Introduction to Sociolinguistics

What is sociolinguistics?

 Sociolinguistics is the study of language in society.

 It is the study of how differently we speak – e.g., how isiZulu speakers from Durban speak
differently from isiZulu speakers from Gauteng.
 How we communicate (how we transmit meaning)
 It is the study of the way in which we use language to perform different identities.
 The study of how ways of speaking become languages.
 The way we use language to convey certain ideas and beliefs.
 Language as a social practice
o We are people because we communicate.

Keyword: language variation

 Languages change, everywhere, forever

 How does language vary at a specific moment in
time? What are the factors of variation?
 Is variation random?
 Is variation structured according to certain parameters?

Definitions of terms - Accents & dialects

 What is a dialect? What is an accent?

 What are the differences between the two?
 ACCENT = PRONUNCIATION
 DIALECT = PRONUNCIATION + VOCABULARY/GRAMMAR
 Received pronunciation (RP) = ACCENT
Ex: Australian vs American vs British vs Jamaican vs South African English
 Lobedu, Kaaps Afrikaans, SiPitori = DIALECT

Dialect or language?

 What are the differences between a dialect and a language?

 Why is there mutual intelligibility between these languages? (Meaning speakers of each
language can understand each other)
 isiZulu and isiXhosa
 Danish, Swedish and Norwegian
 Serbian, Croatian and Bosnian
 Answer: the political borders between countries (and languages) became linguistic borders
 One way of communicating became multiple languages because of political and historical
reasons.
 Political and historical reasons
 There is no strictly linguistic criterion which helps
us to distinguish between language and dialect
 “A language is a dialect with an army and a navy” (Weinreich)
 “When you have an army and a navy, you can say to the other that her language is not a
language, that what she says is closer to the speech of animals.” (Toni Morrison)
 For lay people, language is ‘standard language’

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  For sociolinguists, ‘standard language’ is just the dialect which has the highest prestige in a
particular context
 Standard languages are NOT naturally given!
 Standard languages are the result of specific historical and political processes whereby some
varieties have been CHOSEN and ELEVATED to the status of STANDARD
 Dialects: “a term widely applied to what are considered sub-varieties of a single language”
(Meyerhoff, 2006: 27)
 Dialects are thus ways of communicating whose speakers have less political power and
prestige than others.
 In the same way, languages are simply ways of communicating whose speakers have
significant political power and prestige

From language to languages

 Naming languages give them a status, they are recognized.

 It creates borders → X people speak X language and not Y, which is spoken by Y people.
 Who gets to name languages?
 Naming languages give them a status, they are recognized.
 It creates borders → X people speak X language and not Y, which is spoken by Y people.
 Who names languages?
 → Social institutions (States, religions, etc.)
 Goal to homogenize or diversify societies

Standard Language

 Some varieties are chosen and elevated to standard languages

 → French was just a variety spoken by a minority of the population with the highest social
status.
 → Nationalist agenda
 A standard language is not naturally given

Dialects

 REMEMBER: a standard language was once considered a dialect!

 How do we differentiate dialects from one another? è Work of variationist sociolinguists
 How do we differentiate dialects from one another?
 EXAMPLE:
 → Dutch and German are two distinct languages
 → Along the Dutch-German border, dialects spoken on either sides are extremely familiar
 → The choice to differentiate them is more socio-political rather than linguistic.
 How do we differentiate dialects? TWO MAIN FACTORS:
 Geographical Space → Regional dialects Social Class → Social dialects (Sociolects)
 Others: gender, race, etc.
 Refer to slides 24 & 25 to see visual examples.

Regional Dialects

 Varieties which POINT to a speaker’s position in the ‘geographical space’.

Dialectology

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  ‘Generally speaking, the aim of dialectological work is to produce a geographical account of
linguistic differences, the product often taking the form of a series of maps’ (Milroy and
Gordon 2003: 12)

Methods of Dialectology

 Pilot survey
• Find out which localities will be involved
• Choice of items to be investigated:
• Phonetics?
• Vocabulary?
• Semantics?
• Grammar?
• Data analysis
• Drawing of maps

Features, maps, and isoglosses

 Refer to slides 29 & 30 for isoglosses.

