UNIT 1. Introduction to Sociolinguistics and Applied Sociolinguistics.

2. Introduction: Key concepts in sociolinguistics

Sociolinguistics : relation language-society → links languages and users

- Examines patterns of our behaviour
50s-60s → oppose Chomsky's abstraction of language
- tried to find the reasons for linguistic variations in social and environmental
conditions.
Dell Hymes (1971) opposed to Chomsky's linguistic competence → communicative competence
- Ability to use language + non-linguistic factors: silence, turn-taking, volume, length of
utterance, word choice, gestures

3. Sociolinguistics vs. sociology of language

Sociolinguistics: relationship language-society → stress on language, role within communication.

- Micro level: speech differences in pronunciation, grammar, and vocabulary
- Determine: educational background, economic status or social class.
- Micro-sociolinguistics: discrete point cases
- Macro level: language variation as a human phenomenon (language maintenance in
migration) → macro-sociolinguistics: wide ranging situations, language planning, language
policy
- sociology of language.
Sociology of language: study of society, how we can understand it through the study of
language

4. The origins of sociolinguistics

Europe: study of historical linguistics and linguistic geography,
- : dialectology, regional languages and the linguistic situation of colonized countries
USA: contact of linguistics with other disciplines such as anthropology and sociology.

5. Language variation
Source of information = way social and situational factors affect language and make it vary.
- Geographic variation
- Social, economic, political, religious, cultural or any other situational background
- Differences in the way males and females speak
- Power relationships
- Social connection
Bounds: vary speech to adhere to social, economic, religious, etc. class, within limits
Linguistic norms: more understated, harder to learn (Second Language)
- Learning non-native language → also social and linguistic conventions
Sociolinguistics: variation among groups, situations, places → find regular patterns

6. Some instances of variation

American English th- : from [8] or [o],to [t ] or nothing
- forms used at different levels for different social groups and regions
Black English Vernacular
- Double negative:
- Plurals not marked with numerals
- Genitive not marked with s necessarily
- Absence of final third person singular -s
- Dropping verb to be as a copula
- Deletion of final -l
- Reduction of word-final clusters
Word choice: determines style shifting→ linguistic 'domain' settles degree of formality

7. Diachronic variation

Change of language over time, constant flux.

Pronunciation → sounds of related languages correspond to others =sound shift

Syntax→ patterning of sentences, altering word order

- Indo-European: S-O-V → present-day: SVO (gradual shift)
English = analytical language:
- Loss of morphological inflections (adjectives no -s)
Semantic change: most sensitive, even in short periods
- Changes: meaning and use
- Demand of lexical resources related to social changes
- Generalisation or specification, addition or loss of meanings
- Disease (absence of ease)
Words with identical/ similar referential meanings, different stylistic meaning.
- use depends on communication situation

Word borrowed, coined, invented:

- derivation, compounding
- Jargon: commonplace in new domains/disciplines.

8. Speech community

general linguistics = group of people sharing same language/dialect in a specific setting

- Sociolinguistics = extra linguistic factors are taken into account.
Basic criterion: one language
Members united by a common end.
Specific transitory interests → sometimes identity as part of one group, others of other
- Situational context
Not confined to political boundaries, religions, cultures
Bilingual, trilingual speech communities common:
- Multilingual speech community: recognizes more than two official languages
- Switzerland
- Contact language= 'official' language for practical purposes
- Bilingual speech community: acknowledges two languages with an official status
- Canada, Belgium.
- Communities may be monolingual (Canada, Brussels, Spain)
- Monolingual speech community: one official language (Portugal)
- Diglossic community: two languages/ varieties functionally complementary.
- Two varieties: high variety in formal contexts+low variety in colloquial speech.
- Arabic-speaking communities: Classical and colloquial Arabic
Spolsky (1998: 25): speech community not limited in terms of location/size → entails a complex
interlocking network of communication
- Members share set of language varieties and norms

