Clinical Sociolinguistics

• Ensuring that individuals lose their identity.

• Strongly relate to a community- can adapt to that particular community.

Social Factors Influencing Language Use

• Various social factors affect language use, including:

  • Geographical location

  • Occupation

  • Gender

  • Influence of parents/carers

  • Age

  • Socioeconomic status (class and education level)

  • Ethnicity

Speech Communities

• Examples of speech communities:

  • Schools

  • Colleges and universities

  • Religious institutions (Church)

  • Sports teams

  • Clubs

  • Work environments

Client Groups in a Clinical Setting

• Diverse populations including:

  • Children

  • Parents

  • Individuals from various social classes

  • People with different accents and dialects

  • School staff (teachers and administrators)

  • Healthcare professionals (doctors and nurses)

  • Various age groups (teenagers, young adults, older adults)

  • Different local cultures

  • International cultures

  • Multilingual clients

  • University and management staff

Factors Affecting Identity in Language

• Examples of language-related identity considerations:

  • Descriptions of people (e.g., attractive, annoying)

  • Local terminology (bread roll, sandwich)

  • Actions and states (talking, eating quickly)

  • Ways to greet (hello)

  • Dialect variations (sulky, cold, excellent)

Social Relations Network (SRN)

• Purpose and insights:

  • Language questionnaire measures awareness of nonstandard grammatical features

  • Identification Score Index indicates local community identification strength

  • Understanding your idiolect- how people talk with different influences.

  • How strongly they identify with their local community.

Sense Relation Network

• Considerations:

  • Use of local words and their recognition by different generations

  • Understanding of terms by individuals from other regions

Language Questionnaire Insights

• Personal accent identification:

  • Is the accent recognizable and liked?

  • Recognition of hometown accent on media

  • Variations in speech across different age groups

  • Situations prompting speech changes

  • Gender differences in speech

  • Geographic speech variations

Stylistic Variation and Accommodation

• Concept:

  • Speakers adjust speech based on situational contexts

  • Adaptation is a critical aspect of language learning and speech community membership

  • Contextual influences on speaker adjustments

Howard Giles and Communication Accommodation Theory (CAT)

• Background:

  • Founded by social psychologist Howard Giles

  • Emphasizes intergroup and interpersonal relationships in speech

  • Looks at every communication interaction and how it varies. For us to be aware of how we are with clients- is it appropriate to accommodate?This involves understanding the dynamics of power and identity that influence language use, as well as recognizing when adjustments in speech patterns can facilitate better communication and rapport.

The Role of Audience in Speech Variation

• Empirical findings:

  • Social dynamics can lead to linguistic preferences favoring in-group members

  • Labov's findings on variation as part of conversational interactions.

  • Formal and casual speech is how much we change when we are addressing. The relationship between the speaker and the audience- what the speaker assumes what the audience needs.

Audience Design Framework (Bell, 1991)

• Conceptual framework describing:

  • Variations in speech due to addressing different audiences

  • Study of New Zealand newsreaders and their speech styles based on audience status

  • Identified variables include word medial t-realization.

  • Eavesdropper, speaker, addressee, auditor and overhearer.

Results from Bell's Studies

• Findings indicate:

  • Increased use of informal speech forms on local stations

  • Accent and style adjustments made by newsreaders due to audience demographics

Nine Tenets of Audience Design

1. Style is shaped by the speaker's interaction with others

2. Linguistic features are associated with social identities

3. Speaker responses are shaped by audience expectations

4. Speakers can finely tune their style to different audiences

Implications for Clinical Practice

• Consideration of the observer effect during assessments

• Variations in interaction styles between children and adults

• Potential impact of nonstandard speech on assessments

• Environment- clinic speech community.

• Change the formality of their language with different people.

• Is it representative of their community?

• Are they using what they are naturally using?

• Style switching- not talking down to people. Balance of professionalism and informal.

Register in Speech Therapy

• Definition:

  • Set of language items associated with occupational or social groups

  • Clinical register as articulated by researchers (Panagos, Bobkoff & Scott, 1986)

  • Need to be able to adapt the way we communicate due to speaking to many professionals, service users and carers/families.

  • Make them feel comfortable

  • Cognitive/ linguistic abilities.

Challenges in Speech Therapy

• Identifying terms difficult for clients

• Importance of altering style based on client needs

• Balancing professionalism with the language comprehension of clients

Language Change in Healthcare

• Discussion of euphemisms and their implications for language around disability

• The Euphemism Treadmill, as described by Steven Pinker:

  • Cycle of term replacement due to shifts in societal attitudes

• Talking disability- medical terms.

Sociolinguistic Awareness and Assessment

• Bias in assessments can affect diagnosis accuracy, especially in children from non-mainstream dialects

• Reference to ASHA guidelines stating no dialect is deemed a disorder

• Essential competencies for clinicians:

  • Knowledge of dialects as rule-governed systems

Language Development and Socioeconomic Status (SES)

• Impact of SES on children's vocabulary development

  • Statistics and findings on correlation between SES and language proficiency

• Results from studies highlight disparities in language scores based on SES backgrounds

Language Variation in Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC)

• Issues surrounding identity and voice in AAC

• Lack of regional accent representation can impact user experience

• Voice banking- AAC ti match the local accents.