, and institutional authority.

Official Language

A language legally designated and authorized for use in government administration, courts, and official state business.

National Language

A language designated to represent the political identity, unity, and heritage of an entire nation-state.

Quốc Ngữ

The Latin-script orthography for Vietnamese that originated through Christian missionary work and was later appropriated for anticolonial resistance and mass literacy.

Corpus Planning

Language planning activities directed toward modifying the language itself, such as codifying grammar, developing vocabularies, and publishing dictionaries.

Status Planning

Language planning initiatives aimed at elevating the social prestige, legal standing, and public domains of use for a language.

Acquisition Planning

Language planning focused on expanding the learning, instruction, and number of speakers of a language through educational reforms.

Lingua Franca

A shared bridge language adopted to enable communication among populations that speak mutually unintelligible native tongues.

Imagined Community

A socially constructed sense of national belonging and shared fraternity among individuals who will never meet face-to-face.

Script

A graphic set of characters and symbols used to visually represent written language.

Logographic Script

A writing system in which each individual character represents an entire word or morpheme.