Sociolinguistics

Sociolinguistics is the study of the effect of any and all aspects of society, including cultural norms,
expectations, and context, on the way language is used.

It also studies how lects differ between groups separated by certain social variables , e.g., ethnicity,
religion, economic status, gender, level of education, etc., and how creation and adherence to these rules is
used to categorize individuals in social classor socio-economic classes. As the usage of a language varies
from place to place (dialect), language usage varies among social classes, and it is these sociolects that
sociolinguistics studies.

For example, a sociolinguist might determine through study of social attitudes that Black English Vernacular
would not be considered appropriate language use in a business or professional setting; he or she might also
study the grammar, phonetics, vocabulary, and other aspects of this sociolect much as a dialectologist would
study the same for a regional dialect.

The study of language variation is concerned with social constraints determining language in its contextual
environment . Code-switching is the term given to the use of different varieties of language in different
social situations.

William Labov is often regarded as the founder of the study of sociolinguistics.

Sociolinguistics differs from sociology of language in that the focus of sociolinguistics is the effect of the
society on the language, while the latter's focus is on the language's effect on the society.

Inhaltsverzeichnis
 1 Sociolinguistic variables
 2 Differences according to class
 3 Differences according to ethnic group
 4 Differences according to geography
 5 Differences according to gender
o 5.1 Minimal responses
o 5.2 Questions
o 5.3 Turn-taking
o 5.4 Changing the topic of conversation
o 5.5 Self-disclosure
o 5.6 Verbal aggression
o 5.7 Listening and attentiveness
o 5.8 Dominance versus subjection
o 5.9 Politeness
o 5.10 Complimentary language
 6 Differences according to nation
 7 References
 8 Further reading
 9 See also

Sociolinguistic variables
Studies in the field of sociolinguistics typically take a sample population and interview them, assessing the
realisation of certain sociolinguistic variables. Labov specifies the ideal sociolinguistic variable to

 be high in frequency,
  have a certain immunity from conscious suppression,
 be an integral part of larger structures, and
 be easily quantified on a linear scale.

Phonetic variables tend to meet these criteria and are often used, as are grammatical variables and, more
rarely, lexical variables. Examples for phonetic variables are: the frequency of the Glottal stop, the height or
backness of a Vowelor the realisation of word-endings. An example for grammatical variables is the
frequency of Double negative.

Differences according to class

Image:Sociolinguistics dialect variation.svg The existence of differences in language between social
classescan be illustrated by the following table:

Speaker 1 ... Speaker 2

I ain't done nothing ... I haven't done anything
I done it yesterday ... I did it yesterday
It weren't me that done it ... I didn't do it

Any native speaker of English would immediately be able to guess that speaker 1 was likely of a lower social
class than speaker 2. The differences in grammar between the two examples of speech is referred to as
differences between social class dialects.

It is also notable that the closer to standard English a dialect gets, the less the lexicon varies by region, and
conversely.

Differences according to ethnic group

Differences according to geography
Main article: Geolinguistics

Differences according to gender

Minimal responses
One of the ways in which the communicative competence of men and women differ is in their use of minimal
responses, i.e., paralinguisticfeatures such as ?mhm? and ?yeah?, which is behaviour associated with
collaborative language use. Men, on the other hand, generally use them less frequently and where they do,
it is usually to show agreement, as Zimmerman and West?s (1977) study of turn-taking in conversation
indicates.

Questions
Men and women differ in their use of questions in conversations. For men, a question is usually a genuine
request for information whereas with women it can often be a rhetorical means of engaging the other?s
conversational contribution or of acquiring attention from others conversationally involved, techniques
associated with a collaborative approach to language use (Barnes, 1971). Therefore women use questions
more frequently (Todd, 1983).
Turn-taking
As the work of DeFrancisco (1991) shows, female linguistic behaviour characteristically encompasses a
desire to take turns in conversation with others, which is opposed to men?s tendency towards centring on
their own point or remaining silent when presented with such implicit offers of conversational turn-taking as
are provided by hedgessuch as "y? know" and "isn?t it". This desire for turn-taking gives rise to complex
forms of interaction in relation to the more regimented form of turn-taking commonly exhibited by men
(Sacks et al., 1974).

