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Be sure you know what each term means. Then try to think of its male equivalent. Is there
one? Does it refer to the exact same thing except male, or do the two words have different
connotations? Does one of the two terms have a narrower reference than the others have?
What do your observations suggest to you about how people use gendered labels?

Exercises 2
a) Have a chat with somebody from a different generation about how language associated

with men or women may have changed.
b) If you speak another language, think about how gender is represented in that language,

and how it differs from English. If you don’t speak another language, find somebody who
does, and ask them.
c) If you read Kiesling’s “Dude” article, go online and find and watch the Bud Light “Dude”
commercials. Describe how they illustrate Kiesling’s points (or not).

Exercise 3
Imagine you have been cast in a play as an elderly woman or man, although you are only a
young person. How could you use linguistic features to construct an appropriate age identity
for your character? Think about discourse particles, vocabulary choice, grammatical and
phonological features, together with variations in pitch and speed which could be used to
enact your role convincingly in your speech community.

Referensi:
Holmes, Janet & Wilson, Nick. 2017. An Introduction to Sociolinguistics (5th edition). New

York: Routledge.
Holmes, Janet. 2013. An Introduction to Sociolinguistics (4th Edition). New York: Longman.
Wardaugh, Ronald & Fuller, Janet. 2015. An Introduction to Sociolinguistcs. UK: Willey
Balckwell.

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CHAPTER 12

ATTITUDE AND APPLICATIONS

“Language is the armory of the human mind, and at once contains the trophies of its past and the
weapons of its future conquests.”
(Samuel Taylor Coleridge)

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INTRODUCTION

Attitudes to language can be portrayed from how speakers use language. Furthermore, using
a particular linguistic form rather than another, the speakers are patterning their attitudes
toward the form and toward the people that they assume use it. Accordingly, this chapter will
have a closer look at language attitude and how it represents languages and language
varieties. Dealing with the language attitude, commonly there are two kinds of language
which are ‘normal’ and ‘wrong/odd’. The ‘normal’ language refers what we have while the
‘wrong/odd’ language depends on what other people have. These two kinds of language will
relate to a regional and ethnical matters. It means that a different region or ethnic can be
represented by the different language attitude. In addition, people often prefer using another
term to ‘normal’, it is ‘appropriate’ as an equivalent while for ‘wrong/odd’, people also use
‘inappropriate’. Both are used as the mild-mannered equivalent (Herk, 2012). Furthermore,
he argues that the terms might be particularly true when it relates to attitudes toward
regional or ethnic dialects and their place in society or it may also seem just dialect attitudes
that sociolinguists have written the most about.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

1. Students are able to explain and give example of language Attitudes and application;
2. Students are able to analyze language Attitudes and application;
3. Students are able to explain attitude to language;
4. Students are able to explain Sociolinguistics and Education;
5. Students are able to explain Sociolinguistics Universal.

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12.1 Attitude to language

The way words should be pronounced is one of the strong views that people hold and it is
discussed in this chapter. For instance, an issue of whether or not ‘r’ should be pronounced
in English and it also relates to the arbitrariness of the linguistic features. It becomes an
interesting topic of dicussion and there is nothing intrinsically good or bad about [r]-
pronouncing. On another hand, it is assumed as an example of ‘good speech’ in some
communities, while other different communities argue that [r]-pronouncing is considered as
humorous, rustic and as a proof of lack of education (Holmes and Wilson, 2017). In addition,
a study conducted by Labov in 1966 investigated the higly stigmatized New York English
features of post-vocalic r-deletion (cah for car). This study confirms that the listener can
strongly respond to a single speech feature. Labov found that even a single missed
/r/dropped people’s ratings from three to four levels on a sevenpoint scale and working-
class/lower-class raters were harsher judges than people from the higher classes.
Furthermore, Trudgill (1972) projected a study applying surveys of attitudes and language
use to compare whether people claim to use a local pronunciation of the NEAR vowel with
their actual rates of use of the variant.

In this case, attitudes to language represent attitudes to the speakers and the uses of
language. It is not about intrinsically beautiful or correct for any particular sound. For
instance ‘swallow’; it can connotate an animal when people associate it with the bird, on the
other hand it also refers an action, which follows chewing. Accordingly, to have the
appropriate association, people need to deal with the context. Therefore, the context plays
an important role.

Furthermore, some other critics of [r]-less accent argue that it will be disadvantagous for
users in the area of reading in particular. They also argue that people who do not distinguish
the pronunciation of lore and law or sword and sawed find literacy problems in the future.
Therefore, distincting pronunciation can be useful in distinguishing a different meaning. It is
just like when people manage to differentiate the meanings of plane and plain, bear and bare,

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and sea and see, factually they demonstrate the same sound in almost all accents of English.
This phenomenon refers to linguistic attitudes, which are regarded as social bias related to
consequences of education and it is widely spread out. It is in line with Holmes and Wilson
(2017), they argue that the similarity of sound for different words links linguistic attitudes
which are based in social prejudice to often spurious educational consequences, is
surprisingly widespread. Another thing discussed in this chapter is related to these issues,
which are regarded as the instance of applied sociolinguistics. In this case, the applied
sociolinguistics performs the implications of sociolinguistic research. In the final section of
the chapter, the research of sociolinguists in the area of forensic linguistics provides another
illustration of how sociolinguistics can make a useful contribution in the wider society.

It is noted that attitude also influences the intelligibility. Liking or admiring people, who
speak a particular language and dialect, people commonly get understanding the language
and dialect easily. In other words, when people positively think about a language or dialect,
they can easily acquire the language and the dialect. Holmes and Wilson (2017) posit people
are more motivated and can be more succesful in acquiring a second language when they feel
positive towards speakers who use it. They also argue that attitudes to language clearly have
interesting implications both for politicians and language teachers. In addition, people
generally do not hold opinions about languages in a vacuum. They develop attitudes towards
languages which indicate their views about those who speak the languages, and the contexts
and functions with which they are associated.
When people listen to accents or languages they have never heard before, their assessments
are totally random. There is no pattern to them. In other words, there is no universal
consensus about which languages sound most beautiful and which most ugly, despite
people’s beliefs that some languages are just inherently more beautiful than others.

Social and political factors strongly influence language attitude. Language varieties have
indexing properties which all members of the community are aware of. Language planners
must take account of attitudes when they select a suitable language for development as an

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official or national language. Attitudes to pidgins and creoles, for instance, present major
impediments to their promotion and acceptance as official languages, or for use in schools.
In other countries, the official status given to unpopular languages has caused problems.
There have been riots in Belgium and India over language issues, and bombings and the
removal or defacement of English road signs illustrate the strength of people’s feelings about
the place of English in Wales. In Quebec, it was found in the 1960s that French-Canadians
tended to rate EnglishCanadian voices on tape very positively, as more intelligent, competent
and likeable, for instance, than French-Canadian voices. By the 1970s, however, ratings of
French-Canadians were higher, reflecting increased political awareness, and the increased
self-esteem that went with this. In the twenty-fi rst century, English retains high status and
is regarded as essential in the workplace, but there has also been more cultural and linguistic
mixing, and some softening of the antagonism between members of the Anglophone and
Francophone communities. Language attitudes are very sensitive to social and political
changes. The growing body of research comparing Quebec French and Parisian French
indicates that interest in the distinctiveness of Quebec French has risen considerably, further
evidence that attitudes to language provide insights about social, economic and political
relationships.

