社会语言学 第八章作业

Language and Society
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. Speech variety, 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, . 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.
Register, in a restricted sense, refers to the variety of language related to one’s occupation. Field of discourse: What is going on: to the area
of operation of the language activity. It is concerned with the purpose (why) and subject matter (about what) of communication. It can be either technical or non-technical. Tenor of discourse: the role of relationship in the situation in question: who are the participants in the communication and in what relationship they stand to each other. (Customer-shop-assistant, teacher-student, etc.). Mode of discourse: the means of communication. It is concerned with how communication is carried out. (oral, written, on the li ne…)
Formality refers to the degree of formality in different occasions and reflects the relationship and conversations. According to Martin Joos, there are five stages of formality, namely, intimate, casual, consultative, formal and frozen. 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 language serves as a yard stick against which all other varieties are measured. Features of the standard variety, 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 center. It is not a dialect a child acquires naturally like his regional dialect, rather it is taught and learnt in schools. It has some special functions and it the language used on any formal occasions.
A pidgin is a special language variety that mixes or blends languages and it is used by people who speak different languages for restricted purposes such as trading. Limited vocabulary and much reduced grammatical structure. When a pidgin has become the primary language of a speech
community, and is acquired by the children of that speech community as their native language, it is said to have become a Creole. It is through mistakes and compromises that pidgins develop themselves. A creole is often defined as a pidgin that has become the first language of a new generation of speakers. After a pidgin is creolized, there is another stage of development in which the speakers of the creole may be introduced to the standard language. A post-creole continuum: standard language may play the role at one end to fulfill certain social obligation and the creole may function at another end in its specific field. What happens to regional dialect.
Diglossia refers to two varieties of a language exist side by side throughout the community, with each having a definite role to play. It is used to describe any stable linguistic situation, in which there exists a strict functional differentiation between a “high” variety and a “low” variety. In some speech communities, t wo languages are used side by side with each having a different role to play; and language switching occurs when the situation changes. This constitutes the situation of Bilingualism. Diglossia usually describes a situation in which two different varieties of language co-exist in a speech community, each with a distinct range of purely social function and appropriate for certain situations. Diglossia is a not a universal phenomenon. It, for example, hardly exists in English-speaking countries such as Britain and United States. According to Ferguson, diglossia refers to a sociolinguistic situation similar to bilingualism. But instead of two different languages, in a diglossia situation two varieties of a language exist side by side throughout the community, with each having a definite role to play. They estimated that there are more than 6000 languages spoken throughout the
world. Multilingualism is mainly created by three reasons: migration, conquest and intermarriage.。