索绪尔
索绪尔（Saussure，1857-1913）首先提出社会语言学的研究方向。他认为Language分为两个方面，一是语言（Langue）即平时人们研究的语言系统或是总结语言的使用，例如语法，句法，词法等。另一个方面便是言语（Parole），即社会语言学，语言的当代的使用偏好，与当代社会相关联的研究方向。但并未得到当时学者们的重视。
布莱特
布莱特（W. Bright, 1966） 他认为社会语言学是研究语言变异。研究内容涉及七个方面：说话者的社会身份，听话者的身份，会话场景，社会方言的历时与共时研究，平民语言学，语言变异程度，社会语言学的应用。 他的视角涉及语境、语言的历时与共时。他的重点放在“语言变异”上，社会语言学本身也是以变异为立足点。
费希曼
费希曼（J. Fishman, 1972） 他将社会语言学的研究范围分为宏观和微观两个方面：微观社会语言学以语言为出发点，研究社会方言和语言变异，考察社会因素对语言结构的影响；宏观社会语言学则以社会为出发点，研究语言在社区组织中的功能。 费希曼是将社会语言学二分为宏观和微观。他是关注的是不同层面的研究对象。
海姆斯
海姆斯（D.Hymes, 1974） 海姆斯提出，社会语言学的重要研究目标有三项：（1）既有社会目标又有语言目标；（2）社会现实的语言学，意指拉博夫及其同事所从事的工作 ；（3）社会构成的语言学，旨在探究语言在使用中的范围广泛的理论。 海姆斯特别强调社会语言学的目标应该具有广泛性、“跨学科性”和“多学科性”。
祝畹瑾
祝畹瑾 她将研究内容细分为五个方面：（1）一个国家或地区的语言状况，和按照各种属性划分的言语共同体使用语言的状况和特征；（2）各种语言变体的构造特点及其社会功能；（3）交谈的情景与选择语码之间的关系以及语码选择与人际关系的相互作用；（4）社会以及不同的集团对各种语言变体的评价和态度以及由此产生的社会效应；（5）由于社会的、文化的、经济的政治的种种原因以及语言接触所引起的语言变化的方式和规律等。 她的界定主要是关注言语共同体、语言变体、语码转换、社会与变体的联系这几个方面。
杨永林
杨永林社会语言学是研究语言与社会之间关系的一个语言学分支。社会语言学研究涉及两个方面的问
题：一是语言结构，一是社会语境。通过研究两者之间的交互作用。社会语言学试图透过社会文化现象分析研讨言语行为。并通过语言使用现象说明社会结构及其内在机制问题。 语言结构是传统语言学关注的一部分但是社会语言学的特点是把语言和会话者的背景，
所处的语境作为研究的部分。重视社会与语言的相互影响。
游汝杰、邹嘉彦
游汝杰、邹嘉彦 指出社会语言学（Sociolinguistics）学科名称是由社会学（Sociology）和语言学（Linguistics）复合而成，内容包括两个方面，一是Social Linguistics，基本涵义是：从语言的社会属性出发，用社会学的方法研究语言，从社会的角度解释语言变体和语言演变。二是Sociology of Language，基本涵义是：从语言变体和语言演变的事实，来解释相关的社会现象及其演变和发展的过程。 从研究方向来界定社会语言学，简而言之，前者是从社会研究语言，后者是从语言研究社会。
Sociolinguistics is an umbrella term which covers a variety of different interests in language and society,including the social functions of language and the social characteristics of its users.Sociolinguistics is the study of the characteristics of language varieties,the characteristics of their functions,and the characteristics of their speakers as these three constantly interact and change within a speechIseeks to discover the societal rules and norms that explain and constrain language be
haviour and the behaviour toward language in speech also seeks to determine the symbolic value of language varieties for their speakers.That language varieties come to have symbolic or symptomatic value,in and of themselves,is an inevitable consequence of their functional differentiation.(Reproduction of this article without written permission is act me via email if you want to copy this eassay: This essay is taken from"Linguistics.A Course Book" Editor in chief：胡壮麟Subeditor：姜望琪 资料来源：《语言学教程》 主编：胡壮麟 副主编：姜望琪)
人类语言学anthoropological linguistics
As a science,the study of language is somewhat older than anthoropology.The two disciplines became closely assciated in the early days ofanthropological fieldwork when anthropologists enlisted the help of linguists to study unwritten languages.In contrast with other linguists,then anthropological linguists are interested primarily in the history and structure of formerly unwritten languages.They are concerned with the emergence of language and also with the divergence of languages over thousands of years.Because an unwritten language must be heard in order to be studied,it does not leave any traces once its speakers died off.Anthropological linguists must begin in the present,with comparisons of contemporary languages.Then they may draw inferences about the kinds of change in language that may have occured in the past and that may account for similarities and differences observed in the
present.They typically ask such questions as:Did two or more contemporary languages diverge from a common ancestral language?If they are related,how far back in time did they begin to differ?
