英语语言学概论第八章笔记

Chapter 8 Socio-linguistics 社会语言学

1.What is socio-linguistics? 什么是社会语言学？

Sociolinguistics is the sub-discipline of linguistics that studies language in social contexts.

社会语言学是语言学的一个分支，它研究社会环境中的语言。

nguage variation 语言变异

a)Speech community 言语社区

In sociolinguistic studies, speakers are treated as members of social groups. The social group isolated for any given study is called speech community. A speech community thus defined as a group of people who form a community (which may have as few members as a family or as many member as a country), and share the same language or a particular variety of language. The important characteristic of a speech community is that the members of the group must, in some reasonable way, interact linguistically with other members of the community. They may share closely related language varieties, as well as attitudes toward linguistic norms.

社会语言学研究中，说话者被当作是社会群体的成员。分离出来用于任何特定研究的社会群体称作言语社区。因而，言语社区就被定义为一个社区（人数小到一个家庭，大到一个国家）使用同样的语言或语言的某种变体的一群人。言语社区的重要特点是，这个群体的成员必须以某种适当的方式与其他的社区成员进行语言交流。这些成员不仅可能对语言规范持相同态度，而且可能使用紧密联系的语言变体。

言语社区的范畴可以是地域性的，也可以是跨地区的。社会地位、经济地位、受教育程度、兴趣爱好、职业、年龄等因素相同的人所使用的语言往往带有相同言语社区的烙印。

b)Speech variety 言语变体

Speech variety refers to any distinguishable form of speech used by a speaker or group of speakers.

A speech variety may be lexical, phonological, morphological, syntactic, or a combination of linguistic features. Considered a more neutral term, speech variety is sometimes used instead of standard language, vernacular language, dialect, pidgin, creole, etc. Speech variation moves on a scale of the national language, dialect, and individual ways of communication.

Sociolinguists are particularly interested in there types of speech variety, or dialects, namely, regional dialects, sociolects or social dialects, and functional speech varieties known as registers. The term dialect, as a technical term in linguistics, carries no value judgment and simply refers to a distinct form of language.

在社会环境中使用的语言都属于某种言语变体。一种言语变体具有一些与其它言语变体不同的特征。这些特征反映在发音、句法规则、词汇上。言语变体可以指一种不同的语言，如标准语、方言、洋泾浜等，可以指同一语言的地域性或民族性变体，如英语中的澳大利亚英语、黑人英语等，也可以指同属一种语言的功能性言语变体，如法律语体、正式语体等。言语变体无论其具有何种社会属性，在社会语言学家看来它们之间没有高低之分、优劣之分。

c)Regional variation 地域变异

Regional variation is speech variation according to the particular area where a speaker comes from. Regional variation of language is the most discernible and definable.

语言的地域变异产生了地区方言。语言往往随着使用地理位置的变化而变化。地域变异是语言最易辨别的特征。

The most distinguishable linguistic feature of a regional dialect is its accent. Often speakers of the same language but of different regional dialects of the language have a very difficult time communicating. One way out of the communication dilemma is language standardization known as language planning.