社会语言学 第八章作业

Language and Society

13073080 刘颖

Sociolinguistics is the sub-field of linguistics that studies the relation between the language and society, between the use of language and the social structures in which the users of the language live.There are many indications of the inter-relationship between language and society. One of them are that while language is principally used to communicate meaning, it is used to established and maintain social relationships. Another indication is that the users of the same language in a sense all speak differently. Then to some extent, language, especially the structure of its lexicon, reflects both the physical and the social environment of a society. As a social phenomenon, language is closely related the structure of the society in which it is used, and the evaluation of a language form is entirely social.

In sociolinguistic studies, speakers are regarded as member of social groups. The social group that is singled out for any special study is called the speech community. The term speech community, or linguistic community, is widely used by sociolinguistics to refer to a community based on language. Within a speech community there exist various social groups. Speechvariety, or linguistic variety, refers to any distinguishable form of speech used by a speaker or a group of speakers. In sociolinguistics studies three types of speech variety are of special interest, i.e. regional dialects, sociolects, and registers.

The study of the relationship between the language and society can be approached in two ways. We can look at society as a whole and consider how it reflects the social differentiations. The other approach is to look at society from the point of view of individual members of the society. The former is sometimes refers to as micro-sociolinguistics or the sociology of language, and the latter a micro-sociolinguistics or sociolinguistics proper. The notion of a language is not monolithic and there exist types or varieties of the same language. Varieties related to the user are normally known as dialects and varieties related to use as registers.

The striking variation of age is well illustrated by children language as it develops, regarding all levels of language from phonology to vocabulary and syntax. Age divisions are 2, 5 and 12. Variation in language use is also associated with the sex of individual speakers. Sex-preferred differentiation in terms of speech varieties of males and females exists in all natural languages across the world. Women in many countries are more status-conscious than men, and therefore more aware of the social significance of linguistic variables. Language reflects obvious sex prejudice. The use of sexist language does not mean that it is the language that is sexist but rather the social attitude connoted in the language is sexist. The meanings of some English words really echo the real traditional roles of men and women in history. As social attitude towards women change in recent years, linguistic changes in many languages are taking place that reflect the feminist movement and the growing awareness that language and language use mirror social attitudes and reinforce stereotypes and bias. The change can be sensed in the morphological variation. Linguistic forms associating sexist prejudice are always intentionally avoided in communication. Gender varieties are caused by society rather than by evolution.