In this course we are studying what people know when they know a language. That is, we are studing language as a psychological object. We have said that people know the fundamental elements and the rules of combination for those elements at various levels: sounds, words, sentences. Viewed from this perspective, sociolinguistics is the social psychology of language.
Among the many questions we can ask about the social psychology of language are:
In an introductory course in linguistics we will try to answer the "how" questions: How do dialects differ? That is, what elements or rules are different in the two dialects. We will leave "why" questions for later.
Since language is located in the mind/brain one thing that we can do is to compare how similar different individual languages (IDIOLECTS) are. When a sufficient number of people share knowledge of language we call this a DIALECT or LANGUAGE. One criterion commonly used for defining a social language is mutual intelligibility. However "language" (as a social construct--not as a psychological object) is difficult to define. Some possibilities are:
Shared knowledge often arises from close social contact, so many dialect features are GEOGRAPHICAL. Increased mobility has reduced the significance of the geographical factor.
Because dialect difference are differences in the knowledge of language between spekers, we expect the following:
Languages are allowed to make certain choices in their lexicon and grammar. Therefore languages differ because they can differ. Communication between two people is enhanced when their languages are more similar. But people are unique. Having distinctive traits marks you as yourself. Therefore, communication and individualism are in conflict.
Let us examine some differences between dialects of English for sounds, words and sentences.
The speech sounds (elements) can be different in different dialects. The low-back quadrant of the vowel space is a major source of variation between different dialects of English. The most noticeable in the US is the [ɑ]/[ɔ] ("cot"/"caught") merger.
Another major source of variation is the pronunciation of vowels before [r]. Some dialects have lost lax vowels before [r] and this leads to a contextual merger of [æ]/[ε]/[e] before [r] ("marry"/"merry"/"Mary").
One noticeable difference between dialects is between rhotic
(r-full) and non-rhotic (r-less) dialects.
Because /r/ reappears before vowels
("Homer" but "Homeric")
this is best described as a rule deleting /r/ before consonants
and at the ends of words.
This is noticeable enough to be mocked on T-shirts, e.g.
"I pahked my cah in Hahvahd Yahd".
Another difference is called "Canadian raising". The words "writer" and "rider" both have flaps in pronunciation, but have different vowels: "writer" [rʌjɾər], "rider" [rajɾər].
Perhaps the most obvious difference in dialects is the use of different words, such as: lift/elevator, lorry/truck, sofa/couch/chesterfield, dinner/supper and so on.
Word formation rules can also differ between dialects. One noticeable difference between speakers is their treatment of pluarls of words borrowed from other languages, e.g. Latin/Greek plurals: criterions/criteria, datums/data.
Another difference is in the formation of the past tenses of certain words: learned/learnt, dived/dove.
Once we examine differences in syntax, it is easiest to describe various constructions and their differences across dialects.
Dialects differ in their use of "do-support" for questions involving main verb "have". That is, do you say "Has he a car?" or "Does he have a car?"?
Another difference is the case of pronouns following a conjunction. Do they appear in the same case as they would when not conjoined? A default case? The opposite case? For example, do you say "between you and me" or "between you and I"? "Luke and me went to the store" or "Luke and I went to the store"?
Many people criticize dialects employing "double" negatives as "illogical"
-- two negatives make a positive in multiplication.
But "double" negatives are really negative AGREEMENT (like subject-verb
agreement) and are displayed in MANY languages (including older versions of English).
For example in both French and English we can answer a question negatively:
Who arrived? Nobody.
Qui est arrivé? Personne.
But the standard languages differ on how to form negative statements:
I did not see anybody.
Je n'ai vu personne.
Standard English uses "anybody" instead of "nobody"
in negative statements whereas standard French uses
"personne" in both places.
Notice that the French sentence is equivalent to:
I did not see nobody.
which is exactly what some dialects of English use, the "double" negative.
So the "double" negative dialects are exactly like other languages (e.g. standard
French) in this respect.
They are not illogical or stupid.
They simply have a rule of negative agreement that standard English does not have.
Just as Boston dialects have a rule dropping r that standard American English
does not have.
Negative agreement is used in many dialects of English
(and in many other languages).
Prescriptive grammarians often choose the dialect spoken by powerful classes as the "correct" or "standard" language. Dictionaries or PEDAGOGICAL grammars also describe the "standard" language, such as Standard American English (SAE). But in a strict sense NOBODY speaks SAE, because everyone has idiosyncrasies in their idiolect.
The notion of a "standard" language has been around for centuries, and it has been used to suppress other languages. One recent example was the banning of indiginous Native American languages in schools, even in schools that were exclusively for Salish children for example. The "English Only" movement is a current example of a group that seeks to promote English by banning the use of other languages. Even without political laws banning languages there can be considerable social pressure to conform to the majority dialect. People can have trouble getting jobs, get poorer marks in school, etc. all because they speak a different dialect, and people judge them harshly because of their speech. Some countries go so far as to set up political bodies to regulate the use of language, such as the French academy. However, the edicts issued by such regulatory bodies (such as against "le shopping") have not had much effect on actual use of language.
Occasionally political efforts are made to revive a language that has historical and national importance. Hebrew is the most successful example of this. Similar efforts have been made in Ireland, but with much less success. Reviving language often means creating new words for modern devices, like telephones, and often word-forms are borrowed (often from English) for these terms.
Migration from other countries can cause new dialects of English to arise. Two notable cases in the US are African American Vernacular English (AAVE) and Hispanic English. Though these languages/dialects share many features with SAE they alse differ from SAE in systematic ways.
As discussed above, AAVE is one dialect that drops /r/ before consonants and at the ends of words, so that "guard" and "god" are pronounced in the same way.
For some AAVE speakers, /r/ dropping is extended to all liquids, thereby including /l/. In this case "toll" and "toe" will be pronounced alike.
AAVE has negative agreement, as in French also, as discussed above.
Like Russian, AAVE has a zero copula in certain constructions. For SAE "He is late.", AAVE can have "He late.".
For SAE "I am a doctor.", Russian has "Ja doktor."
In fact, AAVE is more expressive than SAE, distinguishing between:
"John late." = John is late right now.
"John be late." = John is usually/often/habitually late.
Additional differences between SAE and AAVE are outlined in the textbook.
There is a great deal of bilingualism within the Spanish-American community. This has effects on the English dialect that they speak. There is also frequent CODE SWITCHING between Spanish and English, switching back and forth between the two languages, often in mid-sentence.
Syntactic differences occur as well, including negative agreement.
A language used as a second language, usually for trading purposes. English is now the principal lingua franca of the world.
Languages created by adults when they share no common language. Pidgins are not "complete" languages, they lack true syntax in a general rule-governed sense.
When children learn a pidgin language as a first language it becomes a creole language. Because the children learn as their first (or only) language, they add to the pidgin all of the complex resources of human language, including a true, complete recursive syntax.