Slang, Typologies and Language

Standardisation
Thursday, 28 September 2023
12:34
Slang / Language game

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  Slang is an age-specific variation within a language. Highly informal.
 Language game is manipulating spoken words to conceal information from others, making it
incomprehensible to the untrained ear.
 Language games are usually not widely spoken, only for a small group of people at a specific
moment in time. Highly used in wars (think codes).
 Whereas slangs can be used in everyday conversations. Slang is a language variety.
 For example, if you try to write a message only understandable to your peers from the same
age group, you will most likely use slang.
 Whereas if you try to write a message only understandable to another person, you will most
likely use a made-up code typical of language games.

Slang

 Slangs are usually associated with youth → Challenge of social norms

 → Secretiveness
 Other functions: fun, linguistic innovation, signalling group
 identity, fostering solidarity
 Innovation in words, grammar and pronunciation.
 Often negative attitudes towards Slang → Represents change (youth)
 → Move away from structure/tradition/norms But acceptable in certain social settings
 !! Not all youths use slang !!
 SLANG
 Usage
 Structure
 “Slang should be defined according to who uses it in addition to the intention (the why) of
using slang” (Bembe & Beukes, 2007: 464)
 → The user’s intentions when using slang are very important to understand them.
Not only the structure.
 → What do people do when using slang?
Slang = marker of identity + delineator of groups (young vs. old; urban vs. rural)
 Vocabulary items tend to differ from one generation of slang users to the next
 Ephemeral linguistic innovation → change faster than standard language
 → You want to speak/be different than people older/younger than you
 → This is why Slangs change rapidly from one generation to the next (see example next
slide)

Slang / Jargon

 Slang is different than Jargon.

 What is a jargon?
 → Technical vocabulary of a particular profession. Allows users to talk precisely about
technical issues in any given field
 Examples: sports commentators, music/film critics, sociolinguists
 Like slang, it may also exclude non-group members from a conversation.
 For example, when a car mechanic used car-related jargon to communicate, lay people
might not understand

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Language families and typologies

Language varieties

 As we have seen, there are factors to separate and classify varieties.

 For many years, linguists have been preoccupied with counting or enumerating languages.
 → Like a census
 → Important for institutions to make decision on which language(s) to teach in schools or
amend a language policy.
 → Need to know how many languages are spoken in a particular country/region, and by how
many people.
 How many languages are there in the world?
 → Depends if we count varieties as dialects or languages → Hard to tell
 → Splitters vs Lumpers
 → A splitter counts varieties of a same language as distinct languages whereas a lumper
treats varieties simply as dialects.
 → From a splitter point of view, a lumper under-counts languages, and from a lumper point
of view, a splitter over-counts languages.
 → Difficult to agree on exact numbers!
 Refer to slides 15 & 16 for Splitters vs Lumpers.

Language Families

 How many languages are there in Africa?

 → 800? (Greenberg, 1966)
 → 2000? (Crystal, 2007)
 → 2550? (Mann & Dalby, 1987)
 → Does it matter?
 → Enumerative modality based on Census ideology
 → It is difficult to tell where a language begins and ends
 → In other words, we speak differently, but not necessarily in different languages, rather in
different varieties, which are not always separate entities.

Language classification

 Even though we don’t have to count languages and variation, we still need to describe and
understand them.
 → How do linguists classify languages? → Classification systems = taxonomies
 Two main methods of classification: genetic and typological GENETIC (or genealogical)
 Group languages into families according to their degree of diachronic relatedness
 → How linguistic features change over time
 → Languages can be classified as parents or daughters
 → How can we decide which are parents and which are daughters?

