epdf.tips_the-study-of-language-5th-edition

238 The Study of Language

B Which of these languages cannot be included in the Indo-European family tree? To
which other language families do they belong?

Catalan, Chamorro, Faroese, Georgian, Hebrew, Hungarian, Marathi, Serbian,
Tamil, Turkish

C A Danish linguist, Rasmus Rask, and a German writer more famous for fairy tales,
Jacob Grimm, both working in the early nineteenth century, are credited with the
original insights that became known as “Grimm’s Law.”
What is Grimm’s Law and how does it account for the different initial sounds in
pairs of cognates such as these from French and English (deux/two, trois/three) and
these from Latin and English (pater/father, canis/hound, genus/kin)?

D What happens in the process of change known as “grammaticalization”? Can you
find out how the grammaticalization process made it possible for the English verb
forms go and will to be used in sentences such as I’m gonna be late and I’ll be at
work until six?

E Describe what happened in any documented case of “language death.”

F During the late eighteenth century when Captain Cook’s voyages in the Pacific
brought him to Hawai‘i, he and his crew were surprised to discover that many
Hawaiian words were similar to those they had learned from other Pacific
island groups thousands of miles away. This similarity is now known to be a
result of a number of Pacific languages having a common ancestor, called
Proto-Polynesian.
(i) In the following chart, based on Kikusawa (2005), there are examples from five
Polynesian languages. Can you work out the most likely forms of Proto-
Polynesian based on these cognates? (The symbol ‘, as in wa‘a, represents a
consonant called a glottal stop /ʔ/, described in Chapter 3.)

Tongan Samoan Rapanui Ma¯ ori Hawaiian Proto-forms

“eye” mata mata mata mata maka _________
“canoe” vaka va‘a vaka waka wa‘a _________
“water” vai vai vai wai wai _________
“sea” tahi tai vaikava tai kai _________
“seaweed” limu limu rimu rimu limu _________
“sky” langi lagi rangi rangi lani _________
“lice” kutu ‘utu kutu kutu ‘uku _________

(ii) Given the regular differences between the forms in Tongan and Hawaiian, can
you work out the most likely Hawaiian cognates of these Tongan words?

Language history and change 239

Tongan Hawaiian

“forbidden” tapu __________
“blood’ toto __________
“fish” ika __________
“sleep” mohe __________
“hot” vela __________
“nine” hiva __________
“south” tonga __________
“name” hingoa __________
“axe” toki __________
“man” tangata __________

G These four versions of the same biblical event (Matthew 27: 73) are presented in
Campbell (2013) as a way of illustrating some changes in the history of English.
Can you describe the changes in vocabulary and grammar?
(i) Modern English (1961)
Shortly afterwards the bystanders came up and said to Peter, “Surely you are
another of them; your accent gives you away!”

(ii) Early Modern English (1611)
And after a while came vnto him they that stood by, and saide to Peter, Surely
thou also art one of them, for thy speech bewrayeth thee.

(iii) Middle English (1395)
And a litil aftir, thei that stooden camen, and seiden to Petir, treuli thou art of
hem; for thi speche makith thee knowun.

(iv) Old English (1050)
þa æfter lytlum fyrste genēalæton þa ðe þær stodon, cwædon to petre. Soðlice þu
eart of hym, þyn spræc þe gesweotolað.
(Literally: “then after little first approached they that there stood, said to Peter.
Truly thou art of them, thy speech thee makes clear.”)

DISCUSSION TOPICS/PROJECTS

I A nineteenth-century scholar named Curtius (quoted in Aitchison, 2013) described
a major goal of historical linguistics in the following way:
A principal goal of this science is to reconstruct the full, pure forms of an
original stage from the variously disfigured and mutilated forms which are
attested in the individual languages.

240 The Study of Language

Do you agree that languages decay and become worse (“disfigured and mutilated”)
through time? What kind of evidence would you use to argue for or against this
point of view?
(For background reading, see chapter 16 of Aitchison, 2013.)
II Using what you have learned about comparative reconstruction, try to recreate the
most likely proto-forms for these cognates (from Sihler, 2000: 140).

Languages B Proto-forms
A

kewo (“red”) čel (“red”) ____________
kuti (“tree”) kut (“wood”) ____________
like (“heavy”) lič (“morose”) ____________
waki (“sister”) wač (“sister”) ____________
wapo (“hand”) lap (“hand”) ____________
woli (“beam”) lol (“roof”) ____________

(For background reading, see sections 96 to 102 of Sihler, 2000.)

FURTHER READING

Basic treatments
Aitchison, J. (2013) Language Change: Progress or Decay? (4th edition) Cambridge University Press
Schendl, H. (2001) Historical Linguistics Oxford University Press
More detailed treatments
Campbell, L. (2013) Historical Linguistics: An Introduction (3rd edition) MIT Press
Janson, T. (2002) Speak: A Short History of Languages Oxford University Press
Language families
Austin, P. (ed.) (2008) One Thousand Languages University of California Press
Pereltsvaig, A. (2012) Languages of the World Cambridge University Press
Indo-European
Fortson, B. (2010) Indo-European Language and Culture (2nd edition) Wiley-Blackwell
Mallory, J. and D. Adams (2006) The Oxford Introduction to Proto-Indo-European and the Proto-

Indo-European World Oxford University Press
Language change
Labov, W. (2001) Principles of Linguistic Change, volume 2: Social Factors Blackwell
McMahon, A. (1994) Understanding Language Change Cambridge University Press
History of the English language
Barber, C., J. Beal and P. Shaw (2012) The English Language: A Historical Introduction (Canto

edition) Cambridge University Press
Lerer, S. (2007) Inventing English: A Portable History of the Language Columbia University Press

Language history and change 241

Old, Middle and Early Modern English
Baker, P. (2012) Introduction to Old English (3rd edition) Wiley-Blackwell
Horobin, S. and J. Smith (2002) An Introduction to Middle English Oxford University Press
Nevalainen, T. (2006) An Introduction to Early Modern English Edinburgh University Press
On Sir William Jones
Cannon, G. (1990) The Life and Mind of Oriental Jones Cambridge University Press
Broadening and narrowing of meaning
Minkova, D. and R. Stockwell (2009) English Words: History and Structure (2nd edition)

Cambridge University Press
On “lovely” and “rather”
Adamson, S. (2000) “A lovely little example” In O. Fischer, A. Rosenbach and D. Stein (eds.)

Pathways of Change: Grammaticalization in English (39–66) John Benjamins
Rissanen, M. (2008) “From ‘quickly’ to ‘fairly’: on the history of rather” English Language and

Linguistics 12: 345–359
Other references
Ethnologue (2013) (17th edition) SIL International
Kikusawa, R. (2005) “Comparative linguistics: a bridge that connects us to languages and

people of the past” In P. Lassettre (ed.) Language in Hawai‘i and the Pacific (415–433)
Pearson
Lehmann, W. (ed.) (1967) A Reader in Nineteenth Century Historical Indo-European Linguistics
Indiana University Press
Sihler, A. (2000) Language History: An Introduction John Benjamins

CHAPTER 18

Regional variation in
language

Yesterday, I toll my dad, “Buy chocolate kine now, bumbye somebody going egg our
house you know, cuz you so chang.” He sed, “Sucking kine mo’ bettah cuz lass mo’ long.
Da kids going appreciate cuz . . .” And befo’ he could start his “Back in my days story” I jus
sed, “Yeah, yeah, yeah, I undahstand,” cuz I nevah like hea da story again ah about how
he nevah have candy wen he wuz small and how wuz one TREAT fo’ eat da orange
peel wit sugar on top. Da orange PEEL you know. Not da actual orange, but da orange PEEL.
Strong emphasis on PEEL cuz dey wuz POOR.

Tonouchi (2001)

Throughout this book, we have been talking about languages such as English,
Spanish or Swahili as if there was a single variety of each in everyday use. That is,
we have largely ignored the fact that every language has a lot of variation, especially
in the way it is spoken. If we just look at English, we find widespread variation in
the way it is spoken in different countries such as Australia, Britain and the USA.
We can also find a range of varieties in different parts of those countries, with Lee
Tonouchi’s account of “Trick-O-Treat” in Hawai‘i as just one example. In this
chapter, we investigate aspects of language variation based on where that language
is used, as a way of doing linguistic geography. First, we should identify the
particular variety that we have normally assumed when we referred to a language
as English, Spanish or Swahili.

Regional variation in language 243

The standard language

When we talked about the words and structures of a language in earlier chapters,
we were concentrating on the features of only one variety, usually called the
standard language. This is actually an idealized variety, because it has no specific
region. It is the variety associated with administrative, commercial and educational
centers, regardless of region. If we think of Standard English, it is the version we
believe is found in printed English in newspapers and books, is widely used in the
mass media and is taught in most schools. It is the variety we normally try to teach
to those who want to learn English as a second or foreign language. It is clearly
associated with education and broadcasting in public contexts and is more easily
described in terms of the written language (i.e. vocabulary, spelling, grammar) than
the spoken language.

If we are thinking of that general variety used in mainstream public broadcasting
in the United States, we can refer more specifically to Standard American English or,
in Britain, to Standard British English. In other parts of the world, we can talk about
other recognized varieties such as Standard Australian English, Standard Canadian
English or Standard Indian English.

Accent and dialect

Whether we think we speak a standard variety of English or not, we all speak with
an accent. It is a myth that some speakers have accents while others do not. We
might feel that some speakers have very distinct or easily recognized types of
accent while others may have more subtle or less noticeable accents, but every
language-user speaks with an accent. Technically, the term “accent” is restricted to
the description of aspects of pronunciation that identify where an individual
speaker is from, regionally or socially. It is different from the term dialect, which
is used to describe features of grammar and vocabulary as well as aspects of
pronunciation.

We recognize that the sentence You don’t know what you’re talking about will
generally “look” the same whether spoken with an American accent or a Scottish
accent. Both speakers will be using forms associated with Standard English, but
have different pronunciations. However, this next sentence – Ye dinnae ken whit
yer haverin’ aboot – has the same meaning as the first, but has been written out in
an approximation of what a person who speaks one dialect of Scottish English
might say. There are differences in pronunciation (e.g. whit, aboot), but there are
also examples of different vocabulary (e.g. ken, haverin’) and a different grammat-
ical form (dinnae).

244 The Study of Language

Variation in grammar

While differences in vocabulary are often easily recognized, dialect variations in the
meaning of grammatical constructions are less frequently documented. In the following
example (from Trudgill, 1983) two British English speaking visitors (B and C) and a
local Irish English speaker (A) are involved in a conversation in Donegal, Ireland.

A: How long are youse here?
B: Till after Easter.

(Speaker A looks puzzled.)
C: We came on Sunday.
A: Ah. Youse’re here a while then.

It seems that the construction How long are youse here?, in speaker A’s dialect, is used
with a meaning close to the structure “How long have you been here?” referring to past
time. Speaker B, however, answers as if the question was referring to future time (“How
long are you going to be here?”). When speaker C answers with a past time response (We
came on Sunday), speaker A acknowledges it and repeats his use of a present tense
(Youse’re here) to refer to past time. Note that the dialect form youse (¼ “you” plural)
seems to be understood by the visitors though it is unlikely to be part of their own dialect.

Dialectology

Despite occasional difficulties, there is a general impression of mutual intelligibility
among many speakers of different dialects of English. This is one of the criteria used in
the study of dialects, or dialectology, to distinguish between two different dialects of
the same language (whose speakers can usually understand each other) and two
different languages (whose speakers can’t usually understand each other). This is
not the only, or the most reliable, way of identifying dialects, but it is helpful in
establishing the fact that each different dialect, like each language, is equally worthy
of analysis. It is important to recognize, from a linguistic point of view, that none of the
varieties of a language is inherently “better” than any other. They are simply different.

