MID-TEST SOCIOLINGUISTICS

NAME                 : AGNESIA ELVI WISNITA S

CLASS/NIM        : 5B/1588203084

SUBJECT            : INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLINGUISTICS

1.      What is Sociolinguistics?

Answer:

Sociolinguistics is a study that studies or relates to the use of language, especially spoken language, human language meaning, form, context and relation to society that does not study linguistic variations and emphasizes the use of always varied and heterogeneous languages. It is concerned with how language use interacts with, or is affected by, social factors such as gender, ethnicity, age or social class, for instance. Sociolinguistics has become an increasingly important and popular, as certain cultures around the world expand their communication base and intergroup and interpersonal relations take on escalating significance. Sociolinguistics also the study of the relation between language and society–a branch of both linguistics and sociology.

2.      Why do we learn Sociolinguistics?

Answer:

Sociolinguistics is concerned with language In the social and cultural context. This means that it focuses on the way a person speaks or behaves when they are placed in specific environments or situations. Sociolinguistics also studies the way a person speaks based on various factors like gender, race and culture. In sociolinguistics class, we covered all the components that from language.  One of the most intriguing and interesting aspects of language is sociolinguistics. Sociolinguistics is the study of language in its social context.  This means that we use language to socially define and express who we are, where we come from, and who we associate with. It is amazing to see how often we judge someone’s character by making assumptions about their background and their character based simply upon how a person speaks.

3.      What is the relation between language and society?

Answer:

The connection between language and society is tightly anchored. The relationship of the two is deeply rooted. Language performs various functions in the society and the society does the same way. If one will not exist, the other one will be affected. Language is the primary tool for communication purposes, for establishing peace and order in our society, for showing authority and power and for attaining goals and objectives. But, it can also destruct the society if it will use innappropriately. It must follow the conformity governing the society to avoid conflicts and to meet the boundary of individual differences. Society however controls our language by giving us preferences as what are acceptable and not, because each one of us has our own perception or point of view. A group of people may accept our language, but for others, it could be kind of offence or insult

4.      Pleaase mention and explain the branches of linguistics!

Answer:

The branches of linguistics are:

a.       General linguistic

Describes the concepts and categories of a particular language or among all language. It also provides analyzed theory of the language. Descriptive linguistic describes or gives the data to confirm or refute the theory of particular language explained generally.

b.      Micro linguistic

Is narrow view. It is concerned internal view of language itself without related how to apply it in daily life. Some fields of micro linguistic:

§  Phonetics                           : the study of the physical properties of sounds of human language

§  Phonology                         : the study of sounds as discrete, abstract elements in the speaker’s mind that distinguish meaning

§  Morphology                      : the study of internal structures of words and how the can be modified

§  Syntax                               : the study of how words combine to form grammatical sentences

§  Semantics                          : the study of the meaning or words and fixed word combinations, and how these combine to form the meanings of sentences

§  Pragmatics                         : the study of how utterances are used in communicative acts

§  Discourse Analysis            : the analysis of language use in texts

§  Applied linguistic              : is the branch of linguistic that is most concerned with application of the concepts in everyday life, including language-teaching

c.       Macro linguistic

Is broadest view of language. It is concerned external vie of language itself with related to other sciences and how to apply it in daily life. Some fields of micro linguistic:

§  Stylistics                                        : the study of linguistic factors that place a discourse in context

§  Developmental linguistics             : the study of the development of linguistic ability in an individual, particularly the acquisition of language in childhood

§  Historical lingustics                       : the study of language change

§  Language geography                     : the study of the spatial patterns of languages

§  Evolutionary linguistics                : the study of the origin and subsequent development of language

§  Psycholinguistics                           : the study of the cognitive processes and representations underlying language use

§  Sociolinguistics                             : the study of social patterns and norms of linguistic variability

§  Clinical linguistics             : the application of linguitstic theory to the area of Speech-Language Pathology

§  Neurolinguistics                            : the study of the brain networks that underlie grammar and communication

§  Biolinguistics                                : the study of naturl as well as human-taught communication systems in animals compared to human language

§  Computational linguistics             : the study of coputational implementations of linguistic structures

5.      What is standard language? Giving an example!

Answer:

            Standard language is an official form of language. This kind of form of languages are always artificially modified at least to some degree. It is the way to use language in official and formal situation as in newspapers and public speeches. The core idea of standard language is to codify a public, particularly written language so that it is accesible to every speaker of the language to be used in education, media and science.

