definition
What is Sociolinguistics?
Sociolinguistics
• Sociolinguistics study the relationship
between language and society.
• Society: is any group of people drawn
together for a certain purpose
• Language: is what the members of a
particular society speak.
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Situation 1
Ray: Hi mum
Mum: Hi. You're late
Ray: Yeah, that stupid sootbucket kept us
again
• Mum: Nana's here
• Ray: Oh sorry. where is she?
• Situation 2
• Ray: Good afternoon Sir
• Principal: What are you doing here at this
time?
• Ray: Mr. Sutton kept us in, sir.
• Sociolinguistics can help us understand why
we speak differently in various social contexts,
and help uncover the social relationships in a
community.
• It studies the effect of social factors, including
region, class, occupation, gender differences,
and bilingualism.
• Linguists find it hard to describe the speakers’
knowledge of a language because this
knowledge is abstract. It is more than what
grammar books have.
Knowledge of Language
• Linguists differentiate between knowledge
speakers have of a language (rules and
principles) and knowledge of the ways of
saying words, sounds and sentences (language
in use)
Knowledge of Language
• Chomsky refers to this difference as Competence
and performance
• Competence: what speakers know about their
language
• Performance: what speakers do with their
language.
• He claims that the linguists task is to characterize
the competence rather than the performance.
• Chomsky distinguishes between what is
important and what is not in a language. The
important matters are referred to as language
universals; concern the learnability of
languages, the characteristics they share and
the rules and the rules and principals that
speakers use in constructing and interpreting
sentences.
The problem of variation
Chomsky’s view = competenceperformance
Problem. WHY?
Linguists would like to view language as
homogeneous entity, so they can make
theoretical generalization, BUT language will
exhibit considerable internal variation
Communicative competence
• Knowing a language also involves knowing
how to use that language appropriately and
this is what they call “communicative
competence”.
• Sociolinguists are concerned with such type of
competence.
Relationships between language and society
• There are 4 possible views:
1- social structure may influences or determines
linguistic structure.
e.g., age children/adults speak differently
Regional/social/ethnic origin, gender (male, female)
2- opposite to the 1st view
• Linguistic structure influences or determines
social structure.
3- influence is bi-directional: language and
society may influence each other.
• ‘speech behavior and social behavior are in a
state of constant interaction’
4- no relationship between linguistic structure
and social structure.
Chomsky’s view
• Every afternoon my friend packs her bag and
leaves her office at about 5 o’clock . As she
leaves her partner says goodbye Margret and
her secretary says goodbye Mrs. Walker. As
she arrives home she is greeted by Hi mum by
her son and hello dear from her mother.