9. Sociolinguistics

Sociolinguistics

_____________: the study of the relationship between society and language, including details of word choice, syntax, and pronunciation

Speech community

_____________: a group of people who share social conventions, or “sociolinguistic norms”, about language use

Sociolinguistic markers

_____________: salient (noticeable) features that are recognizable within the community and mark our speech; sociolinguistic indicators are less noticeable (‘below the radar’)

• Phonological (pronunciation), lexical (words we choose), syntactic/discourse (way we put sentences together), etc.

• Markers generally linguistics notice, others may not

• Canadian raising, upspeak

• Bunny hug or hoodie? Toque or beanie?

Mutual intelligibility

_____________: used to determine whether people are speaking different dialects of the same language, or two different languages; social/political considerations complicate this concept

• Urdu (Pakistan) and Hindi (India) are mutually intelligible, but are considered separate languages because they are spoken in different countries and have different writing systems (Nasta'liq and Devanagari)

Swedish and Norwegian are mutually intelligible, but are considered two different languages because they’re spoken in different countries.

“A language is a dialect with an army and a navy.” –Max Weinreich

Standard variety

_____________: the variety of a language taught in school, used in formal writing, the news, authority sources

Non-standard varieties

_____________: dialects spoken by less powerful groups

Variety

_____________: preferred term by linguists for any subset of a language; a dialect

• Prefer to talk of them as equal, but must acknowledge one is taught in school, used in writing, etc.

Slang

_____________: used by non-linguists for non-standard varieties; linguistically, this refers to words only—new words, or words with new meanings (can become standard, or can disappear)

Accent

_____________: only refers to pronunciation (phonetics, phonology), and does not include vocabulary choices or other differences

Time

_____________: All spoken languages change.

• Change over time results in variation in each time period, usually across generations (people’s basic grammar doesn’t change much during their lifetime). We don’t adopt changes from the new generations

• We dont look at a single person (generational linguistics)

• E.g. the loss of /ʍ/, percentage of /w/ goes up as getting younger

• Happening right now: Canadian Vowel Shift “sorry,” “milk”

Place

_____________: Geographical location is probably the most-studied social factor affecting variation.

• Dialectology

• Dialect Levelling

Dialectology

_____________: the study of regional differences in language

Dialects (varieties)

_____________: subsets of the same language

Dialect levelling

_____________: the process of the wearing down of uncommon or distinct features of a dialect over time; a more homogenous dialect emerges. If we all move to an island and share space, by the end of a few generations we’d all be speaking the same dialect. Most frequent features start to dominate, creating a homogenous dialect

1. Original settler generations keep their (multiple) home dialects

2. The next generation chose somewhat randomly from all the linguistic options available

3. The third generation levels out the diversity in favour of the most frequent variant

Canadian Lexical Features

constable, Crown prosecutor, riding, win by acclamation, double-double, smorg (?)

serviette vs. napkin (?), blinds vs. shades, in hospital vs. in the hospital, washroom vs restroom

(?), zed vs. zee, shone rhymes with gone, not bone, bag and beg, caught and cot

Slew, dugout, moccasin, toboggan

Canadian Pronunciation

Canadian raising

Morphology and syntax

The use of be rather than have with the perfect form of a few verbs: I’m finished my homework (ungrammatical in USA) vs. I’ve finished my homework.

Isolation

_____________: Speech communities that are isolated in some way seem to preserve older ways of speaking

1. physical, isolated from other communities: E.g. Newfoundland English

2. linguistic, isolated from speakers of the same or a similar language: E.g. Québec French

3. social, isolated by conventions or attitudes: E.g. African Nova Scotia English

Physical Isolation

physically isolated from other communities. Newfoundland, which I believe is mutually intelligible.

Linguistic Isolation

1. isolated from speakers of the same or a similar language. French and Quebec French. To me the speaker from France has words pronounced more smoothly and at the back of the mouth/throat, and the Quebec one sounds more strong and exaggerated.