6.      Elaborating the language, dialect and accent, please!

Answer:

a)      Accent             : is all about pronounciation. Two people may use the same grammar, the same syntax and the same vocabulary but pronounce the words in a different way.

b)      Dialects           : on the other hand, have differences not only in pronounciation but also in grammar and syntax.

c)      Language        : there is a saying that a language is a dialect with an army. Linguistics often talk about language in terms of political influence and power. By this they mean that a dialect with political power becomes a language.

7.      Giving an example of formal language and informal language!

Answer:

a)      Formal language          : he has decided to accept the job

b)      Informal language       : he’s so handsome in this class (he’s = contraction)

8.      What aspects of language are sociolinguistics interested in?

Answer:

Sociolinguistic fieldwork is the recording of speech within a natural context, such as a family dinner conversation. The goal of fieldwork is to capture the way people actually talk in casual settings. This gives researchers the best possible representation of the natural linguistic world.

Sociolinguistics is concerned with language as a ‘social and cultural phenomenon’ (Trudgill, 1974). Linguists of this area are interested in what Trudgil terms as the ‘clue-bearing’ (1974) aspects of language; how we may form ideas about an individual based on particular features of their accent or dialect, for instance. Studying the link between society and language can help us understand more about ourselves, our identities and the communities we are a part of.

9.      When two or more people from different language met and tried to communicate, what should they do?

a.       Pidgin

b.      Creole

c.       Lingua franca

Answer:

I chose Pidgin, because pidgin languages share the main characteristic of a lingua franca in that they are used as a means of communication between different communities. Where they differ from the previous is that pidgin languages have no native speakers. Often, pidgin languages are based on a simplified version of one main language, while borrowing vocabulary and grammar from several additional languages. So, the original lingua franca used around the Mediterranean was a pidgin language, for example – based on simplified Italian, with additions from Greek, French, Arabic, and others. Alternatively, they can originate from mixing together several simplified languages.

10.  Why do people switch and mix a language?

Answer:

There are 5 reasons why do people switch and mix a language, such as:

·         It helps us convey a thought

·         We want to say something in secret

·         We want to get something

·         We want to fit in

·         Our lizard brains take over

11.  Giving an example of code switching and code mixing!

Answer:

Example of code switching

-          Melika and I are so depressed by the turn of events, aku harap semuanya baik-baik saja (Indonesia affixation in an english word)

Example of code mixing

-          Why you so sedih now?

WORD AND CULTURE

Word and Culture

A few words are necessary concerning what I mean by ‘culture.’ I do not

intend to use the term culture in the sense of ‘high culture,’ i.e., the appreciation

of music, literature, the arts, and so on. Rather, I intend to use it in the sense

of whatever a person must know in order to function in a particular society.

Various aspects/approaches of word and culture

1. Whorf

2. Kindship

3. Color

4. Taxonomies

5. Prototypes

6. Taboo words and Euphemism

Kindship

One interesting way in which people use language in daily living is to refer to various kinds of kin. It is not surprising, therefore, that there is a considerable literature on kinship terminology, describing how people in various parts of the world refer to relatives by blood (or descent) and marriageKinship systems are a universal feature of languages, because kinship is so important t in social organisation. 

Taxonimoes

Analyses into taxonomies s and components are useful in that they help us to organize data in ways that appear to indicate how speakers use their language to organize the world around them The analyses show how systematic

much of that behavior is and do so in a rather surprising way. This is talk about hierarchy in a situation, for example like in animal.

