Cognitive sociolinguistics
Richard Hudson
Budapest March 2012
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Sociolinguistics
• The study of how language structure is
related to social structure
– how speakers signal social groups
• e.g. I am British
– how speakers signal social relations
• e.g. I am 'the speaker'
– (how speakers signal cultural beliefs)
• e.g. I know about 'sociolinguistics'
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Two approaches to sociolinguistics
• External: 'E-sociolinguistics'
– observation of others' behaviour
– data-collection and data-analysis
– focusing on groups
• Internal: 'I-sociolinguistics'
– speculation about mental processes
– model-building
– focusing on individuals
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I-sociolinguistics in Word Grammar
"The individual speaker is important in
sociolinguistics in much the same way that
the individual cell is important in biology. If
we don't understand how the individual
works, to that extent we shan't be able to
understand how collections of individuals
behave either."
(1980/1996 "Sociolinguistics" p.10)
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Cognitive sociolinguistics
• = "I-sociolinguistics"
• Builds on E-sociolinguistics
• But tries to explain observed patterns
through mental models of individuals.
– Why do we accommodate?
– How do we achieve "inherent variability"?
– etc.
• A branch of cognitive linguistics?
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Cognitive linguistics
• Cognitive linguistics:
– language is knowledge, but just like other
kinds of knowledge
– NOT a "mental module"
• But the two main branches of cognitive
linguistics don't include sociolinguistics
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Sociolinguistics in Cognitive
linguistics
• "Sociolinguistic research … is probably the least
developed of all linguistic domains within
Cognitive Linguistics. Recently, though, we
witness some developments toward cognitive
sociolinguistics."
– Geeraerts and Cuyckens 2007: 16
• "There have so far been few sociolinguistic
studies specifically exploiting descriptive
constructs of Cognitive Grammar …"
– Langacker 2007: 450
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The aim of cognitive
sociolinguistics
• To build a mental model of society
– what do members of a society know about it?
– about individuals
– about their relations to one another
– about institutions
• To build a mental model of language
• To show how the two are related.
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Social structure
• Social structure is built round:
– individuals
– social categories, e.g. "male", "British"
– social relations, e.g. "husband"
– institutions, e.g. "London"
• These are interrelated in a network.
– so we need a diagramming system
• e.g. Word Grammar
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Dick Hudson's network
UK city
Brit
"is-a"
lives in
husband
me
Gaynor
London
wife
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Social structure and cognition
• We obviously know such things about our
society.
– but in vast quantities
– and with enormous complexities
• This knowledge affects our behaviour
– we behave differently in different situations
• Others' behaviour affects our knowledge
– we learn by observing others
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Back to language …
• If our minds can learn social networks …
• maybe we use the same ability to learn
language?
• If so, then language too must be a
network,
– as claimed by Word Grammar.
• So Word Grammar is suitable for cognitive
sociolinguistics.
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The raw material of language
• "Exemplar representations are rich
memory representations. They contain, at
least potentially, all the information a
language user can perceive in a linguistic
experience. …[including] properties of the
social, physical and linguistic context."
– Bybee 2010: 14
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For example, what do you know?
• I am tired.
– I = the speaker.
– am = a state existing now.
• So our memory for a word must be able to relate
it to:
– the speaker
– the current time
• These memories may be
– specific – just one occasion
– general – about the word's general meaning.
14
The language network
Word Grammar locates a word in a network of
relations:
• to a meaning
• to a pronunciation
• to a word-class
• to a language
• to a speaker
• to a time
• etc
15
For example: I am …
time
•
T
time
meaning
subject
I
complement
am
•
'is-a'
verb
English
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Deictic meaning
ME
YOU
•
time
NOW
referent
addressee
referent
speaker
referent
referent
•
•
•
place
HERE
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Non-social contextual semantics
• deixis (deictic meaning)
– e.g. I = speaker, present-tense: time = now
• illocutionary force
– e.g. Come in! = I ask you to come in.
• performatives
– e.g. I beg you to stop! = I beg you to stop
• emotional language
– e.g. What the hell is it? = I'm surprised
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Language and non-language
• Even without sociolinguistics, any theory
of language structure must link a word to:
– its speaker (e.g. me, What the hell)
– its addressee (e.g. you, Come in!)
– its time (e.g. now, am/was)
– etc.
• So these external links are already
available for sociolinguists
– but only in Word Grammar!
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Other parts of WG theory
• Conceptual structure:
– A network of related nodes
– Built round a hierarchy of 'is-a' relations
• Conceptual processes:
– Default inheritance (across 'is-a')
– Spreading activation for retrieval
– Node-creation for:
• tokens
• learning
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Default inheritance and node
creation
speaker
speaker
Brit
BISCUIT
Linguist
speaker
speaker
BISCUIT*
MORPHEME
x
MORPHEME*
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Activation
• The mental network is active.
– permanent activity recording frequency (etc)
– temporary activity reacting to current
concerns
• Different nodes and relations have
different activity levels guiding choice.
– synonyms (SOMEBODY or SOMEONE?)
– social categories (British or Londoner?)
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Choosing between synonyms
• e.g. somebody or someone?
– Google: 430 million vs 2,120 million
– so someone is more active
– so we prefer someone
– but not every time
• why not?
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Modelling a choice between
synonyms
someone/body
meaning
meaning
SOMEBODY
SOMEONE
meaning
?
a word being
planned
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Choosing between social
categories
• e.g. Northerner or Londoner?
– Northerner: one = /wɒn/ (like wan)
– Londoner: one = /wʌn/ (like won)
• me:
– childhood in the North
– adulthood in London
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Northerner or Londoner?
ONE
speaker
speaker
/wʌn/
/wɒn/
Northerner
Londoner
?
speaker
/wɒn/
me
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The ultimate research project
• Record 12 speakers in two situations
– 3 social variables = 2 ages x 2 sexes x 3
classes
– count variants for 12 linguistic variables
• Build a single model of I-language and Isociety which
– quantifies activation
– integrates all variables.
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Conclusion
• E-sociolinguistics observes the behaviour
of individuals.
• I-sociolinguistics explains the behaviour of
individuals whose …
– social analysis follows activation
– behaviour follows default inheritance
• Sociolinguistics meets psycholinguistics!
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