Sociolinguistics

and foreign
language
teaching
 Group 2

Phuong Duong Yen Anh

Content
a. Definition of language and linguistics
b. Phonetics & phonology
c. Morphology
d. Syntax
e. Semantics & pragmatics, and other related issues
f. The relationships between linguistics and foreign language teaching (FLT)
01
Definition
Sociolinguistics
Sociolinguistics is the study of our everyday lives.
01 02
How language works in our The presence of societal
casual conversations and the norms, policies, and laws
media we are exposed to. which address language.

An introduction to sociolinguistics by Wardhaugh, R. (2014).

 seek to analyze data

Make generalizations Question both our findings

and the very process of
about language in society
doing research
Sociolinguists study the relationship between
language and society
● Explain why people speak differently in different social contexts

● Identify the social functions of language and the ways it is used to

convey social

● Examine the way people use language in different social contexts

provides a wealth of information about the way language works, as
well as about the social relationships in a community, and the way
people convey and construct aspects of their social identity through
their language
An introduction to sociolinguistics by Holmes, J. (2013)
● The study of the relationship between language and social
factors such as class, age, gender and ethnicity (Hudson,
1996).
● The study of language in relation to its socio-cultural context
(Van Dijk, 2009).
● The study of the effect of any and all aspects of society,
including cultural norms, expectations, and context on the way
language is used (Trudgill, 2000).

a discipline that makes a link between sociology and linguistics.

Key concepts of sociolinguistics
Languages

Dialects
(regional dialects, social dialects,
accent)
 Languages
● The position of the speaker in
society (education, parental
background, profession) -> effect
● Differences between the use of a given
on syntax and lexis used by the
language by its native speakers and
speaker.
other ethnic groups (Bell, 1976)

● Slight differences in pronunciation

● Many people see language and ethnicity
between speakers indicate the
or nationality as virtually synonymous
geographical region they come
(Coulmas 1999)
from
 Languages

● Standard language: ● vernacular language: has not been

- is written / has undergone some standardised and which does not hav
degree of regularisation or official status.
codification (in a grammar and a
dictionary)
- is recognised as a prestigious
variety or code by a community,
Dialects
- An individual’s way of speaking, including

sounds, words, grammar and style.

- Dialectal words are special word forms that

indicate the linguistic origin of the speaker

(Trudgill, 2000). They are introduced into the

speech of personages to indicate their region

The standard–dialect hierarchy
- Related to the standard variety because of the
latter’s sociopolitical salience
- Has been chosen (political, social, religious, or
economic, or some combination of reasons, to serve as
either the model or the norm for other varieties)

- Not a dialect at all, but the language itself.

- Take on ideological dimension
- Become the ‘right’ and ‘proper’ language of
the group of people, the very expression of their
being.
- The western, northern dialects and Modern
English - new standard based on the dialect of the
area surrounding London
- Provide the base for Standard English
-> A strong influence over all the other dialects of
England
Represent the modern language
The western, northern dialects are generally
regarded as its local variants.
• Northern Vietnamese
• North-Central Vietnamese
• Mid-Central Vietnamese
• South-Central Vietnamese
• Southern Vietnamese
Regional dialects

Regional variation in the way a

language is spoken is likely to
provide one of the easiest ways of
observing variety in language.
- This use of the term dialect to differentiate
among regional varieties can be
confounded by what is called a dialect
continuum, in which there is gradual
change of the language.
Over large distances the dialects at
each end of the continuum may
well be mutually unintelligible,
although speakers can easily
understand people in neighboring
- Dialect geography is the term used to describe attempts
made to map the distributions of various linguistic
features so as to show their geographical provenance.

