LANGUAGE IN SOCIETY

United States, e.g. the incredible comparison of working-class English restricted

code with non-standard Black American dialects.
For the most part, I agree with MacRae's statement in the Foreword of
Volume I: 'At the heart of all actual proceedings which we call scientific or
scholarly lie unresolved inconsistencies and incompatibilities.' Bernstein's work
and that of his co-authors fit this distribution admirably. But there is another
dimension -'mymecine' 2 - imagination, energy, risk taking and the ability to
speculate and theorize. I think Bernstein is an 'ideas' man, and it is up to those
who feel so inclined to take up the challenge to test out, to refine and to refute
those ideas - and, more difficult still, to formulate new and provocative theories
which will stimulate the controversy and recreative thinking that Bernstein's
work has - hopefully in a spirit of constructively critical appraisal, rather than in
one tinged with polemical nihilism.
Reviewed by MILLICENT E. POOLE
Centre for Urban Studies
La Trobe University
(Received 29 May 1974) Melbourne, Victoria, 3083, Australia

JOHN J. GUMPERZ, Language in social groups. Essays selected and introduced by

A. S. Dil. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1971. Pp. xiv + 350.
Much has been said about the coming of age of sociolinguistics. One usually is
referred to specific dates of accepted 'classics', which figure first on any reading
list. Rarely does one find discussion of why sociolinguistics had to remain
dormant until recently, though the problems and questions it raises and tries to
answer are of a kind that make its lateness an intriguing problem in itself. This
question would lead to issues beyond the boundaries of sociolinguistics proper,
and involve political questions that would transcend the available means of
answering them. What I want to suggest is that the essays under review by
Gumperz provide an excellent sample of research pieces with which one has to
start in order to trace the road sociolinguistics had to pave to be admitted as a
seriously taken branch by the community of science.
The volume presents 17 articles by Gumperz, written between 1957-71. A
short postscript of the author, together with a complete listing of the several
dozen publications which have appeared besides those incorporated in this
volume, close the book. A. S. Dil's short introduction gives the background of
the author and a concise statement of the central concern of his work. The over-
all virtue of the collection (attributable to editor as well as to author) consists in
the opportunity to identify the several components which have contributed to
the growth of the field and to delineate perspectives for its further development.
[2] sic, in Donald MacRae's Foreword to Volume 1 (p. xii), no doubt a typographical error
for 'myrmecine'. [D.H.]
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There is a very balanced mixture of programmatic statements about the central

questions of the field, of locating 'strategic research sites' (p. xiv), of presenting
research findings from field work, and of discussing and suggesting conceptual
frames, methodological devices, and empirical research techniques, based on a
tremendous knowledge of several hitherto unrelated disciplines as well as the
author's own very divergent range of cultural experiences and backgrounds.
Gumperz moves back and forth between talking about sociolinguistics as a
scientific observer and 'designer' and doing sociolinguistics as a scientific actor.
His programmatic statements about the scope and structure of sociolinguistics
derive both from criticism of the limitations of traditional linguistics and from
presentation of empirical findings which otherwise would remain outside the
grasp of science. If one were to extract those elements and components necessary
to a more systematic display of sociolinguistics, one would find few blind spots
not covered and dealt with in the articles. But these provide a device for discus-
sing the wide range of topics raised in the book.
To start with, as is the case with every new science, Gumperz, of course, takes
pains to spell out the general goals of sociolinguistics, what may be said to form
its paradigm features or domain assumptions. His ultimate aim is to contribute
'to a theory of language behavior' (344), 'to the study of social science problems'
(344). The words 'behavior' and 'social science' in fact are key terms in Gum-
perz's approach. He is attempting to establish sociolinguistics as a social science,
'. . . to treat linguistic behavior as a form of social behavior and linguistic change
as a special case of social change' (174). Though this program sounds rather
acceptable and agreeable to most scholars in the field, there is no doubt that it is
at the same time very ambitious and not yet realized. Controversy begins
below this general level of conceptualization.
One major critical question is that of the relation between sociolinguistics on
the one hand and linguistics on the other - one could add the social sciences
also but it seems to me that this issue arouses less controversy and emotional
involvement than the first. If one tries, however, to find a clear-cut answer to
this question in the volume, there is none. There are rather ambiguous state-
ments and arguments. The last sentence of the book (quoted above), and which I
take as a sign of the social science orientation of the author, contains the re-
markable idea that the attempted theory of language behavior 'will make
linguistie techniques more applicable to the study of social science problems'.
Unfortunately nothing is said as to what is meant by this. Is sociolinguistics a
device for transforming data gained by linguistic techniques into states of im-
proved social applicability - whatever that would mean? Is sociolinguistics
another theoretical interpretation of otherwise unchanged data and correspond-
ing techniques? Is it both, is it more? The same ambiguity is found in the
statement immediately before: that 'criticism of work in modern linguistics . . . is
not directed toward linguistic theory per se, but at the failure of linguists to deal