From a social point of view, however, some varieties do become more prestigious.
In fact, the variety that develops as the standard language has usually been one
socially prestigious dialect, originally associated with a center of economic and
political power (e.g. London for British English and Paris for French). Yet there always
continue to be other varieties of a language spoken in different regions.

Regional dialects

The existence of different regional dialects is widely recognized and often the source
of some humor for those living in different regions. In the United States, people from

Regional variation in language 245

the Brooklyn area of New York may joke about a Southerner’s definition of sex by
telling you that sex is fo’ less than tin, in their best imitation of someone from the
Southern states. In return, Southerners can wonder aloud about what a tree guy is in
Brooklyn, since they have heard Brooklyn speakers refer to doze tree guys. Some
regional dialects clearly have stereotyped pronunciations associated with them.

Going beyond stereotypes, those involved in the serious investigation of
regional dialects have devoted a lot of survey research to the identification of
consistent features of speech found in one geographical area compared to another.
These dialect surveys often involve a lot of attention to detail and operate with very
specific criteria in identifying acceptable informants. After all, it is important to
know if the person whose speech you are recording really is a typical representative
of the region’s dialect.

Consequently, the informants in the dialect surveys of the twentieth century
tended to be NORMS or “non-mobile, older, rural, male speakers.” Such speakers
were selected because they were less likely to have influences from outside the region
in their speech. One unfortunate consequence of using such criteria is that the
resulting dialect description tends to be more accurate of a period well before the
time of investigation. Nevertheless, the detailed information obtained has provided
the basis for a number of Linguistic Atlases of whole countries (e.g. England) and
regions (e.g. the Upper Midwest area of the United States).

Isoglosses and dialect boundaries

We can look at some examples of regional variation found in a survey that resulted in
the Linguistic Atlas of the Upper Midwest of the United States. One of the aims of a
survey of this type is to find a number of significant differences in the speech of those
living in different areas and to be able to chart where the boundaries are, in dialect
terms, between those areas. If it is found, for example, that the vast majority of
informants in one area say they carry things home from the store in a paper bag
while the majority in another area say they use a paper sack, then it is usually possible
to draw a line across a map separating the two areas, as shown in Figure 18.1. This
line is called an isogloss and represents a boundary between the areas with regard to
that one particular linguistic item.

If a very similar distribution is found for other items, such as a preference for pail
to the north and bucket to the south, then other isoglosses can be drawn on the map.
When a number of isoglosses come together in this way, a more solid line, indicating a
dialect boundary, can be drawn.

In Figure 18.1, a small circle indicates where paper bag was used and a plus sign
shows where paper sack was used. The broken line between the two areas represents
an isogloss that roughly coincides with lines separating several other linguistic
features. Using this dialect boundary information, we find that in the Upper Midwest

246 The Study of Language Minnesota Paper bag
North Dakota + Paper sack

++ + +

South Dakota + + ++

+ + ++ + ++
+ +
+ ++ + + ++

+ + + + ++ + ++ +

++ Isogloss

+ + ++ + Iowa + + +

Nebraska

Figure 18.1

of the USA there is a Northern dialect area that includes Minnesota, North Dakota,
most of South Dakota and Northern Iowa. The rest of Iowa and Nebraska show
characteristics of the Midland dialect. Some of the noticeable pronunciation and
vocabulary differences are illustrated here.

Northern: (“taught”) (“roof”) (“creek”) (“greasy”)
Midland: [ɔ] [ʊ] [ɪ] [s]
[ɑ] [u] [i] [z]

Northern: paper bag pail kerosene slippery get sick

Midland: paper sack bucket coal oil slick take sick

So, if an American English (male) speaker pronounces the word greasy as [ɡrizi] and
asks for a bucket to carry water, then he is not likely to have grown up and spent most
of his life in Minnesota. While making this general claim, we shouldn’t forget that,
although the characteristic forms listed here were found in the speech of a large
percentage of those interviewed in the dialect survey, they won’t necessarily be used
by all speakers currently living in the region.

The dialect continuum

Another note of caution is required with regard to dialect boundaries. The drawing of
isoglosses and dialect boundaries is quite useful in establishing a broad view of
regional dialects, but it tends to obscure the fact that, at most dialect boundary areas,
one dialect or language variety merges into another. Keeping this in mind, we can
view regional variation as existing along a dialect continuum rather than as having
sharp breaks from one region to the next.

Regional variation in language 247

A very similar type of continuum can occur with related languages existing on
either side of a political border. As you travel from Holland into Germany, you will
find concentrations of Dutch speakers giving way to areas near the border where
“Dutch” may sound more like “Deutsch” because the Dutch dialects and the German
dialects are less clearly differentiated. Then, as you travel into Germany, greater
concentrations of distinctly German speakers occur.

Speakers who move back and forth across this border area, using different
varieties with some ease, may be described as bidialectal (i.e. “speaking two dia-
lects”). Most of us grow up with some form of bidialectalism, speaking one dialect “in
the street” among family and friends, and having to learn another dialect “in school.”
However, in some places, there are two different languages involved and the people
who know both languages are described as bilingual.

Bilingualism

In many countries, regional variation is not simply a matter of two (or more) dialects
of a single language, but can involve two (or more) quite distinct and different
languages. Canada, for example, is an officially bilingual country, with both French
and English as official languages. This recognition of the linguistic rights of the
country’s French speakers, largely in Quebec, did not come about without a lot of
political upheaval. For most of its history, Canada was essentially an English-speaking
country, with a French-speaking minority group. In such a situation, bilingualism at
the level of the individual tends to be a feature of the minority group. In this form of
bilingualism, a member of a minority group grows up in one linguistic community,
mainly speaking one language (e.g. Welsh in Britain or Spanish in the United States),
but learns another language (e.g. English) in order to take part in the larger dominant
linguistic community.

Indeed, many members of linguistic minorities can live their entire lives without
seeing their native language in the public domain. Sometimes political activism can
change that. It was only after English notices and signs were frequently defaced, or
replaced by scribbled Welsh-language versions, that bilingual (English–Welsh) signs
came into widespread use in Wales. Many henoed never expected to see their first
language on public signs in Wales, as illustrated in Figure 18.2, though they may
wonder why everyone is being warned about them.

Individual bilingualism, however, doesn’t have to be the result of political dom-
inance by a group using a different language. It can simply be the result of having two
parents who speak different languages. If a child simultaneously acquires the French
spoken by her mother and the English spoken by her father, then the distinction
between the two languages may not even be noticed by the child. There will simply be
two ways of talking according to the person being talked to. However, even in this

248 The Study of Language

Figure 18.2
type of bilingualism, one language tends eventually to become the dominant one,
with the other in a subordinate role.

Diglossia
A rather special situation involving two distinct varieties of a language, called
diglossia, exists in some countries. In diglossia, there is a “low” variety, acquired
locally and used for everyday affairs, and a “high” or special variety, learned in school
and used for important matters. A type of diglossia exists in Arabic-speaking countries
where the high variety (Classical Arabic) is used in formal lectures, serious political
events and especially in religious discussions. The low variety is the local version of

Regional variation in language 249

the language, such as Egyptian Arabic or Lebanese Arabic. Through a long period in
European history, a diglossic situation existed with Latin as the high variety and one
of the local languages of Europe (early versions of modern Italian, French and
Spanish) as the low variety or “vernacular.”

Language planning

Perhaps because bilingualism in contemporary Europe and North America tends to be
found mostly among minority groups, many countries are often assumed to be
monolingual. For many of those residents who are only capable of speaking one
language (English), the United States would indeed seem to be a monolingual coun-
try. For others, it clearly is not, because they live in large communities where English
is not the first language of the home. As one example, the majority of the population
in San Antonio, Texas, will be more likely to listen to radio broadcasts in Spanish than
in English. This simple fact has quite large repercussions in terms of the organization
of local representative government and the educational system. Should elementary
school teaching take place in Spanish or English?

Consider a similar question in the context of Guatemala, a country in Central
America, where there are twenty-six Mayan languages spoken, as well as Spanish.
If, in this situation, Spanish is selected as the language of education, are all those
Mayan speakers put at an early educational disadvantage within the society?
Questions of this type require answers on the basis of some type of language
planning. Government, legal and educational organizations in many countries
have to plan which variety or varieties of the languages spoken in the country are
to be used for official business. In Israel, despite the fact that it was not the most
widely used language among the population, Hebrew was chosen as the official
government language. In India, the choice was Hindi, yet in many non-Hindi-
speaking regions, there were riots against this decision. There were “National
Language Wars” in the Philippines before different groups could agree on the name
of the national language (Filipino).

The process of language planning may be seen in a better light when the full series
of stages is implemented over a number of years. The adoption of Swahili as the
national language of Tanzania in East Africa may serve as a good example. There still
exist a large number of other languages, as well as the colonial vestiges of English, but
the educational, legal and government systems have gradually introduced Swahili as
the official language. The process of “selection” (choosing an official language) is
followed by “codification,” in which basic grammars, dictionaries and written models
are used to establish the standard variety. The process of “elaboration” follows, with
the standard variety being developed for use in all aspects of social life and the
appearance of a body of literary work written in the standard. The process of
“implementation” is largely a matter of government attempts to encourage use of

250 The Study of Language

the standard, and “acceptance” is the final stage when a substantial majority of the
population use the standard and think of it as the national language, playing a part in
not only social, but also national identity.

Pidgins

In some areas, the standard chosen may be a variety that originally had no native
speakers in the country. For example, in Papua New Guinea, with more than eight
hundred different languages, a lot of official business is conducted in Tok Pisin. This
language is now used by over a million people, but it began many years earlier as a
kind of impromptu language called a pidgin. A variety of a language described as a
pidgin is often discussed as a “contact” language that developed for some practical
purpose, such as trading, among groups of people who had a lot of contact, but who
did not know each other’s languages. As such, it would have no native speakers. The
origin of the term “pidgin” is thought to be from a Chinese version of the English word
“business.”

A pidgin is described as an “English Pidgin” if English is the lexifier language,
that is, the main source of words adopted in the pidgin. It doesn’t mean that those
words will have the same pronunciation or meaning as in the source. For example,
the word gras has its origins in the English word “grass,” but in Tok Pisin it also
came to be used for “hair.” It is part of mausgras (“moustache”) and gras bilong fes
(“beard”).

There are several English pidgins still used today. They are characterized by an
absence of any complex grammatical morphology and a somewhat limited vocabu-
lary. Inflectional suffixes such as -s (plural) and -’s (possessive) are required on nouns
in Standard English, but are rare in English pidgins, while structures like tu buk (“two
books”) and di gyal place (“the girl’s place”) are common. Functional morphemes
often take the place of inflectional morphemes found in the source language. For
example, instead of changing the form of you to your, as in the English phrase your
book, English-based pidgins use a form like bilong, and change the word order to
produce phrases like buk bilong yu, as well as gras bilong fes.

The syntax of pidgins can be quite unlike the languages from which terms
were borrowed and modified, as can be seen in this example from an earlier stage
of Tok Pisin.

Baimbai hed bilongyu i-arrait gain

by and by head belong you he alright again

“Your head will soon get well again”

There are believed to be between six and twelve million people still using pidgin
languages and between ten and seventeen million using descendants from pidgins
called “creoles.”

Regional variation in language 251

Creoles

When a Pidgin develops beyond its role as a trade or contact language and becomes
the first language of a social community, it is described as a creole. Tok Pisin is now a
creole. The first language of a large number of people in Hawai‘i is also a creole and,
though still locally referred to as “Pidgin,” is more accurately described as “Hawai‘i
Creole English.” A creole initially develops as the first language of children growing up
in a pidgin-using community and becomes more complex as it serves more communi-
cative purposes. Thus, unlike pidgins, creoles have large numbers of native speakers
and are not restricted at all in their uses. A French creole is spoken by the majority of
the population in Haiti and English creoles are used in Jamaica and Sierra Leone.

