|
Dialect Awareness
Dialect awareness is an instructional approach that teaches basic sociolinguistic concepts to students with the purpose of increasing awareness of language variation and improving language attitudes. An example of this approach is the Voices of North Carolina (VoNC) curriculum developed by Jeffrey Reaser and Walt Wolfram. The VoNC curriculum consists of a video and week-long social studies unit for 8th graders in North Carolina. A pilot study found improved language attitudes among participants. Dialect awareness teaching is composed of three general components: # Building respect for different languages and language varieties # Understanding basic sociolinguistic concepts # Practice style-shifting from one language variety to another (typically from informal language to formal language) Dialect awareness instruction may use the contrastive analysis Contrastive analysis is the systematic study of a couple of languages with a view to identifying their structural differences and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Walt Wolfram
Walt Wolfram ( ; born February 15, 1941) is an American sociolinguist specializing in social and ethnic dialects of American English. He was one of the early pioneers in the study of urban African American English through his work in Detroit in 1969. He is the William C. Friday Distinguished University Professor at North Carolina State University. Since the 1960s, Wolfram has authored or co-authored more than 20 books and more than 300 articles on variation in American English. He was an active participant in the 1996 debate surrounding the Oakland Ebonics controversy, supporting the legitimacy of African American English as a systematic language system. In addition to African American English, Wolfram has written extensively about Appalachian English, Puerto Rican English, Lumbee English, and many other dialects of North Carolina, particularly those of rural, isolated communities such as Ocracoke Island. Biography Wolfram was born Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1941. His p ... [...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] |
Variety (linguistics)
In sociolinguistics, a variety, also known as a lect or an isolect, is a specific form of a language or language cluster. This may include languages, dialects, registers, styles, or other forms of language, as well as a standard variety.Meecham, Marjorie and Janie Rees-Miller. (2001) "Language in social contexts." In W. O'Grady, J. Archibald, M. Aronoff and J. Rees-Miller (eds) ''Contemporary Linguistics''. pp. 537-590. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's. The use of the word ''variety'' to refer to the different forms avoids the use of the term ''language'', which many people associate only with the standard language, and the term ''dialect'', which is often associated with non-standard language forms thought of as less prestigious or "proper" than the standard.Schilling-Estes, Natalies. (2006) "Dialect variation." In R.W. Fasold and J. Connor-Linton (eds) ''An Introduction to Language and Linguistics''. pp. 311-341. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Linguists speak of both s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sociolinguistics
Sociolinguistics is the descriptive, scientific study of how language is shaped by, and used differently within, any given society. The field largely looks at how a language changes between distinct social groups, as well as how it varies under the influence of assorted cultural norms, expectations, and contexts. Sociolinguistics combines the older field of dialectology with the social sciences in order to identify regional dialects, sociolects, ethnolects, and other sub-varieties and styles within a language, as well as the distinctions and variations inside each of these. A major branch of linguistics since the second half of the 20th century, sociolinguistics is closely related to and can partly overlap with pragmatics, linguistic anthropology, and sociology of language, the latter focusing on the effect of language back on society. Sociolinguistics' historical interrelation with anthropology can be observed in studies of how language varieties differ between groups ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Style-shifting
In sociolinguistics, a style is a set of linguistic variants with specific social meanings. In this context, social meanings can include group membership, personal attributes, or beliefs. Linguistic variation is at the heart of the concept of linguistic style—without variation, there is no basis for distinguishing social meanings. Variation can occur syntactically, lexically, and phonologically. Many approaches to interpreting and defining style incorporate the concepts of indexicality, indexical order, stance-taking, and linguistic ideology. A style is not a fixed attribute of a speaker. Rather, a speaker may use different styles depending on context. Additionally, speakers often incorporate elements of multiple styles into their speech, either consciously or subconsciously, thereby creating a new style. Origins William Labov first introduced the concept of style in the context of sociolinguistics in the 1960s, though he did not explicitly define the term.Labov, W. (19 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Contrastive Analysis
Contrastive analysis is the systematic study of a couple of languages with a view to identifying their structural differences and similarities. Historically it has been used to establish language genealogies. Second language acquisition Contrastive analysis was used extensively in the field of second language acquisition (SLA) in the 1960s and early 1970s, as a method of explaining why some features of a target language were more difficult to acquire than others. According to the behaviourist theories prevailing at the time, language learning was a question of habit formation, and this could be reinforced or impeded by existing habits. Therefore, the difficulty in mastering certain structures in a second language (L2) depended on the difference between the learners' mother language (L1) and the language they were trying to learn. History The theoretical foundations for what became known as the contrastive analysis hypothesis were formulated in Robert Lado's ''Linguistics Acr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
