Sociolinguistics in Educational Contexts : Final Task (Article)

Style, contexts, and register in Sociolinguistics

Dheannita Cikanaya 

dheannitacikanaya.2018@student.uny.ac.id

 Introduction:

In sociolinguistics, a style is a set of linguistic variants with specific social meanings. In this context, social meanings can include group membership, personal attributes, or beliefs. Linguistic variation is at the heart of the concept of linguistic style—without variation, there is no basis for distinguishing social meanings. Variation can occur syntactically, lexically, and phonologically.

            Style in sociolinguistics defines which style would we use when we speak to certain people.  According to Judith Irvine's conception of style, she emphasizes the fact that a style is defined only within a social framework.[1] Variations and the social meanings it indexes are not inherently linked, rather, the social meanings exist as ideologically mediated interpretations made by members of the social framework. She highlights the fact that social meanings such as group membership mean nothing without an ideology to interpret them.

            We know that when we talk to certain people we chose to use some way to express our purpose. We need to know who are the addressee, people we talk to. For example, we use low intonations and more formal grammar with older people, and vice versa to younger people. The conversations would be different when we talk to our best friend or to our grandma. There are things to be considered: ages of the addressee and social background the addressee.

Literary reviews:

            In general, the judgements sociolinguists make about other people’s speech are pretty innocuous. Some sociolinguists know a lot about what features typify the accents or dialects of speakers from different regions, and these sociolinguists are pretty good at identifying speakers’ origins from the way they speak. When linguists talk about accents, they are referring only to how speakers pronounce words, whereas they use dialect to refer to distinctive features at the level of pronunciation and vocabulary and sentence structure. So, for example, the English used by many Scots would be considered a dialect because it combines recognisable features of pronunciation, e.g., a backed short /a/ sound in words like trap or man, with constructions like This data needs to be examined. . . (i.e., ‘needs to be examined’) and the use of the preposition outwith (meaning ‘beyond, outside’).

Since all of ■ accents ■ dialects ■ variety ■ speech community ■ style-shifting ■ attention to speech ■ audience design ■ triangulation ■ sociolinguistic interviews ■ stratified ■ monotonic ■ trend ■ rapid and anonymous ■ speech community ■ overt prestige ■ covert prestige ■ observer’s paradox ■ participant observation ■ speaker design Key terms introduced in this chapter: Accent Where speakers differ (or vary) at the level of pronunciation only (phonetics and/or phonology), they have different accents. Their grammar may be wholly or largely the same. Accents can index a speaker’s regional/geographic origin, or social factors such as level and type of education, or even their attitude. Dialect a term widely applied to what are considered subvarieties of a single language. Generally, dialect and accent are distinguished by how much of the linguistic system differs. Dialects differ on more than just pronunciation, i.e., on the basis of morphosyntactic structure and/or how semantic relations are mapped into the syntax. (See also Variety.) these features occur even in quite formal styles of speaking, they are quite reliable cues that the speaker comes from or has lived a long time in Scotland.

Many linguists avoid the term ‘dialect’ because of these complicated, and sometimes negative, connotations in everyday speech. However, where they do use it, they intend it to be a neutral description or a cover-all term for a variety that differs systematically from others on the basis of pronunciation, grammar and vocabulary. (In Chapter 4 we will look at the ways in which people’s perceptions and beliefs about different varieties can also be relevant factors in identifying different dialects.) I will often simply use the term variety because potentially it is less loaded. Sometimes the kinds of judgements that sociolinguists make are about whether a person is speaking formally or informally, whether they sound like they grew up in a working-class or a middle-class neighbourhood – many of the judgements non-linguists make all the time about the people they are talking to. Sociolinguists differ from the average listener, though, in trying to develop an awareness of language that goes below the level of social stereotypes. They are concerned with trying to determine how very subtle patterns of variation provide a systematic basis by which speakers can indicate or mark social cohesion and social difference.

At a party when you respond to and develop a topic introduced by your addressee, you are converging in the content of your speech. When people simplify their vocabulary and grammar in talking to foreigners or children, they are converging downwards towards the lesser linguistic profi ciency of their addressees. When a complicated technical message is ‘translated’ for the benefi t of someone who does not know the jargon, speech accommodation is involved. When, in an interview with the hospital matron, a nurse adopts some of the matron’s pronunciation features, she is converging upwards in her speech.

Deliberately choosing a language not used by one’s addressee is the clearest example of speech divergence. When the Arab nations issued an oil communiqué to the world not in English, but in Arabic, they were making a clear political statement. They no longer wished to be seen as accommodating to the Western English-speaking powers. Similarly, minority ethnic groups who want to maintain and display their cultural distinctiveness will often use their own linguistic variety, even, and sometimes especially, in interaction with majority group members. Maori dissidents who can speak fl uent English have nevertheless insisted on using Maori in court, making it necessary to use an interpreter. Giving a speech in a minority language to an audience made up largely of majority group monolinguals is another example of linguistically divergent behaviour. This, too, has sometimes been done to make a political point.

Conlusions: 

 People’s styles of speech and written communication index not only aspects of their identity such as their ethnicity, age, gender and social background, they also indicate the contexts in which language is being used. The way people talk in court, in school, at business meetings and at graduation ceremonies is infl uenced by and simultaneously contributes to the formality of those contexts and the social roles people take in them. The way people write letters, emails, text messages and blog entries similarly indicates awareness of the different audiences of these different genres. We use more relaxed language at home with those we know well. When we talk differently to babies and adults, or to people from different social backgrounds, we are adapting or accommodating our language to our audience. 

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[1]  Irvine, Judith. Style as distinctiveness: The culture and ideology of linguistic differentiation. In Penelope Eckert and John Rickford (eds.) Style and Sociolinguistic Variation. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 2001, 21–43.

Refference: 

Holmes, Janet.