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LANE 422 SOCIOLINGUISTICS

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LANE 422 SOCIOLINGUISTICS Summarized From SOCIOLINGUISTICS An Introduction to Language and Society Peter Trudgill 4th edition. 2000, Prepared by Dr. Abdullah S. Al-Shehri – PowerPoint PPT presentation

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Title: LANE 422 SOCIOLINGUISTICS


1
LANE 422 SOCIOLINGUISTICS
  • Summarized From
  • SOCIOLINGUISTICS
  • An Introduction to Language and Society
  • Peter Trudgill
  • 4th edition. 2000,
  • Prepared by
  • Dr. Abdullah S. Al-Shehri

2
Chapter 8
  • Language and Geography

3
Earlier,
  • We discussed the importance of geographical
    barriers and distance in causing language
    variation.
  • When a linguistic innovation occurs in one area,
    it may subsequently spread to other areas,
    particularly those nearest to it, so long as no
    serious barriers and distance exist.
  • A good example of a linguistic innovation that
    has spread geographically in England is the loss
    of English prevocalic /r/ in words like cart,
    car, farm, and yard.

4
Usually,
  • Linguistic innovation is initiated by speakers in
    the urban centers.
  • It also often spreads initially from one urban
    center to another, and only later reaches the
    countryside.
  • This is due to the economic, demographic and
    cultural dominance of town over country, and the
    intensity of communication network between towns.
  • The spread of linguistic features from one area
    to another is therefore not (always) dependant on
    geographical proximity.

5
Why are there more regional dialect variation in
England than in America and Australia though the
last two countries are bigger?
  • English has been spoken in England for longer
    period (1500 years) than in America and Australia
    (300 years or less).
  • English has been spoken for longer period in the
    east of the United States than in the more
    recently settled west, so there is also more
    regional dialect variation there.
  • Australia, for example, is a country as big as
    the USA, and has as yet virtually no regional
    dialect variation at all because it has not
    existed for very long and is thinly populated.

6
Dialect Leveling and the Disappearance of
Regional Dialects
  • Dialect leveling is the process whereby
    differences between regional dialects disappear
    over time.
  • Dialect leveling is an interesting process as it
    appears to be behind ongoing linguistic change in
    many countries.
  • In England however, traditional dialects are
    disappearing, but the larger (urban) modern
    dialects are continuing to diverge.

7
Koinéization and the Formation of New Dialects
  • New dialects emerge as a result of a process
    called Koinéization.
  • A koiné language means common language in
    Greek.
  • A koiné is a dialect that developed as a result
    of contact between two or more mutually
    intelligible varieties of the same language.
  • A koiné variety emerges as a new spoken dialect
    in addition to the pre-existing dialects of the
    same language.
  • A koiné is thus not the result of a natural
    evolution of dialects.
  • American, Australian and New Zealand Englishes
    are believed to have been the result of
    Koinéization.

8
Geographical, Social and Language Barriers
  • We saw earlier how geographical barriers such as
    rivers, mountains and spatial distance can act to
    hamper the spread of linguistic features and help
    create regional dialect variation.
  • A third type of barrier, which does not
    necessarily act to prevent the spread of
    linguistic innovation is language itself.
  • Linguistic innovation, it seems, spreads not only
    from one regional or social variety to another
    it may also spread from one language to another.
  • An example of this is the spread in Europe of the
    fashionable Parisian uvular R into other
    languages.

9
The Development of Linguistic Areas
  • The diffusion of linguistic innovation across
    language boundaries, particularly when grammar,
    vocabulary and phonetics are all involved,
    results in the development of a linguistic area.
  • One of the most interesting linguistic areas in
    Europe is the Balkans (Serbia, Macedonia,
    Albania, Greece, Bulgaria and Romania).
  • Over the centuries, languages in these countries
    have acquired a number of common features
    sometimes known as Balkanisms, not shared by
    most other European languages.
  • An example of Balkanisms is the postponed
    definite article (the) in four of the Balkan
    languages the article the is placed after the
    noun.
  • The Indian subcontinent and southern Africa are
    also good examples of areas where unrelated
    languages have common linguistic features.

10
The Spread of Linguistic Innovation
  • Linguistic innovations spread from one dialect or
    language to another geographically adjacent
    dialect or language.
  • If spreading of a linguistic innovation takes
    place across language boundaries, on a large
    scale, linguistic areas are formed.
  • Broadly speaking, it appears that only
    grammatical and phonological features require
    geographical proximity to diffuse.
  • Lexical items appear to spread across languages
    regardless of proximity through lexical
    borrowing.
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