Sociolinguistics 社会语言学

图书在版编目（CIP）数据社会语言学/李素琼编著．—成都：电子科技大学出版社，2005.6 Sociolinguistics ISBN 7−81094−857−1 Ⅰ．社．．．Ⅱ．李．．．Ⅲ．社会语言学—高等学校— 教材 Ⅳ．H0

社会语言学中国版本图书馆 CIP 数据核字（2005）第 063634 号

李素琼编著社会语言学

李素琼编著

出版电子科技大学出版社（成都市建设北路二段四号，邮编：610054）责任编辑罗雅发行电子科技大学出版社印刷四川文瑞印务有限责任公司开本 850×1168 1/32 印张 8 字数 201 千字版次 2005 年 6 月第一版印次 2005 年 6 月第一次印刷书号 ISBN 7-81094-857- 1/ H·32 定价 15.00 元

about the sociolinguistic research. We make clear the way of research in sociolinguistics through a lot of typical examples. Chapter 4 is Preface about the variation of language, which is a very important part in sociolinguistics. We especially talk about the relation between This book is dedicated to undergraduates, postgraduates of language and social class, gender and ethnicity. Chapter 5 is about the English majors and all those who are interested in the study of basic concepts of communicative competence, which is also a very sociolinguistics. important part in sociolinguistics. In chapter 6, we can find some Nowadays, sociolinguistics has been recognized as a course at important research on communication by some linguists. Chapter 7 is university level on linguistics or language, and is indeed one of the about language contact. The last chapter is about language planning, main growth points in the study of language, from the point of view which is the application of sociolinguistics. of both teaching and research. Several years ago, I got a chance to be When I first wrote this lecture notes, I consulted a lot of relevant a visiting scholar in East China Normal University, and I became books and papers. Since I had no intention to get it published very interested in this subject. I tried to do some research on it, and originally, I didn’t point out the sources of the references. So, before I gave lectures to the postgraduates in our university. This book is just got it published, I tried my best to make it up. And my postgraduates based on my lecture notes. Xiao Ming (肖敏) and Lin Deyan (林德燕) helped me to do some of There are already a lot of books on sociolinguistics, and most of it. Wu Zhuang (吴庄), a postgraduate and a young teacher in our them are comprehensive, authoritative, and excellent in their way. university drafted the last chapter. Generally speaking, they are essentially academic and tend to be lengthy and technical. There is a need for an introductory book that will ease students into an understanding of complex ideas. This book is designed to serve this need. LI Suqiong The whole book is divided into eight chapters. Chapter 1 is a Foreign Languages Institute brief introduction of sociolinguistics. The readers will be clear about Xiangtan University what sociolinguistics is and what this subject will study. Chapter 2 is about the basic concepts of sociolinguistics. In chapter 3, we talk

2.2 Language and dialect ...... 16 2.2.1 Dialect and accent ...... 16 Contents 2.2.2 Language versus dialect ...... 16 2.2.3 Standard dialect and nonstandard dialect ...... 19 2.2.4 Regional dialect ...... 23 1 Introduction ...... 1 2.2.5 Social dialect ...... 32 1.1 The appearance of sociolinguistics ...... 1 2.3 Style ...... 34 1.2 Language and society ...... 2 Questions for consideration ...... 39 1.3 Definition of sociolinguistics ...... 4 3 Sociolinguistic research ...... 40 1.4 Sociolinguistic varieties ...... 5 1.4.1 Language and social class ...... 5 3.1 Field methods ...... 40 1.4.2 Language and ethnicity ...... 6 3.2 Examples of sociolinguistic investigation ...... 46 1.4.3 Language and dialect ...... 7 3.2.1 The Martha’s Vineyard study ...... 46 1.4.4 Language and gender ...... 7 3.2.2 The New York City study ...... 48 1.5 Types of sociolinguistic research ...... 9 3.3 The uses of style in sociological investigation ...... 50 1.5.1 Sociolinguistics of linguistics ...... 9 3.4 Correlating variables with social stratification ...... 54 1.5.2 Sociolinguistics of ethnology ...... 10 3.5 The birth of a variable ...... 55 1.5.3 Sociolinguistics of sociology ...... 10 3.6 Subjective reaction tests ...... 57 1.5.4 Sciolinguistics of sociopsychology of language .... 11 3.7 The sociolinguistic survey versus conventional 1.5.5 Sociolinguistics of pragmatics ...... 11 sociological studies ...... 60 1.6 Sociolinguistics and the sociology of language ...... 12 3.8 Hidden attitudes in a dialect survey ...... 61 1.7 Basic concepts of sociolinguistics ...... 13 3.9 Remarks on the Labovian method ...... 63 1.7.1 Language variety ...... 13 Questions for consideration ...... 65 1.7.2 Speech community...... 13 4 Variation of language ...... 66 1.7.3 Communicative competence ...... 14 4.1 Language and social class ...... 66 Questions for consideration ...... 14 4.2 Language and gender ...... 75 2 Varieties of language ...... 15 4.2.1 Gender differences ...... 76 2.1 Variety ...... 15 4.2.2 Sexism ...... 88

1 2

4.2.3 Causes of sexism ...... 99 6.4.5 Repairs in conversation ...... 162 4.2.4 Changes in language and society ...... 103 6.4.6 Closing ...... 163 4.3 Language and ethnicity ...... 108 6.5 Politeness ...... 164 4.3.1 Black English ...... 108 6.5.1 Some important researches on politeness ...... 164 4.3.2 Features of Black English ...... 109 6.5.2 Politeness formula ...... 171 4.3.3 Linguistic views on Black English ...... 115 6.6 Forms of address ...... 181 4.3.4 A sociolinguistic interview by McLucas 6.6.1 Research of second-person pronoun T\V usage ... 181 & Lanehart ...... 118 6.6.2 Address forms of American English ...... 184 4.3.5 Consequences for education ...... 124 6.6.3 Address forms of Chinese ...... 194 Questions for consideration ...... 128 Questions for consideration ...... 202 5 Communicative competence ...... 130 7 Language contact ...... 203 5.1 Linguistic competence ...... 130 7.1 Bilingualism and multilingualism ...... 203 5.2 Communicative competence ...... 132 7.2 Bilingualism and diglossia ...... 208 5.2.1 Grammatical competence ...... 134 7.3 Origin of linguistic diversity ...... 211 5.2.2 Sociolinguistic competence ...... 135 7.4 Code-switching ...... 216 5.2.3 Strategic competence ...... 137 7.5 Code-mixing ...... 220 5.3 Speech community ...... 138 7.6 Borrowing ...... 221 Questions for consideration ...... 141 7.7 Pidgins and Creoles ...... 224 6 Communication ...... 142 Questions for consideration ...... 227 6.1 Ethnography of speaking ...... 142 8 Language planning ...... 228 6.2 Speech acts ...... 147 8.1 Language planning ...... 228 6.3 Conversation ...... 150 8.2 National languages and official languages ...... 230 6.4 Discourse rules ...... 155 8.3 Status planning and corpus planning ...... 231 6.4.1 Questions and answers ...... 155 8.4 The linguists’ role in language planning ...... 233 6.4.2 Compliments ...... 156 Questions for consideration: ...... 235 6.4.3 Commands ...... 158 Bibliography ...... 236 6.4.4 Collapsing sequences ...... 161

3 4 Introduction 社会语言学

Phonological Corelates of Social Stratification, written by William Labov. In May, 1964, the first symposium on Sociolinguistics were 1 Introduction held. In the summer of the same year, at a conference on linguistics, all the experts of linguistics agreed that sociolinguistics was a subfield of linguistics. So sociolinguistics is a very young subject and it has a history of only about 40 years. 1.1 The appearance of sociolinguistics Nowadays, sociolinguistics has been recognized as a course at university level on linguistics or language, and is indeed one of the Why do some people pronounce the same word differently? main growth points in the study of language, from the point of view Why do you say“Hi”to some people, and“Good morning”to others? of both teaching and research. There are now major English-language Why do some people smile too much and others are stony-faced? journals devoted to research publications (eg. Language in Society, Why are some insults taken seriously, while others are just Language Variation and Change and International Journal of considered teasing? Has anyone ever accused you of having an accent? Sociology of Language) and a number of introductory textbooks (eg. Do you notice that other people have accents? Why are there different Fasold, R. The Sociolinguistics of Language ； Hudson, R.A. accents, anyway? Why are some immigrant groups lost the languages Sociolinguistics Second Edition；Wardhaugh, R. An Introduction to that their ancestors spoke, whereas others have retained those Sociolinguistics Third Edition. Wolfson, Nessa. Perspectives: languages? Do you feel uncomfortable talking to people from Sociolinguistics and TESOL; Labov, William. Sociolinguistic Pattern. cultures different from your own? Spolsky, Bernard. Sociolinguistics). There are altogether more than These are the kinds of questions that interest people who study ten introductory textbooks on sociolinguistics. But each book sociolinguistics. The term“sociolinguistics”first appeared in A emphasizes different respects of sociolinguistics. Projection of Sociolinguistics: the Relationship of Speech to Social Status, a paper written by an American Scholar H. Currie in 1952. It 1.2 Language and society became a subfield of linguistics in about 1964. In this year, several important books on sociolinguistics were published in the United States: 1) Language in Culture and Society: A reader in Linguistics Language and society are so intertwined that it is impossible to and Anthropology, edited by D. Hymes. 2) The Ethnography of understand one without the other. There is no human society that does Communication, edited by J. Gumperz and D. Hymes. 3) Social not depend upon language. There is no language that is not shaped by Dialects and Language Learning, edited by R. W. Shuy. 4) society. There is no society that does not itself shape language. Every

1 2 Introduction 社会语言学 social institution is maintained by language (Chaika, 1982: 2). Law, important, sociolinguistics tells us what messages we are really religion, government, education, family–––all are carried on with giving when we speak, messages that are not necessarily put into language. Individually, we use language to“carry on”love and to actual words. It shows how and why we feel uncomfortable, even “carry out”hate. We use language to reveal or conceal our personal hostile, to some people, especially those who do not share the rules of identity, our character, and our background. And we are often speech behaviour that we abide by, rules so thoroughly learned that unconscious that we are doing so. Almost all of our contact with we are not even aware of them. family and friends, and much of our contact with strangers, involves speaking. And, much of that speaking is strongly governed by rules, 1.3 Definition of sociolinguistics rules that dictate not only what we should say, but also how we say it. We manipulate others with language, and they manipulate us, often without either part being at all aware of the manipulation. Sociolinguistics is the field that studies the relation between Sociolinguistics is the study of the ways people use language in language and society. Hudson (2000: 1) defined it as the study of social interaction. The sociolinguist concerned with stuff of everyday language in relation to society. This definition is general and abstract. life: how you talk to your friends, family, and teachers, as well as to We can have different explanations for it. Broadly speaking, shopkeepers and strangers–––everyone you meet in the course of a sociolinguistics means the study of language from the angle of day–––and why you talk as you do and they talk as they do. sociology, anthropology, psychology, history, philosophy and so on. Apparently, Sociolinguistics is concerned with trivial matters, with Or we can say, looking through the workings of language at the the talk on streetcorners as well as in the classroom, the things that societal level. It’s also called macrosociolinguistics，or the sociology people do when they want to talk and the ways they signal when they of language. Narrowly speaking, sociolinguistics studies the relation are listening. Sociolinguists even concern matters like where you between the variation of language uses and the social contexts. choose to sit in a cafeteria or at a meeting, or the amount of space you Simply put, people speak differently according to their different want between you and someone else when you are talking. social class, ethnicity, sex, age, education, religion and so on. That’s Such everyday matters are highly revealing and showing what to say, looking through the speech at the level of face-to-face groups make up that society. Examing the speech activities of interaction. It’s called microsociolinguistics, or sociolinguistics. different social groups casts light on the conditions, values, and Macrosociolinguistics emphasizes social elements. And beliefs that have helped shape the groups. Conversely, it also shows microsociolinguistics emphasizes language. Some scholars would how social situations determine what kinds of speech will be used rather call macrosociolinguitics as the sociology of language，and and how speech develops to meet social needs. Perhaps most others think only the variation study is real sociolinguistics.

3 4 Introduction 社会语言学

Language, both as medium and subject of study, is more than a prestige. system of sounds, meaning units, syntax, more than simply a tool for William Labove (1966) investigated the social class differences getting meaning across (Wolfson, 1989: 1). More than anything else, in speech behaviour and found that the higher social class, the more language is a social behavior, and it is upon this fact that “r”sound is pronounced. The use of \ r\ marks which social class sociolinguistics is predicted. Language behaviour maybe studied in you belong to. its sociocultural context (Wolfson, 1989: 2). Sociolinguists look at the 1.4.2 Language and ethnicity complex connections between the variations within a language. The early research of sociolinguistics is mostly macro. The most Because of ethnic discrimination, Black English is considered as original and influential of the early research in the area of “non-standard English”. But sociolinguist found that actually Black sociolinguistic variations was carried out by an American English has its own rule: sociolinguist William Labov (1966). Another representative is Peter (1) Linking verb Trudgill. W. Labov’s book was in great part responsible for the He nice. (= He is nice at the moment.) development of sociolinguistics as a separate subfield of linguistics. He be nice. (=He is nice sometimes.) Sociolinguistics is all about variation, and seeks socially relevant (2) Double negative explanations for regular patterns of variation in language use. It wasn’t nothing to do. (= There is nothing to do.) Variation study is the key part of sociolinguistics. Sociolinguistics is (3) Double subject “a socially realistic linguistics”.“The material of sociolinguistic Linda she sick. (=Linda is sick.) research must come from daily life”(Labov, 1972). Trudgill said that (4) No inversion when inversion is necessary sociolinguitics is“a way of doing linguistics”(Trudgill, 1983). We can He coming with us? (= Is she coming with us?) see their purpose was to improve the research of linguistics. You understand? (=Do you understand?) (5) No possessive marker William mother (= William’s mother) 1.4 Sociolinguistic varieties He book him book (= his book) We book (= our books) (6) Use don’t instead of doesn’t 1.4.1 Language and social class It don’t…(= It doesn’t…) (7) Pronunciation In New York City, for instance, the pronunciation of“r”marks th–––\ t \: thin–––tin the social class of the speaker. R-ful pronunciation enjoys high th–––\ d\ : they–––day

5 6 Introduction 社会语言学

1.4.3 Language and dialect linguists began to study the male\female differences and sex discrimination in language. There are two kinds of dialects, one is regional dialect, and the Lakoff argued that sex linked differences do exist. Let’s have a other is social dialect. Regional dialect is determined by where look at some examples: speakers come from. People who spoke the same language have (1) Male\female differences: different words for the same thing or different pronunciation for the Man: When will dinner be ready? same word. Woman: Oh,…around six o’clock…? New Englanders and people who come from the southeast of the (six o’clock, if that’s ok with you, if you agree, the woman United States have different set of pronunciation patterns, and the sounds unsure.) speech of the New Yorkers differs from both. Peanuts may be called Man: Is John here? groundnuts or goobers or pinders in different parts of America. Woman: John is here, isn’t he? A regional dialect marks off the residents of one region from According to Lakoff, women tend to add tag questions because those of other regions; a social dialect would be a variety of language they are less sure about themselves and their opinions than men are. associated with a specific social class or group, marking that class or (2) Sexism: group off from other classes or groups. Sociolinguists today are 1）Word order: concerned more with social variation in language than with regional husband and wife (夫妻) male and female (男女) variation. However, if we are to gain a sound understanding of the son and daughter (儿女) brother and sister (兄妹) various procedures used in studies of social variation, we should look Adam and Eve (亚当、夏娃) boy and girl (男孩、女孩） at least briefly at previous work in regional dialectology. That work 2）The same word, different meaning point the way to understanding how recent investigations have a. He’s a professional. proceeded as they have. Studies of social variation in language grew b. She’s a professional. out of studies of regional variation. Sentence a means“He is a lawyer, doctor or other respectable 1.4.4 Language and gender professions”. But b is different, it means“She is a prostitute.” The year 1975 can be regarded as having launched the field of This is an example taken from Robin Lakoff’s Language and gender and language. The representative is Robin Lakoff, a professor Women’s Place. After the Women’s Liberation Movement, more and in California University. In that year, she published an important more women get their jobs, so nowadays people will not think it as book“Language and Women’s Place”. Then many feminists and “She is a prostitute.”

7 8 Introduction 社会语言学

3) Many masculine words include both men and women research are W. Labov and P. Trudgill. They are called variationist manmade (人造的) freshman (新生) businessman (商人) (变异研究者). statesman (政治家) Everyone takes his seat. 1.5.2 Sociolinguistics of ethnology Man has learned to control his environment to an astonishing extent. (人类控制环境的能力已到了令人惊奇的程度。) This type of research studies the uses of language and the 4) Women as exceptional function of language in the communication of human being from the woman doctor, female lawyer, woman engineer angle of national culture. It emphasizes the way, characteristics and There is no“man (male) doctor.” norms of communication. It analyzes the uses of language from the Male words are unmarked. typical speech events (典型的言语事例). The representative of this B.B.C. Radio 4 News: This thieving gang consists of three type of research is Dell Hymes (海姆斯). His ethnography of people from America, and a woman. (这个偷窃团伙由三个拉丁美 communication (言语交际民俗学) proposes that when we are 洲人组成，其中一个是女性。) studying the communication, we should think about the following (3) Language changes: elements: the speaker, the listener, content, type and order, the Feminists, linguists, publishing house and governmental manner of speaking, the purpose and result, the norms people keep agencies are trying to do away with sexism in language. Many new and so on. The key of the research is the communicative competence words appeared to take the place of the old words. of people. Some examples: 1.5.3 Sociolinguistics of sociology Ms–––Miss\Mrs. human being–––mankind person–––man a farm couple–––the farmer and his wife The sociolinguistics of sociology or the sociology of language mailman–––mail carriers (语言的社会学) mainly studies the overall interactivity of language and society, eg. The function of language to the development of society and the exchange of information under certain historical 1.5 Types of sociolinguistic research circumstances, the language movement, language planning, and language maintenance or language shift which appear with the 1.5.1 Sociolinguistics of linguistics innovation of society. Its main task is to solve the important language problems of society. This type of research studies the speech of people’s daily life. The key problem is variation. The representatives of variation

9 10 Introduction 社会语言学

1.5.4 Sciolinguistics of sociopsychology of by comprehensive research. language Some scholars divide the sociolinguistic research into two types, that is, macro-sociolinguistics and micro-sociolinguistics. Macro This type of research mainly studies the evaluation and attitude -sociolinguistics studies the problems and state of the language uses of the whole society or certain groups of society towards the in a district or a country，detects the relation and interactivity of language varieties. Attitudinal study (态度研究) is one of the most language and the development of the whole society. Micro important components of sociolinguistics, because the social value of -sociolinguistics studies the problems and the state of language in language variety comes from attitude and policy of the relative communication，probes the relation and interactivity of the social and speech unity. The method of it is psychological experiments (心理实 psychological characteristics of the speakers. 验方法). Wallace Lamber ( 兰伯特) initiated matched-guise technique （配对变语法）: an indirect psychological test, and in this way he got two different evaluations of two different speech unity 1.6 Sociolinguistics and the sociology of towards two different languages in bilingual society. This method have been imitated and developed by some scholars who study the language social psychology of language. The social psychology of language is Some investigators define sociolinguistics as the sociology of very practical in making the language policy. language. But some investigators have found it appropriate to try to 1.5.5 Sociolinguistics of pragmatics introduce a distinction between sociolinguistics or micro -sociolinguistics and the sociology of language or macro This type of research studies the conversation of people’s daily -sociolinguistics. In this distinction, sociolinguistics is concerned life. There must be some natural rules in controlling people’s daily with investigating the relationships between language and society conversation. The researchers emphasizes that discourse is the with the goal being a better understanding of the structure of suitable material for the study of the rules of speech acts and the language and how language function in communication. The goal in structure of social culture, and from the discourse we can see the sociology of language is trying to discover how social structure can interactivity of the use of language and cultural elements. be better understood through the study of language. Hudson (2000: 4) These five types are actually five different respects of has described the differences as follows: sociolinguistics is“the study sociolinguistic research. They are correlated, and it’s difficult to tell of language in relation to society”, whereas the sociology of language one from the other. More and more scholars think we can have an is“the study of society in relation to language.”In other words, in overall acknowledgement of the complex linguistic phenomena only sociolinguistics we study language and society in order to find out as

11 12 Introduction 社会语言学 much as we can about what kind of thing language is, and in the who use a given language (or dialect). We can say speech community sociology of language, we reverse the direction of our interest. is a group of people shares the common social norms in the use of a certain language.

1.7 Basic concepts of sociolinguistics 1.7.3 Communicative competence Communicative competence includes the ability of using and There are three basic concepts of sociolinguistics: language understanding a language. Communicative competence is a very variety, speech community ， and communicative competence. important concept in sociolinguistics. Dell Hymes invented this term Language variety is the basic unit used in analyzing the in order to differentiate it from Husky’s linguistic competence. sociolinguistic phenomena. Speech unity is a basic unit to Communicative competence and linguistic competence are two differentiate the language users. Communicative competence is very different concepts, but they are closely related to each other. important in studying the basic theories of sociolinguistics. Most people find that an academic course in sociolinguistics is both interesting and exciting, a true conciousness-raising experience. 1.7.1 Language variety Students become more aware of their own behaviors, how they are Language variety is the most commonly used word in responding to other people, and how others behave and respond. sociolinguistics. Hudson defined it as“a set of linguistic items with similar social distribution (Hudson, 2000: 22)”.This definition allows Questions for consideration us to call any of the following“varieties of language”：English, French, London English, the English of football commentaries, the language or languages used by a particular person. In non-technical 1．What is sociolinguistics? Please give some examples to show terms, variety refers to“languages”,“dialects”, or“styles”. what sociolinguistics concerns. 2．What are the basic concepts of sociolinguistics? 1.7.2 Speech community 3．What is linguistic variety? Please give some examples to This is also a term widely used in sociolinguistics. The research show the differences and the relationship between the research of target of sociolinguistics is language in use and language user, and it regional dialect and social dialect? concerns the speech acts of a community, not individual. Different researchers have different definitions to speech community. The simplest definition is that of John Lyons (1970: 326): all the people

13 14 Varieties of language 社会语言学

overlap and one variety includes another. Many sociolinguists like to use another term code (语言代码，语码) to take the place of the word 2 Varieties of language variety, because the word code is neutral. Terms like dialect, language, style, standard language, pidgin, and Creole are inclined to arouse emotions (Wardhaugh, 2000: 86).

