社会语言学论文

1、广东外语外贸大学学期论文the study of language and dialect in the field of sociolinguisticsabstract: this paper aims to probe into the study of language and dialect in the field of sociolinguistics. part 1 is a general introduction to the issues being covered in the paper. part 2 centers on the analysis of certa

2、in criteria that probably could be applied as to differentiate a language from a dialect. part 3 and part 4 introduce two distinguished kinds of dialects, namely, regional dialect and social dialect respectively through detailed examples. part 5 investigates the different aspects of register which i

3、s closely related to the study of language and dialect. part 6 is the conclusion.key words: variety; regional dialect; social dialect; registercontents 1. introduction2. criteria for differentiating a language from a dialect2.1 variety and “mutual intelligibility”2.2 other criteria (including bells

4、seven aspects in languages differentiation)3. regional dialect3.1 definition and characteristics of regional dialects3.2 reasons for the appearance of regional dialects4. social dialects4.1 social dialects in relation to age differences4.2 social dialects in relation to sex differences4.3 social dia

5、lects in relation to difference of social class membership5. an introduction to register (field, mode and tenor)5.1 the field of discourse5.2 the mode of discourse5.3 the tenor of discourse6. conclusion1. introduction in sociolinguistics, language is considered as an abstract notion that is embodied

6、 in the form of dialects. its not clear-cut to distinguish a language from a dialect of a language. “mutual intelligibility” seems to be an ideal criterion in terms of telling a language from a dialect of a language, however, we can certainly find some cases that counter-argue this principle. hence

7、some other criteria should be applied as supplements to distinguish between a language and a dialect, among which, bells seven principles for discussing different languages are of great inspiration. the varieties of dialects are differentiated according to the places in which they are used, the diff

8、erent social factors that affect their uses, and functions and styles they have when accommodating different situations in language communication. accordingly, sociolinguists label these dialects as regional, social, and functional dialect respectively. this paper will touch upon the discussion of t

9、he different varieties of language in relation to the users, social factors and environment.2. criteria for differentiating a language from a dialect2 .1 variety and “mutual intelligibility”in order to further the discussion of the difference between a language and a dialect, lets first of all cente

10、r on an important term in the field of sociolinguisticsvariety. then what is the definition of a variety? r. a. hudson, a famous linguist, defines a variety of language as a set of linguistic items with similar social distribution (1980:24). according to this definition, we can call any of the follo

11、wing items “varieties of language”: english, french, chinese, london english, or the language used by a particular person, etc. it will be seen from this list that the general notion “variety” includes examples of what would normally be called languages, dialects and registers (a term meaning roughl

12、y “style”). now we know that both “a language” and “a dialect of a language” are kind of variety. then why do we call some varieties different languages and others different dialects of the same language? many sociolinguists agree that a dialect is one of most problematic terms to give a general def

13、inition to. some proposed that language exists in the form of dialect. what, then, is a dialect? what are the criteria for distinguishing between a language and a dialect of a language? linguists start with the assumption that all human beings speak their own idiolects. similar idiolects make up a p

14、articular dialect, and similar dialects make up a particular language. this statement in some sense presupposes that all the idiolects of a dialect and all the dialects of a language are mutually intelligible (wang,1992:11). however, we can easily find cases to counter-argue this thesis if the princ

15、iple of mutual intelligible serve as the only criterion for differentiating a language from a dialect.take for example, the scandinavian languages (including norwegian, swedish and danish). speakers of these three languages can, with little effort, understand and communicate with one another. these

16、languages are mutually intelligible. according to the principle of “mutual intelligibility”, they are different dialects. but the fact is that they are usually assumed to be different languages.if we turn our attention to china, we will find that speakers of cantonese and mandarin will tell you that

17、 they speak the same language. people speaking cantonese and people speaking mandarin are not mutually intelligible at all, yet they almost certainly insist that they speak different dialects of the same languagechinese, not different languages, for to the chinese a shared writing system and a power

18、ful social and cultural tradition form essential parts of our definition of language.so for these and other reasons, then, we cannot use the test of “mutual intelligibility” to differentiate between dialect and language. the fact is that there is no very clear distinction between the terms dialect a

19、nd language. these two concepts are, as a matter of fact, ambiguous. the above two cases mentioned tell us that different languages are sometimes mutually intelligible and that dialects of the same language are sometimes not mutually intelligible at all.2.2 other criteria (including bells seven aspe

