SOCIOLINGUISTICS
- the study of language in relation to society.
- deals with society and its dynamics and how these
effects on language.
- observes variations and features of these variations
brought about by social factors.
- It affects people in choosing the appropriate
language to make communication with other people
in the current context differently.
- variables in linguistic interactions.
FOCUS OF SOCIOLINGUISTICS
- linguistic features that are used in particular
situations.
- the parts language plays in maintaining the social
roles in a community.
- features that mark the various social relationships
among the participants
- influences on the choice of sounds, grammatical
elements, and vocabulary items may include such
factors as age, sex, education, occupation, race, and
peer-group identification, among others.
SOCIOLINGUISTICS VS LINGUISTICS PROPER
Sociolinguistics - studies socially variable language practice or
use
Linguistics Proper - studies the invariant language system
LINGUISTIC PROPER AND SOCIOLINGUISTIC OVERLAPS
Linguistics Proper and Sociolinguistics complement each
other in that studies in sociolinguistics can be broken down
through concepts and features used in linguistics proper, and
thus we can individually study these features to provide a
holistic view of language workings in both the systems of
society and structure.
CRITICAL LANGUAGE STUDY
- identifies areas of language as having the greatest
meaning potential for the understanding of the social
process.
- places significant emphasis on power dynamics and
power relations.
- aims to analyze social interaction using surrounding
linguistic elements, to reveal factors that affect
language in the system of social relationships.
SOCIOLINGUISTICS AS AN APPROACH TO CLS
- sociolinguistics explains what is happening in a
particular interaction and the context of the features
being used by the participants. CLS derives from
these features and the power dynamics and relations
that can be pinpointed by the contexts and
superficially observed social factors.
- Sociolinguistics has shown systematic correlations
between variations in linguistic form and social
- The socially constituted nature of language practice
can be taken as a general premise of CLS.
- Through sociolinguistics it can then tell us something
about the power relations, dynamics, or social
hierarchies within the society.
- Through sociolinguistics, it can then tell us how
language can be seen in a form of action that has
shaped that language especially as used in social
relationships.
WEAKNESSES AND LIMITATIONS
- It is heavily influenced by positivist conceptions of
social science. - Sociolinguistics relies on descriptive
data so it is easier to analyze.
- It is strong on what questions but weak on why and
how questions. – Sociolinguistics limit itself to what
can be observed it does not delve into why and how
some phenomena occur in social settings.
- General insensitivity of sociolinguistics towards its
own relationship to the Sociolinguistic orders it
seeks to describe- Biases and social background
affects the way others perceive it and affects the
ideologies, power relations, and dynamics that are
interpreted in CLS.
CONVERSATION ANALYSIS AND DISCOURSE ANALYSIS
CONVERSATION ANALYSIS
- can be generally viewed as the study of talk.
- it is a means for understanding the level of social
order that are divulged in everyday conversations.
- It is a research method used to study the
organization and structure of spoken interactions
between individuals or groups in a natural setting.
4 KEY CONVERSATION CONCEPTS
1. Turn-taking
- it is the foundation of the conversation.
- to have a conversation, one must act as the speaker
and the other one acts as the listener, vv.
2. Adjacency pairs
- pair of utterances that are expected to go together.
- The pair is consisting of an initiating turn and a
responding turn. Ex. Hi, Hello
3. Preference Organization
- investigates how speakers display their preferences
and alignment with certain actions in conversation.
- It is the concept that there are sequences that are
‘preferred’ and do not require explanation of their
occurrence OR sequences that are ‘dispreferred’ that
do require an explanation of their occurrence.
4. Conversation Repair/ Repair and Correction
- set of methods that is used to fix problems that
arise with conversing.
- It is the way it examines how participants deal with
misunderstanding, error, and miscommunication.
UNDER CONVERSATION REPAIR
4 TYPES OF REPAIRS
1. Self-initiated Self-Repair
– the speaker recognizes their error and corrects
without external prompting.
2. Self-initiated Other-Repair
- the speaker acknowledges an issue and requests
help or confirmation from another participant.
3. Other-initiated Self-Repair
- a listener or other participant recognizes an issue
and provides a correction or a suggestion to the
speaker.
4. Other-initiated Other-Repair
- A participant detects an issue and seeks clarification