The separate vocabulary elements of a pidgin can become grammatical elements
in a creole. The form baimbai yu go (“by and by you go”) in early Tok Pisin gradually
shortened to bai yu go, and finally to yu bigo, with a grammatical structure not unlike
that of its English translation equivalent, “you will go.”

The post-creole continuum

In many contemporary situations where creoles evolved, there is usually evidence of
another process at work. Just as there was development from a pidgin to a creole,
known as creolization, there is now often a retreat from the use of the creole by those
who have greater contact with a standard variety of the language. Where education
and greater social prestige are associated with a “higher” variety (e.g. British English
in Jamaica), a number of speakers will tend to use fewer creole forms and structures.
This process, known as decreolization, leads at one extreme to a variety that is closer
to the external standard model and leaves, at the other extreme, a basic variety with
more local creole features. Between these two extremes may be a range of slightly
different varieties, some with many and some with fewer creole features. This range
of varieties, evolving after (¼ “post”) the creole has come into existence, is called the
post-creole continuum.

So, in Jamaica, one speaker may say a fi mi buk dat, using the basic creole variety,
another may put it as iz mi buk, using a variety with fewer creole features, and yet
another may choose it’s my book, using a variety with only some pronunciation
features of the creole, or a “creole accent.” It is also very common for speakers to
be able to use a range of varieties in different situations.

We would predict that these differences would be tied very much to social values
and social identity. In the course of discussing language varieties in terms of regional
differences, we have excluded, in a rather artificial way, the complex social factors
that are also at work in determining language variation. In Chapter 19, we’ll investi-
gate the influence of a number of these social variables.

252 The Study of Language

STUDY QUESTIONS

1 Which variety of English would you say is being used in the introductory
quotation from Lee Tonouchi?

2 What is the difference between an accent and a dialect?
3 In this example from Irish English (How long are youse here?), is the speaker

referring to future time or past time?
4 What is one disadvantage of using NORMS in dialect surveys?
5 What does an isogloss represent in a linguistic atlas?
6 In what specific way is a creole different from a pidgin?

TASKS

A In which areas of the British Isles would we find a Brummie accent,
a Geordie accent, a speaker of Scouse, the use of bairns (¼ “children”), boyo
(¼ “man”), fink (¼ “think”) and Would you be after wanting some tea?
(¼ “Do you want some tea?”)?

B Although speakers of American English and British English can usually
understand each other, there are some differences in vocabulary use that
occasionally cause confusion. Can you put the following words in the
appropriate spaces below?

angry, bill, biscuit, bonnet, boot, candy, check, cookie, cot, crib, crisps, diaper,
dummy, estate agent, flashlight, garbage, gas, hood, jumper, mad, nappy,
pacifier, pants, petrol, potato chips, real, really, realtor, rubbish, sneakers,
sweater, sweets, torch, trainers, trousers, trunk, vest, waistcoat

Example: Would you like a chocolate ______ with your coffee? American British
(1) He should wear a white shirt and dark ________. English English
(2) It’s really dark outside, you’ll need a ________. cookie biscuit
(3) I bought some new ________ in order to go running. ______ ______
(4) It’s all ________, so just throw it all away. ______ ______
(5) The small child had a ________ in its mouth. ______ ______
(6) Eating a lot of ________ is bad for your teeth. ______ ______
(7) (In a restaurant) Can we have the ________, please? ______ ______
(8) Do you want some ________ with your sandwich? ______ ______
(9) You’d better bring a _______ because it’s quite chilly. ______ ______
______ ______
______ ______

Regional variation in language 253

(10) What does a gallon of ________ cost these days? ______ ______
(11) The ________ thinks the house will sell quickly. ______ ______
(12) He was wearing a yellow ________ under his jacket. ______ ______
(13) It didn’t bother me, but it made John ________. ______ ______
(14) In most cars, the spare wheel is in the ________, and ______ ______
______ ______
not under the ________. ______ ______
(15) After I change the baby’s ________, I usually put her ______ ______

down in her ________ for a nap.

C Two pioneers of dialectology were Georg Wenker and Jules Gillie´ron. In what ways
were their methods different and which method became the model for later dialect
studies?

D Consider the following statements about Standard English and try to decide
whether you agree or disagree with them, providing a reason in each case for your
decision.
(1) Standard English is not a language.
(2) Standard English is an accent.
(3) Standard English is a speech style.
(4) Standard English is a set of rules for correct usage.

E In the study of pidgins, what is meant by a “substrate” and a “superstrate”
language? Which of the two is likely to be the source of intonation, syntax and
vocabulary?

F The following examples are based on Romaine (1989), quoted in Holmes (2013).
Using what you learned about Tok Pisin, can you complete the translations of these
examples with the following English words and phrases: bird’s feather, bird’s wing,
cat’s fur, eyebrow, hair, weed?

gras antap long ai gras bilong pisin gras nogut

gras bilong hed gras bilong pusi han bilong pisin

G The following example of Hawai‘i Creole English (from Lum, 1990, quoted in
Nichols, 2004) has some characteristic forms and structures. How would you
analyze the use of da, had, one, stay and wen in this extract?

Had one nudda guy in one tee-shirt was sitting at da table next to us was
watching da Bag Man too. He was eating one plate lunch and afterwards, he wen
take his plate ovah to da Bag Man. Still had little bit everyting on top, even had
bar-ba-que meat left.

“Bra,” da guy tell, “you like help me finish? I stay full awready.”

254 The Study of Language

DISCUSSION TOPICS/PROJECTS

I Peter Trudgill has noted that “increased geographical mobility during the course of
the twentieth century led to the disappearance of many dialects and dialect forms
through a process we can call dialect levelling – the levelling out of differences
between one dialect and another” (2000: 155).
Do you think that “dialect levelling” is continuing in the geographical area you
are most familiar with? Does this mean that there will eventually be only
one dialect? What other forces might be at work that would cause new dialects
to emerge?
(For background reading, see chapter 8 of Trudgill, 2000.)

II English is not the official language of the United States, but some insist that it
should be. What are the arguments for and against the “English-Only Movement”?
(For background reading, see Wiley, 2004.)

FURTHER READING

Basic treatments
Crystal, D. (2003) The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language (chapter 20) (2nd

edition) Cambridge University Press
Kretzschmar. W. (2004) “Regional dialects” In E. Finegan and J. Rickford (eds.) Language in the

USA (39–57) Cambridge University Press
More detailed treatments
Chambers, J. and P. Trudgill (1998) Dialectology (2nd edition) Cambridge University Press
Wardhaugh, R. (2009) An Introduction to Sociolinguistics (6th edition) Blackwell
American English dialects
Wolfram, W. and B. Ward (eds.) (2006) American Voices: How Dialects Differ from Coast to Coast

Blackwell
British English dialects
Hughes, A., P. Trudgill and D. Watt (2012) English Accents and Dialects (5th edition) Hodder

Education
Other varieties of English
Melchers, G. and P. Shaw (2011) World Englishes (2nd edition) Hodder Education
Trudgill, P. and J. Hannah (2013) International English (5th edition) Routledge
Bilingualism
Grosjean, F. (2010) Bilingual Harvard University Press
Myers-Scotton, C. (2005) Multiple Voices Wiley
Language planning
Spolsky, B. (2009) Language Management Cambridge University Press

Regional variation in language 255

Pidgins and creoles
Nichols, J. (2004) “Creole languages: forging new identities” In E. Finegan and J. Rickford

(eds.) Language in the USA (133–152) Cambridge University Press
Siegel, J. (2008) The Emergence of Pidgin and Creole Languages Oxford University Press
The Dutch–German dialect continuum
Barbour, S. and P. Stevenson (1990) Variation in German Cambridge University Press
Tok Pisin (baimbai)
Sankoff, G. and S. Laberge (1974) “On the acquisition of native speakers by a language” In

D. DeCamp and I. Hancock (eds.) Pidgins and Creoles (73–84) Georgetown University Press
Smith, G. (2008) Growing up with Tok Pisin: Contact, Creolization and Change in Papua New

Guinea’s National Language Battlebridge
Hawai‘i Creole English
Drager, K. (2012) “Pidgin and Hawai‘i English: an overview” International Journal of Language,

Translation and Intercultural Communication 1: 61–73
Sakoda. K. and J. Siegel (2003) Pidgin Grammar Bess Press
Other references
Holmes, J. (2013) An Introduction to Sociolinguistics (4th edition) Pearson Education
Lum, D. (1990) Pass On, No Pass Back Bamboo Ridge Press
Romaine, S. (1989) Pidgin and Creole Languages Longman
Trudgill, P. (1983) On Dialect Blackwell
Trudgill, P. (2000) Sociolinguistics (4th edition) Penguin
Wiley, T. (2004) “Language planning, language policy, and the English-Only movement” In

E. Finegan and J. Rickford (eds.) Language in the USA (319–338) Cambridge University
Press

CHAPTER 19

Social variation in
language

Neither shake thy head, feet, or legges. Rowle not thine eyes. Lift not one of thine
eye-browes higher than thine other. Wry not thy mouth. Take heed that with they spettle
thou bedew not his face with whom thou speakest, and to that end, approach not
too nigh him.

Hawkins (1646)

In the preceding chapter, we focused on variation in language use found in
different geographical areas. However, not everyone in a single geographical area
speaks in the same way in every situation. We recognize that certain uses of
language, such as slang, are more likely to be found in the speech of some individuals
in society and not others. We are also aware of the fact that people who live in
the same region, but who differ in terms of education and economic status, often
speak in quite different ways. Indeed, these differences may be used, implicitly or
explicitly, as indications of membership in different social groups or speech
communities. A speech community is a group of people who share a set of norms and
expectations regarding the use of language. The study of the linguistic features
that have social relevance for participants in those speech communities is called
“sociolinguistics.”

Social variation in language 257

Sociolinguistics

The term sociolinguistics is used generally for the study of the relationship between
language and society. This is a broad area of investigation that developed through the
interaction of linguistics with a number of other academic disciplines that look at
language in its social context such as anthropology, sociology and social psychology.
We use all these connections when we try to analyze language from a social perspective.

Social dialects

Whereas the traditional study of regional dialects tended to concentrate on the speech
of people in rural areas, as noted in Chapter 18, the study of social dialects has been
mainly concerned with speakers in towns and cities. In the social study of dialect, it is
social class that is mainly used to define groups of speakers as having something in
common. The two main groups are generally identified as “middle class,” those who
have more years of education and perform non-manual work, and “working-class,”
those who have fewer years of education and perform manual work of some kind. So,
when we refer to “working-class speech,” we are talking about a social dialect. The
terms “upper” and “lower” are used to subdivide the groups, mainly on an economic
basis, making “upper-middle-class speech” another type of social dialect or sociolect.

As in all dialect studies, only certain features of language use are treated as
relevant in the analysis of social dialects. These features are pronunciations, words
or structures that are regularly used in one form by working-class speakers and in
another form by middle-class speakers. In Edinburgh, Scotland, for example, the word
home is regularly pronounced as [heɪm], as if rhyming with fame, among lower-
working-class speakers, and as [hom], as if rhyming with foam, among middle-class
speakers. It’s a small difference in pronunciation, but it’s an indicator of social status.
A more familiar example might be the verb ain’t, as in I ain’t finished yet, which is
used more often in working-class speech than in middle-class speech.

When we look for other examples of language use that might be characteristic of a
social dialect, we treat class as the social variable and the pronunciation or word as the
linguistic variable. We can then investigate any systematic variation in usage by counting
how often speakers in each class use each version of the linguistic variable. This is rarely
an all-or-nothing situation, so we usually find that one group uses a certain form more or
less than another and not that only one group or the other uses the form exclusively.