Saussure distinguished t
he linguistic competence of the speaker and the actual phenomena or date of linguistics(utterances)as LANGUE and PAROLE.while parole constitutes the immediately accessible date,the linguist's proper object is the langue of each community,the lexicon,and phonology implanted in each individual by his upbringing in society and on the basis of which he speaks and understands his language.
Sociolinguistics is the descriptive study of the effect of any and all aspects of society, including cultural norms, expectations, and context, on the way language is used, and the effects of language use on society. Sociolinguistics differs from sociology of language in that the focus of sociolinguistics is the effect of the society on the language, while the latter's focus is on the language's effect on the society. Sociolinguistics overlaps to a considerable degree with pragmatics. It is historically closely related to linguistic anthropology and the distinction between the two fields has even been questioned recently.[1]
It also studies how language varieties differ between groups separated by certain social variables, e.g.,
ethnicity, religion, status, gender, level of education, age, etc., and how creation and adherence to these rules is used to categorize individuals in social or socioeconomic classes. As the usage of a language varies from place to place, language usage also varies among social classes, and it is these sociolects that sociolinguistics studies.
The social aspects of language were in the modern sense first studied by Indian and Japanese linguists in the 1930s, and also by Gauchat in Switzerland in the early 1900s, but none received much attention in the West until much later. The study of the social motivation of language change, on the other hand, has its foundation in the wave model of the late 19th century. The first attested use of the term sociolinguistics was by Thomas Callan Hodson in the title of a 1939 paper.[2] Sociolinguistics in the West first appeared in the 1960s and was pioneered by linguists such as William Labov in the US and Basil Bernstein in the UK.
Applications of sociolinguistics
For example, a sociolinguist might determine through study of social attitudes that a particular vernacular would not be considered appropriate language use in a business or professional setting. Sociolinguists might also study the grammar, phonetics, vocabulary, and other aspects of this sociolect much as dialectologists would study the same for a regional dialect.
The study of language variation is concerned with social constraints determining language in its contextual environment. Code-switching is the term given to the use of different varieties of language in different social situations.
William Labov is often regarded as the founder of the study of sociolinguistics. He is especially noted for introducing the quantitative study of language variation and change,[3] making the sociology of language into a scientific disci
pline
Traditional sociolinguistic interview
editorinchief是什么意思Sociolinguistic interviews are an integral part of collecting data for sociolinguistic studies. There is an interviewer, who is conducting the study, and a subject, or informant, who is the interviewee. In order to get a grasp on a specific linguistic form and how it is used in the dialect of the subject, a variety of methods are used to elicit certain registers of speech. There are five different styles, ranging from formal to casual. The most formal style would be elicited by having the subject read a list of minimal pairs (MP). Minimal pairs are pairs of words that differ in only one phoneme, such as cat and bat. Having the subject read a word list (WL) will elicit a formal register, but generally not as formal as MP.
