Sociolinguistics Symposium 19
Freie Universität Berlin | August 21-24, 2012
Programme: accepted abstracts
Abstract ID: 181
Thematic Session (Papers belonging to this Thematic Session)
Folk linguistics and society: People’s ideas about the relationship between language use and social identity
Authors: Stegu, Martin; Wilton, Antje
Submitted by: Stegu, Martin (Wirtschaftsuniversität Wien, Austria)
In this thematic session, the focus lies on the investigation of beliefs and evaluations that non-linguists have with respect to different varieties of language(s) and speech styles – be they ethnic, regional, social, or professional.
The beliefs and attitudes of the non-linguist about language-related issues are becoming increasingly important and relevant for linguists and other researchers of various fields. The growing trend of bringing one’s private opinion to public attention forces researchers to take more notice of such opinions and their relevance for people’s decision making processes. Chats, internet fora, social networks and blogs are prime examples of settings in which lay people volunteer their opinions and theories. In addition, scientific investigation methods of people’s beliefs, attitudes and notions about language-related issues have been developed, extended and refined, and include questionnaires and interviews, discourse and conversation analysis, matched guise test and others. With a detailed and thorough investigation of folk beliefs the linguist can gain insight into the formation processes, the manifestation in various forms of discourse and the relevance of such beliefs for people’s decisions and actions.
Using language(s) is part of human life with which people shape, constitute and sustain social life and social and individual identity. It is only natural that every person, being a speaker of a language or several languages within a social environment, has views, opinions, attitudes and theories about his own and other languages, language varieties and speech styles, including those that are second or foreign languages for their speakers or are used as a lingua franca. However, unlike the researcher, the non-linguist is free to evaluate those languages, varieties and speech styles and he/she often does so – preferably in binary categories such as ‘good’ vs ‘bad’, ‘correct’ vs. ‘wrong’, or ‘beautiful’ vs. ‘ugly’. Such evaluations, in turn, have an impact on how people categorize, judge, and ultimately treat the speakers of such varieties. Furthermore, non-linguists’ criteria for the categorization of language varieties and speech styles need not be and often are not the same criteria that are employed by linguists.
This thematic session invites contributions that report on research discussing – among others – questions such as:
How do non-linguists identify other speakers as belonging to a particular ethnic, regional, social or professional group?
How do non-linguists perceive the relationship between characteristics of language and social identity?
How do different social groups view each other’s language(s) and speech styles and what criteria do they employ for their categorization?
What impact does the positive or negative evaluation of language varieties and speech styles have on the formation of attitudes and decision making processes in private, public and business encounters?
Although not explicitly focused on the conference theme ‘Language and the City’, this session welcomes contributions that shed light on the discursive construction of the distinction between urban and rural varieties.
References
Antos, G. (1996.): Laien-Linguistik. Tübingen: Niemeyer.
Hoenigswald, D. (1966): A proposal for the study of folk-linguistics. In Sociolinguistics. W. Bright (ed.), 16-26. The Hague: Mouton.
Niedzielski, N. A. & Preston, D. R. (2003): Folk Linguistics. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter.
Wilton, A. & Stegu, M. (eds.) (forthcoming 2011): Applied Folk Linguistics. AILA Review 24. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.