An Introduction to Sociolinguistics

Companion Website xiii List of Figures xiv List of Tables xv Preface xvi Acknowledgments xvii 1 Introduction 1 Key Concepts 1 Knowledge of Language 3 Competence and performance 4 Variation 5 Speakers and Their Groups 7 Language and Culture 10 Directions of influence 10 The Whorfian hypothesis 11 Correlations 14 The Boundaries of Sociolinguistics 15 Methodological Concerns 17 Data 18 Research design 18 Overview of the Book 19 Chapter Summary 20 Exercises 20 Further Reading 22 References 22 Part I Languages and Communities 25 2 Languages, Dialects, and Varieties 27 Key Concepts 27 Language or Dialect? 28 Mutual intelligibility 29 The role of social identity 32 Standardization 33 The standard as an abstraction 34 The standardization process 35 The standard and language change 36 Standard English? 36 The standard-dialect hierarchy 37 Regional Dialects 38 Dialect continua 39 Dialect geography 39 Everyone has an accent 40 Social Dialects 42 Kiezdeutsch 'neighborhood German' 43 Ethnic dialects 45 African American Vernacular English 46 Features of AAVE 47 Development of AAVE 48 Latino Englishes 50 Styles, Registers, and Genres 52 Style 52 Register 53 Genre 53 Chapter Summary 54 Exercises 54 Further Reading 56 References 57 3 Defining Groups 62 Key Concepts 62 Speech Communities 63 Linguistic boundaries 63 Shared norms 65 Communities of Practice 68 Social Networks 70 Social Identities 72 Beliefs about Language and Social Groups 74 Ideologies 75 Perceptual dialectology 76 Chapter Summary 77 Exercises 77 Further Reading 78 References 79 4 Languages in Contact: Multilingual Societies and Multilingual Discourse 82 Key Concepts 82 Multilingualism as a Societal Phenomenon 83 Competencies and convergence in multilingual societies 84 Language ideologies surrounding multilingualism 85 Linguistic landscapes 86 Language attitudes in multilingual settings 88 Diglossia 90 Domains 91 Language attitudes and ideologies 92 Language learning 93 The statuses of the H and L varieties 93 Extended diglossia and language maintenance 94 Questioning diglossia 95 Multilingual Discourse 96 Metaphorical and situational code-switching 97 Accommodation and audience design 98 The Markedness Model 101 Multilingual identities 102 Chapter Summary 105 Exercises 106 Further Reading 109 References 110 5 Contact Languages: Structural Consequences of Social Factors 114 Key Concepts 114 Lingua Francas 115 Pidgin and Creole Languages: Definitions 116 Connections between P/C languages and second language acquisition 119 Pidgin and Creole Formation 120 Theories of creole genesis 121 Geographical Distribution 123 Linguistic Characteristics of P/C Languages 124 Phonology 125 Morphosyntax 125 Vocabulary 126 From Pidgin to Creole and Beyond 127 Creole continuum? 129 Other Contact Varieties: Mixed Languages 131 Chapter Summary 133 Exercises 133 Further Reading 134 References 134 Part II Inherent Variety 139 6 Language Variation 141 Key Concepts 141 Regional Variation 142 Mapping dialects 142 Methods in dialectology 145 Dialect mixture and free variation 147 Linguistic atlases 147 The Linguistic Variable 148 Variants 149 Types of linguistic variables 149 Variation in New York City 150 Variation in Norwich 150 Variation in Detroit 151 Indicators, markers, and stereotypes 151 Social Variation 152 Social class membership 153 Social networks 157 Data Collection and Analysis 157 The observer's paradox 157 The sociolinguistic interview 158 Sampling 159 Apparent time and real time 161 Correlations: dependent and independent variables 161 Quantitative sociolinguistics 162 Chapter Summary 165 Exercises 165 Further Reading 166 References 166 7 Three Waves of Variation Studies 169 Key Concepts 169 The First Wave of Variation Studies 170 Early work on gender variation 170 The fourth floor 172 Variation in Norwich 175 Variation in Detroit 177 Variation in Glasgow 180 Linguistic constraints on variation 181 The Second Wave of Variation Studies 185 Social networks in Belfast 185 Gender variation in the second wave 187 Jocks and burnouts 188 The Third Wave of Variation Studies 189 Stance 190 Chapter Summary 192 Exercises 192 Further Reading 193 References 194 8 Language Variation and Change 196 Key Concepts 196 The Traditional View 197 Externally motivated change 197 Trees and waves 199 Some Changes in Progress 199 The Northern Cities Vowel Shift 201 Change across space: urban centers and physical barriers 202 Change over time or age-grading? 