Genetic classification

 Cognates → words that are genetically related in the sense that they are descended from
the same ancestral root or word
 French: main Spanish: mano Italian: mano Latin: manus

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  Borrowing → All languages borrow words to refer to new items or ideas that are introduced
into a society or culture
 Examples:
 iselula (isiZulu) from cellular (English)
 Language family is a set of languages deriving from a common ancestor or parent language
called the proto- language of that family.

Typological Classification

 Another way to classify languages of the world is according to their structural characteristics.
 → Can be based on grammar (word order) (SVO vs VSO for example)
 → What languages share rather than being related as a family (For example, noun class
system for Bantu languages)

Language planning, policy and

Standardisation
South African constitution

Chapter 1 - Founding Provisions

6. Languages
The official languages of the Republic are Sepedi, Sesotho, Setswana, siSwati, Tshivenda,
Xitsonga, Afrikaans, English, isiNdebele, isiXhosa and isiZulu.
Recognising the historically diminished use and status of the indigenous languages of our
people, the state must take practical and positive measures to elevate the status and advance
the use of these languages.
 The national government and provincial governments may use any particular official
languages for the purposes of government, taking into account usage, practicality, expense,
regional circumstances and the balance of the needs and preferences of the population as a
whole or in the province concerned; but the national government and each provincial
government must use at least two official languages.
 Municipalities must take into account the language usage and preferences of their residents.

The national government and provincial governments, by legislative and other measures,
must regulate and monitor their use of official languages. Without detracting from the
provisions of subsection (2), all official languages must enjoy parity of esteem and must be
treated equitably.


A Pan South African Language Board established by national legislation must
promote, and create conditions for, the development and use of
o all official languages;
o the Khoi, Nama and San languages; and
o sign language ; and
 promote and ensure respect for
o all languages commonly used by communities in South Africa, including German,
Greek, Gujarati, Hindi, Portuguese, Tamil, Telegu and Urdu; and
o Arabic, Hebrew, Sanskrit and other languages used for religious purposes in South
Africa.

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French Constitution

TITLE I
ON SOVEREIGNTY
Article 2.
The language of the Republic shall be French. Article 75-1.
Regional languages are part of France’s heritage.
TITLE XIV
ON THE FRENCH-SPEAKING WORLD AND ON ASSOCIATION AGREEMENTS
Article 87.
The Republic shall participate in the development of solidarity and cooperation between
States and peoples having the French language in common.

Language planning

 Attempts to change a particular variety of a language, or a particular language or some

aspects of how either of these function in society
 “Language planning is a government authorized, long term, sustained, and conscious effort
to alter a language’s function in a society for the purpose of solving communication
problems.” (Weinstein, 1980: 56)

Language planning & policy

 Sometimes synonymous terms

 Language planning refers to anything from proposing a new word to proposing a new
language; grammatical and spelling rules, the role of minority languages, etc. → change the
use and function of a language (or language variety) within a particular society
 Language policy refers to the more general linguistic, political and social goals underlying the
actual language planning process.
 → Wits example with the new Language Policy

Language planning

 “Language planning is an attempt to interfere deliberately with a language or one of its

varieties: it is human intervention into natural processes of language change, diffusion, and
erosion. That attempt may focus on either its status with regard to some other language or
variety or its internal condition with a view to changing that condition, or on both of these
since they are not mutually exclusive.”
 (Wardhaugh, 2006: 357)
 First focus → STATUS PLANNING (use and function of a language)
 Second focus → CORPUS PLANNING (internal structure of the language)

Status Planning

 Status planning changes the function of a language or a variety of a language and the rights
of those who use it.
 It affects the role a language plays in a given society.
 For example, when speakers of a minority language are denied the use of that language in
educating their children, their language has no status.
 When a government declares two languages rather than one will be officially recognized in
all functions, the newly recognized one has gained status.

