METHODOLOGY III

Primer o Segundo

ENGLISH SCHOOL

Mgs. Gina Camacho Minuche

ABRIL – AGOSTO 2011cuela a la que pertenece

CONTENTS

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SociolinguisticsAccording to Wiśniewski (2007) Sociolinguistics is a quickly developing branch of linguistics 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 fulfilled by a given speaker within one community, or country.

Sociolinguistics is a practical scientific discipline researching the language that is actually used either by native speakers, or foreigners, in order to formulate theories about language change.

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VARIETYA sociolinguistic term referring to language in context that includes different accents, linguistic styles, dialects and even different languages which contrast with each other for social reasons. For example:

People don't think one way is right and one way is wrong - just that they're different. It's the same with the language varieties

People may use different dialects of a language in different contexts depending on the participants, the social setting , and the topic or purpose of the interaction.

When choosing an appropriate utterance for the situation, there are factors that you must consider in order to effectively convey the message to the other participant.

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SOCIAL DIMENSIONS

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Solidarity scale

Status scale

Formality scale

Referential and affective scales

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DOMAINS OF LANGUAGE USE

Anna is a bilingual American living in Ecuador. At her workplace she uses English most of the time. At home with her children and husband she uses both English and Spanish.This example shows typical interactions that describe patterns of code choice in many speech communities.A domain involves the use of certain code choice depending on three social factors:

Factors affecting code choiceThe selection depends on the topic people are talking about.Topics can be discussed in one code rather than another, regardless of the setting or adressee.Social distance—how well participants know each other. i.e what is the social distance between the participants? Are they strangers, friends, brothers?

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Status—different codes are used depending on who the addressee is.

Formality — codes are used according to the events. E.g. a church ceremony, a radio lecture.

The function – what is the language being used for?, What is the purpose of the conversation?

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Diglossia

Varieties of a language that are used for quite distinct functions.

Example: In Haiti, French is used as the high variety and Haitian Creole as the low variety.

It is a characteristic of speech communities rather than individuals. Individuals may be bilingual, but societies are diglossic.

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POLYGLOSSIA This term is used for situations where a

community regularly uses more than two languages.

Two distinct codes or varieties are used for clearly distinct purposes or in clearly distinguishable situations.

The coexistence of multiple languages in the same area.

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CODE SWITCHING OR CODE MIXING

Code switch may be related to a particular participant or addressee. A switch reflects a change in the social

situation and takes positive account of the presence of a new participant.

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It is a linguistic term denoting the concurrent use of more than one language, or language variety, in conversation. Multilinguals, people who speak more than one language, sometimes use elements of multiple languages in conversing with each other.

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Thus, code-switching is the syntactically and phonologically appropriate use of more than one linguistic variety.

Code mixing is a thematically related term.

The usage of the terms code-switching and code-mixing varies.

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Code switching is defined as the practice of selecting or altering linguistic elements so as to contextualize talk in interaction.

In the 1940s and the 1950s many scholars called code-switching a sub-standard language usage. Since the 1980s, however, most scholars have recognized it is a normal, natural product of bilingual and multilingual language use.

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Some scholars use either term to denote the same practice, while others apply code-mixing to denote the formal linguistic properties of said language-contact phenomena, and code-switching to denote the actual, spoken usages by multilingual people.

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Bokamba (1989) defines code-mixing as the embedding of various linguistic units such as affixes (bound morphemes), words (unbound morphemes), phrases and clauses from a co-operative activity where the participants, in order to infer what is intended, must reconcile what they hear with what they understand.

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Code mixing example: Let’s say a teenager says to his friend,

“Gotta bounce. Me’n’ the crew’re goin’ shoppin’ for some phat gear.”

Did you understand that? Let me translate: “Gotta bounce” means “I’ve gotta leave”; “the crew” means “friends”; “phat gear” means “nice clothes.” So the teen’s basically saying that he’s going shopping with friends.

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Code-switching example Spanish and English — Researcher

Ana Celia Zentella offers this example from her work with Puerto Rican Spanish-English bilingual speakers in New York City. In this example, Marta and her younger sister Lolita speak both Spanish and English with Zentella (ACZ) outside of their apartment building.

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Lolita: Oh, I could stay with Ana? Marta: — but you could ask papi and mami

to see if you could come down.Lolita: OK. Marta: Ana, if I leave her here would you

send her upstairs when you leave? ACZ: I’ll tell you exactly when I have to

leave, at ten o’clock. Y son las nueve y cuarto. (“And it’s nine fifteen.”)

Marta: Lolita, te voy a dejar con Ana. (“I’m going to leave you with Ana.”) Thank you, Ana. 22

Zentella explains that the children of the predominantly Puerto Rican neighbourhood speak both English and Spanish: “Within the children’s network, English predominated, but code-switching from English to Spanish occurred once every three minutes, on average.”[

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LEXICAL BORROWING Takes place in a situation where a

person uses a word of his/her mother tongue because they don’t know the appropriate word in the SL.

Borrowed words are usually adapted to the speaker’s first language.

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REGIONAL AND SOCIAL DIALECTS Regional dialects develop when

speakers are separated by geography, such as rivers and mountains.

Social dialects develop when one group is separated from another socially because of differences in economic class, culture, ethnicity, or age.

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A standard dialect is the dialect that is usually used in the media (television, radio, and newpapers). It is taught in schools and described in dictionaries and grammar books.

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REGIONAL VARIATION

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Language variation in the English language is mostly observed in:

Pronunciation differences. (To ears a New Zealanders’s dad sounds like an English person’s dead)

Vocabulary differences. (Australian- sole parentas, New Zealanders solo parents)

Grammatical differences. (Am:Do you have a match? Br. Have you got a cigarette?

LANGUAGES AND SOCIAL FUNCTION

An important conclusion given by Holmes is that languages serve social functions. They are not purely linguistic entities. To define a language we should look at its social and political functions, as well as its linguistic features.

So a language can be defined as a collection of dialects that are usually linguistically similar, used by different social groups who choose to say that they are speakers of one language which functions to unite and represent them to other groups.

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SOCIAL DIALECTSDialects are simply linguistic varieties which are distinguishable by their vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation.A dialect is a form of a language with grammar, pronunciation, and vocabulary that differ from other forms of the language. A dialect develops when a group of same-language speakers are separated in some way.

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A person’s dialect reflects their social background.The term social class is used to point out the differences between people which are associated with differences in social prestige, wealth, and education

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Example: Office cleaners do not talk as lawyers

Status refers to the difference or respect people give someone or don’t give them because of their family background.

Class is used as a convenient label for groups of people who share similarities in economic and social status.

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