Allocate synchronic sociolinguistics, which deals primarily with the study of relations between language and social institutions, and diachronic sociolinguistics, which studies mainly the processes that characterize the development of language in connection with the development of society. Depending on the scale of the objects that sociolinguistics is interested in, macrosociolinguistics and microsociolinguistics are distinguished. . The first studies linguistic relations and processes taking place in large social associations - states, regions, large social groups, often conventionally distinguished, according to one or another social attribute (for example, by age, level of education, etc.). Microsociolinguistics is concerned with the analysis of linguistic processes and relationships that take place in real and at the same time small groups of native speakers - in a family, a production team, playgroups teenagers, etc.
Depending on what sociolinguistic research is aimed at - the development of general problems related to the "language-society" relationship, or the experimental verification of theoretical hypotheses, a distinction is made between theoretical and experimental sociolinguistics. Theoretical sociolinguistics studies the most general, fundamental problems - such, for example , How:
– identification of the most significant patterns language development and proof of their social nature (along with such patterns, which are due to the self-development of the language);
– study of the social conditionality of the functioning of the language, the dependence of its use in various areas of communication on social and situational variables;
- analysis of the processes of speech communication, in which such factors as the set of social roles performed by the participants in communication, the socio-psychological conditions for the implementation of certain speech acts, their illocutionary power, the ability of speakers to switch from one code to another, etc., are of decisive importance .;
- the study of the interaction and mutual influence of languages in the conditions of their existence in one society; problems of interference and borrowing of elements of the contact language; theoretical substantiation of the processes of formation of intermediate language formations - interdialects, koine, pidgins, as well as a number of other problems.
Sociolinguistic theorists recognized early enough the need to reinforce general provisions about the dependence of language on social factors by mass empirical material (the fact that this material should have been mass is quite natural, since it is required to prove the social, group, and not individual connections of native speakers with the nature of their use language tools). M.V. Panov in Russia and U. Labov in the USA were, apparently, the first sociolinguists who, in the early 1960s, independently turned to experiment as a necessary stage in sociolinguistic research and a way to prove certain theoretical constructions.
Thus, an impetus was given to the development of experimental sociolinguistics.
A modern sociolinguistic experiment is a very laborious task, requiring great organizational efforts and considerable financial costs. After all, the experimenter sets himself the task of obtaining sufficiently representative and, if possible, objective data on the speech behavior of people or on other aspects of the life of the language community, and such data should characterize the different social groups that form the language community. Therefore, reliable tools are needed pilot study, a proven methodology for conducting it, trained interviewers who are able to strictly follow the intended program of the experiment, and, finally, a correctly selected set of surveyed informants, from whom the desired data should be obtained.
True, the history of science knows cases of less cumbersome organization of sociolinguistic experiments. As half-jokingly-half-seriously tells in his book Sociolinguistics R. Bell, one of the first sociolinguistic experimenters can be considered the ancient military leader Jephtai, who belonged to the tribe of Gileadites. To prevent the penetration of the enemy "fifth column" - representatives of the tribe of Ephraim - into his armed forces, Jephtai ordered each soldier who came to the crossing over the Jordan River: "Say shibboleth». Shibboleth in Hebrew means "stream". Such an order on the river bank was quite appropriate. The point, however, was that the representatives of the tribe of the Gileadites easily pronounced the sound, and the Ephraimites did not know how to do it. The result of the experiment was bloody: "everyone who could not pronounce shibboleth in the manner of Gilead, they took and slaughtered ... and at that time forty-two thousand Ephraim fell ”(Book of Judges).
Many sciences besides theoretical development tasks facing them, solve problems related to practice; usually the directions involved in this are called applied . There is also applied sociolinguistics. What kind of problem does it solve?
These are, for example, the problems of teaching native and foreign languages. The traditional method of teaching languages is based on dictionaries and grammars, which fix mainly the intrastructural properties of the language and the rules for the use of words and syntactic constructions, determined by its very system. Meanwhile, the actual use of the language is regulated by at least two more classes of variables - the social characteristics of the speakers and the circumstances in which verbal communication takes place. Consequently, language learning is most effective when in the methodology of its teaching, in educational literature not only the actual linguistic rules and recommendations are taken into account, but also all sorts of "external" factors.
Sociolinguistic information is important in the development of problems and practical measures that make up the language policy of the state. Language policy requires special flexibility and taking into account many factors in the conditions of multi-ethnic and multilingual countries, where the issues of the correlation of languages in terms of their communicative functions, their use in various spheres of social life are closely related to the mechanisms of political governance, national harmony and social stability. One of the instruments of language policy is language laws. Although their development as a whole is the competence of lawyers: it is they who must clearly and consistently formulate provisions relating, for example, to the status of the state language, its functions, protection of the monopoly use of the state language in the most important social spheres, regulation of the use of "local" languages, etc. - it is obvious that the creation of linguistically competent laws on the language is possible only on the basis of a comprehensive knowledge of the functional properties of the language, the degree of development of certain systems in it (for example, a system of special terminologies, a scientific language , the language of diplomatic documents, the style of official business communication, etc.), a more or less detailed idea of “what can” and “what can’t” a given language in a variety of social and situational conditions of its use.
The areas of application of sociolinguistic theory and the results of sociolinguistic research to solving the problems of social practice often depend on the nature of the language situation in a particular country. In multilingual countries - one problem, in monolingual - completely different. In the conditions of multilingualism, there are acute questions of choosing one macro-intermediary language, which would serve as a means of communication for all the nations inhabiting the country, and, possibly, would have the status of a state language; in conditions of linguistic homogeneity, the problems of standardization and codification of the literary language, its relations with other subsystems of the national language are relevant. Hence - different accents in the development of sociolinguistic problems, in the orientation of applied areas of sociolinguistics.
