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Communalects
In sociolinguistics, a variety, also known as a lect or an isolect, is a specific form of a language or language cluster. This may include languages, dialects, registers, styles, or other forms of language, as well as a standard variety.Meecham, Marjorie and Janie Rees-Miller. (2001) "Language in social contexts." In W. O'Grady, J. Archibald, M. Aronoff and J. Rees-Miller (eds) ''Contemporary Linguistics''. pp. 537-590. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's. The use of the word ''variety'' to refer to the different forms avoids the use of the term ''language'', which many people associate only with the standard language, and the term ''dialect'', which is often associated with non-standard language forms thought of as less prestigious or "proper" than the standard.Schilling-Estes, Natalies. (2006) "Dialect variation." In R.W. Fasold and J. Connor-Linton (eds) ''An Introduction to Language and Linguistics''. pp. 311-341. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Linguists speak of both stan ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sociolinguistics
Sociolinguistics is the descriptive, scientific study of how language is shaped by, and used differently within, any given society. The field largely looks at how a language changes between distinct social groups, as well as how it varies under the influence of assorted cultural norms, expectations, and contexts. Sociolinguistics combines the older field of dialectology with the social sciences in order to identify regional dialects, sociolects, ethnolects, and other sub-varieties and styles within a language, as well as the distinctions and variations inside each of these. A major branch of linguistics since the second half of the 20th century, sociolinguistics is closely related to and can partly overlap with pragmatics, linguistic anthropology, and sociology of language, the latter focusing on the effect of language back on society. Sociolinguistics' historical interrelation with anthropology can be observed in studies of how language varieties differ between groups ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Varieties Of Chinese
There are hundreds of local Chinese language varieties forming a branch of the Sino-Tibetan languages, Sino-Tibetan language family, many of which are not Mutual intelligibility, mutually intelligible. Variation is particularly strong in the more mountainous southeast part of mainland China. The varieties are typically classified into several groups: Mandarin Chinese, Mandarin, Wu Chinese, Wu, Min Chinese, Min, Xiang Chinese, Xiang, Gan Chinese, Gan, Jin Chinese, Jin, Hakka Chinese, Hakka and Yue Chinese, Yue, though some varieties remain unclassified. These groups are neither clades nor individual languages defined by mutual intelligibility, but reflect common phonological developments from Middle Chinese. Chinese varieties have the greatest differences in their phonology, and to a lesser extent in vocabulary and syntax. Southern varieties tend to have fewer initial consonants than northern and central varieties, but more often preserve the Middle Chinese final consonants. All ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Arbitrariness
Arbitrariness is the quality of being "determined by chance, whim, or impulse, and not by necessity, reason, or principle". It is also used to refer to a choice made without any specific criterion or restraint. Arbitrary decisions are not necessarily the same as random decisions. For example, during the 1973 oil crisis, Americans were allowed to purchase gasoline only on odd-numbered days if their license plate was odd, and on even-numbered days if their license plate was even. The system was well-defined and not random in its restrictions; however, since license plate numbers are completely unrelated to a person's fitness to purchase gasoline, it was still an arbitrary division of people. Similarly, schoolchildren are often organized by their surname in alphabetical order, a non-random yet an arbitrary method—at least in cases where surnames are irrelevant. Philosophy Arbitrary actions are closely related to teleology, the study of purpose. Actions lacking a ''telos (philosop ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Linguistic Prescription
Linguistic prescription is the establishment of rules defining publicly preferred Usage (language), usage of language, including rules of spelling, pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar, etc. Linguistic prescriptivism may aim to establish a standard language, teach what a particular society or sector of a society perceives as a correct or proper form, or advise on effective and stylistically apt communication. If usage preferences are conservative, prescription might appear resistant to language change; if radical, it may produce neologisms. Such prescriptions may be motivated by consistency (making a language simpler or more logical); rhetorical effectiveness; tradition; aesthetics or personal preferences; linguistic purism or nationalism (i.e. removing foreign influences); or to avoid causing offense (etiquette or political correctness). Prescriptive approaches to language are often contrasted with the Linguistic description, descriptive approach of Linguistics, academic linguistic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pronunciation
Pronunciation is the way in which a word or a language is spoken. To This may refer to generally agreed-upon sequences of sounds used in speaking a given word or all language in a specific dialect—"correct" or "standard" pronunciation—or simply the way a particular individual speaks a word or language. Words' pronunciations can be found in reference works such as dictionaries. General-purpose dictionaries typically only include standard pronunciations, but regional or dialectal pronunciations may be found in more specific works. Orthoepy is the study of the pronunciation of a language. A word can be spoken in different ways by various individuals or groups, depending on many factors, such as: the duration of the cultural exposure of their childhood, the location of their current residence, speech or voice disorders, their ethnic group, their social class, or their education. Linguistic terminology Syllables are combinations of units of sound ( phones), for example "goo" ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Accent (sociolinguistics)