Education and occupation

Although the unique circumstances of every life result in each of us having an
individual way of speaking, a personal dialect or idiolect, we generally tend to sound
like others with whom we share similar educational backgrounds and/or occupations.

258 The Study of Language

Among those who leave the educational system at an early age, there is a general
pattern of using certain forms that are relatively infrequent in the speech of those who
go on to complete college. Expressions such as those contained in Them boys throwed
somethin’ or It wasn’t us what done it are generally associated with speakers who
have spent less time in education. Those who spend more time in the educational
system tend to have more features in their spoken language that derive from a lot of
time spent with the written language, so that threw is more likely than throwed and
who occurs more often than what in references to people.

As adults, the outcome of our time in the educational system is usually reflected
in our occupation and socio-economic status. The way bank executives, as opposed
to window cleaners, talk to each other usually provides linguistic evidence for the
significance of these social variables. In the 1960s, sociolinguist William Labov
combined elements from place of occupation and socio-economic status by looking
at pronunciation differences among salespeople in three New York City department
stores (see Labov, 2006). They were Saks Fifth Avenue (with expensive items, upper-
middle-class status), Macy’s (medium priced, middle-class status) and Klein’s (with
cheaper items, working-class status). Labov went into each of these stores and asked
salespeople specific questions, such as Where are the women’s shoes?, in order to elicit
answers with the expression fourth floor. This expression contains two opportunities
for the pronunciation (or not) of postvocalic /r/, that is, the /r/ sound after a vowel.

In the department stores, there was a regular pattern in the answers. The higher
the socio-economic status of the store, the more /r/ sounds were produced, and the
lower the status, the fewer /r/ sounds were produced by those who worked there. So,
the frequency of this linguistic variable (r) marked the speech as upper middle class,
middle class or working class.

In a British study conducted in Reading, about 40 miles west of London, Trudgill
(1974) found that the social value associated with the same variable (r) was quite
different. Middle-class speakers in Reading pronounced fewer /r/ sounds than
working-class speakers. In this particular city, upper-middle-class speakers didn’t
seem to pronounce postvocalic /r/ at all. They said things like Oh, that’s mahvellous,
dahling!. The results of these two studies are shown in Table 19.1 (from Romaine,
2000).

Table 19.1 Percentages of groups pronouncing postvocalic /r/

Social class New York City Reading

upper middle class 32 0
lower middle class 20 28
upper working class 12 44
lower working class 49
0

Social variation in language 259

Social markers

As shown in Table 19.1, the significance of the linguistic variable (r) can be virtually
the opposite in terms of social status in two different places, yet in both places the
patterns illustrate how the use of this particular speech sound functions as a social
marker. That is, having this feature occur frequently in your speech (or not) marks
you as a member of a particular social group, whether you realize it or not.

There are other pronunciation features that function as social markers. One
feature that seems to be a fairly stable indication of lower class and less education,
throughout the English-speaking world, is the final pronunciation of -ing with [n]
rather than [ŋ] at the end of words such as sitting and thinking. Pronunciations
represented by sittin’ and thinkin’ are typically associated with working-class speech.

Another social marker is called “[h]-dropping,” which makes the words at and hat
sound the same. It occurs at the beginning of words and can result in utterances that
sound like I’m so ’ungry I could eat an ’orse. In contemporary English, this feature is
associated with lower class and less education. It seems to have had a similar
association as a social marker for Charles Dickens, writing in the middle of the
nineteenth century. He used it as a way of indicating that the character Uriah Heep,
in the novel David Copperfield, was from a lower class, as in this example (from
Mugglestone, 1995).

“I am well aware that I am the umblest person going,” said Uriah Heep, modestly;
“ . . . My mother is likewise a very umble person. We live in a numble abode, Master
Copperfield, but we have much to be thankful for. My father’s former calling was
umble.”

Speech style and style-shifting

In his department store study, Labov included another subtle element that allowed
him not only to investigate the type of social stratification illustrated in Table 19.1, but
also speech style as a social feature of language use. The most basic distinction in
speech style is between formal uses and informal uses. Formal style is when we pay
more careful attention to how we’re speaking and informal style is when we pay
less attention. They are sometimes described as “careful style” and “casual style.”
A change from one to the other by an individual is called style-shifting.

When Labov initially asked the salespeople where certain items were, he assumed
they were answering in an informal manner. After they answered his question, Labov
then pretended not to have heard and said, “Excuse me?” in order to elicit a repetition
of the same expression, which was pronounced with more attention to being clear.
This was taken as a representative sample of the speaker’s more careful style. When
speakers repeated the phrase fourth floor, the frequency of postvocalic /r/ increased in

260 The Study of Language

all groups. The most significant increase in frequency was among the Macy’s group.
In a finding that has been confirmed in other studies, middle-class speakers are much
more likely to shift their style of speaking significantly in the direction of the upper
middle class when they are using a careful style.

It is possible to use more elaborate elicitation procedures to create more gradation
in the category of style. Asking someone to read a short text out loud will result in
more attention to speech than simply asking them to answer some questions in an
interview. Asking that same individual to read out loud a list of individual words
taken from the text will result in even more careful pronunciation of those words and
hence a more formal version of the individual’s speech style.

When Labov analyzed the way New Yorkers performed in these elicitation pro-
cedures, he found a general overall increase in postvocalic /r/ in all groups as the task
required more attention to speech. Among the lower-middle-class speakers, the
increase was so great in the pronunciation of the word lists that their frequency
of postvocalic /r/ was actually higher than among upper-middle-class speakers. As
other studies have confirmed, when speakers in a middle-status group try to use
a prestige form associated with a higher-status group in a formal situation, they have
a tendency to overuse the form. This pattern has also been observed in studies of
“hypercorrection” (see Chapter 7), where speakers can produce different forms or odd
pronunciations as they shift their speech style to try to “speak better.”

Prestige

In discussing style-shifting, we introduced the idea of a “prestige” form as a way of
explaining the direction in which certain individuals change their speech. When that
change is in the direction of a form that is more frequent in the speech of those
perceived to have higher social status, we are dealing with overt prestige, or status
that is generally recognized as “better” or more positively valued in the larger
community.

There is, however, another phenomenon called covert prestige. This “hidden”
status of a speech style as having positive value may explain why certain groups do
not exhibit style-shifting to the same extent as other groups. For example, we might
ask why many lower-working-class speakers do not change their speech style from
casual to careful as radically as lower-middle-class speakers. The answer may be that
they value the features that mark them as members of their own social group. They
may value group solidarity (i.e. sounding like those around them) more than upward
mobility (i.e. sounding like those above them).

Among younger speakers in the middle class, there is often covert prestige
attached to many features of pronunciation and grammar (I ain’t doin’ nuttin’ rather
than I’m not doing anything) that are more often associated with the speech of lower-
status groups.

Social variation in language 261

Speech accommodation

As we look closely at variation in speech style, we can see that it is not only based on
speakers’ social class and attention to speech, but is also influenced by their percep-
tion of their listeners. This type of variation is sometimes described in terms of
“audience design,” but is more generally known as speech accommodation,
defined as our ability to modify our speech style toward or away from the perceived
style of the person(s) we’re talking to.

Convergence

We can adopt a speech style that attempts to reduce social distance, described as
convergence, and use forms that are similar to those used by the person we’re talking
to. In the following examples (from Holmes, 2013), a teenage boy is asking to see some
holiday photographs. In the first example, he is talking to his friend, and in the second
example, he is talking to his friend’s mother. The request is essentially the same, but
the style is different as the speaker converges with the speech style of the other.
C’mon Tony, gizzalook, gizzalook.
Excuse me. Could I have a look at your photos too, Mrs. Hall?

Divergence

While we may want or try to sound like others in some social interactions to empha-
size social closeness, there are other times when we may prefer to create the opposite
effect. When a speech style is used to emphasize social distance between speakers,
the process is called divergence. We can make our speech style diverge from
another’s by using forms that are distinctly different. In the third line of the following
example, the Scottish teenager shifts to a speech style with features that differ
substantially from the first line (while essentially saying the same thing).

Teenager: I can’t do it, sir.
Teacher: Oh, come on. If I can do it, you can too.
Teenager: Look, I cannae dae it so . . .

The sudden divergence in style seems to be triggered not only by a need to add
emphasis to his repeated statement, but also by the “We’re the same” claim of his
teacher. This teenager is using speech style to mark that they are not the same.

Register

Another influence on speech style that is tied to social identity derives from register.
A register is a conventional way of using language that is appropriate in a specific

262 The Study of Language

context, which may be identified as situational (e.g. in church), occupational (e.g.
among lawyers) or topical (e.g. talking about language). We can recognize specific
features that occur in the religious register (Ye shall be blessed by Him in times of
tribulation), the legal register (The plaintiff is ready to take the witness stand) and
even the linguistics register (In the morphology of this dialect there are fewer inflec-
tional suffixes).

Jargon

One of the defining features of a register is the use of jargon, which is special
technical vocabulary, typically nouns (e.g. plaintiff, suffix), associated with a specific
area of work or interest. In social terms, jargon helps to create and maintain connec-
tions among those who see themselves as “insiders” in some way and to exclude
“outsiders.” In many ways, it is the learning of the appropriate jargon of a profession
that qualifies an individual as a valid professional within that area of expertise. This
exclusive effect of specialized jargon, as in the medical register (e.g. Zanoxyn is a
nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug for arthritis, bursitis and tendonitis), often leads
to complaints about what may seem like “jargonitis.”

Slang

Whereas jargon is specialized vocabulary used by those inside established social
groups, often defined by professional status (e.g. legal jargon), slang is more typically
used among those who are outside established higher-status groups. Slang, or “collo-
quial speech,” describes words or phrases that are used instead of more everyday
terms among younger speakers and other groups with special interests. The word
bucks (for dollars or money) has been a slang expression for more than a hundred
years in the United States, but the addition of mega- (“a lot of”) in megabucks is a
more recent innovation, along with dead presidents (whose pictures are on paper
money) and benjamins (from Benjamin Franklin, on $100 bills).

Like clothing and music, slang is an aspect of social life that is subject to fashion,
especially among adolescents. It can be used by those inside a group who share ideas
and attitudes as a way of distinguishing themselves from others. As a marker of group
identity during a limited stage of life such as early adolescence, slang expressions can
“grow old” rather quickly. Older forms for “really good” such as groovy, hip and super
were replaced by awesome, rad and wicked which gave way to dope, kickass and phat.
A hunk (“physically attractive man”) became a hottie and, instead of something being
the pits (“really bad”), the next generation thought it was a bummer, harsh!, or said,
That’s sucky!. The difference in slang use between groups divided into older and
younger speakers provides some of the clearest support for the idea that age is another
important factor involved in the study of social variation in language use.

Social variation in language 263

Taboo terms

However, the use of slang can vary within the younger social group, as illustrated by
the use of obscenities or taboo terms. Taboo terms are words and phrases that people
avoid for reasons related to religion, politeness and prohibited behavior. They are
often swear words, typically “bleeped” in public broadcasting (What the bleep are you
doing, you little bleep!) or “starred” in print (S**t! You stupid f***ing a**hole!).

In a study of the linguistic differences among “Jocks” (higher status) and “Burn-
outs” (lower status) in Detroit high schools, Eckert (2000) reported the regular use of
taboo words among the “Burnouts,” both males and females. However, among the
higher status group (the “Jocks”) males used taboo words only with other males,
while females didn’t seem to use them at all. Social class divisions, at least in the use
of slang, are already well established during adolescence.

African American English

In much of the preceding discussion, we have been reviewing research on social
variation based mainly on examples from British English and what we might call
“European” American English. Labeling one general social variety according to the
historical origins of the speakers allows us to put it in contrast with another major
variety called African American English (AAE). Also known as Black English or
Ebonics, AAE is a variety used by many (not all) African Americans in many different
regions of the USA. It has a number of characteristic features that, taken together,
form a distinct set of social markers.

