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Variation (linguistics)
Variation is a characteristic of language: there is more than one way of saying the same thing in a given language. Variation can exist in domains such as pronunciation (e.g., more than one way of pronouncing the same phoneme or the same word), lexicon (e.g., multiple words with the same meaning), grammar (e.g., different syntactic constructions expressing the same grammatical function), and other features. Different communities or individuals speaking the same language may differ from each other in their choices of which of the available linguistic features to use, and how often (inter-speaker variation), and the same speaker may make different choices on different occasions (intra-speaker variation). While diversity of variation exists, there are also some general boundaries on variation. For instance, speakers across distinct dialects of a language tend to preserve the same word order or fit new sounds into the language's established inventory of phonemes (the study of such res ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Language
Language is a structured system of communication that consists of grammar and vocabulary. It is the primary means by which humans convey meaning, both in spoken and signed language, signed forms, and may also be conveyed through writing system, writing. Human language is characterized by its cultural and historical diversity, with significant variations observed between cultures and across time. Human languages possess the properties of Productivity (linguistics), productivity and Displacement (linguistics), displacement, which enable the creation of an infinite number of sentences, and the ability to refer to objects, events, and ideas that are not immediately present in the discourse. The use of human language relies on social convention and is acquired through learning. Estimates of the number of human languages in the world vary between and . Precise estimates depend on an arbitrary distinction (dichotomy) established between languages and dialects. Natural languages are ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Glottal Stop
The glottal stop or glottal plosive is a type of consonantal sound used in many Speech communication, spoken languages, produced by obstructing airflow in the vocal tract or, more precisely, the glottis. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is . As a result of the obstruction of the airflow in the glottis, the glottal vibration either stops or becomes irregular with a low rate and sudden drop in intensity. Features Features of the glottal stop: * It has no phonation at all, as there is no airflow through the glottis. It is voiceless, however, in the sense that it is produced without vibrations of the vocal cords. Writing In the traditional romanization of many languages, such as Arabic, the glottal stop is transcribed with the Modifier letter apostrophe, apostrophe ʼ, or the symbol ʾ, , which is the source of the IPA character . In many Polynesian languages that use the Latin alphabet, however, the glottal stop is written wit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Register (sociolinguistics)
In sociolinguistics, a register is a Variety (linguistics), variety of language used for a particular purpose or particular communicative situation. For example, when speaking officially or in a public setting, an English language, English speaker may be more likely to follow Linguistic prescription, prescriptive norms for formal usage than in a casual setting, for example, by pronouncing words ending in ''-ing'' with a velar nasal instead of an alveolar nasal (e.g., ''walking'' rather than ''walkin''), choosing words that are considered more formal, such as ''father'' vs. ''dad'' or ''child'' vs. ''kid'', and refraining from using words considered Nonstandard dialect, nonstandard, such as ''ain't'' and ''y'all''. As with other types of language variation, there tends to be a spectrum of registers rather than a discrete set of obviously distinct varieties—numerous registers can be identified, with no clear boundaries between them. Discourse categorization is a complex problem, a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sociolect
In sociolinguistics, a sociolect is a form of language ( non-standard dialect, restricted register) or a set of lexical items used by a socioeconomic class, profession, age group, or other social group. Sociolects involve both passive acquisition of particular communicative practices through association with a local community, as well as active learning and choice among speech or writing forms to demonstrate identification with particular groups. The term ''sociolect'' might refer to socially restricted dialects, but it is sometimes also treated as equivalent with the concept of register, or used as a synonym for ''jargon'' and ''slang''. Sociolinguists—people who study sociolects and language variation—define a sociolect by examining the social distribution of specific linguistic terms. For example, a sociolinguist would examine the use of the second person pronoun ''you'' within a given population. If one distinct social group used ''yous'' as the plural form of the pro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Social Class
