scholarly journals A IDENTIDADE LINGÜÍSTICA DA COMUNIDADE DE FALA: PARALELISMO INTERDIALETAL NOS PADRÕES DE VARIAÇÃO LINGÜÍSTICA

Organon ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 14 (28-29) ◽  
Author(s):  
Gregory Guy
Keyword(s):  
Formal Education ◽  
Internal Communication ◽  
Language Usage ◽  
Speech Community ◽  
Conceptual Problem ◽  
Linguistic Features ◽  
Phonological Process ◽  
Speech Communities ◽  
Syntactic Process ◽  
Constraint Effects

The basic sociolinguistic model for relationships between idiolects anddialects is the speech community, defined by shared linguistic features andattitudes and relatively high internal density of communication. Since thesedefinitions are relative, speech communities can nest and overlap, so that localsubdialects, sociolects, ethnic lects, and personal networks can form smallerspeech communities that share local traits and are locally high in communicationdensity, while still belonging to a broader speech community which shares widertraits, and whose internal communication density is high, relative to, say, othergeographic regions. In variation studies, it has long been assumed that some of theshared linguistic traits that define a community are certain constraints on variableprocesses. The conceptual problem that arises with this model is, how far areconstraints shared, and how much can they differ? If some constraint was due, forexample, to a universal process, then it would be expected to be shared by allspeakers of all speech communities, while at the other extreme, the existence ofidiosyncratic differences in language usage raises the possibility that at least someconstraints may differ for each individual. This paper takes a cross-dialectalcomparative approach. Two variable processes are studied in four communitiesdrawn from the VARSUL corpus, each with distinctive ethnic and sociolinguisticcharacteristics. A socially diversified sample of 8-12 speakers is investigated ineach community. The variables investigated include one syntactic process (nounphrase Agreement, NPA) and one phonological process (final -s deletion, SDEL).The constraints on NPA are mainly morphosyntactic in nature while theconstraints on SDEL are straightforwardly phonological. In each case, theconstraint effects are broadly similar across communities and speakers. Betweenspeakerdifferences within communities are mainly the result of either statisticalnoise (smaller sample sizes lead to larger differences), or of predictable socialdifferentiation (e.g. speakers with less formal education use more of the nonstandard variants.) And, strikingly, the main constraint effects are highlyconsistent across the different communities. The results generally lend support tothe model of Cedergren & Sankoff (1974), that "performance is a statisticalreflection of competence", and competence, here dealing with the knowledge ofwhat varies where, is powerfully shared across a language community.

Order in the creole speech community

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 58-88
Author(s):  
Agata Daleszynska-Slater ◽  
Miriam Meyerhoff ◽  
James A. Walker
Keyword(s):  
Language Ideologies ◽  
Linear Models ◽  
Comparative Method ◽  
Age Groups ◽  
Speech Community ◽  
Linguistic Features ◽  
Internal Constraints ◽  
Small Communities ◽  
Speech Communities ◽  
Different Levels

Abstract Creolists and variationists often conceptualize variation in multilectal speech communities as a continuum of linearly ordered linguistic features. Using the variationist comparative method, we analyze variation in past tense marking in a creole speech community (Bequia, St Vincent and the Grenadines), comparing across groups of speakers (communities and age-groups) in terms of frequencies of past-marking, language-internal constraints on past-marking and the ranking of factors within those constraints. Based on these multiple lines of evidence, the analysis shows that placing groups on a continuum is not straightforward, in line with local language ideologies. We argue that linear models of variation may reify relationships between varieties in terms of differences that are not sustained across different levels of analysis. We also show that the relationships between lects even in quite small communities are subject to change across generations.