from another participant.
DISCOURSE ANALYSIS
- A methodological approach used to examine and
understand how language is used in communication,
especially within the social contexts.
- It involves the systematic study of spoken, written, or
visual texts to cover underlying structures, patterns,
and meanings in discourse.
- Purpose of it is to investigate the functions of
language and how meaning is constructed in
different context.
TWO MAIN APPROACHES
1. Language-in-use
- This approach focuses on the formal and structural
aspects of discourse, primarily examining the
linguistic features within a text or spoken interaction.
2. Socio-political
- this approach look beyond the technicalities of
language and instead focus on the influence that
language has in social context
 PRAGMATICS as an APPROACH TOOLS
In contemporary culture, the exertion of authority and
power is more and more accomplished through societal beliefs and
the linguistic efforts of ideology. Certain social thinkers
acknowledged the importance of language in their analyses.
Language likely stands as the foremost means of influencing society
and wielding power.
PRAGMATICS
Pragmatics
 a facet of linguistics, revolves around the intricate
relationship between language usage and its surrounding
context
 involves studying the diverse effects of context on
communication, encompassing factors that vary between
instances of expression.
 study the context that contribute to the meaning of the
word (relationship b/w language & context)
IDEAS IN PRAGMATICS
INFERENCE AND PRESUPPOSITION
The INFERENCE is used by the listener or the reader to connect
(understand) with what is said and what is meant.
The PRESUPPOSITION is what the speaker or the writer assumes to
be known by the reader or the listener.
SPEECH ACTS
 Is the use of language that occurs with actions such as
requests, demands, or questions.
-Direct (Get that ball.) and Indirect Speech Acts (I think that ball
must be placed here)
-Performative Speech Acts
CRITICAL LANGUAGE STUDY
 A specific method of considering language the intention of
revealing concealed relationships, such as those between
language, power, and ideology.
 Examines social engagements by emphasizing their
linguistic components, aiming to uncover their typically
concealed influences within the framework of social
connections, along with the concealed impacts they might
impose on that framework.
COMMON-SENSE ASSUMPTIONS
 assumptions that are implicit in interactions and of which
people are generally unaware.
An example of this is the treatment of authority and hierarchy as
natural in social interactions.
Ex. The President will impose rules and policy and the constituents
should comply and cooperate.
IDEOLOGIES (set of beliefs)
 linked to language and power
 embedded in particular conventions that make the nature
of the convention depend on the power relations of the
system.
 language is the most common tool to facilitate social
interactions and observe social behaviors where these
social behaviors rely most on Common-sense
assumptions.
PRAGMATICS as an APPROACH TOOLS
Focused on the Anglo-American conception of pragmatics because
it deals with language use, including sociolinguistics. Anglo-
American pragmatics is closely associated with analytical
philosophy, particularly with the work of Austin and Searle on
'speech acts' that suggest Language can be seen in a form of
action.
The weakness of pragmatics from a critical lens is its individualism
because 'action' is thought of atomistically as emanating wholly
from the individual and is often conceptualized in terms of the
'strategies' adopted by the individual speaker to achieve her 'goals'
or 'intentions’.
 This invalidates that people are boxed in their individual
identities from social conventions.
 It gives the implausible impression that conventionalized
ways of speaking or writing are 'reinvented' on each
occasion of their use by the speaker generating a suitable
strategy for her particular goals.
It complies with the circulating belief that people manipulate
language for strategic purposes without the social convention they
carry. But of course, in other circumstances, they simply follow
them.
Individuals who are postulated in pragmatics are generally assumed
to be involved in a cooperative interaction where they have
control over each other’s presupposition and inference. This
cooperative interaction will serve as a prototype for social
interaction, disregarding the limitation of social linguistic relation
occurrence and socially constrained speakers. The result will be
idealistic and perfectionistic thoughts of verbal communication
which is in contrast to the sociolinguistic order of social struggles
and power in CLS.
Pragmatics is limited to developing with reference to single
invented utterances rather than real extended discourse including
speech acts that turned out problematic when people use them to
analyze the discourse.
