AUTHORS: N.H. Hornberger and S.L. McKay
TITLE: Sociolinguistics and Language Teaching
PUBLISHER: Cambridge University Press
YEAR: 1996
Said R Rizi, PhD Department of ELT, East Mediterranean University, Northern Cyprus
Summary
The objective of this fairly written book is to acquaint the reader – the language teacher in this
case – with the field of sociolinguistics and how it can shed some light on language teaching,
especially for those teachers who deal with students coming from “linguistically diverse”
backgrounds. The book stands out from the crowd in that it eloquently combines
sociolinguistics with language teaching in one volume, something that is without antecedent.
The book comes with added significance with respect to the increasing support for socially
embedded views of language and language pedagogy. Very few books ever embark on such a
daunting task and the majority treat these two subjects safely separately. Well-balanced in its
focus, line of convergence and comprehensiveness, Sociolinguistics and Language Teaching
fills a gap in the fields of sociolinguistics, applied linguistics, and language teaching.
Introductory books on sociolinguistics do not usually consider the language classroom, teacher
or students; applied linguistics collections usually only focus on the second/foreign language
classroom disconnected from its social context (see, however, Philipson, 1992, and Pennycook,
1995, inter alia, which, however, do not focus on interactional studies); and language teaching
books focus on classroom pedagogy without considering any such sociolinguistic aspect of
teaching/learning and interaction. This collection capitalizes on the social aspect within and
toward language classroom interaction, be the language at issue an FL or an L2.
The book comes in five sections and 14 chapters in total, with a laudable collection of articles
written by some of the most influential figures in the field, including McCay, Wiley, Rickford,
Cohen, and Erickson to name a few.
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Chapter 1, Part I – Language and society
This chapter deals with three heavy-weight issues in language pedagogy: language attitudes,
motivation, and standards. The chapter in general examines the impact of social and political
contexts on social attitudes towards particular languages and language varieties, in addition to
individual motivation to learn a language.
Drawing on language as a social and individual identity construct, the author Mary McGroarty
reiterates “teacher accountability” towards certain aspects of language instruction, upgrading
him or her from a passive imparter of linguistic knowledge to a facilitator of success through
linguistic mastery, something which is influenced by a myriad of variables, including
motivation and attitudes of teachers, students, and their parents.
To be fair to applied linguistics collections, it should be added that they sometimes emphasize
the social aspect and that is when their theme is bilingual education studies, or the socio-
cultural-historic aspect which so explicitly appears in minority bilingualism studies.
Sociolinguistics and Language Teaching focuses on language teaching in general, combining
the fields of bilingual education and foreign language studies instead of looking at them as
separate entities. Surprisingly, the collection, does not mention L1 teaching studies, although it
does have implications for that area. L1 teaching studies have sometimes also missed out on
societal embedding within the real world: their textbooks have usually depicted idealized
language and situations. The same comment applies to FL teaching and FL teaching studies
which also tend to be geared towards a homogenous context that does not exist. Therefore, the
book has contributions for a wide variety of scenarios ranging from bilingual/multilingual to
bidialectal, to first/second/foreign language classrooms.
The volume is suitable for a wide audience including countries whose first/official language is
not English. This is an important point in a world where nations usually claim to be
monolingual, and erase bilingualism/multilingualism. Actually, not only is minority
bilingualism/multilingualism invisible in these countries but also minority bidialectalism. This
point is well discussed by Shridar (pp. 47–50). All in all, the book should find its place in
postgraduate courses in applied linguistics, sociolinguistics, language and education, language
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and diversity and bilingual education. It is a suitable introduction to research for both teachers
and novice researchers.
Chapter 2, Part I – Societal multilingualism
Written by Kamal Stridhar, the chapter has an indepth look at the issue of bilingualism and
multilingualism, dealing with them as worldwide phenomena. The writer distinguished several
types of multilingualism, i.e. territorial principle of multilingualism in which the country as
whole is multilingual but individuals are mainly monolingual and personality principle
multilingualism in which the state promotes multilingual individuals. Several reasons for
multilingualism are offered: immigration, cultural contact, and annexation or colonialism.
Stridhar believes innatist theories of language are inadequately equipped to explain
multilingualism and a functional approach to language as represented by Ferguson (1959),
Fishman (1972), Halliday (1973), and Hymes (1974) with considerable attention to the social
use of language should be called upon. Whatever approach we select, the notions of verbal
repertoire and language choice play a central role to the discussion of multilingualism. Verbal
repertoire refers to the total range of linguistic resources available to an individual or
community, where as language use is analyzed in terms of “Who uses what language with
whom and for what purpose?” We must bear in mind that the linguistic resources or the
repertoire of a multilingual community are not equally distributed in terms of power, prestige,
vitality, or attitude, making some languages more valued than others, a fact that is captured in
the term asymmetrical principle of multilingualism. Such a principle can lead to several
sociolinguistic phenomena such as diglossia, code switching, and code mixing.
