Speech Community

a group of people who are in habitual contact with one another who share a language variety and social conventions or sociolingstic norms about language use

Social Category

a way of grouping people by traits that are relatively fixed, such as class, gender, ethnicity, or open to active performance and construction, like identity

Social Relationships

How each of us, as social beings, adapt our language to suit the situation and the audience. Often contasted with social characteristics, the socially relevant traits that we are seen to possess

Free Variation

a term used when the speaker's choice between forms is completely arbitrary and unpredictable. Opposite to structured variation.

Structured Variation

a term used when the speaker's choice between forms is linked to other factors

Categorical

The opposite of probabilistic, categorical rules are absolute, that is, they apply every time they can apply

sociology of language

the branch of sociology concerned with language (different from socio-lingistics because it does not look at language structure)

unmarked

a feature that does not get noticed

mentalist

the philosphy or approach that describes how language is represented in the mind

competence

a distinction drawn by Chomsky that refers primarily to what speakers know about language

performance

what speakers actually produce when speaking (which might be full of false starts, ums etc)

empiricist

the philosphy or approach that knowledge comes through sensory experience

standard

the codified variety of language, that is, the language taught in school, used in formal writing

non-standard

varieties of a language other than the standard

descriptive

a non-evaluative approach to language that is focused on how language is actually used, without deciding if it is "right" or "wrong"

perspective

an approach to language that is focused on rules of correctness, that is, how language "should" be used

mutual intelligibility

if people speaking different varieties can understand each other

dialect

a term that tends to refer to subvarieties of a single language (not always accent)

interlocutor

the person with whom you are speaking

social distance

degree of intimacy or familiarity between inerlocutors

social network

the different groups of people that each of us has interacted with over the years

community of practice

unit of analysis that looks at a smaller analytical domain than social networks

a community of practice is characterized by mutual engagment, a jointly negoticated enterprise, or shared reperoire

sociolinguistic norms

a combinaion of expressed attitudes and variable linguistic behvaiour shared by all member of a speech community

dense

a term used to describe the number of connections within a social network

low density = people know a central member

high density = members interact with one another

multiplex

social networks in which members have multiple connectios with one another

speaker agency

the ability of speakers to control what they do and to make conscious choices

heuristic

guidelines for how to approach a reseach problem

brokers

people who participate in multiple communities of proactice and bring ideas from one into the other

corpus linguistics

a linguistic reseach method based on the quantitative analysis of collections of naturally occuring language data, usually very large

conversation analysis

looks at the sequential organization of conversations and how pariticpants manage the conversation using stategies like turn-taking

community of choice

communities that people choose to belong (as opposed to communities of circumstance)

dialect leveling

the process by which the regional features of the speech of a group of people converges toward a common norm over time

rhotic

a term used to describe english dialects in which the /r/ following a vowel is pronounced

lexical set

a way of identifying vowels using a set of words in which they occur as oppsed to a linguistic symbol

monophthong

a pure vowel sound, spoken in a single place of articulation (one no di in dipthong)

canadian raising

a phonological process found in canadian english in which the vowels are pronounced differently when preceding a voiceless consonant

physical isolation

a dialect or language can be physically or geographically isolated from others

linguistic isolation

when speakers of a dialect or language are cut off from other varieties and have reatined older features, so that their variety has developed differently from their sisten ones

social isolation

isolation by conventions or attitudes 

shibboleth

when the pronunciation of a single word becomes a sterotype of a speech community

after perfect

a grammatical means of describing a completed event in Irish

reified

made into a concrete thing

enregisterment

a process through which a linguistic feature or repertoire becomes a socially recognized register

covert prestige

a norm or target that speakers unconsciously orient to, with a sort of hidden positive avalutation that speakers give other forms

supralocal

a term used to refer to the level "above the local" in which speakers adopt the language features of the nearest large city

crossing

when speakers use language features or linguistic language features or linguistic styles associated with another ethnic group

dialectology

the study of regional differences in language

NORMS

an acronym for "non-mobile older rural males"

these speakers are believed to have retained the most tradtional sppeech and are consequently the focus of many dialectology studies

isogloss

an imaginary boundary or line drawn on a map that seperates particular lingstic features

isogloss bundle

many isoglosses occuring in the same area, representing a major dialect boundary

categorical

categorical rules apply every time that they can apply

probabilistic

the opposite of categorical, probablistic constraints are not absolute but rather tendencies in one direction

linguistic contraint

a lignstic factor that governs the use of a particular variant

social contstraint

a social factor like sex or age that governs the use of a particular variant

status

social positions that society assigns to its members or the differences bteween social groups in terms of prestige

