1 An Introduction to Sociolinguistics 1
1.1 What is Sociolinguistics? 1
1.2 History of Sociolinguistics in the West 5
1.3 Language and Society 9
1.3.1 Language as Social Behavior 10
1.3.2 Language as a Communicative Means 11
1.3.3 Language as an Information System 12
1.4 Sociolinguistics and English Learning 15
1.5 Summary 18
2 Language Change 20
2.1 Introduction 20
2.1.1 Linguistic Item 20
2.1.2 Variety 21
2.1.3 Linguistic Variable 22
2.1.4 Speech Community 24
2.1.5 Networks and Repertoires 26
2.2 Forms of Language Change 28
2.2.1 Phonological Change 29
2.2.2 Morphological Changes 29
2.2.3 Lexical Semantic Change 31
2.2.4 Grammatical Change 35
2.3 Nature of Change 36
2.3.1 Internal and External Change 36
2.3.2 Family Tree 37
2.3.3 Wave Diffusion 38
2.4 Factors of Change 40
2.4.1 Imitation of the Prestigious 41
2.4.2 Slang and Dialects 41
2.4.3 Simplification 43
2.4.4 Politeness 43
2.4.5 Stratum Terms 44
2.5 General Conclusions 45
3 Language Variety Space 47
3.1 Language and Dialect 47
3.1.1 Dialecte and Patois 48
3.1.2 Size and Prestige 49
3.1.3 Social and Political Factors 50
3.1.4 Dialect and Intelligibility 51
3.2 Standard Languages 53
3.2.1 Standardization 54
3.2.2 Historicity and Vitality 56
3.2.3 Autonomy and Acceptance 57
3.2.4 Reduction and Mixture 57
3.3 Pidgin and Creole 58
3.3.1 Lingua Francas 59
3.3.2 Pidgins 60
3.3.3 Creoles 63
3.3.4 Theories of Origin 65
3.4 Language Loss and Revival 68
3.5 General Conclusions 72
4 Language and Gender 74
4.1 Male/Female Language 74
4.1.1 Male/Female Lexical Forms 75
4.1.2 Male/Female Language Differences 76
4.2 Sexism in Languages 84
4.2.1 Marked and Unmarked Terms 85
4.2.2 Female Vocabulary 87
4.2.3 Sexist Language 87
4.3 Sex Differences and Possible Reasons 89
4.3.1 Social Division of Labour 90
4.3.2 Social Prejudice 90
4.3.3 Power and Control 91
4.3.4 Role Relations 91
4.4 Language Bias in English 92
4.5 General Conclusion 94
5 Varieties in the English World 97
5.1 English and Social Class 97
5.1.1 Class and Status 98
5.1.2 Social Class and Language Variation 99
5.1.3 Social Status and'Prestige'Norms 104
5.2 Black English in America 106
5.2.1 Characteristics of Black English 107
5.2.2 Three Views on Black English 111
5.3 American English 112
5.3.1 History of American English 112
5.3.2 Characteristics of American English 114
5.3.3 American English and British English 118
5.4 Good English and Bad English 122
5.5 Summary 126
6 Language and Context 128
6.1 Context Views 128
6.2 Linguistic Context 130
6.2.1 Conceptual Meaning 130
6.2.2 Grammatical Meaning 132
6.2.3 Topic Meaning 134
6.2.4 Collocative Meaning 135
6.3 Non-linguistic Context 136
6.3.1 Cultural Meaning 136
6.3.2 Stylistic Meaning 137
6.3.3 Status Meaning 138
6.3.4 Temporal and Spatial Meaning 139
6.4 Style of English in Application 141
6.4.1 Style 141
6.4.2 English in Advertisements 142
6.4.3 Features in Political English 144
6.5 Register 146
6.5.1 Context and Register 146
6.5.2 Features of Register 150
6.6 Summary 152
7 Cultural Variety of Language 155
7.1 Language and Culture 155
7.2 Linguistic and Cultural Relativity 156
7.2.1 The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis 156
7.2.2 Reaction to Linguistic and Cultural Relativity 158
7.3 Address Forms and Culture 165
7.3.1 Kinship Term and Kinship System 165
7.3.2 Social Address 169
7.4 Jargon,Taboo ＆ Euphemism 179
7.4.1 Jargon 179
7.4.2 Taboo 181
7.4.3 Euphemism 186
8 Language Contact 192
8.1 Diglossia 192
8.1.1 Definitions of Diglossia 192
8.1.2 Features of Diglossia 193
8.1.3 Extended Meanings of Diglossia 195
8.2 Bilinguals ＆ Bilingualism 198
8.2.1 Descriptive Analysis of Bilingualism 198
8.2.2 Bilingual Competence 200
8.3 Code Choosing and Code Switching 202
8.3.1 Code Switching 202
8.3.2 Code-Mixing 204
8.3.3 Attitudes to Code Switching and Code Mixing 206
8.4 Concluding Remarks 208
9 Configurations of Language 211
9.1 Spoken and Written Language 211
9.2 Differences and Similarities Between the Two Modalifies 212
9.3 Confinua from Written to Spoken 214
9.4 Variation Across Speech and Writing 216
9.5 Literacy and Literacies 218
9.6 General Conclusions 225
10 Communicative Use of Language 229
10.1 Ethnography of Speaking 229
10.1.1 Descriptive Analysis of Speaking 230
10.1.2 The Norms Governing Speech 232
10.2 Speech Acts and the Cooperative Principle 233
10.2.1 Properties of Speech Acts 233
10.2.2 Indirect Speech Acts 236
10.2.3 Conversational Maxims 239
10.3 Conversational Structure and Strategies 241
10.3.1 Adjacency Pairs 242
10.3.2 Tum-taking 243
10.3.3 Openings,Topics and Closings 245
10.4 Face and Politeness 247
10.4.1 The Face Theory 247
10.4.2 Politeness Principle 249
10.5 Concluding Remarks 251
Bibliography 254