社会语言学学期论文 English

外语学院2015—2016学年第 1 学期

《社会语言学》学期论文

Why Should We Take Social Factors into Consideration in Our

Language Uses?

Abstract: A language is not monolithic and there exist types or varieties of the same language and language variations are around us everywhere and at any time. In this passage, it will mainly talk about three social factors. They are region, social class, and age. These social factors constitute different language variations. We should take them into consideration in our language uses.

Key Words: Language Use, Region, Social Class, Age

Introduction:the term paper mainly uses case studies to show the impacts of region, social class and age on language use.

Through my daily study, daily life and abundant document research at home and abroad, there are many cases and research results that can show different social factors influence our language uses. From the studies of many linguisticians, such as William Labor and Robin Tolmach Lakoff, I found that studies of social variation are not only for linguistic theory but also sometimes for the conduct of everyday life.

To study the social factors which are included in our language uses, we can not only contribute to our linguistic studies, but of great help to our daily life. It can help us form a good personal behavior and effectively avoid cultural tattoos. Besides, it is beneficial for us to acquire good communications.

1. Language and region

The regional variation of language is an objective existence. A language isn’t the same in every place where it is used. The main reason that causes this kind of variation may be geographical barrier.

Because of this kind of regional differences, it produced the regional dialect. We speak the same language, but we speak the same language differently. The

phenomenon is quite apparent in my dormitory. I have three roommates, which come from Tianjin, Chaohu and Liuan respectively, while I am from Suzhou. We spoke our dialects at the first time meeting. It was a little embarrassed because we could not understand each other quite well. Luckily, gradually we were all accustomed to speaking mandarin. So the regional variation which shows in language is likely to cause inconvenience during our communication.

In the inner circle of English-speaking countries, such as Britain and the United States, the regional differences in English can show in the pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar, and semantics and so on. For example, the Standard Pronunciation (Received Pronunciation) is mainly popular in southern England while Scotland, Wales and Ireland are rarely used. Besides, the American people would like to say “do you have” but the British are preference for “have you got”. In the outer circle of English-speaking countries, Singlish is a special kind of English for its historical, national and other reasons. Singapore, a former British colony, is closely tied to British English. Also, it absorbs the Chinese and native features. So Singlish forms its unique, particular style. But some people, especially the prime minister of Singapore, Wu Zuodong (1999), criticize this kind of informal blend. In Wu Zuodong’s opinion, Singlish hinders the international communication and impedes the development of the country. So the government is always devoted to generalize the Standard English.

2. Language and social class

Language has a close connection with society. The language is a system without class character. However, the use of it was influenced by the social class. Because of different social groups use different linguistic varieties, the social dialects develop. Social dialect can be a variety associated with a specific social class, marking that class off from other classes. Accent is an important marker of sociolect. For some social reasons, good accent means good education. It has become characteristic of upper class speech community. Different dialects and accents are related to differences of social-class background. For example, in the movie My Fair Lady, a phonetician changes a lovely flower girl into a lady by changing her working class. For once or twice, she succeeds in passing off as an educated lady with perfect

pronunciation and choice of words. But in the end, she is seen through—her speech, particularly her accent betrays her. One of the often quoted quotations is: once you open your mouth, you are placed. This implies that social class has a great effect on language.

In Labov’s r-pronouncing (rhotic) and r-pronouncing (non-rhotic) theory, Varieties of English can be divided into two groups with respect to their treatment of this variable: those that are r-pronouncing (rhotic) and those that are not r-pronouncing (non-rhotic). Today in Britain accents with lost postvocalic /r/ generally have more prestige than those that preserve it.

In the study of the influence of the social class on the language use, Homes (2001:57)found that the children who lived in a higher social class usually called their mother “mummy” while the kids who lived in a lower social class mostl y called “mamma” or “ma”. It shows that different social classes cause people different language uses.

3. Language and age

Age is also an important factor in language variety, so it is of great necessity for us to take it into consideration in order to get appropriate language use.

People of different ages tend to use different languages when they communicate with others. Allow for that it can be separated into three age groups: children, the youngsters, and the middle and old age people.

In the development of language, children usually will experience holophrastic stage, two-word stage, and multiword stage. In the first stage, take the most frequent word “mom” for example, although just a word but it can show different communicative meanings in different contexts. When a baby points to a toy, it may show that “mom, I want it!” When a baby say “mom” with open arms, he or she may want a “love” hug. As for the second stage, children use two wards to express syntactic relation and deep meaning between the words. For instant, a child speaks to his dad that “dad sweet”. It could be a request to imply “dad, I want to eat sweet.” It also can regard as a statement that “dad is eating candy.” Still, it may an invitatory action that conveys that “dad, eat my sweet.” The third stage is more concrete but

tends to make mistakes. The American psychologist Albert has put forward “the initiation theory”, which children acquire language by imitating their parents. For children, observation and experience are important means of building their own language system. There is an example. In china, an auntie asked a little girl: “what’s your dad name?” then the girl thought about it and said: “husband!” Obviously there was a misunderstanding that the girl had imitated her mother’s wor ds. From the above, children’s language probably contains different meanings and should be paid carefully attention to when communicating. Besides, parents are supposed to set a good example for their children in daily language use.

Relative to the childr en’s language, the language of the teenagers may be more challenging. One reason is that youth have open and active thinking. Another is the rapidly development of the society and technology. There are an abundance of such examples. Firstly, a bundle of popular words and phrases has emerged from the internet and has spread widely in the society. Such as “rents”, “lol”, “clappin”, “diss” and so on. Also, “what’s gawn?” means “what’s happening?” “I’m proper hench!” shows the meaning of “I’m very strong!” seco ndly, teenagers may be inclined to use homophonic words or coinages when they communicate with each other through computers or mobile phones. Such as “where” equal to “we are”, “hole” is the same with “whole”. And, “bro” is a clipped word of “brother”. “Ttyl” is an acronym of “talk to you later!” sometimes these words that come out of teenage mouths just make their parents confused. The same phenomenon appears in China. “Drinking cup” (“杯具”) is a homophone for "tragedy"（“悲剧”）. Moreover, teenagers coin new idioms to simplify what they want to express. For example, “不明觉厉” means “虽然不明白你在说什么，但是听起来感觉很厉害的样子。” also, “累觉不爱” deliver the meaning that“很累，感觉自己不会再爱了”. Similar words and phrases are spreading across youth’s language use.

Different from teenager’s popular words, the middle and old age people reveal a preference for traditional words and expressions. For instance, old people say “flick” while teenagers call it as “movie”. My mom calls her mother as “niang” while I call mine “mama”. Suchlike differences proba bly puzzle us during our communication.

And the rapid expansion of lexicons within teenagers makes it more difficult for parents to understand their children in a way. The parents do not know what their children say, so they can not comprehend what their children want to express. Maybe it is a factor that causes our generation gap. Because of the different age groups, the use of language would show some systematical differences. But it does not mean that those lexicons absolutely belong to a certain group. Language has good fluidity. Every age group can know and learn all those words to get good communication.

To conclude, social factors have great influences on language use. Except for these three factors, there are still many other social factors that influence the use of language, such as gender, politics, and beliefs and so on. These factors contribute to the language use all over the world.

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