Language attitudes can have a great influence in areas such as education. Arguments in
Somalia about which script should be used to write down Somali, a Cushitic language, delayed
progress in increasing literacy rates for decades. The most influential factors in this debate
were not the intrinsic merits of the alternative scripts, but rather people’s attitudes to
speakers and writers of Arabic and English and the functions for which those languages were
used. Supporters of Arabic script pointed to the prestige, the religious significance, and the
cultural importance of Arabic for the people of Somalia. It was claimed that some of the
religious poetry written by Somalis in Arabic surpassed in its ardour and zeal similar
compositions by the Arabs. Those who advocated the Latin alphabet pointed to its usefulness
and the access it would give to scientific and technological information. An attempt at a
hybrid script, known as Osmanian script after its inventor Osman Yusuf, was tried, but failed

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to catch on. Finally, in 1973 a Latin script was adopted and given official status. Some saw
this as a triumph for effi ciency over sentiment. Others regarded it as a bureaucratic decision
in favour of a culturally sterile script. Attitudes to language certainly contributed to the years
of stalemate and lack of progress in selecting a script in Somalia.

Prestige is a slippery concept. The meaning of overt prestige is reasonably self-evident. The
standard variety in a community has overt prestige. Speakers who use the standard variety
are rated highly on scales of educational and occupational status: their speech indexes their
high social status. These positive ratings indicate the associations of their speech variety,
which is generally held up as the ‘best’ way of speaking in the community. The standard is
the variety taught in elocution classes, regardless of the pupils’ native accents, as example 3
illustrates. It is overtly admired and generally identified as a model of ‘good’ speech by all
sections of the community, regardless of the way they themselves speak. In fact, it has been
suggested that this agreement about the standard variety or ‘best’ accent is what identifies a
group of people as belonging to a speech community. Regardless of variation in their own
speech, they all recognise one variety as the standard or norm for the community.

Covert prestige, by contrast, is an odd term which could even be regarded as involving two
contradictory ideas. How can something have prestige if its value is not publicly recognised?
The term ‘covert prestige’ has been widely used, however, to refer to positive attitudes
towards vernacular or nonstandard speech varieties. Clearly such varieties are valued or they
would not continue to be used. Yet when people are asked to comment on them, they rarely
admit to valuing them (at least to strangers). New Yorkers, for instance, vehemently
denounce New York speech. One New Yorker described it as ‘incontrovertibly dumb’. After
talking to many New Yorkers, Labov described the city as a ‘sink of negative prestige’!
Similarly, in Norwich Trudgill was told ‘I speak ’orrible’ by men who used the local
vernacular. Yet people continue to use the forms they avowedly despise. The term covert
prestige was therefore introduced to explain the fact that, despite their ‘official’
protestations, people clearly do in fact value vernacular varieties.

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In some schools in Britain, and in New Zealand too, children are taught to speak RP in
elocution classes, but they would never be caught using this accent outside the classroom.
The local accent is the only possible way of speaking to friends, workmates and family. It
expresses group identity and solidarity. Not surprisingly, many people do not want to sound
like Prince Harry, the Duchess of Kent, or even the TV newsreaders.

Standard English has an enormous legacy of overt prestige. It has been regarded as a symbol
of British nationhood, as the quotations in example indicate. For well over a century, it has
been promoted as the only acceptable variety for use in all official domains, including
education. By comparison, vernacular dialects of English are down-graded. The political and
social basis of these attitudes is clearly evident, however, when we remember that the elite
consensus until at least the eighteenth century was that English was a decidedly inferior
language, less eloquent than Latin or Greek, or even than French and Italian. Prestige codes
emerge by social consensus and owe nothing to their intrinsic linguistic features.

Example
• Next to our people our language is our greatest national asset; it is the essential ingredient

of the Englishness of England.
• English ought to be the queen of the curriculum for any British child. It is one of the things

that define his or her nationality.

12.2 Sociolinguistics and Education

12.2.1 Vernacular dialects and educational disadvantage
Many sociolinguists have been drawn into public debates about the educational implications
of their research. The best-known example is probably the part sociolinguists have played in
debates over the place of vernacular dialects in schools, and the claims that children who use
vernacular forms are linguistically deprived or deficient. It has been evident for some time
that in many speech communities’ middle-class children do better at school than working-

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class children. They get better exam results, for instance. Similarly, though there are some
exceptions, children from the mainstream culture generally have greater success in school
than minority group children. In English-speaking communities, these facts have often been
misleadingly linked to the fact that children from the successful groups tend to use more
standard dialect forms – they use standard English – while the speech of children from the
less successful groups often includes a greater frequency of vernacular forms.

This is an area where some sociolinguists have tried very hard to be helpful. Some have
undertaken research to investigate the extent to which the use of vernacular forms or a
distinct variety like Patois in Britain may act as a barrier to communication between teachers
and pupils. Others have interpreted the results of sociolinguistic research for teachers and
provided advice and recommendations for classroom practice.

Dialect differences can certainly lead to miscommunication, especially if vernacular dialect
users do not hear a great deal of the standard dialect. In most English-speaking communities,
however, as in Ann Arbor, there is little evidence that children who use vernacular forms
have trouble understanding the standard English they hear on television, on radio and from
their teachers. In fact, sociolinguists have demonstrated that in some communities, at least,
children clearly do understand the standard dialect, since when they are asked to repeat
sentences in the standard, they often translate them accurately into the vernacular
equivalents, as the pairs of sentences in example demonstrate. The (b) sentences are the
child’s repetition of the (a) sentences.

Example
(a1) Nobody ever sat at any of those desks.
(b1) Nobody never sat at no desses.
(a2) I asked Alvin if he knows how to play basketball.
(b2) I aks Alvin do he know how to play basketball.

Translation presupposes understanding. If, as these examples suggest, understanding is not
usually a major hurdle, the next question is whether anything should be done to change the
speech of children who use vernacular forms.

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Sociolinguists have pointed out that attempts to alter people’s speech without their full
cooperation are fruitless. People can change their own speech if they really want to, but
teachers and parents simply waste their time correcting children’s usage if the children do
not want to sound different. It has been noted that when children imitate their teachers for
fun, or when they role-play a middle-class person in a game or a school activity, they often
produce consistently standard forms for as long as required. Motivation and free choice are
crucial factors, and any attempts to teach standard dialect forms will not succeed without
them.

If, however, children can see some point in being able to use standard forms consistently in
certain contexts, such as job interviews, then, with the information provided by
sociolinguists, teachers can provide students with guidance on which vernacular forms are
most salient to listeners. Many sociolinguists believe, however, that their primary obligation
is to educate the community to accept variation and vernacular forms, without condemning
or stereotyping their users as uneducated and low status, rather than to train vernacular
users to adopt standard speech forms. This is an area of ongoing debate in educational
linguistics.

12.2.2 Linguistic deficit
A related area where sociolinguistic research has proved useful is in the area of educational
testing. Sociolinguists have successfully demonstrated that claims that minority group
children and working-class children were linguistically deprived were generally based on
inadequate tests. The major contribution that sociolinguists have made in this area is to
provide evidence about the effect of contextual factors on speech.

An example will serve to illustrate this point. In order to determine the extent of their
vocabulary and grammar, it is usual to ask children to complete a number of language tests.
At one time, these tests were often administered by an adult stranger from a different social

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background from the child, and sometimes from a different ethnic group from the child too.
As a rule, each child was interviewed individually in a quiet room in the school. Children from
minority and working-class backgrounds who were tested under these conditions generally
did not do well. They responded monosyllabically, saying as little as possible, and escaping
with relief after it was all over. Middle-class children, on the other hand, tended to do much
better. They were much more willing to answer questions at length.

