James E.

Porter: Intertextuality and the discourse community (1986)

10/13/2009 15 Comments Old knowledge: Vygotskys web of meaning Poststructuralists label Text or Writing; distant age knew as logos p. 34 Intertext is Text a great seamless textual fabric p .34

Intertextuality has been associated with structuralism and poststructuralism Barthes, Kristeva, Derrida, Hayden, White, Bloom, Foucault, Riffaterre p. 35 Vincent Leitch The text is not an autonomous or unified object, but a set of relations with other texts. Its system of language, its grammar, its lexicon, drag along numerous bits and piecestracesof history so that the text resembles a Cultural Salvation Army Outlet with unaccountable collections of incompatible ideas, beliefs, and sources p. 35 The traditional notion of text Single book by an author, or the notion of author and reader-convenient fictions for domesticating discourse p. 35 Those who prefer a broader conception of intertext or who look beyond the intertext to the social framework regulating textual production: Foucault the discursive formation; Fish the interpretive community; and Bizzell the discourse community p. 38 Poststructuralist perspective Classical assumption that writing is a simple, linear, one-way movement: The writer creates a text which produces some change in an audience p. 40 Problem(s): Intertextuality provides rhetoric with an important perspective, one currently neglected p. 34 Authorial intention is less significant than social context; the writer is simply a part of a discourse tradition, a member of a team, and a participant in a community of discourse that creates its own collective meaning. Thus intertext constrains writing p. 35 Question of inquiry: Porter seeks to explicate intertextuality and its relationship(?) to the idea of discourse community(ies) Purpose of writing:

 Porter wants to demonstrate the significance of this theory of rhetoric, by explaining intertextuality, its connections to the notion of discourse community, and its pedagogical implications for composition p. 35 New knowledge (major thesis & key points): Two types of intertextuality: 1. Iterability The repeatability of certain textual fragments, to citation in its broadest sense to include not only explicit allusions, references, and quotations within a discourse, but also unannounced sources and influences, clichs, phrases in the air, and traditions p. 35 2. Presupposition Refers to assumptions a text makes about its referent, its readers, and its contextto portions of the text which are read, but which are not explicitly there p. 35 Writing is an attempt to exercise the will, to identify the self within the constraints of some discourse community. P. 41 Constrained by Borrowing the traces, codes, and signs which we inherit and which our discourse community imposes p. 41 Intertextuality is not new p. 41

To what extent is the writers product itself a part of a larger community writing process? How does the discourse influence writers and readers in it? P. 42 Intertextuality suggests that our goal should be to help students learn to write for the discourse communities they choose to join. Students need help developing out of what Joseph Williams calls their pre-socialized cognitive states p. 42 Pre-socialized writers are not sufficiently immersed in their discourse community to produce competent discourse: They do not know what can be presupposed, are not consciousness of the distinctive intertextuality of the community, may be only superficially acquainted with explicit conventions p. 42 Intertextuality has the potential to affect all facets of our composition pedagogy p. 42 Rethink our ideas about plagiarism p. 42

Current pedagogies assume that when writers analyze audiences they should focus on the expected flesh-and-blood readers. Intertextuality suggests that the proper focus of audience analysis is not the audience as receivers per se, but the intertext of the discourse community pp. 42-43 The two problems of doing a critical reading of discourse communities: 1. Limited range generally overemphasize literary or expressive discourse p. 43

2. Unclear context frequently remove readings from their original contexts, thus disguising the intertextual nature p. 43 Notable: 1 Maimons Readings in the arts and sciences; 2 - Kinneavys Writing in the liberal arts tradition; and 3 Bazermans The informed writer p. 43 Writing assignments should be explicitly intertextual p. 43 Dialectic nature of writing assignments within discourse communities p. 43 More community oriented than topic oriented p. 43

Intertextual theory suggests that the key criteria for evaluating writing should be acceptability within the discourse community including (but goes beyond) adherence to formal conventions, choosing he right topic, applying the appropriate critical methodology, adhering to standards for evidence and validity, and in general adopting the communitys discourse valuesand of course borrowing the appropriate traces p .43 Students need see writers whose products are more evidently part of a larger process and whose work more clearly produces meaning in social contexts p. 44 Methodology(ies) used: Porter examines three texts to illustrate the various facets of intertextuality: Text 1 The Declaration of Independence (borrowing from other texts, Locke)

