ch 6 Global Communities of Multilingual Language Users

Linguistic and Social Boundaries

  • Linguistic anthropologists believe social separation often correlates with linguistic separation, and vice versa.

  • Empirical research is needed to understand the specifics of this correlation, requiring a clear definition of social and linguistic communities.

  • The concept of "speech community" has evolved to include terms like linguistic community, speech area, speech network, and communities of practice.

  • These concepts treat communities as fluid and emergent, crossing social and geographical boundaries.

Challenges in Defining "Speech Community"

  • Defining "speech community" is complex due to the need to specify "speech" and "community".

  • Challenges arise in identifying the boundaries and shared characteristics of a speech community.

  • Key aspects to consider:

    • Size and location of the community.

    • Shared elements among members.

    • Type of interactions.

Size and Location

  • Speech communities can vary in size (e.g., a family with a unique homesign language).

  • John Haviland (2013) provides an example of a family that might constitute a unique speech community.

  • Consideration of whether a couple or even an individual can form a speech community.

  • Speech communities are not always defined by physical location (Jacquemet 2019; Morgan 2004:4), membership can be experienced as part of a nation-state, neighborhood, village, club, compound, on-line chat room, religious institution, and so on.

  • Overlapping or nested speech communities.

Shared Elements

  • Members do not necessarily need to speak the same language or dialect with the same fluency.

  • Shared language or dialect does not automatically constitute a speech community.

  • Consideration of sign languages (e.g., ASL) as “speech” communities.

  • Importance of shared attitudes toward language and language ideologies.

  • Awareness of community membership.

Types of Interactions

  • Necessity of face-to-face or virtual interaction.

  • Online interactions (e.g., Zoom classes) as virtual or literacy-based speech communities.

  • Different types of membership: central vs. peripheral.

  • Speech communities as networks with varying density (Milroy 2002b).

Evolution of the Concept

  • Initially defined by linguists like de Saussure (1916) and Leonard Bloomfield (1933).

  • Further developed in the 1960s and 1970s by sociolinguists and linguistic anthropologists like Dell Hymes, John Gumperz, and William Labov.

  • Aimed to link linguistic practices and social groups systematically.

  • Built on work of anthropologists like Franz Boas, Edward Sapir, and Benjamin Whorf on the relationship between language, thought, and culture.

  • Hymes, Gumperz, and Labov attempted to use the concept of speech community to clarify the specific nature of this relationship and to reject the approach of de Saussure, Chomsky, and other linguists.

  • Hymes (1974:35) emphasized the speech community as the natural unit for sociolinguistic taxonomy.

Contributions by Key Figures

Dell Hymes

  • Focused on beliefs, values, attitudes, and ways of speaking within a community.

  • Emphasized the social rather than linguistic entity (Hymes 1974:47).

John Gumperz

  • Departed from formal linguistics by studying language use in social contexts.

  • Defined speech community as a human aggregate with regular interaction using shared verbal signs (Gumperz 2001[1968]:43).

  • Speech community is: any human aggregate characterized by regular and frequent interaction by means of a shared body of verbal signs and set off from similar aggregates by significant differences in language usage.

  • Did not assume members speak the same language but share a "verbal repertoire" (Gumperz 2001:50).

  • Speech varieties form a system related to shared social norms (Gumperz 2001:44).

Gumperz's Requirements for a Speech Community

  1. Frequent interaction among members.

  2. Shared "verbal repertoire."

  3. Shared social norms regarding language use (language ideologies).

William Labov

  • Shared norms are more important than marked agreement in language elements.

  • Labov (1972b:120–121) noted a study in the 1960s of linguistic variation on the Lower East Side of New York City and concluded that the heterogeneous nature of that community was not at all unusual or problematic.

  • Shared evaluation of linguistic practices creates a speech community.

Debra Spitulnik

  • Examined radio discourse in Zambia, a multilingual society.

  • Questioned the concept of speech community in a nation-state without a common language (Spitulnik 2001:96).

  • Argued it can be useful in studying mass-mediated communication like radio.

  • Radio provides common reference points, linguistic innovations, and shapes listeners’ subjectivity.

  • Laura Kunreuther (2010) similarly found that call-in radio programs in Nepal shaped listeners’ subjectivity in important ways.

  • Considers frequency of media consumption and exposure to a common media source.