2.1 Variety 2.2 Language and dialect Variety is the most commonly used term in sociolinguistics. But what do we mean by variety? Hudson (2000: 22) defines a variety of 2.2.1 Dialect and accent language as“a set of linguistic items with similar distribution”. His Dialect is the technical name for what Americans usually think definition allows us to say that all of the following are varieties: of as an accent. Strictly speaking, accent refers only to differences in English, French, London English, the English of football pronunciation between one variety of a language and another. Dialect commentaries, the languages used by the members of a particular refers to all the differences between varieties of a language, those in long-house in the north-west Amazon, the language or languages pronunciation, word usage, and syntax (Chaika, 1982: 132). Dialects used by a particular person. According to Hudson, this definition also vary in pronunciation, vocabulary and syntax. allows us“to treat all the languages of some multilingual speakers, or community, as a single variety, since all the linguistic items 2.2.2 Language versus dialect concerned have a similar social distribution.”A variety can therefore “No sharp demarcation exists between language and dialect”. be something greater than a single language, and a variety can also be “If two varieties of speech are mutually intelligible, they are something less than a dialect (Wardhaugh, 2000: 21). Variety is then a considered dialects. If they are not, they are considered separate general term to refer to what would normally be called languages, languages (Chaika, 1982: 132).”But in actual practice the situation is dialects, and registers (a word meaning roughly style). Why do we far more complicated. Today, often one of the dialects of a given call some varieties different languages and others different dialects of language is likely to be understood by all speakers of that language. the same language? Hudson (2000: 23) says there is no consistent Some of the other dialects, however, may be understood by relatively basis for making the distinctions concerned. In non-technical terms, few speakers, or at least not by all. we can say, the term variety refers to languages, dialects or styles. Then what is the difference between a language and a dialect for There are no restrictions on the relations among varieties–––they may

15 16 Varieties of language 社会语言学

English speakers? What are the essential differences between a thought of as standing outside the language…. As a social norm, then, language and a dialect? How do you decide what is a language and a dialect is a language that is excluded from polite society.”It is often what is a dialect? equivalent to nonstandard or even substandard. According to Hudson (2000: 32),“there are two separate ways if Elaine Chaika (1982: 133) claims that political boundaries often distinguishing them, and this ambiguity is a source of great determine whether two speech varieties will be considered different confusion.”On the one hand, there is the difference of size, because a languages or not. For instance, some varieties of Swedish and language is larger than a dialect. That is, a variety called a language Norwegian are mutually comprehensible, but they are considered contains more items than one called a dialect. This is the sense in different languages because they are separated by national borders. which we call English a language, containing some dialects, with Conversely, the so-called Chinese dialects are as different as French “standard English”as one dialect among many others (Yorkshire from Italian (eg. the dialect of Shanghai and that of Guangdong are English, India English, etc.). Hence the greater size the language not mutually comprehensible at all), but being spoken in one country English. they are not considered separate languages. Sometimes ethnic and The other contrast between“language”and“dialect”is a question social factors determine whether or not speech is considered a of prestige, a language having prestige while a dialect lacks. If we separate language. Most of the Yiddish dialects spoken by Jews of apply the terms in this way, Standard English is not a dialect at all, Eastern Europe are mutually comprehensible with many varieties of but a language, whereas the varieties that are not used in formal modern German. Both Germans and Jews regard Yiddish and writing are dialects. Whether some variety is called a language or a German as separate languages, however. Social factors can even dialect depends on how much prestige one thinks it has, and for most determine whether or not speech is comprehensible at all. In Africa, people this is a clear-out matter, which depends on whether it is used the Kalabari are a powerful and important people, but the Nembe, in formal writing. Accordingly, people in Britain habitually refer to who speak a closely related language are not. There seems to be no languages that are unwritten as dialects. linguistic reason for the two speech varieties not to be mutually Haugen (1966a) has also pointed out that language and dialect comprehensible. Yet the Kalabari claim that they do not understand are ambiguous terms. Ordinary people use these terms freely in the Nembe, and all communication between the two must be in speech; for them a dialect is almost certainly no more than a local Kalabari or Pidgin English. A similar situation occurs in the United non-prestigious (therefore powerless) variety of a real language. In States. In public schools standard-speaking teachers confronted with contrast, scholars often experience considerable difficulty in deciding nonstandard-speaking youngsters often claim difficulty in whether one term should be used rather than the other in certain understanding them. The teachers complain that the students’ speech situations. Haugen(1966a: 924-5) says“In fact, the dialect is often is deficient or broken. However, nonstandard dialects are as

17 18 Varieties of language 社会语言学 systematically rule-governed as standard dialects. Standard speakers economic or political power lack the social prestige that would cause do not perceive this because of their attitudes to the nonstandard their way of speaking to be regarded as inelegant. Put another way, speakers. language is heterogeneous and full of variability. One of the major So, we can see that whether it is defined as a language or dialect, factors influencing linguistic differences within a speech community it depends upon the social political reasons. Language is independent, is the socioeconomic background and educational level of the but dialect is attached to language. Their social positions are different. speakers. The variety of a language spoken by those who have wealth, So we can say the terms language and dialect have social power, and education, that is to say, the language of the elite group, is significance. generally regarded as the prestige variety by the entire speech community (Labov, 1966). When the prestige variety becomes 2.2.3 Standard dialect and nonstandard codified in written form, with dictionaries and grammar books which dialect prescribe“correct usage”, and when it becomes the variety used by Purists would be angry if one says one dialect is as good as the government, courts of law, the mass media, and the schools, it is other, and most people would deny the fact that they speak a dialect. referred to as standard variety or standard language. The fact that This is because standard speech is assumed to exist in most language institutional English is referred to as Standard English carries the communities. The word dialect is derogatory, since it refers to an unfortunate implication that all the other varieties of the language are uneducated or strange way of speaking. To linguists the word dialect nonstandard. Since the varieties of English, which are called has no such pejorative meaning since it is understood that each nonstandard are those spoken by people at the lower end of the social regional and social group has its own set of features of pronunciation, scale, it is clear that a social rather than linguistic distinction is at the vocabulary, and syntax (Wolfson, 1989: 212). However, because the heart of the judgment. If what the lower classes speak is considered everyday meaning of the word dialect continues to carry the negative as“bad English”because it is spoken by the lower classes, then there meaning, most linguists prefer to use the term variety. is no way out of the trap except for the lower classes to learn to use Indeed the idea of standard is an abstraction rather than a the prestige or standard variety. From a linguistic view any variety of concrete reality. Some people say, standard speech is equivalent to English, which is systematic or consistent in its grammar is good the speech of the educated or the prestigious group. A nonstandard English. From the point of view of the society, however, Standard dialect, by definition, is a language variety spoken by a group of the English is the only good English. This means that children whose lower end of the social scale (Wolfson, 1989: 214-5). This shows the native dialect happens to be the standard will know good grammar attitude toward the speech of certain groups is, in reality, a reflection without effort of their own; Children whose native dialect is a of the way society regards the speakers. Those who do not have nonstandard one will not know good English through no fault of their

19 20 Varieties of language 社会语言学 own. however, certain double negatives are socially wrong in certain In the fourteenth century, economy in the Midland of Britain circumstances. That is, although there is nothing inherently wrong was prosperous, so the dialect of the Midland became standard with double negatives, there can be something wrong with some of language. In the 15th century, the production of wolf was developed them at this time in history. The difference between the inherent in the Northern areas, so the dialect of the North became the standard worth of particular kinds of speech and their social implications dialect. And until the 16th century, London has become the political should always be kept in mind. and economic center of England, so the dialect in London became the “Everyone speaks a dialect, everyone has an accent”(Elaine foundation of Standard English of today. The Standard Chinese was Chaika, 1982: 134). In modern countries, the standard dialect can be developed from the Northern dialect, because the city Peking, which understood by just about all speakers. Because it is also based on the is typical of Northern dialect, was once the capital of Liao, Jing, Yuan, speech of the educated, which in most countries coincides with the Ming and Qing dynasties. And over one thousand years, many written language, people often assume that the standard is the true important literature books were written in Northern dialect. language not realizing it is actually a dialect. The dialect that Languages are created equal. The fact that two dialects or two becomes standard is an accident of history. It has nothing to do with languages have different rules does not make one inherently better intrinsic worth of standard. All dialects are inherently equal, just as than another (Chaika, 1982: 7). One may be socially preferred, but all languages are. that is another matter. Today, for instance, using certain kinds of However, dialects are not at all equal socially. A Briton might double negatives is considered bad or incorrect in English. Certainly, deliver a scientific paper in British RP, Received Pronunciation of no one has any trouble understanding“I didn’t do nothing”mean“I English spoken by the educated British, but not in Cockney, the street didn’t do anything”. In fact, double negatives still are used by the dialect of London. However, Cockney might be better in a brawl. A prissiest of English speakers in sentences like, I was not unhappy. At Brooklyn accent does not seem appropriate for lecturing college one time in English, double negatives of the type now frowned upon classes, but it is very convincing for arguing the merits of baseball are considered all right. Shakespeare himself used them frequently, team or even politics. The accent suitable for a given purpose is esp. for emphasis, as in“No one were he never so olde of years might related to the generally held image of people who speak that way. not marry”(Abbott, 1870: 295). Today the same emphatic use of Nonstandard speech is as intelligent and complete as standard. This is double and even triple negatives is heard in supposedly nonstandard essential to understand if nonstandard speakers are to be appreciated English, as in“Ain’t no cat can’t get in no [pigeon] coop”(Labov, and respected. This does not mean that the linguists think that in 1972a). The rule forbidding double negatives is arbitrary. Languages speech anything and everything is all right. Even if one recognizes work perfectly well with or without double negation. In English today, that all dialects are equally intelligent, equally rule-governed, and

21 22 Varieties of language 社会语言学 equally complete for their users’ purposes, one can still recognize that in that area for many hundreds of years, you are certainly to notice educated dialects are necessary for many desirable kinds of social differences in pronunciation, in the choices and forms of words, and functioning. It is necessary for the students to be able to command in syntax. There may even be very distinctive local coloring in the educated varieties of speech if they wish to hold certain kinds of jobs. language which you notice as you move from one location to another. However, any attempt to teach a standard dialect to a nonstandard Such distinctive varieties are usually called regional dialects speaker must take into account why people speak as they do. It must (Wardhaugh, 2000: 40). The longer an area is inhibited by a take into account why people speak as they do. population speaking the same language (s), the more dialect diversity we can expect to find. Thus the differences among the various 2.2.4 Regional dialect regional dialects in Great Britain are more extreme than those found Wolfson and Manes (1978) report that address form ma’ma has in such countries as the United States, Canada, Australia, New different meanings in the southern part of the United States than it Zealand, and South Africa, where English has been spoken by the has elsewhere. In the South, the term ma’am is often used as a dominant group for only a few centuries. Similarly, if we look at the substitute for the formula“I beg your pardon?”or“Pardon?”in asking regional differences within the United States, we see that the greatest someone to repeat what she has said or to explain something. For distinctions are to be found along the eastern seaboard, the area that example: has been inhabited by the English speakers for the longest period of a. Could you tell me how late you’re open this evening? time. Indeed, most dialect geographers would distinguish three broad b. Ma’am? (= Pardon?) dialect areas in the United States: the New England dialect, the South a. Could you tell me how late you’re open this evening? dialect, and the General American. b. Until six. Traditional dialect studies concentrate on fine points of In addition, it was found that the phrase“Yes, ma’ma.”is often pronunciation and lexical differences in different regions. used instead of“You are welcome.”as a response to“Thank you.” Phonological variation refers to differences in pronunciation and Eg. intonation. Individual words may be pronounced differently, and a. Could you tell me how late you open this evening? pronunciation of a particular sound may be different. The Los b. Until nine. Angeles“ah”in talk, saw, walk, and the like corresponds to the New a. Thank you very much. York City and Southern British“aw”.“Ah”and“aw”are different b. Yes, ma’am. (= You are welcome.) ways of pronouncing the same sound in those two dialects (Chaika, As you travel throughout a wide geographical area in which a 1982:145). Generally speaking, the differences between dialects of language is spoken, and particularly if that language has been spoken American English are differences in the pronunciation of vowels. No

23 24 Varieties of language 社会语言学 two dialects have quite the same vowel systems. Consonants, which Lexical variation refers to regional differences in vocabulary, not seem more crucial to identifying spoken words themselves, show as academic as lexical. There are small differences in lexicon from fewer dialectal differences than vowels do. There is one major dialect to dialect. Since these differences involve the names of difference in consonants between most British and American dialects. something, misunderstandings sometimes occur. Elaine Chaika (1982: Virtually all American dialects pronounce the \t\ and \d\ in between 146) gave an example like this: recently, in a Providence, Rhode vowels the same way, as a light \d\ -like sound, so that latter and Island, supermarket, a male customer just ahead of him in the ladder are pronounced the same, as are better and bedder. Many checkout line asked the boy packing groceries to place a large box in British dialects still make a clear distinction between \t\ and \d\. a sack. The boy looked puzzled,“I’ll have to ask the manager.”The Furthermore they hold the \d\, as in ladder or Daddy longer than customer became very angry. Elaine Chaika intervined, hastily Americans do. Another major consonant difference among English explaining that in New England, as in many other regions, groceries dialects is the presence or absence of \r\ before consonants as in park are placed in bags. Sacks are made of cloth. The customer, from and at the end of words. In so-called \r\ -less speech the word- final\r\ Oregon, said,“I never heard of such a thing,”and the boy had never is dropped only if the next word starts with a consonant or at the end heard sack for bag. Usage of these words varies considerably all over of an utterance. For example, four and farmer are pronounced“faw” the country. Some regions reverse the usage just mentioned, so that and“fahmuh”if said alone or before a word beginning with a vowel, bag means a cloth container, as in burlap bag, but sack for one of some so-called\r\-less dialects pronounced the \r\, so that there is an paper. Tuscaloosa County, Alabama uses the two words alternation of word-final \r\: interchangeably. a. [froklak]“four o’clock” At O’Hare airport in Chicago a thirsty woman with a strong b. [fboiz]“faw boys”(four boys) Boston accent asked an attendant where the bubbler was. The a.“fahmer [r] in the dell”(farmer in the dell) attendant kept saying“What?”The woman raised her voice, kept b.“fahmuh cheese”(farmer cheese) answering“The bubbler!”In parts of Eastern England, a bubbler Some \r\ -less dialects never or only occasionally pronounced means“a public drinking facility.”People in Chicago are not familiar the word-final \r\ even before a word beginning with a vowel. They with the word bubbler. And the woman didn’t know that most of the even omit the \r\ in between vowels. In these dialects parents is country calls it a fountain, drinking fountain, or water fountain. To pronounced“pa’ents,”and four o’clock is“faw o’clock.”In America those who call it a bubbler, a fountain is one of the big, gushing water Southern White dialects are likely to omit this \r\ between vowels. In decorations in parks or in front of buildings. Fountain may also refer some places, people make no distinctions among Mary, Merry and to soda fountain. Marry. Most Southerners pronounced pin and pen in the same way. Other terms for common items that still cause confusion across

25 26 Varieties of language 社会语言学 regions are soda, soda pop, pop, soft drink, and tonic. In parts of Either one term drops out, or each word starts to refer to slightly Midwest and Far West, if one orders soda, one is served an ice cream different aspects of the thing originally designated. English shirt and soda. On the East Coast, if one orders pop, one is likely to be greeted skirt are old examples of this, originally having been the British with“Huh?”There, except for Boston and vicinity, the term is soda. dialect variant for the same article. In the United States, the hardware Tonic is peculiar to the Boston area. In New York City and the on a sink from which one gets water is called a faucet, tap, or spigot. suburbs, the bottled stuff is soda, but a drink made at a soda fountain In areas where all three or two of three terms compete, people will with chocolate syrup, milk and soda water is egg cream, although assign a slightly different meaning to each, so that faucet is what is in there is neither egg nor cream in it. the house, and spigot is outside. Even within the same area, There are regional differences in the name of the drink made interestingly enough, different speakers may reverse the meanings. from ice cream, syrup, and milk beaten together. Most of the country Even members of the same family may use the word differently. calls this a milkshake or shake. Other terms are frappe and cabinet, Sometimes the same speaker uses all of the terms for any kind of the former from Boston and its neighborhood, the latter in the Rhode faucet. Island. Because of national fast food chains, shake has come into A number of vocabulary differences distinguish British from those areas as well. American English, for example, British lift, hire, lorry vs. American It is not only foodstuffs that retain local terms. Some regions call elevator, rent, truck. One British term, bunk meaning,“escape”or stockings what others call hose. Hose is commonly used in the “leave someplace without telling others”is used in parts of America, Midwest, and is often not comprehended in the East. In the East, hose but only in the meaning of“stay out of school with no excuse”. means something else: the long snaky thing used to water a garden. In China, some words may distinguish Chinese in the Mainland In building, Northwesterners put shakes on the side of their from that in Taiwan or Hongkong. Leader, Dan wei ling dao (单位领 homes, but Northeasterners put shingles, referring to the same item. 导) in Mainland is equivalent to zhu guan shang si (主管上司) in There are variations on this theme all over the country, with some Taiwan. For the word bus, gong gong qi che (公共汽车), gong che also putting shakes on their roofs, whether or not they are wood, and (公车) and ba shi (巴士) may be used respectively in Mainland, others putting shingles on it if they are not wood. Yet others use Taiwan and Hongkong. shingles for both sides and roofs, wood or not. Others put shakes on Such examples could go on endlessly, but the point should be the side, and shingles on the roofs, and for others just the reverse quite clear by now: mass culture has not removed local terms occurs. completely. Despite the invasion of television and the general In mobile societies words from one dialect may conflict with mobility of Americans, regionalisms survive. This is a further proof words from others. When conflict occurs, two things can happen. that language usage is not simply imitation.

27 28 Varieties of language 社会语言学

Dialects differ in syntax as well as phonology and lexicon. The third person singular. Rather, they say“I sits”,“we sits”,“you sits” term syntax refers to the rules for combining words into sentences. and \or“they sits”. The more commonly used term for putting words together into Negatives often had to be frequently used in conversation. sentences is grammar. Grammar is an evaluative term, so that people Negation in English has become a social marker. Double negations as think of good or bad grammar. Syntax is a neutral term. in“I didn’t do nothing”signals the blue-collar and lower class, but Americans are generally familiar with the well-known signposts “I didn’t do anything”signals the educated middle class. Double of uneducated dialects, such as double negatives and lack of negation sometimes is affected by educated speakers as a marker of agreement in number of verb to subject. Consider the major casual, informal style. differences between educated and uneducated. The educated ones use Some regional grammatical differences are unrelated to social the form of be (am, is, are, was, and were) that agrees with the class. Prepositional differences are a case in point. Often, subject of the sentence in which they appear. For example: prepositions in themselves have little meaning, and the selection of Singular present tense Plural present tense one over another has little consequence for meaning. Old English I am (1st person) we \you\ they are prayed to God“on heaven”rather than“in heaven”. Today in and on you are (2nd person) she is (3rd person) vary regionally. New York City and Hudson Valley wait on line Past tense Past tense instead of the more common wait in line. In the South, wait on means I\she was we \you\ they were what Northerners mean by wait for. (S: I’m waiting on someone. = Be usage is a particularly effective marker of social class in both I’m waiting for someone.) In the North, wait on refers to serving American and British English because it is hard to talk for very long another person as in waiting on a customer. Appalachians speak of at without one of its forms cropping up. Whether or not a speaker uses the wintertime, rather than in. Rural Maine often stays to home rather correct form of be, hence whether or not he or she is a middle-class than at home. The Midlands tell time with quarter till instead of educated, is quickly evident. This is because almost none of the quarter to. (It’s a quarter till four.= It’s a quarter to four.) Some nonstandard varieties of English uses the inflected forms of be in the speakers in New York City, parts of Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania standard way. Some speakers say“I is”; others say“I be,”“you is,” stay by someone when they visit, rather than stay with, perhaps “you was,”or“you be.”Some do not say be at all as in“he good.” because of the influence of German or Yiddish on these areas. Similarly, although all educated dialects still use the –s Because choice of preposition is determined by arbitrary agreement marker in the present singular, nonstandard speakers often grammar rules rather than by selection on the basis of meaning alone, omit it there, saying“He go”or“He don’t”. Some nonstandard much preposition use is considered syntactic (Chaika, 1982:150-2). speakers do use the –s agreement marker but not necessarily on the For most English speakers, or at least those who use anymore, it

29 30 Varieties of language 社会语言学 can be used only when preceded by a negative word, as in: understanding an English speaker from Appalachia，but even such a. He doesn’t come here anymore. extreme regional dialect differences as these can be overcome with b. He hardly comes here anymore. effort. Enough linguistic structure and basic vocabulary are shared for c. If he comes here anymore, I’ll beat him up. mutual comprehension to take place. In a less industrialized era, In some parts of West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Delaware, New perhaps, such divergent dialects would long since have become York, Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana, and South Carolina (Parker 1975), it separate languages. In the twentieth century, however, public appears affirmatively, as in: education, geographic mobility, and, above all, the distribution of a. Things are getting busier for me anymore. radio, television, and cinema products around the English- speaking b. Boy, it sure gets dark here anymore. world have worked against the development of regional dialects into c. You really talk a lot anymore. separate, mutually unintelligible languages (Wolfson, 1989). d. Most people get married around the age of twenty anymore. 2.2.5 Social dialect Speakers unfamiliar with this anymore often are not sure of what it means. They are likely to assume that it has some relationship to Dialect differences are not only geographical. The term dialect still. Actually, it means“nowadays.” can also be used to describe differences in speech associated with Even more syntactic differences occur in the verb system. An various social groups or classes. There are social dialects as well as educated Detroit consultant says“That squirrel is keeping on getting regional dialects. An immediate problem is to give a definition to into my bird feeder.”Eastern New England consultants only allow social group or social class, to give proper weight to the various keeps on getting. People in New York say“we are married for five factors that can be used to determine social position, such as years.”(=We have been married for five years.) occupation, place of residence, education, income, racial or ethnic Obviously, much fine distinctions are possible and those who origin, cultural background, religion, sex and so on. Such factors as have worked to describe dialect divisions have provided a great these do appear to be related directly to how people speak. There is a number of detailed studies of regional differences in pronunciation British“public school”dialect, and there is a“Black”dialect found and other features that are too numerous to be mentioned here. in cities such as New York, Detroit, and Buffalo. There is Although regional differences in pronunciation, lexicon, and even considerable evidence from work of investigators such as Labov and syntactic may be pronounced, these distinctions between the English Trudgill that social dialects can indeed be described systematically. of one area and that of another are not usually great enough to Whereas regional dialects are geographically based, social prevent mutual comprehension. It is true that an English speaker from dialects originate among social groups and are related to a variety of the Highlands of Scotland would have considerable difficulty factors, the principal ones apparently being social class, religion, sex

31 32 Varieties of language 社会语言学 and ethnicity. In a city like Baghdad the Christian, Jewish, and Muslim inhabitants speak different varieties of Arabic. The first two 2.3 Style groups use their variety completely within the group, but Muslim variety serves as a common language among the groups. Consequently, Christians and Jews must use two variants: their own We do not always speak in exactly the same way. Speech, like varieties at home and the Muslim variety for trade and in all dress, varies with the situation, different situations calling for inter-group relationships. Ethnic variation can be seen in the United different styles. Style also controls social interactions. Style refers to States, where one variety of English has become so identified with an the selection of linguistic forms to convey social or artistic effects ethnic group that it is often referred to as“Black English”. Labov’s (Chaika, 1982: 29). Style forms a communication system in its own work in New York City shows that there are other ethnic differences right, one that determines how a social interaction will proceed. If it too: speakers of Jewish and Italian ethnicity differentiate themselves is to continue, style tells how, whether formally or informally. Style from speakers of either standard variety or Black English. They may also tell listeners how to take what is being said: seriously, actually show hypercorrective tendencies (that is, they tend to overdo ironically, humorously, or in some other way. Style uses all the certain imitative behaviors): Italians are inclined to be in the resources of language: tone of voice, different ways of pronouncing vanguard of pronouncing words like bad and bag with a vowel words, even choice of words and grammar themselves. Styles tell us resembling that of beard and the Jews in the vanguard of how to interpret a message. For example, if“John is nice”is said pronouncing words like dog with a vowel something like that of book. sarcastically, the style instructs,“take these words to mean the A possible motivation for such behavior is a desire to move away opposite of what they actually say”. Thus“John is nice”can mean, from the Italian and Yiddish vowels, but they become clear ethnic “John is not nice”. markers. Gumperz (1964) gives the examples of dine and eat. Both There is a term for this branch of study: social dialectology. denote consumption of food, but dine connotes more formal We’ll talk about some of the social dialects in detail in chapter 4. We surroundings calling for formal manners. Choices of the verb dine can see the importance of language variation and how important such also carries implications about those who are doing it. Gumperz says, variation is in trying to understand how and why some sociolinguists “Not everyone can dine.”Dine belong to upper class speech, and regard social variation as being the heart of work in sociolinguistics. pretty much, to the older people. The refined and aristocratic dine. Everyone else eats. The announcer of the weather forecast will say：晴转多云，风向西北，风力四五级。But the ordinary people will say：今天刮西

