Sociolinguistic Class

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Sociolinguistics
1st class
MPBI Batch 38 (2024)
Lecturer: Dédé Oetomo, PhD
(溫 忠 孝)

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General introduction:
What do sociolinguists study?

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What is a sociolinguist?
▪ Sociolinguists
▪ study the relationship between language and
society;
▪ are interested in explaining why we speak
differently in different social contexts;
▪ are concerned with identifying the social functions
of language and the ways it is used to convey
social meaning.

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▪ Examining the way people use language in
different social contexts provides information
about
▪ the way language works;
▪ social relationships in a community,
▪ the way people convey and construct aspects of
their social identity through their language.

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Why do we say things in different ways?
▪ Example 3
▪ Every afternoon my friend packs her bag and leaves her Cardiff
office in southern Wales at about 5 o’clock. As she leaves, her
business partner says goodbye Margaret (she replies goodbye
Mike), her secretary says see you tomorrow (she replies bye Jill ),
and the caretaker says bye Mrs Walker (to which she responds
goodbye Andy). As she arrives home she is greeted by hi mum
from her daughter, Jenny, hello dear, have a good day? from her
mother, and simply you’re late again! from her husband. Later in the
evening the president of the local flower club calls to ask if she
would like to join the club. Good evening, is that Mrs Billington? she
asks. No, it’s Margaret Walker, but my husband’s name is David
Billington, Margaret answers. What can I do for you? Finally a friend
calls Hello Meg, sut wyt ti?

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What are the different ways we say
things?

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Social factors, dimensions &
explanations
▪ Social factors:
1. The participants:
a. who is speaking &
b. who are they speaking to?
2. The setting or social context of the interaction:
where are they speaking?
3. The topic: what is being talked about?
4. The function: why are they speaking?

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▪ Social dimensions:
1. A social distance scale concerned with
participant relationships
2. A status scale concerned with participant
relationships
3. A formality scale relating to the setting or type of
interaction
4. Two functional scales relating to the purposes or
topic of interaction.

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▪ Looking for explanations
▪ The first two steps which need to be taken are:
1. to identify clearly the linguistic variation involved (e.g.
vocabulary, sounds, grammatical constructions, styles,
dialects, languages)
2. to identify clearly the different social or non-linguistic
factors which lead speakers to use one form rather than
another (e.g. features relating to participants, setting or
function of the interaction).

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