Language in a Social Context-Karteikarten | Quizlet

grammatical competence

linguistic knowledge speakers have so they understand semantic meaning of sentences

pragmatics

rules to use language effectively and succesfully, how do listeners extract intentions

what speakers want to achieve by using language

speech acts

speakers act through language

linguistic actions performed by speakers in a certain context with a certain intention (John L. Austin) -> Speech act Theory

locution

linguistic form of a speech act

Illocution

communicative intent

Perlocution

Perceived meaning, effect produced

utterance

realisation of a speaker's communivative intentions: what speaker says

sentence

formal, structural unit

declarations

change an existing state of affairs by declaring something (I now declare..)

representatives/ assertives

represent or assert a state of affais as it is viewed by the speaker (I claim that ...)

Expressives

express emotions (Good job!, Thank you for..)

Directives

directs hearers to do sth. (perform an action) (Do come and visit us, Could you pleae ..)

Comissives

commit speakers to certain actions (I refuse to answer, Shall I get you some water?, Ill bring, Do this again, and I will..)

linguistic context

what has been said before and after the utterance

Non-linguistic context

information about physical and or social setting of the utterance

performative verbs

verbs that explicitly indicate force ( I promise, claim, warn, apologise)

direct speech act

communicative intention rendered directly,

relation between linguistic form (locution( and function (illocution) is straightforward

indirect speech act

mismatch between linguistic form and function

general condition

hearer must be able to understand the locution

propositional content condition

must clearly and properly render its content

Proposition

semantic content of a sentence

preparatory condition

prerequisites prepare ground for a succesfull speech act

essential condition

to be succesfull has to count for both speaker and hearer as the realisation of this act

felicity conditions

the circumstances required to render a particular variety of speech act felicitous

collective techniqal term for the conditions (by Searle)

Inferencing

discovering the pragmatic meaning

Inferences

results of the inferencing procedure

deictic expressions

Words or phrases that point to temporal, spatial and personal features

of events (that, over there)

situational knowledge

knowledge about situational context in which utterance is made

interpersonal knowledge

knowledge that people share (f.e. friends)

Background knowledge

Interpersonal and world knowledge combined

coperative principle

communication is a rational and cooperative activity (grice)

Maxims of Cooperative Principle

sub-principals (show in more specific way what contributes to the cooperative behaviours of interactants)

maxim of relevance (relevant),

manner (to be clear brief and orderly), quality (not to say false info)

Sociolinguistics

study of relationships between social and linguistic variation; study of language in its social context,

investigates use of certain linguistic features by different social groups

sociolinguistic variable

linguistic entity which varies in its manifestation in speech, dependend on social factors

difference between dialect and standard

difference between two different linguistic systems, two different varieties of English, socially not equal

standard-> prestigeous

dialects-> restricted, not supposed to be used in official contexts-> not wrong but inappropriate

social class

categorisation of members of a society

language is

a marker for class membership and social identity,

expression of who we are and where we belong

badge of identity (islanders favour dialect if proud of islander identity)

speakers of same social class have less contact with people of other classes and as a consequence,

different social groups come up with differences in speech, first fo unnoticed but are later reinterpreted as markers for social identity

stress

degree if prominence of a syllable (perception and production)

Prominence is expressed through

Pitch (most important)

length

loudness

quality

weak syllables

are always unstressed

contain weak vowel (centralised, syllabic consonant, nlr, schwa, short u and i

strong syllables

usually stressed (sometimes unstressed)

contain full vowels (NEVER schwa), articulated with greater energy and clarity

Suffixes that affect the stress placement in words

-eous (advantageous)

-graphy (photography)

-ial (proverbial)

-ious (injurious)

-ity (tranquility)

-ive (reflexive)

sentence stress

added emphasis given to a specific word in a sentence due to the importance of that word in conveying meaning, or due to speaker intent; often found in association with the last word in a declarative utterance

weak forms

function words and pronouns, usually unstressed in connected speach

vowel reduction (schwa)

loss of h (not beginning of sentence or when stressed)

loss of syllables (I have aiv)

foot

rythmic unit, one stressed syllable plus one or more weak syllables

phonological unit, not based on sentence meaning

if contains only one syllable -> longer

pitch

a tone's experienced highness or lowness; depends on frequency

intonation

the rising and falling pitch of the voice

intonation language

different intonation contours change the syntactic function of sentences and phrases that are otherwise the same

tone languages

languages in which changing the voice pitch within a word alters the meaning of the word (chinese)

tone unit

An utterance, or part of an utterance, with one tonic stress.

Nucleus

is obligatory

most prominent syllable of tone unit

typical meanings of tones in English

fall: new info, wh questions

rise: more to follow, yes/no qu., lists ( questions expecting immediate answer)

fall-rise: limited agreement, polite requests

rise-fall: (strong) disapproval, surprise

level: bored, routine (computer)

connected speech

Spoken language in which the words join to form a connected stream of sounds.

time pressure for articulation-> articulators cannot produce all sounds in time-> leave out/ merge neighbouring sounds

-> co- articulation (assimilation, coalesence, linking)

universal properties of laguage

6!!