In much the same way as large geographical barriers, such as oceans, rivers and
mountains separating groups of people, foster linguistic differences in regional dia-
lects, social barriers such as discrimination and segregation serve to create marked
differences between social dialects. In the case of AAE, those different features have
often been stigmatized as “bad” language, following a regular pattern whereby the
social practices, especially speech, of dominated groups are treated as “abnormal” by
those dominant groups who have decided that they are in charge of defining
“normal.” Although AAE speakers continue to experience the effects of discrimin-
ation, their social dialect often has covert prestige among younger members of other
social groups, particularly with regard to popular music, and certain features of AAE
may be used in expressions of social identity by many who are not African American.

Vernacular language

The form of AAE that has been most studied is usually described as African Ameri-
can Vernacular English (AAVE). The term “vernacular” has been used since the
Middle Ages, first to describe early local versions of the European languages that

264 The Study of Language

eventually became French, Italian and Spanish (low prestige) in contrast to Latin
(high prestige), then to characterize any non-standard spoken version of a language
used by lower status groups. So, the vernacular is a general expression for a kind of
social dialect, typically spoken by a lower-status group, which is treated as “non-
standard” because of marked differences from the “standard” language. (See Chapter
18 for more on the concept of the standard language.). As the vernacular language of
African Americans, AAVE shares a number of features with other non-standard
varieties, such as “Chicano English,” spoken in some Hispanic American commu-
nities. Varieties of what has been called “Asian American English” are also character-
ized by some of the pronunciation features described in studies of this vernacular.

The sounds of a vernacular

A pervasive phonological feature in AAVE and other English vernaculars is the
tendency to reduce final consonant clusters, so that words ending in two consonants
(left hand) are often pronounced as if there is only one (lef han). This can affect the
pronunciation of past tense -ed forms in certain contexts, with expressions such as
iced tea and I passed the test sounding like ice tea and I pass the tess. This characteris-
tic is shared with many pidgins and creoles, as described in Chapter 18, and has led to
the suggestion that AAVE may have initially come into being in a way similar to other
English creoles.

Initial dental consonants (think, that) are frequently pronounced as alveolar stops
(tink, dat), with the result that the definite article (the) is heard as [də], as in You da
man!. Other morphological features, such as possessive -’s (John’s girlfriend) and
third person singular -s (she loves him), are not typically used (John girlfriend, she love
him). Also, when a phrase contains an obvious indication of plural number, the
plural -s marker (guys, friends) is usually not included (two guy, one of my friend).

The grammar of a vernacular

It is typically in aspects of grammar that AAVE and other vernaculars are most
stigmatized as being “illogical” or “sloppy.” One frequently criticized element is the
double negative construction, as in He don’t know nothin or I ain’t afraid of no ghosts.
Because the negative is expressed twice, these structures have been condemned as
“illogical” (since one negative supposedly cancels the other). Yet this feature of AAVE
can be found in many other English dialects and in other languages such as French: il
ne sait rien (literally, “he not knows nothing”). It was also common in Old English: Ic
naht singan ne cu∂e (literally, “I not sing not could”). There is nothing inherently
illogical about these structures, which can extend to multiple negatives, allowing
greater emphasis on the negative aspect of the message, as in He don’t never do
nothin.

Table 19.2 AAVE structures Social variation in language 265
Activity or state
current (¼ now) AAVE structures
recurring or habitual (¼ usually)
started or happened earlier (¼ from the past) he busy
he playin ball
he be busy
he be playin ball
he bin busy
he bin playin ball

The “sloppy” criticism focuses on the frequent absence of forms of the verb “to
be” (are, is) in AAVE expressions such as You crazy or She workin now. It may be more
accurate to say that wherever are and is can be contracted in the casual style of other
varieties (You’re crazy, She’s working), they are not articulated in AAVE. Formal styles
of Standard English require are and is in such expressions, but many regional varieties
do not. Nor do many other languages such as Arabic and Russian require forms of “to
be” in similar contexts. This aspect of the structure of AAVE speech can’t be “sloppy”
any more than it would be “sloppy” in the everyday talk of Arabic or Russian
speakers.

While AAVE speakers don’t include the auxiliary verb is in structures such as She
workin now, to describe what is happening currently, they can use be (not is), as in
She be workin downtown now, as a way of expressing habitual action, as shown in
Table 19.2. That is, the presence or absence of be distinguishes between what is a
recurring activity or state and what is currently happening. To talk about a habitual
action that started or happened in the past, AAVE uses bin (typically stressed), not
was, as in She bin workin there. In effect, the use of habitual be or bin, and the
absence of forms of “to be” in present state expressions, are all consistent features in
the grammar of AAVE. The negative versions of these verbs are formed with don’t (not
doesn’t) and the verb is not used with a contracted negative. So, in AAVE, She don’t be
workin is grammatical, whereas *She doesn’t be workin and *She ben’t workin would
be considered ungrammatical.

In this discussion, we have focused on the linguistic features of social dialects of
different groups. Yet those groups are not only distinguished by the basic language
they use, but by more general factors such as beliefs and assumptions about the world
and their experience of it. This is usually discussed in terms of “culture,” the subject
of Chapter 20.

266 The Study of Language

STUDY QUESTIONS

1 How would you define a “speech community”?
2 What is the difference between jargon and slang?
3 Why did Labov try to elicit answers with the expression fourth floor?
4 In what way can the pronunciation of -ing be a social marker?
5 What is meant by a “register”?
6 In AAVE, what is communicated by be in He don’t be smokin now?

TASKS

A How does “micro-sociolinguistics” differ from “macro-sociolinguistics”?

B In the study of social dialects, what is “the observer’s paradox” and how can it be
overcome?

C What is the difference between style-shifting and code-switching?

D What is the origin of the term “Ebonics” and how has its meaning changed?

E Variation in language use according to social status is evident in those languages

that have a system of honorifics. What are honorifics and in which languages are

they most commonly used?

Using what you discover about honorifics, try to decide which speaker (A or B,

C or D) in these two dialogues has superior status within the business organization

in which they both work (from Shibatani, 2001: 556).

(1) A: Konban nomi ni ikoo ka

tonight drink to go question

B: Ee, iki-masyoo
yes, go-honorific

(2) C: Konban nomi ni iki-masyoo ka
tonight drink to go-honorific question

D: Un, ikoo
yes, let’s go

F According to Fought (2003), Chicano English is spoken in the south-western region
of the USA (from Texas to California), mainly by individuals of Mexican-American
heritage. Consider the following statements about Chicano English and try to
decide whether you agree or disagree with them, providing a reason in each case
for your decision.

(1) Chicano English is a dialect of American English.
(2) Chicano English is another term for “Spanglish.”

Social variation in language 267

Table 19.3 Sociolinguistic distribution of general extenders

Reading Milton Keynes Hull

middle working middle working middle working
class class class class class class

and that 4 49 9 44 10 66
and all that 4 14 24 14
and stuff 36 45 5
and things 32 6 35 0 62 18
and everything 21 0 22 18 12 5
or something 72 16 30 17 30 31
20 23 9

(3) Chicano English is simply ungrammatical or “broken” English, as exemplified
by sentences such as Everybody knew the Cowboys was gonna win again and
She don’t know Brenda.

(4) Chicano English is the second language learner’s English of people from
countries where Spanish is spoken.

(5) There are no native speakers of Chicano English.

G The information in Table 19.3, adapted from Cheshire (2007: 164),
represents the distribution of some expressions called general extenders in the
speech of teenagers (fourteen to fifteen years old) in three different English
towns. Examples of general extenders are in the left column of the table and
illustrated in these sentences: I like watching sport and stuff, I cook
occasionally on weekends and things and I think they must’ve broken up
or something.
The numbers in the table represent how often each form is used
(per 10,000 words) by middle-class and working-class groups of teenagers in
each town.
(i) What are the three most common general extenders used by these teenagers
overall?

(ii) Which social class uses the most general extenders?

(iii) Which of the adjunctive general extenders (those beginning with and) is most
typical of middle-class speech and which one is most typical of working-class
speech?

(iv) In which town is this class difference in speech most noticeable?

(v) What are the three most common general extenders in use where you
live?

268 The Study of Language

DISCUSSION TOPICS/PROJECTS

I According to Brown and Attardo (2005: 114):

If children move to an area before the age of nine, they are able to “pick up” the
local dialect, which their parents do not.

Do you think this statement is true of both regional dialect and social dialect? When
and how do you think people develop their social dialects?
(For background reading, see chapter 6 of Brown and Attardo, 2005.)
II From a linguistic point of view, there are no good or bad varieties of a language.
However, there is a social process called “language subordination” whereby some
varieties are treated as having less value than others. Can you describe how this
process works in any social situation you are familiar with?
(For background reading, see Lippi-Green, 2011.)

FURTHER READING

Basic treatments
Crystal, D. (2003) The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language (2nd edition)

(chapter 21) Cambridge University Press
Spolsky, B. (1998) Sociolinguistics Oxford University Press
More detailed treatments
Holmes, J. (2013) An Introduction to Sociolinguistics (4th edition) Pearson
Romaine, S. (2000) Language in Society (2nd edition) Oxford University Press
Speech style
Eckert, P. and J. Rickford (eds.) (2001) Style and Sociolinguistic Variation Cambridge

University Press
Speech accommodation
Giles, H. (2001) “Speech accommodation” In R. Mesthrie (ed.) Concise Encyclopedia of

Sociolinguistics (193–197) Elsevier
Register
Biber, D. and S. Conrad (2009) Register, Genre and Style Cambridge University Press
Downes, W. (2001) “Register” In R. Mesthrie (ed.) Concise Encyclopedia of Sociolinguistics

(259–262) Elsevier
Slang and adolescent speech
Eble, C. (2004) “Slang” In E. Finegan and J. Rickford (eds.) Language in the USA (375–386)

Cambridge University Press

Social variation in language 269

Eckert, P. (2004) “Adolescent language” In E. Finegan and J. Rickford (eds.) Language in the
USA (361–374) Cambridge University Press

African American English
Green, L. (2002) African American English Cambridge University Press
Smitherman, G. (2000) Talkin that Talk Routledge
Other references
Brown, S. and S. Attardo (2005) Understanding Language Structure, Interaction and Variation

(2nd edition) University of Michigan Press
Cheshire, J. (2007) “Discourse variation, grammaticalisation and stuff like that” Journal of

Sociolinguistics 11: 155–193
Eckert, P. (2000) Linguistic Variation as Social Practice Blackwell
Fought, C. (2003) Chicano English in Context Palgrave Macmillan
Labov, W. (2006) The Social Stratification of English in New York City (2nd edition) Cambridge

University Press
Lippi-Green, R. (2011) English with an Accent (2nd edition) Routledge
Mugglestone, L. (1995) Talking proper: The Rise of Accent as Social Symbol Clarendon Press
Shibatani, M. (2001) “Honorifics” In R. Mesthrie (ed.) Concise Encyclopedia of Sociolinguistics

(552–559) Elsevier
Trudgill, P. (1974) The Social Differentiation of English in Norwich Cambridge University Press

CHAPTER 20

Language and culture

The Quakers rejected the use of you as a polite form of address, and preferred thou, which
to them signaled intimacy and equality. By refusing to use you because they took it as a
deferential form of address, the Quakers provoked hostility from others who regarded their
behavior as a sign of contempt. The repercussions of such deviant usage were severe for
some Quakers such as Richard Davis, who reported that when he addressed the lady of the
house in which he worked as thou, “she took a stick and gave me such a blow upon my
bare head, that made it swell and sore for a considerable time. She was so disturbed by it,
that she swore she would kill me.”
Romaine (2000)

The type of sociolinguistic variation described in Chapter 19 is sometimes
attributed to cultural differences. It is not unusual to find aspects of language
identified as characteristic features of African American culture or European culture
or Japanese culture. This approach to the study of language originates in the work
of anthropologists who have used language as a source of information in the general
study of “culture.”

