An Introduction to Sociolinguistics

GLOSSARY: Aboriginal languages: The languages spoken by Aboriginal Australiand before the arrival of English colonizers. Aboriginal English is the technical name given to a continuum of varieties of English ranging between standard Australian English and creoles used by Aboriginal Australians. Acrolect: When decreolization takes place, i.e., a creole language coexists with a standard language and the latter exerts some influence of the former, a range of varieties develop. In such a situation a continuum appears in the language and speakers in that speech community show a range of different pronunciation features, which are usually associated with social stratification. The acrolect is the top and educated variety which is closer to the standard and further away from the creole. The acrolect can evolve into a New English. African American Vernacular English (AAVE): Sometimes called Black English Vernacular, Black English, or Ebonics, it refers to the language spoken in black communities in the USA. Some linguists consider it a significantly different linguistic system from grammatical structure, idiomatic usage, vocabulary, etc. In the 1960s the issue of AAVE became a source of concern in the education system as it was perceived that black students performed below average in schools and the reason was thought to lie in their language skills. It was considered that Black English speakers had to face the double load of having to deal with linguistic differences in the classroom as well as in the course content. This issue has been a source of concern ever since. Analytic language: Languages can be classified into typological categories based on how words are formed. An analytic language is one in which words tend to be one syllable long with no affixes, as in Chinese or Vietnamese. The function of words in a sentence is shown primarily by word order. Analytic languages are also known as isolating languages. Auxiliary language: It is a language that is used for a special purpose and has, among others, a specific functional goal. Pidgins are auxiliary languages but there are also instances of artificial auxiliary languages such as Esperanto, Business English, Maritime English and Air-Traffic Control English. These languages 1

An Introduction to Sociolinguistics

sometimes have a specialized jargon and that tends to be the most difficult part as they are not very complex from a syntactic point of view. Basilect: When decreoliztion takes place, i.e., a creole language coexists with a standard language and the latter exerts some influence on the former, a range of varieties develop. In such a situation a continuum appears in the language and speakers in that speech community show a range of different pronunciation features, which are usually associated with social stratification. The basilect is the bottom variety which is closer to the creole and further away from the standard. Bidialectal: This term is closely related to bilingualism. In the same way that someone speaking two languages would be considered bilingual, someone who can use two dialects can be considered bidialectal. It all depends, of course, on what is considered a dialect, but the ground definition would be a variant of a language due to geographical differences. Nevertheless, being bidialectal implies that the differences between the concerned codes is not so great as to prevent mutual intelligibility. Black English Vernacular: This term refers to the non-standard English spoken by lower-class African American in US urban communities. This term substituted Black English which assumed that all black people used the same variety. It has been demonstrated that the differences that distinguish Black English from standard English are paralleled in varieties of Black language spoken in other parts of the world such as the Caribbean and West Africa. In the UK, Black English is the result of the linguistic change from creole languages spoken by Afro-Caribbean immigrants which are influenced by English as a dominant language in the UK. This language has also become more English-like for the UK-born descendants of these former immigrants. Borrowing: This term is used in comparative and historical linguistics to refer to words or phrases which have spread from one language or dialect and are used in another. Although less evidently and less frequently, borrowings can also occur at a different linguistic level such as syntactic. The borrowing language may have various ways of incorporating the foreign form into the recipient languages phonology, morphology and syntax. Borrowing can be originated by a wide range of different causes including:

