Sociolinguistics_April 15th, 2019

Andhika Arya Amartya (18202241045)
Ilham Septian Fajar Putranta (18202241065)
Wahyu Putra Pradana (18202241066)
Zufar Fakhruddin Suyuti (18202241067)
English Language Education Dept.
Faculty of Languages and Arts

According to George Yule (2010):
 Sociolinguistics is the study of the linguistic
features that have social relevance for
participants in those speech communities.
 The term of sociolinguistics is used generally
for the study of the relationship between
language and society

 Accent is restricted to pronunciation
features alone. An accent affects only the
phonological level of a linguistic variety. When
we say that someone speaks with an accent (e.g.
a foreign accent, a working-class accent, a
regional accent), we refer to the person’s
individual way of pronouncing language. When
we say, however, that someone uses a dialect,
we refer not only to his or her pronunciation but
also to this person’s use of grammar and
vocabulary.
 Based on Victoria Fromkin (2014), dialect is the
language used by a group of speakers. The
dialects of a language are the mutually
intelligible forms of that language that differ in
systematic ways from each other. Dialect
develop because language change, and the
changes that occur in one group or area may
differ from those that occur in another.

 A dialect can be distinguished from another dialect of
a given language in lexical, grammatical and/or
phonological terms.
 Dialects are language varieties used
by regional or social groups. These groups define
themselves or are defined by others by different
extralinguistic factors such as age, ethnicity, gender
or socioeconomic status.
 Whereas dialect denotes regional variation, the
language varieties characteristic of different social
groups are more correctly referred to as social
dialects or sociolects. Sociolects are varieties which
are shaped by the social background of the speaker,
i.e. by the aforementioned extralinguistic factors.
Upper-class speech in the UK and youth language are
examples of sociolects.

 Based on Victoria Fromkin (2014), regional
dialect is a dialect spoken in a specific
geographic area that may arise from, and is
reinforced by, that area’s integrity
 Example:
A Boston dialect is maintained because large
numbers of Bostonians and their descendants
remain in the Boston area.

 According to George Yule (2010):
 The study of regional dialects focuses on the
speech of people in rural areas, while the
study of social dialects focuses on speakers
in towns and cities.
 Social Dialect : Languages of a certain group
of people from a certain social class.
 Types of class involved :
 Middle Class
 Working Class

 A personal dialect is idiolect : an individual
way of speaking. However, we generally
tend to sound like others with whom we
share similar educational backgrounds and/or
occupations.
 Among those who leave the educational
system at an early age, there is a general
pattern of using certain forms that are
relatively infrequent in the speech of those
who go on to complete college.

 Those who spend more time in the
educational system tend to have more
features in their spoken language that derive
from a lot of time spent with the written
language.
 The observation that some teacher “talks
like a book” is possibly a reflection of an
extreme form of this influence from the
written language after years in the
educational system.

 As adults, the outcome of our time in the
educational system is usually reflected in our
occupation and socio-economic status.
 The way bank executives, as opposed to
window cleaners, talk to each other usually
provides linguistic evidence for the
significance of these social variables.

 Based on George Yule (2010):
 Social Markers : Certain speech sounds that
define the social group the speaker belongs
to.
 Examples
 Postvocalic /r/.
 Pronunciation –ing [n] (lower class) or [ng].
 [h] dropping, associated with lower class and less
education
 Example : Head as /ed/

 Based on George Yule (2010):
 Speech Style : A social feature of language
use.
 Formal : Careful style
 Informal use : Casual style
 We do not talk in one style all the time. We
change our speech styles according to the
social factors.
 Style-shifting : A change from one style to
another by an individual

 Other than the standard variety of a
language, dialects are often stigmatized.
They are regarded in a rather negative way
as deviant cases of speech and are
accredited with low prestige. Labels of
‘good’ and ‘bad’ English reflect the general
attitude towards standard and non-standard
varieties of the English language.

 ‘Prestige’, however, is not entirely equal to
‘standard’. In fact, any language variety, be
it standard or non-standard, can have
prestige among its speakers. Sociolinguists
make a distinction between ‘overt prestige’
and ‘covert prestige’ to denote the degree of
overall social acceptance of a speech variety.