203 Martha's Vineyard 204 Gender and language change 208 Language change and the linguistic marketplace 211 The Process of Change 213 Change from above and below 214 Social network theory and language change 216 Lifestyle and language change 217 Lexical diff usion 218 Chapter Summary 219 Exercises 219 Further Reading 220 References 221 Part III Language and Interaction 225 9 Ethnographic Approaches in Sociolinguistics 227 Key Concepts 227 The Ethnography of Communication 230 Communicative competence 230 SPEAKING 232 Ethnography and beyond 234 Ethnomethodology 235 Background knowledge as part of communication 236 Commonsense knowledge and practical reasoning 237 Garfinkel and his students: studies in ethnomethodology 239 Ethnomethodology and conversation analysis 241 Linguistic Ethnography 241 Chapter Summary 243 Exercises 243 Further Reading 245 References 245 10 Pragmatics 248 Key Concepts 248 Speech Acts 249 Performatives 249 Locutions, illocutionary acts, and perlocutions 251 Implicature 253 Maxims 253 The concept of cooperation 255 Politeness 256 Face 256 Positive and negative politeness 257 Politeness world-wide 258 Politeness and indirectness 261 Pronouns 263 Tu and vous: power and solidarity 263 Pronouns and positioning 266 Naming and Titles 266 Fluidity and change in address terms 269 Chinese comrades 270 Chapter Summary 272 Exercises 272 Further Reading 275 References 276 11 Discourse Analysis 280 Key Concepts 280 Conversation Analysis 281 Adjacency pairs 283 Openings 284 Closings 285 Turn-taking 287 Repair 289 Institutional talk 290 Interactional Sociolinguistics 291 Data and methodologies 293 Contextualization 295 Stance 296 Intercultural communication 297 Critical Discourse Analysis 298 Contrasts and critiques 299 Methodologies and connections 299 Chapter Summary 302 Exercises 303 Further Reading 304 References 305 Part IV Sociolinguistics and Social Justice 309 12 Language, Gender, and Sexuality 311 Key Concepts 311 Defining Terms: Gender, Sex Category, and Sexuality 312 Sexist Language 314 Grammatical gender marking 315 Language change 316 Discourses of Gender and Sexuality 319 Some common Discourses 319 Deficit, Dominance, Difference, and Identities 321 Women's language 324 Dominance 324 Difference 325 Gender and sexuality identities 328 Chapter Summary 332 Exercises 332 Further Reading 333 References 334 13 Sociolinguistics and Education 339 Key Concepts 339 Social Dialects and Education 341 Restricted and elaborated codes 341 Difference not defi cit 343 Role of the home dialect in education 345 African American Vernacular English and education 346 Applied sociolinguistics 350 Multilingual Education 351 Ideologies 351 Use of minority languages in the classroom 352 Elite and immigrant bilingualism 354 Education and World-Wide English 356 Circles of English 356 Elite closure 357 English in Europe 359 Chapter Summary 360 Exercises 360 Further Reading 361 References 362 14 Language Policy and Planning 367 Key Concepts 367 Terminology, Concepts, and Development of the Field 367 Types of language planning 368 The intellectual history of LPP 371 Data and methods 372 LPP and Nationalization 373 LPP in Turkey: orthography and purity 373 LPP in the Soviet Union and the post-Soviet era: from Russifi cation to nationalization 375 Official monolingualism in France 377 Multilingual policy in Belgium 377 LPP in Post- and Neo-Colonial Contexts 378 Kenya 379 India 380 LPP in the United States and Canada 381 The United States of America 381 Canada 383 Multilingual Countries and LPP 385 Papua New Guinea 385 Singapore 386 Endangered Languages and the Spread of English 387 Endangered languages 387 English world-wide 388 Chapter Summary 392 Exercises 392 Further Reading 392 References 393 Glossary 398 Index 422