SOCIOLINGUISTICS. ITS OBJECT AND SUBJECT. PROBLEMS AND SECTIONS OF SOCIOLINGUISTICS. SOCIOLINGUISTICS AND OTHER SCIENCES
The object of sociolinguistics is the language itself, as well as the object of linguistics in general. The subject of sociolinguistics is the social side of language phenomena, their social conditionality, the reflection of social phenomena in them - in short, the social aspect of linguistic phenomena.
What range of problems does sociolinguistics cover, what tasks does it set for itself?
1. The role of social factors in the emergence, development and functioning of the language.
2. Functions of the language.
3. Language and politics, ideology, culture.
4. Language and social structure society (social differentiation of language, social variability in language).
5. LA and the norm.
6. Bilingualism and polylingualism. Language contacts. Types of mixed languages (pidgin, creole), interference.
7. Language situation. Relationships between different languages or different subsystems of one language within one state, one region. Types of language situations.
8. Speech situation. Its components (social roles of speakers, environment, place and time of the speech act). In general, speech behavior from the point of view of social conditions.
9. Language planning, language building, language policy.
10. Methods of sociolinguistics.
American sociolinguists introduced the concepts of macrosociolinguistics and microsociolinguistics. Macrosociolinguistics deals with global processes that characterize the development and functioning of language in society as a whole. Microsociolinguistics studies a person as a member of various social groups.
In particular, macrosociolinguistics studies 1) bilingualism (delimitation of the functions of languages, the number of speakers in a given language), 2) normalization and codification of a language, language policy, 3) language situations, their components, 4) language conflicts (for example, when a language becomes a unifying symbol for some kind of ethnic group).
Microsociolinguistics studies 1) the social differentiation of language (for intra-group communication, language is also a symbol; with the help of language, the speaker shows that he belongs to “his own”) and 2) the speech situation.
Origins of sociolinguistics
It has long been known that language is far from socially uniform. One of the first recorded observations testifying to this dates back to the beginning of the 17th century. Gonzalo de Correas, a lecturer at the University of Salamanca in Spain, quite clearly distinguished the social varieties of the language: “It should be noted that, in addition to dialects that exist in the provinces, the language has some varieties associated with the age, position and property of the inhabitants of these provinces: there is a language of rural residents, commoners, townspeople, noble gentlemen and courtiers, a scholar-historian, an old man, a preacher, women, men and even small children.
The term "sociolinguistics" was introduced into scientific circulation in 1952 by the American sociologist G. Curry. Does this mean that the science of the social conditioning of language also originated in the early 1950s? No. The roots of sociolinguistics are deeper, and they need to be sought not in American scientific soil, but in European and, in particular, in Russian.
Linguistic research, taking into account the conditionality of linguistic phenomena by social phenomena, began to be conducted with greater or lesser intensity already at the beginning of this century in France, Russia, and the Czech Republic. Other than in the USA, scientific traditions determined the situation in which the study of the relationship of language with social institutions, with the evolution of society has never been fundamentally separated in these countries from “pure” linguistics. Since language is possible only in human society, - wrote I.A. Baudouin de Courtenay, - then, in addition to the mental side, we must always note the social side in it. The basis of linguistics should be not only individual psychology but also sociology.
Such outstanding scientists of the first half of the late 19th and 20th centuries as I.A. Baudouin de Courtenay, E.D. Polivanov, L.P. Yakubinsky, V.M. Zhirmunsky, B.A. Larin, A.M. Selishchev, G.O. Distiller in Russia, F. Bruno, A. Meillet, P. Lafargue, M. Cohen in France, C. Bally and A. Seshee in Switzerland, J. Vandries in Belgium, B. Gavranek, A. Mathesius in Czechoslovakia and others, belongs to a number of ideas without which modern sociolinguistics could not exist. This, for example, is the idea that all the means of language are distributed over the spheres of communication, and the division of communication into spheres is largely socially determined (Sh. Bally); the idea of social differentiation of a single national language depending on the social status of its speakers (works by Russian and Czech linguists); the position according to which the pace of linguistic evolution depends on the pace of development of society, and in general, the language always lags behind social changes in the changes taking place in it (ED Polivanov); the extension of the methods used in the study of rural dialects to the study of the language of the city (B.A. Larin); substantiation of the need for social dialectology, along with territorial dialectology (ED Polivanov); the importance of studying jargons, slang and other non-codified areas of the language for understanding the internal structure of the national language system (B.A. Larin, V.M. Zhirmunsky, D.S. Likhachev), etc.
American researchers in the field of sociolinguistics sometimes rediscover what their European predecessors had already paid attention to. In general, when reading American works on sociolinguistics (and on many other branches of linguistics), one is struck by the almost complete absence of references to the studies of "Europeans", and above all Russian scientists. Apparently, this is not the result of deliberate disregard for the experience of others, but of elementary ignorance about it. However, in fairness, it must be said that, in contrast to the works of the first third of the 20th century, which were largely speculative, not based on more or less extensive specific linguistic material (the exception is, perhaps, the work of A.M. Selishchev, but they and weaker than others in theoretical and linguistic terms), modern sociolinguistic studies, including American ones, clearly express the desire to combine careful theoretical development and concrete analysis socio-linguistic ties and dependencies.
A characteristic feature of sociolinguistics in the second half of the 20th century is the transition from works general plan To experimental verification put forward hypotheses, mathematically verified description of specific facts. According to one of the representatives of American sociolinguistics, J. Fishman, at the present stage, the study of language from a social point of view is characterized by such features as consistency, strict focus on data collection, quantitative and statistical analysis of facts, close interweaving of the linguistic and sociological aspects of the study.
