Sociolinguistics short answer questions and specifications

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 students in the hypothetical class project resides at home with family, that student's language will be different when in the presence of family members, than in the presence of friends, peers, classmates, and professors. 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 did not intend this incident to occur; it occurred naturally. The American did not know about how to change language to be more British. The lack of knowledge also did not impede the change to occur. Now let us consider the second half of the statement: it's who you know. People are very valuable resources when it comes to sociolinguistic variation. Certainly, for the study of ancient languages and linguistics, texts are more valuable as most people do not speak ancient languages, though many modern and prolific languages such as English are heavily based on ancient languages such as Latin. Knowledge in applied sociolinguistics comes from knowing people; that knowledge comes from engaging people. The "who you know" adds to the "what you know," so it matters not if one knows nothing (relatively).

4. Sociolinguistic research typically relies on categorisations of speakers based on age, social class, and gender. Briefly discuss how useful these categories are.