The concept of “diglossia” in Caribbean creole situations

1985 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 345-356 ◽  
Author(s):  
Donald Winford
Keyword(s):  
Speech Community ◽  
Linguistic Features ◽  
Speech Communities ◽  
Different Types

ABSTRACTFerguson's concept of diglossia is examined with a view to dedetermining its applicability to creole continua. The characteristics of classic instances of diglossia are subdivided into sociocultural and linguistic features, and these in turn are used as a basis for determining the extent to which different types of community might be fruitfully described as diglossic. The conclusion is drawn that creole continua share far more in common with Ferguson's defining cases of diglossia than they do not, and far more than other types of speech community. (Diglossia, Creole continua, Typology of speech communities)

scholarly journals Subversion of Language Structure in Heterogeneous Speech Communities: the Work of Discourse and the Part of Contact

2008 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 249-273 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katja Ploog
Keyword(s):  
Ivory Coast ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Human Language ◽  
Speech Community ◽  
Language Structure ◽  
Speech Communities ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Phonological Form ◽  
Bilingual Speaker ◽  
Actual Speech

AbstractChange is an ongoing process constitutive of human language to which will be refered by the term of dynamics. It will be worked out how mere interaction conditions the language dynamics and how the disposable structural resources will be coordinated in microsystems. Since from this point of view grammar exists as a process, it will be of interest to work out by what type of mechanisms a bilingual speaker elaborates his/her discourse. It will be discussed what can be called a (more) 'useful' construction and through what type of mechanisms the constructions get coordinated. We will argue that all discursive mechanisms are bound to satisfy the pragmatic demands of an actual speech production and that the most useful items are those which best satisfy these pragmatic demands.One of the most characteristic phenomena of the linguistic dynamics in Ivory Coast is the microsystem of LA: In a highly heterogeneous context of social interaction, LA is used in (the locally dominant) discursive traditions of French and Mande languages, undergoing a grammaticalization process separately in each of them and used - consequently - in various constructions. The wide range of its referential values, the very importance of the negotiation of discourse referents between speaker and hearer and its simple phonological form seem to predestine LA to get reappropriated and to become a 'favorite' form in the emergent speech community.

Playing platformized language games: Social media logic and the mutation of participatory cultures in Chinese online fandom

2021 ◽  
pp. 146144482110594
Author(s):  
Yiyi Yin ◽  
Zhuoxiao Xie
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Language Games ◽  
Speech Community ◽  
Form Of Life ◽  
Fan Communities ◽  
Speech Communities ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
Media Platform ◽  
Media Logic

This study discusses the shifting dynamics of fan participatory cultures on social media platforms by introducing the concept of “platformized language games.” We conceive of a fan community as a “speech community” and propose that the language and discourses of fan participatory cultures are technological practices that only make sense in use and interactions as “games” on social media platform. Based on an ethnography of communication on fan communities on Weibo, we analyze the technological-communicative acts of fan speech communities, including the platformized setting, participants, topics, norms, and key purposes. We argue that the social media logic (programmability, connectivity, popularity, and datafication) articulates with fans’ language games, thus shifting the “form of life” of celebrity fans on social media. Empirically, fan participatory cultures continue to mutate in China, as fan communities create idiosyncratic platformized language games based on the selective appropriation of the social media logics of connectivity and data-driven metrics.

Modelling beliefs, attitudes, and behaviours regarding the spread of English

English Today ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 1-10 ◽  
Author(s):  
Seongyong Lee ◽  
Hohsung Choe
Keyword(s):  
Language Attitudes ◽  
Belief System ◽  
Speech Community ◽  
Research Attention ◽  
Behavioural Intentions ◽  
Affective Component ◽  
Local Variety ◽  
Cognitive Component ◽  
Positive Attitudes ◽  
Speech Communities

Attitudes toward the global spread of English have been one of the major issues in research on the development of world Englishes. Because language attitudes construct an invisible language policy that influences the use of English in a local speech community (Curdt–Christiansen, 2009), many studies addressing the spread of English into non-English contexts have focused on the attitudes of diverse English users toward their local variety and other varieties of English (Ahn, 2014; He & Li, 2009; Wang & Gao, 2015). However, among the core components of language attitudes, that is, the cognitive component (i.e., belief system), affective component (i.e., attitudinal system), and behavioural component (i.e., behavioural intention), little research attention has been paid to the behavioural component other than by Ahn (2014), even though non-native speakers’ actual use of their local English is the process by which English spreads into non-English-speaking communities. Thus it is necessary to explore the factors influencing the speakers’ behaviours while using the local variety of English. In addition, previous research has not identified the mechanism by which the speakers’ beliefs and attitudes have influence their actual behavioural intentions in relation to their attitudes toward their own English. For example, Ahn (2014) reported that whereas Korean English teachers expressed positive attitudes toward Korean English, they were hesitant in their behavioural intentions to use it as a teaching model. However, this study did not deeply address associations among beliefs, attitudes, and actual behaviours in relation to the use of Korean English. In response to this gap, the present study provides an integrated framework for investigating the spread of English into local speech communities by modelling diverse factors of individual speakers’ decision-making processes in adopting the local variety of English.

