Sociolinguistics

1. Sociolinguistics I . Inter-relationships between linguistic form and social function II. Why should linguistics study? III. The difficulty of defining what language is IV. Social functions of speech V. Telephone conversation VI. Compliments Yun-Pi Yuan

2. I . Inter-relationships between linguistic form and social function (1) • Lang. cannot be studied separately from its social/speech context. • 9 Sentences: • Should I make some tea? • Would you like some tea? • Can I make you a cup of tea? • Let’s have a cup of tea. • How about a nice cup of tea? • I could make you a cup of tea. • Do you drink tea? • Have some tea. • There’s tea in the pot. • What are these sentences doing? • When, and with whom, would each one be appropriate? • From these examples, would you say that linguistic form and social function are unrelated? Should we study them separately? • Interaction between Pycholinguistics and Sociolinguistics Yun-Pi Yuan

3. I . Inter-relationships between linguistic form and social function (2) • Mandarin examples: • 您， 你，敝人 • 府上，舍下 • 令郎，小犬 • Geographical origin • Phonological variant • Northern Taiwanese vs. southern Taiwanese • Examples of Taiwanese spoken in I-lan Yun-Pi Yuan

4. II. What should linguistics study? • Grammar only: (the structure/form of language) • to discover the rules of language x and thus universal rules • Problems: • Speech is social behavior and has many social functions • What is language X? what’s the language x? people who language spoken Speak language x by people x who are people x? • What is a native speaker? • Social functions/factors: • Speech is a form of social behavior; language must be related to and interact with society. Yun-Pi Yuan

5. III. The difficulty of defining what “one language” is (1) • Mutual intelligibility ≠ the same language. • Scandinavia 76% Norwegian Swedish 87% Number= %of informants who 18% claimed to understand their 72%42% neighbors’ language fairly 23% easily on 1st encounter Danish • Dutch and German • Romance languages (Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian, etc.) • Potato joke • Spanish vs. Italian 4. Hindi and Urdu Yun-Pi Yuan

6. III. The difficulty of defining what “one language” is (2) • Same language ≠ mutual intelligibility (ex1)one language (ex2) one original language dialect dialect dialect different languages • ex1: one language (mutual intelligibility? same nation? same language?) Chinese (Taiwanese, Cantonese, Shanghai, Shandung, Mandarin, etc.) • ex2: • the Romance situation (sharing a common writing system, culture, history; next to each other geographically) • Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, etc. • Germanic languages: Dutch, Swedish, Norwegian, etc. Yun-Pi Yuan

7. III. The difficulty of defining what “one language” is (3) • How to define native speakers? Northwest Amazon: • 20 different tribes, each with a different languages • All are exogamous, so a man’s wife must speak a different language • Marriage is patrilocal, and a wife must speak the husband’s language to their children • Most people here are multilingual * Conclusion; to define a language, we have many factors (social, cultural, political, linguistic, etc.) Yun-Pi Yuan

8. IV. Social functions of speech • Communication: Communicative pressures can influence the forms/rules of language. • Quick & easy contractions • Rhetorically expressive more complex forms • Identification: • of other people • of ourselves Yun-Pi Yuan

9. Identification of Other People geographic/natural/ethnic social class people education professional group: occupation role (at any time) Role -teacher Role (students) (myself) –professor -student -wife -big sister -daughter -younger person -little sister: to older sister -responsible adult -elder sister -girlfriend -sister-in-law -tutor -friend * Each of these roles may have “sub roles,” too. Yun-Pi Yuan

10. Identification of Self groups you belong to education Self occupation geographic role at any one time Yun-Pi Yuan

11. V. Telephone conversation (1) • Telephone openings • basic structure of conversation: ab, ab, ab • Problem 1: how can we get the conversation going? How do we get into the structure? (Schegloff’s study) • Basic structure of telephone openings: summons- answer sequences Summons Answer Question Answer (raise topic) A structure of obligations and rights between two people Yun-Pi Yuan

12. V. Telephone conversation (2) • Adjacency Pair (coordinated pair): • Definition: Many acts require replies of specific kinds and put the hearer under a conversational obligation to provide them. • Examples: summons-answer; Q-A; greeting-greeting; offer-acceptance/refusal; thanks-acknowledgement; apology-acceptance (refusal) • Why does the answerer always speak first instead of the caller (since he doesn’t know to whom he’s speaking and he’s not the one who wants to initiate a conversation)? Yun-Pi Yuan

13. V. Telephone conversation (3) • Viewing the ring as a nonlinguistic realization of a caller’s summoning act solves the problem. • Phone ring = summons of caller  answer of answerer • A case of an utterance realizing more than one act. • Another general rule: “those who initiate conversations have the right to raise the topic, and answerer has the obligation to listen.” • A conversational social relationship Yun-Pi Yuan

