INTRODUCING SOCIOLINGUISTICS

INTRODUCING

SOCIOLINGUISTICS

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INTRODUCING

SOCIOLINGUISTICS

SECOND EDITION

Rajend Mesthrie, Joan Swann,

Ana Deumert and William L. Leap

Edinburgh University Press

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© Rajend Mesthrie, Joan Swann,

Ana Deumert and William L. Leap, 2000, 2009

Edinburgh University Press

22 George Square, Edinburgh

www.euppublishing.com

First edition published by Edinburgh University Press in 2000.

Reprinted 2001, 2003, 2004

Typeset in Sabon and Gill Sans

by Servis Filmsetting Ltd, Stockport, Cheshire, and

printed and bound in Germany by

Bercker GmbH

A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 978 0 7486 3843 7 (hardback)

ISBN 978 0 7486 3844 4 (paperback)

The right of Rajend Mesthrie, Joan Swann, Ana Deumert and William L. Leap

to be identifi ed as authors of this work has been asserted in accordance with the

Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

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CONTENTS

List of Tables, Maps and Figures x

List of Tables x

List of Maps x

List of Figures xi

Abbreviations xiv

Acknowledgements xv

Note to Readers xxiv

1. Clearing the Ground: Basic Issues, Concepts and

Approaches 1

Rajend Mesthrie

1.1 Introduction 1

1.2 Relations between Language and Society 5

1.3 Prescriptivism 12

1.4 Standardisation 20

1.5 Speech vs Writing 26

1.6 Societies and Speech Communities 27

1.7 Monolingualism and Multilingualism 37

1.8 Conclusion 40

Notes 41

2. Regional Dialectology 42

Rajend Mesthrie

2.1 Introduction 42

2.2 A Multilingual Project: The Linguistic Survey of India 45

2.3 Monolingual Dialectology in Europe 47

2.4 Modern Approaches to Dialect 59

2.5 More Challenges for Dialectologists 68

2.6 Conclusion 71

Notes 72

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vi Contents

3. Social Dialectology 74

Rajend Mesthrie

3.1 Introduction 74

3.2 Principles and Methods in Variationist Sociolinguistics:

Three Case Studies 75

3.3 Fieldwork Methods in Variationist Sociolinguistics 89

3.4 A Closer Look at Stylistic and Social Categories 92

3.5 Sociolinguistics on Trial: An Application of Urban

Dialectology 105

3.6 Conclusion 107

Notes 108

4. Language Variation and Change 109

Ana Deumert and Rajend Mesthrie

4.1 Introduction 109

4.2 Two Models of Language Change 110

4.3 Vernacular Maintenance and Change 121

4.4 New Approaches to Variation and Change: The Need

for Integration 130

4.5 Vowel Shifts: Towards a Holistic Approach to

Dialect and Change 136

4.6 Conclusion: The Limits of Variation Theory 144

Notes 145

5. Language Choice and Code-switching 146

Joan Swann

5.1 Introduction 146

5.2 Evaluation and Accommodation: Language Variation as

Meaningful 147

5.3 Language Choice in Bilingual Communities 152

5.4 Code-switching in Bidialectal and Bilingual

Communities 163

5.5 Code-switching and Style-shifting 177

5.6 Conclusion 182

Note 182

6. Language in Interaction 183

Joan Swann

6.1 Introduction 183

6.2 Speaking and Silence 185

6.3 Narratives 189

6.4 Conversation Management 195

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Contents vii

6.5 Encoding Relationships 199

6.6 Asymmetrical Talk 201

6.7 Conclusion 211

7. Gender and Language Use 213

Joan Swann

7.1 Introduction 213

7.2 Women’s and Men’s Languages 214

7.3 Variationist Studies: Quantifying Gender 218

7.4 Gender in Interaction: ‘Defi cit’, ‘Dominance’ and

‘Difference’ 225

7.5 Gender and Politeness 230

7.6 Contextualised Approaches: Performance and

Performativity 233

7.7 Conclusion 240

Notes 241

8. Language Contact 1: Maintenance, Shift and Death 242

Rajend Mesthrie and William L. Leap

8.1 Introduction 242

8.2 Contact and Borrowing 243

8.3 Language Maintenance, Shift and Death 245

8.4 The Linguistics of Obsolescence 256

8.5 A Case Study: Language Contact, Maintenance and Shift

among Native Americans 256

8.6 Saving Endangered Languages 265

8.7 Conclusion 269

Notes 270

9. Language Contact 2: Pidgins, Creoles and ‘New

Englishes’ 271

Rajend Mesthrie

9.1 Introduction 271

9.2 Pidgins and Creoles 271

9.3 Pidgin Structures and Theories of Their Origin 281

9.4 Creole Structures and Theories of Their Origin 287

9.5 Language Spread and ‘New’ Varieties of English 296

9.6 Conclusion 307

Notes 307

10. Critical Sociolinguistics: Approaches to Language and Power 309

Rajend Mesthrie (with contributions by Ana Deumert)

