Two complementary directions to the study of language and society:
LANGUAGE (linguistic sciences)
↔
SOCIETY (social sciences)
Sociolinguistics (micro-sociolinguistics) Linguosociology (macro-sociolinguistics)
Linguistic SOCIO-
Sciences LINGUISTICS
LINGUO-
SOCIOLOGY
Social sciences
Linguosociology (macro-sociolinguistics,
sociology of language)
Based on Pavlík (2006: 33)
Sociolinguistics (micro-sociolinguistics)
Focus:
Language in relation to society
Linguistic → social categories society in relation to language social→ linguistic categories
Describe and classify linguistic variation Describe and classify social variation
to see if exists a relation bet. linguistic variants to see how social variables influence
and social variables (class, gender, status, age etc.) speakers´ linguistic behaviour
Question:
What social structures are behind l. variation? What l. variation is characteristic of social structures?

Topics:
´micro´
Language and social variables: class age gender race ethnicity culture
Language and situational variables: register style
Language and geographical variables:
Region
Language and functional variables:
Functions of language
Language policy/management
´macro´ language change language maintenance language shift language spread language conflict language policy/management language planning
Nation = a community of people who
- share and/or are conscious of their common ancestry and history, culture, and language
have/seek their own selfgovernment
have their own territory and represent sovereign states
Note:
The overlap of nation and ethnicity/race cf. country = geographical region as a physical territory of state or other political unit
state = a political entity with a defined territory and self-government, incl. language policy
Language situation within a political unit:
A.
one language a/ one ethnic group (rare) b/ more ethnic groups (common) stratification of a languages: horizontal (= geographical) dialects vs. standard/ literary language vertical social (= social): some varieties are higher lower
= diglossia
B.More languages - more ethnic groups

Language policy/planning (formerly language culture)
Standardization
- reasons:
- manifestations:
- elevating a variety into a standard/literary status and its management
- codification of a norm to a set of prescriptive rules
- extreme prescription of norms = purism
- result: national language = a common language “which cuts across social, ethnic, racial, and regional boundaries […] a set of functionally, territorially, and socially stratified (mutually intelligible) linguistic varieties which are used in natural communication by members of a particular nation”
(Pavlík 2006: 154)
- cf.
official language
- source of a national language:
1. an indigenous language
2. a dominant ethnic language
3. a different language
- process of standardization:
3 stages – descriptive, normative and performative stages
4 steps – selection, acceptance, elaboration, codification
Stage: descriptive step: selection acceptance elaboration normative codification performative
The emergence of standard English:
A. Descriptive stage:
1. selection
Late Middle Ages:
–
Centre of power → London and the South-East o economy: agriculture, wool trade o population density o London dialec t, or ´the East Midlands triangle dialect´ (London, Oxford, Cambridge)
– printing – 1476, W. Caxton
– end C16: London dialect became preferred, in spoken (popular London speech) and written standard (the Chancery standard )
2. acceptance:
- East Midlands dialect accepted esp. by students from all over England a political tool for the expression of English nationalism and its employment at the roal court respected and influential authors ( Chaucer, Spencer, Sydney, Shakespeare)

3. elaboration spread of the standard into more domains of use: Church, the Law
1362 – Parliament was opened in English
English was adopted as a langage of the Courts
1476 – printing enhances its spread
C15 translation of the Bible into English growth of domains is paralleled with the growth of linguistic means, esp.
vocabulary result: a stylistic variation
B.Normative stage
4 .codification
giving systems of selected linguistic resources legally binding status encoded in normative grammars, dictionaries and prescriptive manuals
early C17 – grammarians tolerant of regionalisms
late C17 – regional influences seen as ´incorrect´ grammarians start to prescribe the correct language forms for advancing in the
London society, people were becoming more conscious of Standard English problem with codification is a tension: language as a dynamically evolving phenomenon and an artificial effort to fix it hence exists a discrepancy between (prescriptive) grammarian´s rules (who want to see language as regular and fix it) and actual usage also – political aspect – language is a symbol of national identity and sovereignty
S. Johnson´s Dictionary of the English Language (1775)
Oxford English Dictionary , 12-volumes, (1928)
John Walker´s
Critical Pronouncing Dictionary (1791)
Grammars:
C. Performative stage policy aimed at the securing acceptance of the standard implemented by state institutions: schools, media, language academies, language police (?)
Cf. Slovakia and France –
Académie Francaise, SAV
UK, USA - a state regulatory institution is absent standardization is delegated to individual auhorities, universities, publishing houses
Literature:
Crystal, D.2003. The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language . Cambridge: CUP.
Holmes, J. 2008. An Introduction to Sociolinguistics . Longman/Pearson.
Gramley, S. and Patzold, K.-M. 2006. A Survey of Modern English . London and New York: Routledge.
Pavlík, R. 2006.
Elements of Sociolinguistics . Bratislava: UK.
Trudgill, P. 2000. Sociolinguistic s. London: Penguin.
Wardhaugh, R. 1992. An Introduction to Sociolinguistics.
Blackwell.