33 34 Varieties of language 社会语言学

北风，风可大呐，得四五级，早晨太阳挺好，下午兴许多云。The uses threads to mean clothes, he still choose that terminology as a speech of the announcer is formal, but the latter is informal. way of asserting his masculinity. But he tempers the assertiveness Even the same person may use different styles to talk about the with a teasing humor conveyed by slangy speech form and his same thing. For example: obvious borrowing of it.“Hey, baby”lets the woman know that he In the office, to the leader: I met Jones yesterday, sir, who used does not want their encounter to be formal. It is an invitation to to work here, if you remember? He asked me to inquire whether his intimacy. Of course she may not agree. If she does not, she responds post was still open and whether there was any chance of his taking it in a style appropriate both to her status and the degree of intimacy up again. I said I would pass the message on, sir. (先生，我昨天遇见 she prefers, as in: 琼斯先生了。您也许还记得他曾经在这里工作过。他请我问一问 a. I’m busy tonight thank you, Mr. 您，他原先的位置还缺不缺人，他还有沒有可能再回来工作。先 b. Were you talking to me, sir? 生，我告诉他我会把话转给您的。) She does not need to comment on his style. Rather, by her To a colleague: Do you remember John Jones? I met him today responding with a formal style, she instructs him to keep distance. and he said he would like his job back. I think he is optimistic, don’t Her style says,“Back off, Jack,”although her word do not. In fact, it you? (你还记得约翰·琼斯嗎？我今天碰见他了，他说他还想回来 would be downright odd if she said something explicit like“I do not 上班。我看他把事情想得太好了，你说呢？) want you to be so familiar with me. I do not consider myself a At home: Met that fool John today. Wants his job back. Can you sexually available woman, nor do I wish to be intimate with you.” imagine? (今儿撞见约翰那傻小子了，您猜怎么着，还打算回来 Such messages are given by style. 干！) (祝畹瑾, 1992: 23-4) Ceremonial occasions almost invariably require very formal Speakers give a lot of information about themselves just by the speech, public lectures somewhat less formal, casual conversations words, grammar, and pronunciation they choose both consciously or quite informal and casual (Joos, 1962). We may try to relate the level unconsciously. Style is the message. This information reveals to the of formality chosen to a variety of factors: the kind of occasion; the hearer such things as the speaker’s social or educational background, various social class, age, and other differences that exist between the and regional affiliation. The style markers of a particular social group participants; the particular task that is involved, eg. writing or or region may be deliberately used for other purposes. For instance, a speaking; the emotional involvement of one or more participants; and man approaches a woman with“Hey, baby–––love those threads. so on. How about doin’ the town tonight?”may not be a Black street kid. He The differences of styles refer to the differences in sentence may be the son of a wealthy aristocratic family in America. Although structure, choice of words and pronunciation and intonation. his own usual dialect does not normally greet with“Hey, baby-”, or According to Martin Joos, the styles of English can be divided into

35 36 Varieties of language 社会语言学 five types: and in the last five years, at the rate of 10 per year–––as is, we think, 1) Ceremonial style：very formal, and it is used in all kinds of appropriate. (hm, 视察还继续着。对，就像我刚才说的，因为仍 ceremonies. Eg. On the 23rd Olympic opening ceremony in August, 然有导弹布署，所以头三年需要视察的东西最多，视察的次数每 1984 in Los Angeles, American President Regan say like this: 年可以 20 次。随后的五年里，次数可以是每年 15 次，最后的五 Celebrating the Twenty-Third Olympiad of the modern era, I 年里，每年十次。我们认为这样是合适的。) declare: Open the Olympic Games of Los Angeles. It’s very clear this is not a formal style, and not very informal. And after what he said, the Olympic Game began. This kind of 4) Casual style: used informally, between friends, classmates sentence is called performative sentence . Usually the subject is the and so on. Very simple. Eg. first person, and the verb should be present tense. One can not change a. (I) Bought it yesterday. its style as one likes. b. (Are you) Leaving? 2) Formal style: formal style is usually written style. It’s usually c. (A) Friend of mine saw it. used in making speeches. 5) Intimate style: used between people whose relations are The following is selected from the speech of Martin Luther King intimate. Sometimes there is slang in it. Eg. in August, 1963. I’m afraid you’ve picked a lemon. ([我想]你恐怕找了一个木 There will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the 瓜。) Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will Actually it’s very difficult to tell one type from the other. For continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of example, if you want to know the time, you can say: justice emerges. (在美国，除非黑人获得公民权，否则就不会有安 a. I should be glad to be informed of the correct time. 宁或平静。反叛的旋风会继续动摇我们这个国家的根基，直到正 b. I should like to know the time please. 义的灿烂日子来临。) c. Do you have the time on you please? 3）Negotiating style: a style between formal and informal styles. d. What’s the time? This style is used to people we are not familiar with. In November, e. Time? 1987, the American Secretary of state answered a question of (祝畹瑾, 1992: 24-6) inspection by a reporter at a reporting conference like this: It’s not easy to classify which sentence belong which style. Well, they continue. Yes. And as I said, in the first three years, Different people may have different opinions. But one thing is clear, when there are the most things to observe because there are still that is formal or informal. Everyone is clear that we should speak missiles deployed, the inspections are permitted at the rate of 20 per differently to different people. year. In the next five years, they are permitted at a rate of 15 per year, About the word register, there are different understandings

37 38 Varieties of language 社会语言学 among the linguists. According to British linguist Halliday, English varieties can be divided into different registers according to its uses. This is almost the same as the word style used by American linguists. 3 Sociolinguistic research Some other linguists use the word register to refer to sets of language items associated with discrete occupational or social groups. Surgeons, airline pilots, bank managers, sales clerks, jazz fans 3.1 Field methods employ different registers. We have female register. There is no hard and fast division between style, dialect, and language. One melds into the other. Style is relatively minor variation The techniques used to investigate behavior are called field in usage. Dialect indicates rather more differences, and language the methods. Field methods in the sociolinguistic research differ from most. those linguistic proper. Theoretical linguists are primarily concerned with investigating the structure of a language, whereas sociolinguists are primarily concerned with investigating interactions between Questions for consideration members of a society. However, in both sociolinguistics and linguistic proper, field methods include laboratory experiments as 1．Styles can tell us how to interpret a message. Please give well as observations recorded in the field, in the natural surroundings some examples to show that“style is the message”. of the people whose speech is being studied (Chaika, 1982: 17). Even 2．To consider a language as standard or nonstandard shows the a student who has no intention of being a researcher can benefit from attitude toward the speech of certain groups. In reality, it is a considering what constitutes reliable field methods. reflection of the way society regards the speakers. Please say It should be clear that field methods have serious and important something to support this view. implications for the field of sociolinguistics. Wolfson (1989: 201) pointed out that the approaches toward gathering of oral data for linguistic analysis may be classified into two types: observation and elicitation. We will talk about elicitation first. The category of elicitation includes all techniques that directly involve the subjects’ awareness that what they say is being studied by an investigator. This category will include such widely differing techniques as the elicitation of linguistic studies from a single informant during many

39 40 Sociolinguistic research 社会语言学 months or even years of work sessions, from numerous subjects it was best to have the field-worker make herself as inconspicuous as during one or more work sessions, or, as in the sociolinguistic studies possible. In addition, they found it very helpful that many of their of the 1960s and 1970s, from a large number of subjects in single subjects were unclear about when they were being tape- recorded. interviews. The elicitation of linguistic data by consultation with Labov (1966, 1972) also describes the advantages of collecting one’s own intuitions, also falls into this category. samples of everyday speech from subjects who were unaware that Because sociolinguists are interested in finding out how people they were being tape-recorded: speak in different situations, they have been especially conscious of Interruptions of the interview by telephone calls sometimes the methodological problems inherent in their work. Labov was one produce unusually good opportunities to study casual speech. In one of the first to emphasize the need for empirical data on everyday interview, the telephone interrupted the proceedings at the very speech (or what he calls“the vernacular”), speaks of“the observer’s middle. The informant, Dolly R., had just returned from a summer paradox”(Labov, 1970b: 47). He emphasizes that sociolinguists need spent in North Carolina, and one of her cousins was anxious for news to have data on how people speak when they are not conscious of of the family. I left the room with her nephew, and continued to talk being observed. Frequently, for example, if a subject is being to him quietly in another room; for twenty minutes, the informant interviewed in his or her own home, other family members are discussed the latest events in a very informal style, and we thus present and interrupt to ask questions and the alike. Also, it obtained an excellent recording of the most spontaneous kind of sometimes happens that the telephone will ring during an interview speech. The contrast is so sharp that most listeners cannot believe it is and that the subject will be forced to break away for a time. Since the the same person talking (Labov, 1972: 89). subject believes that the researcher is interested only in the answers Although the speech sample describe above was collected by to interview questions and in the specific interview tasks, his or her Labov during a break in a sociolinguistic interview, it is exactly the speech outside the interview may well be much more relaxed and sort of data that one might expect to gather through the type of un-self-conscious. This is exactly the kind of style shifting which is fieldwork which is categorized as observation. Under the word of interest to the sociolinguist, and the casual style that may be observation, we have the tradition of qualitative research in which tape-recorded in this way is the style that is of greatest interest to the spontaneous speech behavior is studied in its natural context. Within sociolinguists. the category of observation we have ethnographic fieldwork, which Milroy and Milroy (1977) and Milroy (1980) have commented may or may not involve the researcher. The ethnographic approach on the usefulness of their subjects’ ignorance of being tape-recorded. toward the collection of data in this way is anthropologist who is Through a combination of observation and elicitation, Milroy and concerned with the description of speech behaviour of groups of Milroy quickly recognized that in order to collect spontaneous speech, which they themselves are not members. Labov has termed this sort

41 42 Sociolinguistic research 社会语言学 of fieldwork anonymous observation. Qualitative research associated a more emphatic careful repetition. When he reached the fourth floor, with observation assumes that hypotheses will emerge from data as he asked“Excuse me, what floor is this?”On both floors salesclerks they are collected, and that relevant factors will become apparent had to answer,“Fourth floor.”These words have the \r\ in the two from data as they are collected, and that the relevant factors will positions: before a consonant and at the end of a word. As he become apparent as the analysis proceeds. What the researcher does predicted, Labov found almost no \r\s in Klein’s, somewhat more in is observe and collect examples of naturally occurring speech in its Macy’s, and the most in Saks. This study yielded a great deal of usual social context. The aim of the researcher is to intervene as little significant data in a short time. It had the advantage that the speech of as possible during the data collection and to try to understand what is the employees being analyzed was wholly unself-conscious and going on from the perspective of the participants in the interaction. natural. That is, the researcher does not guide the participants. The early In order to find out how New York speakers evaluated their own studies of social class variation in language relied almost entirely speech, Labov gave subjects a list of“socially diagnostic pairs of upon the sociolinguistic interview and upon the random sample of words”(eg. [often] versus [ofn], or [ve:z] versus [va:z]) and asked large populations. The Labovian method in the 1960s should be them to say which of the two they thought was correct and which of quantitative research in which speech is elicited in various ways, and the two they themselves used. The number of the items for which hypothesis and variables are usually defined before data are gathered. subjects said they used a form that they did not consider correct was That’s to say, to get enough data to support the hypothesis. For then labeled those subjects’ index of linguistic insecurity. Two example, in the famous Department Store Study, he first made a important findings emerged. One was that lower-middle-class hypothesis: the higher the social class, the more [r] ful is pronounced. speakers had by far the highest indexes of linguistic insecurity, and Then, he found enough data to confirm his hypothesis. In order to the second was that the subjects were very inaccurate in reporting check on his intuition that \r\ -ful pronunciation was becoming a sign their own speech habits and tend to give answers which reflected of middle- and upper-class speech in New York City, Labov visited their beliefs about what they should say, rather than their observed three department stores: Saks, Macy’s and Klein’s. Saks caters to the performance (Wolfson, 1989: 194). Labov’s investigation shows that wealthy. Macy’s is a solid middle-class store, and Klein’s, in an only one class group shows any degree of r-pronunciation in casual unfashionable neighborhood, was a low-price store aimed at the blue speech; that is, in everyday life, r-pronunciation functions as a collar and lower classes, although, like Macy’s, people of all classes prestige marker of the highest-ranking status group. The lower shopped there. Starting on the first floor of each store, Labov asked a middle class shows the same amount of r-pronunciation as the salesclerk to direct him to a department he knew to be on the fourth working class and the lower class. But in more formal style, the lower floor. He then pretended not to hear clearly, and said：“Pardon?”to get middle class shows a rapid increase in the values of [r], until

43 44 Sociolinguistic research 社会语言学 surpasses the usage of the upper middle class. The lower middle class shows an extreme tendency towards correction. 3.2 Examples of sociolinguistic Sometimes your observation may affect the data, so your observation may not be reliable. That is the observers’ Paradox. Then investigation how to overcome the problem? Only in everyday casual speech can we get the true speech events. If the investigator can arouse the strong emotions of the speakers, then, they will talk in a casual way. 3.2.1 The Martha’s Vineyard study In New York City, for example, people are relatively sophisticated In the early 1960s, Labov (1963) noticed that there was a great about interviews, having seen and heard them on television and radio deal of variation in pronunciation of various sounds on Martha’s and perhaps even having taking part in various telephone or face-to- Vineyard, an island off the coast of Massachusetts that was and still is face surveys. Having agreed to try to follow the rules by cooperating a playground for Bostonians. The native dialect was quite different and answering the questions put to them. This may lead them to from Boston’s. The original settlers, apparently unlike the Southern behave in ways very different from their day-to-day style of speech. British who settled Boston, were strong \r\- pronouncers. Being an When it is careful speech that we are studying, this is not a serious island, Martha’s Vineyard had not generally succumbed to Boston problem. However, in attempting to collect casual speech, questions speech. Labov noticed that native Vineyarders pronounced the \r\ like Labov’s“Have you ever been in danger of death?”do put before a consonant but that there was variation both in how sharply interviewers on the spot, as Labov said：“If the informant answers yes, the \r\ was pronounced and how often. the interviewer pauses for one or two seconds”, and then asked: what He also noticed that the vowels sounds as in right and house happened? As the informant begins to reply, he is under some were tenser and made more toward the center of the mouth than their compulsion to show that there was real danger of his being killed. Boston counterparts. The reader without a background in phonology Often he becomes involved in the narration to the extent that he can approximate these sounds by saying“uh-ee”for the vowel in right appears to be re-living the critical moment, and signs of emotional and“uh-oo”for the one in house. The fact that American dialects, tension appear (Labov, 1966: 107). including many in New England, have those tense central vowels shows that these are not peculiar to Martha’s Vineyard. The point is that Boston, the nearest large city to the island, does not have that pronunciation of the \r\. Some Vineyarders used the Boston pronunciations and some did not.

45 46 Sociolinguistic research 社会语言学

Wanting to know who spoke with a Vineyard flavor as opposed talked like Bostonians. If not, they spoke like Vineyarders. Two to a Boston one and why, Labov conducted a survey that asked important results of this study were: subjects to read passages that had plenty of words calling for the \r\ s a. Each social group used a key pronunciation a certain and the diphthongs \ ai \ and \ au \. He also asked questions loaded so percentage of the time with no overlap from group to group. that the answers had to contain words with those sounds. He found b. Attitudes can be precisely correlated with fine points of that it was not a case of using a pronunciation or not. All the pronunciation. Vineyarders tested varied somewhat in their pronunciation of these Phonological variables, different ways of pronouncing the same sounds. What was significant was the percentage of times each sound, appeared to be a potent tool for sociological investigation person used the Vineyard sound as opposed to one more like Boston’s. (Chaika, 1982: 164-5). Most amazing was the correlation between Vineyard pronunciation 3.2.2 The New York City study and the attitudes of the speaker. Labov found that the old line Yankees, who felt that the island belonged to them, pronounced the In his later New York City study, Labov (1966) proved even \r\ most frequently and used the Vineyard vowel quality for \ai\ and more conclusively that examination of phonological variables is a \au\. remarkable exact way of analyzing a community’s social organization. As the traditional livelihood of farming and fishing declined, Furthermore, it reveals attitudes, attitudes that people often would more and more of the descendants of the original settlers found that never admit to having. New York City, being sociologically more they had to cater to tourists from Boston or leave the island. Those complex than Martha’s Vineyard, has more phonological variables. who decided to stay, often in the face of financial hardship, signaled Labov investigated the following: their loyalty to the island by a strong Vineyard flavor to their speech. a. Whether or not \ r \ was pronounced before a consonant. The Gay Head Indians, who also felt that the island belonged to them, b. Whether the \ \ [th] in words like thing was pronounced as but who did not have quite the assurance of the Yankees, used the \ \ or \ t \. Vineyard pronunciation just a little less. Third and fourth generation c. Whether the \ \ [th] in words like the was pronounced as \ \ or Portuguese used Vineyard \r\, \ai\, and \au\ just a little less than the \ d \. Indians. The first generation Portuguese did not use the Vineyard d. How high the front of the tongue is when pronouncing the in pronunciations at all. Not surprisingly, they showed overtly that they words like bad and dance. Labov found that there were five ways were unsure of themselves and their place on the island. of pronouncing this , ranging from the tongue being held low The pronunciation of high school students was a direct reflection enough to produce a very low [ ] to a high [ ]“ee”. of their career plans. If they were going to leave the island, they e. How high the back of the tongue is when pronouncing when

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pronouncing the in more and coffee, pronouncing sounds Swede. Those sounds are not social class markers in Swedish as they from [ ] to [ u ]. are in English. The two sounds spelled (th) in English are unusual, Just because a feature is sociologically significant in one area marked sounds, appearing in few of the world’s language. When they does not mean that it will be in another. In both Martha’s Vineyard do appear, as in Swedish, they have a tendency later to disappear. and New York City, by coincidence, \r\-pronouncing is important, but In English, these sounds have disappeared in most dialects. it signifies quite different things in each place. The raised \ \ sound, Although they appear in only a few words even in the dialects that disvalued in New York City, is quite normal for most of Northern have retained them, those few words must be used frequently. One American and much of Canada. The most educated and refined can barely complete one sentence without having to use the. The speakers in the Great Lakes cities Chicago, Buffalo, Cleveland, and sounds are rare enough to stand out and cannot be avoided even in Detroit may show far more raising of \ \ than any New Yorker. casual conversation. They may have survived mainly because of their However, in those cities, that raised \ \ sound does not mark social utility in social class marking. This does not mean that all marked class. In the Midwest the person who pronounces bad as [bid], that as sounds that survive do so only because they are social markers. [], and happy as [hipi] is showing a regional not a social Sociolinguists do not know that, at least not yet. However, it is pronunciation. remarkable how frequently social class markers are either marked Similarly, using an [u]“oo”for in more and coffee may not sounds or irregular relic forms in English (Chaika, 1973). If the same denote lower class speech outside of New York City. It appears in the is found to be true in a wide variety of languages, then we can claim speech of those with flawless ancestry and schooling, even one that social marking is a major factor in retaining such sounds and Harvard Ph.D., a Philadelphian by birth and graduate of a fine prep forms (Chaika, 1982: 166-7). school, who always asks for“some cuwafee”[kuwfi] not“cawfee” [kfi] or [kafi] ‘cafee.’ 3.3 The uses of style in sociological Substituting [t] or [f] for \\ and \d \ or \ v \ for \ \ marks social class throughout the English-speaking world. For centuries, saying investigation “duh”for the or“ting”for thing has marked an adult speaker of English as uneducated, as has pronouncing mouth as“mouf”and mother as“muvah”. Elaborating on the methods he pioneered in Martha’s Vineyard, Swedish, which like English once had \\ and \\, has long Labov elicited speech in all styles from formal to casual. The since converted, so that the Swedish counterpart to that there is“dat pronunciation that people use in formal styles indicates what they dere”for all speakers, and it sounds right to even the most educated think is correct in formal situations. If the same pronunciation is

49 50 Sociolinguistic research 社会语言学 typical of a particular group or social class, we know that group is everything he did: this thing, that thing… admired. Coping the speech of another group for other purposes, as Besides the reading tasks, Labov also noted responses to when being supercasual reveals something else. Everyday speech questions in an interview. The pronunciations in the responses were reveals an individual’s true feelings of social identity. Labov (1966) usually careful but not as careful as those elicited in reading. He proved this by correlating pronunciations that occurred only in casual found that it is possible to elicit informal and casual speech in an speech with membership in ethnic and social classes. interview, however, by asking subjects to describe games that they The most careful, formal style can be elicited by asking people played when they were children and to recall childhood rhymes. The to read lists of words that contain the variables suspected of being rhymes often work only in a casual style with nonprestigious important in a community. When possible it is fruitful to include pronunciations. Both the rhythms and pronunciations of careful minimal pairs, pairs of words that differ by just one sound, especially speech ruin such rhymes, as in the jumping-rope rhyme: a socially significant one. For his New York City study Labov Cinderella, dressed in yellow, included pairs like guard and god, because he felt that pronunciation Went down town to get some mustard , of the \r\ was socially significant, although many New York City On the way her girdle busted. speakers would not pronounce it in casual speech. Many speakers did How many people got disgusted? pronounce it in a reading task he presented. Labov considered that 1, 2, 3, 4, … this showed that \r\ before consonants, as in guard, has become the The only way that this works is without the \ r \ in mustard. prestige pronunciation in New York City. Whether or not one Labov found that even when the disvalued pronunciations were not attempted to pronounce that \r\ in the reading task depended strongly important to the rhyme scheme, subjects resorted to them when on the person’s social class. This in itself is significant. reciting rhymes. For instance: Labov used another reading tasks well, one that yielded as a I won’t go to Macy’s any more, more, more, slightly less careful style. As in Martha’s Vineyard, he asked subjects There’s a big fat policeman at the door, door, door, to read passages loaded with variables, sounds that are articulated in He pulls you by the collar more than one way by different people in the community. The And makes you pay a dollar passage formed a story, with each paragraph concentrating on one I won’t go to Macy’s any more, more, more. phonological variable. For instance: Labov found the people used the high in more and door a. We always had chocolate milk and coffee cake around four even when a low one would fit as well. This shows the degree to o’clock. My dog used to give us an awful lot of trouble. which style may be determined by what is being talked about. b. There’s something strange about that…how I can remember Childhood rhymes call for nonstandard speech even in an interview.

