Speech community
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A speech community is a group of people who share a set of linguistic norms and expectations regarding the use of language. It is a concept mostly associated with
sociolinguistics Sociolinguistics is the descriptive study of the effect of any or all aspects of society, including cultural Norm (sociology), norms, expectations, and context (language use), context, on the way language is used, and society's effect on languag ...
and
anthropological linguistics Anthropological linguistics is the subfield of linguistics and anthropology which deals with the place of language in its wider social and cultural context, and its role in making and maintaining cultural practices and societal structures. Whil ...
. Exactly how to define ''speech community'' is debated in the literature. Definitions of speech community tend to involve varying degrees of emphasis on the following: * Shared community membership * Shared linguistic communication A typical speech community can be a small town, but sociolinguists such as
William Labov William Labov ( ; born December 4, 1927) is an American linguist widely regarded as the founder of the discipline of variationist sociolinguistics. He has been described as "an enormously original and influential figure who has created much of ...
claim that a large metropolitan area, for example
New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
, can also be considered one single speech community. Early definitions have tended to see speech communities as bounded and localized groups of people who live together and come to share the same linguistic norms because they belong to the same
local community A local community has been defined as a group of interacting people living in a common location. The word is often used to refer to a group that is organized around common values and is attributed with social cohesion within a shared geographical l ...
. It has also been assumed that within a community a homogeneous set of norms should exist. These assumptions have been challenged by later scholarship that has demonstrated that individuals generally participate in various speech communities simultaneously and at different times in their lives. Each speech community has different norms that they tend to share only partially. Communities may be de-localized and unbounded rather than local, and they often comprise different sub-communities with differing speech norms. With the recognition of the fact that speakers actively use language to construct and manipulate
social identities Social organisms, including human(s), live collectively in interacting populations. This interaction is considered social whether they are aware of it or not, and whether the exchange is voluntary or not. Etymology The word "social" derives from ...
by signalling membership in particular speech communities, the idea of the bounded speech community with homogeneous speech norms has become largely abandoned for a model based on the speech community as a fluid
community of practice A community of practice (CoP) is a group of people who "share a concern or a passion for something they do and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly". The concept was first proposed by cognitive anthropologist Jean Lave and educat ...
. A speech community comes to share a specific set of norms for language use through living and interacting together, and speech communities may therefore emerge among all groups that interact frequently and share certain norms and ideologies. Such groups can be villages, countries, political or professional communities, communities with shared interests, hobbies, or lifestyles, or even just groups of friends. Speech communities may share both particular sets of vocabulary and grammatical conventions, as well as speech styles and genres, and also norms for how and when to speak in particular ways.


History of definitions

The adoption of the concept of the "speech community" as a unit of linguistic analysis emerged in the 1960s.


John Gumperz

John Gumperz John Joseph Gumperz (January 9, 1922 – March 29, 2013) was an American linguist and academic. Gumperz was, for most of his career, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley. His research on the languages of India, on code-switching i ...
described how dialectologists had taken issue with the dominant approach in historical linguistics that saw linguistic communities as homogeneous and localized entities in a way that allowed for drawing neat tree diagrams based on the principle of 'descent with modification' and shared innovations. Dialectologists rather realized that dialect traits spread through diffusion and that social factors were decisive in how this happened. They also realized that traits spread as waves from centers and that often several competing varieties would exist in some communities. This insight prompted Gumperz to problematize the notion of the linguistic community as the community that carries a single speech variant, and instead to seek a definition that could encompass heterogeneity. This could be done by focusing on the interactive aspect of language, because interaction in speech is the path along which diffused linguistic traits travel. Gumperz defined the community of speech: Gumperz here identifies two important components of the speech community: members share both a set of linguistics forms and a set of social norms Gumperz also sought to set up a typological framework for describing how linguistic systems can be in use within a single speech community. He introduced the concept of linguistic range, the degree to which the linguistic systems of the community differ so that speech communities can be multilingual, diglossic, multidialectal (including sociolectal stratification), or homogeneous - depending on the degree of difference among the different language systems used in the community. Secondly the notion of compartmentalization described the degree to which the use of different varieties were either set off from each other as discrete systems in interaction (e.g.
diglossia In linguistics, diglossia () is a situation in which two dialects or languages are used (in fairly strict compartmentalization) by a single language community. In addition to the community's everyday or vernacular language variety (labeled " ...
where varieties correspond to specific social contexts, or multilingualism where varieties correspond to discrete social groups within the community) or whether they are habitually mixed in interaction (e.g.
code-switching In linguistics, code-switching or language alternation occurs when a speaker alternates between two or more languages, or language varieties, in the context of a single conversation or situation. Code-switching is different from plurilingualism ...
,
bilingualism Multilingualism is the use of more than one language, either by an individual speaker or by a group of speakers. It is believed that multilingual speakers outnumber monolingual speakers in the world's population. More than half of all E ...
, syncretic language).