Sociolinguists pointed out that, although those administering them thought they were
administering these tests under ‘standard’ and ‘controlled’ conditions, there were in fact
some important differences in the experiences of middle-class children compared to others
being tested. An adult stranger using the standard dialect would be more likely to resemble
the friend of your mother or father if you were a middle-class child. If you were not a middle-
class child, your experience of adults who used the standard variety would be teachers, social
welfare workers and government offi cials – not the sort of people a child would be likely to
want to talk to for long if it could be avoided.

Sociolinguists were able to provide evidence that children who responded monosyllabically
in a test-interview were voluble and communicative in different contexts – with their friends,
for instance. One researcher showed that the evaluative constructions used in story-telling
by the African American teenagers that he recorded were more developmentally advanced
or mature than those used by the whites. In other words, claims that these children were
linguistically.

Deficient or ‘had no language’ or were limited to a ‘restricted code’ could be roundly refuted.
The formality and unfamiliarity of the testing context for these children accounted for the
misleading inference that they were linguistically deprived.
It was also pointed out that the language of the tests was more similar to that of the
middleclass children than to that of children from other social groups. When responses to the
test questions were analysed, it was found that sometimes answers which were factually

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correct but which used vernacular forms were marked wrong, because they didn’t exactly
match the form of the answers on the marking schedule. Once again, evidence from
sociolinguists was valuable in demonstrating that the children’s language was linguistically
systematic and well-structured and not inadequate or deficient.

Because attitudes are a mental construct, there can be uncertainty whether our research data
truly represent the respondents’ attitudes. This concern generates much methodological
debate. There are essentially three research approaches, usually termed the societal
treatment approach, the direct approach and the indirect approach. The first of these is a
broad category that typically includes observational (e.g. ethnographic) studies, or the
analysis of various sources within the public domain – for example, the discourse of
government or educational policy documents, employment and consumer advertisements,
novels, television programmes, cartoons, style and etiquette books (see Garrett et al. 2003:
15). It is fair to say that studies in this category, which often delve deeper into the
sociocultural and political backdrop to attitudes, have tended to receive insufficient
foregrounding in contemporary mainstream reviews of language attitudes research.

12. 4 Sociolinguistics Universal

Sociolinguists look for general patterns in the relationship between language and society.
They are interested in identifying and explaining common trends in the ways social factors
account for linguistic variation in different speech communities. The generalisations they
seek could be described as sociolinguistic universal tendencies. At this stage, some will be
obvious from the previous discussion. You may like to try formulating some yourself before
reading on. All speech communities have linguistic means of distinguishing different social
relationships; here solidarity and status are relevant dimensions of analysis. All speech
communities have linguistic means of distinguishing different contextual styles; formality is
here the relevant dimension of analysis. All speech communities have linguistic means of
expressing basic speech functions: potential universals here are referential and affective
functions, or at a greater level of specificity, those listed on page 294. In all speech

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community’s language change implies language variation, with social variation an important
contributing component. These potential sociolinguistic universals are at a high level of
generality, and have been illustrated throughout the book. Before closing, however, we also
provide examples of three more specific universals that sociolinguists have developed. They
are testable hypotheses derived from fundamental sociolinguistic principles. The first is one
which links the solidarity and status/power dimensions. The second links the status/power
dimension to the formality dimension. The third universal involves considerations of the
functions of language in relation to the solidarity and status/power dimensions.

Dimensions of Sociolinguistics Analysis

Sociolinguists are interested in identifying ways of describing and explaining the relationship
between language and the social contexts in which it is used. In this book, a number of concepts have
repeatedly proved useful in accounting for the patterns found in a wide range of societies. In
particular, we have made use of the following scales or dimensions:

• social distance/solidarity
• status/power
• formality
• function – affective and referential.

Solidarity/social distance
The solidarity dimension has proved relevant in accounting for patterns of linguistic
interaction throughout the book. How well you know someone is one of the most important
factors affecting the way you talk to them. The choice between regional dialect and standard
Norwegian in Norway, or between German and Italian in Sauris, or Meg vs Mrs Billington in
Cardiff, may simply indicate the degree of solidarity between the speaker and addressee.
Vernacular languages are often used between people who share attitudes and values, and
who may belong to the same ethnic group. In-group language is the language of solidarity.
Two Paraguayans who meet in Paris will use Guaraní to signal their shared identity.
Strangers with little in common are more likely to use a lingua franca or official language for
communication. Vernacular forms within a language also occur more frequently in

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interactions where people know each other well. Standard forms often express social
distance between participants. Certain speech styles are also used most often between
intimates. In most cultures, positive politeness strategies are appropriate between those who
know each other well, for example, or who wish to know each other better. But gossip would
be inappropriate between strangers. Negative politeness strategies tend to characterise
interactions between strangers – those who are socially distant.

Status/power
The status or power dimension also accounts for a variety of linguistic differences in the way
people speak. You speak in a way which signals your social status and constructs your social
identity in a community. Those at the top in multilingual communities often have the widest
linguistic repertoire, and they certainly speak the official language. In a monolingual
community, the higher your social group, the more standard forms you are likely to use. The
language of the most prestigious group is by definition the standard dialect. The way you talk
to others also signals your relationship on this dimension. Where people use non-reciprocal
address forms, for instance, the reason is generally due to a status or power difference. If you
call someone Sir and he calls you Chris, then he is your superior in some context. The
subordinate status of women is often signalled and reinforced by the nonreciprocal use of
address forms. The butcher may use dear to his women customers, for instance, but they do
not call him dear and he is unlikely to use dear to the men working on the road outside. Power
or status differences also explain the greater use of negative politeness forms by some
speakers. You will probably use a less direct form when asking your boss for a lift, for
example, than when asking your sister.

Formality
The formality dimension accounts for speech variation in different settings or contexts. The
H variety in a diglossia situation is the variety used in more formal situations. Classical Arabic
is not used in everyday talk. In Haiti, the L language, Haitian Creole, is the language of relaxed
informal situations. Official languages are the appropriate varieties for formal government

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interactions and state occasions. Vernaculars are the languages of informal interaction. In
monolingual communities, vernacular forms predominate in casual talk, while standard
forms are more frequent in situations such as a formal interview with the school principal or
the bank manager. Formal settings such as law courts, the House of Assembly or Parliament,
a graduation ceremony or a retirement dinner will require appropriate language. Formal
styles of speech with distinctive pronunciation, syntax and vocabulary are the linguistic
equivalent of formal dress on such occasions. Though status and solidarity are usually very
important influences on appropriate language choice, the formality of the setting or speech
event can sometimes override them. In court, even sisters will call each other by their formal
titles, and at a wedding ceremony the language of the bride and groom is prescribed by the
ritual occasion, not by the closeness of their relationship. Different communities put different
degrees of weight on solidarity vs status, and formality vs casualness. In a conservative,
status-based community, where differences are emphasised, interactions with acquaintances
may be relatively formal. In groups where friendship or how well you know someone tends
to override status differences, similarities are stressed, and interactions tend towards the
informal in many contexts. A group of elderly Indian upper-caste men might represent one
extreme, while a group of lower-class North American teenagers might represent the other.

Function
The function of an interaction can also be an important influence on linguistic form, as we
have seen throughout the book. Some interactions, such as news bulletins, sports
commentaries and legal documents, are high in information content, or referential meaning.
Their linguistic features are strongly influenced by the kind of information they need to
convey, and the constraints of time and setting they are responding to. In other interactions,
such as friendly gossip, the social or affective message may be the most important reason for
the interaction. This too affects the form of the language.