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Sometimes other questions, such as those dealing with sports or hobbies, will yield casual speech in an interview. Shuy, Wolfram, and 3.4 Correlating variables with social Riley (1967) in their Detroit investigation relied on a variety of questions, being careful to pick cues up from their consultants about stratification what they were interested in. They asked about TV shows, fights, and personal aspirations. They even asked questions about others in the same social group, such as“Is there one guy everyone listens to? How Since he had at his disposal the results of a previous sociological come?”In order to get casual, unselfconscious speech samples, study, Labov was able to correlate his findings with information interviewers must induce consultants to lose themselves in a topic. about social class, occupation, education, income, and personal To achieve this end Labov relied most heavily on a aspirations. If a preexisting study is not available, however, a “danger-of-death”episode. Consultants were asked to relate a researcher determines the social status of consultants by using the personal experience in which they had felt themselves to be in danger Index of Status Characteristics (ISC), a common sociological of death. While recounting the episode, people became progressively measure that divides populations according to occupation, education, less formal, lapsing into normal, everyday speech. Labov was also income, and residence. These criteria have repeatedly been found to able to check on everyday speech by carefully listening to be important in uncovering the division of communities into groups. conversations between subjects and their families before the Such groups are called strata, hence the term social stratification of interview started. Sometimes people switched from talking formally an area. Since language is a social behavior, the ISC is useful in to him to talking informally to their children and back again. He also deciding which groups to study to uncover dialect differences within observed speech in the streets during neighborhood games to get a a community or society. good idea of usual informal modes (Chaika, 1982:167-9). Labov found in his New York City study (1966) that use of variables within a community accurately reveals the actual social stratification of the community. It reveals changing patterns of stratification as well. Each social division that he found was characterized by distinctive pronunciation of at least one phonological variable. Although each group varied in the utilization of variables according to style, there was no overlap between groups in their total behavior. Among older speakers, the speech of ethnic Jews and Italians

53 54 Sociolinguistic research 社会语言学 was marked out by the pronunciations of two of the variables. Jews importance on pronouncing it, and they did not consider it necessary. used \u\“oo”sounds in words like coffee and more; Italians used the Younger speakers clearly did. They made a maximum effort to \i\“ee”sound in words like bad and can. The \u\“oo”for was a articulate all \r\s in the word list and reading passage tasks, signal that one had Jewish identity, but the \i\“ee”was a signal that pronouncing r-less when they were using casual speech. The one felt Italian. These differences showed up most in casual speech. percentage of times \r\ was pronounced in all contexts varied In formal situations, all speakers tried to keep their tongue low when according to social class, but the higher the social class, the more \r\s articulating and . All raised their tongues for these sounds as in every context. the speech became more casual. However, when articulating The lower class produced no \r\s in casual speech, or almost Italians raised their tongues higher than Jews, even in the formal none. Although they did produce more in formal tasks than in the styles. In informal styles, the Italians were still higher than Jews for casual, they still pronounced it the least number of times overall. One the . The reverse of this pattern was shown with interesting exception to this rigid social class differentiation in the pronunciation, the Jews raising the tongue higher for that sound. use of \r\ was the lower middle-class. They actually out r-ed the upper Significantly, younger speakers (age 20 to 39 at the time of the middle-class in the most formal style. The lower middle class study) did not show the clear ethnic differentiation. This finding hypercorrected. This is typical of lower middle class behaviour. That mirrored changing social stratification. By the time of Labov’s study class is extra careful to be correct. They do not have the assurance of the older social stratification of New York City into ethnic groups like the middle and upper classes, however, members of the lower middle Jews, Italians and Irish was giving way. The new stratification was by class believe that it is possible for them or their children to move rich or poor, White, Black, or Puerto Rican, educated or uneducated. upward. The lower classes do not attempt to pronounce the variables There were also differences between men and women, but these may that signal middle class-hood, as it is not likely that they will have a have always existed (Chaika, 1982: 169-170). chance to become middle class. What all of this indicates is that \r\ -pronouncing was and probably still is a clear class marker, with \r\ -ful speech a prestigious 3.5 The birth of a variable pronunciation. The prestige of using \r\ is shown by the trend toward increased \r\ pronunciation as styles become more formal. It is also The oldest consultants did not vary their \r\ -pronouncing shown by the fact that the higher the social class, the more overall use according to style. Whether it was a formal task or an informal one, of \r\. they made no attempt to pronounce \r\. This indicates that for them \r\ Since the oldest speakers did not share in the pattern of \r\ was not socially diagnostic. Labov guessed that they placed no -pronouncing, Labov concluded that variable was a relatively new

55 56 Sociolinguistic research 社会语言学 one in New York City. Articulation of \r\ as a prestige factor pronunciations of seven words: card, chocolate, pass, thing, then, her, apparently emerged shortly after World War II. At that time the social and hurt. Each word was pronounced four different ways, and stratification of New York City began to show changes as the flight to subjects were asked to circle the number that correlated with their suburbs began. Also a good number of children and grandchildren of own pronunciation. In most instances, people reported themselves as immigrants began to“make it”during those years. using prestigious pronunciations even if they really use them no more Social class became more important than ethnic group. Many than 30 percent of the time. They monitored their speech according to people needed a badge to proclaim new status. The badge, apparently community norms. That is, they thought they were talking according became \r\-pronouncing. What is ironical is that in New York City to community’s standards of prestigious features. However, the way speech, \r\-lessness was considered upper class. However, once all they actually talked correlated with their social class or ethnic group. classes were \r\-less, or because they were, it could no longer serve as In other words, people talk according to their feelings of identity a status marker. Labov noted that \r\ more than any other feature without realizing it. correlated with earned status. Furthermore, it was a feature that many Nobody is immune to the community’s values. Even tough street in his study adopted after adolescence. Adoption of \r\ as a social kids who rebel against established institutions in every way can show marker is another example of the sensitivity of language change to a surprising concern with correct speech. In the Harlem study Labov social needs (Chaika, 1982: 170-1). et al. (1968) got some unexpected results from a subjective reaction test. Because Black youths respond best in competitive situations, the test was given to the whole gang at once in the form of a vernacular 3.6 Subjective reaction tests correction test. One of the Black field workers read sentences to the group, having asked them to correct the sentences to make them If everyone shares the same norms and if users of generally conform to the boys’ usual way of saying them. If the sentences were disvalued speech dislike their own speech why does anyone speak in correct according to the Black dialect they spoke, the boys were to a nonprestigious manner? The answer is that people are not aware of make no correction. One sentence read to the boys was: how they are actually speaking. They think they sound different than That’s Nick boy. (typical black English) they actually do. In fact, one sure way to get people angry is to tell (S: That’s Nick’s boy.) them that they are using a particular pronunciation that they criticize One feature of Black English is that it does not ordinarily use the in others. possessive ’s. Even so, Boot, one of the toughest, roughest members Again, it was Labov who showed that people’s evaluation of of the group, one who spoke virtually“pure”black English, shouted their own speech is not accurate. He played a tape with different out:

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That’s Mr. Nick’s son. That’s Nick’s son right there. Do you know that’s Nick’s son? 3.7 The sociolinguistic survey versus Later, the field worker gave: She a real stab bitch. conventional sociological studies Again, Boot was on his toes with a response: She a real [laughs] –––she is a real stab bitch. That“is”was important. As we have already seen, Black English Sociolinguistic surveys are especially valuable for determining does not use“is”in such a sentence, but Boot inserted“is”in the social stratification of a community for three reasons. First, a standard way. He reported himself as using the Standard English tremendous amount of relevant information is obtained in every form. interview, as much as 400～500 pieces. Therefore, only ten to twenty Then the worker asked,“What does stab mean?”Boot answered, representatives of a given group need to be interviewed to obtain “She bad.”He left out the“is”when caught off guard. Boot talked in reliable data. Second, subjects do not usually know what is being Black English but reported himself as using Standard English because looked for if it is looked for skillfully, although one does not tell them he knew that there is such a thing as correct speech, as is shown by that it is a language survey. Labov found that subjects’ unconscious use his response to the field worker’s sentence: of phonological variables was more consistent with their social and Why he do that? ethnic group than were their answers to any single question on the Boot: Why did he do that, man? original sociological survey that he used for selecting subjects. As has Interviewer: Don’t people say,“Why he do that?” been shown, one’s speech is more revealing of one’s identity with a Boot: Some people that don’t speak correc’ English do. Calvin social group than one’s stated attitudes. Moreover, people asked little brother do. (Black English: Calvin’s little brother does.) directly what their attitudes or feelings are often give the answer they Here he failed to use the possessive that he reports himself as think is correct or say what they think the investigator wants to hear. Of using in“That’s Nick’s son.”When he himself speaks, he’ll speak in course, they do the same in a language survey as well, but the very lie his own way (black English). But if he is asked to correct the contains valuable information about social attitudes. It reveals what is mistakes, he knows how to do that. Because he knows there is a considered the prestige speech and the points of reference within a standard way of speaking. Wolfram and Fasold got similar results community. It also reveals the criteria for social identity within a with other populations of speakers of nonstandard English elsewhere community and shows how these are changing. in America (Chaika, 1982:174-5). It reveals who is admired and for what purposes. Frequently, for example, lower and working class White boys live in open hostility

59 60 Sociolinguistic research 社会语言学 with Black youths, engaging in urban guerilla warfare with them. The speakers on a tape, with uncomfortable frequency, they misidentify Whites express open distain and even hatred for Blacks. Yet when \r\-ful Christian SE speakers as being Jewish. To these speakers, \r\-ful discussing fights the same White youths frequently lapse unconsciously speech is foreign. It indicates those that do not belong. Yet if asked, into Black dialect (Labov, 1964: 493). Elain Chaika (1982: 176) found those same speakers will mouth words of brotherhood, never admitting that her students have frequently gathered samples of White youths their prejudices. lapsing unconsciously into Black dialect when discussing sports, Although few Northern college students would seriously venture especially basketball and football. When discussing nonclassical to claim that Southerners are stupid, lazy, and intolerant, when asked to music–––jazz, blues, bluegrass，disco–––Standard English speakers evaluate a woman speaker with a strong Alabama accent, Northern often substitute Black dialect or other nonstandard forms for SE ones. subjects consistently pegged her as having those traits. The woman in Much general American slang, like“real cool, man”or“groovy”, seems question is in fact a practicing medical doctor, comes from a definitely to entered the standard dialect of the language by such borrowing. upper middle-class family and is most tolerant. With the coming of the 1960s, and the accompanying questioning Feminism has made enough strides so that college students would of middle class values and new admiration of naturalness, nonstandard not claim that women are more emotional and less intellectual than men. dialects took on new value for American youth. This was reflected in Yet their true feelings surface when they are asked to evaluate a man the increased use of Black English and other nonstandard dialects in the and a woman with the same accents, reading from the same speech. In popular songs, even those sung by SE speakers. Today many such a test the two read different paragraphs, but the paragraphs are middle-class SE speakers sing with overtones of AE, Black English or matched for various speech features. The woman is consistently rated working class dialects. Bob Dylan and James Taylor come to mind. by listeners as less intelligent, more emotional, and less logical. Compare them with Frank Sinatra, who was one of the biggest teen If subjects are asked to check off the character traits of speakers idols ever at the start of his career in the 1940s and who has always they hear on tape, clear pictures of stereotypes emerge. We discover rendered song lyrics in SE. what speech and what groups are associated with intelligence or toughness, with sincerity, honesty, humor, diligence, or laziness, and even general attractiveness. Lambert, Giles, and Picard (1975) studied 3.8 Hidden attitudes in a dialect survey attitudes towards French-Canadians, both in Canada and in Maine. They found that in St. John’s Valley in Maine both those who were and The subjective reaction part of a sociolinguistic survey can also those who were not Franco-Americans evaluated French speakers uncover hidden attitudes. When Rhode Island and Eastern favorably. In contrast, Quebec French Canadians are inclined toward Massachusetts \r\ -less speakers are asked to identify the ethnicity of self-deprecation, mirroring the prejudice of those who are not French.

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The explanation for the differences in self-evaluation between the two he could have a quantitative analysis on social dialect. Labov is Franco- American populations is explicably by the attitudes of those in undoubtedly the leader in this field (using statistical techniques to power. In Canada, there is considerable disvaluing of the French treat the data quantitatively), but he was not in fact the first person to (Lambert, Giles, and Picard, 1975). In Maine there seems to be none or study linguistic variables in a community. The classic study was done little. at the start of the century by Louis Gauchat in a Swiss village, where Just as people evaluate their own speech according to community he found clear differences between individual speakers (1905); he norms, they seem to evaluate themselves and their ethnic, racial, or listed variants used by each speaker, but he could not collect social group. People see themselves in terms of society and their speech continuous texts so there are no text-based frequencies, only figures as an integral part of their individual character and worth. Many on how many people used which variants (Hudson, 2000: 149). Americans when asked overtly what they think about a particular group Perhaps the most obvious difference between Labov’s work and the answer in terms of brotherhood. They will not admit that they have earlier studies is that he used a tape-recorder to record continuous prejudice towards a certain group. When the question is concealed by speech; this may seem a trivial matter of technology, but he himself asking the same subjects to evaluate speakers on tape, however, their has often said how important this change was, because for the first true feelings emerge (Chaika, 1982: 178-9). time it became possible to make a permanent recording of ordinary speech. The use of tape-recorders is central to the Labovian research approach. 3.9 Remarks on the Labovian method The Labovian method was once very popular in the western countries. Many sociolinguists imitated his method and a number of Labov’s representative work The Social Stratification of English urban language surveys modeled on Labov’s study of New York City in New York City （《纽约市英语的社会分层》）laid a foundation in have been carried out. Indeed, this sort of work became so prevalent this research field. His method had two important breakthroughs. 1) that for many people sociolinguistics became identified with Labov He used the sampling techniques adapted from field of sociology to and the study of the way speech variation is correlated with social choose his investigative units. This was an extremely important step class background of members of a community. No matter how such at that time. With the census as the base, he used the way of random anonymous observation is carried out, there is still one problem with sampling (随机抽样法) to select his investigative units. In collecting it, as Labov himself noted: there is no way to tell anything about the speech materials, he had set four different speech situations, and use background of the speakers. Perhaps more \r\s were pronounced in tape-recorders to record the speech materials. Using this method, he Saks, for instance, because the sales personnel there are less likely to got a lot of speech materials and a rather wide styles of speech, thus be native New Yorkers than those in Macy’s and Klein’s. Saks is one

63 64 Sociolinguistic research 社会语言学 of the stores that attract women from all over the country who work there while trying to start careers in modeling, acting, or retailing. No method is appropriate for all sociolinguistic research. In 4 Variation of language recent years, some new methods on variation study appear. What is essential to recognize that each method has its own limitations. In daily life, we often notice the linguistic differences. But one As we know, people speak differently according to their thing we must be clear, that is, not all differences have social different social class, ethnicity, sex, age, education, region and so on. meaning. According to Labov, there are two kinds of differences we Variation study is the key part of sociolinguistics. The most original must be clear. 1) Differences without social meaning. Eg. The vowels and influential of the early research in the area of sociolinguistic in Cot \kat\ and caught \ct\, some Americans made no differences variation was carried out by an American sociolinguist William between them. But this kind of difference does not change with the Labov. Let’s have a look at some of the variations of language. social context. 2) r-ful pronunciation in New York city shows the social identity of the speaker, and people are very sensitive towards it. 4.1 Language and social class Only the linguistic differences in the second type are what sociolinguists concern. One of the earliest and best known investigations into social class differences in speech behaviour was a study based on the Questions for consideration pronunciation of department store clerks in three New York City stores (Saks, Macy’s, and Klein’s). This study is so famous that it is 1．Please give an example to show the quantitative study of now known simply as“the department store study”. The three stores speech in sociolinguistic research distinguished the high, middle and low social class groups 2．The Labovian method was once very popular in sociolinguistic respectively. They are differentiated in several ways: research in the western country. Please make some comments on the 1) Location: Labovian method. The highest ranking store Saks Fifth Avenue is located at 50th St. and the 5th avenue in New York, near the center of the high fashion shopping district, along with other high-prestigious stores such as Bonwit Teller, Henri Bendel, Lord and Taylor. The middle ranking store Macy’s is located at Harald Square,

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34th St. and 6th avenue, near the garment district, along with Gimbels (From Labov, 1972:47) and Saks-34th St., other middle raking stores in price and prestige. The form of the prices is also different: Saks gives prices in The lowest ranking store S.Klein is located at Union square, 14th round figures, such as $120; Macy’s always shows a few cents off the St. and Broadway, not far from the Lower East Side, a place where dollar: $49.95; S. Klein usually prices its goods in round numbers, the lower working class live. and adds the retail price which is always much higher, and shown in 2) Advertisement: Macy’s style:“$23.00, marked down from $49.95.” Perhaps no other elements of class behavior is so sharply 4) The physical plant: differentiated in New York City as that of the newspaper which The physical plant of the stores also serves to different them. people read; Many surveys have shown that the Daily News is the Saks is the most spacious, especially on the upper floors, with paper read first and foremost by working-class people, while the New the least amount of goods displayed. Many of the floors are carpeted, York Times draws readership from the middle class. These two and on some of them, a receptionist is stationed to greet the newspapers were examined for the advertising copy in October 24-27, customers. 1962: Saks and Macy’s advertised in the New York Times, whereas S. S. Klein, at the other extreme, is a maze of annexes, sloping Klein was represented only by a very small item; In the Daily News, concrete floors, low ceilings; it has the maximum amount of goods however, Saks does not appear at all, while both Macy’s and S. Klein displayed at the least possible expense. are heavy advertisers. Most people like to go shopping in Macy’s, because it’s between 3) Price: the upper class and the lower class. We may also compare the prices of the goods advertised during Labov dressed in middle-class style, with jacket, white shirt and those four days. Since Saks usually does not list prices, we can only tie, and used normal pronunciation as a college-educated native of compare prices for all three stores on one item: women’s coats. Saks: New-Jersey (r-pronuncing). He began his investigation by asking the $90.00, Macy’s: $79.95, S. Klein: $23.00. On four items, we can location of departments he knew to be situated on the fourth floor. compare Klein’s and Macy’s: When the shop assistant answered, Labov would seek a careful repetition of“fourth floor”by pretending not to hear the initial Macy’s S. Klein response. Dresses $ 14.95 $ 5.00 (In Saks, the salesgirl did not know she’s investigated) Girls’ coats 16.99 12.00 Labov: Excuse me, where are the women’s shoes? Stocking 0.89 0.45 Salesgirl: On the fourth floor. ～～ Men’s suits 49.95 64.95 26.00 66.00 Labov: Pardon?

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Salesgirl: On the Fourth floor. (\ r\ ful) members of that class do not always use such pronunciations, nor do Each floor of the store was investigated in the same way. On the they use them on all occasions. fourth floor, the form of question was necessary different：“Excuse me, Middle-class: hard (r-ful) what floor is this?” Working class: fourth floor (r-less) Following this method, 68 interviews were obtained in Saks, Upper-middle-class: r-ful 125 in Macy’s, and 71 in S. Klein. Total interviewing time for the 264 Lower-working-class: r-less subjects was approximately 6.5 hours. The results showed clear and So, in New York City, the use of \r\ marks which social class you consistent differences of \ r \ in the three stores. belong to. Percentage of r-use in three New York City department stores A further analysis of the department store data showed that in Saks it was older people who used r-pronunciation less (Wardhaugh, Saks (%) Macy’s (%) S.Klein 2000:161). The data from S. Klein on this point were quite All [r] 32 31 17 inconclusive, and the results of Macy’s showed that r-pronunciation Some [r] 30 20 4 actually increased with their age. This fact led Labov to conclude that No [r] 38 49 79 members of the highest and lowest social groups tend not to change Number 68 125 71 their pronunciation after it becomes fixed in adolescence but Source: based on Labov (1972) members of middle social groups tend to do because of their social From the table above, we can see that 32 percent of the aspiration. The lower middle class groups are sometimes even more personnel approached in Saks used [r], and 31 percent in Macy’s used r-ful than the upper middle class groups in certain circumstances. [r] in all possible instances, but only 17 percent did so in S. Klein; 79 As we know, the amount of r use increase by social class and by percent of the 71 employees in S. Klein who were approached did not formality of styles. But there is one noticeable exception: Labov’s use [r] at all, but only 38 percent of 68 employees approached in Saks lower middle-class speakers out-perform his upper middle-class and 49 percent of 125 employees approached in Macy’s were r-less. speakers on word lists and pairs (in careful speech, not in casual The result of this investigation showed clear and consistent speech). That’s to say, in casual speech, people from the upper middle stratification of (r) in the three stores. It confirmed Labov’s class are more r-ful in their pronunciation. But in careful speech, hypothesis: In New York City, the higher social class, the more \ r\ is people from the lower middle class are even more r-ful in their pronounced. Labov claims that in New York City, pronunciations of pronunciation. This is called crossover pattern (超越模式). Labov words like car and guard with the r pronounced are highly valued. explains it as hypercorrection (矫枉过正). Lower middle-class They are associated with the upper middle class even though speakers know how prestigious r-pronunciations are and, in reading 69 70 Variation of language 社会语言学 word lists and lists of pairs (when they are placed in situations which New York city. And he found the same result as the r-ful require them to monitor their speech closely), they out-perform their pronunciation. He found there are three possible variants for the reference group, the next highest social group, the upper middle class. pronunciation of \th\: [t], [t] and [], the last being the standard The middle-aged people from the lower middle class have strong pronunciation, the first being the most nonstandard (something like desire to climb to the higher social level. They have an linguistic ting and tree), the middle an intermediate variant. He divided his insecurity (语言不安全感) if they can not pronounce the prestigious subjects in the Lower East Side into four groups according to their r sound. So they try very hard to be fashion-conscious, and correct different profession, education and income: the lower class, the their own vulgar pronunciation deliberately. working class, the lower middle class and the upper middle class. He When I was in Shanghai, China, I found a similar linguistic asked them to speak in different situations: casual speech, careful phenomenon. I found many people in Shanghai will speak in speech, reading, and reading word list. And he found that the four Shanghai dialect whenever possible. After studying sociolinguistics, I classes of people behaves like this in their speech: 1) The lower the began to think it over. Shanghai dialect is a prestigious language in social class, the more nonstandard pronunciations as \t\ or \d\. The Shanghai, and Shanghai is the economical and cultural center of our higher the social class, the less nonstandard pronunciations are. 2) country, so people there are proud of themselves if they can speak The more formal the styles are, the less nonstandard pronunciations Shanghai dialect. That’s why they prefer Shanghai dialect to standard appear. Chinese. And if you pay more attention, you will find some people So now we can get a conclusion: there are nonstandard variants from other places in our country also try very hard to speak in in various social classes, but the difference is: people from the lower Shanghai dialect, though it is really not an easy job. I have a friend class and working class used nonstandard variants much more who came from Yiyang, Hunan Province in East China Normal frequently than people from the lower middle class and upper middle University. I found she can speak Shanghai dialect very well, and class. There is a sharp stratification (显著分化) between the first two really whenever possible. Perhaps she had to speak in Shanghai social classes and the last two social classes. There is only fine dialect in order to communicate well in Shanghai. But perhaps it’s stratification (细微分化) between the upper middle class and the because of something similar to what William Labov called lower middle class. Only people from the upper middle class have hypercorrection of linguistic insecurity and social aspiration. more standard pronunciations in casual speech, there is no great Shanghai dialect is prestigious in Shanghai, and if you can’t speak it, difference among the other social classes. But in formal style, people you will have linguistic insecurity there. from the other social classes used standard speech more frequently, In his work in New York, Labov investigated several other especially people from the lower middle class. In formal speech, they variables. His study is based on a sample from Lower East Side of are even more standard than people from the upper middle class.

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That’s all because of their social aspiration. study (Milroy and Milroy, 1978, and Milroy, 1980,1987a) of certain The results of Labov’s investigation were further confirmed by aspects of speech in their three working-class areas (Ballymacarrett, Trudgill’s investigation in Norwich and Wolfram ’s study in Detroit. Hammer, Clonard) in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Many studies Trudgill (1974) investigated sixteen different phonological conducted in Northern Ireland (and elsewhere) stress the importance variables in his work in Norwich, England. He demonstrates, in much of social networks (Wardhaugh, 2000: 177). Such networks, which the same way as Labov does in New York City, how use of variants is originate in kinship ties, determine an individual’s access to related to social class and level of formality. He investigated some employment and to other resources. People develop close and people in Norwich and divided them into five groups: middle middle continuing relationships with each other, they help one another, first class , lower middle class, upper working class, middle working class, their kin and then their co-religionists. lower working class. And there are four speaking styles: word list, The Milroys used a modified participant observation technique; reading passage, formal, casual. One of the variables he studied is the i.e., Lesley Milroy became part of the system she studied, being pronunciation of –ing, \i\ is standard and \in\ is nonstandard. Eg. introduced into it as“a friend of a friend,”and the analysis is based on What’s going (\g☯n\, \g☯ \) on? The higher the social class, data collected from 46 working-class speakers of both sexes with the more frequent is the use of the \ \ variant in words like singing, one-third from each community. What they found in these going. The members of the lower working class almost invariably say working-class communities in Belfast, then, is that the stronger the singin’, goin’. The lower the social class the greater the incidence of social network, the greater the use of certain linguistic features of the nonstandard variant. vernacular. The language use of an individual is closely related with Wolfram’s general findings in Detroit were that social status was his or her status in the social network. The results support Milroy’s the single most important variable correlating with linguistic (1980: 43) hypothesis that“a closeknit network has the capacity to difference, with the clearest boundary being between the lower function as a norm enforcement mechanism;…a closeknit network middle class and upper working class. In each class, however, structure appears to be very common…in low status communities.… females used more standard-language forms than males (Wardhaugh, the closeknit network may be seen as an important social mechanism 2000: 173). He examined some of the variables in Black English, and of vernacular maintenance…”. Through their study, we can see how one of the variables is the absence of –s at the end of a word, that’s to low-status varieties of a language maintain themselves in the face of say, absence of s after the plural nouns and the third- person singular heavy competition from“above”：they enable those who use them to tense-making \z\. He found the lower the social class, the more show their solidarity with one another and achieve some kind of frequent the absence of –s (\z\脱落现象). group identity (Wardhaugh, 2000:179). The study of social networks The Milroys took a rather different approach to variation in their combines and develops the method of William Labov in his study of

73 74 Variation of language 社会语言学 social dialects and that of John Gumperz in his study of ethnography. 4.2.1 Gender differences It is practical to people of all levels of the society, and is more That there are differences between the sexes is hardly a matter of common than concept of social class. dispute. On the average, females have more fat and less muscle than males. Females are not as strong and weigh less than males. Females 4.2 Language and gender also mature more rapidly and live longer. The female voice usually has different characteristics from the male voice, and female and males may exhibit different range of verbal skills. Some of the A major topic in Sociolinguistics is language and gender. Do the differences are biological, but some of them may result from different men and women who speak a particular language use it in different socialization practices (Phillips, Steel, and Tanz, 1987). For example, ways? Does sexism really exist in languages? If the answers are women may live longer than men because of their different roles they affirmative, what could and should be done? play in society and different jobs they take. Differences in verbal These issues have generated a considerable amount of thought skills may be explained in great part through differences in and discussion in the last decades of the twentieth century. They are upbringing (Wardhaugh, 2000: 310). very emotional issues for many who have chosen either to write on Since the publication of Otto Jesperson’s book (1922) on the them or to discuss them (Wardhaugh, 2000: 309). Some researchers linguistic differences between men and women, much work has been recent years would rather use the word“gender”instead of“sex.” done in this area by linguists, feminists, anthropologists and Because they say sex is biologically determined whereas gender is a psychologists. social construct involving psychological, social, and cultural The first widely influential study of sex differences in language differences between males and females. But some researchers would use was presented by Robin Lakoff, a professor of linguistics at the rather use the word“sex”instead of“gender”, eg. Ronald Wardhaugh University of California, in the 1970s. She presented her study first in (2000: 309) argued that gender is a technical term in Linguistics, but a journal, and later in a book, both under the title Language and most of the issues we concern are sexism. We will look at some of the Women’s Place. Lakoff’s work (1973) led her to conclude that evidence that there are gender (or sex) differences in language use. “woman’s language”had the effect of submerging a woman’s One of our purposes will be to evaluate that evidence: Is it good or personal identity. Here,“woman’s language”, she means both bad? Are languages sexist or those who use languages sexist? Is languages used to describe women and language typically used by language change both desirable and possible? These are the issues we women. She (1973: 50-7) describes six categories of language use will concern. that sharply differentiated by the sex of the speaker.

