English 9093

English, Language and power

English will stay the global language as long as powerful nations still use English and those nations are interacting with or trading with them.

The dominant type of English is determined by its popularity, e.g. American English influence on British English.

The English of the future could be a mixture of

David Crystal

Superstrate language

The dominant language; a large part of the vocabulary of a pidgin language comes from this language.

The superstratum case refers to elite invading populations that eventually adopt the language of the native lower classe

Substrate language

A substratum or substrate is a language that has lower power or prestige than another; (opposite of superstrate language)

English as a global language

- 67 countries have English as their official language

- Around 1.5 Billion speakers of English when we include L1 and L2

Norwich '-ing' study

Peter Trudgill (1974)

People in lower social classes use non-standard forms more often. e.g. walkin', eatin'

Men used it more often than women, across all social classes

How to use in an exam

-Differentiate class/status/gender/accent

Showcases the time period: illustrates a clear divide between the sexes and a significant influence of traditional gender roles in society, particularly where occupations are concerned

The Great British Class Survey

They did a survey and determined 7 different social classes

Categories of questions

economic, social and cultural

What to look for in exam

Survey, mentions of class systems, statistics, Great Britain, class differences

How to use: According to the Great British Class Survey, this person may belong to a certain social class. Then bring in another theory like rhotic R.

Language death

No native speakers of language and dialect remain

- Language death can happen globally, not restricted to a developing world

- 6% of the world's language is spoken by 94% of the world

- Since the 1500s the world has lost around 15% of 700 languages

- Dozens of Native American languages have died out in the past decade and it is also happening to Australia, South America, New Guinea and Africa

Because of natural means or violent means

50-70 of 200 languages spoken by aboriginal Australians died off because the populations were killed during the 18th century.

What are the stages of language endangerment?

Vulnerable - children speak the language but only in certain spaces (home)

Definitely endangered - no longer taught as a first language

Severely endangered - grandparents and parents speak or may understand the language but children do not

Critically endangered - grandparents speak it partially and infrequently

Extinct - the language is no longer spoken

Killer language

A term coined by Anne Pakir in 1991 and developed in 1996 by UK open university professor, David Graddol suggests that

A killer language is a dominant language which caused the extinction of other lesser used languages.

Linguistic Imperialism

Introduced by book of the same name by Robert Phillipson in 1992 that describes the phenomenon where one language dominates others and gains control of those countries' political, economic and social institutions.

English imposes an imperialistic approach on minority languages which are thus seen as less important

Kachru's Circles

a model developed by Braj Kachru in 1985 which classifies countries in the way English is used

1. Innermost Circle: Countries where English is the native language. 320-380 million speakers from UK and USA...etc. English is used for:

- Administrative and

- Social Purposes.

2. Middle Circle: Countries where English is the second language. 300-500 million speakers from Singapore, India...etc (There is a colonial legacy). English is used for:

- The lingua-franca between ethnic and language groups

- higher/education

- law/judiciary

- common and functions

3. Outermost Circle: Countries independent of English / English is a foreign language. 500-1000 million speakers from Russia, China.

- English has no historical or governmental role in society but still used for international communication and business.

Conversational Maxims

Explicit principles that provide a backdrop for conversation to take place so that speakers can easily understand one another.

Paul Grice in 1975 suggested that these maxims are often broken in natural conversation but provide a structure for managing conversation.

The 4 maxims are:

- Maxim of quantity: contribute enough to the conversation, but not too much

- Maxim of relation: be relevant

- Maxim of quality: do not lie

- Maxim of manner: Don't ramble and be orderly.

Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis

Proposed by Edward Sapir in 1929 and later advanced by Benjamin Whorf.

They suggested that the concept of language and its structure will influence the perception, worldview or cognition of the native speakers of that language.

E.g. English only has one word for snow where as the inuit tribes of Africa have three words,

qanik: falling snow,

aniu: snow used to make drinking water and

aputi: snow on the ground,

This allows them to think of snow in a more subtle way as their language contains more distinguishing forms of the participial weather.

Criticisms against the Sapir-whorf hypothesis.

Studies have been done to show that individuals can conceptualise and think in an incredibly complex way, often outside the realm of their language's capability to capture.

E.g. Sapir-whorf theory brought up the Hopi Indians who they thought did not have a concept of time due to a misunderstanding of their language, when they indeed did.

- Palmer argues against this suggestion by bringing up that English's past tense is not used for the past, rather it is used for unreality: I went there yesterday, If I went tomorrow.

- Some other linguists suggest that English doesn't actually have a past tense, just a remote tense to indicate what is remote in time and reality.

Boas-Jackson Principle

Was developed in the 1950s and builds on the Sapir-Whorf theory.

This principle suggests that instead of acting like a prison, different language influences the cognition of its speakers by obliging them to know or think about different kinds of information in relation to a common concept.

The semantic structure of a language shapes the perceptions of the speaker by making certain ideas or concepts more accessible than the others.

When to use/How to spot:

In section B

Language specifying gender (gendered pronouns or articles)

If you spot Sapir-Whorf, bring this up to 'counter' it

If you have to counter this, bring up criticisms against it

Boroditsky

Is best known for a rather controversial theory:

In languages which assign gender to words, such as German, French etc., speakers view the words differently.

E.g. the word 'key' is masculine in German and feminine in Spanish — the German speakers were more likely to use words like "hard," "heavy," "jagged," "metal," "serrated," and "useful," whereas Spanish speakers were more likely to say "golden," "intricate," "little," "lovely," "shiny," and "tiny."

