Yun-Pi Yuan1 Sociolinguistics I. Inter-relationships between linguistic form and social function II. Why should linguistics study? III. The difficulty.

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Sociolinguistics

I . Inter-relationships between linguistic form and social function

II. Why should linguistics study?

III. The difficulty of defining what language is

IV. Social functions of speech

V. Telephone conversation

VI. Compliments

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I . Inter-relationships between linguistic form and social

function (1) Lang. cannot be studied separately from its social/speech context. 9 Sentences:

1. Should I make some tea?2. Would you like some tea?3. Can I make you a cup of tea?4. Let’s have a cup of tea.5. How about a nice cup of tea?6. I could make you a cup of tea.7. Do you drink tea?8. Have some tea.9. There’s tea in the pot. What are these sentences doing? When, and with whom, would each one be appropriate? From these examples, would you say that linguistic form and social

function are unrelated? Should we study them separately? Interaction between Pycholinguistics and Sociolinguistics

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I . Inter-relationships between linguistic form and social function (2) Mandarin examples:

您， 你，敝人 府上，舍下 令郎，小犬

Geographical origin Phonological variant

Northern Taiwanese vs. southern Taiwanese Examples of Taiwanese spoken in I-lan

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II. What should linguistics study?

Grammar only: (the structure/form of language) to discover the rules of language x and thus universal

rules Problems:

Speech is social behavior and has many social functions

What is language X? what’s the language x?

people who language spoken Speak language x by people x

who are people x? What is a native speaker?

Social functions/factors: Speech is a form of social behavior; language must be

related to and interact with society.

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III. The difficulty of defining what “one language” is (1)

Mutual intelligibility ≠ the same language. Scandinavia 76%

Norwegian Swedish 87% Number= %of informants who

18% claimed to understand their

72% 42% neighbors’ language fairly

23% easily on 1st encounter

Danish Dutch and German Romance languages (Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian, etc.)

Potato joke Spanish vs. Italian

4. Hindi and Urdu

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III. The difficulty of defining what “one language” is (2)

Same language ≠ mutual intelligibility (ex1)one language (ex2) one original languag

e dialect dialect dialect different languages

ex1: one language (mutual intelligibility? same nation? same language?)

Chinese (Taiwanese, Cantonese, Shanghai, Shandung, Mandarin, etc.) ex2:

the Romance situation (sharing a common writing system, culture, history; next to each other geographically)

Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, etc.

Germanic languages: Dutch, Swedish, Norwegian, etc.

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III. The difficulty of defining what “one language” is (3)

How to define native speakers?Northwest Amazon: 20 different tribes, each with a different languages All are exogamous, so a man’s wife must speak a d

ifferent language Marriage is patrilocal, and a wife must speak the hu

sband’s language to their children Most people here are multilingual

* Conclusion; to define a language, we have many factors (social, cultural, political, linguistic, etc.)

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IV. Social functions of speech

Communication: Communicative pressures can influence the forms/rules of language. Quick & easy contractions Rhetorically expressive more complex

forms Identification:

of other people of ourselves

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Identification of Other People geographic/natural/ethnic

social class

people education

professional group: occupation

role (at any time)

Role -teacher Role (students)

(myself) –professor -student

-wife -big sister

-daughter -younger person

-little sister: to older sister -responsible adult

-elder sister -girlfriend

-sister-in-law -tutor

-friend

* Each of these roles may have “sub roles,” too.

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Identification of Self

groups you belong to

education

Self occupation

geographic

role at any one time

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V. Telephone conversation (1)

Telephone openings basic structure of conversation: ab, ab, ab Problem 1: how can we get the conversation go

ing? How do we get into the structure? (Schegloff’s study)

Basic structure of telephone openings: summons- answer sequences

Summons Answer Question Answer (raise topic) A structure of obligations and rights between two people

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V. Telephone conversation (2) Adjacency Pair (coordinated pair):

Definition: Many acts require replies of specific kinds and put the hearer under a conversational obligation to provide them.

Examples: summons-answer; Q-A; greeting-greeting; offer-acceptance/refusal; thanks-acknowledgement; apology-acceptance (refusal)

Why does the answerer always speak first instead of the caller (since he doesn’t know to whom he’s speaking and he’s not the one who wants to initiate a conversation)?

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V. Telephone conversation (3) Viewing the ring as a nonlinguistic realization

of a caller’s summoning act solves the problem. Phone ring = summons of caller answer of answerer

A case of an utterance realizing more than one act.