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Pidgin languages develop for primarily referential functions. As a result, the linguistic forms
found in pidgin languages are not elaborated in ways which could serve to convey social
information. They are simple and minimal. The speakers have other varieties which they use
with their friends for social and affective functions and to construct their social identities.
People do not generally use pidgins to convey their social status, nor how much they like the
addressee. Where variation develops, however, these are precisely the kinds of functions it
serves. For example, it is possible to convey warmth and affection in the H variety or using
standard dialect forms, but it is more often the case that people use L varieties and vernacular
forms for this purpose. Similarly, while referential information can certainly be conveyed in
any language or dialect, in practice, the H variety or standard dialect tends to be regarded as
the most appropriate way of expressing primarily informative material, particularly for a
wide audience, and especially when the information is in written form.

Language serves many functions, but in all communities the basic functions of referential and
affective (or social) meaning have proved useful dimensions of analysis. Every language
provides means of expressing social as well as referential meaning, and the choice between
alternative ways of saying the ‘same’ thing frequently involves a consideration of these
dimensions. Though referentially equivalent, Oh it’s you! conveys a very different affective
message from How lovely to see you, do come in! when you open the door to someone. It has
been suggested that, at least in casual interaction, some women stress the affective rather
than the referential function of talk. If this is so, the possibilities for miscommunication with
those who have different norms are obvious. Similarly, different cultural groups may
emphasise affective functions in contexts where others consider referential information is
the primary focus. A short welcoming greeting to parents at a school meeting, for instance,
may strike some groups as too perfunctory, and as indicating that the school does not value
their presence. For others, a short greeting may be considered as sensible. It ‘dispenses with
formalities’ and enables the meeting to get down to business with minimal delay.

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These four dimensions thus prove valuable in analysing the range of sociolinguistic variation
in many different types of speech communities and different contexts. As suggested above,
they seem to be universally useful sociolinguistic tools of analysis. The final section of this
chapter briefly exemplifies the notion of sociolinguistic universals.

Sociolinguistic Universals

Sociolinguists look for general patterns in the relationship between language and society.
They are interested in identifying and explaining common trends in the ways social factors
account for linguistic variation in different speech communities. The generalisations they
seek could be described as sociolinguistic universal tendencies. At this stage, some will be
obvious from the previous discussion. You may like to try formulating some yourself before
reading on. All speech communities have linguistic means of distinguishing different social
relationships; here solidarity and status are relevant dimensions of analysis. All speech
communities have linguistic means of distinguishing different contextual styles; formality is
here the relevant dimension of analysis. All speech communities have linguistic means of
expressing basic speech functions: potential universals here are referential and affective
functions, or at a greater level of specificity.

The direct approach involves simply asking people to report self-analytically what their
attitudes are, and is much used in larger-scale surveys, for example of attitudes to the
promotion of minority languages (O’Raigain 1993) or of attitudes in second language
learning (Gardner and Lambert 1972). But attitudes researchers are always wary of response
biases: in particular, ‘acquiescence bias’ (where people may give the responses they feel the
researchers are looking for) and ‘socially
desirable responses’ (where people voice the attitudes they think they ought to have, rather
than the ones they actually hold). In Montreal in the 1950s, Lambert and his colleagues
(Lambert et al. 1960), sceptical of local people’s overt responses as a true representation of
their privately held inter-ethnic views, developed an indirect method known as the matched-
guise technique (MGT). It relies upon vocal ‘guises’, where typically researchers record a

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single speaker (occasionally a professional actor) who commands or can imitate the required
speech styles (e.g. accent), and deceive listeners into thinking they are listening to different
speakers saying similar things, or reading the same text aloud in their different accents. The
rationale is that all speech features apart from the one under investigation (accent) are
controlled out, so that any differences in listener evaluations must be because they judge
accents differently. This elegant experimental technique
has been a dominant method since then. Some studies have made modifications, such as using
several speakers producing their own varieties, aiming to gain ‘authenticity’, but at the
expense of intrusive idiosyncratic voice properties. For example, in Bayard et al.’s (2001)
study of international Englishes, where they found evidence of US English replacing Received
Pronunciation (RP) as the
prestige variety, eight different speakers were used: one male and one female speaker of each
variety. The MGT has allowed the manipulation of a range of variables, including language,
dialect and accent variables in various speech communities, levels of accentedness, speech
rate, lexical intensity, lexical formality, age and speech accommodation (see Garrett et al.
2003 for a methodology-focused review).

The use of attitude-rating scales in this indirect approach allows some sophisticated
statistical analysis. One well established finding from such analysis has been that
respondents generally judge and differentiate language along three primary dimensions:
superiority (characteristics such as prestige, intelligence, competence), social attractiveness
(e.g. friendliness, trustworthiness) and dynamism (e.g. enthusiasm, liveliness) (Zahn and
Hopper 1985). For example, speakers of lower-class, minority or ‘non-standard’ varieties
tend to enjoy more favourable evaluations in terms of social attractiveness but fare less
favourably on perceived competence and intelligence compared with standard varieties,
which are associated with more social status but have often been found to project less social
attractiveness. ‘Regional standard varieties’ have also been identified in some contexts. These
attract higher competence and prestige ratings than other regional varieties but without
losing ground on social attractiveness. In Canada, Edwards and Jacobsen (1987) found that
Nova Scotian English operated as a regional standard (see also Garrett et al. 2003 on Wales).

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Language attitudes underlie the linguistic choices we make, and the way we evaluate other
people and their speech. At their most extreme, attitudes toward language harden into
language myths. A variety of research techniques (especially matched guise tests) have
enabled researchers to get at people’s beliefs about language. People tend to see their own
speech as unmarked (unless they speak a variety that’s been heavily stigmatized over the
years) – that is, people think that other people talk funny. The standard variety in particular
gains its power from its apparent unmarkedness. However, the status of the standard
requires constant reinforcement, and CDA can peek into some of the ways that this happens.

In all speech community’s language change implies language variation, with social variation
an important contributing component. These potential sociolinguistic universals are at a high
level of generality, and have been illustrated throughout the book. Before closing, however,
we also provide examples of three more specific universals that sociolinguists have
developed. They are testable hypotheses derived from fundamental sociolinguistic
principles. The first is one which links the solidarity and status/power dimensions. The
second links the status/power dimension to the formality dimension. The third universal
involves considerations of the functions of language in relation to the solidarity and
status/power dimensions.

When you talk to someone, you start to form opinions about them, sometimes solely on the
basis of the way they talk (Chambers 2003: 2–11). The last time you rang a service centre to
buy something over the phone, or to complain about something, you would have spoken to a
complete stranger. And yet, within minutes or even seconds, you probably composed quite a
detailed picture of who you were talking to. Were they male, or female? Were they a native
speaker of English? Did they have a strong regional dialect, or could you perhaps only say
very vaguely where they come from (‘somewhere in Scotland’ or ‘probably the South’)? You
might decide that you think they are Asian or a Pacific Islander. You may also have strong
ideas about whether they are ‘nice’, ‘friendly’ and ‘competent’, or whether they are ‘rude’,
‘disinterested’ and ‘stupid’.

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We draw very powerful inferences about people from the way they talk. Our attitudes to
different varieties of a language colour the way we perceive the individuals that use those
varieties. Sometimes this works to people’s advantage; sometimes to their disadvantage. For
instance, in the university where I work, a number of people speak with the southern British
Oxbridge accents that are generally associated with privilege, respect and success. They seem
to be found more often in the senior ranks of the university than people who don’t. Of course,
there are exceptions – the head of the university college who still speaks a clearly northern
variety of English – and the exceptions are as interesting as the rule.

Similarly, people may perceive social dialects that linguists do not. Many New Zealanders also
believe that Ma¯ori speakers can be identified by the way they talk (Ma¯ori are the
Polynesians who have lived in New Zealand for about a thousand years). Again, it has proved
difficult for linguists to identify reliable, objective criteria that uniquely mark this subjective
perception that a Ma¯ori English exists; some possible features are discussed in Holmes
(1997), but it is not clear how exclusively these mark a particular ethnic variety.