- What names do people give to particular objects in the

environment, for example, elevator or lift, carousel or

round- about?
Accent: the way in which people in a particular
area, country or social group pronounce
Social dialects

● Describe differences in speech associated

with various social groups or classes.
● Social position: occupation, place of
residence, education, income, ‘new’ versus
‘old’ money, racial or ethnic category,
cultural background, caste, religion, etc.
Debt collector Teacher
Buddhism Catholicism
 Ethnic dialects
- So-called ethnic dialects do not arise
because members of particular ethnic
groups are somehow destined to speak in
certain ways
- Ethnic dialects are learned by exposure and
anyone, regardless of their ethnic
identification or racial categorization
- Ethnic dialects are not simply foreign accents of the majority
language, as many of their speakers may well be
monolingual speakers of the majority language.
- Ethnic dialects are ingroup ways of speaking the majority
language.
Example: Chicano English is not English with a Spanish
accent and grammatical transfer. Because many of its
speakers are not Spanish speakers but English
monolinguals
 03
Bilingualism, biculturalism, language
and culture, language and power,
language and gender
Bilingualism
 Code switching

● the act of changing between two or more languages, dialects (= forms of a language), or
accents (= ways of pronouncing words) when you are speaking (Cambridge dictionary)
 Borrowing
● Borrowing across languages is defined with reference to the ‘end product’ rather than the
process (Kamwangamalu, 1996: 296).
● Gumperz (1982:66) defines borrowing as the introduction of single words or short, frozen,
idiomatic phrases from one language into another.
English Vietnamese (Phonetically) Vietnamese Translation
Laptop Láp-tóp Máy tính xách tay
TV (television) Ti-vi Vô tuyến truyền hình
Sandwich Xăng-uých Bánh mì kẹp
Rock music Nhạc Rốc Nhạc Rốc
Film Phim Phim
Shorts (pan) Quần soóc Quần ngắn/quần đùi
Dollar Đô-la Tiền đô
Beefsteak Bít tết Thịt bò bìt tết
Taxi Tắc-xi Xe Tẵc-xi
Stress Xì-chét Căng thẳng
 Borrowing Codeswitching
- not require or presuppose any degree of - require or presuppose degree of competence in
competence in two languages two languages

- can occur in the speech of both - is strictly speaking a characteristic feature of

monolingual and bilingual speakers alike the linguistic behavior of bilingual speakers

- speakers use borrowing to fill lexical gaps - they engage in CS for a variety of reasons: to
in their languages exclude someone from a conversation by switching
to a language the person does not understand, to
emphasize a point by repeating it in two languages,
etc.
 Diglossia
● Ferguson (1972[1959]) uses the term diglossia to refer to a situation where two genetically related
varieties of a language have clearly distinct functions in the community.

the H(igh) (or standard) variety the L(ow) (i.e. nonstandard) variety
- is used in formal settings - is used in informal interactions
- anyone who uses H while engaged in an informal - anyone who uses L during a formal activity like a
activity like shopping parliamentary debate runs the risk of ridicule

- is learnt at school - is more spontaneously acquired in informal settings

- is generally perceived as more aesthetically - is not highly appreciated
pleasing and beautiful, and has more prestige

- has a literary tradition - does not have a literary tradition, if there does exist a
body of literature in L, it is usually written by
foreigners rather than by native speakers.
Language and Culture
The relationship between language and culture plays a key role in education.

● Culture is not only tied to the local and unique, it is also a property of our humanity and as such
expected to assume some culturally universal characteristics across communities, codes and
users. (. . .) there are certain commonalities across the world’s language communities and
communities of practice in the linguistic means to constitute certain situational meanings.
(Ochs, 1996: 425)
● Within social psychology, cross-cultural communication and intercultural communication are
institutionalized as independent disciplines (e.g. Gudykunst, 2005).
● Cross-cultural and intercultural pragmatics adopts an interdisciplinary approach to examine
variable patterns of language-as-action across cultural groups and in intercultural encounters
(e.g. Bardovi-Harlig & Hartford, 2005; Blum-Kulka et al., 1989; Gass & Neu, 1996; Kasper &
Blum-Kulka, 1993)
Culture in linguistic anthropology
Duranti’s (1997:chap. 2) overview of six perspectives on culture in linguistic anthropology.
- Culture as distinct from nature
- Culture as knowledge
- Culture as communication
- Culture as a system of mediation
- Culture as a system of practices
- Culture as a system of participation
 WHAT ARE THESE QUESTIONS USED FOR?

(a) How are you?