Text 2 A Pepsi commercial (borrowing from other forums, the movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind) Text 3 John Kifners New York Times article reporting on the Kent State incident of 1970 (two of them women, presupposes a sexist attitude, but also uses of other words, such as volley and lobbed, suggesting something distinctly American) All texts borrowed something from somewhere else (other texts, as well as ideas) pp. 3638

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Porter asserts that writers are collectors and he uses an archeology metaphor to support and develop this idea: writers collect fragments (of texts) from the past and put them together to create new meanings. Texts rely on other texts to create meaning, a notion called intertextuality (a term coined by Kristeva in the 60s): the principle that all writing and speechindeed, all signsarise from a single network (34). He also uses a sewing metaphor to explain how writers piece together texts to create new discourses. Porter argues that intertextual theory and the abandonment of authorial intentionthe idea that the author is the only creator of meaning and the herocan be beneficially applied to rhetoric. Learning to see texts and writers in this way does require us to look at research, plagiarism, and the author in a new regard, in a non traditional light that will most likely go against most readers definition of what authorship and writing are. Intertextuality allows the audience, or it provides them with a way to, create meaning. Porter gives a few examples of how this idea of intertextuality unfolds in the Declaration of Independence and in a pepsi commercial. He believes that teams are responsible for creating texts and the audience is responsible for the production of meaning the same way the author is responsible for constructing meaning. In the next section Porter defines and discusses discourse communities. He is critical of the discourse community because of its power to constrain the writer and shape their literary moves. To become a part of a discourse community there are so many things we have to do in order to be heard and that can be exclusionary according to Porter. He says that Writing is an attempt to exercise the will to identify the self within the constraints of the discourse community (41). Porter suggests we move away from the glorification of the writer and examine questions like To what extent is the writers product itself a part of a larger community writing process? How does the discourse community influence writers and readers within it? This is where he supports WAC because each discipline has its own discourse community that the student must navigate through. Porter also suggests that we reexamine the way we teach audience awareness and focus more on questions that get at the intertext: What are the conventional presuppositions of this community? In what forums do they assemble? What are the methodological assumptions? What is considered evidence, valid argument, and proof? (43). He ends the essay asserting that we should create assignments that are intertextual and part of a dialecticwhich is also part of the larger discourse community. Writing letters in response to articles is one kind of dialectic (43). Remember that intertextuality is not just about direct references but also about codes and genres that must be understood for the text to work. Also, these codes and genres can be interpreted differently by each individual. Consumers of texts bring there own interpretation of these codes to make sense out of the text. We bring our own texts to the interpretation of new texts. More Questions for Discussion: How do commercials and TV shows rely on intertextuality to work? What does this say about plagiarism as a construction? How does this article help you understand that texts are constructs and therefore knowledge and information is a construct? Possible In-Class Assignments: Read a section of Barthes S/Z and discuss the death of the author and how that theory relates to intertextuality. In class, discuss a variety of texts and their intertextuality, including websites and videos. Did You Know uses a variety of textual traces. Examples of intertextuality: Look for this idea in TV series like The Simpsons, Dallas; movies like Raiders of the Lost Ark. From Dunnes book: Intertextual Encounters in American Fiction, Film, and Pop Culture: He points out how P Diddys album No Way Out is merely samples from the Police, David Bowie, Grandmaster Flash, and many more. Jokes in Seinfeld rely on cultural allusion, generic familiarity, and self-referentiality to connect the present example with its presumed intertexts (125). Without some kind of understanding of American culture, the jokes make no sense, they rely on intertextuality to get the job doneto make the joke work. Compare the Simpsons version Those Were the Days with the original. Simpsons version: Link Simpsons Lyrics: Boy, the way the beegies played Movies John Travolta made Guessing how much Elvis weighed Those were the days And you knew where you were then Watching shows like "Gentle Ben" Mister we could use a man like sheriff lobo again "Disco Duck" and Fleetwood Mac Coming out of my eight track