At the same time, the synchronic aspect prevails, the analysis of the links between the elements of the structure of the language and the elements of the structure of society; in the works of the previous period, the conjugation of the evolution of language with the development of society was more often postulated, i.e. these works were characterized by a diachronic aspect.
The subject of social linguistics is understood in three main senses. Broad and narrow understanding of the subject of sociolinguistics.
First, in the broadest sense, it is "Language and Society", i.e. all kinds of relationships between language and society (language and culture, language and history, language and ethnicity, church, school, politics, mass communication, etc.).
Secondly, the subject of sociolinguistics is sometimes seen in situations where speakers choose one or another version of the language (or element, unit of language). In essence, this means linguistics, but with some expansion of its subject by including in the consideration of some social and communicative aspects of speech behavior. Variants are constantly possible in linguistic communication: in conditions of bilingualism, depending on the situation, speakers choose one or another language; having chosen a language (or when communicating in only one language), people are faced with the choice of one or another variant of speech: whether to speak a literary language or a dialect, prefer a bookish form of speech or a colloquial one, use an official term or its colloquial synonym ... Variants of any rank - ranging from competing languages (as communicative options in multilingualism) to standard pronunciation options - they are called sociolinguistic variable; it is a kind of unit of analysis in those sociolinguistic studies where social aspects languages are understood precisely as a socially conditioned variation of language. Thus, we see linguistics in its narrowest sense.
And, finally, thirdly, social linguistics is sometimes understood as the study of the features of the language of different social and age groups of speakers. In a sense, this could sometimes be understood as a linguistic sociology, i.e. the study of the social structure of society, but with the addition of well-known sociological parameters (social status, education, income, leisure activities, political preferences, etc.) differences in language: people with secondary education often say this, those with higher education say this then, and those who graduated from humanitarian universities - like this, and so on. However, it should be borne in mind that modern sociolinguistics is still a branch of linguistics. While this industry was just taking shape, getting on its feet, one could argue about its status. But now, in early XXI c., when in sociolinguistics not only the object, goals and objectives of research were determined, but tangible results were obtained, the linguistic nature of this science is quite obvious. It is another matter that sociolinguists borrowed many methods from sociologists (here it is - “socio -”), for example, methods of mass surveys, questionnaires, oral polls and interviews. But borrowing these methods from sociologists, sociolinguists use them creatively, in relation to the tasks of studying language, and besides, on their basis, own methodological methods of working with linguistic facts and with native speakers are developed.
Object of sociolinguistics
One of the founders of modern sociolinguistics, American researcher William Labov defines sociolinguistics as a science that studies "language in its social context". If we decipher this lapidary definition, then it must be said that the attention of sociolinguists is drawn not to the language itself, not to its internal structure, but to how the people who make up this or that society use the language. This takes into account all the factors that can influence the use of the language - from the various characteristics of the speakers themselves (their age, gender, level of education and culture, type of profession, etc.) to the characteristics of a particular speech act.
“A thorough and accurate scientific description of a certain language,” R. Jacobson noted, “cannot do without grammatical and lexical rules regarding the presence or absence of differences between interlocutors in terms of their social status, gender or age; determining the place of such rules in general description language is a complex linguistic problem.
Unlike generative linguistics, presented, for example, in the works of N. Chomsky, sociolinguistics does not deal with an ideal native speaker who generates only correct statements in a given language, but with real people who in their speech can violate norms, make mistakes, mix different language styles, etc. It is important to understand what explains all these features of the actual use of the language.
It follows from this that in the sociolinguistic approach to language, the object of study is the functioning of the language; his internal structure is taken as a given and is not subjected to special research (with the exception of cases when the social is embedded in the fabric of the language and is a component of the structure of language units.
And what is the object of sociolinguistics in societies where two, three languages, many languages function? In this case, the sociolinguist must investigate the mechanisms of functioning of several languages in their interaction: in what areas of social life are they used? What is the relationship between them in terms of status and functions? Which language "dominates", i.e. is the state or officially accepted as the main means of communication, and which are forced to be content with the role of family and household languages? How, under what conditions and in what forms do bilingualism and multilingualism arise? Answers to these kinds of questions are the competence of sociolinguistics.
So, the object of sociolinguistics is language in its functioning. And since the language functions in a society that has a certain social structure, one can speak of sociolinguistics as a science that studies language in a social context (U. Labov's formula).
Sociolinguistics operates with a certain set of concepts specific to it: language community, language situation, socio-communicative system, language socialization, communicative competence, language code, code switching, bilingualism (bilingualism), diglossia, language policy and a number of others.
In addition, some concepts are borrowed from other branches of linguistics: language norm, speech communication, speech behavior, speech act, language contact, mixing languages, intermediary language, etc., as well as from sociology, social psychology: social structure of society, social status, social role, social factor and some others.
Let us consider some of these concepts, the most specific for sociolinguistics and important for understanding the essence of this scientific discipline.
Language community is a collection of people united by common social, economic, political and cultural ties and carrying out in Everyday life direct and indirect contacts with each other and with various kinds of social institutions using one language or different languages common in this population.
The boundaries of the distribution of languages very often do not coincide with political boundaries. The most obvious example is modern Africa, where residents of different states can speak the same language (for example, Swahili, common in Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, partly in Zaire and Mozambique), and several languages coexist within one state (in Nigeria, for example, there are more than 200). Therefore, when defining the concept of "linguistic community", it is important to combine linguistic and social features: if we leave only linguistic ones, then we will only talk about the language, regardless of the environment in which it is used; if we rely only on social criteria (including both political, economic and cultural factors), then the languages that function in a given social community will remain outside the field of attention.
