To help us understand what
sociolinguistics is all about, Connie
Eble suggests we begin by reviewing some of the many questions
sociolinguists try to answer through observation and experimentation.
These questions include:
- Which features of language behavior are people conscious of
using? Which are below the level of their conscious awareness?
- To what extent do individuals and groups use language to define
themselves or to set themselves apart?
- What factors cause individuals or groups to change their language
in order to sound either similar to or different from others?
- In what observable ways do individuals and groups change the
features of their language and the ways in which they use language?
- What factors inhibit or promote the extinction, rise or
maintenance of local varieties of languages?
- What factors cause listeners to perceive one type of language as
higher in status than another?
- Do men and women, boys and girls use language differently?
- Do adults change their language and the way they use it as they
- How does education affect the features of language that people
- How do social networks affect language?
- What type of speaker and what type of group initiate linguistic
- What social mechanisms help a new feature of language take hold
- What features of language do people vary according to their
- What attitudes do people have towards regional dialects and
- What happens when people wish or need to interact with people who
speak another language?
- What factors support or inhibit bilingualism?
- In what ways is linguistic behavior subject to control? By whom?
- How do social conflicts and tensions, such as racism, affect
- How do radio, television, films and popular entertainment affect
- How does discourse (connected stretches of speech or writing)
differ from one group to another?
An important feature of sociolinguistics is its commitment to
observing and reporting on language, rather than prescribing how to use
it. This style of language study is known as descriptivism.
Read Dr. Eble's Essay
Suggested Reading/Additional Resources
- Chaika, Elaine. (1994). Language: The Social Mirror.
3rd ed. Boston: Heinle & Heinle.
- Coulmas, Florian, ed. (1997). The Handbook of
Sociolinguistics. Oxford: Blackwell.
- Macaulay, Ronald K. S. (1994). The Social Art: Language and
Its Uses. New York: Oxford University Press.
- Trudgill, Peter. (1995). Sociolinguistics: An Introduction
to Language and Society. London: Penguin Books.
- Wardhaugh, Ronald. (2002). An Introduction to
Sociolinguistics. 4th ed. Cambridge: Blackwell.
- Wolfram, Walt and Natalie Schilling-Estes. (1998). American
English. Oxford: Blackwell.
- An Intro to Sociolinguistics, a primer from the
University of Oregon.
is Professor of
English at the
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she has taught for
more than thirty years. She is also Editor of American Speech
the quarterly journal of the American Dialect Society. Her book Slang
(University of North Carolina Press, 1996) reports
her study of the slang of American college students. She has recently
completed terms as president of the South Atlantic Modern Language
Association and the Linguistic Association of Canada and the United
States. Her current research project is a study of the loss of French
in Louisiana in the first part of the nineteenth century.
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