The reading passage (RP) style is next down on the formal register, and the interview style (IS) is when an interviewer can finally get into eliciting a more casual speech from the subject. During the IS the interviewer can converse with the subject and try to draw out of them an even more casual sort of speech by asking him to recall childhood memories or maybe a near death experience, in which case the subject will get deeply involved with the story since strong emotions are often attached to these memories. Of course, the most sought after type of speech is the casual style (CS). This type of speech is difficult if not impossible to elicit because of the Observer's Paradox. The closest one might come to CS in an interview is when the subject is interrupted by a close friend or family member, or perhaps must answer the phone. CS is used in a completely unmonitored environment where the subject feels most comfortable and will use their natural vernacular without overtly thinking about it.
Fundamental concepts in sociolinguistics
Speech community
Crucial to sociolinguistic analysis is the concept of prestige; certain speech habits are assigned a positive or a negative value which is then applied to the speaker. This can operate on many levels. It can be realised on the level of the individual sound/phoneme, as Labov discovered in investigating pro
nunciation of the post-vocalic /r/ in the North-Eastern USA, or on the macro scale of language choice, as realised in the various diglossias that exist throughout the world, where Swiss-German/High German is perhaps most well known. An important implication of sociolinguistic theory is that speakers 'choose' a variety when making a speech act, whether consciously or subconsciously.
High prestige and low prestige varietiesMain article: Prestige (sociolinguistics)
Crucial to sociolinguistic analysis is the concept of prestige; certain speech habits are assigned a positive or a negative value which is then applied to the speaker. This can operate on many levels. It can be realised on the level of the individual sound/phoneme, as Labov discovered in investigating pronunciation of the post-vocalic /r/ in the North-Eastern USA, or on the m
acro scale of language choice, as realised in the various diglossias that exist throughout the world, where Swiss-German/High German is perhaps most well known. An important implication of sociolinguistic theory is that speakers 'choose' a variety when making a speech act, whether consciously or subconsciously.
[edit] Social networkUnderstanding language in society means that one also has to understand the social networks in which language is embedded. A social network is another way of describing a partic
ular speech community in terms of relations between individual members in a community. A network could be loose or tight depending on how members interact with each other.[4] For instance, an office or factory may be considered a tight community because all members interact with each other. A large course with 100+ students would be a looser community because students may only interact with the instructor and maybe 1-2 other students. A multiplex community is one in which members have multiple relationships with each other.[4] For instance, in some neighborhoods, members may live on the same street, work for the same employer and even intermarry.
The looseness or tightness of a social network may affect speech patterns adopted by a speaker. For instance, Sylvie Dubois and Barbara Horvath found that speakers in one Cajun Louisiana community were more likely to pronounce English "th" [θ] as [t] (or [e] as [d]) if they participated in a relatively dense social network (i.e. had strong local ties and interacted with many other speakers in the community), and less likely if their networks were looser (i.e. fewer local ties).[5]
A social network may apply to the macro level of a country or a city, but also to the inter-personal level of neighborhoods or a single family. Recently, social networks have been formed by the Internet, through chat rooms, MySpace groups, organizations, and online dating services.
[edit] Internal vs. external languageIn Chomskian linguistics, a distinction is drawn between I-language (internal language) and E-language (external language). In this context, internal language applies to the study of syntax and semantics in language on the abstract level; as mentally represented knowledge in a native speaker. External language applies to language in social contexts, i.e. behavioral habits shared by a community. Internal language analyses operate on the assumption that all native speakers of a language are quite homogeneous in how they process and perceive language.[citation needed] External language fields, such as sociolinguistics, attempt to explain why this is in fact not the case. Many sociolinguists reject the distinction between I- and E-language on the grounds that it is based on a mentalist view of language. On this view, grammar is first and foremost an interactional (social) phenomenon (e.g. Elinor Ochs, Emanuel Schegloff, Sandra Thompson).
发表评论