(b) Where are you going?
(c) Have you eaten?
(d) Where do you come from?
(e) Are you married?
(f) How much do you earn?
(g) What do you weigh?
Language and Power
● In one classroom concerned with language and power, you might see students redesigning a
sexist advertisement, and in another one, constructing a linguistic profile of the class or
figuring out how the word perhaps changes the meaning of a statement. Students might be
calculating their own ecological footprints or discussing how to address the problem of
bullying in their grade.
● Underpinning the work in these different classrooms are different approaches towards
teaching students the relationship between language and power; language, identity and
difference; language and the differential access to social goods.
● Many teachers fear critical literacy because they think of it as too political. In thinking about power and
politics, it is important to draw a distinction between Politics with a big P and politics with a small p.
Politics with a capital P Little-p politics
Is the big stuff, worldly concerns. Is about the micro-politics of everyday life.

It is about:
+ government and world trade agreements and
the United Nations peace-keeping forces;
+ ethnic or religious genocide and world
tribunals;
+ apartheid and global capitalism, money
laundering and linguistic imperialism.
+ the inequities between the political North and
the political South.
+ oil, the ozone layer, genetic engineering and
cloning.
+ the danger of global warming.
+ globalisation, the new work order and
sweatshops in Asia
It is about:
+ the micro-politics of everyday life.
+ the minute-by-minute choices and decisions that make us
who we are.
+ desire and fear; how we construct them and how they
construct us.
+ the politics of identity and place;
+ small triumphs and defeats;
+ winners and losers, haves and have-nots, homophobes and
their victims;
+ how we treat other people day by day;
+ whether or not we learn someone else’s language or act to
save the planet by recycling our garbage.
+ taking seriously the feminist perspective that the personal
is the political.
In Janks’ workbook activity ( Janks, 1993b: 12) children are asked the following questions.
(1) Given that you have many different identities, in which of your identities do you feel like a
top dog?
(2) In which identities do you feel like an underdog?
(3) Who is top dog in your family in most situations?
(4) Name a situation in which someone else is top dog?
(5) Among your friends, is there competition to be top dog?
(6) In your school, how do students become top dogs?
(7) In your school, how do teachers become top dogs?
(8) How do the top dogs you know treat the underdogs?
(9) How do the top dogs you know talk to the underdogs?
Language and Gender
 QUESTION

● Do women and men speak differently?

● Consider the following sentences. Put F beside those you think were said by a woman, M beside those you
think were said by a man and F/M beside those you think could have been said by either.
(a) Close the door.
(b) That’s an adorable dog.
(c) Oh dear, the TV set’s broken.
(d) I’ll be damned there’s a friend of mine!
(e) I was very tired.
(f) Won’t you please get me that pencil?
(g) They did the right thing didn’t they?
(h) You’re damn right!
(i) I was just exhausted.
- The stereotype suggests sentences (b), (c), (f), (g), (i), (j) and (k) were produced by women while (a),
(d), (e), (h) and (l) were men’s utterances.
 Gender-exclusive speech differences: highly structured

communities

● Women and men do not speak in exactly the same way as each other in any community.
E.g.: These features are usually small differences in pronunciation or word-shape (morphology). In
Montana, for instance, there are pronunciation differences in the Gros Ventre American Indian
tribe. Where the women say [kjajtsa] for ‘bread’ the men say [dfajtsa]. In this community, if a
person uses the ‘wrong’ form for their gender, the older members of the community may consider
them bisexual.
 ● Word-shapes in other languages contrast because women and men use different affixes.
E.g.: In Yana, a (now extinct) North American Indian language, and Chiquitano, a South American
Indian language, some of the words used between men are longer than the equivalent words
used by women and to women, because the men’s forms sometimes add a suffix.
 ● In some languages, there are also differences between the vocabulary items used by women
and men, though these are never very extensive.
E.g.: Traditional standard Japanese provides some clear examples.
 ● Do English pronouns encode the gender of the speaker?