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  Languages can have many different functions/statuses:

 Official (specified constitutionally → South Africa)

 Provincial (or regional, limited to a smaller geographical area → Quebec)
 Wider communication (across national borders → Swahili in Kenya and Tanzania)
 International (across borders for wider international communication → tourism, diplomacy,
trade → English, Latin)
 Capital (particular context for the country’s capital → Belgium)
 Group (medium of communication for a single group → migrant communities, tribes)
 Educational (which language is used in schools → sometimes regional dialects)
 School subjects (taught as subjects in secondary and higher education → which languages
are taught at Wits?)
 Religious (some religions require the use of sacred languages → Islam, Judaism)
 Mass Media (on print media, radio, TV → can be regulated)
 Work Place (language used as medium of communication in the workplace → depends on
the communities)

Corpus Planning

 Corpus planning seeks to develop a variety of a language or a language, usually to

standardize it, that is, to provide it with the means for serving every possible language
function in society.
 For example, the development of an orthography, new sources of vocabulary, dictionaries
and a literature, the development of a writing system for a spoken language (graphisation),
spelling reforms, coining new terms (neologisms), grammatical rules, etc.
 Example: Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Swedish football player of Croatian and Bosnian background.
 Known to be arrogant, powerful and for dominating players on and off the pitch and
speaking about himself in the third person.
 The French TV show “Les guignols de l’info” coined the term “Zlataner” (“to Zlatan”).
 The term was added to the Swedish dictionary (“Zlatanera” = to dominate someone on or off
a field)

Language Standardisation

 A central aspect of corpus planning.

 It refers to the creation and establishment of a uniform linguistic form. Languages have
different types or stages of standardisation:
 Unstandardised oral language: no writing system has been devised (Gallah, Ehiopia; Phuthi,
Lesotho)
 Partly standardised or unstandardised written language: used mainly in primary education.
High degree of variations (most Native American languages)
 Young standard language: used in education and administration but not at a tertiary or
research level (Basques, Xhosa)
 Archaic standard language: used in pre-industrial times, lacks vocabulary and register
(classical Greek, classical Hebrew, Latin)
 Mature modern standard language: used in all areas of communication (English, French,
German, Spanish, modern Hebrew, etc.)

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Exercise

 Where do the South African languages fit? (Sepedi, Sesotho, Setswana, siSwati, Tshivenda,
Xitsonga, Afrikaans, English, isiNdebele, isiXhosa and isiZulu)

Corpus and Status planning

 These two types of planning often co-occur, for many planning decisions involve some
combination of a change in status with internal change.
 The allocation of new language functions (status planning) often requires changes in the
linguistic system (corpus planning) such as the development of new styles and lexical items.
 They interact with each other (Hebrew in Jewish schools example → the change in language
status made it necessary to expand the vocabulary in order to teach modern school subjects)
 “Language planning is still far from being any kind of exact science” (Wardhaugh, 2006: 357)
 → The proposed corpus and/or status changes might not be accepted by the society
concerned → Resistance
 → Examples? (SA context)
 → Importance of language attitudes

Conclusion

 “Effective planning depends on the understanding of the relevant social, cultural, political
and historical variables, knowledge of language attitudes and the direction of social change
in a given society. From this, it follows that linguists are not the only one whose expertise is
needed in language planning.” (Deumert, 2003: 399)
 → Who else’s expertise is needed?
 •Language planning activities are often employed to also achieve non-
 linguistic goals >>> socio-economic, modernisation or national integration. Example: China at
the beginning of the 20th century.
 → Script reform to contribute to social change
 •Role of the elites → language planning at any level of the social hierarchy, but unlikely to
succeed unless it is embraced and promoted by elites. Has to be in their own interests.

Social Dialectology (Language & Social class)

Thursday, 28 September 2023
18:53

Class: Sociolects

 We can differentiate language variations according to social class (one of two main
parameters)
 EVERYONE SPEAKS DIFFERENTLY (words taken from different spoken languages, at school, in
the family, at work, accents taken from different geographical locations, we follow different
lexical and phonological trends, etc.)
 In other words, we are different human beings, with different voices; therefor we speak
differently.
 Each person speaks its own IDIOLECT.