So, in both of these examples, people have opinions about dialects or varieties for which there
is limited objective (linguistic) evidence. What then are people responding to? Some
sociolinguists would argue that these subjective perceptions are taking deeply held beliefs
about social boundaries and projecting these beliefs into the linguistic system. The argument
goes: because people perceive the boundary between Ma¯ori and Pa¯keha¯ ethnic groups to
be salient, then there must be a linguistic boundary between those groups; they must speak
differently. Because they perceive the West Coast to stand apart from the rest of New Zealand,
they believe that people there must speak differently from the rest of the country. If this is,
indeed, the way such perceptions of dialect differences emerge in the absence of objective
support, then that is a very strong indicator of the crucial role language plays in reflecting
and constituting different social identities. This is one reason why studies of perceptual
dialectology can be important data for sociolinguists. They provide an independent measure

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– perception data, rather than production data – of how central language is to the formation
and maintenance of social and personal identities. That is, how people perceive language
provides evidence that is just as useful and relevant to the complicated balancing act between
fitting in and being distinctive which may motivate differences in the way speakers use
language.

Apart from studies of accent, Bradac et al. (1988) have found that low levels of lexical
diversity lead to judgements of low speaker status and competence in some contexts. And
Street et al. (1984) found that speaking faster was associated with increased competence.
(Reviews of such findings include Cargile et al. 1994; Bradac et al. 2001.) This experimental
approach to studying attitudes has also allowed comparison of the relative effects of different
levels of language on evaluative reactions. For example, Levin et al.’s (1994) study comparing
lexical formality and accent, and Giles and Sassoon’s (1983) study comparing accent and
lexical diversity, both found accent to be more potent overall.

Studies using similar approaches have produced some striking findings in applied fields. In
forensic linguistics in Australia, Seggie (1983) found a relationship between attributions of
guilt and a suspect’s accent. Where a suspect was accused of white-collar crime, more guilt
was attributed to RP than other accents, while a broad Australian accent attracted higher
guilt ratings in cases of assault. Dixon et al. (2002) found a Birmingham (UK) accent attracted
higher guilt ratings than RP, in particular where the suspect was also described as black and
the crime-type was armed robbery. In an employment interview context, Kalin et al. (1980)
found significant effects of accent on evaluations of job candidates, for example, with English
English-speakers judged more suitable for the higherstatus job (foreman), and West Indian
English-speakers associated more with the low-status job (cleaner). Parton et al. (2002),
examining the effects of ‘powerful’ and ‘powerless’ speech styles in job interviews, found that
a powerless speech style (with more frequent use of hedges and hesitations) resulted in
negative attributions of employability and competence. In contrast, the powerful speech style
attracted higher evaluations of competence but not of social attractiveness.

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In the educational context, Seligman et al. (1972) showed Canadian teachers combinations of
audio recordings, schoolwork and pictures of students, and students’ speech style was shown
to have important effects on their assessment. Granger et al. (1977) showed US teachers
differing combinations of pictures and speech samples of school students, and asked them to
rate the speech performance of the students. Ethnicity and social class were found to be the
significant variables influencing their assessments, with black speakers rated lower that
white speakers overall. Garrett et al. (2003), researching judgements of school success
among regional English dialect-speakers in Wales, found school students to be much more
differentiating than the teachers. Students seemed to see school success partly in terms of an
English–Welsh dimension, with the more anglicized Welsh English dialects clustering
separately from those regarded as more Welsh and less associated with scholastic success.

Health communication research has included work on the speech features in conversations
between patients and doctors. Fielding and Evered (1980), for example, found that patients’
accent can affect the way they are diagnosed: a middle-class-accented patient was more likely
to be diagnosed in psychiatric terms, compared with the physical terms of the diagnosis for
the lower-class accented patient reporting the same symptoms. Gould and Dixon (1997)
studied reactions to linguistic adaptations (e.g. careful intonation, simple and repeated
sentence structures) used by a health professional to enhance a patient’s comprehension and
recall. While respondents were found to prefer these sorts of accommodative speech features
aimed at increasing memory performance, they tended to react negatively to the doctors
producing them, viewing them as patronizing. Hence
in terms of doctor–patient relations and their implications for patients’ compliance with
doctors’ instructions, the adaptive speech style was not necessarily as helpful as one might
assume. Studies of the effects of evaluative reactions to language and communication in these
sorts of applied settings highlight the crucial impacts that attitudes can have on people’s life
opportunities.

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Although the indirectness of using verbal guises can help inhibit (for example) socially
desirable responses from masking private attitudes, direct approaches also feature large.
Indeed, Giles (1970) used both approaches and found little difference in the results,
suggesting that not all contexts share the highly charged sensitivities that Lambert and
colleagues felt in Montreal in the 1950s. The 1990s saw interest grow in folklinguistic and
perceptual dialectological studies of attitudes, generally direct in approach and most notably
promoted by Preston (1996, 1999). Various techniques are used. In some, respondents
receive blank maps of countries on which to draw in what they perceive as the main dialect
regions, and then characterize those regions in their own words.

Such folklinguistic comment on varieties and speakers reflects a considerable range of
sociocultural background. Preston has found that the notion of language correctness is a
major source of comment in the United States on regional varieties of US English, to the point
where many regard anything that is not correct as not really language: ‘Ain’t ain’t a word, is
it?’ (Preston 1996: 55). The above gives an impression of the vast amount of illuminating
research conducted in this area from the 1970s. Inevitably, it has always attracted essential
critical discussion. Reservations are voiced about the authenticity of the accents produced
for matched-guise studies, for example, and whether reading a passage aloud on audio-tape
constitutes language use that is too decontextualized for studying people’s attitudes. And
Edwards (1999: 105) has argued for more ‘bridging’ between social psychology and
sociolinguistics in order to find out more about which specific speech features give rise to
particular types of evaluative reactions. To exemplify, he points to Charles Boberg’s work on
how foreign words spelt with <a> are nativized in English. Boberg (1997) concludes that,
although British and US English often nativize similarly, the British
default tends to be / /, whereas /a:/ is becoming increasingly the US default in the belief that it is
paradoxically more British and correct (e.g. in ‘macho’ and ‘pasta’).

Arguments are also heard for greater use of qualitative approaches, for example, involving
interviews and discourse analysis, rather than relying so much on stimulus tapes and rating
scales. Indeed, Potter and Wetherell (1987) take the view that attitudes do not have sufficient

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demonstrable permanence to be investigated as stable and durable ‘psychological states’.
They propose a form of discourse analysis where ‘attitudes’ are sought in speakers’ accounts
in conversational contexts. Exemplifying through semi-structured interviews with New
Zealanders on the topic of Maoris, they paint a picture of a range of evaluative stances
emerging in social interaction, showing considerable variability and volatility. Potter and
Wetherell present an important argument giving emphasis to how we do social evaluation in
face-to-face interaction. But it can be argued that our assumptions and expectations also form
part of the context of our social interaction, and these are cognitive in nature, and language
attitudes can be comparatively stable stereo-typed responses to community-level
phenomena (such as dialects and discourse styles). Coupland and Jaworski (2009) emphasize
that, while it is the case that larger-scale survey-based attitude research risks pre-specifying
the dimensions of people’s value judgements, there is, in the study of evaluations emerging
in situated social interaction, a corresponding risk that overgeneralization will occur from
interpretations of local occurrences in rather small amounts of data. To this end, there may
be benefits in exploring the compatibility of ethnographic, discourse analytical approaches
with surveys across larger populations, and how far these approaches can be combined into
individual studies. Garrett et al. (2003) report a series of studies into attitudes towards Welsh
English dialects. They collected data from teachers and teenagers all over Wales, using a
combination of semi-structured interviews and questionnaires which included attitude-
rating scales, perceptual dialectological map-filling tasks and short qualitative responses,
such as labels and characterizations, and other short, immediate written reactions. They
were able to show some generalizable patterns in their quantitative data: for example,
distinguishing dialect communities in terms of prestige, pleasantness and Welshness. Against
this backdrop, the qualitative data captured more depth, reflecting, for example, the
respondents’ social and cultural positions as teachers and teenagers, and giving insights into
the teenagers’ inter-group relationships and identity negotiation. RP speakers, for example,
were quantitatively rated as prestigious by both teachers and teenagers, but the qualitative
data showed that they were strongly outgrouped by the teenagers. For them, RP was ‘the
voice of success’ but certainly ‘not our voice’.