1. Displacement ( can talk about things which are not present or real)

2.Discreteness (perceive sounds as discrete units)

3. Duality (two levels of organisation: sound and meaning)

4. arbitrariness (link between form and meaning, language is symbolic sign)

5. productivity (flexibility, potential to adapt)

6. variability (language varies according to user, f.e. formality)

Dialect

distinguishable varieties, generally mutually intelligible of a language, has features on all levels of language, language variety without standardization or published literature

Assimilation

anticipatory (regressive): ten bats -> tembaets

optionally: s -> sh/z

progressive: optional change from n -> m (bacon)

coalescent assimilation: t+j -> tsh (getcha)

linking r: otherwise not pronounced (far away)

intrusive r: in position where no r-sound

present (lam and order)

language

socially and politically important, GENERALLY not mutually ntelligible with other languages

standard language

official language,

socially favoured

means of unification

general education

medium of wider communication

difference written and spoken modes

supports social hierarchies

Standardization

from dialect to standard

sociopolitical aspects:

SELECTION (A)

ACCEPTANCE (D)

linguistic aspects:

ELABORATION (B)

CODIFICATION (C)

grammaticality prescreptive vs. descriptive perspective

prescriptive: codified in grammar books

descrpitive: attested in speakers usage, no value judgement

language use may vary in correlation with

S settings

P participants

E ends

A act sequences

K keys

I instrumentalities

N norms

G genres

context (a social situation that includes the use of language)

different dialects

regiolect: variation according to reagion

ethnolect: variation according to ethnicity

sociolect: variation according to social background

jargon: variation according to sub-culture

style: way of speaking adapted to speech situation

idiolects: collective of an individual's ways of speaking

spread of english initial phase

English in British Isles

first: new world, america australia, south africa

second: Asia and Africa (18th/19th century)

"third" dispersal: global english

Kachru's circles of English

inner circle: norm-providing (USA UK)

outer circle: norm-developing (INDIA SINGAPORE)

expanding circle: nprm-dependent (CHINA RUSSIA)

pros: categorise englishes, based on history and geography

cons: inner circle should not be seen as superior, not on speaker's english use, does not account for linguistic diversity, grey ares between circles!, does not account for bi/multilingual speakers

Pidgin

Language that may develop when two groups of people with different languages meet. The pidgin has some characteristics of each language,a language with no native speakers

creole

A pidgin language that evolves to the point at which it becomes the primary language of the people who speak it

diglossia

The existence of "high" (formal) and "low" (familial) dialects of a single language

different functions

English as a Lingua Franca (ELF)

English used as a contact language between speakers of different first languages

The social value of varieties

symbolica capital

promises and threats (doors will open /close)

language attitudes

opinions, ideas and prejudices that speakers have with respect to a language

favour or disfavour

language planning and policy

deliberate efforts to influence behaviour of others with respect to language codes

medium of instruction

Language used as medium for school learning

mono/bi/trilingual

role of non-standard varieties?

language as subject

foreign languages

across curriculum

interlocutours...

assume that their conversational partners are cooperative and follow the maxims

try to find meaning in every bit of interaction

conversational implicature

information that is understood through inference but is not actually said

this interference holds only in the context of a particular conversation

flouting maxims

failure to follow one or more of the maxims for communicative purposes

frequent phenomenon in everyday interactions

makes hearer's task more difficult

for different reasons

politeness

use our intuitive knowledge of what is polite and impolite

using language in a way that signals the awareness of threating act of fase and the desire o minimise it

is a principle of interaction

consists of various maxims

etiquette

face

self-image

positive face

an image of yourself that will be perceived as positive by others

positive politeness

Strategies intended to minimize the threat to the hearer's self-esteem

negative face

the desire to be autonomous, to have the right to do as you wish

negative politeness

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

Schema

conventional knowledge structure that exists in memory

mentalconstruct of reality as culturally ordered and socially sanctioned

script

actions, a dynamic schema

f.e. writing an exam

context (schemata) <> communication (language)

co-constitutive relationship

Cataphoric reference

making reference forwards to something as yet unidentified in a text. E.g. "It was warm. It was living. It was a rabbit."

Grice's Cooperative Principle

assumption that in conversation speakers will make a sincere effort to collaboratively exchange information

maxims of conversation

the cultural expectations that guide people when they are conversing

Maxim of Quantity

don't say too much or too little

as informative as is required

maxim of quality

say what you know or assume to be true, and do not say what you know to be false

be truthful

maxim of relation

be relevant

maxim of manner

avoid ambiguity and obscurity; be brief and orderly

presupposition

An assumption about how the world works that a person believes to be true.

Implicatures

meanings not encoded in the linguistic signal that people figure out based on their knowledge of the context and world knowledge

Cohesion

verbalised links between clauses and sentences

ties and connection between words in text -> cohesive devices

cohesive devices

reffering expressions

lexical connections

parallelism

rhyme

alliteration

Coherence

connection of text with context ie. pragmatic meaning

connections to arrive at interpretations

iferred by hearer/reader without cohesion (on a textual level)

preparatory/ felicity conditions

all aspects of he context associated with action

Deictic expressions

Words or phrases that point to temporal, spatial and personal features

of events

person deixis (pronouns, I me )

spatial deixis (play, here there)

temporal deixis (yesterday, time)