LING 320 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Cockney, Mutual Intelligibility, Sociolect
24 Apr 2017
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Document Summary
Main purpose of language is communication between people, therefore it is inherently social. Language is a form of social behaviour, closely linked to social identity. Allows you to identify with or contrast from a group. Sociolinguistics is empirical science; observation of language in use in a speech community. Variation exists but is of no theoretical interest; is more chaotic and random. Believes in a system of rules and representations of grammar to unite all in a homogenous community. Variation exists and is not random, but governed by systematic rules/representations of language. Sociolinguists argue there is no competence without performance; it is an arbitrary distinction. Later we will cover how language in uences society. (t / d) retained before a vowel but dropped before consonants (e. g. last august vs las_ mon) Dropping of l in pronouns of french (e. g. i_ pleut vs il pleut) Variation is shown to be systemic, principled, and correlate to social factors.