75 76 Variation of language 社会语言学

1）Lexical differences: use. Eg. Color terms: The wall is mauve (having a pale, purple colour). Neutral: great, terrific, cool, neat Lakoff claims that women use more color terms than men do. Women only: adorable, charming, sweet, divine, lovely (these Imagine a man and a woman both looking at the same wall, painted a words are more commonly used by women, only very rarely by men.) pinkish shade of purple (light purple). The woman may say:“The wall Eg. is mauve”. But if a man uses the word mauve, one might as well a. What a terrific steel mill! (Male) conclude he was imitating a woman sarcastically, or was a b. What a lovely steel mill! (Female) homosexual, or an interior decorator. Women make far more precise c. What a groovy steel mill! (Female) discriminations in naming colors than men do; words like beige (a 3) Women’s tendency to use tag questions: pale dull yellowish brown color), ecru, aquamarine, lavender (a pale a. Is John here? purple color ), are used in a woman’s active vocabulary, but most b. John is here, isn’t he? (women’s speech) men do not use them. Men will consider such discrimination of words Lakoff claims that syntactically women’s speech is peculiar. of color a question of trivial, irrelevant to the real world. Fine Although there is no syntactic rule in English that only women may discrimination of color is relevant for women, but not for men. use. The syntactic rules are governed partly by social Swear words: (women usually use weaker expletives, an often context–––that’s to say, the positions in society of the speaker and the meaningless word used for swearing, to express violent feeling，and addressee, with respect to each other, and the impression one tries to men use stronger expletives) eg. make on the other. A use of a tag question is midway between an a. Oh dear, you’ve put the peanut butter in the refrigerator again. outright statement and a yes-no question: it is less assertive than the b. Shit, you’ve put the peanut butter in the refrigerator again. former, but more confident than the latter. One makes an outright It is safe to predict that people would classify the first sentence statement when one has confidence in his knowledge and is pretty as part of“women’s language”, the second as“men’s language”. certain that his statement will be believed; one asks a question when Men tend to use words like“shit”“, damn”or one of many others, one lacks knowledge on some points and believes that the addressee while women tend to use“oh dear”,“goodness”and so on. will give an answer. A tag question is used when the speaker is stating 2）Adjectives: There are a group of adjectives which have a claim, but lacks full confidence in the truth of that claim. Women another use besides their specific and literal meanings, that is, tend to use more tag questions, if this is really true, why? indicating the speaker’s admiration for something. Some of these 4) Women’s tendency to be more polite than men. adjectives are neutral, both men and women may use them. But some One aspect of politeness is not to impose your mind or views or are largely confined to women’s speech, especially in its figurative claims on anyone else. Thus a tag question is a kind of polite

77 78 Variation of language 社会语言学 statement, in that it does not force agreement or belief on the emphasize the meaning. Eg. addressee. Besides tag questions, a request may be in the same sense I feel so happy! a polite command, in that it does not overtly require obedience, but That movie made me feel so sick rather suggests something be done as a favor to the speaker. That sunset is so beautiful! For example: Fred is so dumb! a. Close the door. (a direct order, imperative, expresses the The intensive“ so ” seems more characteristic of women’s impolite assumption of the speaker’s superior position to the language than of men. Substituting an equative like“so”for absolute addressee. superlatives (like very, really, utterly) seems to be a way of backing b. Please close the door. (simple requests) out of committing oneself strongly to an opinion, rather like tag c. Will you close the door? ( embedded imperative，a simple question. To hedge in this situation is to avoid making any strong request, politer than an order, the decision is up to the addressee. statement. =Are you willing to close the door?) Lakoff (1973) made the conclusion that women’s speech is d. Will you please close the door? (d is more polite than b or c, insecure, hesitate, indirect and more polite than men’s speech. please suggest the addressee do sth. for the speaker, while will you Although her conclusion lacks enough evidence, it is very important suggest the addressee has the final decision.) preparatory work in the study of women’s language. In the years that e. Won’t you close the door? (compound request, the more followed the publication of Lakoff’s work, a considerable amount of particles in a sentence reinforce the notion that it is a request, rather research was conducted in connection with Lakoff’s hypotheses. The than an order, the politer the result. Addressee is much more freer to effect of this kind of research is that some results support Lakoff’s refuse, more polite than c or d.) ideas. Other results seem to be counterevidence. Still other results The sentences above are listed in order of increasing politeness. seem to indicate that Lakoff is on the right track, but that her ideas 5) Women’s tendency to use hedges in their speech. can be further refined and that her research needs careful Women tend to use hedges as“sort of”,“I guess”,“I think”, interpretation. “so”. For example: In this paper, Fishman (1990: 235-7) considered two examples Someone asked a woman,“How did you like the film?” of women’s conversational style:“question-asking”and the use of The woman answered,“I kind of like it.”(avoiding the direct “you know”. Both are seen as indicative of women’s tendency to be answer.) more insecure and hesitant, and are said to arise from a socialized 6) Women’s tendency to use intensifier female personality. Pamela Fisherman supported Lakoff’s claim Women tend to use intensifiers as so, very, really, absolutely to (1973) that women use tags and declarative questions (eg. Should we

79 80 Variation of language 社会语言学 do a grocery shopping?) much more often than men. In fact, women conservative, right? I mean I’m [1] he hates everything [0.7] and I am ask more questions of any kind. Out of a total of 370 questions asked I am sure he didn’t before but [1] whenever you talk to his father in a twelve and a half hours of conversation, the women asked 263, about it [0.6] he [1.5] he is very confused. I mean apparently he, he two and a half times as many as men. About a third of the women’s was [0.7] very active [0.6] hated Germany [2] and yet turned around questions (87) were tags, or ones that could have been phrased as afterwards [1] you know which is sort of declaratives. The women asked three times as many tag questions or Male: oh the trouble is that he turned against everything, even declarative questions as the men (87 to 29) and twice as many the war. requests for information or clarification (152 to 74) (Fisherman, 1980: (Fishman, 1990: 239-40) (转引自李素琼, 2003: 135) 235-6). A substantial number of women’s questions theoretically need In this conversation, the woman is either trying to get a response not have been answered at all. Why do women speak this way? Why or have got an unsatisfactory one. The evidence for women’s do women ask so many questions generally? insecurity is in fact evidence of the work they are trying to turn Lakoff argued that women use hedges more frequently than men insecure conversation into successful ones. do, that is, more frequent use of“sort of”,“like”, and“you know”. Another interesting claim is that in cross-sex conversations men In Pamela Fisherman’s transcripts, just as Lakoff would predict, the frequently interrupt women but women much less frequently interrupt women used“you know”five times more often than the men did (87 men (Zimmerman and West, 1975) (转引自李素琼, 2003: 134). to 17). Let us consider where“you know”appears in conversation. In James and Clarke (1993: 268) looked at 54 studies that addressed the the following two-minute piece of conversation, the woman uses“you claim that men are much more likely than women“to use interruption know”five times. (The“Richard”referred to in this conversation is a as a means of dominating and controlling interactions”. mutual friend. The number in the brackets is the seconds of pause). Many investigators (Garcia-Zamor, 1793; Haas; Haas 1979; Female: Many of the men I’ve met have been incredibly uhh Leaper, 1991, Meditch, 1975; Sachs, 1987) argue that even the provincial [2] in a sense [1] Umm and it also you know you’ve got speech of children younger than five can be differentiated by gender a–––, mind you, I know that Richard has had a very good education (转引自李素琼, 2005). Boys’ and girls’ speeches are thought to have [2] but he’s a very taciturn man and very bitter [0.6] very bitter about different content and to serve different purposes (Maltz and Borker, the way he’s been treated. He’s ve-, you know old family in regards. 1982). Male: Umphhh Sexism is also reflected in children’s language, even among Female: Well you know some people got caught up in it I mean. children under 5 years old (Sheldom, 1993). Language is a major Male: oh of course [1.1] influence on what and how children learn gender and that gender is a Female: You know I mean [0.6] yes I’m sure I mean he’s very major influence on the way children learn about gender and that

81 82 Variation of language 社会语言学 gender is a major influence on the way children use languages in Mary: Just those. everyday life. Girls’ language is more cooperative and more indirect Sue: Those? Can I have one of them? than boys’. Miller et al (1986) claim that their female subjects were From this conversation, we can see that Mary and Sue hold more concerned with maintaining interpersonal harmony during different opinions as to what they will choose for dinner. Sue opposes conflict than boys were. Observing racially and economically mixed the opinion of Mary’s. But she did not express her opposing opinion five and seven-year- olds playing in mixed sex groupings, they found directly. But find some excuses as“Lisa wants pickles”to argue that girls used more tactics, such as compromise and peaceful against Mary’ suggestion of using“hamburger for dinner”. And then acquiescence, than boys did. (转引自 Sheldon, 1993） Mary has her compromise“I’ll cut it in half, one for Lisa, one for me”. Let’s have a look at the pickle fights of both the girls’ and the Sue Lisa held her ground. But when Mary really agreed to give boys’: “pickle”to Lisa ，she said like this“Can I have one of them?”It ‘s The Girl’s Pickle Fight clear that both girls wanted very much to have the“pickle”, but both Sue: And strawberries are for dinner, right? of them expressed their opinion in indirect ways. Mary: And the – and this is for dinner. (Mary puts the pickle into The Boys’ Pickle Fight a pot on the store) Kevin: (at the table) Pickle. (takes the pickle) Sue: And the pickle. Do you like pickles? (She takes the pickle Nick: I’m cutting–––I’m cutting–––No, I have to cut that! out of the pot) Kevin: No, I cut it. Mary: And this (hamburger) is for dinner. (Mary pulls the Nick: No! No, no, no! You’re the children. hamburger and pickle out of Sue’s hand and puts them back into the Kevin: No, I’m not! pot) Nick: (screams) Kevin, but the, oh, I have to cut! I want to cut it! Sue: No, they aren’t for dinner, no, Lisa wants pickles. (Sue tries It’s mine! (in a whining voice) to grab the Hamburger and pickle back from Mary but she holds on …… and puts them back into the pot) Nick: You have to make a pickle salad! So I’ll put it in the pot. Sue: Lisa says she wants pickle. Kevin: Don’t. Mary: I’ll cut it in half. One for Lisa, one for me. Nick: (pulls the pickle away from Kevin) No, no, no! I’ll, I’ll Sue: But Lisa wants the whole pickle! make (Kevin pushes Nick in the chest) you have to go out of this Sue: Can you give Lisa one? Give Lisa one. family if you don’t cooperate with the family. Mary: I’ll give all of them. We can see clearly that the style of the boys’ is quite different Sue: All of them? from the girls’. When conflicts occurred, they did not try to solve the

83 84 Variation of language 社会语言学 conflicts, but each of them held their own opinions, and tried to men agree that a woman with the high-pitched voice is most dominate the other. Eg.“You have to make a pickle salad!” And their attractive. As a result, Japanese women always speak to men with conflicts are increasing（Sheldom, 1993:94-103）). such a voice. But when men are not present, women often speak in a The boys’ conflicts are described as more heavy-handed and low tone between themselves and they even change their language, more controlling. The girls’ are described as more mitigated than Apparently Japanese women use the so-called feminine and soft boys’, and their discourse is characterized as more collaborative, voice only to please men owing to their inferior and subordinate suggesting greater interpersonal harmony. status. Many sociolinguists found that women’s speech tend to be more Coincidently,“nü guo yin (女国音)”in Beijing shows the same standard than men’s. Labov (1966) concluded that women take the softness and femininity of women. According to Hu Mingyang (胡明 lead of change toward the standard speech. In each class, females 扬, 1991: 57-70)， Mr. Li Jinxi (黎锦熙)mentioned as early as 1920s used more standard-language forms than males (Wolfram, 1997). that some females in Beijing pronounced tci- as tsi which he called Women are more status-conscious than men (Trudgill, 1974). They “nü guo yin”. In 1930s, Zhao Yuanren (赵元任)、Luo Changpei (罗 are more conscious of directing their speech toward the standard, in 常培)、Li Fanggui (李方桂) mentioned this linguistic phenomenon some cases, even to hypercorrection. In Trudgill’s view, there are two again,“female students in Beijing have cultivated the habit of reasons for women to use standard speech: a. the subordinate position pronouncing words by means of dental in recent years”. The of women in British and American society makes it more necessary pronunciation of“nü guo yin”may distinguish female from male. for them to secure and signal their social status linguistically; b. men Chen Songcen (陈松岑) mentioned in the 7th chapter of her book can be rated socially on what they do while women are judged (1985) that“nü guo yin”has long been existed in Beijing dialect. This primarily on how they appear. Some linguists found that besides linguistic phenomenon usually appears among educated female aging using the prestigious speech form, female speakers make their voice from 15 to 30 years old. Hu Mingyang (1988)’s systematic researches as attractive as well, which is viewed as part of their appearances. in Beijing show that 30.5 percent of the young females use“nü guo Women’s high-pitched voice and men’s lower one are in part the yin”. According to Cao Yun (曹耘, 1987), 85 percent of his young result of physiology. But actually they are also the cultural products. female subjects adopt such female speech. Without regard to the “In Japan, for instance, a woman’s traditionally high-pitched, soft percentage, one thing worth studying is that those who do not have speaking voice is considered a very important sexual attribute the habit of pronouncing sounds this way agree words pronounced (Steinem, 1990).” So it is quite common for Japanese women to this way are pleasing to ears and that girls with such pronunciations produce such a high-pitched and unique voice, which displays sound soft and charming, thus possessing more femininity. Regarding softness and femininity through the fronting. When asked, Japanese the reasons why females pronounce like this, linguists hold that in

85 86 Variation of language 社会语言学 patriarchal society, women are educated not to open their mouths 4.2.2 Sexism wide when speaking in China. Women’s small mouth and soft sounds Lakoff (1973: 65-73) claims sexism does exist in English are appreciated highly. As a result,“nü guo yin”, soft and gentle in language. nature, becomes popular with the young girls who seek for beauty, In every aspect of life, a woman is identified in terms of the men charm, and attraction. Linguists found that this female linguistic she relates to. The opposite is not usually true of men: they act in the phenomenon is closely related to age. The results of the investigation world as autonomous individuals, but women are only“John’s wife”, or show that it exists together with puberty. Before liberation, female “Henry’s girl friend”. Thus meeting a woman at a party, a quite students usually got married after high school, so their“nü guo yin” normal opening conversational gambit might be,“What does your disappeared after they got married. But nowadays, female students husband do?”One very seldom hears, in a similar situation, a question usually get married after they graduate from college, thus the addressed to a man,“What does your wife do?”To a majority of men, disappearance of the female linguistic phenomenon is postponed. the question would be an unnecessary repeating of the same meaning in This linguistic phenomenon of“nü guo yin”in Beijing is different words:“She’s my wife–––that’s what she does.”This is true seemingly contradictory to Trudgill’s theory that women, regardless even in cases where a woman is being discussed in a context utterly of age, education and social class, consistently produce linguistic unrelated with men, when she has attained sufficient stature to be forms closer to the standard and prestigious ones. However,“nü guo considered for high public office. In fact, in a recent discussion of yin”shows that the young females are seeking for beauty, tenderness possible Supreme Court nominees, one woman was mentioned and femininity, thus reflecting the other side of the thing. Women, prominently. In discussing her general qualification for the office, and different from men who are rated socially by their achievements, are her background, the New York Times saw it fit to remark on her“bathing judged by their appearances. Driven by the force, the young females beauty figure”. Actually her beauty figure has nothing to do with her actually exhibit their feminine attribute by producing soft and qualifications for the office. Some days later, President Nixon feminine sounds, though slightly towards the nonstandard. This announced the nominations to his Price Board, among them one woman. phenomenon manifests that women in inferior social status are forced In the very short sketches The Times gave of each nominee, it was to cultivate a different voice to show their feminine attractive side, mentioned that the woman’s husband was a professor of English. None though in a different form in different cultural contexts①. of the other nominees’ spouse or the occupation of the spouse was mentioned. The existence of the husband was irrelevant for this woman appointee, but her husband was mentioned, since a woman cannot be ① 参见“语言中的性别歧视及其根源”，华东师范大学硕士学位论文， put in her position in society by the readers of The Times unless they 1999。 87 88 Variation of language 社会语言学 know her marital status. The same is not at all true of men. true that we have two words: widow and widower; but widow is far Eg. commoner in use. a. Marry hopes to meet an eligible bachelor. (Compliment) Eg. b. Fred hopes to meet an eligible spinster. (Abnormal) a. Mary is John’s widow. Also relevant are the connotations of the words spinster and b. John is Mary’s widower. bachelor. Both of these two words mean“one who is not married”. The word widow commonly occurs with a possessive preceding it, But actually, their implied meanings are different. Bachelor is a the name of the woman’s late husband. Though he is dead, she is still neutral term. Spinster normally seems to be used pejoratively. If defined by her relationship to him. While she is alive, he is sometimes someone is a spinster, it implies that she is not eligible (suitable to be defined as Mary’s husband, though less often than she is as“John’s chosen for marriage) to marry; she has had her chance, but her wife”. But once she is gone, her function for him is over, linguistically chance has passed by. So, a girl of 20 cannot be properly called a speaking anyway. Lakoff claims that a man is able to choose whether spinster: she still has a chance to be married. But a man can be or not they will marry, but if a woman is not married in usual age, she considered as a bachelor as soon as he reaches marriageable age: to is assumed to be sexual undesirable. be a bachelor implies that one has a choice marrying or not, and this Lakoff claims there is a lack of parallelism in men’s and is what makes the idea of bachelor existence attractive, in the popular women’s titles. To refer to a man as Mr. does not identify his marital literature. A spinster is one who has not been pursued, one who is old status; but there is no such ambiguous term for women: one must and unwanted. So it’s not strange to find that a euphemism has arisen decide on Mrs or Miss. We should call woman who has not got for spinster, a word not much used today, bachelor girl. Bachelor, married as Miss, a married woman as Mrs. Although naming however, needs no euphemisms. conventions for men and women are essentially equal (both have first Another thing to be thought about is the traditional conclusion of names and last names, and both may have additional names), the the marriage service:“I now pronounce you man and wife”. The social conventions governing the choice of forms of address is not man’s position in the world has not been changed by the act of parallel in both sexes. Eg. We call Mary Brown as Miss Mary Brown marriage. He was a ‘man’ before the ceremony, and still a“man”after or Miss Brown, but if she get married to a man named John Smith, we the ceremony. But the bride went into the ceremony a“woman”, she should call her as Mrs. Mary Smith, or Mrs. Smith. (And if her leaves the ceremony a“wife”, defined in terms of the“man”, her husband died, she becomes Smith’s widow). But the address of men husband. will not change. John Smith is always Mr. John Smith, or Mr. Smith. The meanings of widow, widower should be equivalent: both If he becomes successful in his career, we call him Professor Smith, mean the loss of a mate. But in fact, this is linguistically not true. It is Doctor Smith, and so on. But if a woman becomes successful in a

89 90 Variation of language particular area, people will be puzzled as to how to call her (转引自李素琼, 2004: 14). To remedy this imbalance, a bill was proposed in the U.S. Congress by Bella Abzug and others that would legislate a change in women’s titles. Miss and Mrs would both be abolished in favor of Ms. After the publication of Lakoff’s work, many people began to do more research in this area. Dale Spender mentioned that the usage of Miss and Mrs. are relatively recent, for until the beginning of the 19th

91 Variation of language 社会语言学 affectionate term for an old man”carry little of insult. And look at the Sociolinguists found that sexism in language is a universal corresponding terms for old women: trot, hen, heifer, warhorse, phenomenon. The same sexist phenomena exist in Chinese. crone, hag, beldam, and frump. Furthermore, if terms designating According to the Chinese word formation rules, the semantic element men are used to denote a woman, there is usually no affront. On the “nü (女)”is usually used as a structure component to signal that other hand, to use a term generally applied to women to designate a character is related to women. However, a large number of man, and you have probably delivered an insult. You may call a derogatory characters containing the semantic element“nü (女)”, woman a bachelor without implying abuse, but if you call a man a refer to unhealthy feeling or behavior which both sexes may have. spinster or an old maid, you have insulted him. If you speak of a According to Modern Chinese Dictionary (1978), there are totally woman as being a warlock, you may be corrected; if you say a man is 197 words carrying the semantic“nü (女)”, among which 152 words a witch, he will be angry. Or call a woman an old man and you have carry neutral meanings. In the remaining 45 words, 20 words refer to simply made an error of identification. Call a man an old woman or a unhealthy feelings or behavior, which make up almost 45 percent of granny and you have insulted him. the total number. Some of them are listed below: Sometimes, the same word has different meaning when you refer 奴（nu, slave）妄（wang, wildly arrogant） a man or a woman. If you call a man a professional, you suggest that 妨（fang, harm）妖（yao, goblin） he is a member of one of the respected professions. If you call woman 姘（pin, have illict relation with 娆（rao, do harm to） a professional, you imply that she follows“the old profession”. 媚（mei, flatter）婪（lan greedy） Similarly, if you call a man a tramp, you simply communicate that he 妒（du, jealousy）嫖（piao, go whoring） is a“drifter”. Call a woman a tramp, you imply that she is a 奸（jian, adultery）妓（ji, prostitute） “prostitute”. A male pirate is“one who infringes on the rights of 娼（chang, prostitute）嫌（xian, suspicious） others or commits robbery on the high seas”, whereas a female pirate Fu (妇)（female）depicts very vividly a woman’s inferiority in is“ an adultress who chases other women’s men”. society by revealing her whole life stage: with a broom in her hands, A thousand words and phrases describing women are found in she does all the trivialities at home. In contrast, the word nan (男) sexually derogatory ways, but there was nothing approaching this means a man working in the field and fu (父) refers to a man working multitude for describing men (Schulz, 1990:143). Over 500 terms in outside with a stone ax in his hands. English are synonyms for prostitute, but only 65 synonyms for Address terms in Chinese reveal the similar sexism in English. whoremonger (Farmer and Henley, 1965). In the old days, a wife was little more than one who did the Then what is the cause of the degeneration of terms designating household chores, as indicated by names like jia li de (家里的), jia women? zhu po (家主婆), nei ren (内人), wu li de (屋里的), and wu li ren (屋