This chapter also discusses other sociolinguistic phenomena such as convergence and transfer.
As Stridhar explains an extreme effect of language contact is linguistic convergence when one
language undergoes extensive structural modification in the direction of the dominant language.
Such a linguistic diffusion is observed in some parts of India where Urdu belonging to the Indo-
European family and Kannada and Telugu from the Dravidian family come into regular
contact. Language transfer is a forceful sociolinguistic phenomenon which plays an important
role in language change. Language transfer takes place when the interlocutors share the same
languages and transfer naturally does not affect mutual intelligibility.
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At the end Stridhar introduced six implications for language teaching with respect to
bilingualism.
1. Bilingualism is not indicative of low level of intelligence as claimed by some dubious
research. Thus teachers must revise their attitudes towards the status of multilingualism.
2. Teachers must reassess the significance of English in the learners’ linguistic repertoire,
recognizing the existence of other equally important languages used by the individual or the
community.
3. Due to the complementary aspect of language, it is not realistic to expect native-link
competency in all aspects of the language.
4. A certain amount of familiarity with other languages available to the learners is advised for
the teacher.
5. Teachers must develop a tolerant attitude to code-switching among minority group learners.
6. As multilingualism signifies a great amount of give and take between languages, teachers
must avoid expecting learner to keep their languages compartmentalized as code switching
is inevitable in those situations.
Chapter 3, Part I – World Englishes
Kachru and Nelson introduce discuss the topic of world Englishes and its relationship with
teaching of English. World Englishes is seen in two diasporas (Kachru 1992): 1) migrations of
English-speaking people from the British Isles to Australia, New Zealand, and North America,
2) colonialization of Asia and Africa by English speakers. Central to the discussion of world
Englishes is the concept of dialect and the distribution of power reflected through it. Or, as the
writers put it “It is my dialect versus your dialect.” Although some 45 countries use English as
their official language (Table 1, p 75), it is the English spoken in England and North America
(Canada and USA) which is generally accepted without much ado, though it must be reminded
that other “standard” dialects are equally intelligible to the listener/reader.
The writers, recognizing the inadequacy of a prescriptive approach to language, promote a
descriptive study of world Englishes. Such a study, they believe, would see the true merit of
English as a widely spoken language in the world today that has empowered people across the
world to communicate with even minimum knowledge of this language. The use and users of
English are depicted in three concentric circles comprising of an Inner Circle including the
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United States, Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand ordered in terms of their population.
The Outer Circle includes countries where English has been institutionalized for long. This
circle encompasses India, Nigeria, Pakistan, Singapore, South Africa, and Zambia. The last and
the biggest circle is the Expanding Circle that houses countries in which English is studied for
specific purposes. Countries like China, Indonesia, Iran, Japan, Korea, and Nepal fall into this
circle.
Considering such a diverse variety of Englishes it won’t be surprising to see that the term
native speaker is subject to serious questioning. While speakers of the inner circle seem to be
quite tolerant of each other, certain degrees of intolerance are expected toward speakers of the
outer circle. This attitude was specially expected of the speakers of the mother country who
would not recognize the fact that English had undergone change in the new settlements,
rendering such changes as inappropriate and a result of careless use.
The diversity of world Englishes then necessitates the recognition of context-specific
communicative competence within different communities, hence calling to question the notion
of deficit linguistics. It is therefore difficult to render hyphenated-Englishes, Black or Hispanic,
non-standard. Another issue raised by the writers is “intelligibility”. Drawing on the definition
of dialects as mutually intelligible variants of a given language, it is argued that most of these
world Englishes are undeserving of being called English since they are not mutually
intelligible.
World Englishes also contain pedagogic implications. While it is possible to defend the notion
of one world one standard, not much can be done to stop varieties of English from spreading
through trade, education, and day to day communication. As Davies (1990) states, teaching
involves giving choices. Users must be aware of differences but the choice is totally theirs. The
recognition of world Englishes by “the old variety English-speaking nations” brings them into
contact with the potentials of other cultures and their literatures. Even their discourse, written
or spoken, can be looked into. And perhaps nowhere does the issue of world Englishes and
standardization stand but as in assessment. Lowenberg (1993) admits that testing does indicate
proficiency in English as a world language.