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12.3 Summary
Speakers’ attitudes to language refers to how they use the language. In addition, in
community speakers create their attitude when they prefer using a language than others or
they tend to use a particular linguistic form of a language, for example dialect, lexicals, and
pronunciation. Moreover, they use prefer use a language than others in order to show an
identity or membership of a community. In other words, attitudes to language represent
attitudes to the speakers and the uses of language and sometimes it is not about intrinsically
beautiful or correct for any particular sound.

Dealing with the universal sociolinguistcs, the emerging interest in ‘language ideology’ in
sociolinguistics reflects a contemporary motivation for a more critical examining of our
sociocultural evaluations and assumptions, their histories and links with struggles for power.
Some of these recent developments in language attitudes research also arguably reflect a
move towards further exploring such ideological and critical perspectives in the study of
social meanings of language.

12.4 Exercises
Exercise 1
How could you test whether people’s opinions about a language are based on the intrinsic
linguistic features of the language (such as its sounds and its grammatical patterns) or derive
from non-linguistic factors such as the social and political status of the speakers?

Exercise 2
Think of three ways that a sociolinguist could find out about a community’s attitudes to a
particular language variety. Identify one advantage or strength and one disadvantage or
weakness of each method.

Exercise 3

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Discuss with five different people their views about the language of any immigrant group
with which you are familiar. The method used to collect information on attitudes to language
in exercise 2 (playing voices on a tape) tends to elicit overt norms and attitudes. With people
you know well, you may be able to get beyond the overt attitudes to find out how they really
feel about their own speech, the speech of other local people, the speech of immigrants and
the way the TV newsreaders speak. Do people’s comments on language reflect the social
status of the groups concerned, as suggested in the previous section?

Note any evidence in the comments you collect of a difference between covert and overt
attitudes to language. In other words, do people criticise a variety which they nevertheless
use regularly, while saying they admire a variety which they would never or very rarely use?

Exercise 4
It has been suggested that attitudes have three components: a cognitive component (e.g. what
we know or believe about a language), an affective component (e.g. how we feel about the
language) and a conative component (e.g. what we are likely to do in relation to a language).
So, if we were measuring attitudes to Welsh we could investigate what a person believes
about the Welsh language, how they feel about the language and what they seem likely to do
that would indicate their attitude to Welsh.

A very positive overall attitude would be indicated if they (1) believe that Welsh will help
them to get a good government job in Wales, (2) consider that poetry written in Welsh and
songs sung in Welsh are beautiful and (3) are currently enrolled in a Welsh language class.
How might these components differ for languages such as Indonesian, Javanese and
endangered language, such as Lampung language?

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GLOSSARY

A Billingualism: Knowledge of two
languages. Example: Marie is bilingual.
Accent: a way of pronouncing the She grew up in Montreal with English
words of a language that shows which as her first language, learned in the
country, area or social class a person home. She went to a French immersion
comes from. Example: British English school so that at age fifteen, she also
Sam (North of English): ‘ave you seen speaks French fluency.
‘enry’s new ‘ouse?
Jim (South of English): Henry has a new British Black English: Distinctive
house? varieties used by ethnic minorities in
Britain such as those of West Indian or
African American vernacular Caribbean descent. For example, many
English/AAVE: A distinct variety of people of West Indian or Caribbean
American English spoken in many descent speak a variety of Jamaican
african American communities. Some Creole as well as English.
characteristics are the absence of Example: dem kids lick him den walk
copula verb be, the use of habitual away. =those kids hit him then walked
aspect be and absence of possessive s. away.
There are also distinctive phonological
and lexical features. British English: The varieties of
Examples: English associated with Britain.
He a teacher. = He’s a teacher. Example: Tony Blair’s variety; variety
She be at school on weekdays. = She’s spoken by characters in the TV
always at school on weekdays. programme EastEnders.
Tom hat. = Tom’s hat.
C
American English: The variety of
English associated with the United Class: Refers to a person’s social
States of America. standing or socio-economic position in
scoiety. This is often judged according
B to level of education and occupation,
and in some societies by income and
BBC English: Regionally neutral accent family background. Example: Member
in English associated with a major of the aristrocracy in England would be
broadcasting corporation. classified as upper class; those
Example: Sir David Attenborough. enggaged in manual or unskilled labour
would be generally be classified as
working class.

Creole: a language formed when a UNIVERSITAS TEKNOKRAT INDONESIA
mixture of a European language with a
local language (especially an African D
language spoken by slaves in the West
Indies) is spoken as a first language. De facto norms: the feeling that many
speakers have that there are both ‘good’
Code (or variety): Any set of speakers and ‘poor’ speakers and that
linguistic forms which patterns the good speakers represent the norms
according to social factors: i.e. used of proper usage.
under specific social circumstances.
The term includes different accents, Diachronic:Historical. A diachronic
different linguistic styles, different study of a langauge traces changes in
dialects and even different languages the langage over time.
which contrast with each other for
social reasons. Dialect: the form of a language that is
spoken in one area with grammar,
Code- mixing (also known as code- words and pronunciation that may be
switching): Rapid switching from one different from other forms of the same
language to another within a language.
conversation.
Dialect continuum: Moving from one
Code-switching: Use of more than village to another, there are only small
one language a conversation. changes in speech features from
location to location.
Competence and Performance: a
person's knowledge of language Diglossia: Where two separate
(competence) and use of it languages are used for different
(performance). fucntions in a community, especially
where one is used for high (H) or more
Community: a group of people who formal functions and the other for low
share the same religion, race, job, etc. (L) or informal functions.
Example: In Paraguay, Spanish and
Creole: A pidgin which has acquired Guarani are used in different situations.
native speakers and has consequently Where Spanish is appropriate (usually
expanded in structure (grammar and is more formal contexts), Guarani is not
vocabulary) in order to express the and vice versa.
range of meanings and functions
required of a first language. Domain: involves typical interact ion
Example: Tok Pisin in New Guinea, between typical participants in typical
Bislama in Vanuatu, Haitian creole in settings. Example: Family, friendship,
Haiti. religion, workplace, education.

UNIVERSITAS TEKNOKRAT INDONESIA

E Honorifics: Expressions which
indicate the relative status or social
Ethnicity: the fact of belonging to a roles of the speaker and addressee
particular nation or people that shares (e.g. higher status of the addessee)
a cultural tradition Example: Army private to corporal:
Yes Sir.