9. Standard English and World Englishes

Standard English:
- Variety of social elite, socially, economically and politically dominant
- Prestigious
- Associated with geographic variation: where institutional and economic power is
- RP
Non-standard English: varieties that do not conform
- pronunciation, grammatical structure, idiomatic usage, or choice of words.
Dispersal of English:
- First diaspora:
- from England, Scotland and Ireland to North America, Australia and New
Zealand.
- Varieties now not identical with early colonisers, share features
- Develop: incorporate vocabulary from indigenous languages
- Second diaspora:
- 18 and 19 centuries
- West Africa: slave trade, pidgin and creole languages
- English = lingua franca among indigenous languages and traders
- East Africa: colonisers settle, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Malawi, Zimbabwe
- Role of English: government, education and the law.
- 20 century: independence:
- Official in some, second in others
- Introduced in South Asia 18th: trading
- South East South Pacific.
Y. Kachru: World Englishes in three concentric circles:
- Inner Circle: US, Australia and New Zealand (first diaspora)
- Norm-providing: native language
- Outer Circle: Zambia, Pakistan, India, etc. (second diaspora)
- Norm-developing: process of being accepted, SL alongside indigenous
- New Englishes
 - Part of multilingual repertoire → sometimes, command of English not comprehensive
- Phonology: simplified system
- Syntax features shared → tag questions simplified (no?, not so?)
- Lexis, ordinary singular with a general sense
- Expanding Circle: learned, used as Foreign Language: Spain, Japan, Germany,
- Norm-dependent : FL, standard as it is.
- international relations, international organisations, research, education at
specialised levels, publicity and business,
- Perceived as useful, parents want children to learn, pupils also see benefits
- Tendency to use standardised variety two stages:
- Influence exerted by one favours choice
- Interchangeable influence → mid-Atlantic English: features of both mixed
- Words: add false friends, borrowings from English
- spelling
- Pronunciation: mixture, add features from mother tongue
- Exposure: BrE: formal education; AmE media

10. Carrying out sociolinguistic research

Degree of stylistic variation depending on

- relations of power or solidarity with the interlocutor
- social context (domain)
- the topic: academic, professional, trifling
Looking for rules, patterns, based on determining factors and nature of the encounter
Elicit information vs observation
Validity: speaker may change speech, variety unconsciously, on purpose
Intrusion: presence of the researcher/ device +alteration of situation/environment
Questionnaires: collect data on attitudes and behaviours
- convenient for gathering demographic data
- shortcomings.
- unnatural situation + informants answer the way they think the researcher wants
- little room to gather information that was not taken into account
Face-to-face interviews
- interlocutor's speech carefully planned or modified
- researcher concentrates on something while neglecting another i
- time- and effort-consuming
small high-capacity recording devices, carry all the time, recording everything
- Validity, reliability increases
tension quantitative and qualitative approaches
- Ethnographers base research on case studies: observe, contrast patterns of
behaviour with other communities
- statistical analysis is not normally possible.
- often combine the statistical analysis of data with personal interviews

UNIT 2. Variables in Sociolinguistics.

2. Some variables in sociolinguistics

a. Style

range of choices: word choice, syntactic complexity, subtle pronunciation features.

Stylistic variation: formally vs informally (circumstances)
Decide depending on factors: particular occasion, social differences, interlocutor's age,
written or spoken
choice reflects how they feel in terms of formality (Can you, could you)
difference in style reflects speaker's intention, degree of formality, relationship
- die) pass away) bite the dust or kick the bucket.
-
b. Register

Register: set of language features (choice of lexical items or syntactic ordering

characterised by the circumstance and purpose of the communicative situation
topic-specific registers → specialisation, technical words, acronyms
Socially motivated, negotiation to accommodate register in discourse
Narrow sense: type of language used by group of people with linguistic features not used in
other settings = jargon (word choice
Broad sense: social genre, sociolect: lexical choice and syntactic ordering
- Newspaper articles, legal language
Three main dimensions:
- Field: social activity, setting and aim
- Tenor: social roles, relationship
- Mode: medium
- Eg: newspaper article: subject matter + inform reader; journalist + audience; printed
article

stylistic variations within a register: degrees of formality or casualness

c. Gender

Language should not be considered as inherently sexist but it is used in a sexist way ,
reflects a sexist world
Patterns of variation men/women much more evident in some parts of the globe
- Japan, Montreal, Scotland
Trudgill (1972):
- women more conservative vs men innovations
- women tendency to overreport their use of prestige forms
- Women: standard language prestige norms vs men vernacular prestige forms
- refinement, sophistication and adherence vs roughness and toughness
- differences in male-female linguistic behaviour.
Holmes (1995):
- men tend to dominate interaction especially in public settings
- women concerned with solidarity vs men concerned with status
aims of sociolinguistics is to describe the relation between sex and gender.
- Sex= biological category, base for differentiation of roles, norms and expectations within a
certain speech community→ gender
Dissimilarity = result of social factors + educational factors + power
Lexical and grammatical choices of men and women lead to the formation of genderlects,
Language used to refer to them:
- Past: masculine common gender, both male and female
- Solutions: third person plural pronoun
- Masculine traditionally used to refer to professions associated with men → relationship
language/ society is twofold

3. Speech accommodation

modification of one's own speech/communicative behaviours to the ones used by the person
one is interacting with.
- speech convergence:
- need for social integration / identification with others.
- conscious/unconscious
- speech divergence
- participants stem from different backgrounds
- strategy of intergroup distinctiveness
- intensify inclusion in a relevant group while excluding others
- slang, jargon, grammatical complexity,, accent
part of job when communicating with clients, or to show empathy.
to facilitate comprehension
take advantage of intra-group inclusion

UNIT 3: Bilingualism: definitions and dimensions. Code choice. Codeswitching.

