Language and Society

英语语言学思维导图：决定：a great extent the vocabulary to be used in communication and it also determines the phonological and grammatical features of the language。

Language And Society

• The scope of sociolinguistics
  • The ralatedness between language and society
    • The definition of sociolinguistics
      • The Sub-field of linguistics that studies the relation between language and society,between the uses of language and the social structures in which the users of language live.
    • The inter-relationship between language and society
      • While language is principally used to communicate meaning, it is also used to to establish and maintain social relationships.
      • Users of the same language in a sense all speak differently.
      • To some extent, language, especially the structure of its lexicon, reflects both the physical and social environments of a society.
      • Language is closely related to the structure of the society in which it is used, and the evaluation of a language form is entirely social. To a linguist, all language forms and accents are equally good as far as they can fulfil the communicative functions they are expected to fulfil. Therefore, judgements concerning the correctness and purity of linguistic varieties are social rather than linguistic.
  • Speech/linguistic community and speech variety
    • 关于语言社团的几个理解
      • The social group that is singled out for any special study is called the speech community.
      • A speech community is a group of people who form a community and share the same language or a particular variety of a language
      • A group of people who do in fact have the opportunity to interact with each other and who share not just a single language with its related varieties but also attitudes towards linguistic norms.
      • 几个概念区分：A speech community there exist various groups(geographical background/educational background/occupation/gender/age/ethic affiliation of its members)
    • Speech/language variety
      • Definition: Any distinguishable form of speech used by a speaker or a group oof speakers.
      • Linguistic features can be found at the lexical,the phonological, the morphological, or the Syntactical level of the language.
      • eg: regional dialects, sociolects, registers
  • Two approaches to sociolinguistic studies
    • Macro-sociolinguistics/the sociology of language
    • Micro-sociolinguistics/ sociolinguistics proper
• Varieties of language
  • The notion of a language is not monolithic and there exist types or varieties of the same language
    • To the language user
      • Dialects(比方言范围更广)
    • To which the language is put
      • Registers
    • 对于对象而划分
      • Dialectal varieties
        • Regional dialect
          • Separation caused by physical conditions
          • Definition:A variety used by people living in the same geographical region
          • 形成原因：①lack of communication ②loyalty to one′s native speech and physical resistance are among the reasons of such variations
          • 发展趋势：由于交流技术的发展及大众传媒交通的普及，人们受普通接受的语言的影响，地域方言逐渐变少
        • Sociolect/social-class dialect
          • Separation caused by social conditions
          • Definition: the linguistic variety characteristic of a particular social class.
          • 影响因素：Social factors: social backgrounds/economic background/occupation
            • eg:1:(词法）Norwich in England 2：(Grammatical level) 3:(Accent)RP(received pronunciation) in British English
        • Language and gender
          • 1.Women are more status-conscious than men in English-speaking wold. They say more standard variety than men.
          • 2.Female tend to have a wide range in their intonation.(eg:more low-rise intonation)
          • 3.女生称呼女生“girls”.男生称呼女生“ladies”及形容词的使用也不尽相同
          • 4.女生：less assertive and thus sounds to be more polite and use more question tag.
        • Language and age
          • 表现：语言使用不同，词汇层面尤为突出
          • 原因：society is changing different social attitudes, value judgments,etc
        • Idiolect
          • Definition:A personal dialect of an individual speaker that combines elements regarding regional,social, gender, and age variations.And the language he/she uses, which bears distinctive features of him/her own, is his/her Idiolect.
          • Factors: voice quality, pitch and speech tempo and rhythm.
        • Ethnic dialect
          • Definition: A social dialect of a language that cuts across regional differences;it is mainly spoken by a less privileged population that has experienced some form of social isolation such as racial discrimination or segregation.
          • eg:Black English
      • Register
        • 由Halliday提出
        • Linguistic repertoire
        • Definition: The type of language which is selected as appropriate to the type of situation is a register.
        • 决定语域的3个social variety
          • field of discourse
            • eg:everyday's field/special's field
            • 解释：what is going on/ purpose and subject-matter of communication. Why and about what
            • 决定：a great extent the vocabulary to be used in communication and it also determines the phonological and grammatical features of the language
          • tenor of discourses
            • eg:teacher/student
            • 解释：relationship in the situation in question to whom the speaker is communicating
            • 决定：the level of formality and the level of technicality of the language we use.
          • mold of discourses
            • 解释：the means of communication how communication is carried out
            • eg: spoken /written
          • The features of the context of situation which determine the features of language appropriate to the situation Thus they determine the register collectively
            • eg:
      • Degree of formality
        • 由Martin Joos提出
        • intimate
        • casual
        • consultative
        • formal
        • frozen
        • 由Stevens解释
          • 
            • 同一句话不同正式度的表达可以 从句法、词汇和音位上进行分析
              • 句法层面
              • 词汇层面
              • 称呼及音位层面
• Standard dialect
  • Definition
    • 1.The standard variety is a superimposed, socially prestigious dialect of a language.
    • 2.It is the language employed by my the government and the judiciary system,used by the mass media, and taught in educational institutions, including school settings where the language is taught as a foreign or second language.
    • 3.The standard dialect is a particular variety of a language in that it is not related to any particular group of language users, but it is the variety which any member of a speech community can possibly use regardless of his social and geographical backgrounds, his gender and age.
  • Features
    • 1. ~ is based on a selected variety of the language, usually it is the local speech of an area which is considered the nation's political and commercial center.
    • 2.It is a superimposed variety;it is a variety imposed from above over the range of regional dialects.
    • 3.~has special functions: the official or national language of a country, government documents, education, news reporting, formal occasions
• Pidgin and Creole
  • Pidgin
    • 定义：A special language variety that mixes or blends languages and it is used by people who speak different languages for restricted purposes such as reading.
    • 特点：a limited vocabulary and a much reduced grammatical structure characterized by the loss of inflections,gender and case. eg: trading and employment.
  • Creole
    • 定义：When a pidgin has become the primary language of a speech community, and is acquired by the children of that speech community as their native language, it is said to have become a Creole
    • 例子：English-based Creole of Jamaica French-based Creole of Haiti.
• Bilingualism and diglossia
  • 区分二者：一个是两种不同的语言，一个是同一语言的两种变体
  • Definition: It has been observed that in some speech communities, two languages are used side by side with each having a different role to play; and language switching occurs when the situation changes.
    • eg:ethnic ghetto(a bilingual community)
  • Two varieties of a language exist side by side throughout the community; with each having a definite role to play.
    • 组成：the high variety(H) the low variety(L)
      • features:the specialization of function of two varieties
• Bilingualism
• 通常在一段话中成对会多个同时出现