In sociolinguistics, an accent is a way of pronouncing a language that is distinctive to a country, area, social class, or individual. An accent may be identified with the locality in which its speakers reside (a regional or geographical accent), the socioeconomic status of its speakers, their ethnicity (an ethnolect), their caste or social class (a social accent), or influence from their first language (a foreign accent). Accents typically differ in quality of voice, pronunciation and distinction of vowels and consonants, stress, and prosody. Although grammar, semantics, vocabulary, and other language characteristics often vary concurrently with accent, the word "accent" may refer specifically to the differences in pronunciation, whereas the word "dialect" encompasses the broader set of linguistic differences. "Accent" is often a subset of "dialect". History As human beings spread out into isolated communities, stresses and peculiarities develop. Over time, they can develo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sally McConnell-Ginet
Sally McConnell-Ginet (born 1938) is Professor Emerita of Linguistics at Cornell University. She is known for her work on the language of gender and sexuality. Education and career McConnell-Ginet earned degrees in philosophy and mathematics before turning to linguistics, receiving a PhD from the University of Rochester in 1973. She joined the faculty of Cornell University in 1973, with a dual appointment in women's studies and philosophy. She went on to serve as director of Women's Studies and founding co-director of Cognitive Studies, and chair of Modern Languages and Linguistics, as well as the later Department of Linguistics. Honors McConnell-Ginet has served as president of the International Gender and Language Association and of the Linguistic Society of America (LSA). In 2008, she was elected a fellow of the LSA and of the American Association for the Advancement of Science The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is a United States–bas ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Penelope Eckert
Penelope "Penny" Eckert (born 1942) is Albert Ray Lang Professor Emerita of Linguistics at Stanford University. She specializes in variationist sociolinguistics and is the author of several scholarly works on language and gender. She served as the president of the Linguistic Society of America in 2018. Biography Eckert received her PhD in linguistics in 1978 from Columbia University, where she was a student of William Labov. She is the author or co-author of three books on sociolinguistics, the co-editor of three collections, and author of numerous scholarly papers in the field. She attended Oberlin College in 1963 as an undergraduate. Eckert served as the president of the International Gender and Language Association from 2000 until 2003. She was elected as a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2011. In 2012, she was inducted as a Fellow of the Linguistic Society of America, where she had previously served on a number of committees, including the ethic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Community Of Practice
A community of practice (CoP) is a group of people who "share a concern or a passion for something they do and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly". The concept was first proposed by cognitive anthropologist Jean Lave and educational theorist Etienne Wenger in their 1991 book ''Situated Learning''. Wenger significantly expanded on this concept in his 1998 book ''Communities of Practice''. A CoP can form around members' shared interests or goals. Through being part of a CoP, the members learn from each other and develop their identities. CoP members can engage with one another in physical settings (for example, in a lunchroom at work, an office, a factory floor), but CoP members are not necessarily co-located. They can form a virtual community of practice (VCoP) where the CoP is primarily located in an online community such as a discussion board, newsgroup, or on a social networking service. Communities of practice have existed for as long as people have ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Andrew Pawley
Andrew Kenneth Pawley (born 1941 in Sydney) is an Australian–New Zealand linguist and Emeritus Professor at the School of Culture, History and Language of the College of Asia and the Pacific at the Australian National University. Career Pawley was born in Sydney but moved to New Zealand at the age of 12. He was educated at the University of Auckland, gaining a PhD in anthropology in 1966. His doctoral thesis, ''The structure of Karam: a grammar of a New Guinea Highlands language'', was dedicated to Kalam, a Papuan ( Trans–New Guinea) language of Papua New Guinea. He taught linguistics in the Department of Anthropology, University of Auckland from 1965 to 1989, with periods at the University of Papua New Guinea (1969) and the University of Hawaii (1973 to 1978). He moved to the Australian National University in 1990. He has taught at the Linguistic Society of America's Summer Institute in 1977 and 1985. Pawley took sabbaticals at Berkeley (1983), Frankfurt (1994) and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Speech Community
A speech community is a group of people who share a set of linguistic norms and expectations regarding the use of language. The concept is mostly associated with sociolinguistics and anthropological linguistics. Exactly how to define ''speech community'' is debated in the literature. Definitions of speech community tend to involve varying degrees of emphasis on the following: * Shared community membership * Shared linguistic communication A typical speech community can be a small town, but sociolinguists such as William Labov claim that a large metropolitan area, for example New York City, can also be considered one single speech community. Early definitions have tended to see speech communities as bounded and localized groups of people who live together and come to share the same linguistic norms because they belong to the same local community. It has also been assumed that within a community a homogeneous set of norms should exist. These assumptions have been challenged b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dialectology
Dialectology (from Ancient Greek, Greek , ''dialektos'', "talk, dialect"; and , ''-logy, -logia'') is the scientific study of dialects: subsets of languages. Though in the 19th century a branch of historical linguistics, dialectology is often now considered a sub-field of, or subsumed by, sociolinguistics. It studies variations in language based primarily on geographic distribution and their associated features. Dialectology deals with such topics as divergence of two local dialects from a common ancestor and Historical_linguistics#Diachronic_and_synchronic_analysis, synchronic variation. Dialectologists are ultimately concerned with grammatical, lexical and phonological features that correspond to regional areas. Thus they usually deal not only with populations that have lived in certain areas for generations, but also with migrant groups that bring their languages to new areas (see language contact). Commonly studied concepts in dialectology include the problem of mutual intellig ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