As a linguistic community, aggregates of people can be considered, different in the number of individuals included in them, from whole country to the so-called small social groups (for example, families, sports teams): the selection criterion in each case should be the commonality of social life and the presence of regular communication contacts. One language community may be inclusive of others. So, modern Russia- an example of a language community that encompasses, includes smaller-scale language communities: republics, regions, cities. In turn, the city as a language community includes language communities of an even smaller scale: enterprises, institutions, educational institutions.
The smaller the size of the language community, the higher its linguistic homogeneity. Dozens of national languages and their dialects exist and interact with each other in Russia, and in large Russian cities the main forms public life are already carried out in a much smaller number of languages, often in two (Kazan: Tatar and Russian, Ufa: Bashkir and Russian, Maikop: Adyghe and Russian), and with the national homogeneity of the population - mainly in one (Moscow, St. Petersburg, Saratov, Krasnoyarsk).
Within such linguistic communities as a factory, research institute, high school, one language of communication prevails. However, in small linguistic communities, such as a family, where communicative contacts are carried out directly, there may be not one, but two languages (and even more: there are families of Russian emigrants who use several languages in intra-family communication).
language code. Each language community uses certain means of communication - languages, their dialects, jargons, stylistic varieties of the language. Any such means of communication can be called a code. In the most general sense, a code is a means of communication: a natural language (Russian, English, Somali, etc.), an artificial language such as Esperanto or modern machine languages, Morse code, marine flag signaling, etc. In linguistics, it is customary to call language formations a code: a language, a territorial or social dialect, an urban koine.
Along with the term "code" the term "subcode" is used. It denotes a variety, a subsystem of some common code, a communicative medium of smaller scope, narrower scope, and smaller set of functions than code. For example, such varieties of the modern Russian national language as the literary language, territorial dialect, urban vernacular, social jargon are subcodes, or subsystems of a single code (the Russian national language).
subcode, or a subsystem can also be divided into varieties and thereby include subcodes (subsystems) of more low level etc. For example, the Russian literary language, which itself is a subcode in relation to national language, is divided into two varieties - a codified language and a spoken language, each of which has a certain self-sufficiency and differs in functions: the codified language is used in book and written forms of speech, and the spoken language is used in oral, everyday forms. In turn, the codified literary language is differentiated into styles, and styles are realized in various speech genres; there is some semblance of such differentiation in spoken language.
Socio-communicative system - this is a set of codes and subcodes used in a given language community and are with each other in a relationship of functional complementarity.
« Functional complementarity" means that each of the codes and subcodes that form the socio-communicative system has its own functions, without intersecting with the functions of other codes and subcodes (thus, they all seem to complement each other in terms of functions).
For example, each style of the literary language - scientific, official business, journalistic, religious and preaching - has its own specific functions that are not characteristic of other styles, and together they functionally complement each other, forming a system capable of serving all the communicative needs of a given society (which can be conditionally called a society of native speakers of the literary language; besides them, there are also, for example, speakers of dialects, vernacular) and all spheres of communication.
In a multilingual society, the socio-communicative system is formed by different languages, and communicative functions are distributed between them (in this case, each of the languages can, of course, be divided into subcodes - dialects, jargons, styles).
language situation. The components of a socio-communicative system serving a particular language community are in certain relationships with each other. At each stage of the existence of a language community, these relations are more or less stable. However, this does not mean that they cannot change. Changes in the political situation in the country, a change in the political system, economic transformations, new guidelines in the social and national policy etc. - all this can somehow affect the state of the socio-communicative system, its composition and the functions of its components - codes and subcodes.
Functional relations between the components of the socio-communicative system at one or another stage of the existence of a given language community form the language situation characteristic of this community.
The concept of "language situation" is usually applied to large linguistic communities - countries, regions, republics. For this concept, the time factor is important: in essence, the language situation is the state of the socio-communicative system in a certain period of its functioning.
These changes are an undoubted evidence of a change in the language situation, while the composition of the socio-communicative system serving the Ukrainian linguistic society remains the same.
Language situations can be single-component and multi-component, equilibrium and non-equilibrium.
Iceland is an example of a one-component language situation. The equilibrium situation takes place in Belgium (the same status of French and Dutch languages).
In many states of West Africa, disequilibrium situations are observed: local languages have a greater demographic power, and in terms of communicative power they are inferior to European languages. One Wolof language can dominate in Senegal. Nigeria is dominated by several languages (Hausa, Yoruba, Igbo). The languages used may have different prestige (in the case of diglossia). The choice of a rational language policy pursued by the state is based on a thoughtful analysis and balanced assessments of language situations.
Correlation of different language systems and different types of culture (as well as different ways of categorizing the phenomena of the world) is the content of ethnolinguistics. Many representatives of ethnolinguistics often exaggerate the role of language in the knowledge of the world (the school of Leo Weisgerber in Germany, the hypothesis of linguistic relativity put forward in the USA by Edward Sapir and Benjamin L. Whorf).
The language in a certain way reflects the territorial differentiation of the people who speak it, speaking in the form of many dialects, and the social differentiation of society into classes, layers and groups, the differences existing between them in the use of a single language as a whole, acting in the form of many options, varieties, social dialects (sociolects). The language in the form of many forms of a general and specialized nature, such as literary language, vernacular, koine, functional styles, sublanguages of science, jargons and slang, reflects the diversity of spheres and environments of its application.
