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Languages and Communities: Wardhaugh Chapter 2
Languages and Communities: Wardhaugh Chapter 2
linguistics
2
Languages and
communities
Wardhaugh Chapter
2
Sociolinguistics
“to study the relationship between language and society”
(Ferguson 1966)
• possible interactions
between language and
society
– social structure influence
– language influence
society
– mutual influence
– no influence
Culture:
how a group of people perceives, believes,
thinks, behaves (different verbal and
nonverbal communication patterns, values,
cognitive styles, expectancies, etc.)
• Accent: pronunciation
• Everybody speaks English with some kind
of accent. Thirdy, La’in, dune, dude?
Discussion questions
• Let’s look at 1-6 on page 46-7, in groups
for 15 minutes then general discussion.
Social dialects
• Dialect associate with group identity apart
from geographical identity. Black English,
Jewish English, Surfer Dudian, Academic
English?
Styles, Registers, Beliefs
• Formal vs informal
• Occupation lingo
• Dialect, style, register are largely
independent
High/low vs better/worse
• We often don’t like speakers who speak
with a posh accent, even though/because we
recognize the social superiority or
“correctness” of the speech. In fact, rural
dialects though recognized as “incorrect’
tend to be preferred over city dialects. We
tend to like older, more familiar ways of
speech. Simple over complex. Bush beats
Kerry?
As Wardhaugh points out, depite
what we “know” people tend to
believe and to teach value
judgments about lanaguage and
dialect.
People without university
educations tend to think of their
speech and grammar as inferior.
They believe pundits who tell
them about “proper” grammar
and speech.
On the other hand, humans are naturally
very smart about language. We deduce
and intuit a great deal about speakers.
How can do we make these judgments?
How can we know when we are right and
wrong? Would we be able to spot a
Martian trying to pass himself off as a
native English speaker?
My friends Alaister and Alex
“Speak English!”
Production vs. Reception: We
notice and comprehend better
than we can produce and convey.
Our “competence” outstrips our
“performance” ?
Let us attempt/let’s try disussion
questions 4-7 on pp. 54-5
Bilingualism
• Individual bilingualism
– two native languages in the mind
– Fishman: “ a psycholinguistic phenomenon”
• Societal bilingualism
– A society in which two languages are used but where
relatively few individuals are bilingual
– Fishman: “a sociolinguistic phenomenon”
• Stable bilingualism
– persistent bilingualism in a society over several
generations
• Language evolution:
– Language shift
– Diglossia
BENEFITS OF BILINGUALISM
(California Department of Education, Language Policy and Leadership Office)
Fishman’s reformulation
+ diglossia - diglossia
Situation H L
Non-migrant communities