Language AND Society Finals PDF

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LANGUAGE & SOCIETY (FINALS) I.

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SPEECH COMMUNITY A) A Speech Community is a group of people who share a set of norms and expectations regarding the use of language. 1. Definitions of speech community tend to involve varying degrees of emphasis on the following: a) Shared community membership b) Shared linguistic communication 2. Members of a speech community share enough characteristics of pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary, and manner of speaking. B) Prestige is the level of respect accorded to a language or dialect as compared to that of other languages or dialects in a speech community. 1. Generally, there is positive prestige associated with the language or dialect of the upper classes, and negative prestige with the language or dialect of the lower classes C) A social network is a social structure made up of a set of social actors (such as individuals or organizations) and a set of the dyadic ties between these actors. 1. A social network is another way of describing a particular speech community in terms of relations between individual members in a community. 2. A network could be loose or tight depending on how members interact with each other. CLASS ASPIRATION A) Class Aspiration (William Labov) – the process of wishing to be associated with a certain class (usually the upper class and upper middle class) of people who are moving in that direction socio-economically so as to adjust their speech patterns to sound like them. 1. However, not being native upper class speakers, they often hypercorrect, which involves overcorrecting their speech to the point of introducing new errors. The same is true for individuals moving down in socio-economic status. B) Social Language Codes (Basil Bernstein) – the way on how an individual determines on what social class he belongs to. 1. The restricted code was an example of the speech patterns used by the working class. a) Restricted code is characterized by the use of short and simple sentences, limited vocabulary, and frequent use of “you know.” b) Bernstein stated that this type of code allows strong bonds between group members, who tend to behave largely on the basis of distinctions such as 'male', 'female', 'older', and 'younger'. c) This social group also uses language in a way that brings unity between people, and members often do not need to be explicit about meaning, as their shared knowledge and common understanding often bring them together in a way that other social language groups do not experience. 2. The 'elaborated code' is used by the middle and upper classes to gain access to education and career advancement. a) Elaborated code uses complex sentences which are more profound, and large vocabulary. b) Bonds within this social group are not as well defined and people achieve their social identity largely on the basis of individual disposition and temperament. c) There is no obvious division of tasks according to sex or age and generally, within this social formation members negotiate and achieve their roles, rather than have them there ready-made in advance. CAUSES OF LINGUISTIC CHANGE A) Language Change – the phenomenon where phonetics, morphological, semantic, and syntactic and other features of language vary over time. 1. Diachronic Change – the effect of language change over time. 2. Historical Linguistic – concerned with both the description and explanation of language change. a) It began in the late 18th century when Western European Scholars began to notice that some modern European languages shared similar linguistic characteristic with Ancient languages such as Sanskrit, Latin and Greek. B) Causes of Language Change: 1. Analogy and Reanalysis a) Analogy reflects the preference of the speakers for regular patterns rather than irregular tones. Both semantic and phonological characteristics can serve as a basis for analogy. Example: Sting/stung – swing/swung b) Reanalysis (Morphological Reanalysis) – often involves an attempt to attribute a compound or root affix structure to a word that formerly was not broken down into component morphemes. Example: Humbugger  ham + burger = hamburger 2. Syntactical Change a) Syntactic Changes can involve modifications to phrase structure rule or transformations such as word order. Example: Old & Middle English (Verb – Subject – Object) – Then sent the king the dish Modern English (Subject – Verb – Object) – Then the king sent the dish 3. Language Contact a) Language Contact occurs when speakers of one language interact frequently with the speaker of another language or dialect. b) As a result, extensive borrowing can occur particularly where there is significant numbers of bilinguals or multilinguals. c) Among the effects that borrowing can have in sound system are the introduction of new phonemes or allophones

and changes in their distribution. Example: French – parent, cousin, animal, soup, color, major, cuisine, gateau and blasé. North America – Canada, Moccasin, totem, tomahawk, Chinook, and moose.

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Sound Change a) Sound Change is an alteration in the phonetics of a sound as a result of phonological process which is introduced into a language where it did not formally occur. (Example: Nix  Night) 5. Semantic Change a) Semantic Change is a change in word meaning. b) Semantic Broadening – the process in which the meaning of a word becomes more general or more inclusive than its historically earlier meaning. Example: Bird – small fowl  any feathered vertebrate with a beak Barn – place to store barley  any agricultural building Aunt – Father’s sisters  Father or Mother’s sister c) Semantic Narrowing - the process in which the meaning of a word becomes less general or less inclusive than its historically earlier meaning. Example: Hound – any dog  a hunting breed Meat – any type of food  Flesh of an animal Fowl – any bird  A domesticated bird Disease – any unfavourable state  an illness d) Amelioration – the meaning of a word becomes more positive or favorable. Example: Pretty – tricky, shy, cunning  attractive Knight – body  a man of honourable literary rank Nice – ignorant  kind e) Pejoration – the meaning of a word becomes more negative or unfavorable. Example: Silly – happy, prosperous  foolish Wench – girl – wanton woman, prostitute Lust – pleasure  sexual pleasure 6. Addition of Lexical Items a) Addition is frequently the result of technological innovations or contact with other culture, that is, through the word formation processes available to the language or through borrowing. 7. Compounding and Derivations a) Compounding refers to the process of conjoining two or more free morphemes to form a new word. Example: homemade, newborn, ballpen, blackbird b) Derivation refers to the creation of new words by adding an affix to a word, either a base or root. Example: Antislavery, devitalize, up-to-dateness, robotics 8. Borrowing a) Borrowing – taking a word or phrase from one language into another. b) Substratum – the influence of the less political and culturally dominant to the more dominant language. Example: Safari & Panga (Swahili language) c) Ad Stratum – the mutual influence of the two equally dominant languages on each other. d) Super Stratum - the influence of the more political and culturally dominant to the less dominant language. Example: blasé, soiree, garage (Norman French) 9. Economy Changes in Language (Economic Change) a) It is caused by economy where the speakers tend to make their utterances as efficient and effective as possible to reach communicative goal. b) Speakers especially use reduction, cluster reduction, lenition, and elision. Example: going to  gonna 10. Sequential Change a) The most type of sequential change is assimilation which has the effect of increasing the efficiency of articulation through a simplification of articulator movements. Example: Semda (Old Spanish)  Senda (Modern Spanish) Inpossibilis (Early Latin)  Impossibilis (Later Latin) Stefn (Old English)  Stemn (Middle English)  Stem (Modern English) 11. Palatalization a) Palatalization refers to the effect that the front vowel and palatal glide have on velar, alveolar, and dental, making their place of articulation more palatal. 12. Nasalization a) Nasalization refers to nasalizing effect that a nasal consonant (m, n) can have on adjacent vowel. Example: Latin – bon  un SPEECH PRACTICES ASSOCIATED WITH GENDER A) Minimal Responses 1. Minimal Responses – the paralinguistic features such as ‘mhm’ and ‘yeah,’ which is behaviour associated with collaborative language use. 2. Men generally use them less frequently than women to show agreement (Don Zimmerman & Candace West) a) Minimal responses can signal understanding, demonstrate agreement, indicate scepticism or a critical attitude, demand clarification or show surprise. b) Minimal responses are not always a sign of “support work.” (Fishman) B) Questions

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Women use questions more frequently than men. a) Men: A question is usually a genuine request for information...