Color

Our world is a world of color but the amount of color varies from place to place and time to time. A January flight from Acapulco, Mexico, to Toronto, Canada, takes one from a sun-drenched array of colors to a gray drabness. Except to those blinded to it,color is all around but it is not everywhere treated in the same way The terms people use to describe color give us another means of exploring the relationships between different languages and cultures. The color spectrum is a physical continuum showing no breaks at all. All languages make use of basic color terms. A basic color term must be a single word, e.g., blue or yellow, not some combination of words, e.g., light blue or pale yellow. Nor must it be the obvious sub-division of some higher-order term, as both crimson and scarlet are of red.

Prototypes

a prototype-based concept can be learned on the basis of a very small number of instances – perhaps a single one – and without any kind of formal definition, whereas a feature-based definition would be very much harder to learn since a much larger number of cases, plus a number of non-cases, would be needed before the learner could work out which features were necessary and which were not. Moreover, such a view allows for a more flexible approach to understanding how people actually use language. In that usage certain concepts are necessarily ‘fuzzy,’ as the theory predicts they will be, but that very fuzziness allows speakers to use language creatively.

Taboo and Euphemism

Taboo is the prohibition or avoidance in any society of behavior believed to be harmful to its members in that it would cause them anxiety, embarrassment, or shame. It is an extremely strong politeness constraint. Consequently, so far as language is concerned, certain things are not to be said or certain objects can be referred to only in certain circumstances, for example, only by certain people, or through deliberate circumlocutions, i.e., euphemistically. Of course, there are always those who are prepared to break the taboos in an attempt to show their own freedom from such social constraints or to expose the taboos as irrational and unjustified, as in certain movements for ‘free speech.’ English also has its taboos, and most people who speak English know what these are and observe the ‘rules.’ When someone breaks the rules, that rupture may arouse considerable comment, although not perhaps quite as much today as formerly, as when Shaw’s use of bloody in Pygmalion or the use of damn in the movie Gone with the Wind aroused widespread public comment. Standards and norms change. Linguistic taboos are also violated on occasion to draw attention to oneself, or to show contempt, or to be aggressive or provocative, or to mock authority – or, according to Freud, on occasion as a form of verbal seduction, e.g., ‘talking dirty.’

REGIONAL VARIATION (SOCIOLINGUISTICS)

REGIONAL VARIATION

 In this model  of language change and dialect differention, it should always be possible to relate any variation found within a language to the factors of time and distance alone. E.g. the  British and American varities, or English are separated by over two centuries of political independence and by the Atlantic ocean, Northumbrian and Cockney English are nearly 300 miles and any centuries apart.
Dialect  geographies have traditionaly attempted to produce their findings onmaps in what they call dialects atlases. They try to show the geographical boundaries of the distribution of a particular linguistics feature by drawing a line on a map. Such line is called an isoglosses. 

Linguistics and Social Variation
An aerly study of linguistics variation by Gumperz(1958) one cast in a modern mold, show more some of the intricacies involve in trying to relate linguistic variation to teh social variation. Because the society he was studying is rigidly stratified on the basis of caste membership. The problems are considerably fewer than those encourated in such cities as New York, Detroit, but they are still present.


Question

1. what is the example of Regional Varition?
A word “throw” is different in some regional. For example if you want to someone throw a basketball to someone throw a baseball to you.
In Michigan “ throw in here”
In New York “ chuck it here “
In South Caroline “Chuck it here “

2. What is the example of social variation?
In USA “ i’m fixing’ to go the store. Wanna come? “
It is mean i am about to go to store. Would ypu like to join with me?

3. What is the aspect of  linguistics variation, and what is inteaspeaker?

Linguistics aspect are Pronunciation, Morphology, Woed choice, and Grammmar. Intraspeaker is as single speaker with variation of language