This language is affected by the appearance of its own writing system and the formation of a written language along with oral-colloquial, the invention and dissemination of printing, newspapers, magazines, radio, telegraph, telephone, television, and the Internet.
Since society is constantly changing in the process of its historical development, the functions of the language serving it, its social and functional stratification, the relationship between territorial and social dialects, and the social status of different forms of existence of the language are also changing.
For theoretical linguistics, the problem of the relationship between internal (intrastructural) and external (primarily social) factors in the development of a language system is of considerable interest. The language (and, above all, its vocabulary) is sensitive to the development of material culture (technology and technology), to the achievements of spiritual culture (mythological, philosophical, artistic, scientific comprehension of the world, the formation of new concepts).
Switching codes. Codes (languages) and subcodes (dialects, styles) that make up the socio-communicative system are functionally distributed. This means that the same contingent of speakers who make up a given linguistic society, owning a common set of communicative means, uses them depending on the conditions of communication. For example, if we talk about the subcodes of the literary language, then in scientific activity native speakers of the literary language use the means of the scientific style of speech, in the field of office work, jurisprudence, administrative correspondence, etc. they are also obliged to resort to the means of an official business style, in the sphere of a religious cult - to the words and constructions of a religious preaching style, etc.
In other words, depending on the sphere of communication, the speaker switches from one language to another.
A similar picture is observed in those societies where not one, but two languages (or several) are used.
Bilinguals, i.e. people who speak two (or several) languages usually “distribute” their use depending on the conditions of communication: in an official setting, when communicating with the authorities, one language is predominantly used, and in everyday life, in the family, in contacts with neighbors - another (other ). And in this case, we can talk about switching from one code to another, only the styles of one language appear as codes, as in the first example, but different languages.
Switching codes, or code switching, is the transition of the speaker in the process of verbal communication from one language (dialect, style) to another, depending on the conditions of communication. The code switch may be caused, for example, by a change of destination, i.e. to whom the speaker is addressing. If the addressee speaks only one of the two languages that the speaker knows, then the latter, naturally, has to use this particular language, which is familiar to the addressee, although up to this point another language or both languages could be used in communication with bilingual interlocutors. Switching to a language code known to the interlocutor can occur even if the composition of the speakers changes: if a third person who speaks only one of the languages known to all three joins the conversation of two bilinguals, then communication should take place in this language. The refusal of the interlocutors to switch to a code familiar to the third participant in communication can be regarded as an unwillingness to devote him to the topic of conversation or as a disregard for his communicative requests.
A factor in switching codes may be a change in the role of the speaker himself. For example, in the role of a father (when communicating in the family) or in the role of a housemate, he can use his native dialect, and when addressing the central authorities, he is forced to switch to more or less generally accepted forms of speech. If such a switch does not take place, the authorities will not understand him and he will not achieve his goal (to satisfy the request, consider the complaint, etc.), i.e. suffer a communication failure.
The topic of communication also affects the choice of code. According to researchers who dealt with the problems of communication in conditions of linguistic heterogeneity, members of linguistic communities prefer to discuss “production” topics in the language that has the appropriate special terminology to refer to various technical processes, devices, devices, etc. But as soon as the topic changes - from production to everyday life - another language code or subcode is "turned on": the native language or dialect of the interlocutors. In a monolingual society, with such a code change, there is a switch from a professional language to commonly used language means.
Where do speakers switch codes in the speech chain? It depends on the nature of the influence of those factors that have just been discussed. If the speaker can foresee the influence of one or another factor and even plan in some sense, then the switch occurs at the natural boundaries of the speech flow: at the end of a phrase, syntactic period, in the most relaxed mode of communication - after the discussion of a topic. However, if the intervention of the code-switching factor is unexpected for the speaker, he may switch from code to code in the middle of a phrase, sometimes without even finishing a word. With a high degree of ownership of different codes or subcodes, when their use is largely automated, the process of code switching itself may not be realized by the speaker, especially in cases where another code (subcode) is used not entirely, but in fragments. For example, speaking one language, a person can insert elements of another language into his speech - phraseological units, modal words, interjections, particles.
The very ability to switch codes indicates a fairly high degree of language proficiency (or language subsystems) and a certain communicative and general culture of a person. Code switching mechanisms ensure mutual understanding between people and the relative comfort of the process of speech communication itself. On the contrary, the inability of an individual to vary his speech depending on the conditions of communication, adherence to only one code (or subcode) is perceived as an anomaly and can lead to communication conflicts.
Language variability. If we can switch from one language to another in the process of communication, for example, when changing the addressee, while continuing to discuss the same topic, this means that we have a set of tools at our disposal that allows us to talk about the same thing in different ways. It's extremely important property language, which provides the speaker with the opportunity not only to freely express his thoughts in this language, but also to do it in different ways. The ability of a native speaker to express the same meaning in different ways is called his ability to paraphrase. This ability, along with the ability to make sense of what is said and the ability to distinguish correct from incorrect phrases, is the basis of a complex mental skill called “language proficiency”.
Variability manifests itself at all levels of speech communication - from the possession of the means of different languages (and, consequently, variation, the alternating use of units of each of the languages depending on the conditions of communication) to the speaker's awareness of the admissibility of different phonetic or accent variants belonging to the same language (in modern Russian literary language, these are variants of the type was[sh ]aya / was[ch ]and I, etc.).
From a sociolinguistic point of view, the phenomenon of variability deserves attention insofar as different language variants can be used depending on social differences between native speakers and on differences in the conditions of speech communication.
Sociolect. This term arose in linguistics relatively recently - in the second half of the 20th century. It is formed from two parts - the socio-part, indicating the attitude towards society, and the second component of the word "dialect"; it is, in essence, a one-word contraction of the phrase "social dialect".
