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Sociolinguistics - Origin PDF
Sociolinguistics - Origin PDF
Sociolinguistics - Origin PDF
Sociolinguistics: Origins,
Definitions and Approaches
In this first part of the book we have assembled extracts from some of the
most influential writers in sociolinguistics to illustrate their views on what
sociolinguistics is, what it does, and what it might become. From the short
chapters by Hymes, Labov, (Joshua) Fishman and Halliday we get a strong
sense of the core ideas that have brought sociolinguistics into existence: the
limitations of a study of language that ignores the social and contextual basis
of language; the need to develop an understanding of what language can do
socially and communicatively - a functional perspective - as well as under-
standing what language is like as an abstract system; the need to account for
language in use across many formal and informal, casual and ceremonial,
ordinary and poetic situations; the commitment to displaying and accounting
for variation, at all levels, in social uses of language; the pursuit of equality
and social justice in a social world riddled with linguistic prejudice.
This socially-based view of language was a reaction to a more idealized
view of language as code, conceptualized by Chomsky as linguistic
competence: knowledge of the grammatical rules of a language by an
idealized speaker-hearer. A degree of idealization will be present in linguistic
analysis of any sort (as Halliday points out in Chapter 4 and Milroy in
Chapter 8). But from a sociolinguistic point of view, the Chomskyan
approach was limited and limiting. Therefore Hymes argued for the
broadening of the object of linguistic inquiry into communicative com-
petence - knowledge of grammatical but also social and cultural rules of a
language, and reflecting the competences of actual speakers, not some
idealized norm (see Gumperz's Chapter 5).
At the same time, a sense of history is important in this regard.' Although
sociolinguistics is still a young discipline, dating mainly from the 1960s, its
priorities have shifted over the years. Today, these priorities are being quite
vigorously debated and challenged. A close reading of this part's chapters
will show up significant differences of emphasis, and these will be repeated in
later parts of the book. How we should 'frame' the discipline of
sociolinguistics is therefore something of an open question, and it will be
valuable to return to this introductory section from time to time to refine
your own views. In the meanwhile, we can usefully highlight some of the
principal areas of debate.
5
6 Sociolinguistics: Origins, Definitions and Approaches
with William Labov. Note how Hodge and Kress, similarly to Cameron,
acknowledge the ground-breaking importance of Labov's research in urban
settings - his detailed and rigorously conducted observations of language
variation in New York City, for example (well overviewed in Cameron's
chapter). But these last chapters also criticize Labov for what they see as the
narrowness of his social theorizing. Cameron argues that Labov is too ready
to accept the belief that language reflects society, and that his research is
designed on that assumption. Examining how features of pronunciation co-
vary with social dimensions like social class, gender or age leaves us unable
to explain the symbolic force of such features. Even the most thorough
descriptive account of language variation leaves us unable to explain the
social constitution of linguistic features.
So, for all the obvious successes of sociolinguistics from the 1960s
onwards, sociolinguists are reappraising the trust they have placed in
objective, observational research, and in quantification as their main
research tool. Systematic observation and counting has revealed important
facts about how language forms are distributed - between women and men,
across age-groups and over time. On the other hand, does commitment to
this sort of research limit the questions we can ask about language in
society? Halliday seemed to suggest so when he wrote that sociolinguistics
sometimes appears to be a search for answers which have no questions!
Questions of method are taken up in the chapters in Part II, but there is
more at stake than methods themselves. If we endorse Hymes's appeal for a
'socially constituted' study of language, do we dare to place language at the
centre of our model of social life? If we do, then the agenda for
sociolinguistics is, perhaps paradoxically, far broader than that of
linguistics. Sociolinguistics can provide a coherent way of investigating
social processes generally. This is why it is probably useful to keep the
terminological distinction between linguistics and sociolinguistics, despite
Labov's wish to do away with the 'socio' element.
There is no reason to expect that a uniform vision of sociolinguistics will
prevail, and we have tried to reflect the diversity of sociolinguistic
approaches and priorities, past and present, throughout the Reader.
NOTES
A sense of history is also important in appreciating the writing conventions of
sociolinguists. To contemporary readers, it is very striking that eminent theorists
of language and society should have tolerated what are arguably sexist modes of
reference, such as Labov's 'people ... arguing with their wives', the first word
of Fishman's chapter, or Halliday's 'language and social man'. It is very largely
through the sociolinguistic research which these authors brought into existence
that we have become aware of the divisiveness and inequality that such patterns
of usage can promote.
Editors' Introduction 9
Bolton, K. and Kwok, H. (eds) (1992) Sociolinguistics Today: Asia and the West
(London: Routledge).
Cameron, D. (ed.) (1990) A Feminist Critique of Language (London: Routledge).
Coates, J. (1993) Women, Men and Language: A Sociolinguistic Account of Gender
Differences in Language (second edition) (London: Longman).
Dittmar, N. (1976) Sociolinguistics: A Critical Survey of Theory and Application
(London: Arnold).
Figueroa, E. (1994) Sociolinguistic Metatheory (Oxford: Pergamon).
Fowler, R., Hodge, R., Kress, G. and Trew, T. (1979) Language and Control
(London: Routledge & Kegan Paul).
Gee, J. P. (1990) Social Linguistics and Literacies: Ideology in Discourses (London:
Falmer Press).
Giglioli, P. P. (ed.) (1972) Language and Social Context (Harmondsworth:
Penguin).
Gumperz, J. J. and Hymes, D. (eds) (1972) Directions in Sociolinguistics: The
Ethnography of Communication (New York: Holt, Reinhart & Winston; also
published by Blackwell).
Halliday, M. A. K. (1978) Language as Social Semiotic (London: Arnold).
Hymes, D. (1972) 'On Communicative Competence', in Pride, J. and Holmes, J. (eds)
Sociolinguistics (Harmondsworth: Penguin) pp. 269-93.
Kress, G. and Hodge, R. (1994) Language as Ideology (second edition) (London:
Routledge).
McConnell-Ginet, S., Borker, R. and Furman, N. (eds) (1980) Women and Language
in Literature and Society (New York: Praeger).
McKay, S. and Hornberger, N. H. (eds) (1996) Sociolinguistics and Language
Teaching (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
Pride, J. and Holmes, J. (eds) (1972) Sociolinguistics: Selected Readings
(Harmondsworth: Penguin).
Robinson, W. P. (1972) Language and Social Behaviour (Harmondsworth:
Penguin).
Trudgill, P. (ed.) (1984) Applied Sociolinguistics (New York: Academic Press).
Williams, G. (1992) Sociolinguistics: A Sociological Critique (London:
Routledge).
Wolfson, N. (1988) Perspectives: Sociolinguistics and TESOL (New York: Newbury
House).
10 Sociolinguistics: Origins, Definitions and Approaches
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