Language and culture 271

Culture

We use the term culture to refer to all the ideas and assumptions about the nature of
things and people that we learn when we become members of social groups. It can be
defined as “socially acquired knowledge.” This is the kind of knowledge that, like our
first language, we initially acquire without conscious awareness. We develop aware-
ness of our knowledge, and hence of our culture, only after having developed
language. The particular language we learn through the process of cultural transmis-
sion provides us, at least initially, with a ready-made system of categorizing the world
around us and our experience of it.

With the words we acquire, we learn to recognize the types of category distinc-
tions that are relevant in our social world. Young children may not initially think of
“dog” and “horse” as different types of entities and refer to both as bow-wow. As they
develop a more elaborated conceptual system along with English as their first lan-
guage, they learn to categorize distinct types of creatures as a dog or a horse. In native
cultures of the Pacific, there were no horses and, not surprisingly, there were no words
for them. In order to use words such as dog or horse, snow or snowflake, father or
uncle, week or weekend, we must have a conceptual system that includes these
people, things and ideas as distinct and identifiable categories.

Categories

Although there is a lot of variation among all the individual “dogs” in our experience,
we can use the word dog to talk about any one of them as a member of the category.
A category is a group with certain features in common and we can think of the
vocabulary we learn as an inherited set of category labels. These are the words for
referring to concepts that people in our social world have typically needed to talk about.

It is tempting to believe that there is a fixed relationship between the set of words
we have learned (our categories) and the way external reality is organized. However,
evidence from the world’s languages would suggest that the organization of external
reality actually varies to some extent according to the language being used to talk
about it. Some languages may have lots of different expressions for types of “rain” or
kinds of “coconut” and other languages may have only one or two. Although the Dani
of New Guinea can see all colors of the spectrum, they only use names for two of them,
equivalents of “black” and “white.” The Inuit of Greenland have names for those two,
plus red, green and yellow. English has names for those five colors, plus blue, brown,
purple, pink, orange and gray. It seems that languages used by groups with more
technology have more color terms. Observing this difference between the number of
basic color terms in languages, we can say that there are conceptual distinctions that
are lexicalized (“expressed as a single word”) in one language and not in another.

272 The Study of Language

Kinship terms

Some of the clearest examples of lexicalized categories are words used to refer to
people who are members of the same family, or kinship terms. All languages have
kinship terms (e.g. brother, mother, grandmother), but they don’t all put family
members into categories in the same way. In some languages, the equivalent of the
word father is used not only for “male parent,” but also for “male parent’s
brother.” In English, we use the word uncle for this other type of individual. We
have lexicalized the distinction between the two concepts. Yet we also use the same
word (uncle) for “female parent’s brother.” That distinction isn’t lexicalized in
English, but it is in other languages. In Watam (spoken in Papua New Guinea),
the English word uncle would be translated as either aes (father’s brother) or
akwae (mother’s brother). Speakers of Mopan Maya (in Belize, Central America)
lexicalize a distinction based on a different conceptual arrangement. Each of the
following words (from Danziger, 2001) is, and is not, a translation of the English
word uncle.

suku’un: older brother and parent’s younger brother

tataa’: parent’s older brother and grandfather

It would seem that a distinction in age among “uncles” is important in Mopan Mayan
culture. Other distinctions among relatives can also be lexicalized differently in the
world’s languages. For example, in Norwegian, the distinction between “male
parent’s mother” (farmor) and “female parent’s mother” (mormor) is lexicalized,
but in English the word grandmother is generally used for both.

Time concepts

To take a more abstract example, when we learn a word such as week or weekend, we
are inheriting a conceptual system that operates with amounts of time as common
categories. Having words for units of time such as “two days” or “seven days” shows
that we can think of time (i.e. something abstract, with no physical existence) in
amounts, using noun phrases, in the same way as “two people” or “seven books” (i.e.
something physical). In another world view, time may not be treated in this way. In
the Hopi language, spoken in Arizona, there were traditionally no terms equivalent to
most of our time words and phrases (two hours, thirty minutes) because our terms
express concepts from a culture operating on “clock time.” Perhaps for a similar
reason there was no term for a unit of seven days. There was no “week,” nor was
there a term for “Saturday and Sunday” combined as a unit of time. Though it may
seem difficult to imagine when we view another culture from the perspective of our
own, there really was no “weekend.”

Language and culture 273

Linguistic relativity

In these examples, we have treated differences in language use as evidence of
different ways of talking about external reality. This is often discussed in terms of
linguistic relativity because it seems that the structure of our language, with its
predetermined categories, must have an influence on how we perceive the world. In
its weak version, this idea simply captures the fact that we not only talk, but to a
certain extent probably also think about the world of experience, using the categories
provided by our language. Our first language seems to have a definite role in shaping
“habitual thought,” that is, the way we think about things as we go about our daily
lives, without analyzing how we’re thinking.

There is a stronger version of this idea, called linguistic determinism, which
holds that “language determines thought.” If language does indeed determine thought,
then we will only be able to think in the categories provided by our language. For
example, English speakers use one word for “snow,” and generally see all that white
stuff as one thing. In contrast, so the argument goes, Eskimos look out at all the white
stuff and see it as many different things because they have lots of different words for
“snow.” So, the category system inherent in the language determines how the speaker
interprets and articulates experience. We will return to the topic of “snow,” but the
proposal just described provides a good example of an approach to analyzing the
connection between language and culture that dates back to the eighteenth century.

The Sapir–Whorf hypothesis

The general analytic perspective we are considering is part of what became known as
the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis during the middle of the twentieth century. At a time
when American linguistics was still mainly carried out by scholars with strong
backgrounds in anthropology, Edward Sapir and Benjamin Whorf produced argu-
ments that the languages of native Americans, such as the Hopi, led them to view
the world differently from those who spoke European languages. We have already
noted a difference between Hopi and English in the treatment of time. According to
Whorf, the Hopi perceive the world differently from other tribes (including the
English-speaking tribe) because their language leads them to do so. In the grammar
of Hopi, there is a distinction between “animate” and “inanimate,” and among the set
of entities categorized as “animate” are clouds and stones. Whorf claimed that the
Hopi believe that clouds and stones are living entities and that it is their language that
leads them to believe this. English does not mark in its grammar that clouds and
stones are “animate,” so English speakers do not see the world in the same way as the
Hopi. In Whorf’s words, “We dissect nature along lines laid down by our native
languages” (see Carroll, Levinson and Lee, 2012).

274 The Study of Language

Against the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis

It is important to remember that Edward Sapir and Benjamin Whorf did not actually
write a book or even an article together advocating the hypothesis that bears their
names. In fact, there is now some doubt that the theoretical point of view attributed to
them was as deterministic as their detractors have argued. Nevertheless, a number of
arguments have been presented against the linguistic thinking that supported some of
the opinions expressed, especially those of Whorf. Following Sampson (1980), let us
imagine a tribe with a language in which differences in sex are marked grammatically,
so that the terms used for females, such as girl and woman, have special markings in
the language. On close inspection, we find that these “feminine” markings are also
used with the words for stone and door. Are we forced to conclude that this tribe
believes that stones and doors are female entities in the same way as girls and
women? This tribe is not an obscure group. They use the expressions la femme
(“the woman”), la pierre (“the stone”) and la porte (“the door”). It is the tribe that
lives in France. Should we conclude that French speakers believe that stones and
doors are “female” in the same way as women?

The problem with the conclusions invited in both the Hopi and French cases is
that there is a confusion between linguistic classification (“animate,” “feminine”) and
biological classification (“living,” “female”). There is frequently a correspondence in
languages between these classifications, but there does not have to be. Moreover, the
linguistic forms do not force us to ignore biological distinctions. While the Hopi
language has a particular linguistic classification for the word stone, it does not mean
that Hopi truck drivers worry about killing living creatures if they run over some
stones while driving.

Snow

Returning to “snow” in cold places, we should first replace “Eskimo” with more
accurate terms for the people, Inuit, and their language, Inuktitut. According to Martin
(1986), the Inuit of West Greenland have only two basic words for “snow” (qanik,
“snow in the air,” and aput, “snow on the ground”). So, from one point of view, we
could say that in this language there are really only two words for snow. However, in
the same way as speakers of other languages, the Inuit are able to create, from these
two basic elements, a large number of common expressions for different snow-related
phenomena. Thus it may be more accurate to say they have lots of phrases, rather
than words, for referring to snow. Yet there seems to be no compelling reason to
suppose that those expressions are controlling vision or thought among their users.
Some expressions will occur frequently in the context of habitual experiences, but it is
the human who is thinking about the experience and determining what will be
expressed, not the language.

Language and culture 275

Non-lexicalized categories

English does lexicalize some conceptual distinctions in the area of “snow,” with
sleet, slush and snowflake as examples. We might also include avalanche and
blizzard. However, English speakers can also create phrases and other complex
expressions, by manipulating their language, to refer to fresh snow, powdery snow,
spring snow or the dirty stuff that is piled up on the side of the street after the snow-
plouw has gone through. These may be categories of snow for English speakers, but
they are non-lexicalized (“not expressed as a single word”). English speakers can
express category variation by making a distinction using lexicalized categories (It’s
more like slush than snow outside) and also by indicating special reference using
non-lexicalized distinctions (We decorated the windows with some fake plastic snow
stuff), but most of them will have a very different view of “snow” from the average
speaker of Inuktitut.

We inherit a language used to report knowledge, so we would expect that
language to influence the organization of our knowledge in some way. However,
we also inherit the ability to manipulate and be creative with that language in order
to express our perceptions. When the Hopi borrowed the word santi (“Sunday”)
from English-speaking missionaries, they used it to refer to the period beginning
with one santi and ending with the next santi, essentially developing their own
concept of our “week.” If thinking and perception were totally determined by
language, then the concept of language change would be impossible. If a young
Hopi girl had no word in her language for the object known to us as a computer,
would she fail to perceive the object? Would she be unable to think about it? What
the Hopi girl can do when she encounters a new entity is change her language to
accommodate the need to refer to the new entity. The human manipulates the
language, not the other way round.

Cognitive categories

As a way of analyzing cognition, or how people think, we can look at language
structure for clues, not for causes. The fact that Hopi speakers inherit a language
system in which clouds have “animate” as a feature may tell us something about a
traditional belief system, or way of thinking, that is part of their culture and not ours.
In the Yagua language, spoken in Peru, the set of entities with “animate” as a feature
includes the moon, rocks and pineapples, as well as people. In the traditions of the
Yagua, all these entities are treated as valued objects, so that their cultural interpret-
ation of the feature “animate” may be closer to the concept “having special import-
ance in life” rather than the concept “having life,” as in the cultural interpretation of
most English speakers.

276 The Study of Language

Classifiers

We know about the classification of words in languages like Yagua because of
grammatical markers called classifiers that indicate the type or “class” of noun
involved. For example, in Swahili (spoken in East Africa), different prefixes
are used as classifiers on nouns for humans (wa-), non-humans (mi-) and arti-
facts (vi-), as in watoto (“children”), mimea (“plants”) and visu (“knives”). In
fact, we can recognize a conceptual distinction between raw materials (miti,
“trees”) and artifacts made from them (viti, “chairs”) simply through the classi-
fiers used.