Code-mixing. Diglossia. Multilingualism. Language Contact. Pidgins and
Creoles. Decreolization. Pidgins and Creoles in Education.

1. Key words
2. Bilingualism: Introduction

situational factors + sociolinguistic context →More than one language every day
second language may be acquired by constant exposure
- shift from one code to the other often unconscious
Many degrees of proficiency and sociolinguistic factors
- Functional ability ←→ balanced bilingualism
Aspects:
- Means of acquisition: mother tongue, second language or foreign language?
- different commands of the various skills in each language: reading writing listening
and speaking. Age and means.
- development determined by the means of acquisition.
- Natural context: aural-oral developed, not competent in reading/writing
- receptive skills often more easily developed than productive
- functions that bilinguals generally prefer to perform in one language than in the other.
- domain often influences language choice . Factors:
- Location
- Role relationship
- Topics involved
3. Bilingualism: Definitions and dimensions

Social bilingualism (or multilingualism) → study of its social dimension

- Bilingualism: at least some members of speech community capable of using the
other language, either productively or receptively
Individual bilingualism: an individual has some knowledge of two or more languages.
Questions:
- Extent of proficiency in both to qualify as bilingual?
- Need to show equal proficiency?
- Spoken or written command of both?
- Language components considered as criteria?
Starting point: how concepts and meanings are encoded in the brain.
- Coordinate bilingualism:
- languages learned in different conditions/separate contexts → kept apart in the mind.
- Different contexts → different meanings
- Compound bilingualism: both languages learned in same context → both meanings fused
meaning in the brain.
- languages interdependent
- e.g.: child one from father and other from he mother
- sub-coordinate bilingualism, one language first, the other later

balanced bilingual vs dominant bilingual

- balanced bilingual: equivalent competence
- high communicative competence in both, not necessarily monolingual
competence
- dominant bilingual: competence in the mother tongue surpasses
- the norm
age of acquisition:
- childhood bilingualism: bilingualism at the same time as cognitive development
- simultaneous infant bilingualism before the age of 3
- consecutive childhood bilingualism: after the age of three
- adolescent bilingualism and adult bilingualism: process of re-labelling previous
concepts.
sociocultural environment: social status of language
- Additive ascendant bilingualism : both languages socially valued
- acquisition of second language no adverse effects
- Subtractive recessive bilingualism: mother tongue detracted →cognitive development
hindered
Cultural identity: identify with the cultures associated with each language.
 - bicultural
- Monocultural
- acculturated bilingual: give up/deny culture of mother-tongue →foster second
- Immigrants
one or two mental lexicons.
- One-lexicon: semantic information stored in a single semantic system
- bilingual mental lexicon: divided into two sets
- three stores: a) conceptual for their knowledge of world;b) language A; c) language
B.

Broad definition bilingualism = common human condition that makes it possible for an
individual to function in more than one language.
- Continuum: : total monolingualism vs degree of ability to comprehend a second
language

4. Code Choice

Code: system that two or more people use for communication.

Criterion to distinguish bidialectal/bilingual→ mutual intelligibility using their own code
whenever a speaker engages in a communicative situation, previously decided the code
- Factors: solidarity, topic, social distance, contextual and situational appropriacy,
register, interlocutor, etc.
- assert some kind of 'right' , resist some kind of 'power
- 'political or rights expression' → Quebec, Canada
Two main types of code-switching:
- situational: depending on contextual factors , situation.
- metaphorical: topic, contents

a. Code-switching
- Tag-switching: eg exclamations or tags from one language into the other language
- lack necessary vocabulary or comes up more easily and spontaneously since
tags are subjected to few syntactic restrictions
- No interfere with the syntactic organization
- Intersentential switch:
- between sentences, often in sentence boundaries, marked with a short pause
- between speaker turns.
- Intrasentential switch: both codes are mixed within a sentence = code-mixing.
- highest syntactic risk
b. Code-mixing
switching back and forth occurs within a clause → not even aware, breaks somewhat blurred
Hybridisation
mastery of the codes → typical of bilinguals
Factors: situational context, degree of familiarity, actual cause for code-switching:
- lack of knowledge or discourse strategy.
Incidental borrowing can pave the way to permanent lexical borrowing.
Speech of immigrants, lexical borrowing

5. Code-switching in bilingual children

children with bilingual education→ mix both, transfer words, syntactic constructions , phonological
features
Code choice is not fully conscious. Sometimes there are interferences between
codes.
Normal way of expressing oneself in a bilingual context
Issues
- Way bilingual speakers process their languages?
- Unique language system where both are intertwined or, two different systems?
- Use of one or the other depending on the context?
- If more than one system, same part of the brain?
- One or two different lexicons?

