教案8_Chapter_VIII_Language_and_Society

Chapter 8. Language & Society
I. Teaching contents
In this chapter the following items will be discussed:
1.About the scope of sociolinguistics
2.Varieties of language
Dialectal varieties(方言变体)
Register(语域)
Degree of formality
3. Standard dialect
4. Pidgin and Creole (洋泾浜英语和克里奥耳语)
5. Bilingualism and diglossia(双语和双言现象)
II Teaching procedures
1. Recommending some books & articles:
[1] Fasold, R. 2000. The Sociolinguistics of Language.3rd ed. Foreign Language Teaching and Reach Press & Blackwell Publishers Ltd.
[2] Wardhaugh, R. 2000. An Introduction to Sociolinguistics. 3rd ed. Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press & Blackwell Publishers Ltd. [3] 白解红，性别语言文化与语用研究[M]，湖南：湖南教育出版社，2000 [4] 戴绍
铭，文化语言学导论[M]，北京：语文出版社，1996
[4] 林学增，中英文化习俗比较[M]，北京：外语教育与文化出版社，1999
[5] 刘在良，语言中的性别歧视现象[J]，山东外语教学，996（3）
[6] 刘建达，语言中的性别歧视与解放[J]，山东外语教育，1998（1）
[7] 刘世生，周玉芳，汉英词汇反映的妇女社会地位变迁[J]，外语教学，2002（7）
[8] 赵蓉晖，语言与社会性别——俄语研究的新方向[J]，外语研究，2002（4）
[9] 吴长镛，姚竹云，汉语中的性别歧视[J]，修辞学习，2002（6）
[10] 王牧群，英语中的性别歧视现象及其文化内涵[J]，北京第二外国语学院学报，2002（5）
2. Presenting some questions:
1).How is language related to society?
2).What are the main social dialects ? How do they jointly determine idiolect?
3). In what sense is the standard dialect a special variety of language?
4).Illustrate with examples register used by Halliday?
5). What peculiar features does pidgin have?
6).What are the similarities and differences between bilingualism and diglossia?
3. Detailed discussion
About the scope of sociolinguistics
1). What is sociolinguistics?
Socialinguistics is the sub-field of linguistics that studies the relation between language and society, between the uses of language and the social structures in which the users of language live.
What is speech community?(言语社区)
A group of people who form a community, e.g. a village, a region, a nation, and who have at least one speech variety in common.
2)What is speech variety?(言语变体)
A term sometimes used instead of language, dialect, sociolect, pidgin, creole, etc. because it is considered more neutral than such terms. It may also be used for different varieties of one language, e.g. American English, Australian English, Indian English.
The Ambiguities and Obscurities of the Terms: Language & Dialect
How many languages are there in the world?
How many dialects are there in China?
The Ambiguities and Obscurities of the Terms: Language & Dialect `Language‘ always the superordinate and `dialect' the subordinate terms. Language' as the superordinated term can be used without reference to dialects.
`Dialect' is meaningless unless it is implied that it ―belongs‖ to a language. Hence every dialect is a language, but not every language is a dialect. About the Variety of language
1). Varieties of language related to the user (dialectal varieties 方言
变体)
a. regional dialect (地域方言) : a linguistic variety used by people living in the same geographical region. It is associated with separation caused by physical conditions.
geographical barriers;
lack of communication;
loyalty to one‘s n ative speech;
physical and psychological resistance to change.
b. social-class dialect/ sociolect (社会方言) : a linguistic variety characteristic of a particular social class. It is associated with separation brought about by different social conditions. Accent is an important marker of sociolect.
c. language & gender
Gender: biological category;
grammatical category;
social category.
The study of language and gender was initiated in 1975 by three books: Marry Ritchie Key, Male/Female Language
Robin Lakoff, Language and Women’s Place
Barrie Thorne and Nancy Henley (Eds.) Language and Sex: Difference and Dominance
Do the men and women who speak a particular language use it in different ways?
Lakoff (1973, pp.50-2) says that, in each of the following pairs, it is quite clear which utterance is used by females:
1a. Oh dear, you‘ve put the peanut butter in the refrigerator again.
1b. Shit, you‘ve put the peanut butter in the refrigerator again.
2a. What a terrific idea!
2b. What a divine idea!