 No. English pronouns do not reflect the gender of the speaker. The third-person singular
pronouns encode the gender of the referent, i.e. she vs he, but all other pronouns can be used to
refer to either gender. You might like to consider whether, and if so how, the pronouns
used in other languages with which you are familiar encode gender.
● Gender differences in language are often just one aspect of more pervasive linguistic
differences in society reflecting social status or power differences.
● The fact that there are clearly identifiable differences between women’s and men’s speech in
the communities reflects the clearly demarcated gender roles in these communities. Gender-
exclusive speech forms (i.e. some forms are used only by women and others are used only by
men) reflect gender-exclusive social roles. The responsibilities of women and men are
different in such communities, and everyone knows that, and knows what they are. There are
no arguments over who prepares the dinner and who puts the children to bed.
Gender-preferential speech features: social dialect
research
● In Western urban communities, women’s and men’s social roles overlap, the speech forms
they use also overlap.
● Women and men do not use completely different forms. They use different quantities or
frequencies of the same forms. Women tend to use more of the standard forms than men
do, while men use more of the vernacular forms than women do.
E.g.: In some English-speaking cities, women use more -ing [ih] pronunciations and fewer -
in’ [in] pronunciations than men in words like swimming and typing.
 Gender and social class
● Across all social groups in Western societies, women generally use more standard
grammatical forms than men and so, correspondingly, men use more vernacular forms than
women.
E.g.: In Detroit, multiple negation (e.g. I don’t know nothing about it), a vernacular feature of
speech, is more frequent in men’s speech than in women’s.
 Explanations of women’s linguistic behaviour
● The social status explanation
Some linguists have suggested that women use more standard speech forms than men because
they are more status-conscious than men. Standard speech forms are generally associated with high
social status
● Woman’s role as guardian of society’s values
The way society tends to expect ‘better’ behaviour from women than from men.
Little boys are generally allowed more freedom than little girls. Misbehaviour from boys is tolerated where
girls are more quickly corrected. Similarly, rule-breaking of any kind by women is frowned on more
severely than rule-breaking by men. Women are designated the role of modelling correct behaviour in the
community.
 This explanation of why women use more standard forms than men may be relevant in some social
groups, but it is certainly not true for all.
Language
planning and
language
policy
01
Definition
 Definition

Language planning: deliberate efforts to influence the behavior of others with

respect to the acquisition, structure, or functional allocation of their language

codes

Language policy: official policies resulting from language planning and imposed

in a deliberate attempt to influence language behavior by means of official

codes
02
Differences between
language planning and
language policy
 Differences between language planning and
language policy

Language policy is a body of

Language planning is an activity
that intends to promote
systematic linguistics change in
some community of speakers
(Kaplan & Baldauf, 1997)
ideas, laws and regulations,
intended to achieve a planned
change or stop change from
happening in the language used in
one or more communities (Kaplan
& Baldauf, 1997)
03
Levels of language
planning
 Levels of language planning
Macro level – usually involves the
Micro level – focuses on quite specific
government and the language
and limited language issues.
modifications which are complex.
Example:
- To modernize a language so that it
can deal with the vast technological Example:
changes - To decide whether the library should
- To standardize a language to stock foreign language newspaper
achieve unification so that it can be - To decide what language will be
understood by various sub-groups taught at a local school
who may speak different varieties of - To decide what language will the
that language signs in a local shop be to attract
- To provide a way of writing a customers
language which has not previously
been written
04
Actors in
language
planning
 Other groups or
Education
influential
agencies
individuals

Other quasi-
governmental
Governmental
or non-
agencies
Actors in governmental
organization
language
planning
 Governmental agencies

They have the power to Agencies involved:

legislate and the ability Commerce Ministry
to foster incentive and Military Ministry
disincentive structures to Foreign Affairs Ministry
enforce planning Communications Ministry
decisions Labor Ministry
 Education agencies

The entire burden of planning

language change is often allocated
Involved in any sorts of to the education ministry despite
official language policy that the ministry does not have
activity the scope, the resources of the
authority to influence language
use to any extent beyond the
education sector
 Language policy and planning decisions
under the education agencies

 Determine what methodology will be

 Determine which language will
employed in the system, what
be taught within the curriculum
 Define the teacher supply materials will be used to support
 Determine what segment of the those methodologies
 Develop an assessment system that
student population will be
can measure teacher performance and
exposed to language education
system performance
and how that segment will be
 Determine how to support all of this
identified
activity mentally and physically
 Quasi/Non-governmental Organizations