14. V. Telephone conversation (4) • Identification on telephone • Problem 2: how to achieve mutual recognition? • “Preferred method of identification involves the minimum use of recognitional resources.” • “oversuppose and undertell” • Two identification problems (on telephone): • Caller identifies Answerer • Answerer identifies Caller TA T1 T2 T3 ring Hello? Tom? Yeah, Bill *summons *answer+ voice *ID of other+ (question)voice clue to self Yun-Pi Yuan

15. V. Telephone conversation (5) e.g.1 Ring summons answerer T1: Hello? answer/question (ID resource + oblige caller to ID) caller T2: Hi greeting (claim of ID; an answer to the Q) answer T3: Hi greeting (claim of ID + complete greeting) e.g.2 Ring summons answerer: 1Hello? answer/question (provide ID resource caller: 2 Hello, Jenny. greeting/claim of ID/oblige--resource (pause) failure by A to recognize C This is Paul. provide more resource answerer: 3 Oh, hello, Paul. greeting/claim of ID Yun-Pi Yuan

16. V. Telephone conversation (6) e.g.3 Answerer: T1 Hello? Caller: T2 Connie? Answerer: T3 Yeah, John. e.g.4 Variation A: T1 Hello? C: T2 Connie? A: T3 Oh, hi. How are you? Yun-Pi Yuan

17. Language vs. Society • There is a social structure to language. • What is said and how it is said is determined socially. • An utterance is a complex of actions. Yun-Pi Yuan

18. VI. Compliments—giving compliments (I) • Giving compliments: • Status and age • Sex (gender) Women to women most frequent Women to men (descending frequency) Men to women least frequent Men to men Yun-Pi Yuan

19. VI. Compliments—giving compliments (II) • Syntactic patterns • Three major patterns • NP be/look (intensifier) ADJ “You look really nice.” • ADJ includes: nice, good, beautiful, pretty, great, wonderful, lovely • I (intensifier) like/ love NP “I really like that skirt.” • VERB includes: like, love. enjoy, admire, be impressed by • PRO be (intensifier) (a) ADJ NP “That’s really a nice coat.” • Formulaic Language: a very limited subset of English sentence structure and vocabulary is used to give compliments. Yun-Pi Yuan

20. VI. Compliments—giving compliments (III) • Topics • Appearance • clothes, hair • Ability (skill)/performance • a well-done job, a skillfully played game, a good meal • Personality/friendship • “That was kind.” • Possessions • “I live your new bike.” Yun-Pi Yuan

21. VI. Compliments—responding (I) • Responding to compliments • What compliments do? • Two types of action • Supportive action: an offer, congratulations, a gift • “That’s a good idea.” to be taken as TURE. • Assessment: saying something which is supposed • “That’s really a nice coat.” • Three social norms (rules) • Accept supportive action • Accept truth of assessment • Avoid self-praise Yun-Pi Yuan

22. VI. Compliments—responding (II) • Some conventional, formulaic responses • Thank you, 哪裡，哪裡 • Other types of solutions: • accept by agreeing A: Your dress is very nice. B: Yeah, this is my favorite dress. • reject by disagreeing (indirect/implicit rejection) A: You did a great job cleaning the house. B: Well, I guess you haven’t seen the kid’s room. • other “in-between” responses • Scale down (agree with reservations) • Transfer • Return to the speaker Yun-Pi Yuan

23. Examples of Other in-between Responses Scale Down: A: She’s a real fox. B: Yeah, she’s a pretty woman. A: You brought—like a ton of things. B: Just a few little things. A: This is a really good paper. B: Yeah, there are still a few parts that need work, though. Transfer: A: That’s a nice sweater. B: Do you like it? My mother brought it for me. Return to the Speaker: A: That’s a nice sweater. B: Yours is new, too, isn’t it? That color really suits you. Yun-Pi Yuan

24. Reasons for giving compliments • If compliments are so hard to respond to why give them? • Solidarity (another norm: Speaker should express solidarity with hearer, and raise the hearer’s status when possible.) • Encouragement • Expression of gratitude • Compliment preceding and thus softening a criticism Yun-Pi Yuan

25. Language and Gender • Different norms for the conversational styles of women and men: • Women: focus on “connection” (solidarity), so “intimacy” is the key • Men: focus on “status” ( so “independence,” the key) • Conclusion: • Women: “Rapport talk” (“trouble talk”)—recount their trouble, and expect sympathy, understanding affirmation, but not a solution. • Men: “Report talk” (“solution talk”)—exhibiting knowledge and skill, holding center stage thus storytelling, joking, or imparting information. Cause asymmetrical situation, result in some arguments. (You Just Don’t Understand by D. Tannen, 1986.) Yun-Pi Yuan