20、cts in language differentiation)so apart from “mutual intelligibility”, we also need other supplementary criteria. some sociolinguists have some accounts of differentiating a language from a dialect. one of them is based on the existence of a standard language or of a written form shared by a set of

21、 speakers. if two or more groups who differ in speech but regard the same form of speech as a standard, or if they share the common written form, they tend to be regarded as speaking different dialects rather than different languages, whatever degree of mutual intelligibility, like different dialect

22、s across china. on the contrary, the scandinavian languages like norwegian, swedish and danish are considered different languages because they have distinct, codified, standardized forms, with their own grammar books and literatures, which correspond to three separate nation states.another account i

23、s made in terms of size and prestige. that means a language is larger than a dialect, so that a language can contain more dialects. for example, the chinese language has seven dialects: northern, wu, xiang, gan, min, yue, and kejia dialects. in addition, they also think that the term language implie

24、s social prestige, for it is written as well as spoken, but dialectal varieties are generally not used in formal writing, thus is not comparable with more socially valuable language.a famous linguist bell (1976:147-57) has listed seven criteria that may be useful in discussing different kinds of lan

25、guages. according to bell, these criteria, namely, standardization, vitality, historicity, autonomy, reduction, mixture and de facto norms, may be used to distinguish certain languages from others.1) standardization refers to the process by which a language has been codified in some way. that proces

26、s usually involves the development of such things as grammars, dictionaries and possibly a literature, etc. once a language is standardized it becomes possible to teach it in a deliberate manner. according to these criteria, both english and french are quite obviously standardized, italian somewhat

27、less so, and the variety known as black english not at all.2) vitality, the second of bells seven criteria, refers to the existence of a living community of speakers. this criterion can be especially used to distinguish languages that are “alive” from those that are “dead”. for example, latin is dea

28、d in the sense that no one speaks it as native language; it exists only in a written form frozen in time, pronounced rather than spoken, and studied rather than used.yet we should note that a language can remain a considerable force even after it is dead, that is, even after it is no longer spoken a

29、s anyones first language and exists almost exclusively in one or more written forms, knowledge of which is acquired only through formal education. classical greek and latin still have considerable prestige in the western world, and speakers of many modern languages continue to draw on them in a vari

30、ety of ways.3) historicity refers to the fact that a particular group of people finds a sense of identity through using a particular language: it belongs to them. social, political, religious, or ethnic ties may also be important for the group, but the bond provided by a common language may prove to

31、 be the strongest tie of all. historicity can be long-standing. for example, the speakers of chinese, the different varieties of colloquial chinese make much of a common linguistic ancestry.4) autonomy is an interesting concept because it is really one of feeling. a language must be felt by its spea

32、kers to be different from other languages. however, this is a very subjective criterion. for example, some speakers of black english maintain that their language is not a variety of english, but is a separate language in its own right. in contrast, speakers of cantonese and mandarin are not autonomo

33、us languages but are just two dialects of chinese. 5) reduction refers to the fact that a particular variety may be regarded as a sub-variety rather than as an independent entity. sometimes the reduction is in the kinds of opportunities afforded to users of the variety. for example, there may be a r

34、eduction of resources, that is, the variety may lack a writing system, etc.6) mixture refers to feelings speakers have about the “purity” of the variety they speak. this criterion appears to be more important to speakers of some languages than of others, e.g. more important to speakers of french and

35、 german than to speakers of english.7) de facto norms refers to the feeling that many speakers have that there are both “good” speakers and “poor” speakers, and that the good speakers represent the norms of proper usage.if we apply the above criteria to the different variation and change in the worl

36、d, we will see that not every variety we may want to call a language has the same status as every other variety. english is a language, but so are latin, ukrainian and chinese. each satisfies a different sub-set of criteria from the above list. although there are important differences among them, we

37、 would be loath to deny that any one of them is a language. they are all equals as languages, but that does not necessarily mean that all languages are equal.3. regional dialects3.1 definition and characteristics of regional dialectsas we travel throughout a wide geographical area in which a languag

38、e is spoken, and particularly if that language has been spoken in that area for many hundreds of years, we are almost certain to notice differences in pronunciation, in the choices and forms of words, and in syntax. such distinctive varieties are usually called regional dialects of the language. reg

39、ional dialect is named in accordance with their geographical distributions, so that chinese northern dialect is associated with the northern areas of china; yue dialect is the main speech variety in guangdong province; and xiang dialect is chiefly spoken by the inhabitants living in hunan, etc. regi