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Chapter 4, Part I – Language planning
This chapter touches upon five major issues under the topic of language planning: 1) the basic
assumptions underlying language planning, 2) key definitions and types of language planning,
3) orientations and approaches, 4) goals, and 5) legal challenges. In a discussion of language
planning, some questions are raised:
1. How do assumptions about language influence language planning?
2. How does attributing higher status to some varieties of language affect the status of all
varieties?
Recognizing that language is used as an instrument of social control it must be then asked
“What attitudes do scholars and laypeople have towards language diversity? (Crawford, 1992;
Haugan, 1973, 1992)”
At the definition level, language planning is involved in corpus planning (coining new words,
reforming spelling, adopting new script), advocating proper or preferred variety as well as use
(Williams, 1992). In addition, the level at which language planning takes place and the ones
involved in it need to be defined clearly. Here distinction must be made between government
and the state. The state (the apparatus by which the dominant groups maintain power) uses
language planning to solidify and expand its power. Language planning can also be defined in
terms of implicitness and explicitness.
Different views upheld by scholars towards language planning have resulted in development of
differing approaches and perspectives towards language planning, some seeing language as a
problem, some as right, and others see it as a source (Ruiz, 1984). Whichever view of language
I advocated, it must be borne in mind that language planning involves goal-setting which can
be language related or politically and economically oriented. The former encompasses issues
such as language shift policy, language maintenance, and language enrichment. The political
goals incorporate objective such as “nation building”. The economic goals of language
planning are related to international trade and communication. Moreover, language planning
can affect distribution of wealth and national economy through promotion of literacy. Language
in education planning too should be seen in light of sociopolitical and economic factors and
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overall governmental policy (Judd, 1991) that may be inclusive or exclusive of minority
groups.
Part II – Language and Variation
Chapter 5, Part II – Regional and social variation
Richards stresses that teachers should study dialects to be better prepared when dealing with
vernaculars, and naturally have a more successful influence on their students’ achievement. The
chapter introduces the reader, hereby the savvy teacher, with common concepts and
terminology in sociolinguistic studies, such as dialect maps and isoglosses. These imaginary
lines will demonstrate dialect area that are lexically, phonologically, and syntactically distinct.
Also, the chapter explains reason for language change and appearance of regional dialects.
Language variation can also take place on the social continuum with respect to age, gender,
social class and networking. Research by Labov (1991), Rickford (1986), Eckert (1989) and
other is illuminating in the respect. The chapter proceeds with suggesting teachers make use of
available resources, audio and video, to acquaint themselves and their students with regional
and social varieties, and for enhancement of individual and social identity.
Chapter 6, Part II – Pidgins and Creoles
Nicholas introduces the sociolinguistic phenomena of pidgins and creoles and the consequences
for education and for teachers should these varieties be ignored. Attitudes to these varieties are
different, and not often quite favorable. Nicholas quotes Harris (1986) who summarizes three
conditions for the emergence of a pidgin language: 1) lack of effective bilingualism, 2) need to
communicate, and 3) restricted access to target language. Creole, on the other hand, develops
when pidgin is nativized and the children of pidgin-speaking parents hear it as their most
important language. Hugo Schuchardt (1980s) was one of the pioneers of research on pidgins
and creoles. However, Turner (1949) made significant comparative studies between varieties of
Creole spoken in Georgia and California and some languages of West Africa.
As with language varieties, teachers must be able to recognize and understand pidgin and
creoles even if they are not officially used in the classroom. Vasquez, Pease-Alvarez, and
Shannon (1994) see such acquaintance necessary for development of curricula. Use of videos
can be helpful to show to the children how their peers speak in different geographical settings.
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Chapter 7, Part II – Language and gender
Rebecca Freeman and Bonnie McElhinny take on a consciousness-raising task in this chapter
beginning with an introductory section on feminist movements in the United States during the
later 1960s and 1970s. By examining and revealing “gender-based ideologies” in both written
and spoken discourse and social practices as shown in the diagram by Fairclough (1989), they
give us a good place to start from on the issue of gender. Attention is drawn to a number of
sexist practices and alternatives in English discourse with examples given from forms of
address – Mr., Miss, Mrs., and Ms. – as well as from what Matyna (1983) calls the he/man
approach to language with a number of strategies to reform lexical sexism.
But sexual racism, they argue, goes beyond lexical and syntactic choices we make in language
use. They way women are portrayed in the press and in medical texts is equally sexist.
