Sociolinguistics

Study of uses of languages

Linguistic issues which have social explanations
Social relation ( magzs tegezs social choose )
Social factors ( Romanian Hungarian )
Good Morning not wishing really it comes naturally
Intimate social relationship use language for it
Lack of communication something is wrong
Look at language as a social phenomenon
Variation
You can figure out so much about people with only hearing how do they use language

5 levels of characteristics
1. personal:
a. biological
b. social pitch
c. voice quality
d. speaking ability
2. stylistic:
a. formal/informal depending on situations
pl: ban,ben
pl: l-trls: btba, vtam
pl: -ing informal
3. social:
a. gender
b. who we are in society
c. age: young/old
d. people couldnt care less
e. 25-45 most standard
f. England class
g. Hungary level of education
h. Religion
i. Region
4. sociocultural:
a. North-American Hungary
b. Shop assistant eye contact
c. Expect the change in their hands
5. sociological:
a. use of language
-

sociocultural + sociological makro sociolinguistics = society language

personal + stylistic + social micro linguistics
interlocutor fellow speaker
Joshima Fishman: Who speaks what to whom, when and to what end.
Spoken is much more important than written
Competence performance
( sociolinguistic competence)
performance what you say

Language dialects and varieties

- Each and every language is the sum of its dialects
- Variety every kind of dialects, eg. Social, geographical, religion,
- Mutual intelligibility people who speak the same language with different background,
understand each other
- Self-definition of a speaker matters more than what linguistics is
- Language is a dialect with an army and a navy
- Standard variety is the most important part of a language, but it is not the language
(but people think it is)
- Standard variety = dialect
- Grammar was standardized book-printing
- English standard very close to London English
standard is very close to political centre
- North-Eastern dialect Standard American English
- Variety of pronunciation
- Dialect vs accent
standard language with accent
received pronunciation Queens English, Oxford English, spoken by the top 5%
- People have very strong language attitudes
Pl. Gorbacsov Russia
- Education make people talk the standard English
- Standardization has negative effects on language fewer speaker speak a dialect
- Bidialectals: speaks two dialect of a language (region+standard)
very similar to bilingual
- Monodialectal: less educated, or people who grow up with the standard language
- Vernacular: kind of dialect that people knew first, grow up with it, people start to use it
unconsciously in stress
- Lingua franca: language which is used by speakers of different languages to communicate
eg. English, German, French, Russian regional lingua franca
not a standard language, but a dialect
- Koin
o Greek dialect
o Because of the empire of Alexander the Great
o If something is different from the standard but is a lingua franca than it is a Koin lingua franca
- English has several standards
- Regional dialects: varieties of a language which are geographical
++++
+++
++
+

oooo
ooo
oo
o

isogloss
A boundle of isoglosses are important

isogloss boundary between regional dialects

- Postvocalic r after a vowel

car postvocalic r
card coda
- I might could do it it is perfect in some American English dialects
- Dialect differences
A. Grammar
B. Lexical
C. Pronunciation
- Dialect continuum
a. German and Holland
b. Gradual neighbor relations
c. These two dialects are almost the same
d. Political board
e. Spanish Portuguese
f. French Switzerland
g. Italy French
- Social dialects
a. Use it unconsciously
b. Difficult to study
c. All sorts of variations because of gender, age, class, education
d. Women use more standard form than men
e. Social class is the most important
f. In Hungary even sociologists are unable to define social classes
g. Most educated most standard language
h. In America the social classes are total measurable
- Style dialects
a. Depends on the situation in which you are speaking
b. Formal situations formal style
c. Informal situations informal style
- Register
a. Specialized vocabulary
b. Eg. ZH
Pidgins and creoles
-

Languages that are mixture of at least 2 languages

Vocabulary from one language
Grammar from another language
English creoles Africa, Caribbean
Two groups meet and one is dominant, usually a European language
Dominant language gives the vocabulary
Subordinate language gives the grammar
Pidgin languages are trade languages
Colonization
New direction pidgin
New generation creol
Pidgin use to communicate between trades
Creol total new language

- Pidgins are very limited

a.
b.
c.
d.
e.

