Sociolinguistics Standard language: idealised, official language for education and broadcasting. Dialect: varieties of a language that have noticeable differences of grammar, vocabulary, and pronunciation which signal geographical, educational, ethnic, socio-economic background of speakers. These do not hinder communication between speakers of dialects. Accent: Pronunciation differences between two speakers.

Sociolinguistics Regional Dialects and accents: North and South American Socio-economic Dialects: Royal, upper, upper middle class, lower class Ethnic dialects: Black, Chicano, German, Hawaiian, and Puerto Rican English Continental Variation: Pronunciation, vocabulary, inflections-British, American, Canadian, Australian, and New Zealand) Dialectology: Speakers of two different dialects of the same language can usually understand each other. Standard dialects of the languages are more prestigious.

Sociolinguistics İsogloss: a line or map separating two areas in which a particular linguistic feature is significantly different. Dialect boundary: a line representing a set of isoglosses, used to separate one dialect area from another. Dialect continuum: the gradual merging of one regional variety of a language into another.

Sociolinguistics Dialect vs. Language (when does a dialect become a language? When is a language born?) Intelligibility (Mandarin and Cantonese) Historical Relationships (Belarusian and Ukrainian) Political Concerns (Urdu and Hindi)

Sociolinguistics Bidialectal: being capable of speaking two dialects Bilingualism: the state of having two languages. Bilingual: native speaker of two languages or a country with two official languages (Canada, Belgium) Diglossia: a situation where there is a ‘high’ or special variety of a language used in formal situations (classical Arabic), and a ‘low’ variety used locally and informally (Lebanese Arabic) Language planning: choosing and developing an official language or languages for use in government and education (India-Hindi, Tanzania-Swahili)

Sociolinguistics Language Contact: migration, marriage, colonialism, and wars Lingua Franca: English as an international language Purpose: trade, business, survival needs Use a third language (Lingua Franca) Mixture of the two languages at lexical, grammatical, and phonological levels (Pidgin and Creole) (ex: Tok Pisin: English based pidgin in Papua New Guinea)

Sociolinguistics Pidgin and Creole (use words from both languages, mix morphology and syntax, and use the simplest sounds from both languages) Limited vocabulary Simple grammatical rules Small inventory of sounds Spoken by a small fraction of the community Used for specific purposes such as trade and religion

Sociolinguistics Creole: Pidgin becomes the mother tongue of a group of people (French creole in Sierra Leone) The post-creole continuum: varieties that evolves in communities where a creole is spoken. Creolisation: the process of development from a pidgin to a creole Decreolisation: use of standard variety instead of creole forms and structures (British English in Jamaica) Creole accent: pronunciation features

Language and Social Variation Sociolinguistics: studies the relationship between language and society Speech community: group of people who share a set of norms and expectations regarding the use of language. Social dialect: dialects in cities and towns mainly based upon class distinction (working, middle, upper) as a social variable and the pronunciation or word as the linguistic variable

Language and Social Variation Education and occupation Idiolect: personal dialect (see figure in 208) Social marker: marks an individual as a member of a particular group (in English [h] dropping-lower class) Speech style: formal and informal Style shifting: change from one to another style (social marker and class difference)

Language and Social Variation Prestige: overt (positively valued) and covert (hidden-lower class) Speech accommodation: modifying speech style toward or away from the style of the person we are talking to.

Language and Social Variation Linguistic Convergence: Act of comlying and cooperating with the speaker in terms pronunciation, intonation, grammar, vocabulary choice (ex: changing the manner of talking to older and young people) Linguistic Divergence: emphasising personal, social, and regional gap

Language and Social Variation Style: formal and casual Register: use of language in a specific context, occupational or situational Jargon: special technical vocabulary Slang: colloquial speech-special interest-age-gender-fashion related (benjamins, dead presidents for paper bills) Taboo: sensitive, forbidden or obscene terms Euphemism: covering up taboo words nicely (passed away/died)

Language and Social Variation Social barrier: discrimination and segregation serve to create marked differences between social dialects (AAE-African American English) Vernacular language: low prestige, non-standard use of social dialect (AAVE-African American Vernacular English) The sounds of a vernacular: reduction of final consonants, initial dentals/alveolar stops, omission of plural –s (two guy(s) and singular –s marker (she love(s) him) The grammar of a vernacular: negative construction, double negatives, absence of to be (are/is), be for habitual action ‘He don’t know nothing’ ‘She be workin downtown now’ ‘She workin now’