Criticisms against Bordoitsky

How do they account for languages whose cultures have different views on gender, e.g. having non-binary genders, or whose classification systems aren't conflated with gender at all

A study for Beller (2015) attempted to explore the language vs culture discussion and concluded that although language does have an effect on cognition, it is a much smaller influence than culture is.

Criticisms against Boas-Jackobson

Modern cognitive linguists have done research to prove that language is a post-cognitive phenomenon. We communicate using forms and since forms don't have any inherent meaning, there can't be any forms inherently influencing what meaning you may verbalise.

Universalism

The idea that there are universal traits that are true for all human languages because all humans share the same cognitive processes, such as memory and perception.

- All languages have:

nouns

verbs

consonants

verbs

Communication Accommodation Theory

Communication Accomodation Theory (CAT) by Howard Giles in 1973 argues that when people interact with others, their speech, vocal patterns and gestures change in order to accommodate others. The types of accommodations are:

Convergence: a speaker chooses a language variety that appears to fit the style of the other speaker

Divergence: speaker signals social distance or disapproval by using a language variety that differs from the style of the other speaker.

Markedness Model

Is a model developed by Carol Myers-Scotton

Unmarked: the expected way to speak in a given social context.

Marked: Unexpected language choices used to change the rl of the speaker with the other person.

- Being more informal than usual (first name basis vs their title)

- Being more formal than usual (creates distance --> More power)

Marked choices (Asserting a form of superiority) may not work if the person addressed does not accept the speaker's choice.

Different cultures/people have different ideas on what kind of language is marked vs unmarked, so there isn't a 100% marked/unmarked divide but we can usually tell. It is a continuum rather than a binary.

Pidgins and Creoles: Order of Events

1.) When two groups of people with different languages (Superstrate and substrate) meet, a new language with some characteristics of each may result; this is a pidgin language.

2.) If a pidgin evolves to the point of being the primary language of the people who speak it, it becomes Creole.

3.) Creole languages frequently developed in colonial settings where linguistic traditions of indigenous peoples and colonizers blended.

Rhotic R

Rhotic R By William Labov

The theory that suggests that whether or not an individual pronounces the final R indicates their social class.

People from higher social classes tend to pronounce the Rhotic "R" in a non-rhotic way

while people from lower social classes tend to pronounce it in a rhotic way.

By analyzing the way a person pronounces the "R" sound, we can gain insight into their social background:

- including their class, ethnicity, and the context in which they are speaking.

Pidgin: Definition

Pidgin is a makeshift language that becomes the lingua franca when groups of people who share no common language need to communicate

Creolisation

When a newborn speaks the pidgin (the mother langauage/ its native language) and creates native grammar for the language.

Decreolisation

in a situation where a creole is used side-by-side with a standard language, the process by which "features of the creole tend to change in the direction of the standard variety"

NVEs

NVEs refer to the new linguistic systems that emerge from a transformation of the English language in interaction with the life of its new contexts.

Most often seen in ex--colonial countries where European imperialism has taken effect

- English is transformed to adapt to handle new objects, relationships and experiences.

- Some variations of English include African American Vernacular English), SgE (Singaporean English), IE (Indian English), NgE (Nigerian English), etc.

Examples

(LknE, SgE) Auntie, Uncle: for older adults recognising status difference but referred to in affectionate manners - fulguration

(AAVE) Third person deletion:

I walk, he walk

(AAVE) Copula deletion or no deletion of copula:

He workin', He be workin', He stay workin'

(SgE) yes-no questions are answered with 'Can':

Can you swim? Can.

(IE) use of itself or only to emphasize time or place:

Can I meet you tomorrow, itself?

(Australian English) adding -o or -ie to the ends of abbreviated words

(docco (documentary), traino (train station), barbie (barbeque)

Speech communities

groups of people who use the same variety of language and have a shared understanding of its style

Linguistic Prestige

The degree of respect and value given to a particular style of language by a speech community

Linguistic Relativity

(Both sapir and boas)

refers to how language influences the speaker's thought to some extent, whether that be directly or indirectly.

Linguistic Reflectionism

The opposite of language determinism, the idea that thought influences language. This notion proposes that differences between languages are derived from the differences between cultures.

Linguistic Determinism

the theory that suggests the differences in language and their structure, determine how individuals think and how they interact with their environment.

According to Sapir-Whorf, society is confined by its language because language develops thought. They argued that language is largely responsible for how we experience the environment around us and create a worldview.

Idiolect

a specific pattern on how an individual speaks

Sociolect

a style of speech shared by particular people in a particular group.

Adversative conjunction

a connecting word which starts an idea opposing the one which has just been stated (e.g. 'but', 'however')

Negative politeness

politeness strategy based on the speaker's minimizing imposition on the addressee

strategies intended to avoid giving offence and imposing on others by showing respect (e.g. 'I hope you don't mind if I...', 'Would you mind if I asked to ...?)

Positive politeness

friendly strategies to make the participant feel good about themselves (e.g. compliments, use of title, mutually understood jargon, nicknames)

Face-threatening acts

Behavior by another that is perceived as attacking an individual's presenting image, or conversational face.

Conversational face

Each speaker's sense of his or her own linguistic image and worth.

the image that a person has of themselves as a conversationalist

Cooperative principle

a psycholinguistic term that assumes that we strive to communicate with one another sincerely and effectively when we engage in a conversation

Jargon

is another form of non-standard English because it is often not part of mainstream usage. lt relates most frequently to technical words and phrases used by specialist groups, or by professionals, such as doctors and lawyers.

Code switch

switching between different varieties or registers of language to conform to the dominant or co-culture