Changing the topic of conversation

According to Dorval (1990), in his study of same-sex friend interaction, males tend to change subject more
frequently than females. This difference may well be at the root of the archaic conception that women
chatter and talk too much, and may still trigger the same thinking in some males. In this way lowered
estimation of women may arise. Incidentally, this androcentric attitude of women as chatterers arguably
arose from the idea that any female conversation was too much talking according to the patriarchal
consideration of silence as a womanly virtue common to many cultures.

Self-disclosure
Female tendencies toward self-disclosure, i.e., sharing their problems and experiences with others, often to
offer sympathy (Tannen, 1991:49), contrasts with male tendencies to non-self disclosure and professing
advice when confronted with another?s problems.

Verbal aggression
Men tend to be more verbally aggressive in conversing (Labov, 1972), frequently using threats, profanities,
yelling and name-calling. Women, on the whole, deem this to disrupt the flow of conversation and not
(Eder?s 1990) as a means of upholding one?s hierarchical status in the conversation. Incidentally, where
women swear, it is usually to demonstrate to others what is normal behaviour for them (Eder, 1990).

Listening and attentiveness

It appears that women attach more weight than men to the importance of listeningin conversation, with its
connotations of power to the listener as confidant(e) of the speaker . This attachment of import by women
to listening is inferred by women?s normally lower rate of interruption — i.e., disrupting the flow of
conversation with a topic unrelated to the previous one (Fishman, 1980) — and by their largely increased
use of minimal responses in relation to men (Zimmerman and West, 1975). Men, however, interrupt far
more frequently with non-related topics, especially in the mixed sex setting (Zimmerman and West,1975)
and, far from rendering a female speaker's responses minimal, are apt to greet her conversational spotlights
with silence, as the work of DeFrancisco (1991) demonstrates. All of this suggests that men see
conversation as a means by which to draw attention to themselves, either by interruption or by questionably
undermining what the woman has to say by non-paralinguistic response.

Dominance versus subjection

This in turn suggests a dichotomy between a male desire for conversational dominance - noted by Leet-
Pellegrini (1980) with reference to male experts speaking more verbosely than their female counterparts ?
and a female aspiration to group conversational participation. One corollary of this is, according to Coates
(1993: 202), that males are afforded more attention in the context of the classroom and that this can lead
to their gaining more attention in scientific and technical subjects, which in turn can lead to their achieving
better success in those areas, ultimately leading to their having more power in a technocratic society.
However, women have, on average, higher verbal intelligence than men (Eysenck, 1966:4).
Politeness
Politeness in speech is described (Brown and Levinson, 1978) in terms of positive and negative face:
respectively, the idea of pandering to the other?s desire to be liked and admired and not to suffer
imposition. Both forms, according to Brown?s study of the Tzeltal language (1980), are used more
frequently by women whether in mixed or single-sex pairs, suggesting for Brown a greater sensitivity in
women than have men to the face needs of others. In short, women are to all intents and purposes largely
politer than men. However, negative face politeness can be potentially viewed as weak language because of
its associated hedgesand tag questions, a view propounded by O?Barr and Atkins (1980) in their work on
courtroom interaction.

Complimentary language
Compliments are closely linked to politeness in that, as Coates believes (1983), they cater for positive face
needs. Yet, because they do not account for negative face needs, they can be consternating for those not
wishing to be imposed upon, especially where this is in a mixed-sex setting. Nevertheless, an increased use
of compliments by a women in relation to men (Holmes, 1982) could be held by some men to be indicative
of her supposed need for assurance, which may be interpreted as a sign of weakness, resulting in a poorer
opinion of her.