An Introduction to Sociolinguistics

a) Close contact between two or more language codes in multilingual situations which favors the transfer of elements. b) The domination of some languages by others due to cultural, economic, political, religious or other reasons. c) A sense of need because technology or culture advances more rapidly in countries speaking certain languages. d) A sense of prestige associated with words or expressions coming from other languages. The differences between code-switching and borrowing is not always clear. There is no doubt in the case of historically transferred forms which have settled in the target language (e.g. words like castle, forest and tempest come from French, and words like call, egg, and law come from Norse). Code-switching, however, is spontaneous, affects all levels of linguistic structure simultaneously and is unstable as it depends on the context and the relationship between the speakers (e.g., the Spanglish that is often heard in places such as Gibraltar or Texas). On some other occasions, borrowings may resemble code-switches because they maintain a foreign status and retain another languages syntax (e.g., Fixed phrases from Latin: ad hoc, since qua non, etc.) Co-ordinate bilingual: This term applies to someone who has learnt two languages and both languages have been learnt in different contexts, and they are kept distinct. It probably entails the existence of two meaning systems with two different words. This raises the question whether both languages develop together or separately in the brain. Neurolinguistic findings suggest that words are stored together in the case of early bilingualism, from childhood, but kept in separate places if bilingualism was developed later. Communicative competence: This term was first introduces by the American anthropological linguist Dell Hymes in opposition to chomskian conception of native speakers linguistic competence which referred to the linguistic intuitions of an idealized native speaker. Dell Hymes considered that the linguistic knowledge of grammar, pronunciation and lexicon is not enough as speakers also have other types of linguistic knowledge about how to use that language properly in society. This additional knowledge allows speakers to be sensitive to some determining factors such as the context, the type of interlocutor, and the register, for example. Communicative competence is acquired by native speakers of the language but it also needs to be acquired by non-native speakers, together with linguistic competence. The ethnography of speaking 3

An Introduction to Sociolinguistics

studies what is necessary to be communicatively competent in different speech communities. Compound bilingual: This term describes a situation in which one language has been learnt after the other and, therefore, through the first one. Both languages are closely connected as they are composed of a single meaning system with two words or labels for a single meaning. This raises the question whether both languages develop together or separately in the brain. Neurolinguistic findings suggest that words are stored together in the case of early bilingualism, for childhood, but kept in separate places if bilingualism was developed later. Corpus planning: This term refers to the actions undertaken in order to partially modify the nature or characteristics of a language in some way, for instance, decisions regarding what pronunciation to adopt from those available; decisions regarding what syntactic or morphological patterns to use; or, even what regional forms adopt as the standard. CP may also control the incorporation of new vocabulary. CP is closely related to status planning which refers to whether the status of a language could or should be raised or lowered. Dialect: Geographical variation affects languages in the form of dialects. This refers to how locality correlates with differences in the way people speak the language. People who speak a dialect often use different words or pronunciations for the same words. This type of variation may also affect syntactic and intonation patterns. Nowadays, dialect variation tends to diminish due to the fact that the media and the communication infrastructures have a homogenizing effect on languages. Sometimes the distinction between dialects and languages is not quite clear as sociopolitical factors may play an important role in the decision. It must be added that not even dialectologists agree on a single definition of dialect. Dialectology: It is the study and search for idiosyncratic features in language use within a geographical area. Dialectologists usually analyze the typical vocabulary, pronunciation, intonation, patterns, and other characteristics, and try to match these with specific geographic areas. Discourse analysis: This field of research refers to the analysis of linguistic units above the sentence level, i.e., texts or conversations. By analyzing written or aural 4

An Introduction to Sociolinguistics

texts, discourse analysts explore the different functions of language in social interaction. Discourse markers: These are words, phrases or sounds that have no content meaning but, however, play an important role in marking conversational structure, signaling conversational intentions and assuring cooperation on the part of listeners. Some discourse markers in English are: actually, really, Oh, Yeah, etc. Notice that the types of discourse markers and their uses frequently change across languages. Domain: This term refers to the combination of social and situational factors that generally influence the choice of code by speakers: code, dialect, location, register, style, topic, etc. For example, the language of home will definitely be different to the language used at a formal meeting at work. The same speaker will use different styles, an informal one for the former situation and a formal one for the latter. This concept is frequently used in studies of code-switching in multilingual contexts where various languages, dialects or styles are employed in different social settings. Dormant bilingual: Bilinguals who do not longer use their languages but who acquired them in the past and reached a comprehensive knowledge and command. Endangered language: Languages normally develop, merge or die, and whenever a language is at risk because the number of speakers decreases we can say that that language is endangered. This can be the result of many factors but bad or adverse language planning is generally behind the progressive disappearance of a language. Economics, or rather the lack of importance of a language for business, can cause its death. Many Amerindian languages are in this situation at the moment. English-lexifier creole: This term refers to any creole which is English-based and therefore has received borrowings from English. Due to the post-creole continuum, that language may still be receiving words from English. Ethnography of communication: A term that in addition to the definition of the ethnography of speaking includes nonverbal aspects of communication, for instance, distance between speaker and hearer, eye contact, etc. 5