Another general rule: “those who initiate conversations have the right to raise the topic, and answerer has the obligation to listen.”

A conversational social relationship

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V. Telephone conversation (4)

Identification on telephone Problem 2: how to achieve mutual recognition? “Preferred method of identification involves the mi

nimum use of recognitional resources.” “oversuppose and undertell”

Two identification problems (on telephone): Caller identifies Answerer Answerer identifies Caller

TA T1 T2 T3 ring Hello? Tom? Yeah, Bill *summons *answer+ voice *ID of other+ (question) voice clue to self

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V. Telephone conversation (5)

e.g.1 Ring summons answerer T1: Hello? answer/question (ID resource + oblige caller to ID)

caller T2: Hi greeting (claim of ID; an answer to the Q)

answer T3: Hi greeting (claim of ID + complete greeting)

e.g.2 Ring summons answerer: 1Hello? answer/question (provide ID resource

caller: 2 Hello, Jenny. greeting/claim of ID/oblige--resource

(pause) failure by A to recognize C

This is Paul. provide more resource

answerer: 3 Oh, hello, Paul. greeting/claim of ID

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V. Telephone conversation (6)e.g.3 Answerer: T1 Hello?

Caller: T2 Connie?

Answerer: T3 Yeah, John.

e.g.4 Variation

A: T1 Hello?

C: T2 Connie?

A: T3 Oh, hi. How are you?

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Language vs. Society

There is a social structure to language. What is said and how it is said is determined

socially. An utterance is a complex of actions.

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VI. Compliments—giving compliments (I)

Giving compliments: Status and age Sex (gender)

Women to women most frequent

Women to men (descending frequency)

Men to women least frequent

Men to men

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VI. Compliments—giving compliments (II) Syntactic patterns

Three major patterns NP be/look (intensifier) ADJ “You look really nice.”

ADJ includes: nice, good, beautiful, pretty, great, wonderful, lovely

I (intensifier) like/ love NP “I really like that skirt.” VERB includes: like, love. enjoy, admire, be impressed by

PRO be (intensifier) (a) ADJ NP “That’s really a nice coat.” Formulaic Language: a very limited subset of English sen

tence structure and vocabulary is used to give compliments.

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VI. Compliments—giving compliments (III)

Topics Appearance

clothes, hair Ability (skill)/performance

a well-done job, a skillfully played game, a good meal

Personality/friendship “That was kind.”

Possessions “I live your new bike.”

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VI. Compliments—responding (I)

Responding to compliments What compliments do?

Two types of action Supportive action: an offer, congratulations, a gift

“That’s a good idea.”

to be taken as TURE. Assessment: saying something which is supposed

“That’s really a nice coat.” Three social norms (rules)

Accept supportive action Accept truth of assessment Avoid self-praise

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VI. Compliments—responding (II)

Some conventional, formulaic responses Thank you, 哪裡，哪裡 Other types of solutions:

accept by agreeing A: Your dress is very nice.

B: Yeah, this is my favorite dress. reject by disagreeing (indirect/implicit rejection) A: You did a great job cleaning the house.

B: Well, I guess you haven’t seen the kid’s room.

other “in-between” responses Scale down (agree with reservations) Transfer Return to the speaker

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Examples of Other in-between Responses

Scale Down:A: She’s a real fox. B: Yeah, she’s a pretty woman. A: You brought—like a ton of things.B: Just a few little things.A: This is a really good paper.B: Yeah, there are still a few parts that need work, though.

Transfer:A: That’s a nice sweater. B: Do you like it? My mother brought it for me.

Return to the Speaker:A: That’s a nice sweater. B: Yours is new, too, isn’t it? That color really suits you.

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Reasons for giving compliments

If compliments are so hard to respond to why give them? Solidarity (another norm: Speaker should express solida

rity with hearer, and raise the hearer’s status when possible.)

Encouragement Expression of gratitude Compliment preceding and thus softening a c

riticism

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Language and Gender Different norms for the conversational styles of women an

d men: Women: focus on “connection” (solidarity), so

“intimacy” is the key Men: focus on “status” ( so “independence,” the key)

Conclusion: Women: “Rapport talk” (“trouble talk”)—recount their trouble, an

d expect sympathy, understanding affirmation, but not a solution. Men: “Report talk” (“solution talk”)—exhibiting knowledge and s

kill, holding center stage thus storytelling, joking, or imparting information.

Cause asymmetrical situation, result in some arguments. (You Just Don’t Understand by D. Tannen, 1986.)