Social isolation

1. isolated by conventions or attitudes: E.g. African Nova Scotia English

Contact

• Code Switching

• Situational code-switching

• Pidgin

• Creole

Code-switching

_____________: a common phenomenon when bilinguals get together and use two (or more) languages (or ‘codes’) to communicate. the use of words or phrases from two languages in one sentence or stretch of discourse, or the use of two different dialects by one individual depending on the social situation

Situational code-switching

_____________: switching between languages for clearly identifiable reasons (e.g. one language in the workplace and another in the home)

Pidgin

_____________: a language stripped down to its essentials for cross-linguistic purposes; consists of a small set of content words and very little   grammatical complexity; no L1 speakers. a heavily simplified language that emerges when speakers of different languages require intergroup communication

Creole

_____________: a pidgin that is learned as a first language, became the native (first) language of a community. with expanded lexicon and grammatical rules., favor unmarked features

Creole universals

_____________: fixed word order, minimal inflection, derivational affixes with a consistent and transparent meaning, and an absence of tone

Gender

Do women lead language change?

_____________: tend to adopt more innovative forms than men, perhaps because of linguistic insecurity, trying to sound more elevated in speech because of social conventions

• often do more of the jobs that require standard speech (teacher, reception)

• primary caregivers

• Shifts towards inclusive language: chair instead of chairman, nurse instead of male nurse

Influencer Dialect

Is there a “Tik Talk”

_____________: Upspeak, macroprosody (more intonation, variety in timing and pausing), over-articulation, tighter body language (making movements possible to see on a small screen)Keep audience engaged advised to “never sound like you’re finishing a sentence”, Sound more personal and persuasive. More female than male

• Uptalk → rising intonation at end of sentences (sometimes seen as uncertainty)

• Vocal fry → creaky voice

• Lengthened vowels

• Clear consonants

• Varied pacing

The Canadian Vowel Shift

A major change in how Canadians pronounce vowels first identified in 1995. as they’ve merged, getting articulated further back in the mouth and higher other vowels moving. Likely started in Urban Ontario.

New pronunciations get social meaning, being associated with younger urban speech, subconsciously speak the way they do. There is more diversity and tolerance of accents, and some influence from what happening in California “Valley Girl Speech” Originally led by young women

More noticeable in words with sounds like “th” and “sh”

• Milk —> melk

• God → gawd

• Bagel → bahgel

• pillow → pellow

• Sorry → less like sore-y

• Caught = cot

Kiwi Accent

The evolution of the New Zealand English Accent. A comedian made a character “Lynn of Tawa” with exaggerated vowels. Some actual politicians have been criticized for the way they talk. It was colonized later than Australia, so there are more records of what they sounded like, broadcasters recorded Kiwis, with the mixing of all accents something emerged. Great Britain wasn’t happy about these changes

• New Zealand —> Nu Zuland

• Rising front vowels

  • Pat → pet

  • Pet → pit

  • Pit → peet

  • Fish → feesh

  • Chips → chups

Rule we follow

Thee → apple

Thuh → chair, one place is started to prefer this whereever

Class

• Some ways of speaking are seen as more prestigious (higher status).

  • Example: “these things” (prestige) vs “dem tings” (non-prestige)

• Higher-class speakers:

  • Use more prestige forms

  • Sometimes copy outside standards (e.g., British English)

  • Hypercorrection:

    • Happens when people overuse prestige forms

    • Most common in the second-highest class

    • Caused by:

      • Linguistic insecurity

      • Trying to move up socially

Glaswegian Accent

Considered less attractive in the UK

• has: Become more distinct over time, not less

• Changes in pronunciation:

  • Older speech → more “ah” sounds

  • Modern speech → more “ih” sounds

• Strong community networks (“largest village in the world”)

  • Language tied closely to identity and solidarity

  • Accent can be a way to: Show pride, Resist negative stereotypes

• Uses a uvular “r” (similar to French pronunciation)

• Important point:

  • The same sound (like French “r”) is not judged negatively in other contexts

  • → Shows that judgment is social, not linguistic and related to CLASS