LING 2007 Lecture Notes - Lecture 15: Sociolinguistics, Joule, Vocal Tract
13 Dec 2016
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Social meaning factors behind which linguistic variance. Differences can depend on social characteristics (age, class, gender) William labov sociolinguistics interested in variation between [aj] and [shwaj: (cid:448)ariatio(cid:374) bet(cid:449)ee(cid:374) people, (cid:449)hat"s the patter(cid:374), disappeared, but stayed i(cid:374) martha"s (cid:448)i(cid:374)eyard, fisherman signals attitude toward island, membership in community. Traditional sociolinguistics looks at frequency of use, context, see if correlation between usage and category try to correlate with social variance. Sociophonetics look outside of trad social groups, other relevant variables. More ethnographic approach, immerse selves in that community. Goal: how social identity is constructed ,reflected, perceived through. Production: centre of gravity of /s/ Size of vocal tract, but not only difference. Cog raised or lower to signal gender: degree of constriction of /r/ in new zealand english. More constricted higher social class: kids acquire very young, jocks vs burnouts, centrality in vowel /i/, more central meant more central in gang.