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里人) (while the husban was dang jia de [当家的], zhang gui de [掌 huang hou (皇后), and da lao po (大老婆), etc. A wife is even 柜的]). At best, the wife was xian nei zhu (贤内助), nei zhang gui referred to as zao kang (糟糠). In contrast, only 53 terms are (内掌柜); At the worse, she was jie jiao po (接脚婆), huang lian po collected under husband. And many of them connote the male’s (黄脸婆), shao guo de (烧锅的). dominant role in the family: dang jia de (当家的), guan ren (官人), In English a man may refer to his wife as“Mom”.“my wife”, zhang gui de (掌柜的) and so on. “Mary”“, Mrs. Harris”or“Tommy’s mother”, depending on whom Except the common formula ladies and gentlemen, and the case it is he is talking to. In Chinese a man often uses such terms as wang bride and groom in which the natural ordering is reversed, the fu ren (王夫人), wang tai tai (王太太), ta ma (他妈), ta niang (他娘), masculine always precedes the feminine when a pair of hai zi ta ma (孩子他妈), hai zi ta niang (孩子他娘), ming ming ta gender-marked nouns occurs. This is why most people feel niang (明明他娘) to address or refer to his wife. As to the first two uncomfortable with such reversed forms as wife and husband, girl terms in which women’s surname is lost, still remain productive in and boy in English and nü nan (女男), fu fu (妇夫), qi fu (妻夫) in literature (jia mu [贾母], wang fu ren [王夫人], zhao yi niang [赵姨 Chinese . For example: 娘], xue wang shi [薛王氏]) and still frequently heard in Taiwan and Table 1. Hong Kong. The rest seems to be equal to their counterparts ta die Male and female masculine and feminine (他爹), ta ba (他爸), hai zi ta ba (孩子他爸), hai zi ta die (孩子他爹) Man and wife husband and wife and ming ming ta ba (明明他爸). But in closer examination, you will Son and daughter brother and sister find that the generic ta (他) is used rather than ta (她) in both cases, Host and hostess king and queen which reveals the male as the norm and renders women invisible in Adam and Eve boy and girl the society. Man and wife he and she Since polygamy was widely practiced in feudal China, words for Table 2 the wife outnumber those for the husband. In the Dictionary of nan nü (男女) xin lang xin niang (新郎新娘) Chinese Address Terms, Wang Huo lists 175 terms under wife, among nan nan nü nü (男男女女) fu gui qi rong (夫贵妻荣) which 29 terms are for a lesser wife, such as qie (妾), ci qi (次妻), ci fu qi (夫妻) bo fu bo mu (伯父伯母) fang (次房), bie shi (別室), bie fang (別房), ce shi (侧室), er fang nan huan nü ai (男欢女爱) fu chang fu sui (夫唱妇随) (二房), xiao lao po (小老婆), pian fang (偏房), fu shi (副室), fu qie fu fu (夫妇) shu shu a yi (叔叔阿姨) (副妾), ji (姬), 19 terms for the first legal wife, including zheng fang nan hun nü jia (男婚女嫁) lang cai nü mao (郎才女貌) (正房), zheng shi (正室), zheng qi (正妻), zheng di (正嫡), zheng fu zi nü (子女) yue fu yue mu (岳父岳母) ren (正夫人), yuan pei (原配), yuan fei (元妃), yuan hou (元后), nan geng nü zhi (男耕女织) nan nü lao shao (男女老少)

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gong po (公婆) nan zun nü bei (男尊女卑) to codify male supremacy. Through the use of the masculine forms he, shan nan xin nü (善男信女) ge sao (哥嫂) him, and his, females have been excluded from consideration as nan dao nü chang (男盗女娼) chi nan yuan nü (痴男怨女) members of human species. These examples show that the masculine sex is the superior and The differential use of ta (他[he]) and ta (她[she]), ta men (他们 more excellent and woman is the second sex. That women come [masculine form of they])and ta men (她们[feminine form of they])in second in the order of the above words connotes the lesser important the Chinese Han language reveals the similar sexism. In Chinese the role they play in our society. The connotation of the order will be coinage of ta (她) and ta men (她们) owes much to the May Fourth more clear when compared with such polar paired words as: good Movement in the early of the 20th century, which tells us that ta (他) and bad, rich and poor, big and small, day and night, light and dark and ta men (他们) had been used to refer to both males and females and life and death. In Chinese,“er nü (儿女)”means sons and in any case before that. Although ta (她) has entered standard daughters, but the inverted phrases“nü er (女儿)”only refers to the Chinese, ta (他) is still preferred when the sex of the antecedent is females exclusively. Unequal distribution of evaluative attitude is unknown. For example: 如果一个人从来没有经历过危险，我们很 obviously embedded in the order of such words①. 难担保他(ta)有勇气. In the mix-sex group, the masculine plural ta Besides the word order, generic pronouns are also used unevenly. men (他们)is often used in spite of the fact that females may Compare the following three sentences: outnumber males. 1) Someone locked at the door but they had gone when I got a. 洪常青和娘子军的女士们星夜固守山头，他们 (ta men) downstairs. 面临的危险和困难是难以想像的。 2) Someone locked at the door but he/she had gone when I got b. 洪常青和娘子军的女士们星夜固守山头，她们 (ta men) downstairs. 面临的危险和困信难是难以想像的。 3) Someone locked at the door but he had gone when I got According to Chinese grammar, sentence a is correct, but downstairs. sentence b will be seen as incorrect or unusual. When the antecedent According to prescriptive grammarians, only the last of these is sex-unspecific, ta huo ta (他或她 [he or she])is sometimes used in three utterances is correct (the fist is incorrect and the second is Chinese, but note that ta (他) always precedes ta (她). That is to clumsy.) Dale Spender (1980) states that the prescriptive emphasize the dominance of men in the society. The following grammarians’ insistence on the use of he to refer to both males and sentence will be illustrative: 当医生开药时，他或她应首先询问就 females is one of the ways in which men have made use of language 诊者是否有凝血史。 In a word, the generic use of he and ta (他) in Chinese reflects

① 参见“On Sexism in Language”，华东师范大学硕士学位论文，1999。 people’s sexist attitude toward women in language. Phrases like“the 97 98 Variation of language 社会语言学 first person to finish his dinner”can refer to people of both sexes, but is that men and women are social beings who have learned to act in “the first person to finish her dinner”could refer only to females. certain ways. Language behavior is largely learned behavior. Men learn to be men and women learn to be women, linguistically 4.2.3 Causes of sexism speaking (Wardhaugh, 2000: 318). The best-known proponent of the When we do observe the gender differences in language claim that women and men have been raised to live in different behavior we are confronted with the task of trying to explain them. sub-cultures is done by Deborah Tannen (1990). In various One explanation is that language can be sexist. For now, three other interesting and entertaining accounts, Tannen has tried to show how claims are of interest. The first is that men and women are girls and boys are brought up differently. Part of the socialization biologically different and this difference has serious consequences for process is learning not only gender-related activities and attitudes but gender. The second claim is that social organization is best perceived also gender-related language behavior. as some kind of power relationship. Language behavior reflects the Ronald Wardhaugh (2000: 322) argues that men’s and female’ social dominance of men. It is they who try to take control, to specify, speech differ because boys and girls are brought up differently and to interrupt, and so on. Some people made an investigation in a police men and women often fill different roles in society. More over, men station for 7 days, and recorded the conversations between the police and women know this and behave appropriately. and 90 visitors (45 of them are women, and 45 are men). The content Parents have different expectations for children. From the of the conversation was mostly about the visitor’s asking for help or moment babies are born, parents begin to treat different sexes something from the police, each conversation took 2 minutes. They differently because they have different expectations for boys and girls. found that the visitors, both men and women use female style much Parents give children different toys: a doll to a baby girl, but a train or more than the police. There were no obvious sex differences here. gun perhaps to a baby boy. Traditionally, girls are expected to play The investigation shows that the visitors (men or women) are in a less more quietly and gently at home and learn to cook, sew and take care favourable social position, so their speeches are more indirect and of children so that they can grow up to be virtuous wives and good polite than the police (Faye Crosby and Linda Nyquist, 1977: 313-22) mothers (李素琼, 2003: 136). san cun jin lian (三寸金莲)（three-inch (转引自祝畹瑾, 1992: 116-7). Female style of speech is not limited feet）in old China, a criteria to evaluate women’s beauty, acts as a to women. One’s social position will determine whether you will use good limit to their going outside. female style or not. Women’s speech tends to be more indirect, more In schools, teachers exert great influence on children of different polite, powerless, that’s because their less important social position in sexes by holding different attitudes towards them. Teachers are more society. likely to tolerate boys’ naughty behavior while they demand more The third claim, which does not actually deny the second claim, silence and lady-like behavior from girls. Spender (1980) estimates

99 100 Variation of language 社会语言学 that teachers normally give two thirds of their attention to boys. This can hardly get promotions in their work units. Such economically is confirmed by Joan Swann’s (1989) research on classroom penniless status makes women unable to fend for themselves but interaction. rather depend on their husband for a living. In this way, women are The traditional ideology that men are superior and women are made permanently inferior and submissive to their husband: women’s inferior can be traced back in the Biblical account of God’s creation own achievements are not taken into account and their status is of the two sexes: with Adam made first and Eve formed second with determined by their husbands’ economic positions. As a result, the rib taken from Adam. The religious preaching gives rise to the women have to keep to their husbands and make a good impression sexist phenomena, which are reflected in the man-made language. on men by displaying their unique speech behavior such as keeping For children to become fully human, they will not only be under silence, using high-pitched voice. In contrast, men live in a larger the great influence of society and religion but also undergo the sexist world and have larger acquaintances in the production of materials. education. Picture books are the important sources of sex-role Men’s outside professions bring them payments and learning for young children. Weizman (1984: 164) argued that most acknowledgement, so they can enjoy not only the created wealth but of the books were about boys, men, and male animals, and most dealt also power and dominance over women in real lives, which is fully with male adventures. The female characters that did appear were reflected through the sexist phenomena in language. usually insignificant or inconspicuous. In TV series and films, we can Lakoff (1973: 76) got a conclusion in her paper“people working also see different images of both sexes. in the women’s liberation movement, and other social reformers, can Two kinds of production exist in human history: one is the see that there is a discrepancy between English as used by men and production of material, the other, the production of human beings. In women; and that the social discrepancy in the positions of men and China and as well as in many other countries,“nan geng nü zhi(男耕 women in our society is reflected in linguistic disparities”. Sexism in 女织)”(men does the farming work, women the weaving work) is English is the result of the inferior social position of women. She practiced. Out of different sex roles, women center round their argues that“If a little girl talks rough like a boy, she will certainly be families. They produce the most important part in reproducing human ostracized, scolded, or made fun of”“. If she refuses to talk like a lady, races by giving birth to children, doing the nursing and caring work she is ridiculed and subjected to criticism as unfeminine; if she does at home, taking responsibilities for the home economy and so on. learn, she is ridiculed as unable to think clearly, unable to take part in Nevertheless, the drudgery that relieves men of domestic work brings a serious discussion: in some sense, as less than fully human”. (1973: women neither payment nor rewards from others. Restricted to the 47-8) (转引自李素琼, 2003: 136). small houses, women have fewer chances to participant in the social The effects of he\man language are considerable. He\man makes work outside. With less education and limited experiences, women males linguistically visible and females linguistically invisible. It

101 102 Variation of language 社会语言学 promotes male imagery in everyday life at the expense of female adopted a comprehensive set of recommendations for the use of imagery so that it seems reasonable to assume the world is male until non-sexist language in the organization’s publications and proven otherwise. It reinforces the belief of the dominant group, that correspondence. The NCTE recommends avoiding the generic use of they, males, are the universal, the central, important category so that man and its compounds like chairman and spokesman in any context even those who are not members of the dominant group learn to where the referent could be either female or male (Lakoff, 1973: accept this reality. He\man also makes women outsiders, and not just 44-80) (转引自李素琼, 2002: 40). metaphorically. Through the use of he\man women cannot take their As we know, dictionaries are good sources for finding out how existence for granted: they must constantly seek confirmation that woman is demeaned by their choice of associations and illustrations. they are included in the human species (Spender, 1980:157). For this reason, the Random House Dictionary (RHD) has modified So, we can see, languages themselves may not be sexist. It is its illustrations. For hell, the first edition of RHD illustrates with“She men and women use language to achieve certain purposes. made his life a hell on earth”and for overdone we find“She gave us overdone steak.”But in the second edition, the editor, Steat Flexner 4.2.4 Changes in language and society (1987), clearly sought to include more neutral illustrative material. With the raised awareness of sexism in language and the For these two words we find“They made their father’s life a hell on increasing interest in the study of this field, speakers of English earth”and“I dislike overdone steak.”A similar modification occurs become increasingly sensitive to male-oriented language. Many in Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary Tenth Edition, it defines people are now uncomfortable with sexist usage in language. To person as“human being, individual-sometimes used in combinations improve the image of women, many publishing houses and official applicable to both sexes.”The examples given are chairperson and organizations continue to issue guidelines that discuss or decree spokesperson (Graham, 1975: 57-63) (转引自李素琼, 2002: 40). language changes which are asserted to be socially desirable and To remove the bias, the United States Department of Labor in beneficial under the assumption that change in language will 1977 revised about 3,000 of its approximately 3,500 titles for eventually lead to change in attitudes (Guidelines for Improving the occupations. Terms such as, foreman and salesman were replaced Image of Women, 1972; Guidelines for Equal Treatment of the Sexes, with supervisor and salesperson. In 11, 1971 the standard directory 1972; Language, Gender, and Professional Writing: Theoretical of scientists American Men of Science was replaced as American Men Approaches and Guidelines for Non-sexist Usage, 1989; Handbook of and Women of Science. Non-sexist Writing, 1980; Handbook of Nonsexist Writing, 2nd ed. Because of an increasing number of women perform 1988.) occupational roles previously filled only by men and many people The U.S. National Council for Teachers of English (NCTE) persist in removing sexism in language, such new gender-specific

103 104 Variation of language 社会语言学 words as chairwoman and congresswoman are invented as the “All students should try their best to pass the examination.” counterparts of chairman and congressman. Another set of word Omitting pronouns: A handicapped child may be able to feed and coined is formed by the practice to alter the sex-specific element in a dress without help. Use“without help”to take the place of the compound or phrase, for example, womanpower (1942) from traditional“himself”(李素琼, 2002: 41). manpower (1862); housefather (1901) from (1834); and the recent A set of guidelines issued by an educational publishing house househusband (1970) from housewife, housemother. In the same (Scott, Foreman, 1972) advises substitutes of the kinds indicated fashion, words like chairperson (1971), spokesperson (1972), below to avoid sexist language and role stereotyping in publication. salesperson (1901), firefighter (1903) and homemaker appear. And Change To words like chairperson, firefighter, and flight attendant have gained early man early human wide acceptance. Man and His World World History The marriage-neutral title Ms appeared as early as 1930s, though mailmen mail carriers it did not receive much public attention until it was picked up briefly the common man ordinary people by the business community in the 1950s and later by the women’s the farmer and his wife a farm couple liberation movement in the 1970s when the popularity of it increased Mary Smith is a highly successful Mary Smith is a highly dramatically. Since then, many corporations have prescribed its use in successful woman executive. executive. correspondence, and business writing textbooks such as the (Wandhaugh, 1992: 312-25) Prentice-Hall Complete Secretarial Letter Book (1978) and the Some of the new neutral words have been widely accepted in the Katherine Gibbs Handbook of Business English (Quinn, 1982) newly published books, newspapers, and magazines. Let’s have a recommends the use of Ms when an addressee’s title preference or look at the Sunday Column Metropolitan Diary in New York Times in marital status is unknown. Ms achieved national recognition in a June 7, 1998. There is a passage like this: Time magazine article in 1970. In 1972 it was given legal status when Dear Diary: the California senate passed a law allowing women to use Ms in Visiting an editor at Random House, I stepped into a crowded registering to vote. elevator and found myself pressed close to the control panel. Nowadays, the sentence pattern“Everyone…they…”,“The “Has everybody got their floors?”I asked. motorist…he or she…”is used by more and more people as a After a moment’s silence, a young female voice from the rear substitute for the conventional one. said, Use the plural forms of the words to take the place of“he”“his”. “His or Her.” Change“Everyone should try his best to pass the examination.”To “I beg your pardon?”I said.

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“His or Her. It’s ‘Has everybody got his or her floors?’” 4.3 Language and ethnicity “Your pronouns don’t agree.” “And shouldn’t it be ‘his or her floor’, not ‘floors’?”a young man piped up.“Each of us gets off at only one floor.” Ethnic variation can be seen in the United States, where one “And wouldn’t it be better to say ‘Does everybody have?’ variety of English has become so identified with an ethnic group that rather than ‘Has everybody got?’”A third voice chimed in. it is often referred to as“Black English”. Though Labov’s work in I stood corrected–––and red faced. But I was glad to know that New York City shows that there are other ethnic differences too: good grammar is alive and well. speakers of Jewish and Italian ethnicity differentiate themselves from Richard Curtis speakers of either standard variety or Black English. (Lakoff, 2000: 78-9) (转引自李素琼, 2002: 40) 4.3.1 Black English Because of the relatively recent nature of reform proposals and campaigns, especially in relation to many languages other than In the United States, the term Black English usually refers to the English, the questions of how successful they have been is perhaps everyday spoken varieties of English used by African Americans, still somewhat premature. Indeed studies examing the reactions to the especially of the working class in urban neighborhoods or rural adoption and spread of reform proposals and changes are only slowly communities. Linguists define Black English as a combined language emerging and only in relation to a a few speech communities (mainly containing elements of Euro-American English (“standard English”) in English). Case studies of public reactions to feminist language and elements of West African Languages (surviving Africanisms reform show that there still is considerable resistance to change from Yoruba, Ibo, Ewe, etc.). Linguists generally prefer the term (Pauwels, 1998: 225). Despite the still numerous overt rejections of African American Vernacular English, although some use the term the reform initiatives, there is no doubt that feminist language reform Ebonics, which saw widespread use in the late 1990s. African has made and continues to make an impact on language practices. American Vernacular English (AAVE) is the variety formerly known Perhaps its greatest impact to date has been to raise people’s as Black English Vernacular or Vernacular Black English among awareness of the issue. Feminist language campaigns have made it sociolinguists, and commonly called Ebonics outside the academic increasingly difficult for people to ignore this linguistic expression of community. It is an error to suppose that Black English is spoken by gender discrimination. Even if the people don’t adopt the changes or all African Americans regardless of their background. In fact, the embrace the principles of such linguistic change, they can no longer English spoken by African Americans is highly varied–––as varied as ignore its existence. This is clear from increased metalinguistic the English spoken by any other racial or ethnic group. Sometimes comments in both speech and writing referring to this issue. Black English is used to refer to other varieties of English spoken by

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Black people outside of the United States, as in the Caribbean and the Black English has certain characteristics in pronunciation, vocabulary United Kingdom. We’ve got a usage explanation from The American and grammar. Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language: Black English (AAVE, 1) Pronunciation BEV, or “ Ebonics ” ) is generally recognized as a distinct AAVE and Standard English pronunciation are sometimes quite sub-language with its own grammatical structure, based on West different. When two consonants appear at the end of a word (for African grammatical patterns with superimposed English vocabulary instance, the st in test), they are often reduced: the final t is deleted. (thus forming a“pidgin”). Black English is derived from the Black This happens, to some extent, in every variety of English including American cultural experience; it is a social dialect that reflects the standard ones. In AAVE the consonant cluster is reduced variably (i.e. particular history of Black America (Heritage, 2000). it does not happen every time) and systematically. Sociolinguists have shown that the frequency of reduction can be expressed by a 4.3.2 Features of Black English rule that takes account of a number of interacting facts. Crucially, the Linguists who have described the speech that is characteristic of frequency of reduction depends on the environment in which the many black residents of the northern United States have noticed how sound occurs. If the next word starts with a consonant, it is more uniform that speech is in many respects. In other words, blacks who likely to reduce than if the next word starts with a vowel. For live in New York City, Boston, Chicago, Detroit, and Seattle speak example, reduction is more likely to occur in west side (becoming very much alike. The speech of blacks in these cities also resembles wes side) than in west end. A final t or d is more likely to be deleted if the speech of blacks in southern states in many respects. In one it is not part of the past tense -ed than if it is. The past tense -ed suffix respect this similarity is the result of the relatively recent migrations is pronounced as t or d or Id in English depending on the preceding of blacks out of the south; in another, it is one reflection of sound. For example, reduction is more likely to occur in John ran fast long-standing patterns of racial segregation only now slowly (becoming John ran fas) than in John passed the teacher in his car. changing, patterns that have tended to separate the population of the Test, desk and end may actually be pronounced without their final United States along color lines (Wardhaugh, 2000:333). Here it is consonants. The plural of test may actually be tess or tesses, important to mention that the work of Labov et al. and that of other depending on how an individual forms the plural (Wardhaugh, researchers as Wolfram (1969) and Fasold (1972) on the syntax of 2000:333). nonstandard Black English was an important contribution, it arouses The written symbol th can represent two different sounds in serious controversy among both scholars and laymen. Their English: both an“unvoiced”sound as in thought, thin and think, and a arguments for respecting the systematic nature of Black English had “voiced”sound as in the, they and that. In AAVE the pronunciation strong and positive impact on many educators (Wolfson, 1989:220). of this sound depends on where in a word it is found. At the

109 110 Variation of language 社会语言学 beginning of a word, the voiced sound (eg. in that) is regularly AAVE speakers (and speakers of Southern varieties as well) do not pronounced as d so“the”,“they”and“that”are pronounced as de, move the tongue to the front top position. So“my”is pronounced ma dey and dat. AAVE shares this feature with many other nonstandard as in he’s over at ma sister’s house. dialects, including those of the East Coast of United States and 2) Vocabulary Canada. Less common in AAVE is the pronunciation of the unvoiced AAVE does not have a vocabulary separate from other varieties sound as t, thus“thin”can become tin. This however is a very of English. However, AAVE speakers do use some words that are not common feature of Caribbean creoles in which“think”is regularly found in other varieties and furthermore use some English words in pronounced as tink, etc. When the th sound is followed by r, it is ways that differ from the standard dialects. A number of words used possible in AAVE to pronounce the th as f as in froat for“throat”. in Standard English may also have their origin in AAVE or at least in Within a word, the unvoiced sound as in nothing, author or ether is the West African languages that contributed to AAVE’s development. often pronounced as f. Thus AAVE speakers will sometimes say For example, the word banana and yam come from Mandingo, a “nothing”as nufn and“author”as ahfuh. The voiced sound, within West African language. Normally, words are composed of a form (a a word, may be pronounced v. So“brother”becomes bruvver, etc. At sound signal) and a meaning. In some cases both the form and the the end of a word, th is often pronounced f in AAVE. For instance meaning are taken from West African sources. For example, the word “Ruth”is pronounced Ruf;“south”is pronounced souf. When the bogus (fake /fraudulent) is from West African language Hausa boko, preceding sound is a nasal (eg. n or m) the th is often pronounced as t or boko-boko (deceit, fraud). In other case the form is from English as in tent for“tenth”; mont for“month”. but the meaning appears to be derived from West African sources. In many varieties of English, including standard varieties, the Some cases are ambiguous and seem to involve what the late Fredric vowels i in pin and e in pen sound different in all words. In AAVE, Cassidy called a multiple etymology (the form can be traced to more these sounds are merged before a nasal (like n or m). So in AAVE pin than one language). For instance, the English word cat has the and pen are pronounced with the same vowel. Most Southern US meaning of friend or fellow, this meaning actually comes from Wolof varieties of English merge these vowels too, so this is only a –kat, a suffix denoting a person. distinctive feature of AAVE in the northern United States. Some Another interesting set of vocabulary items is called loan vowels like those in night and my or about and cow are called translations. In such cases a complex idea is expressed in some West “diphthongs”. This means that when the vowel is pronounced, the African language by a combination of two words. In AAVE these tongue starts at one place in the mouth and moves as the vowel is African words appear to have been directly translated and the same being pronounced. In AAVE the vowel in“night”or in“my”is often concept is expressed by the combination of the equivalent English not a diphthong. So when pronouncing the words with this diphthong,

111 112 Variation of language 社会语言学 items. For example, bad-eye (nasty look) is directly translated from with been is in fact quite different from the Standard English present the Mandingo nyE-jugu (hateful glance). perfect. This can be seen by comparing two sentences such as the 3) Grammar following: It is important to note that the greatest differences between black SE present perfect: He has been married. and white English are on the level of grammatical structure. Black AAVE been: He been married. English has its own grammatical rules. It has the special uses of be, In the SE sentence the implication is that he is now no longer or lack of be (the zero copula)，as in a contrast between“He nice” married. However, in the AAVE sentence the implication is quite the “( He is nice right now.”) and“He be nice”“( He is nice sometimes”). opposite: he is still married. Sentences equivalent to SE perfects may The negatives of these sentences would also be“He ain’t nice”and be conveyed by the use of done in AAVE. For example the SE “He don’t be nice”, respectively.“You tired”may be an equivalent sentence“He has eaten his dinner”can be expressed as He done eat of the standard“You are tired”(Wardhaugh, 2000:333-4). Standard his dinner. English uses a conjugated be verb (called a copula) in a number of Because final t and d are often unpronounced, there may be no different sentences. (as is, ’s, are, ’re, etc.) In AAVE this verb is often overt signaling of the past tense, so that I walked sounds just like I not included. Future events and those that have not yet occurred are walk. There may also be no signaling of the third-person singular in marked by gon or gonna. For example, I don’t care what he say, you the present tense of the verb, resulting in a form like he go. gon laugh. Standard“I haven’t seen him.”is equivalent to AAVE I ain’t seen Standard English varieties mark grammatical agreement him. AAVE has a number of ways of marking negation, just like a between the subject and predicate in the present tense. If the subject number of other varieties of English. AAVE allows negation to be is third person singular (he, she, it or the name of a person or object), marked in more than one position in the sentence (so called double or an -s appears at the end of a regular verb. (eg. John walks to the multiple negation). In this respect, AAVE resembles French and a store). In AAVE the verb is rarely marked in this way. When regular number of other Romance languages and also a number of English verbs occur with such -s marking, they often carry special emphasis. creoles. Standard English also has agreement in a number of irregular and AAVE also employs constructions such as“I asked Joe what can frequently used verbs such as has vs have and is vs are and was vs he do,”“Can’t nobody do that”(as a statement), and“It ain’t no were. In AAVE these distinctions are not always made. heaven for you to go to,”in which it functions like there in SE. Ain’t Some past events are conveyed by placing been before the verb. is used frequently, as is multiple negation. And there are also special Speakers of SE may mistake this for the Standard English“present auxiliary verb uses of done and been, as in“He done told me”and“I perfect”with the“have”or“has”deleted. However the AAVE sentence been washing it.”