6. Diglossia

Co-existence of two or more codes in the same setting but under different circumstances
apart in their functions
one more prestigious and cultivated → high variety (H) vs low variety (L).
L at home, mother tongue. H through education, literary tradition.
functions for H and L determines appropriateness for a set of situations

Differences
- Grammatical structure:
- L: reduced, absent
- Lexicon: shared, differenvces in form, use, meaning
- Phonology: closeness depends on languages
Examples:
- Norman French vs Old English
- Haitian Creole vs Standard French

7. Diglossia and bilingualism

In 'multilingual + monolingual societies' with various dialects, registers or styles

(1) both diglossia and bilingualism
- German (H) and Swiss German (L) Switzerland
- Spanish (H) and Guarani (L) Paraguay
(2), bilingualism without diglossia: transitory situations, individual linguistic behaviour
- industrialisation and/ or urbanisation:
- one speech community provides the means (capital and organisation)
- different speech community provides manpower, migration
- Intertwine, not clear separation of functions
(3), diglossia without bilingualism
- share a geographic area, speech communities do not share a contact language
- united for functional purposes, communication through interpreters
- language repertoires restricted owing to role specialisation.
- India: lower castes (Hindus) and the higher castes (Brahmins).

4) neither bilingualism nor diglossia

- very small and isolated societies , virtually impossible

8. Multilingualism

More than two languages/sufficiently distant dialects within a speech community.

Monolingual speech communities are rare
Languages often embody social identities at a suprastate level → socio-political conflicts
Involuntary migration:
- African slave trade
- Soviet policy: Russian population to Soviet republics.
Voluntary migration:
- Shape USA, Australia
- Most immigrants abandon languages, keeping social identity
- Change: South American and Asian immigration → new ethnic identities
Europe:
- 'Multilingualism': presence in a geographical area, of more than one 'variety of language' →
mode of speaking of a social group
- 'Plurilingualism': repertoire of varieties of language which many individuals use,
- 'mother tongue' or 'first language' and any number of other languages or
varieties
 - plurilingual competence → proficiency not need to be equal, repertoire is emphasised
over proficiency

9. Language contact

Where:
- Two or more languages share a common geographic context: Brussels
- one language stops being used by speakers and a different language is used:
borders
Outcomes:
- International borders: continuum, dialects close to other language. Portugal Spain
- Diachronic perspective:
- loss of one due to power relationships
- Merging of both → equal status
main source of language evolution and language change
political conflict (Belgian situation: French favored, resistance by Flemish)
- in some cases weakened groups move towards assimilation
- Others : opposition and resistance
- Natural language conflicts caused by political decisions: Canada, Spain
- Artificial language conflicts: compromise is attained →a language is disfavored
- EU institutions

10. Pidginisation and creolisation

Pidginisation: two languages come into contact → process of simplification or hybridisation.

simplification: lexis, grammar and phonological features
Need to communicate between speakers little relations between them
Originally, pidgins served purpose of a lingua franca:
- people of different mother tongues → common language for specific functional situation
(trade)
Words from one, syntactic ordering of the other
16th and 17th → European colonial powers → new languages
- Initially functional in specific situations, not native of anyone
most likely requires the contact of more than two languages
- language of the dominant culture probably imposed.
often endure several geographical and sociolinguistic contexts (Melanesian Pidgin English)
Creolisation: pidgin acquired as mother tongue by children exposed to it
- all kinds of social needs and communicative purposes → language expands
- pidgin develops, more complex grammar and phonology
- native language that can be used for all types of social functions.
- Some creoles official languages: Papua New Guinea
pidginsiation and creolisation different → overlap
Creoles stop being considered uninteresting/marginal jargons→status of language

11. Some instances of pidgins

Most based on a European language: English, French, Spanish, Dutch, Italian, German.
English-based very common in Caribbean, West Indies , Africa, Asia, Pacific

Cameroon Pidgin English

Hawaiian Pidgin
Kamtok
Kenya Pidgin Swahili
NagaPidgin
New Guinea Pidgin German
Nigerian Pidgin English
Papuan Pidgin English
Pidgin German (Gastarbeiters)
Russenorsk
Sango
Vietnamese Pidgin French

