An Introduction to Sociolinguistics

by Wardhaugh, Ronald; Fuller, Janet M.

• ISBN13: 9781118732298
• ISBN10: 1118732294
• Edition: 7th
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2014-12-15
• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell

Author Biography

Ronald Wardhaugh is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Linguistics at the University of Toronto. He is the author of a number of books, including Proper English (Wiley-Blackwell, 1998) and Understanding English Grammar, 2^nd Edition (Wiley-Blackwell, 2003).

Janet M. Fuller is Professor in the Department of Anthropology at Southern Illinois University Carbondale. She has recently published two books dealing with multilingualism, discourse and identity: Bilingual Pre-Teens: Competing ideologies and multiple identities in the U.S. and Germany (2012) and Spanish Speakers in the USA (2013), and was the editor of the sociolinguistics section of the Language and Linguistics Compass (Wiley-Blackwell) from 2010–2013.

Table of Contents

Companion Website xiii

List of Figures xiv

List of Tables xv

Preface xvi

Acknowledgments xvii

1 Introduction 1

Key Concepts 1

Knowledge of Language 3

Competence and performance 4

Variation 5

Speakers and Their Groups 7

Language and Culture 10

Directions of influence 10

The Whorfian hypothesis 11

Correlations 14

The Boundaries of Sociolinguistics 15

Methodological Concerns 17

Data 18

Research design 18

Overview of the Book 19

Chapter Summary 20

Exercises 20

Further Reading 22

References 22

Part I Languages and Communities 25

2 Languages, Dialects, and Varieties 27

Key Concepts 27

Language or Dialect? 28

Mutual intelligibility 29

The role of social identity 32

Standardization 33

The standard as an abstraction 34

The standardization process 35

The standard and language change 36

Standard English? 36

The standard–dialect hierarchy 37

Regional Dialects 38

Dialect continua 39

Dialect geography 39

Everyone has an accent 40

Social Dialects 42

Kiezdeutsch ‘neighborhood German’ 43

Ethnic dialects 45

African American Vernacular English 46

Features of AAVE 47

Development of AAVE 48

Latino Englishes 50

Styles, Registers, and Genres 52

Style 52

Register 53

Genre 53

Chapter Summary 54

Exercises 54

Further Reading 56

References 57

3 Defining Groups 62

Key Concepts 62

Speech Communities 63

Linguistic boundaries 63

Shared norms 65

Communities of Practice 68

Social Networks 70

Social Identities 72

Beliefs about Language and Social Groups 74

Ideologies 75

Perceptual dialectology 76

Chapter Summary 77

Exercises 77

Further Reading 78

References 79

4 Languages in Contact: Multilingual Societies and Multilingual Discourse 82

Key Concepts 82

Multilingualism as a Societal Phenomenon 83

Competencies and convergence in multilingual societies 84

Language ideologies surrounding multilingualism 85

Linguistic landscapes 86

Language attitudes in multilingual settings 88

Diglossia 90

Domains 91

Language attitudes and ideologies 92

Language learning 93

The statuses of the H and L varieties 93

Extended diglossia and language maintenance 94

Questioning diglossia 95

Multilingual Discourse 96

Metaphorical and situational code-switching 97

Accommodation and audience design 98

The Markedness Model 101

Multilingual identities 102

Chapter Summary 105

Exercises 106

Further Reading 109

References 110

5 Contact Languages: Structural Consequences of Social Factors 114

Key Concepts 114

Lingua Francas 115

Pidgin and Creole Languages: Definitions 116

Connections between P/C languages and second language acquisition 119

Pidgin and Creole Formation 120

Theories of creole genesis 121

Geographical Distribution 123

Linguistic Characteristics of P/C Languages 124

Phonology 125

Morphosyntax 125

Vocabulary 126

From Pidgin to Creole and Beyond 127

Creole continuum? 129

Other Contact Varieties: Mixed Languages 131

Chapter Summary 133

Exercises 133

Further Reading 134

References 134

Part II Inherent Variety 139

6 Language Variation 141

Key Concepts 141

Regional Variation 142

Mapping dialects 142

Methods in dialectology 145

Dialect mixture and free variation 147

Linguistic atlases 147

The Linguistic Variable 148

Variants 149

Types of linguistic variables 149

Variation in New York City 150

Variation in Norwich 150

Variation in Detroit 151

Indicators, markers, and stereotypes 151

Social Variation 152

Social class membership 153

Social networks 157

Data Collection and Analysis 157

The observer’s paradox 157

The sociolinguistic interview 158

Sampling 159

Apparent time and real time 161

Correlations: dependent and independent variables 161

Quantitative sociolinguistics 162

Chapter Summary 165

Exercises 165