Link Jstor David Bowie Vanilla Ice Music Samples Music Samples Music Samples

Halliday describes himself first and foremost as a grammarian. The first in his recently published 10 volumes of Collected Works is titled On Grammar. He adopted the term systemic-functional for his linguistic approach to describe two dimensions of language. Language is systemic because it is paradigmatically organised. What this means is that any piece of language on any scale can be described as the output of a system of choices. For instance, a major clause must display some structure that is the formal realization of a choice from the system of voice, i.e. it must be either middle or effective, where effective leads to the further choice of operative (otherwise known as active) or receptive (otherwise known as passive). Halliday (1975) identifies seven functions that language has for children in their early years. Children are motivated to acquire language because it serves certain purposes or functions for them. The first four functions help the child to satisfy physical, emotional and social needs. Halliday calls them instrumental, regulatory, interactional, and personal functions.

Instrumental: This is when the child uses language to express their needs (e.g.Want juice) Regulatory: This is where language is used to tell others what to do (e.g. Go away) Interactional: Here language is used to make contact with others and form relationships (e.g. Love you, mummy) Personal: This is the use of language to express feelings, opinions, and individual identity (e.g. Me good girl)

The next three functions are heuristic, imaginative, and representational, all helping the child to come to terms with his or her environment.

Heuristic: This is when language is used to gain knowledge about the environment (e.g. What the tractor doing?) Imaginative: Here language is used to tell stories and jokes, and to create an imaginary environment. Representational: The use of language to convey facts and information.

According to Halliday, as the child moves into the mother tongue, these functions give way to the three metafunctions of a fully tri-stratal language (one in which there is an additional level of content inserted between the two parts of the Saussurean sign[clarification needed]). These metafunctions are the ideational, the interpersonal, and the textual. Hallidays work represents a competing viewpoint to the formalist approach of Noam Chomsky. Hallidays concern is with what he claims to be naturally occurring language in actual contexts of use in a large typological range of languages whereas Chomsky is concerned only with the formal properties of languages such as English, which he thinks are indicative of the nature of what he calls Universal Grammar. Selected works

Halliday, M.A.K. (1973), Explorations in the functions of language. London, Edward Arnold. Halliday M.A.K. (1975), Learning how to mean. London: Edward Arnold. Halliday, M.A.K., and C.M.I.M. Matthiessen (2004). An Introduction to Functional Grammar. 3d ed. London: Arnold. Halliday, M.A.K. (2002),Linguistic studies of text and discourse, Ed. Jonathan Webster, Continuum International Publishing Halliday, M.A.K. (2003),On Language and Linguistics, Ed. Jonathan Webster, Continuum International Publishing Halliday, M.A.K. (2005), On Grammar, Ed. Jonathan Webster, Continuum International Publishing Halliday, M.A.K. (2006),The language of science , Ed. Jonathan Webster, Continuum International Publishing Halliday, M.A.K. (2006),Computational and quantitative studies, Ed. Jonathan Webster, Continuum International Publishing

See also

Thematic equative cline (linguistics) which notes Hallidays concept cline of instantiation Nominal group

External links and references

Systemic functional linguistics List of publications Halliday and SFL Overview Interview of Halliday by G Kress, R Hasan and JR Martin, May 1986 Gardiner, Alan: A level study guide, English Language Halliday, M.A.K. Explorations in the Functions of Language. London: Edward Arnold, 1973. Halliday, M.A.K., and C.M.I.M. Matthiessen. An Introduction to Functional Grammar. 3d ed. London: Arnold, 2004.