Alternatives to "Speech Community"

  • Alternative terms are used due to difficulties in defining shared elements and interactions.

  • The concept emerged without connection to broader social theory.

Mary Bucholtz's Inadequacies of "Speech Community"

  1. Takes language as central.

  2. Emphasizes consensus.

  3. Focuses on central members.

  4. Focuses on the group at the expense of individuals.

  5. Views identity as static.

  6. Valorizes researchers’ interpretations.

Speech Areas

  • Jean Jackson’s work on the Vaupés territory (Colombia/Brazil) challenges the notion of speech community.

  • Indigenous groups were multilingual, speaking languages across different families.

  • People spoke at least three to five languages fluently, and some understood as many as ten (1974:55).

  • Membership in a "language aggregate" (patrilineal descent group) was important.

  • The language aggregate is: the patrilineal descent group based on the language of his or her father.

  • Marriage rule: linguistic exogamy (marrying outside one's language aggregate).

  • Argued the entire central Northwest Amazon is a multilingual speech community (Jackson 1974:55) due to shared cultural and religious practices.

  • Suggested the Vaupés area is a "speech area," related to the German concept of Sprechbund.

  • Speech area: All Indians share rules for speech, even though some Indians’ verbal repertoires do not overlap (1974:55).

  • Individual longhouses or villages could be considered speech communities within the speech area.

Speech Networks

  • Characterizes the connections and interactions among language users.

  • Lesley Milroy draws on social network analysis to understand the influence of social ties on language use and change.

  • Individuals are members of multiple, possibly overlapping, speech networks.

  • Ties vary in:

    • Strength (strong or weak ties).

    • Structure (multiplex or uniplex networks).

    • Density (high density or low density).

  • Strong, multiplex, high-density networks facilitate retention of dialects or languages.

  • Loose-knit networks can lead to the loss of regional dialects or minority languages (Milroy 1987, 2002a, 2002b; Trudgill 1996).

  • Network structure is correlated with socioeconomic class (Milroy 2002b:566–567).

  • Network analysis focuses on micro-level interactions.

  • Some criticize its lack of a more explicit theorization of power and social difference at the macro level.

Communities of Practice

  • Influential alternative to "speech community" from Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger (1991).

  • Describes the socially embedded nature of learning.

  • Focuses on social engagements that provide the context for learning (Hanks 1991:14).

  • Language resides in real-life social interactions.

Key Concepts

  • Formally introduced to linguistic anthropology by Penelope Eckert and Sally McConnell-Ginet (1992).

  • Community of practice definition:
    A community of practice is an aggregate of people who come together around mutual engagement in an endeavor. Ways of doing things, ways of talking, beliefs, values, power relations – in short, practices – emerge in the course of this mutual endeavor. As a social construct, a community of practice is different from the traditional community, primarily because it is defined simultaneously by its membership and by the practice in which that membership engages. (This does not mean that communities of practice are necessarily egalitarian or consensual – simply that their membership and practices grow out of mutual engagement.) (1992:464)

  • Three main criteria for identifying a community of practice (Wenger 1998:73ff):

    • Mutual engagement.

    • A joint enterprise.

    • A shared repertoire.

  • Examples: families, students, faculty, crews, teams, congregations, regulars.

  • Individuals belong to multiple communities of practice.

  • Helps researchers produce practice-based, ethnographic studies.

  • Language is one of many social practices (Bucholtz 1999:210).

  • Focuses on a community defined by social engagement (Eckert and McConnell-Ginet 1998:490).

Examples of Communities of Practice

  • Eckert and McConnell-Ginet: "Jocks" (school-oriented, middle-class values) and "Burnouts" (resist schooling, working-class values) at "Belten High."

  • These communities define the landscape of identities (Eckert and McConnell-Ginet 1995:477).

  • Broader social categories are crafted and contested through everyday interactions.

  • Bucholtz:

Mary Bucholtz identified several inadequacies of the concept of "speech community," which include:

  1. It takes language as central.

  2. It emphasizes consensus.

  3. It focuses on central members.

  4. It focuses on the group at the expense of individuals.

  5. It views identity as static.

  6. It valorizes researchers’ interpretations.

These shortcomings have led scholars to seek alternative concepts like speech areas, speech networks, and communities of practice, which address the fluid and emergent nature of communities and interactions.