Classifiers are often used in connection with numbers to indicate the type of thing
being counted. In the following Japanese examples, the classifiers are associated with
objects conceptualized in terms of their shape as “long thin things” (hon), “flat thin
things” (mai) or “small round things” (ko).

banana ni-hon (“two bananas”)
syatu ni-mai (“two shirts”)
ringo ni-ko (“two apples”)

The closest English comes to using classifiers is when we talk about a “unit of”
certain types of things. There is a distinction in English between things treated
as countable (shirt, word, chair) and those treated as non-countable (clothing,
information, furniture). It is ungrammatical in English to use a/an or the plural
with non-countable nouns (i.e. *a clothing, *an information, *two furnitures). To
avoid these ungrammatical forms, we use classifier-type expressions such as “item
of” or “piece of,” as in an item of clothing, a bit of information and two pieces
of furniture. The equivalent nouns in many other languages are treated as
“countable,” so the existence of a grammatical class of “non-countable entities”
is evidence of a type of cognitive categorization underlying the expression of
quantity in English.

Social categories

Words such as uncle or grandmother, discussed earlier, provide examples of social
categories. These are categories of social organization that we can use to say how we
are connected or related to others. We can provide technical definitions (e.g. “male
parent’s brother”), but in many situations a word such as uncle is used for a much
larger number of people, including close friends, who are outside the class of individ-
uals covered by the technical definition. The word brother is similarly used among
many groups for someone who is not a family member. We can use these words as a
means of social categorization, that is, marking individuals as members of a group
defined by social connections.

Language and culture 277

Address terms

When a man on the street asks another, Brother, can you spare a dollar?, the word
brother is being used as an address term (a word or phrase for the person being
talked or written to). By claiming the kind of closeness in relationship associated
with a family member, the speaker’s choice of address term is an attempt to create
solidarity (i.e. being the same in social status), perhaps leading to a willingness to
hand over some cash. He could have begun his request with Sir instead, indicating
an unequal relationship of power (i.e. being different in social status) and, since he
is the one who is clearly higher in status, perhaps Sir has the ability to hand over
some cash.

More typically, an interaction based on an unequal relationship will feature
address terms using a title (Doctor) or title plus last name (Professor Buckingham)
for the one with higher status, and first name only for the one with lower status, as
in: Professor Buckingham, can I ask a question? ~ Yes, Jennifer, what is it? More
equal relationships have address terms that indicate similar status of the partici-
pants, such as first names or nicknames: Bucky, ready for some more coffee? ~
Thanks, Jenny.

In many languages, there is a choice between pronouns used for addressees who
are socially close versus distant. This is known as the T/V distinction, as in the
French pronouns tu (close) and vous (distant). A similar type of social categorization
is found in German (du/Sie) and Spanish (tu´ /usted). In each of these distinctions, as
in older English usage (thou/you), the plural form is used to indicate that the speakers
do not really have a close relationship. Traditionally, these forms could be used to
mark a power relationship. The higher status or more powerful speaker could use tu
or thou to a lower-status addressee, but not vice versa, as the Quaker Richard Davis
discovered to his detriment (described in this chapter’s opening quotation). Lower-
status individuals had to use the vous forms when addressing those of higher status.
This usage is described as non-reciprocal, but the reciprocal use (both speakers using
the same form) of the tu forms has generally increased in Europe among younger
speakers, such as students, who may not know each other really well, but who find
themselves in the same situation.

In English, people without special titles are addressed as Mr., Mrs., Miss, or Ms.
Only the women’s address terms include information about their social status. In fact,
one address term for a woman indicates that she is the wife of a particular man as in
Mrs. Dexter Smith (or just Mrs. Smith). Dexter is never addressed as Mr. (Betsy)
Cuddlesworth. When the original system was put in place, women were identified
socially through their relationship to a man, either as wife or daughter. These address
terms continue to function as social category labels, identifying women, but not men,
as married or not. A woman using Ms. as part of her address term is indicating that her
social categorization is not based on her marital status.

278 The Study of Language

Gender

The observation that address terms for men and women are different leads us to a
consideration of the most fundamental difference in social categorization, the one
based on “gender.” We have already noted the difference between two uses of the
word gender in Chapter 7. Biological (or “natural”) gender is the distinction in sex
between the “male” and “female” of each species. Grammatical gender is the distinc-
tion between “masculine” and “feminine,” which is used to classify nouns in lan-
guages such as Spanish (el sol, la luna). A third use is for social gender, which is the
distinction we make when we use words like “man” and “woman” to classify individ-
uals in terms of their social roles.

Although the biological distinction (“male, female”) underlies the social distinc-
tions (“father, mother”), there is a great deal about the social roles of individuals as
men or women that is unrelated to biology. It is in the sense of social gender, through
the process of learning how to become a “boy” or a “girl,” that we inherit a gendered
culture. This process can be as simple as learning which category should wear pink
versus blue, or as complex as understanding how one category was excluded (by
having no vote) from the process of representative government for such a long time.
Becoming a social gender also involves becoming familiar with gendered language use.

Gendered words

In Sidamo, spoken in Ethiopia, there are some words used only by men and some
used only by women, so that the translation of “milk” would be ado by a man, but
gurda by a woman. In Japanese, when referring to themselves (“I”), men have
traditionally used boku and women watashi or atashi. In Portuguese, saying “thank
you” is obrigado if you’re a man and obrigada if you’re a woman.

These examples simply illustrate that there can be differences between the words
used by men and women in a variety of languages. There are other examples, used to
talk about men and women, which seem to imply that the words for men are
“normal” and the words for women are “special additions.” Pairs such as hero–
heroine or actor–actress illustrate the derivation of terms for the woman’s role from
the man’s. Marking this type of difference has decreased in contemporary American
English as firemen and policemen have become firefighters and police officers, but
there is still a strong tendency to treat forms for the man (his) as the normal means of
reference when speaking generally: Each student is required to buy his own dictionary.
However, alternatives that include both genders (his or her), or avoid gendered usage
(their) are becoming more common. Other terms, such as career woman and working
mother (rarely “career man” or “working father”) continue the pattern of special
terms for women, not men.

Language and culture 279

Gendered structures

When we reviewed social variation (Chapter 19), noting the differences between
working-class and middle-class speech, we largely ignored gender differences. Yet
within each social class, there is substantial variation according to gender. Generally
speaking, whenever there is a higher- versus lower-prestige variable (e.g. talking/
talkin’ or I saw it/I seen it), women are more likely to use the higher-prestige forms.
The difference is most noticeable among middle-class speakers. In one study of
double negatives (e.g. I don’t want none) in lower-middle-class speech, substantially
more men (32%) than women (1%) used the structure. This regular pattern of
difference is sometimes explained in terms of women’s socialization to be more
careful, to be aware of social status, and to be more sensitive to how others may
judge them. An alternative explanation appeals to the socialization of men to be
strong, tough and independent. Forms which are non-standard or associated with
working-class speech may be preferred by men because of their association with
manual work, strength and toughness. And tough guys also have deep voices.

Gendered speech

In general, men have longer vocal tracts, larger larynxes and thicker vocal folds than
women. The result is that men typically speak in a lower pitch range (80–200 Herz)
than women (120–400 Herz). The term pitch is used to describe the effect of vibration
in the vocal folds, with slower vibration making voices sound lower and rapid
vibration making voices sound higher. Although “normal speaking” takes place with
substantial overlap in the pitch ranges of men and women, there is a tendency to
exaggerate the differences in many contexts in order to sound more “like a man” or
more “like a woman.”

Among women speaking contemporary American English, there is also generally
more use of pitch movement, that is, more rising and falling intonation. The use of
rising intonation (↑) at the end of statements (It happened near San Diego ↑, in
southern California ↑), the more frequent use of hedges (sort of, kind of) and tag
questions (It’s kind of cold in here, isn’t it?) have all been identified as characteristic of
women’s speech. Tag questions are short questions consisting of an auxiliary (don’t,
isn’t) and a pronoun (it, you), added to the end of a statement (I hate it when it rains
all day, don’t you?). They are used more often by women when expressing opinions.
These features of women’s speech all seem to be ways of inviting agreement with an
idea rather than asserting it. Men tend to use more assertive forms and “strong”
language (It’s too damn cold in here!). Other researchers have pointed to a preference
among women, in same-gender groups, for indirect speech acts (Could I see that
photo?) rather than the direct speech acts (Gimme that photo) heard more often from
men in same-gender groups.

280 The Study of Language

Same-gender talk

It is important to pay attention to the concept of “same-gender” talk because much of
our socialization takes place in such groups. By the time we are three years old, we
have established a preference for talking to same-gender others. By the age of five, boys
are actively excluding girls from their activities and commenting negatively on boys
who associate with girls. Throughout childhood, boys socialize in larger groups, often
in competitive activities, establishing and maintaining hierarchical relationships (I’m
Spiderman and you have to follow me). Girls socialize in smaller groups, more often in
co-operative activities, establishing reciprocal relationships and exchanging roles (You
can be the doctor now and I’ll be ill). In many societies, this same-gender socialization
is reinforced through separate educational experiences. Not surprisingly then, there are
differences in the way each gender approaches interaction with the other.

Gendered interaction

Many of the features already identified in women’s speech (e.g. frequent question-
type forms) facilitate the exchange of turns, allowing others to speak, with the effect
that interaction becomes a shared activity. Interaction among men appears to be
organized in a more hierarchical way, with the right to speak or “having the floor”
being treated as the goal. Men generally take longer turns at speaking and, in many
social contexts (e.g. religious events), may be the only ones allowed to talk.

One effect of these different styles is that certain features become very salient in
cross-gender interactions. For example, in same-gender discussions, there is little
difference in the number of times speakers interrupt each other. However, in cross-
gender interactions, men are much more likely to interrupt women, with 96 percent of
interruptions made by men in one study involving American students.

In same-gender conversations, women produce more back-channels as indicators
of listening and paying attention. The term back-channels describes the use of words
(yeah, really?) or sounds (hmm, oh) by listeners while someone else is speaking. Men
not only produce fewer back-channels, but appear to treat them, when produced by
others, as indications of agreement. In cross-gender interaction, the absence of back-
channels from men tends to make women think the men are not paying attention to
them. The more frequent production of back-channels by women leads men to think
that the women are agreeing with what they’re saying.

These different interactional styles serve to add conversations between men and
women to the list of areas of “cross-cultural communication.” If we are to avoid
miscommunication in any cross-cultural context, we must all be prepared to try to
understand the impact of the cultures we inherit and, through the creativity with
language that we are also given, to find new ways of articulating those cultures before
we pass them on.

Language and culture 281

STUDY QUESTIONS

1 What is one common definition of “culture” in the study of language?
2 What are kinship terms?
3 What is meant by “linguistic determinism”?
4 Why is this sentence ungrammatical?

*She gave me a good advice.
5 Is the following sentence more likely to be spoken by a woman or a man, and why?

I think that golf on television is kind of boring, don’t you?

6 In the Australian language Dyirbal, there are grammatical markers that distinguish
different cognitive categories represented by X and Y here.

X: “men, kangaroos, boomerangs”
Y: “women, fire, dangerous things”

(i) If you learn that in Dyirbal, “the sun is the wife of the moon,” in which
category would place “sun” and “moon”?

(ii) What is the technical term for grammatical markers of this type?

TASKS

A What is the difference between “cross-cultural”, “intercultural” and
“multicultural” communication?

B We noted some differences across languages in the number of words used to
describe colors. What is the “basic color term hierarchy”?

C We briefly considered a distinction that English makes between “countable” and
“non-countable.”
(i) Can you assign the following words to three sets, labeled “countable,” “non-
countable” and “both countable and non-countable”?
(ii) Which phrases referring to a “unit of” are typically used with the non-
countable nouns (e.g. a round of applause)?
applause, business, cash, chocolate, courage, crash, equipment, hair, lesson,
luck, mistake, mountain, noise, paper, party, rain, research, rubbish, salmon,
sand, shopping, tennis, theft, underwear

D According to Foley (1997), kinship terminology in Watam (a language spoken in
Papua New Guinea) is rather different from English. The word aes is used for both
father and father’s brother while aem is used for both mother and mother’s sister.

282 The Study of Language

The words akwae and namkwae are used for mother’s brother and father’s sister
respectively.
(i) Using this information, can you complete the following comparative chart?