Language functions
Using a language as a primary means of communicating our thoughts is so natural for many people that it
is often difficult to realize what in fact are language functions. Some of the roles of language are so
mundane that they are hardly ever noticed, others are very elevated, or even abstract. Due to their
diversity the functions of language might be divided into two categories: micro functions which refer to
specific individual uses, and macro functions which serve more overall aims.

MICRO FUNCTIONS:

 Physiological function (releasing physical and nervous energy)

Although it might be striking this use of language is fairly common. It is easily recognizable when
devoted fans of sports are observed while watching their favourite discipline on TV. Such fans often
shout instructions, express support, or disappointment and while as a means of communicating with
sportsmen they are useless, such cheers are to release repressed energy. Similarly curse words are used to
serve this purpose, as they rarely convey any meaning and are only to make the speaker feel better.

 Phatic function (for sociability)

The use of such phrases as ‘nice day today’, or ‘how do you do’ is characterized by lack of any
informative content and is intended to link people and make the coexistence peaceful and pleasant. The
phatic use of language is characteristic mainly of speech, however, in certain types of writing it can also
be noticed, as in letters for example, where the beginning Dear Sir/Madam and ending Yours faithfully
also serve that purpose.

 Recording function

Recording function denotes using language to make a durable record of things that ought to be
remembered. Owing to its omnipresence writing is probably the most significant function of language.
There is evidence that the first writing system was developed in the Middle East as early as 4000 BC. At
the beginning writing systems took forms of pictures representing the things they referred to, gradually
developing into the alphabets in their present forms.

 Identifying function

Language is used also to identify the objects and events in the world we live in. Without this function
language would be almost useless, as it is thanks to the names of things that we know what is talked
about. Many primitive societies unable to write believe that names hold great power. Even in western
culture names are thought to be immensely important: the God’s name ought not to be used in vain,
before giving a name to a newborn child parents consider the choice deeply. We use names to classify
different types of things, whether we call a car anautomobile, a lorry, a van or a truck makes a big
difference.

 Reasoning function (instrument of thought)

Before we say something we think and to do that we necessarily use language. In most cases it is
extremely difficult to think about anything without any use of words. In fact is it also difficult not to think
for a longer period of time as human brains work all the time processing information, thus providing us
with concepts formulated by means of language.

 Communicating function

This function would probably be pointed at by most language users without major consideration. Indeed it
is in all likelihood most commonly used language function by majority of speakers. Requesting,
apologizing, informing, ordering as well as promising and refusing are all reasons for communicating our
ideas.

 Pleasure functions

The fact that language often gives pleasure both to the speakers and listeners is not only supported by the
frequent use of assonance, alliteration and onomatopoeia in poetry. Depending on the sounds of
languages some are perceived as being mild as English for example, others crude as German. People also
derive pleasure from unusual use of syntactic rules, as well as novelties of meanings juxtapositions and
language games, which is often used by skilful writers.

MACRO FUNCTIONS:

 Ideational function

Ideational function refers to the conceptualizing process involved in our mental activities. Thanks to
language we are able to understand what happens around us.

 Interpersonal function

Interpersonal function emphasizes that language is mainly a social phenomenon, but apart from enabling
communication with other people it enables to project the speaker in the desired way and to represent the
speaker.
  Poetic function

Here, the word poetic does not refer to the ability to write poetry, but the ability to manipulate language in
a creative way. With the use of jokes and metaphors we can play with words and meanings simply for
joy.

 Textual function

Textual competence refers to our ability to create long utterances or pieces of writing which are both
cohesive and coherent. Unlike animals people, by use of certain linguistic devices, are able to produce
long sentences and text, and not only simple phrases.

The above mentioned functions are only one point of view on language. Most certainly there are many
other functions that natural languages fulfill, yet depending on approach to this issue the number of
functions and their names might vary