Example:
British Council
These are some non-governmental Alliance Francaise
sectors which are heavily involved English-Speaking Union
in language policy development Goethe Institute
Japan Foundation
Korea Foundation
 Other Organizations/Individuals

Organizations and agencies in which language

planning is an accidental outcome of the primary
function of the body
 05
The activities of
language
planning
Activities of language planning

01 02 03
Status Acquisition Corpus
planning planning planning
'about uses about 'users of 'about language'
of language' language'
 Status planning

The status planning is concerned with attempts to modify the environment in which
a language is used. This kind of activity wants to change the way a language is used.
It is about making some languages (or dialects) official languages for a territory. Very
often, part of status planning is creating a writing system for a language that was only
spoken before.
 Acquisition planning

Acquisition planning typically describes language teaching policies (Cooper,1989).

It looks at ways to make it easier or more attractive to learn a language. Very often,
acquisition planning also involves making the language more attractive to learn for
speakers of other languages.
 Corpus planning

Corpus planning is concerned specifically with attempts to modify language itself.

This activity creates new words, expressions or changes old ones to have a new
meaning. Corpus planning is involved with creating standards for a language, such as
spelling and grammar, or to create dictionaries. Linguistic purity is about avoiding
foreign influences on a language because they are seen as bad. It also belongs to
corpus planning.
 06
Language
planning goals
 Language
maintenance
Stylistic
Language spread
simplification

Language Interlingual
standardization communication

Language
Planning
Goals

Terminological
Language reform
unification

Lexical
Language revival
modernization
Nahir, 1984 Language
purification
07
Language
Policy
 Language policy components
Spolsky (2004) argues, "A useful first step is to distinguish between the three
components of the language policy of a speech community:
(1) its language practices – the habitual pattern of selecting among the varieties that
make up its linguistic repertoire;
(2) its language beliefs or ideology – the beliefs about language and language use; and
(3) any specific efforts to modify or influence that practice by any kind of language
intervention, planning, or management"
 Implications

- It is important to manage the language ecology of a particular language to support it

within the vast structure in which language formation policy formation occurs every
day.
- Languages serve important societal functions for their speakers survive, regardless
of the ministrations of government.
The relationships
between
sociolinguistics
and FLT
The relationships between sociolinguistics and FLT

Language teaching relates to sociolinguistics in many ways. Different social factors

affect language teaching and language learning.
Social factors such as situation, context, and social setting that has roles in language
teaching. It describes the main factors which influence linguistic choices and explains
how well contemporary teaching can take account of them.
Social factors that correlate to foreign language teaching
(FLT) in sociolinguistics perspective
Ethnicity

Gender

sociolinguistic
Geography FLT
s

Social class

Occupation and Role

Social factors that correlate to language teaching in
sociolinguistics perspective
Ethnicity: History and politics will influence the development of any language in non-
predictable way, to deliberately maintain and determine their separateness.
Gender: existence of recorded differences in men and women speeches observable
across a whole range of linguistic variables. These differences do not concern the
lexical and grammatical differences, but are clearly evident in prosodic features.
Social factors that correlate to language teaching in
sociolinguistics perspective
Geography: all languages demonstrate geographic variation. Regional difference
matter is complicated in industrialized societies where geographic mobility is
common. Regional variation known as «dialect» and «accent» which refers to the
pronunciation pattern often combines to form recognizable regional variation. An EFL
teacher in Scotland might face difficulties while teaching because Scottish accent is
different from English accent.
Social factors that correlate to language teaching in
sociolinguistics perspective
Social class: differences in languages across class boundaries employ inferior forms to
disassociate themselves from society. The language used by professional classes is
labeled as «correct» and promoted by governmental educational standard. In contrast,
other forms of language are labeled as «incorrect» and accepted as substandard.
Social factors that correlate to language teaching in
sociolinguistics perspective
Occupation and Role: it is felt that the changes that we most commonly overlook are
the changes in language owing to the profession of the writer or speaker, or their
relationship to others. The impact of role is evident in the language of groups of
builders, school children and shop assistants as well as politicians and sports
commentators.
Thank you!