A sociolect is a collection language features inherent in any social group- professional, class, age, etc. - within one or another subsystem of the national language.
Examples of sociolects are the speech features of soldiers (soldier jargon), schoolchildren (school jargon), criminal jargon, hippie slang, student slang (see below for the terms "jargon", "slang", "slang"), the professional "language" of those , who works on computers, a variety of trading slang (for example, "shuttle traders", drug dealers), etc.
The term "sociolect" is convenient for designating diverse and dissimilar language formations, which, however, have a common feature that unites them: these formations serve the communicative needs of socially limited groups of people.
Sociolects are not complete systems communications. These are precisely the features of speech - in the form of words, phrases, syntactic constructions, stress features, etc.; the basis of sociolects - vocabulary and grammar - usually differs little from that characteristic of a given national language. So, in modern criminal slang there is a fairly large number of specific designations, including metaphorical ones: bullshit "head", piece "thousand rubles", cop "policeman", haza, raspberry "thieves' den", crunches "money", shmonat "search ", the stage "transit prison", etc., but the declension and conjugation of these words, their combination into sentences are carried out according to general language models and rules; general language is also vocabulary that does not denote any specific realities of the “professional” and everyday life of criminals (cf .: They hit me on the bulldozer; He bought it for two pieces; The cops raided the haza and robbed everyone who was there).
Argo. Jargon. Slang. The first two terms are French in origin (French argot, jargon), the third is English (English slang). All three terms are often used interchangeably. However, it is advisable to distinguish between the concepts behind these names: slang is, unlike jargon, a secret language, to one degree or another, created specifically to make the speech of a given social group incomprehensible to outsiders. Therefore, the phrases “thieves' slang”, “argo ofenei” - wandering merchants in Russia in the 19th century, are preferable than “thieves' jargon”, “argo ofenei”.
The term "slang" is more characteristic of the Western linguistic tradition. In terms of content, it is close to what is denoted by the term "jargon".
Argo, jargon, slang are varieties of sociolect. The specificity of each of these linguistic formations may be due to the professional isolation of certain groups or their social isolation from the rest of society. Computer jargon (slang) is an example of professionally limited language formations, thieves' slang, student slang are examples of socially limited subcodes. Sometimes a group can be isolated both professionally and socially; the speech of such a group has the properties of both professional and social jargon. An example is soldier's jargon, since military affairs is a profession, and people engaged in this profession live their own life, quite isolated from the rest of society.
Koine. Term koine originally applied only to the common Greek language, which developed in the 4th-3rd centuries. BC. and served as a common language for business, scientific and fiction Greece until the 2nd-3rd centuries. AD
In modern sociolinguistics, Koine is understood as a means of everyday communication that connects people who speak different regional or social variants of a given language. The role of Koine can be played by supra-dialect forms of the language - a kind of inter-dialects that combine the features of different territorial dialects - or one of the languages functioning in a given area.
The concept of "Koine" is especially relevant for the language life of large cities, in which masses of people with different speech skills mix. Intergroup communication in the city requires the development of such a means of communication that would be understandable to everyone. This is how urban koine appear, serving the needs of everyday, mainly oral communication. different groups urban population.
In addition to the urban Koine, the Koine of the area are distinguished, i.e. a certain territory in which a given language (or languages) is spoken. Thus, in the multilingual Republic of Mali (Africa), the Bamana language, which has a supra-dialectal form, is used as Koine. The term "Koine" is sometimes applied to written forms language - for example, to Latin, which was used as the language of science in medieval Europe.
Digloss and bilingualism. Knowledge of different subsystems of one national language and their use depending on the situation or sphere of communication is called intralingual diglossia(from the Greek "di" "two-" and "gloss" "language"; literally - "bilingualism").
In addition, the term diglossia" it can also denote knowledge of different languages and their alternate use depending on the situation of communication; in this case, the term is used without the definition of "intralinguistic".
The concept of diglossia was introduced into scientific circulation by an American researcher Ch. Ferguson in 1959. Before that, linguistics used (and continues to use now) the term "bilingualism" - as a Russian translation of the international term "bilingualism". And for situations in which the functioning of several languages is possible, the term "multilingualism" (English multilingualism, French plurilinguisme) is adopted.
Bilingualism and multilingualism, as follows from the literal meaning of these terms, is the presence and functioning within one society (usually a state) of two or more languages. Many modern countries are bilingual or multilingual: Russia (cf. the existence on its territory, along with Russian, of such languages as Bashkir, Tatar, Yakut, Buryat, Ossetian, and many others), countries of Africa, Southeast Asia, India and etc.
One can also talk about bilingualism and multilingualism in relation to one person if he speaks not one, but several languages.
Unlike bilingualism and multilingualism, diglossia refers to a form of proficiency in two independent languages or subsystems of one language, in which these languages and subsystems are functionally distributed: for example, in official situations - lawmaking, office work, correspondence between government agencies and so on. - the official (or state) language is used, if we are talking about a multilingual society, or the literary form of the national language (in monolingual societies), and in everyday situations, everyday, in family communication - other languages \u200b\u200bthat do not have the status of official or state, other language subsystems - dialect, vernacular, jargon.
An important condition at diglossia is the fact that speakers make a conscious choice between different communication means and use the one that is best able to ensure the success of communication.
Scope of language use- another term common in sociolinguistics. This term refers to the area of extralinguistic reality, characterized by the relative homogeneity of communicative needs, for the satisfaction of which speakers make a certain selection of linguistic means and rules for their combination with each other.