Euphemism: indirect word or phrase
that people often use to refer to
something embarrassing or I

unpleasant, sometimes to make it Idiolect: the way that a particular
person uses language.
seem more acceptable than it really is

F Intersecting communities: the
speaker of places do use expressions
Fricative: A sound made by narrowing indicates that they some idea of how a
the exit passage of air from the lungs at “typical” person from each place
some point sufficiently to cause speaks – to be a member of a
friction. Example: [s], [z], [f], [v] particular speech community
somewhat loosely defined. E.g.: New
G York speech, London Speech, South
African Speech.
Gender exclusive features: Features
of language (pronounciation, grammar, Inter-sentential switching: when
vocabulary) used by one gender but one sentence is first spoken in one
not by other genders in a community. language and another complete
Example: Japanese men use: oyaji sentence is then spoken in the
(‘father’), hara (‘stomach’), umai alternate language. Intersentential
(‘delicious’) switching consists of language
Japanese women use: lotoosan switches at phrasal, sentence or
(‘father’), onaka (‘stomach’, oishii discourse boundaries.
delicious’).
Intra-sentential switching:
switching at the clause, phrase or
word level if no morphophonological
H
adaptation occurs.
High (H) diglossic variety: Variety
used for formal functions and in formal Irish English: The variety of English
contexts in diglossic situation. associated with Ireland. Example:
Example: French in Haiti; Standard Daniel Day Lewis’ role In the film in
German in Switzerland; Spanish in the name of the Father; Brendan
Paraguay; Classical Arabic, the Gleeson’s role in The Guard; the
language of the Quran/Koran across variety used in the film Waking Ned
Arabic-speaking countries. Devine.

Isoglosses: a line on a map that UNIVERSITAS TEKNOKRAT INDONESIA
separates places where a particular features of the koine which
feature of a language is different. developed could be traced back to
Example: Near the South this London dialect.
Australia/Victoria border, there is an
isogloss that runs from midway J
between Renmark and Dareton south
to midway between Penopa and Language planning: activities
Edenhope. People on the South that attempt to bring about
Australian side say slippery dip while changes in the structure (corpus)
those on the other side say slide. and functions (thus, status) of
languages and/or language
J varieties.

Jargon: words or expressions that are Langue and Parole: langue is the
used by a particular profession or whole system of language that
group of people, and are difficult for precedes and makes speech possible;
others to understand. meanwhile Parole is the concrete use
of the language, the actual utterances.
K
Language typology: a field of
Kinship system: the system of social linguistics that studies and classifies
relationships connecting people in a languages according to their
culture who are or are held to be structural features.
related and defining and regulating
their reciprocal obligations. Example: Linguistic repertoires: all of the
mother, husband, cousin, nephew. linguistic varieties, including registers,
dialects, styles, and accents that exist in
Koine: variety which is the result of a community or within an individual.
dialect contact. Both linguistic and
social factors contribute to its Lingua franca: a shared language of
creation. The koine typically has communication used between people
some features from each of the whose main languages are different.
contributing dialects, with most
features typically coming from the Language contact: the social and
dialect of the largest group of linguistic phenomenon by which
speakers. Example: People moved speakers of different languages (or
into the new British English town of different dialects of the same language)
Milton Keynes from many different interact with one another, leading to a
regions in the 1960s and 1970s, but transfer of linguistic features.
most came from the east end of
London. Consequently, many of the Language maintenance: Definition:
Process by which a minority language
community sets out to inhibit the shift
or loss of their language. Several

factors may contribute to language UNIVERSITAS TEKNOKRAT INDONESIA
maintenance, such as (1) the degree to qualities of Swedish, Danish and
which the language is considered an Norwegian
important symbol of the group’s
identity; (2) frequent contact with Language planning: A deliberate,
other speakers in the community; (3) systemic attempt to address the
frequent contact with the homeland, communication issues of a society by
through visits home or new migrants studying the varieties
or visitors. Examples of speech (language/dialects), and developing a
communities engaged in language policy concerning their form,
maintenance efforts: Samoan in New selectionn and or use. xample: In the
Zealand; Greek in Sydney; Cree in nineteenth entury, Finland, being a
Canada. close neighbour of Imperial Russia and
Sweden, developed the form of its
Language shift: the process whereby language to differentiate itself from
members of a community in which these two countries.
more than one language is spoken
abandon their original vernacular M
language in favor of another.
Multilingual: speaking or using
Language death: a process in which several different languages.
the level of a speech community's
linguistic competence in their language Motherese: a simple style of language
variety decreases, eventually resulting of the type that parents use when
in no native or fluent speakers of the speaking to their child.
variety.
Example: Of approximately 200 Monolingual: speaking or using
Aboriginal languages spoken in only one language.
Australia when the Europeans arrived,
between 50 and 70 disappeared as a N
direct result of the massacre of the
Aboriginal people or their death from National language: The language of a
diseases introduced by Europeans. political, cultural and social unit,
generally developed and used as a
Language attitudes: How people feel symbol of national unity.
about different languages and dialects. Example: Guaraní is the national
This generally reflects their views of the language of Paraguay. Swahili is the
people who use them. Example: ‘Danish national language of Tanzania.
is not a language, but a throat disease’,
wrote one Norwegian respondent in Network density: A measure of the
reply to a 1950s postal questionnaire extent to which members of a person’s
asking for Scandinavian people’s social network are in touch with each
opinions of the relative aesthetic other. Example: If all your friends know
each other independently of you then
network density is high. Tom’s friends

and relations know and interact UNIVERSITAS TEKNOKRAT INDONESIA
regularly with each other, as well as same language need to talk to each
with him. His network has very high other.
density.
R
Nonstandard: Linguistic forms or Regional dialect: a distinct form of a
varieties that do not conform to the language spoken in a particular
standard. Example: West Yorkshire geographical area.
English; African American Vernacular
English. S

Norms Scottish English: The variety of
Definition: The accepted ways of doing English associated with speakers from
something within a community: e.g. Scotland.
way of opening an interaction, way of Example: Billy Connolly’s variety;
gaining the floor. David Tennant’s variety (as himself,
Example: In some Australian not as The Doctor), Peter Capaldi’s
Aboriginal communities it is not variety (as himself and as The Doctor),
appropriate to ask direct questions. In Ewan MacGregor’s variety (as himself).
some North American Indigenous
communities it is not appropriate to Social dialect: a variety of language
speak directly to strangers. that reflects social variation in language
use, according to certain factors related
O to the social group of the speaker such
as education, occupation, income level
Official language: A language used for etc.
government business with a primarily
utilitarian rather than symbolic Social dialect: Variation in
function. language (pronunciation, vocabulary
Example: Swahili and English are both and/or grammar) relating to the
official languages in Tanzania but only speaker’s social background.
Swahili is the national language. In Examples: Working-class Cockney;
Vanuatu, Bislama, French and English language used by Brahmin in India;
are all official languages but only variety used by a ‘Boston Brahman’
Bislama is the national language. = a descendant of an old New
England family.
P
Speech community: all the people
Pidgin: a simple form of a language, who speak a particular language or
especially English, Portuguese or variety of a language. Example:
Dutch, with a limited number of Italians in Aosta; Greek community
words, that are used together with in Melbourne
words from a local language. It is used
when people who do not speak the

Standard English: the variety of UNIVERSITAS TEKNOKRAT INDONESIA
English that has undergone substantial Example: People who live in Belgravia in
regularisation and is associated with London, Manhattan in New York,
formal schooling, language or Remuera in Auckland typically have
high socio-economic status.
assessment, and official print
publications, such as public service Synchronic
announcements and newspapers of At one point in time. A synchronic study
record, etc. of a language is a study at a particular
point without regard for previous or
Social dialectology: The study of succeeding states of the language.
language features employed by a range Example: Holmes, Bell and Boyce
of social groups. Example: Labov’s undertook a synchronic study of the
English of people living in an area of
1966 New York City study, Trudgill’s Greater Wellington in 1989–1990.
1974 Norwich study, Holmes, Bell and
Boyce’s 1991 Wellington dialect survey T
are all
Taboo: considered so
examples of social dialect offensive or embarrassing that
research. people must not mention it

Social network: The pattern of Tag-switching: a kind of intra
informal relationships that people are sentential switching, in which a tag
involved in
on a regular basis. Example: Tom lives Tag questions: Forms such as isn’t it?
in Ballymacarrett, a Protestant area in and don’t they? which may be
Belfast. He works as an apprentice in appendedto a statement. Example:
the shipyard. His cousin Mike also Informal tag question forms include eh?
works there. He and Mike live in the and right? French has a tag question
same street and most nights they have form n’est-ce pas? and German has a tag
a beer together after work. They also question form nicht wahr?
run a disco with two friends. These
people form a social network. U

Sociolinguistics: the study of Uniplex
the social uses of language. Definition: A social network measure
which indicates that two people
Sapir-Whorf hypothesis: the theory interact in only one area of their social
that the language that you speak has an lives.
important effect on the way you think. Example: Sue and Todd work together,
but never see each other outside of
Socio-economic status: Refers to a work. Their social network is uniplex.
person’s social and economic position in
society often
measured by education and occupation
and income.