Dialogic representations of Britishness and Irishness

2015 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 45-61
Author(s):  
Zsuzsanna Ajtony
Keyword(s):  
Social Constructionist ◽  
Fictional Characters ◽  
Cultural Resources ◽  
Speech Community ◽  
Linguistic Features ◽  
Careful Choice ◽  
Social Actors ◽  
Language Studies ◽  
The Social ◽  
Constructionist Approach

Speakers construct their identities by careful choice of the appropriate linguistic features that will convey the specific social information that identifies them as part of a particular speech community (cf. Riley 2007, Joseph 2004). The social constructionist approach focuses on how social actors use linguistic and other cultural resources in the ongoing construction and re-construction of personal and group identity in interaction. Under such a view, identity (and hence ethnicity) is necessarily dynamic (Schilling-Estes 2004). Recent research on fictional characters and scripted discourse has proved the legitimacy of this scholarly area among language studies (Kozloff 2000, Culpeper 2001, Walshe 2009, Eder et al. 2010, Dynel 2011, Furkó 2013). This paper investigates several possibilities for the dialogic construction of the British and Irish ethnic stereotype. Drawing the distinction between real and fictional characters (Culpeper 2010), the micro-sociolinguistic, pragmalinguistic analysis of my corpora, taken from contemporary cinematographic representations of Britishness and Irishness, aims to compare some of the strategies that interactional partners employ, and which reveal several facets of their identities.

scholarly journals Accepting a “New” Standard Variety: Comparing Explicit Attitudes in Luxembourg and Belgium

Languages ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 134
Author(s):  
Judit Vari ◽  
Marco Tamburelli
Keyword(s):  
Language Maintenance ◽  
Endangered Languages ◽  
Speech Community ◽  
Standard Variety ◽  
Explicit Attitudes ◽  
Speech Communities

Language maintenance efforts aim to bolster attitudes towards endangered languages by providing them with a standard variety as a means to raise their status and prestige. However, the introduced variety can vary in its degrees of standardisation. This paper investigates whether varying degrees of standardisation surface in explicit attitudes towards standard varieties in endangered vernacular speech communities. Following sociolinguistic models of standardisation, we suggest that explicit attitudes towards the standard variety indicate its acceptance in vernacular speech communities, reflecting its overall degree of standardisation. We use the standardised Attitudes towards Language (AtoL) questionnaire to investigate explicit attitudes towards the respective standard varieties in two related vernacular speech communities—the Belgische Eifel in Belgium and the Éislek in Luxembourg. The vernacular of these speech communities, Moselle Franconian, is considered generally vulnerable (UNESCO), and the two speech communities have opted to introduce different standard varieties: Standard Luxembourgish in Luxembourg shows lower degrees of standardisation and is only partially implemented. In contrast, Standard German in the Belgian speech community is highly standardised and completely implemented. Results show that degrees of standardisation surface in speakers’ explicit attitudes. Our findings have important implications for the role of standardisation in language maintenance efforts.

scholarly journals GENDER DIFFERENCES OF STUDENTS’ WRITING ABILITY IN DESCRIPTIVE TEXT

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 153
Author(s):  
Muhammad Saibani Wiyanto ◽  
Panji Wisnu Asmorobangun
Keyword(s):  
Gender Differences ◽  
High School Students ◽  
Foreign Language ◽  
Speech Community ◽  
Linguistic Features ◽  
School Students ◽  
Linguistic Feature ◽  
Writing Ability ◽  
Language Studies ◽  
Significant Research

