CHPTER 1

Introduction

1)What is sociolinguistics?
Sociolinguistics is the study of our everyday lives-how language works in our casual
conversations and the media we are exposed to, and the presence of societal norms,
policies, and laws which address language.
It means the relationship between society and language and also language elements.
These elements are phonology, morphology, syntax and semantics.
The descriptive study of the effect of any and all aspects of society, including cultural
norms, expectations, and context, on the way language is used, and the effects of
language use on society.

2)What is the relationship between society and language?

By society, we mean a group of people who are drawn together for a certain purpose or
purposes. We use the term language to mean a system of linguistic communication
particular to a group; this includes spoken, written, and signed modes of
communication.
Language is part of society. Language refers to the linguistic issues but society refers to
people of community.

3)Explain knowledge of language?

What 2 or more people communicate with each other, we can call the system they use a
code. The system itself or the grammar is something that each speaker ‘knows’.
Anyone who knows a language knows much more about that language than is
contained in any grammar book that attempts to describe the language.
It is shared knowledge that becomes the abstraction of a language, which is often seen
as something which exists independent of speakers of a particular variety.

4)Explain the relationship between competence and performance? Concern the

linguistic and social knowledge.
Chomskey distinguishes between what he has called competence and performance. He
claims that it is the linguist’s task to characterize what speakers know about their
language, that is their competence, not what they do with their language, that is, their

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performance. Competence refers to the linguistic knowledge which deals with
structure, forms and sentences.

5)What is variety(kind) of language?

For sociolinguistics, linguistic variation is a central topic. The language we use in
everyday living is remarkably varied. There is variation across speakers, that is,
reflections of different ways that people speak in different regions or social groups, but
also variation within the speech of a single speaker.
Variation is a characteristic of language: there is more than one way of saying the
same thing. Speakers may vary pronunciation (accent), word choice (lexicon), or
morphology and syntax (sometimes called "grammar").
Dialect: a particular form of a language which is peculiar to a specific region or social
group.
Idiolect: the speech habits peculiar to a particular person.
Sociolect: the dialect of a particular social class.
Register: In linguistics, a register is a variety of a language used for a particular
purpose or in a particular social setting.
Jargon is a type of language that is used in a particular context and may not be well
understood outside of it. The context is usually a particular occupation.

6)Explain an identity? Name the elements of identity.

The term identity is defined as the linguistic construction of membership in one or
more social groups. Our special focus is on how language constructs speaker identity.
It may be sometimes nature of people, sometime is the label of the people.
1) One of the main elements of identities is language
2) Power: is the ability to control events in order to achieve one’s aims. For
example: richness is a power.
3) Solidarity: refers to the motivations which cause individuals to act together, in
other words, refer to unity.
4) Culture: It’s a sign of identity. For example: wearing tribe clothes even by
educated people.
5) Age: respecting old people and not young ones.
6) Gender: males and females have different identities. It is different from sex. Sex
is biological but gender is social.

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7)Explain differences between micro- and macro-sociolinguistics?
Sociolinguistics (or micro-sociolinguistics) is concerned with investigating the
relationship between language and society with the goal being a better understanding
of the structure of language and of how languages function in communication.
In the sociology of language (macro-sociolinguistics) is trying to discover how social
structure can be better understood through the study of language?
Macro deals with big issues of sociolinguistics, like: bilingualism, dialects, sociolect,
but micro deals with small issues for e.g. accents, spelling, pronunciation, etc.

“Please read the book completely”

Best Wishes
Mrs.Nazari