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The above are some of the more frequently noted characteristics quite independently of Standard English. In this view, Black English of Black English. We can see clearly that Black English has its own has features typical of Creoles, which look back to an African origin. phonological, morphological and syntactic rules. It’s actually very Black English, therefore, is not a variety of English but a creolized systematic, and it’s no different from any other varieties of language. variety of English. Some scholars contend that AAVE developed out of the contact between speakers of West African languages and 4.3.3 Linguistic views on Black English speakers of vernacular English varieties. According to such a view, As we can know, AAVE shows many commonalties with other West Africans learnt English on plantations in the southern Coastal varieties including a number of standard and nonstandard English States (Georgia, South Carolina, etc.) from a very small number of varieties spoken in the US and the Caribbean. Yet it has been at the native speakers (the indentured laborers). Others who advocate a heart of several public debates and the analysis of this variety has contact scenario for the development of AAVE suggest that the also sparked and sustained debates among sociolinguists. contact language (an early creole-like AAVE) developed through It is extremely difficult to say how many people speak AAVE processes of second language acquisition. According to such a view because it is not clear what exactly this would mean. The history of West Africans newly arrived on plantations would have limited AAVE and what language varieties it is related to, are also a matter of access to English grammatical models because the number of native controversy. Linguists have different opinions on how Black English speakers was so small (just a few indentured servants on each relates to other varieties of English in the United States. Some plantation). In such a situation a community of second language linguists, such as Kurath (1949: 6) and McDavid (1965: 258), argue learners might work hard to learn what English vocabulary that could that Black English has no characteristics that are not found in other be collected from short encounters onto the few grammatical patterns varieties of English, particularly nonstandard varieties spoken by which are common to the languages of West Africa. What linguists Americans of any color in the south. In this view, Black English is refer to as universal grammar (the law-like rules and tendencies just another dialect of American English, that is, Black English is a which apply to all natural human language) would have played a variety of southern American English. There is another claim that is significant role in such processes as well. This kind of thing seems to similar to this one: the speech of blacks in the southern states has had have taken place in the Caribbean and may also have happened in a considerable influence on the speech of whites living there, eg. the some places, at some times in the United States. For instance Gullah whites’ borrowing of such words as goober, gumbo. or Sea Islands Creole spoken in the Coastal Islands of South Carolina Another view opposing to this claim is held by the creolists, eg., and Georgia seems to have formed in this way. Stewart (1967), Dillard (1972), and Rickford (1977), who maintain A third view is held by linguists such as Labov (1972a). Labov that Black English is a Creole , a variety of English which originated claims that the issue of whether or not Black English originated as a

115 116 Variation of language 社会语言学 creole is now not practical. He claims that every feature regarded as who speak it. The biggest problem that AAVE speakers face is unique to Black English can be related ‘by rule’ to Standard English. prejudice. This matter is compounded by the fact that, with the What speakers of Black English possess is basically the same AAVE-speaking community, attitudes towards the language are grammar that all speakers of English possess. Just as speakers of complex and equivocal. Many AAVE speakers contrast the variety Cockney English (伦敦方言) and Newfoundland English (纽芬兰方 with something they refer to as“Talking Proper”. At the same time 言) has special rules to produce their unique varieties, so speakers of these same speakers may also express clearly positive attitudes Black English have their special rules (Wardhaugh, 2000:335); towards AAVE on other occasions and may also remark on the however, the main rules are alike for all. In this view, Black English inappropriateness of using Standard English in certain situations. is just another variety of English. While the situation in this case is made more extreme by the context It seems reasonable to suggest that all views are partially correct of racial and ethnic conflict, inequality and prejudice in the United and that AAVE developed to some extent through restructuring while States, it is not unique. Such ambivalent and multivalent attitudes it also inherited many of its distinctive features from older varieties towards nonstandard varieties of a language have been documented of English that were once widely spoken. for a great many communities around the world and in the United Whatever theory about origin is correct, we can be sure that States. there is such a variety of English as Black English in the United 4.3.4 A sociolinguistic interview by McLucas States. Those who speak it recognize that what they speak is & Lanehart something different from the varieties used by most non-blacks. Most Americans use speech alone as the criterion to categorize whether Bryan McLucas and Dr. Lanehart did a sociolinguistic interview someone who contacts them by telephone is black or non-black, and in1996. Their subject Irving is a black male in his mid 20’s who grew most of the categorizations are correct (Wardhaugh, 2000:335). Many up in a region of Atlanta called the“SWAts”(South West Atlanta), for people believe that AAVE is sub-standard to SE. AAVE is just as the most part, except for the five years that he spent in a little Georgia legitimate as American English. But because of this prejudice there is town called Hogansville with his grandmother. After high school, he a big push in the African American community to be bidialectal – that joined the Army and then went on to college. The investigators and is, to be fluent in both Standard English and AAVE. Then, what’s Irving sat across from each other at a table, and the investigator took wrong with Black English? Linguists have already found that nothing his trusty Panasonic RN-111 micro-cassette recorder in hand. They’re is wrong with Black English. Unfortunately, many public policy both in the same AAVE class, and they used some of the topics that makers and sections of the public hold on to mistaken and prejudiced have been brought up in that class over a banana and a bowl of understanding of what AAVE is and what it says about the people cereal.

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Irving explained his background to the investigators, and told clear speakers of Standard English on the left of this spectrum, and them which situations in his life he felt had the strongest influence on the clear speakers of AAVE on the right. It would depend on if his idiolect. He had learned his speech style, in part, from his parents someone fell to the right or left of your own position on that scale (who are both college graduates) from his teachers and from whether you considered them an AAVE or an SE speaker. Also, their television. The biggest influence, however, was his grandmother. She distance from your position would indicate how severe you had an enormous impact on the way that he spoke because he was considered their dialect. Irving wasn’t sure where he fit on this scale, always being corrected by his grandmother for using improper but from the observation he would be in the SE half, at the very least. grammar. Irving’s grandmother was a kindergarten teacher–––so she Keep in mind that this scale assumes that someone speaks the same was accustomed to teaching children Irving’s age how to speak. But way to everybody and ignores code-shifting, which he feels applies to his grandmother used AAVE herself, so she was not trying to him“all day long.” dissuade him from speaking it. She wanted him to know how to SE is the language of wider communication and it is the only speak correctly so that he could code-shift when necessary. There was language that is acceptable in a corporate environment. In other even code shifting within his family. There were some situations words, SE has a certain utility for Irving, and“otherwise [he] where his family would use AAVE, and some situations where they wouldn’t care necessarily to speak Standard English.”He would make would use SE, even among themselves. Everyone knew what each sure that his children understand the mechanics of how to use SE language was and used it.“It’s [SE’s] a weapon that you use wherever because he feels that it is an integral part of functioning in a formal you need to go if you’re black.” setting and this is how the language was presented to him by his According to Irving, “ proper ” is the term that most grandmother. African-Americans use to describe a fellow African-American who Originally, Irving could not accept a white person using an speaks Standard English, or they at least speak a more standard African-American dialect. Eventually, however, he realized that some dialect than the accuser. This is how people described Irving in his whites have grown up in the same environment that he did, and that it childhood.“I did use to get in trouble for speaking proper,”he is just as true a language to them as it is to him. As long as it isn’t admitted. Irving was quick to point out that he didn’t feel that he was someone trying to come into something that they don’t understand. not a speaker of AAVE, but rather that the people around him spoke it Irving views this as patronizing. He then drew a puzzling analogy to more heavily than he did. This lead way to Irving’s spectrum theory. the time he spent in Germany. He did not speak German before he got The spectrum theory is that everyone’s pattern of speech falls there, but as he learned more of the language he decided to throw somewhere on a continuum. There is no true speaker of AAVE or a himself into it and use the language around native Germans. He true speaker of Standard English. To illustrate further, let’s put the claimed to feel totally out of place, originally, but that it helped him

119 120 Variation of language 社会语言学 to understand what the Germans were all about. He wondered why fall together. This opened up a new topic over a common this couldn’t apply to AAVE also, and why whites would not be misconception about the black population. allowed to engage in a similar practice to try and understand black Irving insists that out of 300 million people in this country, 10% culture. It became clearer when Irving added that it was all about are black, 7% are Hispanic, 4% are Asian and the rest are respect. German has an established language and culture, and that miscellaneous. He admits that even to him the numbers of blacks was respected by most people. Black Americans are people without a seem much higher, but they really only make up a relatively small culture, or rather, they are people who have been robbed of their percentage. There are white people who have never seen a black culture. Because of this, African-Americans are trying to create their person before. When the children of these families meet a black own culture-something that they can identify with-and the person for the first time, they are very uncomfortable-simply because continuation of AAVE is a large part of this. Irving doesn’t think that it is unfamiliar. This doesn’t make them racist, necessarily; it just AAVE, at this point, could be approached in a respectful manner by means that they will be uncomfortable until they get some exposure. someone who isn’t black. “That’s all it is, man, totally,”Irving replied,“…exposure.”The The picture that he has painted is that language is a very tender investigator then inquired,“would you say that the key to racial matter for African-Americans. He relates that in the Army, which is harmony is…”“Exposure. Yep,”he concluded. Returning to the disproportionately black, you would never use AAVE when talking to previous hypothesis about exclusionary practices, The investigator your superior. The investigator asked,“if the majority of people in the asked if exposure is the key to people understanding each other and army are black speakers of AAVE, then is this a case of the minority getting along, then was AAVE a vehicle by which exclusion and trying to control the majority?”“Yes, totally,”he replied. He explains separation continues to occur. His reply, which concluded the that the best way to subjugate people is to take away their language. interview, was as follows: Without language you don’t have identity, you belong to no group, “I think probably no, because the exclusion is really from the and you are thereby easier to control. The investigator added that other side of it because the Asian community, Hispanic, AAVE-what maybe African-Americans were trying to resist this control by have you-all have a clear understanding of what SE is but the SE holding on to this language. Irving explained that“it’s like trying to environment doesn’t have a clear and total understanding of all of make a linguistic culture…out of nothing.”Irving then digresses these other environments, so therefore it’s sort of like, well, we’re not slightly in saying that he thinks that it won’t last, that the language is being invited in the door so we’re gonna create our own little tiny in a constant state of decreolization and will eventually phase out. door and it is a…progressional type thing…building on AAVE, but at Bryan mistakenly added that because of the number of blacks and the same time it does exclude, but I feel like the people who are white were about the same, that the two languages would eventually speaking AAVE … are not accepted socially or linguistically so

121 122 Variation of language 社会语言学 therefore we have to create our own thing and then from that really is a weapon to Irving, and a weapon that he wields proficiently microcosm and the SE microcosm, that’s where the problems come (McLucas & Lanehart, 1996). from”. 4.3.5 Consequences for education This idea illustrates the rift that exists between black culture and white America. Each side believes that the other is excluding it. From There has been widespread misunderstanding in the United a linguistic standpoint, whites are excluded-for the most part-from States of Black English, both of its characteristics and of how it is AAVE. This is good for African-Americans because it creates a used. Many educators regarded the various distinguishing culture for them with which they can identify. African-Americans characteristics of Black English as deficiencies (lack, insufficiency): also want for their culture to be accepted by mainstream society, but black children were deficient in language ability because their unfortunately, whites don’t usually get a chance to immerse language did not have certain features of the standard. For example, themselves in that culture to study it in the same way that Irving Bereiter and Engelmann (1966: 39) state that black children show“a studied the German culture. Without first-hand exposure, whites, to total lack of ability to use language as a device for acquiring and some degree, are going to be uncomfortable around this culture and processing information. Language for them is unwieldy and not very be less willing to accept it. There is a continual push-pull among useful.”In the late 1960s, this view led to certain proposals to teach African-Americans who want to belong to both the smaller group and black children the standard variety of the language. To remedy the at the same time be accepted in the larger. This idea not exclusively a black children’s deficiency, they proposed a program designated to group goal, but is even expressed on the individual level as shown in teach black children how to speak: eg. how to make statements, to this interview. The language that the individual associates him or form negatives, and so on. In this view, black children suffered from herself with seems to play a key role as to which group the individual “verbal deprivation”or“had no language”,and it was the duty and wishes to belong. Speakers of SE identify with mainstream America, responsibility of educators to supply them with one (Wardhaugh, speakers of AAVE with the black culture created in opposition of the 2000: 337). mainstream culture. Bi-dialectal people, like Irving, identify with the Labov and others have been severely critical of such views, black culture almost exclusively, but seem to use SE as a tool or believing that they completely misrepresent the linguistic abilities of “weapon”within the mainstream society. Irving doesn’t seem to black children. These children speak a variety of English that is accept Standard English as anything other than a necessity. He different from the Standard English favored by educators, but in fact doesn’t believe that SE is an integral part of himself, but rather an their speech is neither deficient nor unsystematic. Black English is extension of his ability to communicate with others. Standard English both systematic and is also related systematically to the standard (Wardhaugh, 2000: 337). If the test of linguistic ability if fair, then

123 124 Variation of language 社会语言学 black children will be as skilled as any other children. In questioning A great deal of disagreement has been attached to the question Bereiter and Engerlmann’s claim that black children have no of how the schools should deal with children who speak nonstandard language at all, Labov (1972) points out that, if you put a black child dialects of English. The schools are responsible for teaching all in front of an adult white interviewer who then proceeds to fire children the standard language so that they will be able to go out into questions at that child, you may expect few responses. The following the world and get good jobs or go on to a higher education. Very few incident stated by Fasold (1975) may best show the inadequacies of people seriously question the need for young people to have Bereiter and Engelmann’s program clearly: command of Standard English. A number of language attitude studies A film showing the corrective program developed by a team of have shown (see, for example, Hoover, 1978), black parents and educational psychologists for children alleged to have these language teachers are well aware that their children need to learn Standard deficiencies was screened for linguists at 1973 Linguistic Institute in English if they are to compete successfully for good jobs, and they Ann Arbor, Michigan. It contained the following sequence: rely heavily on schools to teach it (Wolfson, 1989: 221). Clearly, the Earnest White teacher, leaning forward, holding a coffee cup: teaching of Standard English in the society is a worthwhile endeavor. “This- is- not-a-spoon.” And as we know, a very normative approach that seeks to change Little black girl, softly:“Dis not no ’poon.” completely the way a child speaks is not only unwise but also White teacher, leaning farther forward, raising her voice: ‘No, probably doomed to failure. According to this approach, what need to This-is-not-a-spoon.’ be understood by educators and by the community at large is that Black child, softly:“Dis not a ’poon.” dialects spoken by nonstandard speakers are not in themselves“bad” White teacher, frustrated:“This-is-not-a-spoon.” English and that no attempt should be made to eradicate them. We Child, exasperated (very angry):“Well, dass a cup!”(Waudhaugh, have no right to expect children to reject the ways of speaking of 2000: 338) their homes and communities. Rather, what is needed is the addition From the final frustrated response of the child, we can see of another dialect, the standard dialect, to the children’s repertoires. clearly that the children may be much more smarter than adults Children already have several speech styles available to them, and believe them to be, and sometimes, as in this case, smarter than those they know the appropriate use for these. What is needed is to teach who would help them. them the style that is appropriate for use in the school. It is necessary Another approach has been called the approach through to make it clear to schoolchildren that they are not expected to stop bidialectalism. Speakers of Black English should be taught to speak speaking their own native dialects in all appropriate varieties and that Standard English, but no attempt should be made to eradicate Black they are not looked down upon for doing so. It should be understood English. that children need to speak the way their friends and families do

125 126 Variation of language 社会语言学 when they are with them and that educators should know that school who are native speakers of Black English, many problems were still language is inappropriate in such contexts (Wolfson, 1989). left unsolved. Most important of this is the question of how best to Race and language were united, however, in at least one provide the help so badly needed if these children are to succeed in important legal decision in the United States. The by-now famous school. Many controversies still revolve around the problem of what “Ann Arbor Decision”of 1979 is an example of a successful claim constitutes the best instructional approach. One important and very that Black English is a bona fide (true, latin) dialect that schools must healthy outcome was the recognition that teachers themselves must recognize (Wardhaugh, 2000: 339). On July 28, 1977, a group of be given adequate background knowledge about how and in what black parents from low-income housing project in Ann Arbor, ways Black English differs from the Standard English, and an Michigan, brought suit in Federal Court against their children’s adequate understanding of the origins and history of the distinctive school (Martin Luther King Junior School ), the Ann Arbor School variety of American English. If the instructional opportunities of the District, and Michigan Board of Education. The grounds of this suit inner city black children are to improve, the attitudes of the teachers were that the authorities had failed to take into account the and other school authorities responsible for their education must be sociocultural and economic factors that would have prevented their changed. Only when they have a good knowledge of Black English children’s failing in school, or, their children had been denied the can their attitude change for the better. “equal opportunity”. The judge in the case agreed and ordered the board to take appropriate action to teach the children to read. He Questions for consideration agreed that the defendants had not taken appropriate action to overcome linguistic barriers that impede students from participating in instructional programs. The judge agreed with the plaintiff (原告) 1．Please say something about the famous Department Store that the dialect differences between the lower-income black children Study. Have you ever noticed any similar prestigious language and the other children as well as the teachers might be a cause for phenomenon in our country? action. Thus, the language problem came to be the central focus of 2．Pay attention to the language behaviour of people around the“King School case”, or, as it is now commonly known, the Ann you. Is there any hypercorrect linguistic behaviour of linguistic Arbor Case. Large numbers of linguists were called upon to testify to insecurity and social aspiration? the differences between Black English and the mainstream Standard 3．The first influential study of sex differences in language use English with respect to its present-day form to its origins and history was presented by Robin Lakoff in the 1970s. Please make some (Wolfson, 1989: 223). Although this was a landmark case in the comments on Robin Lakoff’s work in the study of women’s history of the struggle over educational opportunities for children language.