An Introduction to Sociolinguistics

Ethnography of speaking: This branch of sociolinguistic studies the norms and rules for using language in social situations in different cultures. This is the reason why it is so important for cross-cultural communication and that also accounts for its relation to communicative competence. The ethnography of speaking deals with aspects such as the different types of language to be used under different circumstances; how to make requests, grant permission, or ask a favor; the degree of indirectness desired in certain situations; how to express your opinion or interrupt your interlocutor; how and when to use formulaic language (greetings, thanking, etc.), etc. Ethnomethodology: This branch of sociology deals with the content of what is being said rather than the way it is being said. Ethnomethodologists do not study speech or language but the content of what is being said and, what is more what is not being said because of shared knowledge or common-sense knowledge. Heritage Language: This is a language spoken by an immigrant group or individual in another country. For example, in Canada, a country largely composed of immigrants, there are close to 200 languages spoken by these types of groups. This term is to be distinguished from Indigenous Language which also refers to a minority language but in this case alludes to the natives of that land. In Canada, for instance, about 50 indigenous languages are spoken some of which are only spoken in that country, and none of which is considered an official language of Canada. Hypercorrection: A manifestation of linguistic insecurity, for instance, in a social group. It can manifest itself by the overuse of the socially desired forms in careful speech or reading, especially in an attempt to speak or write in an educated manner. For instance, a speaker of a non-standard variety of English may practice more self-correction when speaking formally and make use of more sophisticated vocabulary or a more clear pronunciation. Informant: In empirical research this term refers to any person who provides information to be analyzed and is consequently a source of data for the researcher. A native speaker providing insights of his/her use of language is an informant, but also a student who attends a class that is being observed to gather information about the students progress. Interference: 6

An Introduction to Sociolinguistics

In language teaching and learning this term is used to refer to any negative influence (e.g., lexical, syntactic, phonological, etc.) that one language exerts over the other, either the L1 on the L2 or vice versa. Interference usually hinders the learning process and causes a problem to the language learner whereas positive interlinguistic influence helps or favors the language learner. Language Academy: In some countries like Spain, France, Ireland, Norway, etc., there are institutions which play a role in safeguarding standards, so they try to regulate the evolution of the language by means of protecting the language from foreign unwanted influences and, in a way, by trying to control the evolution of language. This sort of control is more likely to be successful in written language than in spoken language and the task is rather difficult these days when the media exerts considerable influence on languages all over the world and globalization threatens the preservation of minority languages and the integrity of others. Language attrition: Gradual language loss. This term can refer to the loss of a mother tongue that has been acquired and due to lack of use probably because it is not the language of the community it is gradually forgotten. This happens quite frequently among the second and the third generation of immigrants. In second language learning, it can refer to the loss of a language that was learnt through formal instruction but gradually forgotten after a period of disuse. Language conflict: In multilingual situations languages are frequently in some sort of conflict caused by ideological, political or economical reasons. Some issues typically generate problems in multilingual settings such as decisions regarding the election of an official language, the choice of a given language for formal education, or the selection of a language to be used in courts, among others. Another typical situation of language conflict occurs when two or more languages compete for status in society. Many current language conflicts result from different social status and governments preferential treatment of the dominant language. Language election/selection: Some developing countries, at some point, need to make decisions with regards to their sociopolitical evolution and their international recognition. For instance, Mozambique adopted Portuguese, the former colonial language, as its official language. Something similar happened to India, 7

