Language Variation

Dr. Katie Welch

LING3311-001

Listening Exercise http://www.ling.upenn.edu/courses/Fall_2003/ling001/sociolinguistics.html

When listening to these sound files, are you able to identify the gender, age, ethnicity, or regional-affiliation of the speakers?

Do you have any emotional reaction when you hear the different varieties? Fear? Contempt? Respect?

Sociolinguistics The study of the interrelationships of

language varieties and social structure Language variety is a term used to refer

to many different type of language variation—any form of language characterized by systematic features

Language variety looks at accent, dialects, idiolect, slang, jargon, etc.

Dialect How do we know if two languages are

dialects of the same language or two distinct languages?

Mutual Intelligibility is one criterion, but not the only one.

A group of people speaking the same dialect is known as a speech community.

Prestige No one dialect or language is better, more correct,

more systematic, or more logical than any other. Yet, we do make a distinction between standard and

nonstandard dialects Generally, the standard dialect is perceived as more

prestigious because it is used by the powerful, wealthy, and educated.

Nonstandard dialects are usually associated with the language of the lower socioeconomic class.

The standard English dialect is SAE.

Prestige, cont. There are two types of prestige: covert and overt Overt prestige is when speakers perceive the

“standard” language as being prestigious Cover prestige is when speakers in a speech

community perceive the “non-standard” language as being prestigious

Typically an expression of solidarity More often seen in a tight-knit community

Think about your native language Do you have a standard and non-

standard dialect? Who speaks the standard? Who speaks the nonstandard? What are some of the linguistic features

of each?

Variation at Different Levels of Linguistic Structure Phonetic Phonological Morphological Syntactic Lexical

(exercises on page 436-438)

Social Factors Socioeconomic (Labov’s study) Age- youth tend to be “trendsetters”

when it comes to language Gender- women tend to use the

standard variant; men tend to use nonstandard

Ethnic

Examples of Ethnic Variants African American English; Chicano English; Lumbee English all ethnic

variants found in the US Just because a person belongs to an ethnic group does not mean that

they will inevitably embrace the variant Likewise, a person who does not belong to the ethnic group may

embrace the variant Boils down to what type of exposure the person has had; not what

type of genetics they possess

African American English http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_American_Vernacular_English

Even though AAE is nonstandard, it is just as systematic as SAE.

Includes features such as the absence of third person singular suffixes (He need; She want), multiple negation (I didn't go nowhere), copula absence (John going to the store)

http://www.cnn.com/US/9701/17/home.speech/ http://www.makestupidityhistory.org/2005/07/20/teaching-ebonics-in-school/ http://www.filthylucre.com/why-would-we-teach-ebonics