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Systemic functional grammar (SFG) or systemic functional linguistics (SFL)

Posted on January 28, 2011 | Leave a comment

Systemic functional grammar From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Systemic functional grammar (SFG) or systemic functional linguistics (SFL) is a model of grammar developed by Michael Halliday in the 1960s.[1] It is part of a broad social semiotic approach to language called systemic linguistics. The term systemic refers to the view of language as a network of systems, or interrelated sets of options for making meaning;[2] The term functional indicates that the approach is concerned with the contextualized, practical uses to which language is put, as opposed to formal grammar, which focuses on compositional semantics, syntax and word classes such as nouns and verbs. Systemic functional grammar is concerned primarily with the choices the grammar makes available to speakers and writers.[1] These choices relate speakers and writers intentions to the concrete forms of a language. Traditionally the choices are viewed in terms of either the content or the structure of the language used. In SFG, language is analysed in three different ways (strata): semantics, phonology, and lexicogrammar.[3] SFG presents a view of language in terms of both structure (grammar) and words (lexis). The term lexicogrammar describes this combined approach. Metafunctions According to SFG, functional bases of grammatical phenomena are divided into three broad areas, called metafunctions: the ideational, the interpersonaland the textual.[4] Written and spoken texts can be examined with respect to each of these metafunctions in register analyses.[5] Ideational metafunction The ideational metafunction is divided into two: experiential and logical metafunctions. The experiential metafunction organises our experience and understanding of the world. It is the potential of the language to construe figures with elements (such as screen shots of a moving picture or pictures of a comic novel) and its potential to differentiate these elements into processes, the participants in these processes, and the circumstances in which the processes occur. The logical metafunction works above the experiential. It organises our reasoning on the basis of our experience. It is the potential of the language to construe logical links between figures; for example, this happened after that happened or, with more experience, this happens every time that happens. The ideational metafunction relates to the field aspects of a text, or its subject matter and context of use.[6] Field is divided into three areas: semantic domain, specialisation, and angle of representation.[7] Within the semantic domain, SFG proponents examine the subject matter of a text through organising its nominal groups (nouns / noun phrases) and its lexical verbs, adjectives, and adverbs. These are the words that carry lexical meaning in a text, as opposed to function words, whose purpose is purely grammatical that is, their purpose lies only in relation to other words in the vicinity. Specialisation is partially determined through attention to jargon or other technical vocabulary items.[8] Examining the angle of representation involves a close look at types of processes, participants, and circumstances.[9]

Interpersonal metafunction The interpersonal metafunction relates to a texts aspects of tenor or interactivity.[10] Like field, tenor comprises three component areas: the speaker/writer persona, social distance, and relative social status.[11] Social distance and relative social status are applicable only to spoken texts.[12]. Note this is not so, looking at the text of OHalloran we are told that we no longer have the option to contrast the various speakers but we can examine how the individual authors present themselves to the reader, therefore, we are able to look at social distance and relative social status in texts where there is only one author. The speaker/writer persona concerns the stance, personalisation and standing of the speaker or writer. This involves looking at whether the writer or speaker has a neutral attitude, which can be seen through the use of positive or negative language. Social distance means how close the speakers are, e.g. how the use of nicknames shows the degree to which they are intimate. Relative social status asks whether they are equal in terms of power and knowledge on a subject, for example, the relationship between a mother and child would be considered unequal. Focuses here are on speech acts (e.g. whether one person tends to ask questions and the other speaker tends to answer), who chooses the topic, turn management, and how capable both speakers are of evaluating the subject.[13] Textual metafunction The textual metafunction relates to mode; the internal organisation and communicative nature of a text.[14] This comprises textual interactivity, spontaneity and communicative distance.[15] Textual interactivity is examined with reference to disfluencies such as hesitators, pauses and repetitions. Spontaneity is determined through a focus on lexical density, grammatical complexity, coordination (how clauses are linked together) and the use of nominal groups. The study of communicative distance involves looking at a texts cohesionthat is, how it hangs together, as well as any abstract language it uses. Cohesion is analysed in the context of both lexical and grammatical as well as intonational aspects[16] with reference to lexical chains[17] and, in the speech register, tonality, tonicity, and tone.[18] The lexical aspect focuses on sense relations and lexical repetitions, while the grammatical aspect looks at repetition of meaning shown through reference, substitution andellipsis, as well as the role of linking adverbials. Systemic functional grammar deals with all of these areas of meaning equally within the grammatical system itself. Childrens grammar Michael Halliday (1973) outlined seven functions of language with regard to the grammar used by children:[19]

the instrumental function serves to manipulate the environment, to cause certain events to happen; the regulatory function of language is the control of events;

the representational function is the use of language to make statements, convey facts and knowledge, explain, or report to represent reality as the speaker/writer sees it; the interactional function of language serves to ensure social maintenance; the personal function is to express emotions, personality, and gut-level reactions; the heuristic function used to acquire knowledge, to learn about the environment; the imaginative function serves to create imaginary systems or ideas.