Stereotyping too is rife in language about women’s speech which if present “silence n’y a”.
women’s speech is misinterpreted at times by the very same people who study it. Lakoff (1970)
sees it as deficient, while Jenkins (1986) and Painter (1980) believe women “don’t tell jokes.”
Others like Holmes (1984) pins women’s use of hedging to their uncertainty. It’s therefore
possible to how scholar differ in the way they view women’s language. While Lakoff portrays a
helpless picture of women, Kalcik (1975) believes that women are more nurturing and
cooperative than men. We find, however, Tannen’s dual-culture model description of men and
women more realistic when she says than men approach the world as individuals in a
hierarchical social order, while women approach the world as individuals in a network. Yet
even Tannen’s model has its own critics such Eckert & McConnell-Ginet (1992) who believe
power and dominance relations are not involved in Tannen’s model. Thorne (1990) ponts out
some weaknesses in gender studies that lead to overgeneralizations about men and women,
boys and girls, when the researchers get into the habit of “get-your-data-and-run” type of study.
Thorne suggests that rather than comparing men with women, each group should be studies
separately in their own right.
Gender discussion has implications for schools which as the writers discuss are sites where
gender-based inequities can be challenged through careful selection of materials and syllabi.
Schools themselves are not immune to gender differentiation, and studies show a number of
biased practices in mainstream English-speaking classrooms (Swan, 1993).
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Part III – Language and Interaction
Chapter 8, Part III – Ethnographic microanalysis
This chapter looks at the microlevel of both social and linguistic analysis, touching upon the
role and linguistic realization of such phenomena as situated co-membership, contextualized
cues, sociolinguistic transfer, interpretive mismatch, and oppositional discourse in face-to-face
interaction. This chapter begins with an overview of the perspective method and findings of the
ethnographic microanalysis of social interaction also known as microethnography. The writer
briefly traces the intellectual roost of microethnography and proceeds to highlight the emphases
on nonverbal as well as verbal aspects of interaction, on the improvisational and situationally
strategic aspects of interaction, on the importance of the interlocutors’ activity in connection
with the activity of speaker, in addition to the importance of the power and politics in
immediate social encounters.
Erickson identifies two emphases that have a significant bearing on language teaching. One is
the situated character of communication in social interaction as observed by Goffman (1964)
who described the social situation as the basic unit in which everyday life finds substance. The
other emphasis in the microethnographic perspective involves the immediate ecology of
relations between participants in a given situation.
Being eclectic in its origins, ethnographic microanalysis combines five types of work, i.e.
context analysis, the ethnography of communication and interaction sociolinguistics,
Goffman’s approach to interaction, conversation analysis, and continental discourse analysis.
The first approach, context analysis, takes an ecological or system approach to the study of
interaction. Ethnographic microanalysis developed by linguistics anthropologists lays the
emphasis on variation in language form and in language function, the purpose of speaking and
the implicit meaning of stylistics choices speakers make. The third approach comes from the
work of Goffman (1959) who viewed interaction in terms of strategy and rituals, emphasizing
the importance of situation. The fourth contributor to ethnographic microanalysis comes from
conversation analysis in sociology known as ethno-methodology as a reaction to the theoretical
assumptions of structure-functionalism. The fifth emphasis takes roots in continental discourse
analysis as carried out by Hebermas (1979) and Fauclt (1979). It studies paths of habitual
practice in everyday life while emphasizing power relations.
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With respect to the behavioral organization of verbal and nonverbal activity in interaction and
symbolic or political construction of situation, four issues are discussed. 1) Listening in relation
to speaking – review of taped audiovisual interactions has revealed that listening by no means
is a passive activity and involves constant dissemination of information including affirmation,
disapproval, indifference, interest, etc to the speaker and other listeners involved. 2) Rhythm
and cadence in interaction – analysis of the conduct of speech and nonverbal behavior in
interaction has revealed fascinating discoveries regarding timing and synchronization of
interlocutors in terms of pitch, speed, body movement, eye contact, etc between the
participants. 3) Situated social identity – it is the analysis of the relationships between the social
background of speakers and their speech style in terms of dialects, politeness, and indirectness.
One reason why we constantly adjust our speech with respect to the milieu is the
multidimensionality of our identity as shown by Goffman. 4) Culture differences as boundary
or border – Barth (1969) identifies between situations in which cultural differences in
interethnic relations work as boundaries between unpoliticizied power-sharing groups or as
problematic border between different-power holding groups.