Language has an important role for every member of the speech community. The connection between language and society is recognized as the main interest of sociolinguistics. Nowadays, sociolinguistic has involved many significant research topics. One of them is the relationship between gender and language. Studies about gender differences have been conducted for many years, which also deals with the use of a language as a foreign language. For instance, studying English as a foreign language (EFL) among the nonnative speakers and its gender-sensitive investigation. The current article provides insights on gender differences among senior high school students with a focus on their writing ability. The purposes of this article were to find the linguistic feature that male and female students tend to use and to find out the gender differences reflected on the students writing ability. The article used a qualitative design with document analysis as the approach. The subject of this article was one class of X MIPA 2 at MAN 6 Jombang. The source of the data was students’ writings, while the data were all linguistics components of the students’ works. The data contain some types of linguistic features based on Mulac’s theory. This article found four linguistic features used by the students. It can be concluded that males often used locative feature and females often used a reference to quantity feature and “I” reference feature. 

scholarly journals The use of specific linguistic features within the context of a casual conversation in a speech community

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 294-309
Author(s):  
Ekiyokere Ekiye
Keyword(s):  
Social History ◽  
Common Language ◽  
Speech Community ◽  
Phonological Variation ◽  
Linguistic Features ◽  
Indian English ◽  
Grammatical Variation ◽  
Turn Taking ◽  
Discourse Variation

There seems to be nothing remarkable about the interaction between two interlocutors who have never been in contact with each other. These persons are able to understand themselves in contact situations because most times, a common language of communication is known that can sustain the exchange for the time necessary. However, when such exchange is between individuals with some level of contact or familiarity, the concept of speech community comes into play. The concept is useful but may be problematic at times and one cannot avoid applying this idea when trying to make sense of the process that takes place in the conversation, specifically a causal conversation. The aim of this sociolinguistic study is to explain how individuals are able to build social history, construct interactional talk, maintain relations with each other and reinforce solidarity from a two hour audio recorded conversation (ARC) between an ethnic Indian and a Nigerian in Marylebone, London using interactional socio-linguistic and conversation analytic. By doing so, the concept of a speech community as well as how a group can be identified as being members of a community is understood. A particular focus is paid to such linguistic features as the register of conversation, turn taking, discourse variation, phonological variation and grammatical variation characteristic of London, Nigerian and Indian English observed in the speech of the participants and how these features function to build and maintain relations. Keywords: Speech community, Casual conversation, Linguistic features, Sociolinguistics, ARC

scholarly journals “MY GRADES ARE ALWAYS EQUAL TO STANDARDIZED CRITERIA”: DISCOVERING EFL LEARNERS’ MOTIVATION OUTSIDE FORMAL CLASSROOM

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 347-369
Author(s):  
Siti Jannatussholihah ◽  
Ashadi Ashadi ◽  
Erna Andriyanti
Keyword(s):  
English Language Learners ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
English Learners ◽  
English Language ◽  
Formal Education ◽  
Target Language ◽  
Speech Community ◽  
Integrative Motivation ◽  
Instrumental Motivation ◽  
Depth Interviews

Motivation in language mastery is a crucial aspect that supports learner success especially in non-formal education. This study explores the motivation of English language learners in non-formal education as well as their perceived difficulties. Employing a qualitative approach with in-depth-interviews in the data collection, the study involved eight learners from a language course institution in Yogyakarta. The transcribed data were analyzed, interpreted, and categorised based on types of motivation and difficulties. The results show that most of the English learners possess instrumental motivation in learning foreign languages, but some tend to have integrative motivation. The instrumental motivation is mainly linked to efforts to pass the exam or tests with good grades. Their integrative motivation is related to recognizing the culture of the target language speech community and desire to communicate with the target community. Despite their motivation, they faced some difficulties related to language skills, especially reading and listening. In addition, they perceived vocabulary as hindrance in all the four skills. Further research to overcome the difficulties is recommended to maximize the learning achievement.

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