ABSTRACT
Chapter 1
This chapter mentions some features that all languages have in common. Can you think of others?
Why is the difference between language and speech a relevant one for sociolinguistics?
Each language has a system of distinctive sounds, called phonemes. Sometimes, differences in phonemes may signal some social or dialect difference.
Example: the a in tomato
It can be produced by opening the mouth to the maximum, as in bah, or else by opening it in a more lateral way, as in pay. Both sounds are used in pronouncing tomato but may reflect regional differences or perhaps even differences in individual pronunciation.
Can you think of others in English? If so, explain them in your own words.
Each language has meaning-bearing units known as morphemes. Part of linguistic analysis is the segmentation of words into morphemes. Segmentation is also a method for diagnosing anomalies in word formation.
Example: unlegitimate
The morpheme /un-/ (known as a prefix) is not used with legitimate. The acceptable prefix in this case is /il-/: illegitimate. However, /un-/ is used with other words: unmistakable, unforgettable.
Using this kind of morphemic diagnosis, what is anomalous about:
uncorrect?
churchs?
mouses?
Each language has strategies for conducting meaningful social interaction. The following are English utterances that have been constructed 218anomalously from the standpoint of usage. Using simple explanations, indicate what is improper about them.
Example: My name is Mr. Bill
In polite speech, titles (known as honorifics) are used with a complete name or with a surname, not a first (or given) name (unless there is a specific reason to do so): “My name is Mr. Bill Smith” or “My name is Mr. Smith.” The given utterance is an acceptable one if used, for example, by a speaker attempting to be humorous or facetious with friends.
Glad to make your acquaintance, Mr. Jones. How the heck are you?
Mother, tell your husband that I am going out!
(Phone communication) Hello, who is it? I’m Mary.
(Text message to a close friend) Dear Mary, how are you feeling today?
What do the following forms indicate socially or culturally?
Example: Titles (Mr., Mrs., Prof., Dr.)
Some titles have the general social function of showing respect or deference when addressing certain socially esteemed people such as professors and doctors. Some titles reveal gender-coded differences. Mrs. indicates that a woman is married. The corresponding Mr. title has no similar information built into it. This reveals an unconscious differential perception of gender.
Greeting protocols (Hello, Goodbye, How’s it going? What’s up?)
Surnames or family names (Smith, Johnson)
CMC forms such as u for you or lol for laugh out loud.
Comment on what each excerpt means in terms of the ideas discussed in this chapter.
From Ferdinand de Saussure, Cours de linguistique générale (1916):
A scientific study will take as its subject matter every kind of variety of human language: it will not select one period or another for its literary brilliance or for the renown of the people in question. It will pay attention to any tongue, whether obscure or famous, and likewise to any period, giving no preference, for example, to what is called a classical period, but according equal interest to so-called decadent or archaic periods. Similarly, for any given period, it will refrain from selecting the most educated language, but will concern itself at the same time with popular forms more or less in contrast with the so-called educated or literary language, as well as the forms of the so-called educated or literary language. Thus linguistics deals with language of every period and in all the guises it assumes.
From Franz Boas, The Methods of Ethnology (1920):
219At the present time, at least among certain groups of investigators in England and also in Germany, ethnological research is based on the concept of migration and dissemination rather than upon that of evolution. A critical study of these two directions of inquiry shows that each is founded on the application of one fundamental hypothesis. The evolutionary point of view presupposes that the course of historical changes in the cultural life of mankind follows definite laws which are applicable everywhere, and which bring it about that cultural development is, in its main lines, the same among all races and all peoples. Opposed to these assumptions is the modern tendency to deny the existence of a general evolutionary scheme which would represent the history of the cultural development the world over.
From Benjamin Lee Whorf, Language, Thought, and Reality (1956):
Every normal person in the world, past infancy in years, can and does talk. By virtue of that fact, every person—civilized or uncivilized—carries through life certain naive but deeply rooted ideas about talking and its relation to thinking. Because of their firm connection with speech habits that have become unconscious and automatic, these notions tend to be rather intolerant of opposition. They are by no means entirely personal and haphazard; their basis is definitely systematic, so that we are justified in calling them a system of natural logic—a term that seems to me preferable to the term common sense, often used for the same thing… . The world is presented in a kaleidoscopic flux of impressions which has to be organized by our minds—and this means largely by the linguistic systems in our minds. We cut nature up, organize it into concepts, and ascribe significances as we do, largely because we are parties to an agreement to organize it in this way—an agreement that holds throughout our speech community and is codified in the patterns of our language. The agreement is, of course, an implicit and unstated one, but its terms are absolutely obligatory; we cannot talk at all except by subscribing to the organization and classification of data which the agreement decrees.
