Anth 104 Final

"popular" ("folk" or "layerperson") opinions about the distinction between "dialect" and "language"

• the dialect is smaller, spoken and not so "good"

  • a dialect has no grammar

  • a dialect is sub-standard/slang

  • people living in primitive cultures have dialects

• the language has boundaries, is bigger, better and "in a book"

  • people living in advanced countries speak languages

  • languages are spoken in urban centers

"variety" used by linguists

any type of variation between, among or inside of a language(s) depending on what we are talking about

mutual intelligibility

if two people meet, and they start to speak, if both speakers can understand each other equally, then they must be speaking the same language

are dialects mutually intelligible forms of a single language?

no, not always the case

four (4) counterexamples to the mutual intelligibility criterion

all these are viewed as separate languages becase;

• Danish, Norwegian, Swedish (Scandanavian Languages)

  • spoken in different nations

  • there is self-identification of the speaker as a citizen of a specific nation-state

• Cantonese, Mandarin (Chinese)

  • shared writing system

  • historical identity

• Hindi, Urdu

  • nationalism

  • religion

  • political systems

• Papago, Pima

  • they feel themselves as culturally distinct from one another

autonomy

"we are separate and distinct from those people and their language"

historicity

"we have a strong cultural intergenerational legacy/heritage attached to our language"

"dialect" as we use in class

any variety of a language spoken by a group of people that has systematic (therefore predictable) differences from other varieties of that same language

where do differences in dialects occur?

• pronunciation (phonology)

  • accent, which is part of the dialect

  • "foh", "fowah", "fow", "four"

• sentence patterns (syntax and morphology)

  • "done been had my new car for months", "my eyes be burnin' me"

• words and word meanings (lexicon and lexical semantics)

  • English v. British use of words, "chips" meaning fries or literal chips

what does "language" imply?

standardization

how do languages become standardized?

through a book (prescriptive grammar book, religious foundation book), a body of scholars that decide which "foreign" words to borrow and accept into a language

can you belong to one speech community at a time in your life?

can belong to several home, school, work/trade, hobby, etc.

idiolect

the form of the language as it is spoken by one, single speakers - one person, the individual

• no two speakers speak the same language exactly the same

idiolectal variation

the variation of speech from individual to individual

subordinate end of "style shifting"

vernacular, informal

superordinate end of "style shifting"

"standard", formal

why would a person downshift in "style shifting"?

to show intimacy and familiarity, a sense of belonging, relaxing

out of what discipline did dialectology arise?

Historical Comparative Linguistics

• in Europe around the mid 18th through the 19th centuries

how did European dialectologists conduct their dialect study?

studied remote dialects, emphasis on geography and age, because they had less influence from the Standard, retain older forms

• studied "the oldest" of a society

what innovations did the American dialectologists make in their study of dialects?

• placed emphasis on geography and age

  • studied rural and urban areas

• interviewed adults rather than "the oldest"

most important difference between "social class" and "social network" in class

linguistic variation in pronunciation and grammatical forms occurs between classes ("class" implies conflict and linguistic differences)

linguistic conformity is maintained within the networks through a type of tacit (unspoken) "consensus"

who has strong social networks?

the working class (WC) and lower class (LC)

why aren't strong social networks typical of the middle class?

they have more money, which means they have more mobility

linguistic variable

some piece of language data in pronunciation, sentence patterning or a lexical item (word) that has identifiable variants

why do most sociolinguistic studies deal with phonological (pronunciation) variables?

it is based on a person's pronunciation that other speakers make evaluative judgements

linguistic indicator

a linguistic variable with little to no social significance

• e.x., "caught" or "cot"

linguistic marker

a linguistic variable with a social significance

• e.x., "ain't got none", "don't have any"

why would members of a social group maintain markers that are highly stigmatized by others?

identity in group

• speaking differently within your social group can make you ridiculed by the other members

what should sociolinguistic research ideally be based upon?

valid, reliable and widely accepted methodology

what linguistic variable did William Labov investigate in his NYC research?

r-fullness v. r-lessness

• r-variable was a linguistic marker, varying by social status

how does Ryan Bloom describe "prescriptive (standard)" English?

• the grade school rules

• the way the people in power communicate

what is Ryan Bloom's opinion about so-called "descriptivist linguists"?

they say all varieties are equal, but in reality, they all use perfect standardized English with their colleagues and on paper

• don't practice what they preach

why would a person upshift in "style-shifting"?

to appear more formal

"dialect continuum" and how it related to the MIC

in a language situation where you have dialects touching the next dialect along a type of line or axis:

<-----d------d----d--d------d--------d------d----->

• disputes the MIC

  • there would be degrees of mutual intelligibility, as dialects next to each other would have a higher degree of mutual intelligibility than the dialects further apart

how did they discern "social class" back then?

occupation of head of household; number of years of education of head of household; housing status

de facto norms

opinions we acquire from being members of a speech community, arise out of the society we are part of

• attitudes/opinions that there are groups of native speakers who speak the language "well" and "bad"

sociolect

a distinct variety of language spoken by a particular sector of society along class lines

speech community

any group of speakers who speak the same language, dialect or variety

• factors can go beyond language: geography, social position, occupation, ethnicity, sex, race, gender orientation, etc.

style-shifting

a speaker of a language adjusting and shifting their language in a conversation along a continuum ranging from their vernacular (informal) to their perceived standard (formal)

• very rare to find a bilingual totally balanced in style shifting