Share number of general characteristics:

- Almost complete lack of inflection in
- Nouns unmarked for number or gender.
- Lack tense markers
- No distinction for case in personal pronouns,
- Absence of clausal structures. However, relative clauses, other embedding in
creolisation.
- No distinction long and short vowels→ 'reduplication'.
- Tok Pisin sip = 'ship' ; sipsip ='sheep',
- Intensify the meaning of a word
-
12. Some instances of creoles
Anglo-Romani (a creolization of Romani in England)
Asmara Pidgin (Italian-based, it is spoken in parts of Ethiopia)
Berbice Creole
Dutch Chabacano o Zamboangueiio. (Spanish-based)
Haitian Creole
Hawaiian Creole English
Jamaican Patwa
TokPisin
British Empire → expansion of Standard English and regional varieties + creation/development of
many pidgins and creoles
Two major groups of English based creoles c
- Atlantic group, West Africa, Caribbean
- Pacific group including

a. Hawaiian Creole English

600.000 people i
denigrated repeatedly
turning into a way to express solidarity and forge local identity
Now enforcing competent language planning and policy
Characteristics:
- Phonology:
 - avoids difficult phonological features:
- vocalic system simplified; fricatives avoided
- Vocabulary:
- English-based 90%
- some directly from English othersadapted or simplified
- words are polysemous
- lack of inflection; Nouns are unmarked
- Tense and aspect awith a marker:
- Past tense: preterite auxiliaries
- Future events
- Progressive aspect
- Negative auxiliaries nonexistent → negation: 'no', 'nat' or 'neva' before the verb:

b. Jamaican Patwa (or Patois)

90% population of Jamaica descendants of slaves from Africa
official language = Standard English
whole linguistic spectrum: Standard English (lexifier language)- Jamaican Patwa (creole)
notmuch social and socioeconomic status →not considered "acceptable" formal purposes
- peasants and laborers with little education.
not uniform orthographic representation
General features
-
- Final consonant clusters devoiced or deleted:
- Syllable-timed
- Modified personal pronouns:
- Absence of plural
- Altered third person singular subject-verb concord:
- Absence of auxiliaries to form the negative:
- copula deletion:
- Tense marked lexically

c. Tok Pisin
Papua New Guinea, three million people → lingua franca for indigenous languages
sometimes as pidgin, sometimes as Creole→ clear influences from English
decreolisation does not affect TP
General features:

- no distinction and
- Simplified consonant clusters:
- Simplified vocalic system
- reduplication → emphasis:
- Plural suffix '-pela':
- Lexicon based on English.
- Metaphors in word formation:
- Simplified prepositional system

13. Decreolisation
prolonged contact with a standard language→ considerable influence
develop creole taking the standard as a model → a continuum emerges
- Forms of the creole socially stratified
- variety closer to the standard = language of the elite/educated (acrolect)
- variety closer to the creole = illiterate people/lower social class (basilect).
- Between a whole range of varieties (mesolects)
depends on the speaker's location and upbringing

14. The use of pidgins and creoles in education

Uncommon, two reasons:

- continuum of variation
- social consideration of the pidgin/ creole→deviant from the standard→ inferior status
Often speakers disadvantaged: standard variety in formal education, not their mother tongue
- African American Vernacular English
Argument of educators and policy makers:
- it is a waste of time to teach nonstandard
- Socio-economic advantages of standard varieties
- Confusion and interference
Progress: gaining social and political recognition
- Tanzania: Swahili as national language

obstacles of using pidgins, creoles and minority dialects in formal education:

- teachers’ negative attitudes and ignorance
- Negative attitudes/ self image of the students → denigration of their speech/culture.
- Repression of self-expression → unfamiliar form of language.
- Difficulty in acquiring literacy
3 sorts of educational programs → additive bilingualism or bidialectalism
- instrumental program Papua New Guinea tok piksin
- home variety = medium of instruction; standard language later stage for some
subjects
- accommodation program Hawaiian Creole English
- allows home language, not language of instruction nor studied as language
- home language and culture preserved → study of literature or music
- awareness program Caribbean English in UK
- teaching of basic sociolinguistic and sociopragmatic principles of different language
varieties → compared with those of the standard variety.
UNIT 4: Bilingual Education.

1. Key words
2. Bilingual education

Entails number of multidisciplinary actions, decisions.