10.1 Introduction 309

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viii Contents

10.2 Power 310

10.3 Critical Discourse Analysis 312

10.4 Critical Language Awareness in Action 318

10.5 Resistance to Powerful Language 325

10.6 Sociolinguistics and Symbolic Power: The Work of

Pierre Bourdieu 333

10.7 Conclusion 342

Notes 342

11. Sociolinguistics and Education 344

Rajend Mesthrie and William L. Leap

11.1 Introduction 344

11.2 Teaching, Learning and Schooling 345

11.3 Disadvantage and Classroom Language 351

11.4 Dialect and Language Choice in the Classroom 357

11.5 Conclusion 369

Notes 370

12. Language Planning and Policy 371

Ana Deumert

12.1 Introduction 371

12.2 Dimensions of Language Planning 372

12.3 The Process of Language Planning 375

12.4 The Rational Choice Model and Its Critics 380

12.5 The Question of Acceptance 386

12.6 Language Planning, Power and Ideology 387

12.7 Two Case Studies: Norway and South Africa 393

12.8 Conclusion 405

Notes 405

13. The Sociolinguistics of Sign Language 407

Ana Deumert

13.1 Introduction 407

13.2 Some Aspects of the Structure of Sign Languages and

other Sign Systems 408

13.3 The Deaf Community as a Linguistic Minority 412

13.4 Sign Language and Education 417

13.5 Language Contact, Diglossia and Code-switching 421

13.6 Sociolinguistic Variation in Sign Language 427

13.7 ‘Everyone Here Spoke Sign Language’: Martha’s

Vineyard Revisited 436

13.8 Conclusion 439

Notes 439

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Contents ix

Epilogue 440

Further Reading 445

Next Steps 449

Bibliography 450

Glossary 488

Index 491

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LIST OF TABLES, MAPS AND FIGURES

List of Tables

Table 1.1 A typical diglossic distribution of language varieties 39

Table 2.1 Dialect differences according to the effects of the

High German Sound Shift 58

Table 2.2 The verb ‘she saw’ in transplanted varieties of

eastern Hindi 66

Table 3.1 Centralisation index for (ai) in Martha’s Vineyard 79

Table 3.2 The use of third-person singular -s in Norwich 95

Table 5.1 The choice of Hungarian or German by women

speakers in Oberwart 161

Table 7.1 Female and male verb forms in Koasati 215

Table 8.1 The GIDS (Graded Intergenerational Disruption

Scale) 267

Table 8.2 A programme for reversing language shift 268

Table 13.1 Age variation and school policies in Japan 420

List of Maps

Map 1.1 New states arising from the former Yugoslavia 9

Map 1.2 The North Indian speech continuum 11

Map 1.3 The Dutch/German border 12

Map 2.1 North Indian languages of India which use an /l/ in

the past participle 46

Map 2.2 The lexical isogloss: blackberries vs brambles, from

A Word Geography of England 50

Map 2.3 The lexical isogloss: folk vs people 51

Map 2.4 The [υ] versus [] isogloss in England 52

Map 2.5 A bundle of isoglosses that divide France into two 53

Map 2.6 Isogloss for postvocalic /r/ in England 55

Map 2.7 The Rhenish fan 57

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Tables, Maps and Figures xi

Map 2.8 Places in Britain and Ireland cited in the text 60

Map 2.9 Recruiting patterns and the eastern Hindi indentured

diaspora of the 19th and early 20th centuries 65

Map 3.1 US places cited in the text 77

Map 4.1 Map of Belfast showing location of the inner-city

areas studied by Milroy 123

Map 4.2 Districts of Berlin 128

Map 4.3 The three dialect areas of the USA 138

Map 4.4 Dialect map of the USA showing the merger of

the vowels in cot and caught 142–3

Map 5.1 Map of the USA showing Michigan informants’