V UNIVERSITAS TEKNOKRAT INDONESIA

Variation: a thing that is different Vernacular dialect: varieties
from other things in the same of language that are not
general group classified as standard
dialects.
Variant: also known as
sociolinguistic variant
Definition: The realisation/expression
of a (socio) linguistic variable.
Example: The variable -ing can be
realised/expressed/pronounced as the
variant [in] or the variant [iŋ].

Variety (or code): Any set of linguistic
forms which patterns according to
social factors: i.e. used under specific
social circumstances. The term
includes different accents, different
linguistic styles, different dialects and
even different languages which
contrast with each other for social
reasons.
Example: In Eggenwil, a town in the
Aargau canton of Switzerland, Silvia, a
bank-teller, knows two very distinct
varieties of German. One is the local
Swiss German dialect of her canton
which she uses in her everyday
interactions. The other is standard
German which she learnt at school, and
though she understands it very well
indeed, she rarely uses it in speech.

UNIVERSITAS TEKNOKRAT INDONESIA

INDEX

A L
Attitude 2, 10, 12, 13
Language maintenance 114, 115, 123,

125, 126, 127

B Language shift 15, 115, 116,
Bilingual 71, 75, 78, 79, 80, 81, 89, 94, 97, 118,
117, 118, 119,
123, 128, 161
121, 122, 123,

124, 125, 126,

129, 130

C Language variety 12, 40, 43, 88,

Creole 14, 53, 54, 57, 58, 60, 61, 62, 64, 65, 66, 177

67, 68 Lingua franca 54, 55, 58, 66, 77,

Code switching 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81 197
Code mixing 72, 75, 76
Linguistic variable 11, 30, 106

Language change 4, 5, 7, 9, 107, 112, 132,

133, 134, 136, 137, 138,
139, 141, 144, 146, 183,
D
184, 197, 203,

Dialect 5, 10, 11, 12, 14, 15, 16, 28, 29, 36, 37, Language death and loss 120,
Diglossia 38, 39, 40, 41, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 51, 58,
73, 75, 77, 79, 81, 82, 86, 87, 90, 92, 96, Linguistic Repertoires 95,
101, 103, 104, 105, 106, 110, 112, 127,
129, 135, 136, 138, 140, 141, 142, 145, M 71, 72, 82, 119, 120, 125
170, 173, 175, 177, 179, 180, 187, 189, Multilingualism
192, 193, 194, 195, 197, 198, 200, 202,
203, 204, 206, 207, 208, 209 N
Networks and repertoires 93, 96, 45, 47,
71, 75, 81, 118, 198

E P

Euphemism 6, 160, 162, 171, Pidgin
Intersecting communities 86, 92 Prototype theory

K 28, 142, 153, 154, 155 15, 42, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58,
Kinship 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66,
67, 68, 145, 190, 200,

158, 159,

UNIVERSITAS TEKNOKRAT INDONESIA

R T

Register 5, 12, 45, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 90, 93, Taboo 160, 161, 162,
Regional 96, 102, 151,
3, 4, 10, 11, 16, 43, 44, 47, 51, 76, Taxonomies 31, 155, 156,
Repertoires
80, 102, 104, 105, 111, 112, 115, P
134, Variation

101, Vernacular

S 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 12, 15, 30, 31,

Social dialect 11, 16, 43, 45, 37, 43, 44, 47, 49, 50, 56, 88, 96,
101, 102, 104, 105, 106, 107, 108,
46, 51, 136, 169, 109, 110, 111, 112, 133, 134, 136,
170, 173, 175, 138, 141, 142, 145, 146, 158, 176,
177, 179, 180, 191, 194, 196, 197, 198, 200, 201,
204, 203,

Social variation 11, 105, 110, 28, 29, 30, 58, 59, 63, 75, 120, 138,

134, 146, 197, 139, 140, 141, 143, 144, 169, 173,
203, 174, 176, 177, 179, 180, 191, 192,
193, 194, 196, 197, 199, 200,

Speech community 74, 75, 86, 87, W
Whorfian
88, 89, 90, 91, 150, 151,
93, 96, 101, 106,
110, 129, 136,
137, 139, 168,
170, 178, 191,
203,

Sociolinguistics and Education 192

Sociology of language 2, 9, 13,

AN INTRODUCTION TO

HERI KUSWOYO Dr. Heri Kuswoyo, M.Hum.
AFRIANTO
is an Assistant Professor of Applied Linguistics at English Department, Faculty of
Arts and Education, Universitas Teknokrat Indonesia and a Post-doctoral Researcher
at Faculty of Cultural Sciences, Universitas Padjadjaran, Indonesia. He was a visiting
researcher at Department of English, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Northern

Illinois University in 2019. His research interests include discourse analysis,
classroom discourse, and systemic functional linguistics. His most recent
publications are Schematic Structure and Lexico-grammatical Features of

Aerospace Engineering English Lectures: A Systemic Functional Linguistic Approach
(2020, Asian EFL Journal) and ‘Let’s take a look...’: An Investigation of Directives as

Negotiating Interpersonal Meaning in Engineering Lectures (2021, Pertanika Journal
of Social Sciences and Humanities) with Prof. Eva Tuckyta Sari Sujatna,
Dr. Lia Maulia Indrayani, Dr. Doris Macdonald, Akhyar Rido, Ph.D.

For academic collaboration purposes, please access
https://www.sinta.ristekbrin.go.id/authors/detail?id=258759&view=overview for

further information on my publications.

Dr. Afrianto, M.Hum.

is a lecturer in English Literature Study Program, Faculty of Arts and Education,
Universitas Teknokrat Indonesia. He accomplished his Doctoral Program in Linguistic

Study at Universitas Padjadjaran in 2021. Furthermore, Systemic Functional
Linguistics (SFL) is his expertise and he is also a member of ASFLI (Asosiasi
Systemic Functional Linguistics Indonesia). At this moment, he is in a project of SFL
of Lampung Language. It such a local language documentation. Accordingly, he
published an article discussing Clause and Predicative Constituent Structure in
Lampung Language and this article is published in Topics in Linguistics journal.

In addition, in 2019 he participated in Sandwich-like Program or PKPI (Peningkatan
Kualifikasi Publikasi Internasional) and became a visiting scholar

in Northern Illinois University, Illinois, USA. What is more is that he was awarded a
grant from Kemristekdikti in scheme PDD (Penelitian Disertasi Doktor) in 2020.

Publisher :

UNIVERSITAS TEKNOKRAT INDONESIA

Zainal Abidin Pagaralam 9-11
Bandar Lampung

www.teknokrat.ac.id