They talk about the present

Dont talk about abstract things
Limited vocabulary
Dont use complex sentences
Little grammar
Dont sub

pidginization

decreolization
creol
pidgin
Creolization

Decreolization creol becomes more similar to the dominant language

Creolization kind of process
- Decreolization happened in America blacks, slaves, South, happens with colonization
eg. Islands in New-Zealand
Laik|im
Kil|im
Giv|im
Pain|im
Wok|im
Kar|im
Gat
Laik
Go
-

like
Kill
Give
Find
Build
Carry
Feet
Want
walk

Lo in, down, within, for, with, to

Bilo genitive
Ti|pela 3
Wan|pela 1
Dis|pela this
Nara|pela another
fella f > p
Pig pik
Waidok not dog (wolf) g > k
Rot road
Kunai grass
Kaikai eat
Sometimes there are words from another (3.) language

Transitive verbs

- Reduplication take the same element and say it two times

pl. luk look
lukluk stare
tok talk
toktok chat
- Disambiguation
sip ship
sipsip sheep
- Lesbaga lazy person comes from the lazy bugger
- Sit bilo faia ashes
faia shit of fire
- Bulsilim cheat
Code choice
-

Choosing between alternatives

Bidialectual
Standard regional choice depending on the circumstances
Depending on social situations
Eurobarometer 2006
they did a very big survey 27% in Hungary can carry out a conversation in a
foreign language
More than half population of the world is bilingual
5-6000 languages spoken in the world
220+ countries in the world
Iceland the only country that has one official language, and has no minorities
Autochtonous (minorities) been there before the others
De facto vs. de jure
de facto all languages
de jure official languages
Belgium Flamish, French, German
Switzerland Romansh
Finland Swedish
Official languages give equal rights
Minority power relations
Assymethrical bilingualism
Choice based on social factors rather than linguistic factors
Code switching
using 2 more languages in the same conversation
Topic of a conversation define which language the speakers choose
Level of proficiency is important also
History of interaction two friends, English English
Can depend on a setting, where you are
Social bilingualism temporary stage
Language maintenance
Language shift
a. Minority group gives up their language and starts to speak the official language
b. Typically happens in 3 generations
Demographic reasons
Prestige, financial reasons eg. State is allocating money for schools
Amish have maintained their languages early immigrants from Germany
Russian old believers small minority in Russia

Indigenous languages
a. Those languages that have always been there
b. Scandinavian Saami people
c. Mansi 12 thousand in Russia 900 people speak it only
d. Udmuurt 600 udmuurt 300 speak the language
Migrants going somewhere for a time, usually for economic reasons(social issues
also), usually dont have ay support

Burgenland
a. Felsr/Obernant
b. Susan Gal discovered the language shift
c. Showed the mechanism of how this happened

Diglossia type of a situation when speakers have more varieties of the same
language
eg. Switzerland German speakers

Lanstyk Istvn he was the first person to point out the diglossia in Hungary

Code switching bilingual speakers use more than one language at a conversation
a. Monolinguals hate it
b. Has important functions
c. Sometimes there is no way to translate one language to another
eg. Academic English Exam
d. Canada English French; no commitment
e. American Hungarian see, hogy rti?
f. Normal, every day phenomenon
Speech Community

Refers people who behave like a group linguistically

Eg. Slovakians in Hungary, regional Hungarians in Hungary, Puerto Ricans in New
York
Variation

William Labov
We use language differently depending on: (major aspects of variation)
o Regional dialect
o Who are we socially
o Stylistic way
Informal situation use the language informally
eg. Londonba voltam
Regional dialect
Political boundaries in Hungary are also dialect boundaries
eg. Hungarian, Slovakian, Romanian
Social differences give rise to linguistic variations
Social variations:
o How language used differently in one community
o Link linguistic features with social features
o In same communities no word differences

o Grammatical differences
o Person vernacular type of speech in a variety that you first learned
-

Observers paradox they want to observe people when they speak their most
normal way recording tape they cant speak normally
Life-threatening situation people forget to monitor their speech
Correlations between social variables (age, gender, class,) and linguistic variables
Postvocalic R car, ca(r)
You just deal with specific parts of it
Linguistic variables have variants
o 3 types of it:
Indicator some differentiations in speakers speech
Marker most important
Carry social significance
Stereotype characterize certain social group
In every language there are locally relevant features
Representativeness same ratio in a sample result generalizable
Strict random sample sociolinguistics do not use it
Stratified random sample
Volunteers are not the best to represent the general samples
Get data from people
o not by asking them
o people start to modify their way of speaking
o make your subjects relaxed and make people fell comfortable
elicit
women try to compensate their social position with their standard language
Mikls Kontra: 2004 Nyelv s trsadalom a rendszervltskori Magyarorszgon
Margin of error
Methodology

Participant observation the sociolinguist who does the research participates and
observes also, sometimes its useful in it
Group interview subject several people
produce their language as usual
Direct questioning tricky method, can produce false results
Ethical issues
o Never name your subjects in your study
o Never betray the trust of your subject
o Surreptitions recordings have to record with the knowledge of the subjects,
always
Three big goals of sociolinguists
o Describe what people do, how they speak or correlate
o Explain find a reason for the case that you have found
o Predict if you find something you generalize your result