4. Women use ―empty‖ adjectives (adorable, charming, divine, nice).
5.Women use tag questions more than men (e.g., ―The weather is really nice today, isn‘t it‖?)
6.Women use question intonation in statements to express uncertainty (―My name is Tammy?‖)
7.Women speak in ―italics‖ (use intensifiers more than men; e.g., ―I feel so happy‖).
8.Women use hedges more than men do (―It‘s kinda nice‖).
9.Women use (hyper-)correct grammar.
10.Women don‘t tell jokes.
How different?
1.In the area of phonology
In Gros Ventre, an Amerindian language of the northeast United States, women have palatalized velar stops where men have palatalized dental stops, e.g., female kjatsa ‗bread‘ and male djatsa.
2.In the area of morphology and vocabulary
Lakoff (1973), claims that women use color words like mauve, beige, aquamarine, lavender, and magenta but most men do not. She also maintains that adjectives such as adorable, charming, divine, lovely and sweet are commonly used by women but only very rarely by men. Women are also said to have their own vocabulary for emphasizing certain effects on them, words and expressions such as so good, such fun, exquisite, precious, darling, and fantastic.
3.In the area of certain grammatical matters
Lakoff says that women may answer a question with a statement that employs the rising intonation pattern usually associated with a question rather than the falling intonation pattern associated with making a firm statement. Women often add tag questions to statements, e.g., ‗They caugh t the robber last week, didn‘t they?‘
4.Other gender-linked differences
Women and men may have different paralinguistic(副语言) systems and move and gesture differently. The suggestion has been made that these often require women to appear to be submissive to men.
Women are said not to employ the profanities (亵渎) and obscenities men use, or, if they do, use them in different circumstances or are judged differently for using them.
Women are also sometimes required to be silent in situations in which men may speak.
Why different?
John Gray: ‗Men are from Mars, women are from Venus.‘
Many of the differences may result from different socialization practices (Philips, Steele, and Tanz, 1987)
Some possible explanations
1.The ‘status’ explanation– based on the link between prestigious language and social status
In several places in her chapter on ‗Status and standard/nonstandard
la nguage‘, Key (1975) suggests that women use favored linguistic forms as a way of achieving status through the use of linguistic features which is denied them in other aspects of life.
In his overview of linguistic sex differentiation, Trudgill (1983) provides a series of related explanations:
The social position of women in our society has traditionally been less secure than that of men. It may be, therefore, that it has been more necessary for women to secure and signal their social status linguistically and in other ways, and they may for this reason be more aware of the importance of this type of signal.
Men in our society have traditionally been rated socially by their occupation, their earning power, and perhaps by their abilities – in other words, by what they do. Until recently, however, this has been much more difficult for women, and indeed women continue to suffer discrimination against them in many occupations. It may be, therefore, that they have had to be rated instead, to a greater extent than men, on how they appear. Since they have not been rated, to the same extent that men have, by their occupation or by their occupational success, other signals of status, including speech, have been correspondingly more important.
2.The ‘network’ explanation–based on Milroy‘s work on social networks, which showed that the least prestigious forms were used by the people who were most tightly integrated into the local working-class social networks.
According to this view, the extent to which a person uses a low-status form reflects the strength of their ties to the local networks, and gender differences are relevant because men generally have higher network strength than women.
3.The ‘sophistication’ explanation– based on the idea that the modern urban societies to which our generalization applies are organized hierarchically between two crude social stereotypes, the ‗rough‘ and the
‗sophisticated‘.
Four other social stereotypes defined by social class and gender: a
middle-class man and woman, and a working-class man and woman. According to this view of society, social behavior should be expected to be polarized between two models defined by the ‗rough‘ working class male and the ‗sophisticated‘ middle-class female.
Strategies suggested for avoiding the use of the generic masculine pronoun:
1. Drop the masculine pronoun.
The average student is worried about grades.
(The average student is worried about his grades.)
We will hire the best person regardless of sex.
(We will hire the best-qualified person regardless of his sex.)
2. Rewrite the sentence in the plural rather than the singular.
Students can select their own topics.
(Each student can select his own topic.)
Students can select their own topics.
(Each student can select his own topic.)
3. Substitute the pronoun one or one‘s for he or his.
One should do one‘s best.
(Everyone should do his best.)
4. Use he or she, his or her (in speech or writing ) or s/he (in writing).
Each student will do better if he or she [s/he] has a voice in the decision. (Each student will do better if he has a voice in the decision.)