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adequately with the practical and sociological problems with which they are
concerned' (344). The real meaning of this escapes me. Two questions arise im-
mediately: (1) Are linguistic techniques something that can be transplanted un-
changed into a different theoretical environment? (2) Is not 'failure . . . to deal
adequately with . . . problems' of concern the most central kind of criticism with
which any theory can be confronted? Put in this way, I believe there could be no
essential disagreement with Gumperz about the answers: of course, they cannot;
of course, it is.
But this is only one side of the coin. The 'reconstructed logic' as manifested in
the author's postscript seems to me somewhat different that the 'logic-in-use' of
Gumperz, to use A. Kaplan's very aptly coined dichtotomy. What can be in-
ferred from Gumperz's doing of sociolinguistics as to the relation between socio-
linguistics and linguistics proper? At several places he launches severe attacks on
traditional linguistics. L. Bloomfield is mentioned several times (e.g. 25/26, 177)
as having failed to live up to explicit programmatic goals he himself set up (i.e. he
is referred to in a rather 'contrastive' sense). Katz and Fodor are heavily criticized
for making 'sharp distinctions between grammars and the social context in which
utterances are used' (178). Whenever the author quotes authors or works from
the traditional field of linguistics, he does so to juxtapose his own views, concepts,
methods (except perhaps for his discussion of traditional dialectology in his
widely known treatise on 'The Speech Community' (114-28)).
In substantial terms Gumperz points time and again to the wrong starting
point and unit of analysis that traditional linguistics has at its core. In his
theoretical paper on 'Types of linguistic communities', Gumperz perhaps
expresses best his principal criticism when he writes that 'the universe of lin-
guistic analysis is a single language or dialect, a body of verbal signs abstracted
from the totality of communicative behavior on the basis of certain structural and
genetic similarities' (97) the aim being 'the discovery of unitary, structurally
homogenous wholes'. What is neglected, in Gumperz's view, and what gave birth
to sociolinguistics, is 'the social environment', which can be brought in only by
redirecting the focus of analysis from the very beginning of the whole study of
language. What has to be the central phenomenon in sociolinguistics is not
language, but language behavior, i.e. speech, speaking behavior of people. This,
however, plays no systematic role in linguistics. 'Such studies must, however,
begin with a specific community, not with a linguistically defined entity' (100).
Detailed reference to traditional linguistics and its theoretical assumptions, then
stresses shortcomings, basic misconceptions and failures more than virtues and
achievements. What can and should be saved is not explicitly spelled out and
remains unclear.
Things are somewhat different when it comes to the data Gumperz uses for
his research. There, it seems to me, he really has not gone far beyond traditional
linguistics. He deals with phonological, morphemic, morphophonemic, syn-
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tactical and lexical elements which he obtains usually by means of limited,

rarely generalizeable, empirical techniques (as, according to Gumperz, is
wrongly done by traditional linguistics). Gumperz himself seems to be aware of
this as he again and again points to the fact, that his results allow only '. . . a
preliminary statement, based on a limited amount of data . . .' (57), are '. . .
intended to be suggestive rather than definitive' (173), 'suggestive rather than
exhaustive' (247). To sum up, the relationship between sociolinguistics and
linguistics proper, as it is explicitly spelled out or implicitly dealt with in this
text, remains open and ambiguous, perhaps with a tendency to dissociate the
two rather than to establish links and to look for similarities. I have concentrated
on this point at considerable length because to my view it is still unsettled, and
its solution will determine the further development of sociolinguistics.
Whereas the discussion of linguistics is carried out in a critical tone, Gumperz
is perhaps too uncritical of social science. He uses its conceptual tools in a some-
what undifferentiated and impressionistic way. Again, there is one very central
and still controversial issue. What exactly does it mean to relate linguistic
and social phenomena and how is it achieved? A salient question in debate is
whether correlational analysis is adequate. Gumperz elaborates on this point
in his article on 'The relation of linguistic to social categories' (2ooff.). Though
not rejecting the value of correlational analysis altogether, he emphasizes short-
comings more than achievements, his main argument being that the device
implies 'conceptually independent systems' (222) that keep social structure apart
from linguistic structure, instead of, as seems necessary to Gumperz, obliterating
'the division between linguistic and social categories' (224).
It can be argued, that the question, thus put, is somewhat misconceived. The
point is not whether correlational analysis is a misfit in sociolinguistic analysis
or not. No science should and can ultimately renounce this technique. The
question is how to interpret correlational results theoretically or how to derive
meaningful variables from which kind of theory. The issue is theoretical, not
methodological. Correlational techniques are devices, not theoretical strategies or
approaches.
Gumperz himself does present correlational analysis when he relates language
behavior in bilingual or multilingual situations to extralinguistic factors of group
and social life, such as to the formal - informal quality of social relationships, to
the stratificational and kinship system, to market networks, to frequency of
social interaction and the like. The fact that no correlational measures are given
has something to do with the unavailability of sufficient empirical basis and with
failure to operationalize the social and linguistic variables. Gumperz identifies
variables of different kinds all through his book.
Nevertheless, Gumperz's main achievement is exactly his contribution to
concepts and theoretical tools which can lead to a construction of a theoretical
framework that supersedes correlational analysis of a kind where the correlated