As a result of such a selection of linguistic means and the rules for their combination, a more or less stable (for a given language community) tradition is formed, correlating a certain area human activity with a specific language code (subcode) - independent language or a subsystem of the national language. So, in medieval Europe, Latin was a communicative tool used in worship, as well as in science, while other areas of activity were served by the corresponding national languages and their subsystems. In Russia, the role of a cult communicative means for a long time belonged to the Church Slavonic language.
The distribution of languages or their subsystems by areas of activity may not be rigid: one of the languages or one of the subsystems may prevail in a given area, but elements of other languages (subsystems) can also be used. So, in the family communication of the inhabitants of the modern Russian village, the local dialect prevails, it is also used by them in the production of agricultural work. However, in modern conditions a pure dialect is a rarity, it is preserved only by some representatives of the older generation of rural residents, while in the speech of the majority it is strongly “diluted” with elements of the literary language and vernacular. Modern Belarus in the field of humanitarian education uses Belarusian language, but here you can also find elements of the closely related Russian language. In the manufacturing sector, despite government support mother tongue, the Russian language prevails (in special terminology, in technical documentation, in professional communication of specialists), however, the use of Belarusian, of course, is not forbidden.
Communicative situation It is a situation of verbal communication between two or more people. The communicative situation has a certain structure. It consists of the following components:
1) speaker (addresser); 2) listener (addressee); 3) the relationship between the speaker and the listener and related 4) the tone of communication (official - neutral - friendly); 5) purpose; 6) means of communication (language or its subsystem - dialect, style, as well as paralinguistic means - gestures, facial expressions); 7) method of communication (oral/written, contact/remote); 8) place of communication.
These are situational variables. Changing the values of each of these variables leads to a change in the communicative situation and, consequently, to a variation in the means used by the participants in the situation and their communicative behavior in general.
Note that in reality, in real communication, situational variables interact with each other and each of them acquires certain values together with others: for example, if the place of communication changes, this often means at the same time a change in its purpose, as well as in the relationship between communicants and in tone. communication; the contact of interaction between the speaker and the listener is usually associated with the use of oral and colloquial forms of speech, and the distance - with the use of written speech.
Communicative competence of a native speaker. In the process of verbal communication, people use the means of language - its vocabulary and grammar - to build statements that would be understandable to the addressee. However, knowing only the dictionary and grammar is not enough for communication in a given language to be successful: you also need to know the conditions for using certain language units and their combinations.
In other words, in addition to grammar itself, a native speaker must learn “situational grammar”, which prescribes the use of the language not only in accordance with the meaning of lexical units and the rules for their combination in a sentence, but also depending on the nature of the relationship between the speaker and the addressee, on the purpose of communication and from other factors, the knowledge of which, together with the actual language knowledge, constitutes the communicative competence of a native speaker.
The nature of the communication skills that are part of the communicative competence and differ from the knowledge of the language itself can be illustrated by the example of the so-called indirect speech acts. Indirect is such a speech act, the form of which does not correspond to its real meaning in a given situation. For example, if a neighbor at the dinner table addresses you with the following words:- Could you pass me the salt?, then in form it is a question, but in fact, a request, and the answer to it should be your action: you pass the salt shaker to your neighbor. If you understand this request as a question and answer: - Can, without taking the appropriate action and waiting for the interlocutor to really directly ask you to pass the salt to him, the communication process will be disrupted: you will not act as the speaker expected and how it is customary to respond to such questions-requests in similar situations.
Sociolinguistics borrowed some terms and concepts from sociology and social psychology. The most important of them are social status and social role. .
Living in a society and entering into various groups, each individual has several social positions in society. For example, a student (which in itself is a certain social position) can be an activist in a youth party, an institute chess champion, a guitarist in a band; at home he is a son and brother, in a friendly company he is a friend, etc. Each of these positions is associated with certain rights and obligations and is called social status.
A person achieves most of the statuses inherent in him; such statuses are called acquired. Student status is acquired by successful delivery university entrance exams, champion status by winning a competition, husband status by marriage. Other statuses such as gender, ethnicity or race we get at birth; sociologists call them ascribed statuses. We receive some assigned statuses even later (the status of an older brother - at the birth of a second son in the family, the status of an adult - upon reaching a certain age). The essence of assigned statuses is that they are given to a person automatically, in addition to his will and desire, and, being received, as a rule, accompany him throughout his life. If the loss of assigned status is possible, then it occurs according to certain rules and also against the will of the individual (such, for example, is the status of a person liable for military service).
Social statuses determine the relationship of an individual with other members of society, his relatively permanent or temporary position in various types of social hierarchies.
Every status implies rights, obligations and the corresponding normative behavior. The status of a student means attending classes, passing exams, completing internships, the right to use the library of your university, and much more. Teacher status - competence in the relevant discipline, certain pedagogical skills, research activities, attendance at department meetings, etc. From a person with a particular social status, others expect a certain behavior corresponding to this status.
This set of standard, generally accepted expectations is called social role. Several roles can correspond to one status: for example, the expectations for a university teacher from students, colleagues, the head of the department, administration and technical workers of the university are different. A set of roles "tied" to one status is called a role set.
Many roles specific to this society have special designations in the language: father, wife, son, classmate, neighbor, teacher, customer, patient, passenger, client, chairman of the meeting, and so on. All adult members of society know more or less well what to expect from the behavior of a person in the performance of each of these roles, so that even the mere pronunciation of the name of the role usually evokes in the mind of the speaker and listener an idea of the complex of rights and duties inherent in this role.
Role expectations do not depend on a particular person, but are formed along with the type of social system within which this role exists; however, this is true only in the abstract consideration of statuses and their associated roles. A real individual, having received a certain status, begins to master the corresponding roles; sociologists call this process role internalization(from lat. internus "internal").