Ethnographic studies contribute to the success of language pedagogy by informing the teacher
of the importance of listening in relation to speaking, the role of rhythmic organization of
conversation and synchronization in interaction, the effect of situation on interlocutors’ identity
and co-membership, and the significance of the cultural differences in communication style
regarded as boundary or as border between the participant.
Chapter 9, Part III – Interactional sociolinguistics
Deborah Schiffrin reviews the intellectual underpinnings of interactional sociolinguistic
approach, depicting to us what lies at the core of interactional sociolinguistics, that is,
Goffman’s idea about how self and society are maintained in everyday social interaction as well
as Gumperz’s view of language as a socially and culturally constructed system of symbols that
can be utilized in ways that reflect macrolevel social meanings and create microlevel social
meanings. Key concepts of interactional sociolinguistics are explored here such frame and
footing and contextualized cues, contextual presuppositions, and situated inference.
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Interactional sociolinguistics offers a theoretical and methodological perspective on studying
language use in everyday life interactions. Goffman’s analysis of face-to-faceinteraction has
provided insight into ho particular social life circumstances reflect and give meaning to thise
circumstance. Goffman’s theories draw upon the works and ideas of Emile Durkheim who
argued that society can be studied not as a sum of its individuals but as a unit sui gensis.
Goffman also was inspired by George Simmel (1950) and his analysis of form and meaning in
small social groups. The unique focus of Goffman is on the relationship between self and
society at a microlevel of analysis. He proposes that one way of viewing the self as a social
construct is through the notion of face defined as the positive social valus a person effectively
claims for him/herself.
Gumperz (1982) on the other hand, as he mentions in the introduction to his collection of
essays, seeks to develop interpretive sociolinguistic approaches to the analysis of real time
processes in face-to-face encounters. His research is grounded in the assumption that the
meaning, structure, and use of language are socially and culturally relative. Gumperz defines
two types of code switching – situational code switching and metaphorical code switching. In
the former, switching is done in accord to changes in participants’ definition of each other’s
rights and obligations while in the latter switching is done withing a situation to convery a
different view of that situation and ther relationship. Gumperz also develops connections
between culture, society, individual, and code (1982a) which is a framework built upon his
earlier ideas about culture, society, language, and self.
Gumperz identifies conversational mechanisms which he calls contextualized cues, aspects of
language and behavior that relate what is said to contextual presuppositions or background
knowledge that allows situated inferences to be made about the intelocutors’ intent.
Contextualized cues can affect the basic meaning of a message and are almost never
consciously observed or given conventional meanings. Gumperz believes that when listeners
share such cues interactions develop smoothly. In sum, we should say Gumperz’s concept are
both rooted in the individual and gounded in the view of self and what is does as a member of a
social and cultural group and a participant in the social construction of meaning.
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Interactional sociolinguistics can introduce a new perspective to the understanding of classroom
interactions which can also positively affect our teaching. Evidently, there is more to leaning a
language than taking in a list of vocabulary and grammar rules. As the chapter demonstrates
language is a system of norms and rules that are embeddd in the culture. Hence re-affirmation
of the emphasis on teaching students to develop communicative competence. Lessons,
therefore, should include discussion of the possible social meanings of different forms of
interaction, and how different words, intonation, systactic forms, and so on help define meaning
in any interaction. In addition to providing guidelines for materials developers and currilculum
designers, interactional sociolinguistics will help studens and teachers better understand the
interactional dynamics of their classroom, which will in trun do its share it helping students to
develop the required level of communicative competence in the arget language.
Chapter 10, Part III – Intercultural communication
Int his chapter Keith Chick constructs a bridge extending between the previous two chapters on
ethnographic microanalysis and intercultural sociolinguistics and the following two chapters on
the ethnography of cimmuication and speech acts. Here he provides a contrastive review of the
speech act approach which extracts paticualr linguistic feature froma lalarge corpus for
subsequent catergorization and counting with the approach of interactional sociolinguistics
which analyzes a limited number of whole interactions in a bid to uncover the interpretative or
inferential proessess of the interlocutors. He uses his research in South Africa to illustriate his
ideas an show how sociolinguistic transfer as well as other kinds of interpretative mismatch
iclduing mismatches in interpreting contextualiztion cues, frames of reference, and face needs,
produce intercultural miscommunication. In the end he calls for awareness training, in
particular critical awareness training, so that language learners will be able to make profound
and reflective choices.