Further Reading 166

References 166

7 Three Waves of Variation Studies 169

Key Concepts 169

The First Wave of Variation Studies 170

Early work on gender variation 170

The fourth floor 172

Variation in Norwich 175

Variation in Detroit 177

Variation in Glasgow 180

Linguistic constraints on variation 181

The Second Wave of Variation Studies 185

Social networks in Belfast 185

Gender variation in the second wave 187

Jocks and burnouts 188

The Third Wave of Variation Studies 189

Stance 190

Chapter Summary 192

Exercises 192

Further Reading 193

References 194

8 Language Variation and Change 196

Key Concepts 196

The Traditional View 197

Externally motivated change 197

Trees and waves 199

Some Changes in Progress 199

The Northern Cities Vowel Shift 201

Change across space: urban centers and physical barriers 202

Change over time or age-grading? 203

Martha’s Vineyard 204

Gender and language change 208

Language change and the linguistic marketplace 211

The Process of Change 213

Change from above and below 214

Social network theory and language change 216

Lifestyle and language change 217

Lexical diffusion 218

Chapter Summary 219

Exercises 219

Further Reading 220

References 221

Part III Language and Interaction 225

9 Ethnographic Approaches in Sociolinguistics 227

Key Concepts 227

The Ethnography of Communication 230

Communicative competence 230

SPEAKING 232

Ethnography and beyond 234

Ethnomethodology 235

Background knowledge as part of communication 236

Commonsense knowledge and practical reasoning 237

Garfinkel and his students: studies in ethnomethodology 239

Ethnomethodology and conversation analysis 241

Linguistic Ethnography 241

Chapter Summary 243

Exercises 243

Further Reading 245

References 245

10 Pragmatics 248

Key Concepts 248

Speech Acts 249

Performatives 249

Locutions, illocutionary acts, and perlocutions 251

Implicature 253

Maxims 253

The concept of cooperation 255

Politeness 256

Face 256

Positive and negative politeness 257

Politeness world-wide 258

Politeness and indirectness 261

Pronouns 263

Tu and vous: power and solidarity 263

Pronouns and positioning 266

Naming and Titles 266

Fluidity and change in address terms 269

Chinese comrades 270

Chapter Summary 272

Exercises 272

Further Reading 275

References 276

11 Discourse Analysis 280

Key Concepts 280

Conversation Analysis 281

Adjacency pairs 283

Openings 284

Closings 285

Turn-taking 287

Repair 289

Institutional talk 290

Interactional Sociolinguistics 291

Data and methodologies 293

Contextualization 295

Stance 296

Intercultural communication 297

Critical Discourse Analysis 298

Contrasts and critiques 299

Methodologies and connections 299

Chapter Summary 302

Exercises 303

Further Reading 304

References 305

Part IV Sociolinguistics and Social Justice 309

12 Language, Gender, and Sexuality 311

Key Concepts 311

Defining Terms: Gender, Sex Category, and Sexuality 312

Sexist Language 314

Grammatical gender marking 315

Language change 316

Discourses of Gender and Sexuality 319

Some common Discourses 319

Deficit, Dominance, Difference, and Identities 321

Women’s language 324

Dominance 324

Difference 325

Gender and sexuality identities 328

Chapter Summary 332

Exercises 332

Further Reading 333

References 334

13 Sociolinguistics and Education 339

Key Concepts 339

Social Dialects and Education 341

Restricted and elaborated codes 341

Difference not deficit 343

Role of the home dialect in education 345

African American Vernacular English and education 346

Applied sociolinguistics 350

Multilingual Education 351

Ideologies 351

Use of minority languages in the classroom 352

Elite and immigrant bilingualism 354

Education and World-Wide English 356

Circles of English 356

Elite closure 357

English in Europe 359

Chapter Summary 360

Exercises 360

Further Reading 361

References 362

14 Language Policy and Planning 367

Key Concepts 367

Terminology, Concepts, and Development of the Field 367

Types of language planning 368

The intellectual history of LPP 371

Data and methods 372

LPP and Nationalization 373

LPP in Turkey: orthography and purity 373

LPP in the Soviet Union and the post-Soviet era: from Russification to nationalization 375

Official monolingualism in France 377

Multilingual policy in Belgium 377

LPP in Post- and Neo-Colonial Contexts 378

Kenya 379

India 380

LPP in the United States and Canada 381

The United States of America 381

Canada 383

Multilingual Countries and LPP 385

Papua New Guinea 385

Singapore 386

Endangered Languages and the Spread of English 387

Endangered languages 387

English world-wide 388

Chapter Summary 392

Exercises 392

Further Reading 392

References 393

Glossary 398

Index 422