Relation to other branches of grammar Hallidays theory sets out to explain how spoken and written texts construe meanings and how the resources of language are organised in open systems and functionally bound to meanings. This is a radically different theory of language from Noam Chomskys. It does not try to address Chomskys thesis that there is a finite rule system which generates all and only the grammatical sentences in a language.[citation needed] Instead of trying to determine all closed systems and listing all words of a language, Hallidays theory tries to determine noclosed system nor set of resources. In SFG, every system can be expanded with new resources and a system is a small set of resources that is closer to the grammatical than the lexical end of the lexicogrammatical continuum. This means that no grammatical system is not expansible by the use of a new resource and, instead of postulating that a sentence is grammatical or ungrammatical, SFG documents the relative frequencies of choices and assumes these relative frequencies reflect the probability that each resource will be chosen. Thus, SFG does not describe language as a finite rule system, but rather as a system realised by instantiations which is continuously expanded by the very instantiations that realise it and which is continuously reduced with the birth of newer generations and the death of older ones. Another way to understand the difference in concerns between functional and generative grammars is through Chomskys claim that linguistics is a sub-branch of psychology. Halliday investigates linguistics as though it were a sub-branch of sociology. SFG therefore pays much more attention to pragmatics and discourse semantics, rather than an easily computableformalism. Systemic functional grammar has been used to derive further grammatical accounts; for example, the model has been used by Richard Hudson to develop word grammar. See also

Functional grammar Nominal group Systemic linguistics Thematic equative

Other significant systemic functional grammarians:

Ruqaiya Hasan Robin Fawcett James R Martin Sue Wharton

Linguists also involved with the early development of the approach:

Randolph Quirk Richard Hudson

[edit]References
1. ^ a b http://www.isfla.org/Systemics/Definition/definition.html, accessed 30 July 2008 2. ^ Halliday, M.A.K. Introduction to functional grammar, 2nd ed. (1994) London: Edward Arnold., p. 15 3. ^ http://www.isfla.org/Systemics/Definition/chapelle.html, accessed 30 July 2008 4. ^ Elke Teich, Systemic functional grammar in natural language generation (1999), Continuum International Publishing Group, p.21. 5. ^ OHalloran, K.A. (ed.) English grammar in context, Book 2: Getting inside English (2006), The Open University, pp. 1314 6. ^ OHalloran, K.A. (ed.) English grammar in context, Book 2: Getting inside English (2006) The Open University, p. 31. 7. ^ OHalloran, K.A. (ed.) English grammar in context, Book 2: Getting inside English (2006), The Open University, p. 178. 8. ^ OHalloran, K.A. (ed.) English grammar in context, Book 2: Getting inside English (2006), The Open University, pp. 3233. 9. ^ Coffin, C (ed.) English grammar in context, Book 3: Getting practical (2006), The Open University, pp. 6886

10. ^ OHalloran, K.A. (ed.) English grammar in context, Book 2: Getting inside English (2006), The Open University, p. 15. 11. ^ Coffin, C (ed.) English grammar in context, Book 3: Getting practical (2006), The Open University, p. 11 12. ^ OHalloran, K.A. (ed.) English grammar in context, Book 2: Getting inside English (2006), The Open University, p. 22. 13. ^ Coffin, C (ed.) English grammar in context, Book 3: Getting practical (2006), The Open University, pp. 2223 14. ^ OHalloran, K.A. (ed.) English grammar in context, Book 2: Getting inside English (2006), The Open University, p. 36. 15. ^ Coffin, C (ed.) English grammar in context, Book 3: Getting practical (2006), The Open University, p. 245 16. ^ Coffin, C (ed.) English grammar in context, Book 3: Getting practical (2006), The Open University, p. 158 17. ^ Coffin, C (ed.) English Grammar in Context, Book 3, Getting Practical (2006) The Open University, p.158 18. ^ Coffin, C (ed.) English grammar in context, Book 3: Getting practical (2006), The Open University, p. 184