- Language policy, pedagogic realisation in classrooms
- Language planning → assimilate minorities, integrate them, spread intercultural
understanding
Conditions for minority language to survive:
- Used at home, mother tongue of new family members
- Raise children in it, reinforced in schooling
- Presence through formal schooling
- Succeed in Canada, Wales, Basque Country, not Ireland
- Presence in economic circles → employment purposes (Irish)
- Association with culture and literary tradition
- Used in media, social interactions, more social functions
Bilingual education can pave way for social interethnic understanding
Decision making or lack of it → cause language death, preeminence of one language, or development
of bilingual-bicultural societies
Implementation difficulties:
- Temptation to give prominence to language rather than to child
- Focusing on benefits and needs for acquisition of dual linguistic system
- Set aside other social/psychological considerations
- Unfounded optimism and high expectations
Advantages:
- full development of the languages involved
- deeper insights into the cultures; avoids stereotyping; multiperspective viewpoint
- Biliteracy; literature for pleasure, employment opportunities heritage and traditions
- wider general cognitive benefits → more creative in thinking
- Raise self-esteem if their language is socially accepted
- curriculum achievement
- establishment of a secure identity
- economic advantages → secure employment
Drawbacks:
- Not guarantee effective schooling
- academic language not correspond with the colloquial register outside the classroom
- exclusion by mother tongue speakers
- productive skills sometimes not fully developed

3. Language policy

Language decisions → political and economic reasons

Language planning → part of language policy a government adopts for one (or +) languages
4. Language planning

Deliberate/institutionally organised attempt to change the development of a language, or to

alter its functions in society.
Aim: maintain a language about to disappear vs repress/diminish a cultural or ethnic minority
social demand: preserve minority languages
political demand: expand the use of international languages
four main types of ideology prompt decisions regarding language planning:
- Linguistic assimilation: anyone part of a society should learn the dominant language
- Russian in Soviet republics
- problem: conservation and respect for minority group identities and cultural
heritage.
- often deemed to disappear
- factor in Aboriginal language death in Australia:English only policy in schools.
- 1972 bilingual schools
- Now situation critical, no permanent institutional support
- Linguistic pluralism: acceptance of various languages or varieties,
- centered on individual or geographical criteria
- Vernacularisation: reconstruction or renewal of a language
- Not used by a wide group of speakers→some changes→becomes widespread →
adopted as official, tok pisin Papua New Guinea
- Internationalism: adopt a non-vernacular language for wider interethnic
communication
- English in India

a. Some factors affecting language planning

- Socio-demographic: number of languages+number of speakers
- Linguistic: degree of development + literary tradition
- Socio-psychological : people's attitude +acceptance
- Political : adoption of a specific alphabet, turkey Latin alphabet
- Religious, Sudan Arabic

b. Actions in language planning

- Selection of a norm (officia,l education, institutions):
- sometimes introduce a language as lingua franca, English in India
- Others, particular variety chose or created
- Codification: changes, adapt to meet requirements for wider communication within
multilingual country
- Update vocabulary; new alphabet; standardise a language
- Modernisation: specific vocabulary → loan, coin
- Implementation: use in official forums (education ,politics, medis)
- Become prestige language, literary + academic circles, spread as norm

c. Aims of language planning

- Language purification
 - External purification: development of prescriptions of usage to protect
language from unwanteds foreign influence
- Language academy → prescriptive grammar, dictionaries
- Control foreign lexical borrowings
- Internal purification: accept code as it exists, protect from undesirable
developments
- Language revival:
- Specific changes in language to facilitate its use
- Turkish huge reform: lexicon, orthography (adopt Roman script)
- Language standardisation: adopt a language as major of a region
- Official, educational, commercial, other functions
- Language spread: increase number of speakers → political considerations
- Connected to standardisation
- Lexical modernisation: assist standard languages that may have borrowed foreign
vocabulary too fast
- Part of codification or implementation
- Terminology unification: technological and scientific domains, diminish ambiguity
- Effect of globalisation and cross cultural communication
- Stylistic simplification: reduce communication ambiguity between two groups,
- Legal and medical language
- Interlingual communication: adoption of a L WC (Language of Wider Communication)
- Facilitate communication between members of different speech communities
- Improve mutual intelligibility
- Language maintenance:
- Presence widely spoken language from foreign influence
- Protection of minority ethnic language
- Auxiliary-code standardisation: modification of auxiliary aspects of the language
- Lessen ambiguity, satisfy changing needs.

d. Individual language planning

Language planning started by individuals → Norwegian
Mid 19th → create a purely Norwegian language
Group specialists forge a Norwegian language conceived from dialects spoken all over the
county
Landsmal: language of the country → now Nynorsk
Official recognition 1885 → official documents in 1930