(ii) What would be the problems involved in translating the English words aunt
and uncle into Watam?

(iii) How do English speakers make a distinction when they’re talking about their
father’s brother versus their mother’s brother or their father’s sister versus
their mother’s sister?

English Kinship category Watam
mother female parent ________
________ female parent’s sister ________
________ male parent’s sister ________
________ male parent ________
________ male parent’s brother ________
________ female parent’s brother ________

E When a number is used with a noun in Ponapean (a language spoken in the
western Pacific), an appropriate classifier is also used, as described in Lynch
(1998). Some classifiers used as suffixes are -men (“animate things”), -pwoat (“long
things”), -mwut (“heaps of things”), -sop (“stalks of things”) and -dip (“slices of
things”). Examples of numerals are sili- (“three”) and pah- (“four”). Can you
complete these noun phrases with appropriate endings?
Example: pwutak reirei silimen (“three tall boys”)
(1) sehu _______________________ (“four stalks of sugarcane”)
(2) dipen mei ___________________ (“four slices of breadfruit”)
(3) mwutin dippw ________________ (“four piles of grass”)
(4) nahi pwihk __________________ (“my three pigs”)
(5) tuhke _______________________ (“a tree”)

F How can we avoid “genderizing” when completing utterances such as these?
(1) Everybody came in ________ own car.
(2) Someone called, but ______ didn’t leave ______ name.
(3) A friend of mine told me _____ had met Brad Pitt in New Orleans.
(4) Every student must bring ______ dictionary to class.
(5) You won’t be the first or last man or woman who gets ______ involved in a
holiday romance.
(6) Nicole has a new baby and ______ cries a lot at night.
(7) My professor promised ____ would write me a letter of recommendation.
(8) I got an email from someone called Chris who said that ______ was looking
forward to meeting me.

Language and culture 283

G Many languages contain “evidentials,” which are markers that indicate how sure
the speaker is about the truth or reliability of the information being communicated.
Some of these evidential markers can be found in the following examples from
Quechua, a language spoken in Peru and other countries in the Andes region of
South America (adapted from Weber, 1986).

(i) Can you identify the three evidential markers being used in the following
examples?

(ii) What do you think are the three levels of reliability being expressed here?

(1) Ima-shi kaykan chaychaw rikaykamunki
go see
what there is there

(= “Go and see what’s there”)

(2) Chay-ta musya-yka-chi

that know I

(= “I don’t know anything about that”)

(3) Qam-pis maqa-ma-shka-nki-mi
you also hit me past
(= “I felt you hit me”)

(4) Wan˜ u -nqa-paq-chi
die -it future
(= “Perhaps it will die”)

(5) Chawra utkupa murullanta-shi tarimun
so cotton just seed she found
(= “So she found only cotton seed”)

(6) Wan˜ u -nqa-paq-mi

die -it future

(= “I’m sure that it will die”)

(7) Qam-pis maqa-ma-shka-nki-chi

you also -hit me past

(= “You may be one of a group of people who hit me”)

(8) Wan˜ u -nqa-paq-shi

die it future

(= “I was told that it will die”)

(9) Noqa aywa-yka-chi qam-paq-qa

I going I you-topic

(= “You might have thought I was going for you, but I’m not”)

(10) Qam-pis maqa-ma-shka-nki-shi

you also hit me past

(= “Someone has informed me that you hit me [when I was drunk]”)

284 The Study of Language

DISCUSSION TOPICS/PROJECTS

I Why do you think there continue to be frequent references to the idea that
“Eskimos have a hundred words for snow”? How would you try to convince
someone who thinks this is a fact that it is best treated as a myth?
(For background reading, see chapter 19 of Pullum, 1991.)

II Is there a difference between “interruption” and “overlap” in conversation?
What do you think is meant by the distinction between “report talk” and
“rapport talk”? Should we distinguish between “fast-talking” and “slow-talking”
styles rather than attribute certain features of interaction to men
versus women?
(For background reading, see chapter 7 of Tannen, 1990.)

FURTHER READING

Basic treatments
Kramsch, C. (1998) Language and Culture Oxford University Press
Duranti, A. (2001) Key Terms in Language and Culture Blackwell
More detailed treatmentss
Foley, W. (1997) Anthropological Linguistics: An Introduction Blackwell
Danesi, M. (2012) Linguistic Anthropology: A Brief Introduction Canadian Scholars Press
Culture
Kuper, A. (1999) Culture: The Anthropologists’ Account Harvard University Press
Categories
Taylor, J. (2003) Linguistic Categorization (3rd edition) Oxford University Press
Color terms
Deutscher, G. (2010) Through the Language Glass Metropolitan Books
Linguistic relativity
Boroditsky, L. (2003) “Linguistic relativity” In L. Nadel (ed.) Encyclopedia of Cognitive Science

(917–921) Nature Publishing Group
Leavitt, J. (2011) Linguistic Relativities Cambridge University Press
The Sapir–Whorf hypothesis
Carroll, J., S. Levinson and P. Lee (eds.) (2012) Language, Thought and Reality: Selected

Writings of Benjamin Lee Whorf (2nd edition) MIT Press
Cognitive categories
Evans, V. (2007) A Glossary of Cognitive Linguistics Edinburgh University Press
Ungerer, F. and H-J. Schmid (2006) An Introduction to Cognitive Linguistics (2nd edition)

(chapter 1) Longman
Classifiers
Aikhenvald, A. (2000) Classifiers Oxford University Press

Language and culture 285

Social categories
Mesthrie, R., J. Swann, A. Deumert and W. Leap (2009) Introducing Sociolinguistics (2nd

edition) John Benjamins
Developing social gender
Maccoby, E. (1998) The Two Sexes Harvard University Press
Gender and language
Coates, J. (2004) Women, Men and Language (3rd edition) Longman
Eckert, P. and S. McConnell-Ginet (2013) Language and Gender (2nd edition) Cambridge

University Press
Jule, A. (2008) A Beginner’s Guide to Language and Gender Multilingual Matters
Sources of examples
(Dyirbal) Lakoff, G. (1987) Women, Fire and Dangerous Things University of Chicago Press
(Hopi) Malotki, E. (1983) Hopi Time Walter de Gruyter
(Inuit) Martin, L. (1986) “Eskimo words for snow: a case study in the genesis and decay of an

anthropological example” American Anthropologist 88: 418–423
(Japanese) Frawley, W. (1992) Linguistic Semantics Lawrence Erlbaum
(Mopan Maya) Danziger, E. (2001) Relatively Speaking Oxford University Press
(Ponapean) Lynch, J. (1998) Pacific Languages University of Hawai‘i Press
(Quechua) Weber, D. (1986) “Information perspective, profile and patterns in Quechua” In

W. Chafe and J. Nichols (eds.) Evidentiality: The Linguistic Coding of Epistemology
(137–155) Ablex
(Sidamo) Hudson, G. (2000) Essential Introductory Linguistics Blackwell
(Swahili) Hinnebusch, T. (1987) “Swahili” In T. Shopen (ed.) Languages and Their Status
(209–294) University of Pennsylvania Press
(Watam) Foley, W. (1997) Anthropological Linguistics Blackwell
Other references
Pullum, G. (1991) The Great Eskimo Vocabulary Hoax University of Chicago Press
Sampson, G. (1980) Schools of Linguistics Stanford University Press
Tannen, D. (1990) You Just Don’t Understand William Morrow

Glossary

AAVE: African American Vernacular English African American Vernacular English
accent: aspects of pronunciation that identify (AAVE): the casual speech style used by
many African Americans as a vernacular
where a speaker is from, in contrast to
dialect agent: the semantic role of the noun phrase
acoustic phonetics: the study of the physical identifying the one who performs the
properties of speech as sound waves action of the verb in an event (The boy
acquisition: the gradual development of kicked the ball)
ability in a first or second language by
using it naturally in communicative agrammatic speech: the type of speech
situations without grammatical markers, often
acronym: a new word formed from the initial associated with Broca’s aphasia
letters of other words (e.g. NASA)
active voice: the form of the verb used to say agreement: the grammatical connection
what the subject does (e.g. He stole it) between two parts of a sentence, as in the
address term: a word or phrase for the person connection between a subject (Cathy) and
being talked or written to the form of a verb (loves chocolate)
adjective (Adj): a word such as happy or
strange used with a noun to provide more allomorph: one of a closely related set of
information morphs
adverb (Adv): a word such as slowly or really
used with a verb or adjective to provide allophone: one of a closely related set of
more information speech sounds or phones
affective factors: emotional reactions such as
self-consciousness or negative feelings that alphabet (alphabetic writing): a way of
may influence learning writing in which one symbol represents
affix: a bound morpheme such as un- or -ed one sound segment
added to a word (e.g. undressed)
affricate: a consonant produced by stopping alternate sign language: a system of hand
then releasing the airflow through a narrow signals used in a specific context where
opening (e.g. the first and last sounds in speech cannot be used (by people who can
church) speak), in contrast to a primary sign
African American English (AAE): a social language
dialect used by many African Americans in
different regions of the USA alveolar ridge: the rough bony ridge
immediately behind the upper front teeth

alveolar: a consonant produced with the
front part of the tongue on the alveolar
ridge (e.g. the first and last sounds in dot)

Ameslan (or ASL): American Sign Language
analogy: a process of forming a new word to

be similar in some way to an existing word

Glossary 287

anaphora (anaphoric expressions): use of words (e.g. needle ¼ “painful”) that is not
pronouns (it) and noun phrases with the part of conceptual meaning
(the puppy) to refer back to something audiolingual method: a mid-twentieth-
already mentioned century approach to language teaching,
with repetitive drills used to develop
anomia: a language disorder in which it is fluent spoken language as a set
difficult to find words, often associated of habits
with Wernicke’s aphasia auditory phonetics: the study of the
perception of speech sounds by the ear,
antecedent: the first mention of someone also called “perceptual phonetics”
or something later referred to via auxiliary verb (Aux): a verb such as will
anaphora used with another verb
babbling: the use of syllable sequences
antonymy: the lexical relation in which (ba-ba) and combinations (ma-ga) by
words have opposite meanings (“Shallow” young children in their first year
is an antonym of “deep”) back-channels: the use of words (yeah) and
sounds (hmm) by listeners while someone
aphasia: an impairment of language function else is speaking
die to localized brain damage that leads to backformation: the process of reducing a
difficulty in understanding and/or word such as a noun to a shorter version
producing language and using it as a new word such as a verb
(e.g. babysit from babysitter)
applied linguistics: the study of a large range background knowledge: information that is
of practical issues involving language in not in a text, but is used from memory by a
general and second language learning in reader to understand the text
particular beats: gestures involving short quick
movements of the hands or fingers that go
arbitrariness: a property of language along with the rhythm of talk
describing the fact that there is no natural bidialectal: being capable of speaking two
connection between a linguistic form and dialects
its meaning bilabial: a consonant produced by using both
lips (e.g. the first and last sounds in pub)
arcuate fasciculus: a bundle of nerve fibers bilingual: a term used to describe a native
connecting Broca’s area and Wernicke’s speaker of two languages or a country with
area in the left hemisphere of the brain two official languages, in contrast to
monolingual
article (Art): a word such as a, an or the used bilingualism: the state of having two
with a noun languages
blending: the process of combining the
articulatory parameters: the four key aspects beginning of one word and the end of
of visual information used in the another word to form a new word (e.g.
description of signs (shape, orientation, brunch from breakfast and lunch)
location and movement) borrowing: the process of taking words from
other languages
articulatory phonetics: the study of how
speech sounds are produced

ASL (or Ameslan): American Sign Language
aspiration: a puff of air that sometimes

accompanies the pronunciation of a stop
assimilation: the process whereby a feature of

one sound becomes part of another during
speech production
associative meaning: the type of meaning
that people might connect with the use of