Today

1
Today

• Individual differences and speech style
• Address Forms (Brown and Gilman)
• Interspeaker and intraspeaker variation (Bell)

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Key terms

• Within-speaker variation changes a speaker will
  effect to register a change in sociolinguistic
  setting (e.g., interlocutor-related,
  setting-related, topic-related, etc.)
• Terms of Address or address forms words
  designating the person(s) a speaker is talking
  to. (typically two types, names and second
  person pronouns)
• -- note in some languages (e.g., Thai,
  Javanese), first person terms must change with
  choice of second person forms noun and verbs
  forms sometimes change, as well
• Terms of Reference words designating the
  person(s) a speaker is talking about.
• Dispensation permission to reduce social
  distance by changing term of address (e.g.,
  permission to use FN, where previously TLN was
  used)

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Key terms

• Power Semantic Dimension associated with
  status pronoun choice is related to each
  interlocutors perception regarding the ability
  of one member of the pair to control the others
  behavior, or differentiation in status governs
  the nonreciprocal use of pronouns (V --gt T, T --gt
  V)
• --checked first
• Solidarity Semantic Dimension associated with
  shared fate or intimacy pronoun choice is
  related to each interlocutors perception that
  they share a position in life or experience
  (particularly where this relation is highlighted
  in the present discourse), intimacy, or equality
  in status governs the reciprocal use of
  pronouns (T --gt T, V --gt V)
• --checked second
• Semantic a pragmatic dimension governing the
  positioning of emphasis of social role
  relationships in discourse

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Individual Differences

• 1. Personal characteristics associated with
  physiology
• -- not subject to speaker choice
• -- not planned, but spontaneous, automatic
  behaviors
• -- don't pattern at the community level
• -- don't carry group-related meaning

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Individual Differences

• 2. Personal style
• -- subject to speaker choice, but still
  automatic
• -- doesn't pattern at the community level
• -- idiolectal differences

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Individual Differences

• 3. Style and register
• -- subject to speaker choice, but still
  automatic
• -- doesn't pattern at the community level
• -- two views macrostyle and microstyle

Macrostyle (Hymes) -Forms of address -Tag
question types -Lexical choice -Microlinguistic
variation (sociolinguistic variables at
phonological and syntactic levels) - influenced
by audience, purpose, topic, mode, channel or
genre
Microstyle (Labov) -Microlinguistic variation in
phonology or syntax (Fluctuating forms observable
in the sociolinguistic interview) - influenced by
attention paid to speech
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Brown and Gilman (1972)

• Pronouns of Power and Solidarity
• power non-reciprocal more powerful gives T,
• receives V
• -age differential
• -parent/child
• -employer/employee
• -nobility/peasant
• solidarity reciprocal, expresses common-ground,
  shared fate associated with mutual T

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Brown and Gilman (1972)

• Reciprocal Tu/Vous
• French (tu/vous) German (du/Sie)
• Latin (tu/vos) Swedish (du/ni)
• Russian (ty/vy) Greek (esi/esis)
• Italian (tu/Lei) English (thou/you)

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Brown and Ford (1961/1964)

• Naming and dispensations
• Naming
• FN or TLN decision made according with an
  intimacy-acquaintance scale
• FN first name TLN title last name
• Dispensation permission to reduce distance and
  use FN
• 1. dispensations typically may not be reversed,
  with 2 exceptions
• anger disruption in relationship
• wrongful assumption that dispensation
  was given

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Two-dimensional semantic

• first, check power semantic
• addressee receives (in green)

V
V
T
V
T
T
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Two-dimensional semantic

• second, check for solidarity
• addressee receives (in blue)

V
T
T
V
T
T
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Two-dimensional semantic

• how are conflicts resolved?

V vs. V
V vs.T
T vs.T
V vs. V
T vs.T
V vs.T
Red points of conflict between two semantics.
there are two places where V vs.T occurs
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Bell (1984)

• Style definedspeakers do not always talk the
  same way on all occasionsthey utilize
  alternatives or choices available in a larger
  linguistic repertoire.
• Speaker Style
• intersects with the social dimension of
  variation (minimalistic view)
• affects all levels of linguistic analysis
• phonological intervocalic (t) voicing in NZE
• syntactic that-complementizer
• discourse tag questions isnt it?, dont?

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How Style has been understood

• Style discretized
• Bell calls for a critical reanalysis of the idea
  of style as a discrete variable, suggesting
  that social scientists may have confused the code
  with the factors that affect the code. Language
  doesnt covary with style. Style is an axis of
  its own.
• Labovs Attention to speech as micro-style, a
  narrow conception of style
• a. Where did this idea come from?
• -- Mahl, 1972
• 1. speakers aural monitoring (using white
  noise)
• 2. facing interviewer
• b. What was his intention?
• -- theoretical construct, not just
  methodological construct

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Style in linguistic structure

• Need a framework that will account for both
  intraspeaker and interspeaker variation, as well
  as the role of linguistic attitudes.
• Romaine has articulated this relationship
• Socially diagnostic variables will exhibit
  parallel behavior on a stylistic continuum that
  is to say, if a feature is found to be more
  common in the lower classes than in the upper
  classes, it will also be more common in the less
  formal than the most formal styles, with each
  social group occupying a similar position in each
  continuum. (p. 151)

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Style in linguistic structure

• What is the nature of the interrelation between
  the two dimensions, social (or interspeaker)
  variation and intraspeaker variation?
• Key tenets of the audience design theory
• 1. Variation in the style dimension within the
  speech of a single speaker derives from and
  echoes the variation which exists between
  speakers on the social dimension.
• The Style Axiom
• Variation on the style dimension within the
  speech of a single speaker derives from and
  echoes the variation which exists between
  speakers on the "social" dimension."

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Bell (1984)
2. Style is what an individual speaker does
with a language in relation to other people
ratified acknowledged, approved
Figure 5 Persons and roles in the speech
situation.
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Bell (1984)

• Because social variation comes first
• It is predicted that
• 1.) some variables will have social variation
  alone (indicators)
• 2.) some social and style (markers)
• 3.) but never style variation only.