Sociolinguistic Issues in Non-Native Varieties of English (original) (raw)
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CHAPTER II Sociolinguistic Contexts and Non-Native Varieties of English
A careful study of second language varieties of English shows that they are qualitatively different from the categories recognized in current sociolinguistic typology. They also provide some of the clearest evidence of socio-cultural determination of language variation, both on the micro-and macro-levels. An adequate account of these varieties calls for the descriptive techniques and explanatory power of the variationist, interactionist, and sociology of language paradigms within sociolinguistic theory. The circumstances of their acquisition and their viability as modes of communication argue for a reevaluation of some of the traditional assumptions about second language acquisition and teaching.
J Linguist Anthropol, 1993
Despite the few desiderata expressed at the end of this review, English around the World (EAW) is a very useful collection of papers, generally well written, on the status of the English language in former British colonies. It is effidently organized into sound geographically based sections, with a fitting general introduction, "Sociolinguistics and English around the World," in which Cheshire reflects on some theoretical questions central to dialectology, bilingualism, pidgin and creole studies, and sodolinguistics. Among the questions are whether the notion mother tongue is useful to discussing EAW and whether the sociological factors traditionally assumed in espedally quantitative sodolinguistics account adequately for how language is used in society. According to her, EAW is concerned with "the rich diversity in the form and function of English as it is used around the world today" with the aim of "stimulat[ing] further empirical research into English in its social context around the world" (p. 8). In the first section, "The UK and the USA," Cheshire reviews the state of sodolinguistic studies in both countries, noting that in most studies the socio-part of sociolinguistics has received little attention, especially in syntactic studies (p. 22).
SOCIOLINGUISTICS AND LANGUAGE VARIATIONS
LangLit, 2016
It is the descriptive study of the effect of any and all aspects of society, including cultural norms, expectations and context, on the way language is used, and the effects of language use on society, particularly how language operates within and creates social structures. Studies in sociolinguistic explore the commonplace observations that everyone does not speak a language in the same way, that we alter our speech to accommodate our audience and that we recognize members and non-members of our communities via speech. Many sociolinguists have disagreed arguing that a sociolinguistics is scarcely worthwhile and that meaningful insight into language can be gained only if such matters as use and variation are included as part of the data which must be explained in a comprehensive theory of language; such a theory of language must have something to say about the uses of language. Sociolinguistics is a developing branch of linguistics and sociology which examines the individual and social variation of language (Spolsky,2010). It is the descriptive study of the effect of any and all aspects of society, including cultural norms, expectations and context, on the way language is used, and the effects of language use on society, particularly how language operates within and creates social structures. Sociolinguists differ from sociology of language in that the focus of sociolinguistics is the effect of the society on the language, while the sociology of language focuses on language"s effect on the society (Bell, 1976) Studies in sociolinguistic explore the commonplace observations that everyone does not speak a language in the same way, that we alter our speech to accommodate our audience and that we recognize members and non-members of our communities via speech. 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. (Spolsky,2010) SOCIOLINGUISTICS: DEFINING THE CONCEPT 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 some of them. 1. The study of the link between language and society, of language variation and of attitudes about language (Spolsky 2010)
2014
This volume collects seven papers in contemporary sociophonetic research. It addresses hot themes in sociophonetics and proposes a fresh look at old problems still open to debate. A variety of approaches is proposed without neglecting the need for a coherent discussion of the nature of variation in speech and how speakers develop a cognitive representation of it. These characteristics distinguish the present volume from the panorama of comparable sociophonetic literature, which mainly consists of textbooks, readers, and journal special issues (as well as individual journal articles, conference proceedings, and informal reports). , contemporary sociophonetics and sociophonology differ from early variationist sociolinguistics for their focus on the cognitive representation of phonetic variation in the mind of the individual. Stated differently, the fundamental purpose of sociophonetic studies should be that of analyzing how the concrete communicative experiences are categorized by the speakers and, most importantly, of establishing the function of such complex nucleus of information in the structuring of linguistic systems. The fusion of sociolinguistics and phonetics occurs therefore within a cognitivist perspective in which the probabilistic nature of the language and the interest for the processes of language use and comprehension play a special role.
Sociolinguistics in a languagised world: introduction
The idea that there exist separate, enumerable languages has in the last decades been widely criticised, and it has led scholars to propose various new terms and concepts such as 'polylingualism', 'metrolingualism', and 'translanguaging', among others. As these terms are attracting considerable acclaim within the academy, this paper argues it is time to reflect on their occurrence, provenance and pertinence for future research and theorisation. We devote particular attention to the risk of confusion if newly proposed terms interchangeably serve descriptive, ontological, pedagogical and political purposes; to the continuing relevance of language separation outside as well as inside the academy; and to the purported transformative and critical potential of fluid language practices in education and beyond. We suggest a close consideration of each of these concerns is central to a sociolinguistics of rather than for particular linguistic practices.