While pragmatics provided a venue for investigation of the
interdependence of language and social context. Still, pragmatics
tends to be seen as an additional 'level' of language study which
fills in gaps left by the more 'core' levels of grammar and semantics.
Social context is acknowledged but kept in its place, which does It
less than Justice.
 LANGUAGE AND ETHNICITY
LANGUAGE
 used in communicating with others, whether this be in the
form of speech, writing, or gestures
 often highly structured and complex, following specific
grammar rules and social conventions.
ETHNICITY
 refers to our social identity, involving factors such as
cultural practices, nationality, language, religious beliefs,
and familial bonds.
Relationship between Language and Ethnicity
Language is a factor in defining ethnicity.
Dialect is a variety of a language that is spoken in a particular
region of a country.
Idiolect refers to an individual's unique use of language.
Ethnolect refers to a language variety that is specific to an ethnic
group.
Ethnicity vs Race
Ethnicity refers to our social identity, involving factors such as
cultural practices, nationality, language, religious beliefs, and
familial bonds.
Race refers to the distinctive physical characteristics of a person.
Language Contact, Creole, and Pidgin
Language contact refers to the interaction between two or more
languages that mix and influence each other.
Pidgin language is a variety of language that develops due to the
mixing of two or more different groups that speak different native
languages.
Creole language is a stable, 'fully-fledged' form of language that
often derives from a pidgin language.
Migration refers to relocation to a country
Immigration refers to the movement from one region to another
Code-switching is when a person changes between two different
languages or language varieties within a single verbal exchange.
Language and Ethnicity Theories
Holmes Code Switching
Holmes discusses code-switching, stating that it allows a speaker to
convey emotion effectively by drawing the most appropriate
vocabulary from other languages or linguistic varieties.
Kerswill - Multicultural London English (2008)
Kerswill et al. suggested that ethnicity was not necessarily a
determining factor affecting the variation of English used by their
participants. Instead, they explored the effect of social networks on
language use and how this interacts with ethnic identity.
Gary Ives Bradford Study (2014)
Code-switching was therefore a way to emphasize group identity
and exclude people from other ethnicities who wouldn't
understand the language upon his Bradford study wherein Ives
interviewed students from a school in Bradford which had a strong
Pakistani influence.
Gary Ives London Study
Ives London study, therefore, showed that language use didn't
hugely depend on ethnicity but rather where you live and your
group identity.
Drummond (2012)
Drummond studied the language of Polish immigrants. There were
two sub-groups: those that had settled in the UK and intended to
stay, and those who intended to return to Poland. He concluded
that the immigrant's choice in language 'can signal some kind of
allegiance to one or another culture'. In other words, language
reflected the immigrants' attitudes towards their Polish identity
and their desire to integrate into UK life.
LANGUAGE AND AGE
Language. The principal method of human communication,
consisting of words used in a structured and conventional way and
conveyed by speech, writing, or gestures
Age. The length of time that a person has lived or a thing has
existed
Relationship between Language and Age
Difference in Language Use Across Age Cohorts
Adolescent language use
 using of slang terms and different figures of speech
 create and support a sense of social identity provide more
freedom for expression
Language use in children
 make up their own words
 pronunciation of words might not be as clear
 use language in order to communicate their needs
 Critical age for learning language
Language use in adults
 more purpose and autonomy
 more morphological awareness
 issues with fluency and clarity
 increased pauses whilst talking and the introduction of
more filler words
 decline in the ability to recall and produce verbal forms of
familiar words
How Language Use Changes Over Time
Measuring age
The Handbook of Sociolinguistics (1997) of Penelope Eckert has
divided the concept of age into three categories:

chronological age - the number of years a person has been alive

biological age - the level of physical maturity reached by a person

social age - a person's age as determined by their social standing

and life experiences

Gender and age in language

 assume female language use to be less direct and more

cooperative and supportive
 men who pride themselves on diplomacy whilst women
are seen as more assertive

Age-grading

 refers to how behaviors and linguistic habits tend to

predictably recur over several generations