A social class or social stratum is a grouping of people into a set of Dominance hierarchy, hierarchical social categories, the most common being the working class and the Bourgeoisie, capitalist class. Membership of a social class can for example be dependent on education, wealth, occupation, income, and belonging to a particular subculture or social network. Class is a subject of analysis for sociologists, political scientists, anthropologists and Social history, social historians. The term has a wide range of sometimes conflicting meanings, and there is no broad consensus on a definition of class. Some people argue that due to social mobility, class boundaries do not exist. In common parlance, the term social class is usually synonymous with Socioeconomic status, socioeconomic class, defined as "people having the same social, economic, cultural, political or educational status", e.g. the working class, "an emerging professional class" etc. However, academics distinguish socia ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Synchrony And Diachrony
Synchrony and diachrony are two complementary viewpoints in linguistic analysis. A ''synchronic'' approach - from ,("together") + ,("time") - considers a language at a moment in time without taking its history into account. In contrast, a ''diachronic'' - from ,("through, across") + ,("time") - approach, as in historical linguistics, considers the development and evolution of a language through history. For example, the study of Middle English—when the subject is temporally limited to a sufficiently homogeneous form—is synchronic focusing on understanding how a given stage in the history of English functions as a whole. The diachronic approach, by contrast, studies language change by comparing the different stages. This latter approach is what surface analysis often relies on, as a given composition may not have appeared synchronously in history. The terms ''synchrony'' and ''diachrony'' are often associated with historical linguist Ferdinand de Saussure, who considered the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ferdinand De Saussure
Ferdinand Mongin de Saussure (; ; 26 November 185722 February 1913) was a Swiss linguist, semiotician and philosopher. His ideas laid a foundation for many significant developments in both linguistics and semiotics in the 20th century. He is widely considered one of the founders of 20th-century linguistics and one of two major founders (together with Charles Sanders Peirce) of semiotics, or ''semiology'', as Saussure called it. One of his translators, Roy Harris, summarized Saussure's contribution to linguistics and the study of "the whole range of human sciences. It is particularly marked in linguistics, philosophy, psychoanalysis, psychology, sociology and anthropology." Although they have undergone extension and critique over time, the dimensions of organization introduced by Saussure continue to inform contemporary approaches to the phenomenon of language. As Leonard Bloomfield stated after reviewing Saussure's work: "he has given us the theoretical basis for a science of h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eugenio Coșeriu
Eugenio Coșeriu (, ; 27 July 1921 – 7 September 2002) was a linguist who specialized in Romance languages at the University of Tübingen, author of over 50 books, honorary member of the Romanian Academy. In 1970 he coined the terms diatopic, diastratic and diaphasic to describe linguistic variation.Kastovsky, D. and Mettinger A. (eds.) The History of English in a Social Context: A Contribution to Historical Sociolinguistics', ''Introduction'', p.xiii Biography Coșeriu was born on July 27, 1921, in Mihăileni, a small Romanian town that today lies in the Republic of Moldova. He attended high school in Bălți, where Vadim Pirogan and Sergiu Grossu were his classmates. After his studies at the University of Iași, he went to Italy in 1940 with a scholarship of the Istituto Italiano di Cultura and continued to study at Sapienza University of Rome, where he earned his PhD in 1944 under the direction of , with a dissertation about the influence of the Chanson de geste on ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sali Tagliamonte
Sali A. Tagliamonte is a Canadian linguist. Her main area of research is the field of Variationist sociolinguistics, language variation and change. Education Tagliamonte received a Bachelor of Arts in Linguistics from York University in 1981, and a Master of Arts in 1983 and a Ph.D. in 1991 in Linguistics from University of Ottawa. Her graduate thesis, supervised by Shana Poplack, looked at past temporal reference structures in Samaná English. Career Tagliamonte has been a professor at the University of Toronto since 2001, where she currently serves as Chair of the Department of Linguistics. Tagliamonte is also an Honorary Visiting Professor in the Department of Language and Linguistic Science at the University of York. She currently holds the title of Canada Research Chair in Language Variation and Change. Tagliamonte held a number of professional positions before joining the faculty of the University of Toronto. From 1995 to 2002 she held the position of adjunct professor a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