5. Minority languages

Implementation of multilingual policies three possible outcomes

- Language maintenance: survival of a specific language (Welsh)
- Bilingualism: each a common ground on linguistic and sociopolitical fields. Both
languages manage to survive organically
- Language shift: less desirable → can lead to language loss
- minority ethnic groups within a modern nation-state usually shift to the
language spoken by the pre-eminent group
6. Language shift in minority languages

Individual or small group migration → quick language shift

Large groups migration → maintenance of social /linguistic hallmarks
Swedish in Finland French in Canada
Language used as sign of cultural and social identity
minority languages tend to decrease in number of speakers over the years.
socioeconomic incentives→ speakers likely shift to the dominant language
Social economic educational advantages
- Australia with aboriginal language
Not always the outcome → maintained
- Self-imposed barriers: ideological or religious constraints
- Externally-imposed barriers: geographical isolation
Diglossia as well

7. Some particular sociolinguistic situations

a. India

Independence in 1947 → Hindi official national language + each state regional official
- 1950 fifteen major languages
Actions with aim of spreading use of Hindi unsuccessful → English reintroduced as second official
language
Multilingualism is encouraged → English, Hindi + mother tongue + official language of state at
school
- Problems to spread Hindi → differences with varieties
“Three Language Formula” at school unsuccessful, two modern languages (one Hindi )+
English
- English preferred in universities, academic journals, higher courts, parliament,
business

b. New Zealand
Almost all Maoris in New Zealand speak English and a large proportion of
the young people are bilingual
Maori endangered,
- English language of education
- In rural areas, people prefer to live in cities, where English is spoken
Low status in society, lack of recognition as a national official language
Seem destined to disappear → situation change thanks to innovative education movement
- Grandparents pass on language, culture, traditions using Maori as only language
- Kohanga (preschool language nests
- Lack of government support or bilingual programs in public educational system → not able to
maintain Maori language
- Group of parents initiative → independent immersion schools → governmental recognition,
funding
- Very low percentage of Maori speaking children access this education

c. Cameroon
8. The Canadian experience

1982 constitutionally bilingual → government protect French rights throughout the country
Bilingualism mainly in French origin population in East
Manitoba measures against French rights in Quebec
French speaking population 30%, language as sign of identity and cultural heritage
Local government in Quebec measure against English → revoked now
Bilingual education programs:
- French immersion 1965 Montreal
- monolingual English-speaking kids instructed in French from first day
- Later on, half curriculum in English, half in French.
- mid-immersion and late-immersion programs were also developed
- aim : bilingualism → biculturalism
- Three types (total or partial):
- early immersion
- delayed or intermediate immersion
- late immersion
- No equivalent programs for English in French part
- Characteristics:
- L2 = medium of instruction
- curriculum analogous to that of non immersed students, same content
- Ll receives support: subject/ sometimes medium of instruction.
- Additive bilingualism' = chief aim
- L2 exposure restricted to the classroom
- All students join with similar levels of L2 proficiency.
- Teachers are bilingual
- classroom culture = l Ll community
-
9. European Union language planning and policy

Aim = unify millions of speakers under a political and economical administration

- find a common ground for interaction without losing identity
Three working languages: English, French, German
All countries include considerable linguistic minorities
- Only Portugal 'officially' monolingual
Need for EU language policy
Trimm:
- lack of an organic unit to take responsibility
- no longitudinal unity: responsibilities change elementary school/high school/
university
Policy makers establish guidelines, take actions for maintenance of minority languages:
- European Charter for Minority or Regional Languages.
- The CE Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities.
- The Oslo Recommendations r
- The Hague Recommendations
action regarding second/foreign language teaching and learning → “Teaching and learning: towards
the learning society)”
- Everyone should gain proficiency in two languages apart from their mother tongue
- Consensus on fundamentals
- Exchange of students
Common European Framework of Reference for Languages → establishing standards
- mutual recognition of language qualifications
- Establuishes:
- competences
- knowledge and skills
- situations and domains

10. The role of English

Europe, international language after the World War II

'bilingualism with English' is ambitious: → 'multilingualism' preferred

preferred language in international business or EU institutions
Academic discussion +publication → international diffusion.
Language of globalisation →. Proficiency in English = desirable goal

11. The Universal Declaration of Linguistic Rights, 1996

Aim: attention to the problems arising from a globalised world with greater movements of
people, and to preserve everyone's right to a language identity
Principles:
- rights to adhere to a linguistic identity + develop one's own culture.
- role of education in the maintenance and spread of a language
- right to use proper names and place names in the language specific to the territory
- right to decide if minority language present in the media
- right to preserve linguistic and cultural heritage.
- right to use the language in all socioeconomic activities with full legal validity
Controversy:
- Little account of language rights of individuals
- Restrictive definition of “language community”
- lack of reference to situation in countries where a language is used to avoid giving
one language priority

UNIT 5: Sociolinguistics and Language Teaching/Leaming. Language in the law.