variable

the abstract representation of a source of variation, realized at least two variants

variant

the different expressions, or actual relization, of a variable 

ex. in or ing

stigma

a negative association

borrowed prestige

speaker setting and role they're playing can lead them to use language features associated with a particular class

aspiration

people often try to talk like who they want to be

cross over effect

in formal situations, speakers using prestige variants even more often than the group above them

social hypercorrection

when speakers overdo what they see as the linguistic requirments of a situation

linguistic insecurity

the force hypotheiszed to drive people to use a varieant that is thought to be prestigious or correct

linguistic marker

the importance of standard language in the social and economic life of the speaker

marker

a variable that speakers are less aware of than a sterotype but whose use they can control is style shifting

indicator

a variable that can show differences by age or social group and i often associated with particular characteristics but is not subect to style shifting

social mobility

the ability to move between scoial classes, often dtermined by how defined class roles are in a particular culture

caste

in societies where mobility is more difficult and lingusitic boundaries are more rigid, social groups, or castes, tend to be fixed

perspective

an approach to language that is focused on rules of correctness (the way language should be)

sociolect

a subset of language used by a particular social group or class

overt prestige

posative or negative assessments of variants that are in line with the dominant norms associated with sounding "proper" and that people are aware of

covert prestige

a norm or target that speaker unconsciously orient to with a sort of hidden positive availuation that speaker sgive to other forms

basilect

a term used in creole studies to refer to the most creole-like variety

apparent time hypothesis

based on the assumptioon that people's basic grammar changes very little during adulthood, apparent time studies compare speakers of different ages in a particular community and use this information to descrube change over time. thus, if older speakers are different from younger speakers, it is assumed that this is because change has taken place in the community

uniformitarian princple

the idea that general properties of language and language change have been the same throughout history and we are thus able to look at changes going on today and assume that the same kind of forces were at play in the past

embedding problem

determining the particular combinations of social and linguistic behaviors in which change happens

acuation problem

determining why a particular linguistic change happens when it does

age grading

when differences between age groups repeat as each generation ages, that is, when all speakers in a particular community favor a particular variant at one age and then a different variant at another

real time study

a study that sampels a speech community at two or more points in time

dialect atlas

a collection of maps of a given area that show the distributio of various linguistic features

panel study

a real time study that looks at the same members of a speech community at two (or more) points in the (for example 20 years)

trend study

a real time study that studies different members of a speech community at different times (examples taking people who are 20, 40 and 60 now and different people of the same ages later on)

adolescent peak

the observation that some variants are actually most used by adolescents, not by the youngest group

stable variation

varioation without change; when multiple variants survive for a long period, without one replacing the other

style shifting

an idnviduals speech changes according to differences in interloators, social context, personal goals, and external factors

honorific

a form of address expressing respect and esteem

lingstuic market

the importance of standard language in the social and economic life of the speaker

ethnolect

an ethinic variety of a language or dialect

ethnic hypercorrection

when people use a feature associated with their ethinic group even less often than non-members of the group

enclaves

a distinctly bounded geographic area in which many residents share a ethnicity or social characteristic

ethnonym

a name or term for an ethnic group

accommodation

changing your speech style to sound more like the people you are speaking with

speaker agency

the ability of speakers to control what they do to make consious choices

difference model

the idea that gender differences in language reflect different cultures of converstaion

dominance model

the idea that gender differences in language reflect differences in accesss to power

rapport style

using language to build and maintain relationships

report style

usuing language to communicate factual information

dialect indexing 

a linguistic feature directly indexes something with social meaning when it is categoical and exclusive

ex. he to refer to a man

indirect indexing

a linguistic feature indirectly indexes something with social meaning when it is not categorically  associated with that meaning, but rather is linked to another meaning that is iteself liked to that social meaning

gender paradox

Labovs principle I, Ia, and II

the idea that women are more likel to use standard forms and lead in changes from above, but are also leaders in changes from below, which are not necessarily toward higher prestige forms

agentive

a word borrowed from traditional grammar that in this field suggests that theres an active doer or chooser at work

performative

the idea that actions and speech acquire constituative force and are used to create particular gender identity

homosocial

a term used to refer to situations involving same-sex groups or relations that are non-sexual, such as fraternities, prisons etc

passing

when people adopt behaviours from another group in order to be taken as authentic members of the group

dragging

when people use features that both they and their audience know are associated with another group

heterosexual marketplace

the institionalization of hetersexuality and tradtional gender

discource analysis

an examination of the structure of a converstation, looking for linguistic regularities

discource

an extended language interaction that is longer than a sentence

epiricist

language as it is actually used or recorded

yay carmen!

yay!