 Overt prestige: the standard usually has overt
prestige; it is generally socially acknowledged as
‘correct’ and therefore valued highly among all
speakers of the language.
 Covert prestige: Non-standard varieties are
often said to have covert prestige ascribed to
them by their speakers. A specific, small group
of speakers shows positive evaluation of and
orientation towards a certain linguistic variety,
usually without the speakers' awareness. The
variety is usually not accepted in all social
groups (e.g. youth language).

 Speech Accommodation : It is our ability to
modify our speech style toward or away from
the style of the person we are talking to
 Convergence: The use of forms that are similar
to those of the person we are talking to. It
attemps to reduce social distance
 Divergence: The use of forms that are different
from those of the person we are talking to. It
attempts to increase social distance
(George Yule, 2010)

 Based on Victoria Fromkin (2014), register is
a stylistic variant of a language appropriate
to a particular social setting. (e.g. in church
:”Ye shall be blessed by Him in times of
tribulation”) or (e.g. among lawyers :”The
plaintiff is ready to take the witnss stand”)

 According to George Yule (2010):
 Slang, or “colloquial speech,” describes
words or phrases that are used instead of
more everyday terms among younger
speakers and other groups with special
interests.

 According to George Yule (2010)
 Vernacular language is a general expression
for a kind of social dialect.

 In many countries, regional variation is not
simply a matter of two (or more) dialects of
a single language but can involve two (or
more) quite distinct and different languages.
Canada, for example, is an officially
bilingual country, with both French and
English as official languages.

 Diglossia is a linguistic phenomenon found in many
multilingual speech communities.Diglossia describes
a particular type of sociolinguistic situation in which
there is a clear differentiation in function between
the languages or language varieties used in a
bilingual/multilingual community. One linguistic
variety, the high variety (H-variety), is the prestige
variety - generally a standard variety - and is
typically reserved for official functions in more
formal speech situations in the public sphere (e.g. in
government, in written education, for religious
service, or by the media). The other linguistic
variety, the low variety (L-variety), is exclusively
used in and restricted to informal speech
situations in the private sphere.

 The L-variety usually has less prestige than the
H-variety and is made of the vernacular varieties
used at home for informal everyday
conversations. This specialization of
function between H and L is seen as the most
important criterion for the classification of a
speech community as diglossic. While H is
appropriate only in formal situations, L is only
used in informal situations.
 H and L differ from each other both linguistically
and socially. Linguistically, they do so with
respect to grammar, phonology, and vocabulary;
socially, they differ in function and prestige, as
well as in literary heritage, acquisition,
standardization, and stability.

 According to Janet Holmes (2013):
 When the government chooses a variety as a
national or official language, it does
language planning
 Language Planning: The deliberate effort to
influence the function, structure or
acquisition of a language within a speech
community.

 The Process of Planning:
Planning a language goes under four steps:
1. Selection: Choosing the variety to be developed.
2. Codification: Standardising its structural or linguistic
features. This step is also called Corpus Planning.
3. Elaboration: Extending its functions for use in new
domains.
4. Securing its acceptance: Enhancing its prestige and
encouraging people to develop pride in it and loyalty
towards it.
 Selecting the variety to be developed is often a political decision.
 Linguists help in pointing out the different linguistic problems
represented by selecting one variety than another.
 The acceptance of the chosen variety by the people will require
the support of politicians and socially prestigious groups.

 Choosing a variety depends on factors like:
1. The form of the variety.
2. The functions it serves.
3. The attitudes people hold towards it.

 Pidgin & Creoles is a variety of a language
that developed for some practical purpose,
such as trading, among groups of people who
had a lot of contacts, but who did not know
each other’s languages.

 Fromkin, Victoria, et al. 2014. An Itroduction
to Language. Wadsworth: New York.
 Holmes, Janet. (2013). An Introduction to
Sociolinguistics. Roudledge: New York.
 Yule, George. (2010). The Study of Language.
(4th ed.) Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.

Sociolinguistics_April 15th, 2019

Sociolinguistics_April 15th, 2019

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