8 Sociolinguistics英文版本.ppt

Topic 8Sociolinguistics Wang Lijuan 8.1 The scope of sociolinguistics Sociolinguistics is the field that studies the relation between language and society, between the uses of language and the social structures in which the users of language live. Linguistic phenomena are placed in the general context of society. People’s use of language is in part determined by his social background. Purpose of language use 1 to communicate meaning 2 to express feelings 2 to establish and to maintain social relationships. Examples: Greetings Watch a mother with a young child. Most of their talk is devoted to nurturing the social bond between them. 8.1.1 Speech community (言语社团) For general linguistics, a speech community is defined as a group of people who form a community and share the same language or a particular variety of a language. Sociolinguists would define speech community as a group of people who do in fact have the opportunity to interact with each other and who share not just a single language with its related varieties but also attitudes toward linguistic norms. 8.1.2 Two approaches to sociolinguistic studies:Micro macro sociolinguistics In micro sociolinguistics, the sociolinguist’s goal might be to show how specific differences in pronunciation or grammar lead individual member of a speech community to make judgments about the education or economic status of a speaker. In macro sociolinguistics, the scholars pay attention to the whole of a language or variety. They consider how language functions in the whole society and how it reflects the social differentiations. 8.2 Varieties of language In the daily life, almost every person has the experience of contacting a language which is different from his or her own. Even one single person speaks differently according to different occasions. For example, a girl’s way of speaking to her boyfriend is definitely of different styles from the way she speaks to her linguistic professor. Example 1 (Ray, a stud