Sociolinguistic and corpus linguistics.

1. Key words

2. Sociolinguistics and language teaching/learning

Communicative competence: ability to interact successfully in any speech community

Acquire language in a naturalistic context → acquire sociolinguistic rules together with knowledge
and other competences.
learning either in a second language context
- Countless occasions to acquire/learn rules through interaction/contact
- Issue: sociolinguistic rules taught in the classroom or through interaction within
speech community
- Motivation/purpose of learning? To be used or Language of Wider Communication?
Nowadays, sociocultural information included in classroom language instruction.
- inclusion of sociolinguistic behaviour → help develop ability to interact successfully in
foreign speech community → integrate linguistic + sociolinguistic information
- Often unreliable patterns
Aspects:
- Whose rules of speaking we ant to include
- To what extent we can generalise them
interaction with native speakers → sociolinguistic information needed
New technologies important role in sociocultural development→ autonomous language learners.

a. Communicative competence in language teaching/learning

Linguistic competence : knowledge of lexical, phonological, semantic and syntactic

elements.
- Factors: years learning, rate of learning, contact age, motivation, context
Sociolinguistic competence: social and cultural conditions for the use of language+social
conventions
- Politeness, relations between sexes, classes, social groups or generations, registers
- linguistic competence = vehicle for sociolinguistic competence
- sociolinguistic sensibility → introduced gradually.
- lack of knowledge of sociolinguistic rules and behaviours → communication breakdown
- good command of linguistic system→high cultural, sociolinguistic, pragmatic competence
Pragmatic competence: functional use of linguistic resources
- discourse markers, cohesion and coherence + irony, parody and politeness

b. Sociolinguistic perspectives on language use in immersion classrooms

Diglossic situation can easily develop in immersion classrooms

- language of instruction = superordinate language→ formal language variety
- L1 = subordinate language → informal speech + social interaction
These 'special' speech communities change over time as they become grownups/mature
- L2 for specific functions → not serve other interpersonal and trivial purposes
sociolinguistic rules may vary → specific to particular speech community (not whole country)
- Changes with lingua franca → use it without cultural loads
Dialects → some varieties more prestige/social status → determine the variety institutions try to teach
or a language learner wants to learn.

c. Analysis of the EFL classroom language

Unusual form of spoken interaction

 - nothing to do with real English (discourse markers , type of interaction, language
structure and choice
- idiomatic language, complex syntactic structures or specific vocabulary not always
part of the classroom
asymmetric encounter:
- One participant: control direction dialogue → “teacher talk”
- not differ at the level of linguistic structure
- differ in general features: higher pitch, careful intonation+enunciation, shorter
sentences, repetitions, questions
- Teacher has the knowledge → position of power
- Learners do not control completely linguistic system → can’t communicate fully
- 3 part chain: teacher initiation→ student response→ teacher follow up/feedback
Language used to talk about language (metalanguage)
- In other subjects language is just a vehicle to talk about contents.

d. Implications for language teaching

Task-based instruction → organised around tasks to develop their linguistic skills

Immersion programs → content-based instruction
Learn a second language through use in teaching other subjects
Develop receptive skills →limited productive skills
Attempts to enhance/widen variety of input to encourage students' language production.
greater use of student-student interaction → tasks+ pair/group work

3. Language in the law

interface sociolinguistics-law = forensic linguistics → study of discourse in legal settings and texts
Language in legal settings can have enormous repercussions
Influence on decision making: witnesses two styles:
- 'powerless' style: intensifiers (really), hedges (kind of)
- 'powerful' style: lacks the aforementioned → more exact and confident
- more convincing and trustworthy
power imbalance lawyer-witness
- long-winded questioning that require minimal response, coercive, controlling how the
witness tells the story
- Yes-No questions with a tag, vs broad WH questions
- You rang her later didn't you?
- Interruptions;
- reformulation of a witness's descriptions of events or people
- manipulation of lawyer silence → strategic pauses
- nonrecognition of some witnesses' need to use silence as part of the answer
- incorporation of damaging presuppositions in questions
- metalinguistic directives given to the witness: you must answer this question
- management of topics in order to convey a particular impression to the jury
Studies in three areas:
- Communication difficulties in interface the legal and the layperson
- Comprehension of legal texts → jargon, intricacy of syntax
 - communication problems faced by non-native speaker witnesses, suspects and defendants →
interpreters
-
4. Sociolinguistic and corpus linguistics