Noam Chomsky

Gumperz's formulation was however effectively overshadowed by
Noam Chomsky Avram Noam Chomsky (born December 7, 1928) is an American public intellectual: a linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, historian, social critic, and political activist. Sometimes called "the father of modern linguistics", Chomsky is ...
's redefinition of the scope of linguistics as being :


William Labov

Another influential conceptualization of the linguistic community was that of
William Labov William Labov ( ; born December 4, 1927) is an American linguist widely regarded as the founder of the discipline of variationist sociolinguistics. He has been described as "an enormously original and influential figure who has created much of ...
, which can be seen as a hybrid of the Chomskyan structural homogeneity and Gumperz' focus on shared norms informing variable practices. Labov wrote: Like that of Gumperz, Labov's formulation stressed that a speech community was defined more by shared norms than by shared linguistic forms. But like Chomsky, Labov also saw each of the formally distinguished linguistic varieties within a speech community as homogeneous, invariant and uniform. This model worked well for Labov's purpose which was to show that African American Vernacular English could not be seen as structurally degenerate form of English, but rather as a well defined linguistic code with its own particular structure.


Critique

Probably because of their considerable explanatory power, Labov's and Chomsky's understandings of the speech community became widely influential in
linguistics Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Linguis ...
. But gradually a number of problems with those models became apparent.Patrick, P. L. 2008. The Speech Community, chapter 23 in The Handbook of Language Variation and Change (eds J. K. Chambers, P. Trudgill and N. Schilling-Estes), Blackwell Publishing Ltd, Oxford, UK. Firstly, it became increasingly clear that the assumption of homogeneity inherent in Chomsky and Labov's models was untenable. The
African American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...
speech community which Labov had seen as defined by the shared norms of
African American Vernacular English African-American Vernacular English (AAVE, ), also referred to as Black (Vernacular) English, Black English Vernacular, or occasionally Ebonics (a colloquial, controversial term), is the variety of English natively spoken, particularly in urban ...
, was shown to be an illusion, as ideological disagreements about the status of AAVE among different groups of speakers attracted public attention. Secondly, the concept of the speech community was large scale communities. By extending the concept, Gumperz's definition could no longer be evoked. Thirdly, Chomsky and Labov's models made it clear that intrapersonal variation is common. It also refine the choice of linguistic variant is often a choice made to a specific speech context. The force of these critiques with the concept of "speech communities" appeared because of the many contradictions. Some scholars recommended abandoning the concept altogether, instead conceptualizing it as "the product of the communicative activities engaged in by a given group of people." Others acknowledged the community's ''ad hoc'' status as "some kind of social group whose speech characteristics are of interest and can be described in a coherent manner".