5. Use their when the subject is an indefinite pronoun.
When everyone contributes their own ideas, the discussion will be a success.
(When everyone contributes his own ideas, the discussion will be a success.)
6. Use the unmarked category
actress---actor, hostess---host,
waitress---waiter, stewardess---flight attendant.
d. language & age
The most striking difference is found at the lexical level.
Causes (complex):
changing society;
different social attitude;
different value judgement
e. idiolect (个人语言): the language system of an individual as expressed by the way he or she speaks or writes within the overall system of a particular language.
In its widest sense, someone‘s idiolect includes their way of communicating, for example, their choice of utterances and the way they interpret the utterances made by others. In narrower sense, an idiolect may include those features, either is speech or writing, which distinguish one individual from others, such as voice quality, pitch, and speech tempo
and rhythm.
f. ethnic dialect (种族方言): a social dialect of a language that cuts across regional differences; it is mainly spoken by a less privileged population that has experienced some form of social isolation such as racial discrimination or segregation.
Features of Black English:
Phonological feature:simplicity of consonant clusters.
Syntactic feature: deletion of the link verb‖be‖;
the use of double negation.
They mine. You crazy.
He don‘t know nothing.
2). Register : varieties related to use. (语域)
According to Hallida y, ―Language varies as its function varies; it differs in different situations.‖
The type of language which is selected as appropriate to the type of situation is a register.
Three social variables that determine the register:
Field of discourse( 语场): why; about what; non-technical; technical Tenor of discourse(语旨): to whom
the level of formality
the level of technicality
Mode of discourse(语式): how; speaking; writing
linguistic repertoire(语言变体库): the totality of linguistic varieties possessed by an individual.
The language or language varieties that a person knows and uses within his or her speech community in everyday communication.一个人所掌握的、并且用于本人言语社团的日常交际中的语言或语言变体。

Degree of formality
•Language used on different occasions differs in the degree of formality which is determined by the social variables, e.g. who we are talking with and what we are talking about.
•Different styles of the same language can be characterized through differences at three levels---syntactic, lexical and phonological
Martin Joos‘( an American linguist)
five stages of formality：
1). Intimate;
2). Casual;
3). Consultative;
4). Formal ;
5). Frozen.
Higher degree of formality:
the use of passive
the use of impersonal constructions
the use of loan-words
About Standard dialect
The standard variety is a superimposed, socially prestigious dialect of a language. It is the language employed by the government and the judiciary system, used by the mass media, and taught in educational institutions, including school settings where the language is taught as a foreign or second language.
The standard dialect is a particular variety of a language in that it is not related to any particular group of language users, but it is the variety which any member of a speech community can possibly use regardless of his social and geographical backgrounds, his gender and age.
In what sense is the standard dialect a special variety of language?
a. It is based on a selected variety of the language, usually it is the local speech of an area which is considered the nation‘s political and commercial centre.
b. It is a superimposed variety. It has a widely accepted codified grammar and vocabulary. It is the variety which is taught and learnt in schools.
c. It has some special functions . It is used for such official purposes as government documents, education, news reporting; it is the language used on any formal occasions.
About Pidgins and creoles
Pidgin (洋泾浜语): a language which develops as a contact language （碰头语言）when groups of people who speak different language try to communicate with one another on a regular basis. A pidgin usually has a limited vocabulary and a reduced grammatical structure which may expand when a pidgin is used over a long period and for many purposes. Usually pidgins have no native speakers but there are expanded pidgins which will develop into CREOLE language.
Creole (克里奥语): a Pidgin language which has become the native language of a group of speakers, being used for all or many of their daily communicative needs. Usually, the sentence structures and vocabulary range of a Creole are far more complex than those of a pidgin language. Creole are usually classified according to the language from which most of the vocabulary comes, e.g. English-based, French-based, Portuguese-based, and Swahili-based Creoles.
The birth of pidgins and creoles
Most cases of abrupt contact between two language leads to the loss of one or other language.
In very exceptional circumstances, situations of language contact can lead to the birth of new codes: pidgins; creoles (very rarely).