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Trudgill's Triangle

Sociolects

 Sociolinguists like Labov tried to document different language variations according to social
class.
 Labov, in 1966, documented sociolects in a New York City department store.
 Similar methods as for regional dialects
 What did he find? → People spoke differently on different floors. (different phonological
trends, notably with [r])
 Can we say for sure that “Upper-class people speak differently than lower-class people?”
 → NO!
 → Labov also found a factor of style. Some people pay more or less attention to the
way they speak. Certain lower- class people would speak with an upper-class accent
when on the upper floors!
 → People perform certain identities while speaking!
 The sort of life trajectories and the institutions and networks that privileged speakers inhabit
will give them access to what society considers to be more standard forms of the language
 Social class is also reflected extralinguistically in the choice of cars, clothing, and features of
bodily adornment that people display.

Conclusion

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  Language varies according to social space rather than social class.
 A particular variation indexes a social class rather than someone’s own social class.
 Your social class doesn’t determine the way you speak. It is the way you speak (style) which
determines which social identity you wish to perform/be associated with. (See Drag kings
example in the reading)

Language Variation
Thursday, 28 September 2023
19:14
Dialect

 Any regional, social or ethnic variety of a language

 Can occur on any level of language: pronunciation, semantic (words meaning different things
or different words for same meaning), grammar (different word orders), etc.
 Dialectology (the study of dialects and other language variations)
 There can be mutual intelligibility... or not!
 What is the factor?

Language Variations

 How is it that languages... vary?

 “a change tends to sneak quietly into a language, like a seed, which enters soil and
germinates unseen. At some point it sprouts through the surface.”
 Language change in the lord's prayer in different periods of English.
 Why and how such long-term and far-reaching change occur?
 Key questions for early sociolinguists:

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  What is the change?= Historical linguistics
 Why and how such change?= Sociolinguists
 Variation in language precedes change in the speech community
 Social groups within the community react differently to changes in terms of their attitudes
and choices of variants.

Variationist approach to change

 Weinreich, Labov and Herzog: tracking down change means paying attention to both
language system and social system
 Why and how does change begin?
 What type of person or social group is likely to be an originator of
change?
 How new forms spread at the expense of older ones? = Key questions for early variationist
sociolinguists.

Weinreich et al. (1968)’s model of language (sound) change

 The basis of linguistic change lies in the ever-present ‘low-level’ phonetic variability of
ordinary speech (often not noticed by the members of the speech community) = people tend
to speak slightly differently
 One variable tends to become socially significant as a marker of group identification or
stylistic level = completely arbitrary linguistically = need to identify as different/separate
 A minor variation (such a phonetic) becomes a linguistic variation
 The ‘new’ variant may be extended to new social groups
 The variant may spread to the vocabulary system of the language and throughout the whole
speech community = can also be blocked
 Finally, the variant becomes part of the community’s repertoire = change has been
completed!
Two types of change

 Change ‘from above’

o Variants introduced by dominant social class
o Usually borrowed from other speech communities with higher prestige = style
o People tend to imitate how people with prestige speak = Labov’s department store
study (which we studied last week)

 Change ‘from below’

o Sounds and words originally part of the vernacular = usually variants to make
pronunciation easier. example: “trus’ me” “gonna”
o Kroch (1978): usually accepted among working class dialects, but supressed by
middle classes

 Listen the 2015 song “Good for you” by Selena Gomez and pay attention to how the artist
pronounced the word “good”
 The song is an example of “vowel breaking”.
 See this article for further information:
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/reggieugwu /what-is-indie-pop-voice

Lexical Diffusion

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  Variationist sociolinguists are interested in finding out which groups initiate and spread
change, but also how a change spreads internally within the language
o Weireich et al.’s (1968) theory of Lexical diffusion

 Theory: Sound change occurs word by word

o Change does not occur in all words and environments simultaneously
o Can be incorporated in some words before others because some environments are
more conductive
o Rate: Chen’s (1976) theory of the “S-curve”
 New pronunciations in a few common words, usually important to a subgroup or subculture
o Change then spreads rapidly to other words
o Finally, change slows down, affecting the last few words
 See slide 13 for graphs.