This chapter is mainly concerned with three research questions:
1. What are the sources of intercultural miscommunication?
2. What are the social factors of such miscomuunication?
3. What can be done to improve intercutlrual miscommunication?
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As Chick explains the souces of intercultural miscommunication can be traced back to the
distinictive nature of the value systems, pervasive configuarion of social relations, and
dominanat ideologies of cultural groups. Chick provides examples of sociolinguistic research
that addresses the three questions listed above. Chick’s main concern in the first example lies in
a study of the selectd speech acts some researchers have chosen for their studies as a basis for
addressing the questions about the sorues and consequences of intercultural miscommunication.
One source of intercultural miscommunication is sociolinguistic transfer which refers to the use
of rules of speaking one’s own speech community or cultural groups when interacting with
members of another community. Wolfson (1983), for example, refers to the high frequency
with which maricans compliment leads to their being perceived as “effusive, insincere, and
possibly motivated by ulterior considerations” (1989, p 23).
Another potetialsoruc of intercultural miscommunication as suggested by the results of
different studies is the differecen in the frqunecy of choice of the compliment response strategy
of no acknowledgement. This is of particular use to SLA and with respect to the generally
observed phenomenon among languge learners who opt to remain silent when they believe their
lainguistic resources are not adequate to form a response suitable to the situation they are in.
although no acknowledgement is itself a response strategy, it is still regarded as absent of
response, and has the potential to be misunderstood if it occurs too frequently.
Interactional sociolinguistics and intercultural communication studies allow to trace
connections between patterns of sociolinguistic behavior and ideologies and societal structures.
Because they rely on limited number of interactions and examples, they do not show the
cumulative effect of multiple sources of intercultural miscommunication. In this approach
idealization of the source is limited and data is analyzed in fine detail. Citing the example from
a post-examination interview between a native South African English-speaking professor and
his ethnically diverse students, Chick identifies several sources of intercultural
miscommunication, one of which involves a mismatch of interpretative frames of reference.
Another source of miscommunication has to do with the fact that one language is tone while the
other is not.
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Chick however refers tot doubts about the significance of sociolinguistic studies of intercultural
miscommunication and whether the findings may lead to psotive social change or whether they
reinforce the status quo. In addition, the deterministic interpretations offered by sociolinguists
on some occasions and of their failure to take into account the economic and political factors
sufficiently cast further doubts on the outcome of these studies. As a result, it is suggested that
if sociolinguists wish their studies to be used for emancipatory rather hegemonic purposes, the
need to put more emphasis on the relationships between sociolinguistic conventions and the
social order. However, as Wolfson (1989, p 31) argues “the acquisition of sociolinguistic rules
can be greatly facilitated by teachers who have the necessary information at their command and
who have the sensitivity to use their knowledge to in order to guide students and help them to
interpret values and patterns which they would otherwise have difficulty in interpreting.
Fairclough (1992) too insists tht it is not enough to foster awareness but also critical awareness.
Learners need to know there is a cost involved in being unaware of sociolinguistic conventions
that may lead to their being assigned to social identities with which they are not comfortable.
Part IV – Language and culture
Chapter 11, Part IV – The ethnography of communication
In this chapter Murriel STroike reviews the basic concepts, methods, and language teaching
applications of the ethnography of communication as introduced by Dell Hymes in 1962.
Seville identifies the principle concerns of this approach, to be 1) the relationship of language
form and use of patterns and functions of communication, 2) to world view and social
organization, 3) to linguistic and social universals and inequalities. Servill maintains that the
significance of the ethnography of communication goes beyond cataloging of human
communication behavior, and may unltimately lead to formulating a truly adequate universal
theory of language and human behavior.
The concern for patterns and functions of communication is basic to linguistics in that it has
also been discovered that much of linguistics behavior is rule-govrned which means it can
descriptively formulated (Dittman 1983). In such a study the goal is to discover and formulate
context-spcific rules which can be desecriptive, statements of recurring regularity, or
prescriptive, metagonitive statements of how people should act. Together such rules form
expectations that are shared by members of a speech community.
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Research on rules for language use, ethnomethodology, has traditionally focused on small units
of communication such a telephone conversations, service encounters, etc. In contrast, an
ethnography of communication approach has a larger view of language and looks for strategies
and conventions that affect larger units of communication through a more holistic approach. In
other words, the ethnography of communication is interested in communicative conventions
which operate at a societal level. Interestingly enough, even within a society in which rules of
phonology, grammar, and vocabulary are shared, strategies language use can be employed to
demonstrate power relations as well as socioenconomic strata. In addition, use of different
languages or language variations can serve as a social identification function that would
determine one’s position on the social strata.