Pidgins
Definition
Roughly, a pidgin language is generally u nderstood to be a ―simplified‖ language with a vocabulary that comes mostly from another language, but whose grammar is very different. (Ralph Fasold, 1990)
A pidgin is a reduced language that results from extended contact
between groups of people with no language in common; it evolves when they need some means of verbal communication, perhaps for trade, but no group learns the native language of any other group for social reasons that may include lack of trust or of close contact. (John Holm, 1988)
A pidgi n is a language with no native speakers: it is no one‘s first
language but is a contact language. (Ronald Wardhaugh,1998) Pidginization
Pidgins arise as simple jargons which enable
---a very restricted degree of communication
---in a very restricted context
---between groups who do not share a common language
A pidgin arises from the simplification of a language when that language comes to dominate groups of speakers separated from each other by language differences.
Pidginization
Superordinate language
language 1 Language 2 Language 3
For a pidgin to develop there must be a dominant group of speakers and a number of subordinate groups who share no common variety. It is usually developed by the subordinate groups using the lexicon of the dominate
group‘s language.
Pidgins are less than full language. They are characterized by:
---a very restricted functional load
---greatly reduced grammar (morphology and syntax)
---tolerance of considerable phonological variation
---extensive lexical borrowing
Definition of creoles
A pidgin which has acquired native speakers is called a creole. (R. A. Hudson, 1996)
Creoles, according to the most general account, arise when a pidgin language becomes the native language of a new generation of children. (Ralph Fasold, 1990)
A creole is often defined as a pidgin that has become the first language of a new generation of speakers. (Ronald Wardhaugh,)
So, as Aitchison says (1994)
Creoles arise when pidgins become mother tongues.
Creolization
–C reoles are new languages which may have pidgin beginnings and
develop into full languages. But this happens only in special
circumstances.
–There must be a generation of children who are denied access to the dominant language (e.g. through lack of access to formal education) and are also denied access to their parents‘ native languages. And in such a case the only code available for the children to use is the pidgin.
Therefore the pidgin takes on a full functional load. It must be able to meet the demands of communicating complex ideas in a full range of social situations. Then the native speakers change a pidgin into a
creole.
Not all creoles have pidgins as their beginnings. Creoles can arise in situations where many languages are spoken in a colonial situation and where there is a dominant (superordinate) language. For example, creoles can arise as slaves approximate colonial vernaculars and form their own vernacular through ―imperfected replication‖ (or ―transmission error‖)
Comparing to pidgins, creoles are characterized by:
---a greatly expanded morphology and syntax
---regular phonology
---much greater functional load
---stable system of vocabulary enrichment
Pidginization & creolization
Pidginization is that complex process of sociolinguistic change comprising reduction in inner form, with convergence, in the context of restriction in use. ----Dell Hymes (1971b: 65)
Creolization is that complex process of sociolinguistic change comprising expansion in inner form, with convergence, in the context of extension in use. ----Dell Hymes (1971b: 65)
Pidginization is usually associated with simplification in outer form, creolization with complication in outer form.
Most pidgins never become creoles.
The development pattern from early pidgins to creoles
A jargon is ―reverentially impoverished, has little grammatical
integrity---often just a vocabulary with grammatical rules drawn from the speaker‘s native language---and shows high variation from speaker to speaker‖ (Foley, 1988). In this stage spon taneous simplification plays a major role.
The unstable jargon, based on the greatest common denominator between two languages, however, might not be sufficient for the purpose of the users of the pidgin, which makes it necessary to innovate and to establish a coherent grammatical structure, possibly drawing upon universal
structures (Mühlhäusler, 1986). This explains for the structural differences between stabilized pidgins and their source languages. The degree of simplification and the importance of the recourse to universal patterns depend on the extent of the ―common core‖.
A stable pidgin, being extremely useful in inter-group communication, can be extended and utilized outside the range of its original use. If such a pidgin acquires its own native speakers it is called a creole. Nativisation, however, is only of secondary importance for the extension of a pidgin: what counts is its ―status as a primary language (functionally) in a community‖ (Hymes, 1971), which will lead speakers to increase its indexicality by deviating from natural grammar (Mühlhäusler, 1986). The end product of the pidginisation or creolisation process is rather similar to established languages. As Hall notes, there is ―no structural criteria which, in themselves, will identify a creole as such, in the absence of historical evidence‖ (Hall, 1966), and Adler (1977) regards it even as possible that all languages have gone through a pidginisation process at some point of their history.
This pattern leads many creolists to the idea that pidgin and creole language phenomena should be examined in terms of processes and not in terms of types of languages.
