SOCIOLINGUISTICS

SOCIOLINGUISTICS
NGÔN NGỮ XÃ HỘI HỌC
Trương Văn Ánh
Trường Đại học Sài Gòn


Syllabus
Duration: 2 credits (30 periods)
Mid-test: 30% (Group presentation)
Attendance: 10%
Final test: 60% (40 multiple choice questions +
10 open-ended questions)


Main course: INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLINGUISTICS
by Anthony C. Oha, PhD, NATIONAL OPEN
UNIVERSITY OF NIGERIA (2010)

References
1. Ronald Wardhaugh (2006). An Introduction to
Sociolinguistics, Blackwell Publishing House
2. Janet Holmes (2011). An Introduction to
Sociolinguistics, London University
3. Peter Trudgill (1984). Applied Sociolinguistics,
Academic Press
4. Miriam Meyerhoff (2008). Introducing
Sociolinguistics, Routledge


Summary
CHAPTER I: BASIC CONCEPTS IN SOCIOLINGUISTICS

(Three units)
CHAPTER 2: LANGUAGE USE IN SOCIETY (Two units)
CHAPTER 3: LANGUAGE VARIATION IN SOCIETY
(Two units)


CHAPTER I: BASIC CONCEPTS IN SOCIOLINGUISTICS
UNIT 1: WHAT IS SOCIOLINGUISTICS?
1.0 INTRODUCTION
In this unit, we will begin this course by
introducing the concept of sociolinguistics as an
academic discipline. We will study also the
applications of sociolinguistics and find out the
essence of the social function of language.


Language and society are intertwined because
a society moves with language. When
communication takes a proper process
whereby meaning is generated, and a society
moves with the pace of the language. A
language defines the linguistic behaviour of a
group of people in a given society. We
will find out what sociolinguistics means
by examining the various definitions and
unearth their points of convergence.


2.0 OBJECTIVES
At the end of the unit, you should be able to:

·
state the meaning of sociolinguistics;
·
examine the various perceptions of
sociolinguistics


3.0 MAIN CONTENT
3.1 General Overview
There are numerous definitions of
sociolinguistics. However, each of these
definitions does not fail to acknowledge that
sociolinguistics has to do with language use
and a society’s response to it. Let us examine
them.


1. The study of the relationship between language
and society, of language variation, and of attitudes
about language.
2. A branch of anthropological linguistics that
studies how language and culture are related, and
how language is used in different social contexts.
3. A study of the relationship between language
and social factors such as class, ethnicity, age and
sex.
4. The study of language in social contexts.
5. The study of the sociological factors involved
in the use of language, including gender, race,
class, etc.

6. The study of stylistic and social
variation of language (vernacular).
7. The study of language in relation to its
socio-cultural context.
8. Sociolinguistics is the study of the effect of
any and all aspects of society, including
cultural norms, expectations, and context on
the way language is used.
9. The study of social and cultural effects on
language.


In all these definitions, it is clear that
sociolinguistics is a discipline that yokes sociology
with linguistics. It is a branch of sociology and as
a concept, it is concerned with how language use
is a determinant of a given society’s linguistic
requirements. Every society has linguistic codes
acceptable for communication and interaction.
Sociolinguistics show how groups in a given
society are separated by certain social variables
like ethnicity, religion, status, gender, level of
education, age, etc.


and how adherence to these variables is used
to categorise individuals in social class or
socio-economic classes. The social study of

language is a modern linguistic paradigm
because it was the modern linguists who first
acknowledged and accepted that language
by its nature is totally a social phenomenon.
All the definitions here acknowledge that
sociolinguistics has to do with language use
and a society’s response to it.


SELF ASSESSMENT EXERCISE 1
Explain the relationship between sociology and
linguistics in all the definitions above.


3.2 Sociolinguistics Factors
Sociolinguistics is a developing branch of
linguistics and sociology which investigates
the individual and social variation of language.
Just as regional variation of language can give
a lot of information about the place the
speaker is from, social variation tells about the
roles performed by a given speaker within one
community, or country. Sociolinguistics is also
a branch of sociology in that it reveals the


relationship between language use and the social
basis for such use. Sociolinguistics differs from
sociology of language in that the focus of
sociolinguistics is the effect of the society on the

language, while the latter's focus is on the
language's effect on the society. Sociolinguistics is
a practical, scientific discipline which researches
into the language that is actually used, either by
native speakers or foreigners, in order to
formulate theories about language change.
There are numerous factors influencing the
way people speak which are investigated by
sociolinguistics:


1. Social class: the position of the speaker in
the society, measured by the level of
education, parental background, profession
and their effect on syntax and lexis used by
the speaker. An important factor influencing
the way of formulating sentences is, according
to sociolinguists, the social class of the
speakers. Thus, there has been a division of
social classes proposed in order to make the
description accurate.


Two main groups of language users, mainly
those performing non-manual work and those
with more years of education are the ‘middle
class’, while those who perform some kind of
manual work are ‘working class’. The
additional terms ‘lower’ and ‘upper’ are
frequently used in order to subdivide the

social classes. Therefore, differences between
upper middle class can be compared with
lower working class.


2. Social context: the register of the language
used depending on changing situations:
formal language in formal meetings and
informal usage during meetings with friends,
for example. It is notable that people are
acutely aware of the differences in speech
patterns that mark their social class and are
often able to adjust their style to the
interlocutor. It is especially true for the
members of the middle class who seem eager
to use forms associated with upper class;


however, in such efforts, the forms
characteristic of upper class are often
overused by the middle class members. The
above mentioned process of adapting own
speech to reduce social distance is called
convergence. Sometimes, however, when
people want to emphasise the social distance,
they make use of the process called
divergence, purposefully using idiosyncratic
forms.

3. Geographical Origins: slight differences in
pronunciation between speakers that point at the
geographical region which the speaker comes
from. Sociolinguistics investigates the way in
which language changes, depending on the region
of the country it is used in. To describe a variety of
language that differs in grammar, lexis and
pronunciation from others, the term dialect is
used. Moreover, each member of community has
a unique way of speaking due to the life
experience, education, age and aspiration. An
individual personal variation of language use is
called an idiolect.