language ‘correctness’ ratings 150

Map 5.2 East Africa and the languages cited in the text 155

Map 5.3 Oberwart, showing the Felszeg area 158

Map 8.1 Map of Native American languages cited 258

Map 9.1 The Sale Triangle 275

Map 9.2 Frequently cited pidgins, creoles and mixed

languages 277

Map 9.3 Frequently cited Caribbean creoles 278

List of Figures

Figure A Sketch of tongue position for main vowels

cited in the text xxv

Figure B The vowel chart, showing position of main

vowels cited in the text xxv

Figure 1.1 Contrast between English and Hopi in

expressing tense 7

Figure 1.2 The pyramid diagram of regional and social

variation in England 24

Figure 2.1 The dimensions of speech variation 43

Figure 2.2 Focal and transitional areas 54

Figure 2.3 The vowels [υ], [] and [γ] on the vowel chart 61

Figure 2.4 The vowels [o], fronted [o], [ε:] and [a] on the

vowel chart 63

Figure 3.1 Variants of the fi rst element /a/ in the diphthong

in price, white, right in Martha’s Vineyard,

and values assigned to them 78

Figure 3.2 Tongue position for interdental fricative and

dental stop variants of (th) 85

Figure 3.3 Social stratifi cation of (th) in New York City 86

Figure 3.4 Social stratifi cation of (r) in New York City 87

Figure 4.1 S-curve progression of sound change 114

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xii Tables, Maps and Figures

Figure 4.2 Change in French words ending in -n 114

Figure 4.3 A real-time comparison between scores for

postvocalic /r/ in New York City department

stores in 1962 and 1986 120

Figure 4.4 Low-density and high-density network structure 122

Figure 4.5 Frequency of deletion of (th) between vowels in

Belfast 125

Figure 4.6 Backing of /a/ in three Belfast communities 126

Figure 4.7 Dialect stratifi cation in Berlin 129

Figure 4.8 Distribution of the vowel variants across the four

sociolects of the core speech community in Sydney 132

Figure 4.9 Distribution of social characteristics across the

three sociolects in Sydney 134

Figure 4.10 The direction of language change in Sydney 134

Figure 4.11 Sketch map of a hypothetical chain shift 137

Figure 4.12a Simplifi ed sketch of the Northern Cities Chain

Shift 139

Figure 4.12b Fuller Northern Cities Chain Shift in Detroit 139

Figure 4.13a The short front-vowel shift in South African

English 140

Figure 4.13b Results of the shift: RP and South African

front vowels compared 140

Figure 5.1 Extracts from a radio DJ’s speech 178–9

Figure 6.1 Coda from a narrative by Don Gabriel 194

Figure 7.1 A reanalysis of Labov’s (1966) fi ndings for the

variable (dh) in New York City 224

Figure 8.1 A selection of Western Apache anatomical

terms used for parts of motor vehicles 246

Figure 9.1 The Guyanese English Creole continuum 295

Figure 9.2 Excerpt from a dictionary of Indian English 300

Figure 9.3 Braj Kachru’s Circles model of World Englishes 306

Figure 10.1 A three-dimensional model of discourse 317

Figure 10.2 Occupations in social space according to volume

and types of capital 334

Figure 10.3 Class, habitus and class formation 336

Figure 12.1 Nama Primer published by H. C. Knudsen in 1845 376

Figure 12.2 The ‘Language Festival’ in Moldavia celebrating the

reintroduction of the Roman alphabet for the

writing of Moldavian (August 1990) 377

Figure 12.3 Cost-benefi t analysis for the adoption of English as

fi rst foreign language in Poland 384

Figure 12.4 Simplifi ed Chinese characters 388

Figure 13.1 BSL signs for talk/make 409

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Tables, Maps and Figures xiii

Figure 13.2 Non-manual encoding of grammatical categories in

Swedish Sign Language: the relative clause marker 409

Figure 13.3 Subject/Object encoding for the sentence The

woman hit the man in BSL 410

Figure 13.4 British two-handed and American one-handed

manual alphabet 411

Figure 13.5 Sign systems 412

Figure 13.6 Avenues to membership in the Deaf community 415

Figure 13.7 Age during which sign language is learned 416

Figure 13.8 ASL representation for A person is running zigzag

uphill 419

Figure 13.9 BSL initialised loan sign for kitchen 422

Figure 13.10 The American Sign Language Continuum 424

Figure 13.11 Location variation by age 430

Figure 13.12 Citation form and Black form of school 431

Figure 13.13 Deaf Pride in South Africa 433

Figure 13.14 The sign for ‘gay’ 434

Figure 13.15 The sign for ‘my lover’ 435

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ABBREVIATIONS

AAVE African American Vernacular English

ASL American Sign Language

BSL British Sign Language

BUV Berlin Urban Vernacular

CBA cost-benefi t analysis

EFL English as a Foreign Language

ESL English as a Second Language

IRE initiation–response–evaluation

ISA Ideological state apparatus

LANE Linguistic Atlas of New England

LSI Linguistic Survey of India

PSE Pidgin Sign English

RP Received Pronunciation

SASL South African Sign Language

SED Survey of English Dialects

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