专八英语语言学笔记纲要（8）
Chapter 8 Language in Social Contextsl What is sociolinguistics?
n The sociolinguistic study of language
u Language in relation to society
u Diversity of language, variation between societies or within a society
n The distinction between “language” and “a language”
u Try to answer the following three questions:
l Can language be defined in terms of geography?
l Can language be defined in terms of nationality?
l Should language be defined by mutual intelligibility?
u The answer to these questions should all be no. All languages are equal. If you define language in terms of these factors, you are speaking of “a language”.
l Varieties of language
n A language varies according to the following factors:
u Situation
u Geographical areas
u Social factors
u Purposes and subject matters
u Time (through which the language develops)
n Geographical varieties and regional dialects
u What’s the relationship between a regional dialect and the national standard speech?
l A regional dialect is a variety of the national standard speech.
u Accent
l Pronunciation:
l Spelling: -our/-or
l Vocabulary:
l Grammar: have you/do you have…
u Social varieties
l Sociolects are forms of a language that characterize the speech of different social classes.
l A social variety is a variety of language brought about by the social factors.
l Language plays the role of a social indicator.
l Social classes and variation
n Grammar: third person singular
n Pronunciation: popular contracted forms
l Sex and variation
n Women tend to speak more standard, decent variation.
n Women tend to make overstatements, especially when making comment.
n Women prefer to use certain adjectives which are not used normally.
n Women tend to avoid the use of vulgar words.
n Women tend to use certain expressions to show happiness or surprise.
l Age and variation
l Race and variation
n Racial difference
n Black English
- Pronunciation
- Grammar
l Temporal dialects
n Standard dialect and idiolect
u Standard dialect is the highest prestige in a society or a nation. It is usually based on the well-educated speech.
专八英语语言学笔记纲要（8）
l It is used in news media and literature.l It is described in dictionaries and grammar books.
l It is taught in schools and to non-native learners.
u Idiolect is the language system of an individual. It is one’s particular way of speaking and/or writing.
n Register – situational variety
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