19. ^ Butler, C.S., Structure and function (2003), John Benjamins, p. 415

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List of language acquisition researchers Wiki

Posted on January 17, 2011 | Leave a comment

List of language acquisition researchers

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Below are some notable researchers in language acquisition listed by intellectual orientation and research topic. Nativists

Empiricists

Generative Language Second language Acquisition acquisition researchers

Noam Chomsky Eric Lenneberg Steven Pinker Stephen Crain Thomas Bever Susan Gelman Susan Carey Elizabeth Spelke Lila R. Gleitman Sonja Eisenbeiss

Elizabeth Bates Michael Tomasello Brian MacWhinney Elissa L. Newport Linda B. Smith Jenny Saffran Elena Lieven Dan Slobin Michael Ramscar

Roumyana Slabakova Lydia White Antonella Sorace Jason Rothman Ianthi Maria Tsimpli Elena Gavruseva Bonnie Schwartz Belma Haznedar

Stephen Krashen Richard Schmidt Teresa Pica Richard Young Catherine Doughty Susan Gass Alison Mackey Rod Ellis Bill VanPatten Judith F. Kroll Franois Grosjean Nick Ellis Jyotsna Vaid Fred Genesee Lydia White Paul Pimsleur Elaine Tarone Merrill Swain Roy Lyster Patsy Lightbown

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LanguageProfessor Daniel N. Robinson

Posted on December 8, 2010 | Leave a comment

Lecture Sixteen Language Scope: Skinner recognized that, of all the features of human psychology that a developed behaviorism must explain, language presents the greatest challenge. In his Verbal Behavior, he argued strenuously that this distinctive human activity is merely another form of behavior, shaped by the same reinforcing operations and subject to the same modes of investigation as any other behavior. In his review of this work, however, Noam Chomsky outlined what he took to be the fatal flaws in this understanding of the nature of language. In the process, Chomsky added to a literature of data, criticism, and theory leading away from behaviorism and toward a more cognitive psychology grounded in the larger system of thought that is rationalism. Objectives: Upon completion of this lecture, you should be able to: 1. Summarize language as verbal behavior. 2. Explain the complex nature of the very concept of language and the problems of definition. 3. Identify the relationship between theories about the origins of language and the anthropological and clinical data that favor or oppose various theories. Outline I. If behaviorism is to succeed as a comprehensive psychology, it must account for language. To demonstrate that language is merely another form of behavior governed by a particular reinforcement history, Skinner wrote Verbal Behavior. A. The word-like utterances of infants are strongly reinforced by the parents; thus a kind of imitative behavior is being reinforced. B. On Skinners account, babies engage in other imitations, and ultimately language is developed. II. How is language to be defined? How one defines language will certainly bear upon the extent to which behaviorism can account for language. A. Denotative terms have ostensive definitions.

B. Language also has connotative terms that are embedded in a particular meaningful context. One example of a connotative term is justice. 1. The question of whether non-human animals have language depends on whether or not part of the requirement of having a language is the maintenance of connotative terms, because it is doubtful whether or not this can be said of any other species in the animal economy. 2. Do infants have language? One is in the bind of determining whether the infant is performing with a purpose or performing for a purpose. This is not evident from the external behavior. C. Locke had a conventionalist notion of language. The denotation of terms, he held, can only be conventional. Languages are formed, on this account, conventionally. Language is essentially a cultural affair. This represents an empirical perspective on language. D. In the eighteenth century, Thomas Reid questioned the conventionalist account. He argued that for there to be an artificial language, there has to be a basic natural language in place. Without a natural language it would be impossible to establish artificial conventions. III. Noam Chomsky offers the most famous version of an innate theory of language, which decisively refutes the behavioristic theory of language. A. Linguistic reinforcement histories vary culturally. Nonetheless, the age at which children begin to form grammatically coherent sentences is relatively the same the world over. B. Chomsky also argued that parents do not reinforce grammar, but only content. If it is the case that grammar is not reinforced, then behaviorism cannot explain why children formulate grammatically correct sentences. 1997 The Teaching Company Limited Partnership 9 C. Language is creative. Ideas can be expressed in a variety of different ways, all of which can be understood even if never heard before. This does not match up with the behavioristic scenario, because these behaviors could never have been reinforced. D. The age at which children can follow verbal instructions is far earlier than the age at which children can produce those sentences. What must the operant conditioning history be in order for that to be the case? E. On rare occasions, children have been reared in a linguistically deprived environment. These children, known as feral children, may never learn a language if language training is not begun soon enough. Thus, there is a critical period for language use. This does not match up with behaviorism, because on that account, it should not matter when one begins the reinforcement. IV. All of this suggests that language is best understood as a kind of internal process, not as a function of a reinforcement history. On Chomskys account, the innateness of language is given by the structural-functional make-up of the human organism.

