Sociolinguistic terms Speech Community R egisters Style Shift Code Switch RolePlaying Activity You lost your cell phone Tell Your close friend Your mom she pays for it RolePlaying Activity ID: 697745
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Slide1
Sociolinguistics
Identity and LanguageSlide2
Sociolinguistic terms
Speech
Community
R
egisters
Style
Shift
Code SwitchSlide3
Role-Playing Activity
You lost your cell phone. Tell
Your close friend
Your mom (she pays for it)Slide4
Role-Playing Activity
Describe what happened at lunch last week to
Your friend
Mr. ReaganSlide5
Role-Playing Activity
Talk about an activity you’re involved in (sports, music, etc.) with
Someone who is also involved in that activity
Someone who doesn’t know very much about that activitySlide6
Activity
What would you guess about identities of the speakers of the following words/phrases/sentences?
Budder
[
bʌdɚ
],
bu’er
(with glottal stop)
Fishing,
fishin
’
Farm,
fahm
Ate, et
Aluminum,
aluminium
He hurt
hisself
.
He done it.
To whom did you give it?
They don’t learn you
nothin
’ there.Slide7
Attitudes about accents
Our attitudes about dialects are reflections of how we feel about the people who speak them.Slide8
Standard English
What is
standard English
?
Standard
American English (SAE)
:
The mainstream dialect of English spoken in the US, usually used by government, schools, journalism, and television. Sometimes called Mainstream American English (MAE)
General American Accent (
GenAm
):
The accent usually spoken by most newscasters. Closest to a Midwestern accent. Often thought of as the most “correct” or “neutral” American accent. Slide9
Prescriptivism vs. Descriptivism
Prescriptivists
Descriptivists
Listen
to the
perspectives
of a prescriptivist and descriptivist. Take notes on the kinds of things prescriptivists and descriptivists do and believe.Slide10
Major dialects of the USSlide11
Very detailed map of North American regional dialectsSlide12
Why are there regional dialects?
Patterns of
settlement
The
Scotch-Irish example
Subsequent
migration
The
Southern example
Isolation
Old
Village / New Village ParadoxSlide13
Other key ideas about dialects
There is no region of the US that doesn’t have a dialect.
The dialects most broadcasters use is a region-less dialect.
In the US, there are greater differences in dialects from North to South than East to West.
There can be many dialects within dialects. For example, the Northern dialect encompasses dialects in NYC, Milwaukee, and Minnesota. Slide14
Key terms
Accent
A
frican-American
Vernacular English (AAVE)
:
BidialectismSlide15
Key Terms
CajunSlide16
Key Terms
Chicano
English
Jargon
Prestige language
Slang
R-
lessness
New England speech variety
Southern speech varietySlide17
Regional Varieties vs. Social Varieties
Regional Varieties
of English vary by geographical region
Social Varieties
of English vary by class, race,
age
, and gender. For example, an African American in the South might speak a different language variety than a white person in the South. A person of a lower socioeconomic status in Boston might speak differently from a wealthy person in Boston.Slide18
The Northern Cities Vowel Shift
Spreads among
urban centers
of the Great Lakes regionSlide19
The Northern Cities Vowel ShiftSlide20
African American English: Important Ideas
Grammatical system is complex
Not substandard or lazy
Stigmatized in American culture
Not all African Americans speak AAE, and not all speakers are African American
Important social functions
Signals solidarity
DYSA clip: Linguistic profiling, AAE origins,
hip-hopSlide21
African American English
How did African American English develop? Two theories:
Pidgin language
creole language
Combination of many nonstandard English varieties
Might be a combination of both. (
Clip
)Slide22
African American English
Change over time:
The
Great Migration
:
1890-197
Less regional variationSlide23
Features of AAE
Copula absence: “They hungry”
Habitual
“
be”
-s deletion
Double negatives
/
th
/
t, d, f
-g droppingSlide24
The Ann Arbor Decision
Martin Luther King
Jr
Elementary School Children vs. Ann Arbor School District
1977: teachers must accommodate non-SAE-speaking students.
African American children placed in special education classes
Deprived of mainstream curriculum
DYSA clip: African-American English in the classroomSlide25
Spanish and Chicano English
Spanish has been spoken in the US before any English-speaking settlers lived here.
How do you count Spanish speakers?
Unlikely to overtake English
What is a Chicano?Slide26
Spanish and Chicano English
Chicano English
A fully-formed dialect of English (comparable to AAVE
)
Speakers may not speak Spanish
Has pronunciation
patterns similar to AAE
Has pronunciation
patterns unique to Chicano
English
“Spanglish”
Chicano English and Spanglish are differentSlide27
Should the US have an official language?
Some countries have an official language (Germany, France)
Some countries have several official languages (Canada, India)
Many countries have no official language (US, Australia)
The Nationality Act of
1940
The “English only” movement
Opposed by the Linguistic Society of America and many other groupsSlide28
Genderlects
Gender, occupation, and social class influence language, too!
Genderlect
: A dialect of speaking dependent on genderSlide29
Genderlects
Robin Lakoff—1973:
Hedging
I suppose, I would imagine, This is probably wrong
Tag questions
He’s not a very nice person, is he?
Politeness
Please, thank you
Intensifying adjectives
It’s a really good movie, It’s so nice of
you
Why do women hedge their speech?Slide30
Genderlects
Men and women in conversation
Popular opinion vs. scientific findings
“Proper” speech
Higher pitch
Differences start early
Why do differences exist?Slide31
Genderlects
Upspeak /
Uptalk
(the “high rising terminal”)
The Vocal Fry controversy
Lake Bell on the
“Sexy Baby Vocal Virus”
Here’s more
Actually, men do it, too.
But should we be policing women’s language?
Linguistic disruptorsSlide32
Language and Social Class
Factors in determining social class
William
Labov’s
department store experiment
Middle class as linguistic disruptor
Language and group inclusionSlide33
Language and Social Class
Penelope Eckert studied three groups in a high school in a Detroit suburb (self-identified group labels):
GROUP
LANGUAGE
“Jocks”:
Involved in school activities, planned to attend college
Had strongest local suburban accent
“Burnouts”: Not involved
in school activities, planned to enter workforce after high school
Had strongest
local urban accent
“In-betweens”: Did
not see themselves as either extreme
Accent
had features of both urban and suburban accents