1 Introduction 1
1.1 The appearance ofsociolinguistics 1
1.2 Language and society 2
1.3 Definition ofsociolinguistics 4
1.4 Sociolinguistic varieties 5
1.4.1 Language and social class 5
1.4.2 Language and ethnicity 6
1.4.3 Language and dialect 7
1.4.4 Language and gender 7
1.5 Types of sociolinguistic research 9
1.5.1 Sociolinguistics of linguistics 9
1.5.2 Sociolinguistics of ethnology 10
1.5.3 Sociolinguistics of sociology 10
1.5.4 Sciolinguistics ofsociopsychology of language 11
1.5.5 Sociolinguistics ofpragmatics 11
1.6 Sociolinguistics and the sociology of language 12
1.7 Basic concepts of sociolinguistics 13
1.7.1 Language variety 13
1.7.2 Speech community 13
1.7.3 Communicative competence 14
Questions for consideration 14
2 Varieties of language 15
2.1 Variety 15
2.2 Language and dialect 16
2.2.1 Dialect and accent 16
2.2.2 Language versus dialect 16
2.2.3 Standard dialect and nonstandard dialect 19
2.2.4 Regional dialect 23
2.2.5 Social dialect 32
2.3 Style 34
Questions for consideration 39
3 Sociolinguistic research 40
3.1 Field methods 40
3.2 Examples of sociolinguistic investigation 46
3.2.1 The Martha's Vineyard study 46
3.2.2 The New York City study 48
3.3 The uses of style in sociological investigation 50
3.4 Correlating variables with social stratification 54
3.5 The birth ofa variable 55
3.6 Subjective reaction tests 57
3.7 The sociolinguistic survey versus conventional sociological studies 60
3.8 Hidden attitudes in a dialect survey 61
3.9 Remarks on the Labovian method 63
Questions for consideration 65
4 Variation of language 66
4.1 Language and social class 66
4.2 Language and gender 75
4.2.1 Gender differences 76
4.2.2 Sexism 88
4.2.3 Causes of sexism 99
4.2.4 Changes in language and society 103
4.3 Language and ethnicity 108
4.3.1 Black English 108
4.3.2 Features of Black English 109
4.3.3 Linguistic views on Black English 115
4.3.4 A sociolinguistic interview by McLucas&Lanehart 118
4.3.5 Consequences for education 124
Questions for consideration 128
5 Communicative competence 130
5.1 Linguistic competence 130
5.2 Communicative competence 132
5.2.1 Grammatical competence 134
5.2.2 Sociolinguistic competence 135
5.2.3 Strategic competence 137
5.3 Speech community 138
Questions for consideration 141
6 Communication 142
6.1 Ethnography of speaking 142
6.2 Speech acts 147
6.3 Conversation 150
6.4 Discourse rules 155
6.4.1 Questions and answers 155
6.4.2 Compliments 156
6.4.3 Commands 158
6.4.4 Collapsing sequences 161
6.4.5 Repairs in conversation 162
6.4.6 Closing 163
6.5 Politeness 164
6.5.1 Some important researches on politeness 164
6.5.2 Politeness formula 171
6.6 Forms of address 181
6.6.1 Research of second-person pronoun T\V usage 181
6.6.2 Address forms of American English 184
6.6.3 Address forms of Chinese 194
Questions for consideration 202
7 Language contact 203
7.1 Bilingualism and multilingualism 203
7.2 Bilingualism and diglossia 208
7.3 Origin of linguistic diversity 211
7.4 Code-switching 216
7.5 Code-mixing 220
7.6 Borrowing 221
7.7 Pidgins and Creoles 224
Questions for consideration 227
8 Language planning 228
8.1 Language planning 228
8.2 National languages and official languages 230
8.3 Status planning and corpus planning 231
8.4 The linguists' role in language planning 233
Questions for consideration: 235
Bibliography 236