An Introduction to Sociolinguistics

which in spite of an initial desire to detach from their former colony, later assumed English as an additional office language. These decisions are normally made for practical purposes either because the non-state needs a agglutinative language to overcome a wide linguistic variety and/ or because some advantages are seen in the possibility of having a LWC as an official language. Language functions: Language is frequently described as having three main functions: descriptive, expressive, and social. The descriptive function of language is to carry factual information. The expressive function of language is to provide information about the speakers personal feelings, preferences, etc. And the social function of language serves the purpose of maintaining social relations between people. Language loss: This term refers to a situation where language shift in a speech community ends in the total shift to another language. For instance, imagine a group of immigrants that go to a new country and, gradually, in one or two generations blend into the new speech community as their language becomes eventually extinct (e.g., the language loss of Dutch immigrants in Australia). This phenomenon would be referred as language death if a language shift ends with the total loss of a language from the world, i.e., all speakers shift to a different one (e.g., Manx on the Isle of Man). Language Policy Division: This department of the EU is located in Strasburg and has responsibility for actions concerning the progress of language education policies within the EU member states. This division is in charge of the elaboration of guidelines and policies related to language learning and the development of policy planning regarding linguistic diversity. Among other responsibilities, they (a) assist member states with policy evaluation and depiction (at national and local levels); (b) elaborate instruments for policy analysis; (c) provide assistance regarding linguistic minorities language education; etc. Language revitalization: Language planning efforts made in order to revive a language that because of social or economic reasons has decreased in number of speakers which was even lost. A language shift can lead to the spread of a dominant language and the loss of the minority language. The reasons underlying LR can vary but they are often caused by a groups search for cultural and/or ethnic identity of a group. The best example of successful LR is Hebrew which was a classical liturgical language for centuries and is now a living 8

An Introduction to Sociolinguistics

language. An instance of a not so successful program to revitalize a language is Irish in Ireland where governmental efforts and programs have tried to reintroduce the use of Irish in schools without much success. Language spread: It consists of an increase in the use of a language or language variety for a given communicative function by a specific social or ethnic group. LS can either refer to a traditional language within a speech community or a language that is adopted as lingua franca of LWC, as has been the case of English during the 20th century. Languages also spread within a nation as a new mother tongue instead of as an additional language and in that case we would rather talk about language shift. Extreme cases can even lead to language death as has happened with the spread of Spanish and English in America resulting in the loss of many Amerindian languages. Lexifier: This term refers to the language from which most of the vocabulary has been taken to form a pidgin or creole. English, French, Spanish and Portuguese have been lexifier as a consequence of the former colonial past of countries speaking native languages. The contact between one or more of these European languages and a native language favoured the development of pidgins and creoles in different parts of the world. Lingua franca: It is a language which is usually used by speakers who have different mother tongues and, therefore, need a common language to communicate among them. Lingua francas have existed since ancient times (e.g. Greek koin, Arabic, Mandarin,e tc.) but the most remarkable example nowadays is English, which is spoken by some people as a mother tongue, many others use it as a second language, and still others as a foreign language, but, as a rule, it serves as a lingua franca for international and intercultural communication. In spite of being widely used, the knowledge of different speakers may vary considerably depending, quite often, on the domains where the language is to be used and the functions it is meant to accomplish. Linguistic competence: It refers to lexical, phonological, syntactical knowledge and skills and other dimensions of language as system, independently of the sociolinguistic value of its variation and the pragmatic functions of its realizations. This component relates to the range and quality of knowledge (e.g., in terms of phonetic distinctions made or the extent and precision of vocabulary) but

