An Introduction to Sociolinguistics

Overall, the volume provides a balanced survey of important topics, research methods and trends, and contemporary issues in the field of sociolinguistics and offers instructors a valuable option for advanced undergraduate or graduate students. - LINGUIST List 33.1917

RONALD WARDHAUGH is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Linguistics at the University of Toronto, Canada. He is the author of number of books, including Proper English (Wiley Blackwell, 1998) and Understanding English Grammar, Second Edition (Wiley Blackwell, 2003). JANET M. FULLER is Professor and Chair of Language and Society, Department of European Languages and Cultures, University of Groningen, The Netherlands. Her previous publications have explored many aspects of multilingualism, with a recent focus on language ideologies, social identities, and discourses of national belonging. She is the author of Spanish Speakers in the USA and Bilingual Pre-Teens: Competing Ideologies and Multiple Identities in the US and Germany, and co-author of Speaking Spanish in the US and co-editor of Studies in Contact Linguistics.

List of Figures xiii List of Tables xiv Acknowledgments xv About the Companion Website xvii 1 Introduction 1 Key Topics 1 The Nature of Language 2 Knowledge of Language 3 Competence and performance 4 Variation 6 Variants and the linguistic variable 7 Language Users and Their Groups: Identities 8 Language and Culture 10 Directions of influence 11 The Whorfian hypothesis 11 Correlations 13 The Interdisciplinary Legacy of Sociolinguistics 14 Overview of the Book 16 Chapter Summary 16 Exercises 17 Further Reading 18 References 19 Part I Languages, Communities, and Contexts 23 2 Languages, Dialects, and Varieties 25 Key Topics 25 What is a Language? 25 Language or Dialect? 26 Mutual intelligibility 27 The role of social identity 29 Standardization 30 The standard as an abstraction 30 The standardization process 31 The standard and language change 32 Standard language? 33 The standarddialect hierarchy 33 Regional Dialects 34 Dialect geography 34 Everyone has an accent 35 Social Dialects 36 Kiezdeutsch neighborhood German 37 Ethnic dialects 39 African American Vernacular English 40 Features of AAVE 41 Development of AAVE 42 Societal aspects of AAVE Use 43 Styles and Indexes: The Social Meanings of Linguistic Forms 43 Chapter Summary 47 Exercises 47 Further Reading 48 References 49 3 Defining Groups 55 Key Topics 55 Speech Communities 56 Linguistic boundaries 56 Shared norms 57 Communities of Practice 60 Social Networks 62 Social Identities 64 Beliefs about Language and Social Groups 65 Language ideologies 66 The standard language ideology 66 The purist ideology 67 Monoglossic ideologies 67 Iconicity, erasure, and recursivity 68 Language attitudes 69 Perceptual dialectology 69 Matched/verbal guises 70 Implicit association task (IAT) 71 Chapter Summary 72 Exercises 72 Further Reading 73 References 74 4 Language in Context: Pragmatics 79 Key Topics 79 Speech Acts 79 Performatives 80 Implicature 83 Maxims 83 Politeness 85 Face 85 Positive and negative politeness 86 Beyond politeness theory 87 Politeness and indirectness 88 Pronouns 89 Tu and vous: power and solidarity 89 Pronouns and positioning 92 Naming and Titles 92 Fluidity and change in address terms 94 Chapter Summary 97 Exercises 97 Further Reading 100 References 100 Part II Theory and Methods 105 5 Language Variation and Change 107 Key Topics 107 Variables and Correlations 107 Types of linguistic variables 108 Indicators, markers and stereotypes 109 Independent variables 109 Data Collection and Analysis 110 The observers paradox 110 The sociolinguistic interview 110 Sampling 111 Apparent time and real time 112 Doing Quantitative Research: What Do the Numbers Really Mean? 112 Regional Variation 113 Mapping dialects 114 Methods in dialectology 115 Dialect mixture and free variation 117 Linguistic atlases 117 Social Variation 118 Social class membership 118 The First Wave of Variation Studies 120 Early work on gender variation 121 The fourth floor 121 Variation in Norwich 124 Variation in Detroit 124 Variation in Glasgow 125 Linguistic constraints on variation 126 Language Variation and Change 127 Change from above and below 127 Some changes in progress 127 Change across space: urban centers and physical barriers 129 Change over time or age-grading? 129 Marthas Vineyard 131 Gender and language change 132 Language change and the linguistic marketplace 136 The Second Wave of Variation Studies 137 Social networks 138 Social network theory and language change 139 Gender variation in the second wave 140 Jocks and burnouts 141 The Third Wave of Variation Studies 142 Stance, style, and identity 142 Change across the lifespan 144 Chapter Summary 144 Exercises 144 Further Reading 146 References 146 6 Eth