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Posted in Language Teaching, Linguistics

Sociolinguistics
Posted on November 20, 2010 | Leave a comment

Sociolinguistics
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Linguistics

Theoretical linguistics Cognitive linguistics Generative linguistics Quantitative linguistics Phonology Morphology Syntax Lexis Semantics Pragmatics Descriptive linguistics Anthropological linguistics Comparative linguistics Historical linguistics Etymology Phonetics Sociolinguistics Applied linguistics Computational linguistics Forensic linguistics Internet linguistics Language acquisition Language assessment Language development Language education Linguistic prescription

Linguistic anthropology Neurolinguistics Psycholinguistics Related articles History of linguistics List of linguists List of unsolved problems in linguistics Portal vde

Sociolinguistics is the study of the effect of any and all aspects of society, including culturalnorms, expectations, and context, on the way language is used, and the effects of language use on society. Sociolinguistics differs from sociology of language in that the focus of sociolinguistics is the effect of the society on the language, while the latters focus is on the languages effect on the society. Sociolinguistics overlaps to a considerable degree with pragmatics. It is historically closely related to Linguistic Anthropology and the distinction between the two fields has even been questioned recently.[1] It also studies how language varieties differ between groups separated by certain social variables, e.g., ethnicity, religion, status, gender, level of education, age, etc., and how creation and adherence to these rules is used to categorize individuals in social or socioeconomic 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. The social aspects of language were in the modern sense first studied by Indian and Japanese linguists in the 1930s, and also by Gauchat in Switzerland in the early 1900s, but none received much attention in the West until much later. The study of the social motivation of language change, on the other hand, has its foundation in the wave model of the late 19th century. The first attested use of the term sociolinguistics was by Thomas Callan Hodson in the title of a 1939 paper.[2] Sociolinguistics in the West first appeared in the 1960s and was pioneered by linguists such as William Labov in the US and Basil Bernstein in the UK.

Contents
[hide]

1 Applications of sociolinguistics 2 Traditional sociolinguistic interview 3 Fundamental concepts in sociolinguistics o 3.1 Speech community o 3.2 High prestige and low prestige varieties o 3.3 Social network

o 3.4 Internal vs. external language 4 Differences according to class o 4.1 Class aspiration o 4.2 Social language codes 4.2.1 Restricted code 4.2.2 Elaborated code o 4.3 Deviation from standard language varieties o 4.4 Covert prestige 5 Sociolinguistic variables 6 See also 7 References 8 Further reading

9 External links

[edit]Applications of sociolinguistics
Sociolinguistics

Areas of study Accent Dialect Discourse analysis Language varieties Linguistic description Pragmatics Variation Related fields Applied linguistics Historical linguistics Linguistic anthropology Sociocultural linguistics Sociology of language Key concepts Code-switching Diglossia Language change Language ideology Language planning Multilingualism Prestige

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For example, a sociolinguist might determine through study of social attitudes that a particularvernacular would not be considered appropriate language use in a business or professional setting. Sociolinguists might also study the grammar, phonetics, vocabulary, and other aspects of this sociolect much as dialectologists 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. He is especially noted for introducing the quantitative study of language variation and change,[3] making the sociology of language into a scientific discipline.