An Introduction to Sociolinguistics

also to cognitive organization and the way this knowledge is stored (activation, recall, etc.). LWC: (Language of Wider Communication) This term is equivalent to lingua franca. Two instances of LWC in the times of the Roman Empire are Latin in the west and koin Greek in the east. After WWII, English became a LWC. It is a language used by speakers of different languages to communicate with each other. Macro-sociolinguistics: This term refers to the study of sociolinguistic aspects in large groups of speakers as opposed to micro-sociolinguistics that studies areas related to small groups. Macro-sociolinguistics deals with the relationship between sociological factors and language as, for example, language planning, language shift and multilingual matters. Mesolect: When decreolization takes place, i.e., a creole language coexists with a standard language and the latter exerts some influence on the former, a range of varieties develop. In such a situation a continuum appears in the language and speakers in that speech community show a range of different pronunciation features, which are usually associated with social stratification. The mesolect is the intermediate variety, or varieties, which is between the creole and the standard. Micro-sociolinguistics: The study of sociolinguistics in relation to small groups of speakers, speech communities or the speech of individuals. This branch of sociolinguistics deals, for example, with the analysis of face-to-face interaction and discourse analysis. This term is used in opposition to macro-sociolinguistics which refers to larger scale study of language in society. Minority language: These are languages that live in the shadow of a culturally dominant language which puts the minority language at risk. As a result of political or social factors, these languages are very often not the languages of all areas of activity by native speakers as they can be excluded from certain spheres as administration, education, or mass media (e.g., Scottish Gaelic is widely used in church but marginally in other social gatherings). These factors often require speakers of minority languages to be bilingual as they will need to operate in at least two languages. Minority languages may be or may have been at some point in their history at risk either by political decisions affecting their maintenance or by the lack of vocabulary to cover 10

An Introduction to Sociolinguistics

certain topics. Some actions can be undertaken to promote minority languages by means of language planning and language policies. Some instances of minority languages are Irish, Welsh and Scottish Gaelic which exists in the shadow of English, or Breton in the shadow of French. Native speaker: A person who has spoken a language since early childhood. This term is rather controversial in linguistics because it assumes the existence of a speaker that can be appealed in questions of correct usage because s/he is reported to represent the authority that can determine correct or deviant usage. Native and non-native are not clear cut homogenous categories as variation depending on individual factors (origin, education, etc.) is enormous and all speakers are, in turn, native speakers of a given language or dialect. In second language learning they have traditionally represented the model to follow in the process of learning but this has proven to be an inefficient approach as the process of first and second language learning are naturally and necessarily different. Moreover, recent studies have shown that, contrary to popular belief, native speaker introspection is an unreliable guide to actual usage. New Englishes: This term refers to any of the varieties of English that have emerged as a consequence of the ample spread of this language during the colonial period. Examples of New Englishes are the English spoken in India, Kenya, Singapore or Jamaica, among others. Also known as World Englishes, it does not emphasize the recognition of English as an international language that shows formal and functional variation in different contexts, as a result of its use in multilingual and multicultural contexts. Observers paradox: A term developed by William Labov to refer to a phenomenon that takes place when doing sociolinguistic research. The issue raises when the sociolinguistic needs to gather data from a single speaker or a group of speakers in a speech community. The problem is that observing and gathering (for instance, recording) that speech is difficult because as soon as the informants realize that they are being observed they can and consciously or unconsciously they generally do change their speech and make use of a less natural talk (e.g., more careful pronunciation, less idiomatic expressions, a variety further away from the vernacular, etc.). What really interests sociolinguistics is the way people speak when they do not know that hey are being observed. Pragmatic competence:

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An Introduction to Sociolinguistics

