Week 22

Question 1

Sociolinguistics?

Answer 1

Study of the relationship between society and language

Question 2

Speech community?

Answer 2

Group of people who share sociolinguistic norms: social conventions about language use

Question 3

Standard variety of a language?

Answer 3

Variety spoken by the most powerful group in a community

Judged to be prescriptively “correct”

The standard is the speech variety: taught in schools, formal writing, newscasters and media figures who project authority

Question 4

Non-standard varieties?

Answer 4

All varieties except for the standard variety

Labeled as dialects

Value judgements are attached to this categorization

Standard is seen as good, pure, clear and rule-governed

Dialects are seen as broken, chaotic, limited or impermanent

Question 5

RP?

Answer 5

Received pronunciation

Spoken by upper classes, including royalty

Cockney English: spoken by the working class

Question 6

Regional dialect? sociolect? ethnolect?

Answer 6

Regional dialect: a variety of language associated with a particular region

Sociolect: a variety of language associated with a particular social group

Ethnolect: a variety of a language associated with a particular ethnic group

Question 7

Language variety?

Answer 7

Does not assign any value judgement

Question 8

Slang?

Answer 8

Linguistics defines slang as informal or short-lived (“faddish”) use of language

Question 9

Common slang?

Answer 9

Language which is more informal

Ex. fridge instead of refrigerator, tv for television

Question 10

Group slang?

Answer 10

More specialized slang of a particular group at a particular time

black ppl, gen z

Question 11

What is an accent?

Answer 11

The phonetic properties of a language (ie. pronunciation)

Question 12

Time?

Answer 12

All languages change over time

Language change over time and variation found in a community at a particular point in time

Question 13

Apparent time hypothesis?

Answer 13

Studying language in progress by looking at the differences between younger and older speakers at a single point in time

Question 14

Northern cities vowel shift: a sound change in progress:

Answer 14

Among younger speakers in US cities like Detroit, Chicago and Buffalo

Question 15

The Canadian shift?

Answer 15

Almost the opposite of the Northern Cities Shift

Some vowels are lower and or backer

Question 16

Real time study?

Answer 16

Study that takes place over a period of time

Ex. interviewed in 1970s and then again several times over a period of time

Question 17

Dialectology?

Answer 17

Study of regional differences in language

Question 18

Dialect studies?

Answer 18

Involve interviewing older, rural speakers (those with least outside contact) to determine the most traditional speech in each region

Leads to conclusions of how languages changed over time

Question 19

Dialect leveling

Answer 19

Process by which certain features are lost and more homogenous dialect emerges

Question 20

Canadian raising?

Answer 20

A phonological process that affects the pronunciation of the diphthongs /aw/ and /aj/

Question 21

Canadian eh? discourse particle?

Answer 21

eh is what is called a discourse particle, which is “taken on” to the end of a sentence

Question 22

Linguistic contact?

Answer 22

Occurs when similar dialects come into contact with each other

Tend to retain shared features and lose distinct features

Question 23

Code-switching?

Answer 23

Using 2 or more languages, sometimes within the same utterance

Question 24

Mixed language?

Answer 24

Language with many features of 2 different source languages

Question 25

Michif?

Answer 25

Spoken by the Metis, (primarily in Manitoba) who are of mixed European and Indigenous descent Nouns are French and verbs are cree

Question 26

Lingua france

Answer 26

When people who speak different languages need to interact on a regular basis, they will often choose 1 language to communicate between groups

Question 27

Pidgin?

Answer 27

Variety of a language that emerges when speakers of different languages are brought together in a stable situation requiring intergroup communication Pidgins = no native speakers They are highly simplified and reduced grammatical system compared to the source language

Question 28

In the formation of pidgins: 1 or more groups have limited access to the lexifer language What is the lexifer language

Answer 28

The language that is the source of most of the lexical items

Question 29

Creole? Process?

Answer 29

A fully fledged language Process of creolization, lexical items and grammatical rules expand greatly

Question 30

Creole continuum? basilect? mesolect? acrolect?

Answer 30

A basilect: the variety least resembling the lexifer language (reflects og creole variety, while mesolect show how creole features are lost over time due to the acrolect) Mesolects: intermediate varieties The acrolect: the variety most closely resembling the lexifer language

Question 31

Isolation can be from..? Physical, linguistic and social?

Answer 31

Physical: isolated from other communities Linguistic: isolated from speakers of the same or similar language Social: isolated by conventions or attitudes

Question 32

Multiplex social network?

Answer 32

Social network where individuals interact with each other in multiple ways

Question 33

What happens in isolated communities? Looser ties?

Answer 33

The same people interact with each other in multiple ways (eg. socially, at work, at church), reinforcing the traditional way of speaking Looser ties: those who interact with outside communities more often

Question 34

Linguistic variation?

Answer 34

Between speech communities reflects social factors such as region, change over time, isolation and language contact