Gravity model

 Dielectologists also interested in how changes spread across communities in a specific

geographical area
o bodies with larger mass exert a gravitational influence over smaller ones in their
vicinity
 Trudgill’s (1974) gravity model
o Mass = population size
o Linguistic influence from one centre to the next is driven by proximity and
population size
o Change occurs in larger centres (cities) before influencing the linguistic features of a
small town. However, the small town features are also, and more influenced by the
features of a small city nearby/closer.

• Labov’s (2003) cascade model

Labov’s cascade model

 Showed how a term diffused from a larger city to a smaller one

o hoogie; hoggie; hoagie (term for the sandwich pictured bellow)
o From Philadelphia (1955) to Pittsburgh (1960)
o Material factor = cooking equipment distributor based in Philadelphia

Recap
 Language change within structure of the language = historical linguistics

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  How social context influences sociolinguistic variations and change =
sociolinguists
 Importance of ideas and beliefs about language (language ideologies) = the opinion people
have on a variation will influence whether it becomes change or not (= if it is adopted by the
speech community or not
 Agency as a key factor = Speakers can and do make conscious changes to their language
practices
• often with the intention to building a linguistic identity which is different than others (and
how others speak)

Real and Apparent time study of variables

 Too costly and time-consuming to do studies of linguistic change over a long period of time
 Thus, Sociolinguistics came up with ‘apparent time’ studies=the study of a community over a
short period of time to examine whether any change occurs
 For example, focus on different age groups
 HOWEVER, variations are not always signs of language change = SLANG (which occurs
generationally)

Labov’s study of the Department Store (1966) was an apparent time study
• Replicated by Fowler (1986) and Macdonald (1984) to get some real time insights on
language change, 20 years later.
• They found that Labov’s findings about the pronunciation of [r] by New Yorkers had
increased, but not significantly enough to be considered language change: “Contrary to
what I originally expected, the hypercorrect behaviour of the lower middle class has not
resulted in any sudden advance of r-pronunciation as a whole.” = possibility of the
change being at the stage of the bottom of the S-Curve.

Apparent time study at UCT (2007)

 ‘Like’ chosen by UCT students as the most significant linguistic feature (in English) which they
don’t share with their parents
 “Words like like are, like, so overused... like”
 Variation in the lexical function of the word:
 BEFORE:
• Verb (“I like bananas”)
• Comparative preposition (“He eats like a pig”)
• Noun (“We will never experience the like again”)
 IN 2007:
• Same 3 functions but also
• Quotative to introduce reported speech (“I’m like why did you do that?”)
 Hedge to lessen the impact of an utterance (“My parents like hate you”)
 Discourse particle to focus the hearer’s attention or to sustain conversation (“I’m like really
struggling with this assignment”)

 The use of the word “like” has been the focus of Sociolinguists for a long time. First noted in
1970s as part of the “Valley Girl Speech”
 A 2000 case study by Dailey-O’Cain found that a linguistic variable such as “like” tends to be
more used by younger people, and slightly more by women/girls. And the ideologies
associated with the new functions of the term were “friendly”, “successful”, “cheerful” but

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 also “less intelligent” and “less interesting” =people could stylize themselves to appear
younger by employing the term in its new functions.
 A 2001 study by Singler claims that people well over their thirties keep using the word,
which indicates a possible example of language change.

Language variations: the three waves

Three waves of variationist sociolinguistics:

1. First wave: correlations between linguistic variation and sociodemographic categories
(Labov’s department store study)
2. Second wave: ethnographic methods to identify local categories
3. Third wave: variation constructs social meaning (focus on styles)

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