Verified Document

Charting Sociolinguistic Variations Linguistics Briefly Discuss How Assessment

Charting Sociolinguistic Variations Linguistics

Briefly discuss how language might vary within the speech of a single individual.

Language might vary within the speech of a single individual depending on the various locations and groups with which that individual engages on a regular basis. Depending on the setting and the other individuals with this person, the language within this person's speech is likely to vary. For example, consider young adults who attend a university. When those students are with their peers, classmates, and friends, their language will be a distinct variety. Even within subgroups and subcultures of those same young adults, the languages will further distinguish themselves. A group of young adults who are in a group together for a class project may all be relatively the same age and come from relatively similar class and cultural backgrounds, thus the language between them will be distinctive in those ways. After the group meets regarding the project, the group disperses to interact with their individual subcultures. Each individual in that group will speak slightly to moderately differently among the friends within the subculture, than with the group members. Consider that the same group returns the following class session to report to the professor about the progress on their project. Those same students, again, will speak differently in the presence of their professors, faculty, and staff, than when within their own peers groups and/or subcultures. Furthermore, if one or more of these same...

The location, the setting, and the relative social position of those an individual will engage with are critical factors that distinguish and demonstrate how language might vary within the speech of a single individual.
2. "It's not what you know, it's who you know." u-How is this statement relevant to the study of sociolinguistic variation?

When considering the discipline of sociolinguistics, the adage, "It's not what you know; it's who you know," lends itself to a few relevant meanings. Sociolinguistics studies variation among speakers and even within individuals. Sociolinguistics may include but are not limited to such occurrences as accent or pronunciation, lexicon/canon, rhythm or cadence, and grammatical choices. Consider the first half of the statement within regard to sociolinguistics: it's not what you know. This means that acquired knowledge is not relatively important. Many sociolinguistic variations occur within individuals and groups unconsciously; that is, individuals may not realize they have modified their language or speech patterns. Think about when an American goes on vacation in the United Kingdom. The American may begin picking up British slang and euphemisms. This person may even begin to speak in similar rhythms, cadences and grammatical patterns as British citizens. The American…

Sources used in this document:
References:

Blommaert, J. (2003) Commentary: A sociolinguistics of globalization. Journal of Sociolinguistics, 7(4), 607 -- 623.

Bucholtz, M. (2003) Sociolinguistic nostalgia and the authentication of identity. Blackwell Publishing, NJ.
Cite this Document:
Copy Bibliography Citation

Related Documents

Linguistic and Nonlinguistic Causes of Why an Individual May Have...
Words: 597 Length: 2 Document Type: Term Paper

Linguistic and Nonlinguistic Causes of why an Individual may have Difficulties in Reading. Linguistic causes of why an individual may have difficulties in reading The causes Auditory language related impairment - some individuals with reading difficulty have deficiency in distinguishing differences in sound. In a similar way, some individuals may have difficulty in detecting tones within noise Visual magnocellular-Deficit hypothesis - impairment in visual processing system may lead some word to seem incoherent and

Linguistic Relativity Hypothesis
Words: 893 Length: 3 Document Type: Term Paper

Linguistic relativity hypothesis argues that humans see colors less with their eyes than with their language. (Fountain, 1999) The linguistic relativity hypothesis is important to help in understanding the reasoning behind the way that thought processes develop with the different cultures. The thought processes determine how language comes about and the reasons that the same word can mean different things with different cultures. In the eyes of a linguist, colors are

Linguistic Profiling the Elaboration of
Words: 1127 Length: 4 Document Type: Term Paper

The man claimed that he had not met either of the two landlords in person that he had been attempting to contact for application. Thus, the man began his pursuit into legal action under the terms of racial discrimination. The case, Johnson v. Jensen, one of the first documented arguments of linguistic profiling was brought forth for consideration (Erard, 2002). As in the case of Johnson v. Jensen, the defendants

Linguistic Analysis of Word Order
Words: 5041 Length: 16 Document Type: Essay

8). Follow the proceeding examples for a clearer understanding; A -- Ngi - fun - I zincwadi. NEG -- 1S.SBJ- want- NEG 10.books Translation: I don't want any books. In the urge to attain a shorter gloss, the augment appears separate. However, apart from the class 15 alone, the class prefix is always glommed onto a noun stem. For the sake of the topic discussed in this paper, only the relevant classes that affect syntactic

Linguistic History of the Insular
Words: 2523 Length: 9 Document Type: Thesis

A similar change occurred in British in which only stressed I and us were lowered and the lowering was caused by original long a and by the final -- a in Latin loanwords. This change is not Common Insular Celtic because it postdates raising in Goidelic and raising is not Common Insular Celtic sound change." (Tristram, 2007, p.100) Tristram writes that in Goidelic "syncope is a completely regular process" which

Linguistic and Folkloric Definitions of
Words: 412 Length: 1 Document Type: Research Proposal

Unlike pure slang, folkloric words tend to be less mutable and plastic in use and structure, and may last for years within the region. However, drawing a specific distinction between folkloric and linguistic definitions of slang can result in hair-splitting, rather than truly useful dichotomies of meaning. For example, throughout several generations, children may use the same types of "specialized language" to refer to childhood pursuits, such as names for

Sign Up for Unlimited Study Help

Our semester plans gives you unlimited, unrestricted access to our entire library of resources —writing tools, guides, example essays, tutorials, class notes, and more.

Get Started Now