Another dimension on the ethnography of communication is the speech community which is
deined as sharing the same language (Lyons 1970), sharing rules of speeking and interpretation
of speech performance (Hymes 1972), and sharing sociological understanding and
presumptions with regard to speech. Any community in a complex society might be part of a
larger one or, conversely, subdivided into smaller groups. It’s also not expected that a
community be linguistically homogenous. It will include a communicative repertoire or range
of languages, language varieties, and cultureal dimensions. On the other hand, individuals may
simultanesouly seek membership of more than one community be it discrete or overlapping.
The definition of speech community becomes more complex when it is expanded from first to
second language situation. Thus distinction is inevitable regarding learning a standard language
or leanring a foreign language. For speakers of nonstandard varieties, learning involves adding
a schooled variety to their communicative repertoire. Unlike standard lae learners, students of a
foreign language within the context of their mother culture, have little opportunity to interact
and as a result to develop a communicative repertoire. Students of a second language, however,
will not be learning it automatically as apart of enculturation, but of acculturation or second
culture learning and adaptation. Except for those who begin as children, few of these second
language learners become fully-fledged members of the second language speech community.
Having recognized the intrinsic relationship of language and culture and the ways patterns of
communicative behavior and cultural systems interact, it is interesting to see how the
vocabulary of a language catalogs the things that are important to a society, an index of the way
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experience is categorized and a record of past contacts and borrowings. Examples of thes can
be seen in how NNSs and NSs assign colors names to different segment of the spectrum. This
has the potential for a big number of misunderstandings when languages are intepereted
differently. The grammar of a language reveals how time and speace are segmented and
organized. For instance, in Classical Greek future was regarded an event behind us since we
cannot see it but the past is in front of us since we see it.
Within the ethnography of communication the notion of communicative competence (Hymes
1966) plays a central role. Communicative competence involves leaning not only the language
code but alsowhat to say and to whom. This concept has important implications for selection
and sequencing in language teaching curricula. Traditional linguistic description has generally
been interested in phonology, grammar and lexicon of a language, which evidently constitute
part of a speaker’s code for communication. To this, we should add paralinguistic or non-verbal
phenomena, and knowledge of variants. Another dimesion of communicative competence
involves interaction skills. For example, knowing who may or may not speak in a certain
settings, what rounines should be taken in turn taking, how requests should be made, etc. are
some of the interactional skills at a speaker’s command. To this dimension we need to add
cultural competence, the total set of knowledge and skills which speakers being into a situation.
Doing the ethnography of communication is an arduous task that requires fieldwork including
aboservation, interviews, joing group activities, and testing the validity of one’s perception.
Such research specially benefits from comparative studies. Dtra is collected in a naturalistic
setting. Data can be collected through several modes such as observation, library research,
archalogical and sociological surveys, folkloric analyses, and so on. The communicative units
involved in such stuies are situation, event, and act. The situation is the context within which
the communication takes place. The event has a unified set of components, some participants,
some general purposes, some general topic, some tone/key. The communicative act is
synonymous with a single interactional function, such as referential statement, a request, or
command.
Ethnography of communication has strong applications for educational issues. Research by
Erickson and Mohart (1982) for instance shows that some classroom practices may have a
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negative impact on learners who come from different cultural backgrounds. Ethnographic
investigations are also of value to the study of both first and second language acquisition. Such
studies have increased our understanding of strategies children use to communicate with one
another in spite of limited skills (Wong, Fillmore, 1976, 1979). In addition, reading and writing
skills can largely benefit from ethnography of communication. And finally, it contributes to the
cultivation of a different rather than a deficient view toward student performance.
Chapter 12, Part IV – Speech act
In this chapter Andrew Cohen introduces a research approach based on ethnography of
communication that focuses on the identification and cross cultural comparison of speech acts.
He draws on the work of philosophers Austin and Searle, who define speech act as a functional
unit in communication. Cohen takes on defining speech acts and explains how this field of
dicosurse has been applie to SLA. According to Austin (1962) utterances have three types of
meaning including preposional/locutionary, illocutionary, and prelocutionary. The process of
ddefining speech acts has undergone a shift in the recent years from an intuitively-based
anecdotal approach to a moe empirical one, in which the main task of the researcher has been to
determine the speech act sets – the set of strategies NSs use. To do so, it is necessary to
determine the pre-conditions and interactional goals of the speech act to identify the
performative and semantic prerequisits for the realization of the goals.
In addition, empirical research has demonstrated that successful sue of speech acts depends on
certain sociolinguistic and sociolcultural abilities, the sociocultural ability refers to selecting
speech acts which are 1) status-conscious 2) culture-bound, 3) age-sex appropriate, and 4)
class/occupation-conscious. Data collection methods involve naturally occurring data, role
plays, discourse completion tools, and verbal report interviews. The complexity of speech acts
and their realization require careful development of research methods for describing speech
acts.
