1

Standard Specified, enforced

Speech events, speech situation, competence Sociolects Socioeconomic status, gender, age, job, …

Regionalisms Registers casual, formal, technical, simplified, …

Stratification: social networks, statistical analysis, random sampling

2

Syntactic Subject-verb agreement Double negation Multiple modals

Phonological Any of the processes studied (ing): [In] vs. [Iŋ] (high SES, females, formal) Newfoundland English (monophthongization,

stopping, V backing)

3

Speaker’s gender (orientation) Hearer’s gender (orientation) Neutralizing gender (orientation)

Language reflects society. Language constructs, maintains society.

4

Differentiation Different verb forms w/rt gender (Koasati) Different nouns w/rt gender (Arabic)

Encoding Speaker, hearer, both

Variability Men: job-, sports-related Women: verbal hedges, color terms,

politesse 5

Self-praise avoidance (and subsequent entailments)

Forms of address Titles, honorifics, no-naming Familiarity

Verbal hedges Accommodation Divergence (foreigner talk)

6

Racial groups SavagesSiwash Redskins Indians Native

Americans Eskimo Inuit

Occupation titles Steward stewardess flight attendant

Historical events Other Handicapped physically impaired disability

7

Avoiding offensive, obscene, or disturbing language

Taboos Religious Bodily parts, functions

▪ Téléphoner à Hitler Death

▪ Fermer son parapluie, ne plus avoir mal aux dents Names

8

Tying utterances to discourse context Sociolinguistic norms (e.g. response to

“Thank you.”, greeting/response, opening, turn-taking, cooperative overlap, etc.)

Narrative structure, reference, cohesion

Discourse markers

9

Slang Rapid change Solidarity/exclusion: subculture Student groups, student life Metaphorical

Jargon Vocabulary specific to a particular occupation Hacker jargon

Argot Obscure or secret language Gay lingo, gang language, prison speech, verlan

10

un policier un flic flic = fli + que verlan = que + fli un keuf un homme un mec mec = mè + que verlan = que + mè un keum une femme femme = fa + me verlan = me + fa une meuf

une voiture une bagnole bagnole = ba +gnol(e) verlan = gnol(e) + ba une gnolba une cigarette de cannabis un joint, un pétard pétard = pé + tard verlan = tar(d) + pé un tarpé un disque disque = di + sque verlan = sque + di un skeud

11

Chemically inconvenienced: Drugged or drunk. Dysfunctionally awared: Bigoted, right-leaning. Mineral companion: Non-kingdomist term for 'pet

rock'. Morally different: Dishonest, immoral, evil. Persons with difficult-to-meet needs: Serial killers Snow White and Seven Dwarfs: Snow Melanin-

Impoverished and the Seven Vertically Challenged Persons

12

NON-ABORIGINALS: White Australians and other immigrant Australians who have arrived at the country during the colonial and postcolonial period.

CAUCASIAN: White person. ICE PERSON: The European-American

descendants of Northern Ice Age peoples. MUTANT ALBINO GENETIC-RECESSIVE

GLOBAL MINORITY: white people.

13

Studying language variation across geography

Tape-recorded interviews dialect atlases (isogloss boundaries)

Example dialectal vocabulary: kitty-corner(ed) vs. catty wompsum vs. … Post-vocalic [r], vowel shift, etc.

14

American North, Midland (North and South), South Distinctions are primarily phonological,

lexical Canadian Australian, New Zealand British Indian

15

Pidgin Special-purpose language used by people without a

common language Not yet a native language Simple syntax, dominant language’s lexicon,

subordinate language’s phonology Creole Pidgin that has evolved to a first language Many English-, French-, Dutch-, Portuguese-,

Spanish-based creoles

16

Variation in lexical, phonological contexts exists

Collect speech samples Statistical analysis Rather surprising results, reasons may

not yet be fully understood

17

Solidarity/distance Situational Linguistic constraints

18

19

20

21