Decreolization
When a creole remains in contact with the superordinate language, intermediate varieties between the creole and the superordinate language arise. If the less decreolized varieties fall out of use, the decreolized remnants of the old creole may be seen simply as substandard dialects of the lexifier language. Gradually, the creole moves towards the standard.
The range of varieties that exist is described as a post-creole contimuum, the process of change is called decreolisation.
Post-creole continuum
Standard Language Acrolect
Intermediate Varieties Mesolects
Creole Basilect
Jamaican Creole is a good example of a post-creole continuum.
Acrolect It‘s my book. I didn‘t eat any.
Mesolect Iz me buk. A in nyam non.
Basilect A fi mi buk dat. Mi na bin nyam non.
Pidgin origins
There is a great deal of similarity amongst pidgins world wide---in syntactic structure and in the morphological categories expressed in the grammar. This similarity exists despite different lexifier languages. How can we explain this similarity?
A number of theories have been suggested:
Baby talk theory
African substratum theory
Polygenesis theory
Monogenesis with relexification
Language universals/Bioprogram theory
Which theory of origin? There need be no single theory of origin to explain all pidgins/creoles. We should consider each case on its merits and look at the particular situation in which the variety developed.
Bilingualism & diglossia
Bilingualism (双语制): the use of at least two languages either by an individual or by a group pf speakers, such as the inhabitants of a particular region or a nation. Bilingualism is common in, for example, the Province of Quebec (魁北克省) in Canada where both English and French are spoken, and parts of Wales, where both Welsh and English are spoken. Diglossia(双言制) When two languages or language varieties exist side by side in a community and each one is used for different purposes, this is called diglossia. Usually one is a more standard variety called the High variety or H-variety(高标准语言), which is used in government, the media, education, and for religious services. The other one is usually a
non-prestige (无声望)variety called the low-variety or L-variety(低标准语言), which is used in the family, with friends, when shopping.
Chinese bilingualism and multilingualism are complicated. There are relationships between Chinese mandarin and minorities languages ,and inter-minority languages.There are four types(Sun Hongkai,1983)
4.1 Between Minorities and Han Nationality
Almost all minorities know Chinese local dialects and their own nationality languages in different degree.
4.2 Inter-minorities
Moinba, Lhoba in Tibet-----speak their minorities languages and Tibetan.
4.3 Between Han and multi-minorities
Yi,Han,Naxi,Pumi,Miao,Zhuang,Buyi in Sichuan------speak their nationality languages , local dialects of Han and Tibetan.
4.4. Some Han people and people from other minorities learn minority languages.
4.5 Others
Some minorities people can speak both Han‘s local dialects and their nationality languages fluently,e.g. Bai and Qiang people can speak both Chinese and Bai or Qiang languages. Some even forget their nationality languages, can only speak Chinese mandarin.
Digraphic Situations in China:
The Chinese Language is written in a logographic system, each Chinese character being composed of strokes in complicated formation. Attempts have been made to simplify the writing system under the ‗Chinese Character Simplification Scheme‘ in the mainland. ‗Simplified characters‘ are thus learned in schools and used in all publications in the mainland, and are recognized by the United Nations and Singapore as the official script of the PRC.
Digraphic Situations in China:
However, in Hong Kong and Taiwan, dialectal writing does occur. This seems not to replace the standard writing but plays a comlementary and subordinate role.
Dialectal writing may also borrow the foreign script to write dialectal words producing a mixed script, e.g., D=的, K=case, etc.
Digraphic Situations in China:
Digraphia is emerging in Chinese as a result of the introduction of Latinization, or Pinyin. The radical promoters of Latinization initially intended totally to replace the Chinese script with the Roman alphabet, but more moderate groups have proposed that both system should be used. The concurrent use of Pinyin and Chinese characters is a case of genuine digraphia, with the two systems having different social functions.
Is Pinyin creating more social problems than it can solve? Pinyin is a system for writing Mandarin Chinese but not for any other dialects.
The introduction of Pinyin into the language system would inadvertently undo the language linkage that was achieved by the Emperor of Chin more than two thousand years ago.
The situation that the Chinese script unites people using different forms of speech will be changed.
People would be divided into groups of highly educated biliterates and the monoliterates of little education who are illiterate in the Chinese script. III. Assignment
Do Revision exercises 1.3.5.8。