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variables are taken from different theories, by one in which the factors to be
correlated are derived from one and the same theory. His idea of language
behavior as behavior that is ruled not only and not even mainly by grammatical
but by other social rules is a starting point that has to be at the base of such a
theory. But he goes further than that. The demonstrated existence of 'co-
occurrence restrictions' (i55ff.) on languages choice calls for the delineation of
patterned linguistic clusters that obliterate the conventional descriptive units of
linguistics. His concepts of speech community, verbal repertoire (125, 152), the
distinction between dialectal and superposed variation of language use (85^,
I2of.), that between compound and coordinated bilingualism (205), that between
compartmentalized and fluid verbal repertoires (157) - all are necessary elements
that have pushed sociolinguistic theory considerably ahead towards a situation in
which it would be more to the point to talk about a sociology of language than of
sociolinguistics.
Gumperz leans heavily on sociological terminology and concepts. A consider-
able number of well-known experts in sociological theory building, such as S. F.
Nadel and K. W. Deutsch, are referred to for analytical and conceptual borrow-
ing. Special reference, however, is made to 'the interactionist approach as
exhibited in the writings of Goffman (. . .), Garfinkel (. . .) and Cicourel (. . .)'
which is considered to be 'somewhat more in line with sociolinguistic findings'
(284). To the present author it seems that the use and application of sociological
concepts could be pushed further. This could be accomplished in two directions.
The first, already mentioned, concerns the measurement level and quality of
sociological concepts. The urban-rural dichotomy, the stratificational and caste
system, frequency of interaction, all these are used by Gumperz for the analysis
of empirical data but they are employed less rigorously than they could be in the
present state of sociological knowledge. The second one is still more essential. I
believe that there are more refined tools available from sociology for the analysis
of verbal behavior than found in Gumperz's work. Concepts like interaction
frequency, social relationship, formal and informal structures, social occasion,
social setting and situation are but 'first order concepts' and have to be sup-
plemented by second and third order notions. Role theory in its most elaborate
form could provide some of these, such as reference group behavior, role-
distance, role conflict, etc. On the macro level, which is also of considerable
interest for Gumperz, especially in those articles where he discusses the language
problems of India, he could have borrowed more from class, stratification and
power theory than he actually did. These remarks may be considered suggestions
for how the road Gumperz himself has opened can and should be broadened
and deepened.
Some final information is in order for those readers not acquainted with Gum-
Gumperz's work at all (the number of which should be small indeed). Nothing
has been said in this review about the research sites and the sources of the
 REVIEWS
empirical data that are displayed in his work. Most of the articles are based on
data which he gained during altogether more than two years of field work in
North India, one deals with data on code-switching in Norway, one consists of a
comparative analysis of situations as culturally and linguistically distant as a
Norway and India community, one analyses data from a Mexican-American
bilingual situation in the southwestern United States. The geographical range is
as impressive as the power of theoretical and methodological analysis and as -
last but not least - the range of practical and political implications Gumperz
does not tire of pointing out: problems of language planning and construction,
communicative barriers for social change and innovation, educational policies at
the institutional level, all in linguistic situations which are considered basically as
structured in code-like ways.
One idea came to the reviewer's mind again and again while reading the
different pieces of work. One would wish that Gumperz might find time to put his
several pieces of work on India, those published in this collection and those
published elsewhere, together as a monograph. It would demonstrate even more
the truth of his conclusion that 'the analysis of speech variation should form an
integral part of the study of South Asian civilization' (91), as of course, of any
civilization. He has the data, the concepts and the methods at hand and un-
questionably disposes of the scientific competence to do so.
Reviewed by FRITZ SACK
Lehrstiihle fur Soziologie
Universitat Regensburg
(Received 8 April 1974) Regensburg, West Germany

WILLIAM LABOV, Sociolinguistic patterns. (Conduct and Communication, 4.)

Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1972.

INTRODUCTION
The 1960's in America saw the gradual and then increasingly widespread erosion
of the Chomskyan paradigm established by Syntactic structures and Aspects of the
theory of syntax. It is commonplace these days to identify Chomsky's contribu-
tion to linguistics as a revolution conforming to Kuhn's account of scientific
revolutions (1962). Far less agreement is to be found on the status of recent deve-
opments. Do they represent a counter-revolution (Katz & Bever forthcoming),
or the beginning of another revolution (Bailey 1971)? The answer seems to
depend partly on one's ideological alignment, and also partly on the extent of
one's willingness to find a common purpose among the disparate activities of the
'new linguistics' of the late sixties and early seventies. In many respects, this
'new linguistics' appears to be divided into two camps. On the one side there is