Practice theory

Practice theory Practice theory (or praxeology, theory of social practices) is a body of social theory within anthropology and sociology that explains society and culture as the result of structure and individual agency. Practice theory emerged in the late 20th c ...
, as developed by social thinkers such as
Pierre Bourdieu Pierre Bourdieu (; 1 August 1930 – 23 January 2002) was a French sociologist and public intellectual. Bourdieu's contributions to the sociology of education, the theory of sociology, and sociology of aesthetics have achieved wide influence i ...
,
Anthony Giddens Anthony Giddens, Baron Giddens (born 18 January 1938) is an English sociologist who is known for his theory of structuration and his holistic view of modern societies. He is considered to be one of the most prominent modern sociologists and is t ...
and
Michel de Certeau Michel de Certeau (; 17 May 1925 – 9 January 1986) was a French Jesuit priest and scholar whose work combined history, psychoanalysis, philosophy, and the social sciences as well as hermeneutics, semiotics, ethnology, and religion. He was know ...
, and the notion of the
community of practice A community of practice (CoP) is a group of people who "share a concern or a passion for something they do and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly". The concept was first proposed by cognitive anthropologist Jean Lave and educat ...
as developed by
Jean Lave Jean Lave is a social anthropologist who theorizes learning as changing participation in on-going changing practice. Her lifework challenges conventional theories of learning and education. Education and career Lave received a Bachelor's from S ...
and Etienne Wenger has been applied to the study of the language community by linguists
William Hanks William F. Hanks (born 1952) is an American linguist and anthropologist who has done influential work in linguistic anthropology describing the uses of deixis and indexicality in the Yucatec Maya language. He holds the Distinguished Chair in Lingui ...
and
Penelope Eckert Penelope "Penny" Eckert (born 1942) is Albert Ray Lang Professor Emerita of Linguistics at Stanford University. She specializes in variationist sociolinguistics and is the author of several scholarly works on language and gender. She served as t ...
.Eckert, Penelope. 1992 Communities of Practice: Where Language, Gender and Power all Live. In Kira Hall, Mary Bucholtz and Birch Moonwomon eds., Locating Power, Proceedings of the 1992 Berkeley Women and Language Conference. Berkeley:Berkeley Women and Language Group, 89-99. (Penelope Eckert and
Sally McConnell-Ginet Sally McConnell-Ginet (born 1938) is Professor Emerita of Linguistics at Cornell University. She is known for her work on the language of gender and sexuality. Education and career McConnell-Ginet earned degrees in philosophy and mathematics be ...
). Reprinted in Jennifer Coates ed. (In press). Readings in Language and Gender. Cambridge: Blackwell.
Eckert aimed at an approach to sociolinguistic variation that didn't include any social variable (e.g.
class Class or The Class may refer to: Common uses not otherwise categorized * Class (biology), a taxonomic rank * Class (knowledge representation), a collection of individuals or objects * Class (philosophy), an analytical concept used differentl ...
,
gender Gender is the range of characteristics pertaining to femininity and masculinity and differentiating between them. Depending on the context, this may include sex-based social structures (i.e. gender roles) and gender identity. Most cultures u ...
, locality). Instead she built a model that was able to locate variables that show significant issue to the group of individuals. For Eckert the crucial defining characteristics of the community is persistent through time to comprehend together. Hanks' concept of the linguistic community is different from that of Eckert and Gumperz, it studies the ways in shared practice production of linguistic meaning. Hanks studies how linguistic practices are related to a variety that are produced through shared practices.


Language variation

The notion of speech community is most generally used as a tool to define a unit of analysis within which to analyse language variation and change. Stylistic features differ among speech communities based on factors such as the group's ethnicity and social status, common interests and the level of formality expected within the group and by its larger
society A society is a group of individuals involved in persistent social interaction, or a large social group sharing the same spatial or social territory, typically subject to the same political authority and dominant cultural expectations. Socie ...
. Common interests and the level of formality also result in stylistic differences among speech communities. In
Western culture Leonardo da Vinci's ''Vitruvian Man''. Based on the correlations of ideal Body proportions">human proportions with geometry described by the ancient Roman architect Vitruvius in Book III of his treatise ''De architectura''. image:Plato Pio-Cle ...
, for example, employees at a
law Law is a set of rules that are created and are enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior,Robertson, ''Crimes against humanity'', 90. with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. It has been vario ...
office would likely use more formal language than a group of
teenage Adolescence () is a transitional stage of physical and psychological development that generally occurs during the period from puberty to adulthood (typically corresponding to the age of majority). Adolescence is usually associated with the te ...
skateboarders Skateboarding is an action sport originating in the United States that involves riding and performing tricks using a skateboard, as well as a recreational activity, an art form, an entertainment industry job, and a method of transportation. ...
because most Westerners expect more formality and professionalism from practitioners of law than from an informal circle of adolescent friends. This special use of language by certain professions for particular activities is known in linguistics as
register Register or registration may refer to: Arts entertainment, and media Music * Register (music), the relative "height" or range of a note, melody, part, instrument, etc. * ''Register'', a 2017 album by Travis Miller * Registration (organ), th ...
; in some analyses, the group of speakers of a register is known as a
discourse community A discourse community is a group of people who share a set of discourses, understood as basic values and assumptions, and ways of communicating about those goals. Linguist John Swales defined discourse communities as "groups that have goals or pur ...
, while the phrase "speech community" is reserved for varieties of a language or dialect that speakers inherit by birth or adoption.


See also

*
Discourse community A discourse community is a group of people who share a set of discourses, understood as basic values and assumptions, and ways of communicating about those goals. Linguist John Swales defined discourse communities as "groups that have goals or pur ...
*
Linguistic competence In linguistics, linguistic competence is the system of unconscious knowledge that one knows when they know a language. It is distinguished from linguistic performance, which includes all other factors that allow one to use one's language in practi ...
*
Social network (sociolinguistics) In the field of sociolinguistics, social network describes the structure of a particular speech community. Social networks are composed of a "web of ties" ( Lesley Milroy) between individuals, and the structure of a network will vary depending ...


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Speech Community Sociolinguistics Types of communities Linguistics terminology