أهم النقاط في المحاضرة 12
Representation is how the speaker chooses to refer to something or someone by categorizing them as belonging to a social group.
Labels of identity are imposed by people who may be in a more powerful position
People who impose labels of identity may use the labels to make a kind of social judgment
We do not always control the categories people use to define our identity
Determining one’s social identity is also bound up with how others perceive us.
Our status within a social group can be constructed through language use
Ingroup is a social group to which the speaker belongs.
outgroup comprises people who do not belong to that group.
style-shifting people do not always talk in the same way. They can shift their speech styles and this can involve using different words, pronunciations or even grammatical forms
Audience design refers to notion that speakers will take into account whom they are addressing and alter their speech style accordingly
Linguistic convergence is a process in which speakers change their speech to make it more similar to that of their hearer
Linguistic maintenance is a process in which speakers may choose not to converge, but instead to maintain their own variety.
Linguistic divergence is a process in which speakers choose to move away from the Linguistic norms of their hearer in order to emphasise the difference between themselves and the person or people they are talking to.
Loss of a language can also be associated with a loss of cultural identity.
Languages can be lost for a variety of reasons
speakers may choose to shift from one language to another as social conditions change
One language may be imposed and another suppressed by a dominant power.
The dialect known as standard English has special status.
a. It is the dialect of institutions such as government and the law;
b. It is the dialect of literacy and education.
c. It is the dialect taught as ‘English’ to foreign learners.
d. It is the dialect of the higher social classes. It is therefore the prestige form of English.
Examples of non-standard English
- multiple negation:I didn’t know nothing
- the use of ‘ain’t: I ain’t got none,
Characteristics of Standard English
a. Standard English is related to dialects, not accents.
b. Standard English is difficult to isolate and put linguistic boundaries around.
c. Standard English is the dialect of the middle and upper classes
d. Forms of Standard English are socially prestigious.
Codification of Standard English is a process where scholars analyse and record the vocabulary and grammatical patterns of a language
For English, much of this codification took place in the eighteenth century
grammatical patterns that were written down in dictionaries and grammar books then became ‘rules