This term is concerned with the functional use of linguistic resources (production of language functions, speech acts, etc.) used on aural communication or scripts of interactional exchanges. IT also concerns the mastery of discourse, cohesion and coherence, the identification of text types and forms, irony, parody, etc. Pragmatics: It is a branch of linguistics that studies the use of language in communication, i.e., the relationships between utterances and the contexts and situations in which they are used. Within pragmatics, discourse analysis studies language in discourse. Proficiency: It is someones skill in using a language, generally as a second language. This term describes the degree of skill that someone has attained in a language and his/her ability over the four basic skills: speaking, reading, writing and listening. (Proto) Indo- European: Languages can be classified genetically. This classification involves comparing the structure of different languages in order to show common parentage. Indo-European is the best- known language family. The major Indo-European subgroups are: Indo-Iranian, Armenina, Albanina, Anatolian, Hellenic, Italic, Celtic, Baltic, Slavic, and Germanic. English belongs to the Anglo-Frisian group of the West Germanic branch of the Germanic subfamily. AN unattested (reconstructed) language is indicated by the term proto-. Sabir: This was a lingua franca used in the Mediterranean area from the Middle Ages to the 20th C. It is interesting to know that this language has been kept stable for centuries in spite of not having native speakers and being just a contact language used by speakers that do not share a common language. The origin of pidgins is not clear and there is an ongoing debate about it, but some specialists, the monogeneticists, suggest that all pidgins based on an European language derive from this lingua franca. Sociolinguistic competence: This term refers to the sociocultural conditions of language use. Through its sensitivity to social conventions (rules of politeness, norms governing relations between generations, sexes, classes and social groups, linguistic codification of certain fundamental rituals, etc.), the sociolinguistic component strictly affects all language communication between 12

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representatives of different cultures, even though participants may often be unaware of its influence. Sociolinguistic interview: It is a technique to collect speech samples to gather information about a given speaker, or group of speakers, in a speech community. This qualitative method of research is of prime importance for the sociolinguist as it provides face-to-face interaction with the informant with a technique that allows recording for later analysis. Sociolinguistic relativity: When people coming from different social and linguistic backgrounds interact, quite naturally they tend to analyze and judge each others system and taking their own system as a reference. The more interaction with different cultures, dialects, registers, etc. the more referents speakers will have and, therefore, the more capable they will be of perceiving their culture and way of thinking as just one of many. This way, speakers may be able to understand and shape their own perception of cultural and sociolinguistic identities. Sociolinguistic relativity entails the acknowledgement of sociolinguistic diversity. Sociology of language: This term refers to a branch of sociolinguistics that studies large scale processes of interaction between language and its use in society. Also referred to as macro-sociolinguistics, it deals with the relationship between sociological factors and language, especially language choice. Some of the issues studied by the sociology of language are language planning, multilingualism, and language shift. Speech act: It is an utterance that represents a functional unit in interaction. Utterances can have a locutionary meaning or an illocutionary meaning. The former refers to the basic literal meaning of the utterance which is conveyed by the particular words and structures used. The latter refers to the effect the utterance has on the listener, or the text on the reader. Status planning: This term refers to actions aiming at raising or lowering the status of a language or dialect and which basically refers to decisions regarding the selection of particular varieties for particular purposes or communicative functions. SP is closely related to corpus planning as language planning policies can never be solely corpus-oriented or status-oriented.

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An Introduction to Sociolinguistics

Synchronic variation: This term refers to the instances and characteristics of variation which occur at the present time in language. That is, the way variation affects language at a given time in history, for instance: gender, register, style, etc. Diachronic variation, however, looks at language from a historical point of view and considers linguistic change through time. Synthetic language: In inflectional languages words have a number of suffixes which vary their shape according to the word they are added to. A single suffix can express a number of different grammatical concepts, as in Latin. Synthetic languages are also known as inflectional. Turn-taking: In conversation analysis this term describes the fundamental mechanisms on which conversation is based, that is, the right and/or obligation to speak with the interlocutor. General conversational patterns are arranged in a way that only one speaker speaks at a time but the way turn-taking is organized depends on cultural specific factors. Conversation needs to be two-way otherwise it turns into a monologue. Variety: This term is used to refer to a sort of language that is considered as a separate entity for some reason but which generally shares a great deal of common features with a standard or other varieties. Therefore, it is not considered a different language. A given dialect, accent, style or register can be considered a variety, which is a term preferred by linguists as it is less loaded. Language varieties can be very wide spread and standardized such as Australian English or American English but they can also be very localized such as Cockney (in London) and Scouse (in Liverpool).

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