Despite the great interest in speech act theory, relatively few studies have been carried out in
this regard, and even fewer on untutored acquisition of oral speech acts behavior among non-
native speakers. As for the implication of such studies and the speech act theory, we come
across what Wolfson indicated regarding the extent to which ethnographic analyses and studies
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can be used to enhance teaching and improve communicative competence. Cohen too ends the
chapter with a word of encouragement and caution to language teachers, casting doubts on
whether those speech acts that are highly culture specific and context bound are in fact
teachable.
Chapter 13, Part IV – Literacty and Literacies
Sandra Mckay relates the form and use of literacy to culture and social context. She emphesizes
two views of literacy, one as a social practice and as an individual skill and the other as a
comibination of a variety of research methods, surveys, ethnographic research, and text
analysis. The dominant assumption is this chapter is that literacy is multidimensional.
The view of literacy as a skill envisages four levels of literacy according to Wells (1987):
formative, functional, informational, and epistemic. However, listeracy as an individual skill is
often realized in the relationship between written and oral language as well as the relationship
between literacy and cognitive development. From the sociocultural perspective, it is observed
that societies attached different values and that it actually means throughout history. This value
shift is in positive correlation with rising literacy in a given society. As result, literacies become
more complex and include higher levels of knowledge and skills.
Street (1991), however, distinguishes between what he calls ideological literacty and
autonomous model of literacy. He argues the belief that liateracy per se is beneficial to
cognitive development, and that these are new forms of interaction that eventually promote it.
On another dimesion, Langer (1987) believes that the development of mass media and
computers as well as the internet has affected the narrow definition of literacy which has
traditionally been synonymous with the ability to read and write.
MaKay also identifies different research methods that commonly correspond to a particular
view of literacy. In his view, a view of literacy as a skill often makes use of surveys, while
proponents of a social-practice view of literacy employ an ethnographic research method.
However, those who emphasize the social aspect of literacy are more in favor of text analysis,
which is also used by those who want to examine texts for power relationships. Literacy can
also affect society by determining who can read and write and for what purpose. By looking at
the literacy history of a community we can find out about the literacy distribution in that
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particular community. In addition we can also study communities in the way that deal with
texts. For instance, Heath (1983) found out that Trackton, a working class African-American
community, used writing only when they had to.
Ballard and Clanchy (1991) argue that a culture’s attitude towards knowledge can be
demonstrated along a continnum that ranges from those who values conserving knowledge to
those who value extending it. Literacy and power seem to be intertowined as well. In
Fairclough’s opinion all linguistic interactions reflect social order which can be used to
maintain to change the status quo. In a more recent and stronger tone, there is the Freirian view
to cirtical approach to literacy that advocates all education involves intervention.
McKay lists a number of implications for the literacry classroom. First, collaborative
involvement with text on the part of students is necessary. Second, as literacty is connected
with power, students need to develop critical readership. Therefore it is important that teachers
encourage collaborative literacry skills in the classroom and help students read with a critical
eye. McKay shows in this chapter that the view of literacy as an islolated, individual skill
linked to cognitive development has been superseded by a recognition that literacty practices
are part of a wider socioclutural practices that involve talk, interaction, values, and beliefs
(Gee, 1992).
Chapter 14, Part IV – Language and education
In the closing chapter the co-writer of this book, Nancy Horberger, offers her insights and
experiences while writing this book. She gives examples pf vignettes that illustrate the ways in
which language and culture interact with policy and program. She states that the book began
with a conceptual framework that distinguishes between societal and linguistic perspectives and
macrolevel and miscrolevel of analysis. But the book ends with an attempt to bring together all
the highlighted sociolinguistic dimensions that are important in a learner’s language and
literacy development.
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References
Ball, Martin J. (2005). Clinical Linguistics. Malden, USA. Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
Chambers, J. K., Trudgill P & Schilling-Estes N (2003). The Handbook of Language Variation
and Change. Maiden, USA. Blackwell Publishing.
Eckert P, McConnell-Ginet, S (2003).Language and Gender. New York. Cambridge.
Holmes, J and Meyerhoff , M (2003. The Handbook of Language and Gender. Maiden, USA.
Blackwell Publishing
Llamas, C, Mullany, L & Stockwell, P (2007). The Routledge Companion to Sociolinguistics.
New York. Routledge.
Philipson, R. (1992). Linguistic Imperialism. London: Oxford University Press.
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