Language in Society: An Introduction to SociolinguisticsWhy have 1500 separate languages developed in the Pacific region? Why do Danes understand Norwegians better than Norwegians understand Danish? Is Ebonics a language or a dialect? Linguistics tends to ignore the relationship between languages and the societies in which they are spoken, while sociology generally overlooks the role of language in the constitution of society. In this book Suzanne Romaine provides a clear, lively, and accessible introduction to the field of sociolinguistics and emphasizes the constant interaction between society and language, discussing both traditional and recent issues including: language and social class, language and gender, language and education, and pidgins and creoles. The text shows how our linguistic choices are motivated by social factors, and how certain ways of speaking come to be vested with symbolic value and includes examples drawing on studies of cultures and languages all over the world. This new edition incorporates new material on current issues in the study of gender as well as other topics such as the linguistic dimension to the ethnic conflict in the Balkans, and the controversy over Ebonics in the United States. |
Contents
| 1 | |
Chapter 2 Language Choice | 32 |
Chapter 3 Sociolinguistic Patterns | 64 |
Chapter 4 Language and Gender | 101 |
Chapter 5 Language Change in Social Perspective | 135 |
Chapter 6 Pidgin and Creole Languages | 167 |
Chapter 7 Linguistic Problems as Societal Problems | 205 |
Chapter 8 Conclusions | 240 |
References | 249 |
Index | 263 |
Other editions - View all
Language in Society:An Introduction to Sociolinguistics: An Introduction to ... Suzanne Romaine No preview available - 2000 |
Common terms and phrases
accent Anêm areas bilingual education called census cent Chapter child code-switching context creole languages cultural dialect continuum diglossia Dyirbal ethnic European example female forms French G G G gender German GH GH girls glottal glottal stops grammar groups guages H H H Haitian Creole Hawai‘i Hawai‘i Creole English instance interaction Irish isoglosses Jamaican Creole lady language shift lexical linguistic Macedonian male means middle class minority monolingual mother tongue multilingualism non-standard norms Norwegian Oberwart one’s Panjabi Papua New Guinea patterns phonological pidgins and creoles political postvocalic prestige pronoun pronunciation Quechua refer Saami second language seen semilingual shift social class social dialects society sociolinguistic Spanish speak speech community spoken standard English standard language status style superstrate Swedish switching talk teacher Tok Pisin urban variables varieties verb village vocabulary woman women words