40、onal dialects seem to be based on the different geographical locations in which each is the main means of daily communication.in regional dialects, vocabulary and syntax may also vary from one another, sometimes causing mutual unintelligibility. for example, chinese speakers call the word “corn” dif

41、ferently in different regions, in northeast china, people say “包米”; in sichuan, its called “包谷”; in fujian, people say “金豆”; and in south chinas guangdong province, people call it “包粟”. the use of varied syntactic patterns in regional dialects is confusing as well, lets study the following examples:

42、in cantonese in mandarin我行先一步 我先走一步等我休息一阵先 先让我休息一下你食先，唔使等我 你先吃，不用等我from the above differences, we can observe that in mandarin, adverb precedes verb or adjective, while in cantonese, some adverbs are behind verb or adjective. 3.2 reasons for the appearance of regional dialectsso whatre the reasons f

43、or the appearance of regional dialects? firstly, geographical barriers like mountain ranges, big rivers or other natural factors usually cause great transportation problems for people living in an out-of-way place. this is especially true of areas where economy is very backward. as a result, regiona

44、l dialects appear when language with its own characteristics develops. geographical isolation is one of the important factors for language variations within a country as well as across continents.secondly, sociolinguistics also regards regional dialects as the result of historical changes in society

45、. for example, many centuries ago, british settlers brought their native languageenglish to north america. after a few centuries, english in the two continents has developed into different regional dialects with their own characteristics in pronunciation, spelling, vocabulary, etc. the same explanat

46、ion can also be applicable to the case of australian english, indian english, canadian english. historical events like immigration and colonization have spread english into every corner of the world and split it into many different regional dialects. 4. social dialectswe know that human being are li

47、ving in stratified social communities, and the way we use language reflects our differences in age, social status, social class, sex and profession, etc. all these become very crucial factors in determining in the relationship between different speech features and speakers social background (wardhau

48、gh, 1986:46)4.1 social dialects in relation to age differencestalking about age differences, we know youth frequently use vernacular words or slang forms and deletion of past tense markered in the sentence like “my dad cook for me yesterday. the tendency to make particular use or deletion of certain

49、 linguistic features marks their group membership when they tend not to conform to the social norms. but when teenagers grow old enough to enter the work force they gradually use more standard forms as theyre required to do so. the variety of childrens language is characterized by simplicity and lac

50、k of variation in style; and the variety used by young people is most responsible to the changing society and marked with vitality and solidarity; while in old peoples speech, one can find many old-fashioned linguistic features that are no longer used by the younger generation.4.2 social dialects in

51、 relation to sex differencesmany sociolinguists have observed that there is evidence of gender differences in language use. and such gender-related differences can be categorized into two kinds, one is sex-exclusive speech forms used by women or men only; the other one is sex-preferential forms whic

52、h both sexes use but with one sex showing greater preference for them than the other.for the first type we can find an example in japanese language, there are men-only pronouns: “i” and “you” for casual speech which women cannot use. for the case of second type, it seems that womens speech style ten

53、ds to be more polite, uncertain, and indirect. for example, female speakers are more likely to use some words like lovely, sweet, adorable, please, its very kind of you, etc. women usually out-perform men in their choice of correct or standard speech form; while men tend to use a more non-standard v

54、ernacular style. women used to be discriminated and regarded as inferior to men, whereas men had been more prestigious, authoritative and dominant in social affaires. however, with the increasing consciousness of the inequality imposed upon women, some feminists advocate to use neutral terms. as a r

55、esult, now more and more english-speaking people insist on using words like chairperson, police officer, salesclerk and so on instead of the old and sex-based terms like chairman, policeman and saleman.4.3 social dialects in relation to differences of social class membershipthe term social class imp

56、lies different groups of people who can be differentiated in terms of social prestige, wealth, and education, and language users social relationship with other speakers is revealed in the ways they use the language. there are some criteria for social-class identification, like educational background

57、, professional training, and occupation.the linguistic differences that indicate the social membership of different speakers are also manifest in vocabulary and grammar parts of the language they speak. for example, non-upper-class speakers often use multiple negations like, a young black american m

58、ay say, “we aint had no trouble about none of us pulling out no knife”.5. an introduction to register m.a.k. halliday (1978:33) generalized the social context of language use in terms of three factors: the filed, this includes both professional and non-professional, or technical and non-technical so

59、cial activities; the mode, which refers to the vehicle and channel of communication; or the way language is organized to deliver information, for example, written or oral style of speech; and tenor, which refers to the relationship between the participants and the intention of the speaker in the exchange of message and meaning