Despite the fact that the set of expectations inherent in a particular role consists of a set of constants that prescribe certain behavior to an individual, the internalization of roles by each person occurs through the prism of his personal experience and under the influence of the micro- and macro-environment to which he belongs. Therefore, the performance of roles, both determined by the permanent and long-term social characteristics of the individual, and played in one or another standard situation, varies from person to person, from one social group to another. It is important, however, that this variability is within certain limits - as long as it does not contradict the expectations inherent in this role, and does not violate some social norms.
Ideas about the typical performance of a particular social role add up to stereotypes; they form an integral part of role behavior. Stereotypes are formed on the basis of experience, frequent repetition of role characteristics that characterize behavior, manner of speaking, moving, dressing, etc. The language even has set expressions, reflecting our ideas about the typical speech behavior of a person in a particular social role: leave your prosecutorial tone; screams like a market girl; speaks like a teacher; in the tone of a delinquent schoolboy, etc.
Learning to play behavior takes place within the framework of a certain social system, through formal and informal sanctions imposed by this system; these sanctions can be positive (reward) or negative (punishment). Thus, the social system imposes on the bearer of a new status the normative understandings of his new role set adopted in it.
The life of an individual as a member of society begins with the development of role-playing behavior in the primary group, the family in which he was born and brought up; from here begins the process of his socialization - entry into the society in which he will live and act. Socialization is a process during which an individual consistently enters all new groups for himself and assimilates, internalizes all new roles. The assimilation of the language used in a given society and the rules for its use in accordance with the performance of certain social roles is part of this process and is called linguistic socialization.
Dictionary of sociolinguistic terms.
Sociolinguistics- a branch of linguistics that studies a wide range of problems related to the social nature of the language, its social functions, the mechanism of the impact of objective (various elements of social attitudes, values, etc.) social factors on the language and the role that language plays in society, using the methods of sociology.
Sociolinguistics, as a science, includes the following areas:
Macrosociolinguistics
Microsociolinguistics
Theoretical (general) sociolinguistics
Applied sociolinguistics
Experimental sociolinguistics
Prospective sociolinguistics
Diachronic sociolinguistics
Synchronous sociolinguistics
Sociosemantics
Socio-stylistics
Sociophonetics
Sociology of language - scientific direction, studying socially-modeled behavior in connection with the preservation of the language, the transition from one language to another, linguistic nationalism, language planning.
social group- a relatively stable set of people who have common interests, values and norms of behavior, emerging within the framework of a historically defined society. Each social group embodies some specific relationships of individuals between themselves and society as a whole. The different nature of these connections corresponds to the diversity of social groups (large, medium, small). Each social group has certain behavioral norms, including speech ones.
Social roles- normatively approved by society images of behavior expected from everyone occupying a given social position. Social roles typical for a given society are acquired by a person in the process of his socialization. The social role is directly related to the characteristics of the speaker's speech behavior: a change in the Social role causes a change in the code (subcode), which is usually expressed in the choice of vocabulary, in the syntactic features of speech, etc.
Socio-communicative system- a set of language systems and subsystems (different languages and forms of their existence in conditions of bilingualism and multilingualism, different forms of language existence in conditions of monolingualism) used by one or another language / speech community.
The social structure of society (class-stratification structure of society) - a set of different in number, appearance, position in the system social relations social groups, among which classes and social strata (strata) play the most significant role. The social structure of society is one of the reasons for the differentiation of the language, the emergence of some variable elements and varieties of the language (sociolects).
social status- an undifferentiated set of all social characteristics of the speaker - both permanent and manifested only in a given situation of communication. There are assigned (daughter, man, Chinese), acquired (teacher, leader, wife), situational (companion, buyer) statuses.
Social factors (extralinguistic factors)- parameters of social (extralinguistic) reality (demographic parameters, social structure of society, cultural and linguistic features), which determine changes in the language, both global and more specific. The global action of extralinguistic factors leads to changes affecting the entire or a significant part of the language subsystem. For example, making decisions about creating a written language for previously demons written language, cause the emergence of new forms of existence of a given language, the emergence of new functional styles. An example of the impact of more particular extralinguistic factors is the development of new genres, stylistic trends in literature.
speech act- a manifestation of speech behavior, a separate act of speech, built taking into account the socially determined rules of communication that operate in a given communicative system. The speech act covers not only speaking, but also the perception and understanding of what is heard.
Switching codes- the transition from a certain language or form of its existence (code, subcode) to another code, due to a change in role relations between speakers in the process of communication. Switching codes can be caused by various reasons associated with a change in the situation of communication: a change in the addressee who does not own this code, a change in the subject of the message, a change in the social role of the participants in communication.
Language socialization- language acquisition as a means of communication social interaction in society. It is expressed in the assimilation of not only the elements and structure of the language, but also the speech norms of a given social environment, stereotypes of speech behavior.
language code- any language formation that functions as a means of communication, suitable for a given communication situation. With the concept of "code" it is customary to use the concept of "subcode" - a kind of language, a communicative subsystem of a lower functional level and a smaller volume than "code". For example, a literary language can be described as a "subcode" of the entire national language ("code").
Language variability- the ability of a language in the process of evolution to create competing means of expression at all levels (phonetic, morphemic, lexical, syntactic, stylistic) under the influence of internal patterns of language development or external causes.
Language community- a set of people united by common social, economic, political and cultural ties and carrying out direct and indirect contacts in everyday life with each other and with various social institutions using one language or different languages \u200b\u200bdistributed in this population.
Humanitarian sciences
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