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4．Why do most people feel uncomfortable with as reversed forms as nü nan (女男), qi fu (妻夫) in Chinese and wife and husband in English? 5 Communicative competence 5．Some sociolinguists argue that male female differences and sexism in languages are universal phenomena. Please give some examples to support this view. Communicative competence is a very important concept in 6．The outcome of the commonly known the Ann Arbor Case is sociolinguistics. Dell Hymes (1971:11) invented this term in order to very important to the education of the black children. Please say differentiate it from Chomsky’s linguistic competence. Communica something about it. -tive competence and linguistic competence are two different 7．Black English is usually considered as nonstandard English, concepts, but they are closely related to each other. but sociolinguists found that Black English is actually very systematic and consistent in its grammar. Then, what’s wrong with 5.1 Linguistic competence Black English? 8．Bereiter and Engelmann (1966: 39) state that black children show ‘a total lack of ability to use language as a device for acquiring According to Chomsky’s linguistic theory of transformational and processing information. Language for them is unwieldy and not generative grammar (Chomsky, 1965: 3), a child is born with the very useful.’ In the late 1960s, this view led to certain proposals to ability to master any language with almost miraculous ease and speed. teach black children the standard variety of the language. What’s Then why could a child speak complete sentences without formal wrong with this viewpoint? Please argue against it through examples. education? Why could people judge whether the structures of the sentences made by others are right or not? This is because children can form some basic grammatical principles in their minds through the influence of their living surroundings. With the basic innate principles, they can generate and recognize numerous new grammatical sentences. Hymes accepts this point of view, but he thinks language is made up of two parts: linguistic competence and language use. Linguistic competence is understood as concerned with the tacit knowledge of language structure. Linguistic competence belongs to a psychological scope. And language use is concerned

129 130 Communicative competence 社会语言学 with social interaction. Chomsky only pays attention to the linguistic When having a dinner, one says to another: Can you pass me the competence. He uses the abstract, ideal speaker-listener as his salt? This is a question. But this question is used in a certain investigator. If a person has perfect innate knowledge, he or she will circumstance. It actually means: Please pass me the salt. not be affected by such grammatically irrelevant conditions as In the cinema, one says to another: Is someone sitting here? (= memory limitations, distractions, shifts of attention and interest, and May I sit here? Asking the permission of the other.) errors in applying his or her knowledge of the language in actual A father came back from his work, and saw the room was in a performance. Hymes points out that it’s impossible to have such an mess, and he said to the son: Is that your coat on the floor again? (= ideal speaker-listener in reality. What we can see is that some people Pick up the coat. Giving a command) can speak several languages or dialects, some can speak only one Hymes argued“some occasions call for being appropriately language or dialect; Some people can understand standard language ungrammatical”. Eg. and nonstandard language, but he or she can only use nonstandard Have you direct personal ocular evidence of John’s having been language. Then why is so? We can only find the answer in social in this place some twenty to twenty-four hours ago? interaction. According to Hymes, the so-called linguistic competence There are no grammatical mistakes in this sentence. But it of Chomsky should be called grammatical competence. Grammatical sounds very awkward. The listener will be puzzled by what you say. competence is very important to a person, but it’s not enough for a We might as well say like this: Seen John here yesterday? This is person living in the society only knows how to make correct very clear, though not very strict. sentences. He or she must know how to speak and what should say to Sometimes, a grammatical sentence may not be appropriate. Eg. different people.“He or she must acquire competence as to when to “How old are you?”is a grammatical sentence, but not appropriate. speak, when not, and as to what to talk about with whom, when, But if you ask a little child, that’s quite okay. where, in what manner”. So linguistic competence is not enough, people should have another competence, that is, communicative 5.2 Communicative competence competence. Communicative competence is knowledge needed by a speaker or hearer, but is much more broadly based than the“linguistic competence”of Chomskyan linguistics. Instead of referring only to As Hymes (1974a, 1975) points out, a child who had acquired the knowledge of linguistic forms, it includes our knowledge of how the competence to produce any and all the sentences of his native to use linguistic forms appropriately. Perhaps“ability”would be a language, and who was likely to say any sentence without reference better word. to social contexts or rules, would be considered a social monster. The Eg. point is that the ability to produce correct sentences does not, in itself,

131 132 Communicative competence 社会语言学 constitute knowledge of a language. Whether the language learner is many cases, the term, as originally defined by Hymes, was a small child acquiring his or her first language or anyone learning a completely misinterpreted, so that grammatical competence was new language, the fact remains that language acquisition involves not regarded something separate from communicative competence linguistic competence alone but what Hymes (1967, 1972b) has instead of an intrinsic part of what speakers need to know in order to called communicative competence (Wolfson, 1989: 44). The term communicate effectively (Wolfson, 1989: 46). communicative competence has gained wide acceptance. Researchers, Thus, scholars writing about language teaching methodology writers of language teaching materials, and most language instructors have sometimes interpreted communicative competence to mean a have become convinced that successful language acquisition involves focus on spontaneity of expression (eg. Rivers, 1973), while others learning what to say to whom and in which circumstances, as well as have recognized that the term as Hymes intended to be interpreted the ability to follow the grammar and pronunciation. Paulston (1974a, had more to do with the elaboration of social rules of language use. In b) was one of the earliest specialists in language teaching to take up spite of these difficulties, most scholars in the field of language Hymes’s notion of communicative competence and to advocate the teaching took the goal of communicative competence to mean that it need to incorporate rules of speaking into second language classroom was necessary to design materials based on the functional use of teaching. As she says,“I have come to think that it is every bit as language, to make materials more authentic and meaningful, and to important that we teach the appropriate forms of social usage as the give students the opportunity to learn to use language spontaneously linguistic forms themselves.” and appropriately in social contexts (Wolfson, 1989: 46). During the mid-1970s and early 1980s, many articles appeared Canale and Swain (1980: 28) identified three components in in the applied linguistics literature supporting the rationale for communicative competence: grammatical competence, sociolinguistic introducing communicative competence as a goal of language competence, and the strategic competence. teaching. Materials development, syllabus design, and proficiency 5.2.1 Grammatical competence assessment all became filled with the new communicative approach to language teaching. Almost immediately, problems began to surface, Disturbed over the fact that many models of communicative as it was discovered that acceptance of a theoretical principle is one language teaching have tended to represent grammatical competence thing and putting it into operation is quite another. separately from communicative competence, and to focus on Not all the new communicative approaches to language teaching meaning and function at the expense of attention to form, Canale and were based specifically or sorely on Hymes’s notion of Swain are careful to include grammatical accuracy as one of the three communicative competence. The term communicative competence major aspects of communicative competence. As they put it,“Just as began to be redefined by scholars in the field of language teaching. In Hymes…was able to say that there are rules of grammar that would

133 134 Communicative competence 社会语言学 be useless without rules of language use, so we feel that there are “How old are you?”These are permitted in their value system. But rules of language use that would be useless without rules of in the West, these questions are taboos. Salaries, age and marriage are grammar”(Canale and Swain, 1980: 5). all considered as private. Chinese people tend to be modest. For instance, before they 5.2.2 Sociolinguistic competence present their ideas, they like to say something as “ I’m not Under sociolinguistic competence, Canale and Swain identify well-prepared…”. The American people will think like this: since what they suggest are two sets of rules: sociocultural rules of use and you are not prepared well, you should not present your ideas. rules of discourse. Sociocultural rules of use will specify the ways in A Canadian teacher addresses a college student as“woman”. The which utterances are produced and understood appropriately. The girl student answered immediately,“No, I’m not a woman, I’m a primary focus of sociocultural rules of use is certain propositions and girl.”Then the teacher becomes puzzled. To the Canadian teacher, communicative functions are appropriate within a given sociocultural “girl”means“naive”, but“woman”means“grown up”,“adult”. context depending on contextual factors such as topic, role of People in Canada like to be treated as adults. participants, setting, and norms of interactions. A second concern of Rules of discourse are the combination of utterances and sociocultural rules of use is appropriate attitude and register or style communicative functions. Discourse competence refers to the are conveyed by a particular grammatical form within a given mastery of how to combine grammatical forms and meanings. Unity sociocultral context… the rules of discourse in our framework is the of a text is achieved through cohesion: cohesion in form (how combination of utterances and communicative functions and not the sentences are linked in a text, such as the use of pronoun, grammatical well-propositions and communicative functions in a conjunctions and so on.) and cohesion in meaning. given context (Canale and Swain, 1980: 30). Eg. Eg. a. What did the rain do? a. Good morning, professor Wang. (appropriate) b. The crops were destroyed by the rain. b. Hi, professor Wang. ( not appropriate) Topic Comment In the above two sentences, sentence a is appropriate to address (shared knowledge) (new information) a professor in a university, but sentence b is not appropriate. rain The rain destroyed the crops. Speeches are governed by different value system. Each society has its own value system. For example, it’s commonly seen for an The actual meaning of an utterance depends on the social Arabian to ask a person“How much does it cost?”when they meet for context in which it occurs. Rommetveit (1971) gives a classic the first time. And similarly, an Asian asks,“Are you married?”or example of this. He tells a story about a man running for a political 135 136 Communicative competence 社会语言学 office who is scheduled to give a talk in a school auditorium. When he arrives, he sees that there are not enough chairs. He calls his wife 5.3 Speech community at home. Then he goes to the janitor. To each, the candidate says, “There aren’t enough chairs.”To the wife, this means,“Wow! Am I popular!”But to the janitor, it means,“Get some more chairs.”The As we know, sociolinguistic research involves the study of meaning of“There aren’t enough chairs”is a product of the context in language in its social context. But, like grammatical and phonological which it is said (Chaika, 1982: 69). rules, the sociolinguistic rules or, the rules of speaking that are such a critical part of what we have come to call communicative competence 5.2.3 Strategic competence are different not only from language to language but also from Both verbal and nonverbal communication strategies can help society to society and from subgroup to subgroup (Wolfson, 1989: language learners to cope with or remedy breakdowns in 49). Since that is the case, it follows that the patterns of speech communication. Strategic competence includes such items as behaviour that constitute a large part of a native speaker’s paraphrase, when the speaker does not know or remember a word or communicative competence must be learned in the context of specific phrase, ways to address someone when the speaker is uncertain of the social units. Then, how are we to define these units? Within how addressee’s status, and so on. The teaching of strategic competence inclusive a group shall we look for common rules of speaking–––at the level of a village or at that of an entire nation? Clearly, some rules will encourage learners to communicate even when they are unsure of have wider application than others, but we cannot know how far a the exact way to express themselves (Wolfson, 1989: 47). For particular rule can be applied. What we do know is that we must example, men and women use different strategies to show their begin in specific places or communities in which we can be relatively interests in the topic. Men usually say“Yeah”,“That’s right”, but certain that everyone shares the same norms and the same rules for women usually keep silent, they look at the other people and give what Hymes calls the“conduct and interpretation of speech”(Hymes, smile. 1974a). In the attempt to identify groups that do share at least one The recognition of moving away from context-free grammar language and the rules for their use, sociolinguists have for many exercises and working to guide students to learn to communicate in years depended upon the concept of speech community. This is not a meaningful ways was a critical step for language teaching. Many new term. Indeed it has been used by linguists for generations. What linguists are now doing research into sociolinguistic rules, and what is new is the redefinition of the concept by sociolinguists. they do will benefit textbook writers and language teachers. And From the sociolinguistic point of view, a single speech eventually, our students’ awareness of culture will be raised. community may have, as part of its repertoire, two or more languages. Conversely, speakers of a single language often participant in more 137 138 Communicative competence 社会语言学 than one speech community, each with its own norms and rules of emphasis or irony, normal duration of silence, normal level of voice, speaking. Where speech community may be said to correspond to etc…”(Hymes, 1972b: 54). geographical area, this fact is not, on the surface, particularly difficult Thus, Hymes points out again to the fact that the social rules of to deal with. For example, the English- speaking world is made up of interaction are no less important than linguistic rules if people are to a large number of speech communities. Where boundaries happen to understand each other. Given this fact, Hymes says:“Tentatively, a coincide with territory or with political lines, the situation appears to speech community is defined as a community sharing rules for the be relatively straightforward. It is widely recognized, for instance, conduct and interpretation of speech, and rules for interpretation of at that the British and Australians differ sharply from the Americans in least one linguistic variety. Both conditions are necessary. (Hymes, many aspects of language use, although all three nations are 1972b: 54).” predominantly English speaking. And anyone who has lived in one of Chomsky (1965: 3-4) proposes his“completely homogeneous the other English-speaking nations, or who has interacted with its speech community”. However, such a speech community cannot be people, knows that pronunciation, grammar, and lexicon are not the our concern. Our speech communities, whatever they are, exist in a only distinguishing features. Norms and values differ, and these “real”world. So we must try to find some viewpoints of speech differences are reflected in differing rules of speech behavior. community that is helpful to investigations of language in society However, it is also the case that within political and geographical rather than necessitated by more abstract linguistic theorizing boundaries, we have a great variety of smaller social groupings, and (Wardhaugh, 2000: 116-7). these are much less easy to define. Although most of us are well Many linguists have given definitions to speech community, aware that language use both reflects and helps to create and maintain some of them are simple, but some of them are complex (see Hudson, social differences, there is little agreement as to the criteria that 2000:24-30). The simplest definition is given by John Lyons (1970: define and distinguish specific social units. What is at issue here is 326): speech community refers to all the people who use a given the very serious and complex problem that must be faced in defining language (or dialect). Then, how should we evaluate these different the basic notion of speech community (Wolfson, 1989, 49-50). definitions? The answer is of course that they are all“correct”, since As a starting point, we can say that scholars agree that members each of them allows us to define a set of people who have something of a speech community must share at least one language. But as in common linguistically-a language or dialect, interaction by means Hymes (1972b) points out：“The sharing of grammatical (variety) of speech, a given range of varieties and rules for using them, a given rules is not sufficient. There may be persons whose English I can range of attitudes to varieties and items (Hudson, 2000: 27). grammatically identify but whose messages escape me. I may be Depending on the purpose of the research and the uses to which ignorant of what counts as a coherent sequence, request, statement it will be put, the same sociolinguist can decide to use a larger or requiring an answer, requisite or forbidden topic, marking of smaller unit of analysis on which to focus. In this sense, the term

139 140 Communicative competence 社会语言学 speech community may be seen as a construct which has boundaries in the sense that its members share sociolinguistic rules, but which might be broadened or narrowed, depending on what the investigator 6 Communication is attempting to find out (Wolfson, 1989: 53). The ability to interact successfully in a foreign speech community depends on the extent of his or her communicative The analysis of communication is actually the analysis of the competence, of which rules of speaking are an important aspect. patterns and functions of language in use. The primary interests of the However, the sociolinguistic patterns are not objectively known to scholars are in investigating ongoing speech or conversation. A native speakers. We do not notice which muscles we use when we considerable amount of work has been done by ethnographers of walk and what rules we use when we talk. Thus, although our native speaking on rules of speaking in a wide variety of societies (Gumperz speaker intuitions are very useful in analyzing data collected from the and Hymes, 1972; Bauman and Sherzer, 1974). A lot of work has stream of ongoing speech, we cannot trust them to predict how been done, for example, on narratives in American English (eg., people will speak in given situations. The only way of getting at this Labov and Waletzky, 1967; Labov et al. 1968; Labov, 1972; Wofson, sort of knowledge is through systematic analysis of everyday speech 1976, 1978a, 1979a), as well as on jokes (Sacks, 1974), on ritual as it is used in as broad a range of speech situations as possible. insults among groups of black teenagers in Harlem (Labov, 1972, Labov et al., 1968), on forms of address (eg. Brown and Ford, 1961, Questions for consideration Ervin-Tripp, 1969), as well as on a number of other forms of speech behaviour which will be talked about in this chapter. Perhaps the most significant contribution to the development of the study of 1．Communicative competence is a very important concept in speech in use has been the theoretical framework called the sociolinguistics. Hymes invented this term to differentiate it from ethnography of speaking proposed by Dell Hymes in 1962. Chomsky’s linguistic competence. Then, what’s the difference between Hymes’s communicative competence and Chomsky’s linguistic competence? 6.1 Ethnography of speaking 2．Conale and Swain identified three components in communica -tive competence. What are they? What is meant by the ethnography of speaking is fundamental to an understanding of communication. As Hymes has put it, the ethnography of speaking fills the gap between what is described in

141 142 Communication 社会语言学 grammars, and what is usually described in ethnographies. Both use of technical terms for use in the investigation of the ways and rules of speech as evidence of other patterns. In another sense, this is a speaking in a given community. The most general descriptive term, question of what a child internalizes about speaking, beyond rules of speech situation, includes contexts such as“ceremonies, fights, hunts, grammar and a dictionary, while becoming a full-fledged member of meals, lovemaking and the alike”(Hymes, 1974a: 51). But, although its speech community. Or, it is a question of what a foreigner must speech situations provide the context in which speech occurs, such learn about a group’s verbal behaviour in order to participant situations are not in themselves governed by specific sets of rules for appropriately and effectively in its activities. The ethnography of the conduct of speech. The term, speech event, on the other hand, is speaking is concerned with the situations and uses, the patterns and intended to be technical and refers to specific activities involving functions, of speaking as an activity in its own right (Hymes, 1962: speech, such as a private conversation, a classroom lecture, or a 101). political debate. The term speech act“is the minimal term of the set As a linguist with considerable training and interest in just discussed…It represents a level distinct from the sentence, and anthropology, Hymes was disturbed by the fact that anthropologists not identifiable with a single portion of other levels of grammar, not rarely provided descriptions of the speech behaviour of the groups with segments of any particular size defined in terms of their levels of they studied. This meant that it was possible to read an grammar…a sentence interrogative in form may be now a request, anthropological account, or ethnography, without learning anything now a command, now a statement; a request may be manifested by a about the use of speech in the society under investigation. At the sentence that is now interrogative, now declarative, now imperative same time, Hymes noted, linguists concerned with the details of in form; and one and the same sentence may be taken as a promise or language structure, paid little or no attention to the context in which a threat, depending on the norm of interpretation applied to it (Hymes, speech is embedded or to the sociocultural factors that condition its 1974a: 52-3)”. A speech act may therefore be culturally defined as a use. In order to gain a full picture of culture on the one hand and complaint, a compliment, an apology, or a refusal, and competent language on the other, Hymes urged scholars in both anthropology native speakers will have little difficulty in identifying them as such and linguistics to join forces in examining speech behaviour as both (Wolfson, 1989: 6-7). The minimal unit of analysis, the speech act, the primary realization of language and a major factor of cultural and larger sequences, called speech events, are both governed by organization (Wolfson, 1989: 5-6). rules for appropriate use. Ethnography of a communicative event is a Useful sets of categories and components for analyzing and description of all the factors that are relevant in understanding how describing the patterns of speaking in a given community are set forth that particular communicative event achieves its objectives. For by Hymes (1962, 1972a, 1974a) and have provided a basic convenience, Hymes uses the word SPEAKING as an acronym for framework for the study of sociolinguistic rules. He gives taxonomy the various relevant factors. He lists 16 components altogether, and

143 144 Communication 社会语言学 for the sake of ease of memory; he groups them into eight categories. accomplish the intended purpose. Let’s consider them one by one. 9) Message form: This component is fundamental to all rules of 1) Setting: This refers to the time, place, and physical speaking since it involves the description of how something is said. circumstances in which speech takes place. 10) Message content: This refers to the topic or what is being 2) Scene: Here Hymes refers to the psychological setting of talked about. speech or to what may be seen as the cultural definition of an Together, Message Form and Message Content have to do with occasion. what is said and in what order. Content is interdependent with form, Setting and scene are combined into the component called“Act so Hymes combined them under the heading“Act Sequence”, or A in Situation”and recalled by the first letter of acronym, S. the mnemonic SPEAKING. P which stands for“Participant,”include the following four 11) Keys: This has to do with the manner or spirit in which components, which may have relevance to the analysis: something is said (eg., serious, joking, sarcastic, playful). 3) Speaker or sender of a message. 12) Channels: This refers to whether the medium of 4) Addressor: Since in some societies, the speaker is not the communication is spoken or written. same person who actually gives the message, this component is 13) Forms of Speech: This has to do with the language or codes, included for use where necessary. varieties, and registers that may be used. 5) Hearer or receiver or audience. Both Channels and Forms of Speech are joined as means or 6) Addressee: It should be noted that in some instances the agencies of communication and are therefore labeled addressee is not a person. People in English-speaking societies speak “Instrumentalities”or I. to animals, for example, and may even address such inanimate 14) Norms of interaction: It refers to specific behaviours that are objects as walls. considered appropriate for different kinds of speaking in different These four components may be referred to as“Participant”. Put societies. simply, Hymes’s view of participants has to do with who is talking 15) Norms of Interaction: It involves the way different kinds of and who is listening. speech are regarded and understood by members of a given group. 7) Purposes or outcomes. Where norms of interpretation are different, they often lead to 8) Goals. miscommunication across cultures. The above two components may be subsumed under the term Norms of Interaction and Norms of Interpretation are grouped Ends, or E in the acronym, and have to do with what the speaker together as“Norms”or N. intends to accomplish and to what degree he or she does, in fact, 16) Genres: These refer to categories of communication, such as

145 146 Communication 社会语言学 poems, curses, prayers, jokes, proverbs, myths, commercials, or form social interactions. Threatening, complimenting, commanding, even letters, and will often coincide with speech events. They form the questioning can all be manipulative. Another person’s behavior may letter G in the acronym SPEAKING. be affected quite differently from what one might expect from actual (Wolfson, 1989: 8-9) words used. “See that belt?”may be sufficient to restrain a child from In analyzing the use of appropriate speech use for a society, it is wrongdoing. The words themselves are an action. The child, of often helpful to state rules of speaking in terms of the relationships course, imputes intention to the words. They are heard as a threat of among the various components listed above. The acronym spanking with the belt (Chaika, 1982: 71-2). SPEAKING has been offered as a tool to help investigators One particular approach to the functional classification of remember the many components of speech which might be operative speech certainly ought to be mentioned, as it has been extremely in a given situation and is in no sense presented as a mechanical influential. This is the approach based on Speech-Acts, which has device against which analysis of speech behaviour should be gauged. been extremely developed in the main by philosophers and linguists It is a necessary reminder that talk is a complex activity. following the British philosopher J. L. Austin in 1962. Austin argued that the study of meaning should not concentrate on bald statements such as Snow is white, taken out of context, since language is 6.2 Speech acts typically used in speech, for many other functions-when we speak we make suggestions, promises, invitations, requests, prohibitions and so People usually think of speech as a way of stating propositions on. Indeed, in some cases we use speech to perform an action. For and conveying information. But in speaking to each other, we make instance, I name this ship“Liberty Bell”in certain circumstances is to use of sentences, or, to be more precise, utterances. We can classify name a ship. To say“I do”in marriage ceremony is to find oneself a these utterances in different ways. We can classify them by length husband or wife. Such bits of speech are called performative (some believes shorter utterances are more easily understood). We utterances. They perform acts: the naming of ships, marrying in these can classify them by grammatical structure (active-passive; cases. It does something. It can be seen that an account of all these statement-questioning; request-exclamatory; and so on.). We can difficult functions of speech must be formulated in terms of a general even try to work out a semantic or logical structure for each utterance. theory of social activity, and this is what Austin and his followers But it is also possible to classify what sentences do (Waudhaugh, tried to provide. 2000: 280). Austin (1962) stressed the functions of speech as a way In using a performative utterance, a person is not just saying of“doing things with words.” Sociolinguists and anthropologists something but is actually doing something if certain real-world have been very concerned with how people use languages to manage conditions are met. Some utterances are explicit, such as “I name”,

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“I swear”, “I promise”, “I apologize” or “I warn you”, some purposes. Schffrin (1994) has a very good example of the latter,“‘Y’ are less explicit, as “I won’t be there at 5 o’clock”. want a piece of candy?”can form many functions as a speech act, Austin argued if performatives are to succeed, there must be including question, request, and offer. In contrast, we can see how certain felicity conditions. First, a conventional procedure must exist different forms can perform a single function since it is quite possible for doing whatever is to be done, and that procedure must specify to ask someone to close the door with different words:“It’s cold in who must say, and do what and in what circumstances. Second, all here,”“The door is open,”and“Could someone see to the door?” participants must properly execute this procedure and carry it through (Waughaugh, 2000: 283). to completion. Finally, the necessary thoughts, feelings, and Austin focused his attention on how speakers realize their intentions must be present in all parties. In general, the actual speech intentions in speaking. On the contrary, Searle focused on how act will take the grammatical form of having a first-person subject listeners respond to utterances, that is, how one person tries to figure and a verb in the present tense. Examples are “I name”, “I swear” out how another is using a particular utterance. Is what is heard a (Wardhaugh, 2000: 281). promise, a warning, an assertion, a request, or something else? What Austin (1962: 150-63) divides performatives into five categories: we see in both Austin and Searle is such recognition that people use a (1) Verdictives, typified by the giving of a verdict, estimate, grade, or language to achieve a variety of objectives. appraisal (“We find the accused guilty”); (2) Exercitives, the exercising of powers, rights, or influences as in appointing, ordering, 6.3 Conversation warning, or advising (“I pronounce you husband and wife”); (3) Commissives, typified by promising or undertaking or committing one to do something (eg., promise, threaten) (4) Behabitives, having As soon as we look closely at conversation in general, we see to do with such matters as apologizing, congratulating, blessing, that it involves much more than using languages to state propositions cursing, or challenging (I apologize) (5) Expositives, a term used to or convey facts. Through conversations we establish relationships refer to how one makes utterances fit into an argument or exposition with others, achieve a measure of cooperation (or fail to do so), keep (I argue, I reply, or I assume) (Wardhaugh, 2000:282). channels open for further relationships, and so on. The utterances we According to Searle (1969: 23-4), we perform different acts use in conversation enable us to do these kinds of things because when we speak. The utterances we use are locutions. Most locutions conversation itself has certain properties that are well worth express some intent that a speaker has. They therefore have an examining (Waudhaugh, 2000: 280). illocutionary force. A speaker can use different locutions to achieve Conversations are not only exchange of words, but also the same illocutionary force or use one locution for many different exchange of acts. Conversations are governed by rules, norms, and

149 150 Communication 社会语言学 conventions. According to philosophers such as Grice, we are able to (3) Relation (相关准则): (be relevant) Your answer must be converse with one another because we recognize common goals in relevant to the question. conversation and specific ways of achieving these goals. In any Eg. conversation, only certain kinds of“moves”are possible at any a. Where did you buy the shoes? particular time because of the constraints that operate to govern b. I’ve just had my lunch. exchanges. These constraints limit speakers as to what they can say This is not a conversation. Because the answer is not relevant to and listeners as to what they can infer (Waudhaugh, 2000: 287). the question. Paul Grice (1975: 45) maintains that the most important (4) Manner (方式准则): (be clear) The speakers must avoid principle in conversation is one he calls the cooperative principle (配 ambiguity. The words should be placed in proper order. 合原则). You must act in conversation in accord with a general The maxims are involved in all kinds of rational cooperative principle that you are mutually engaged with your listener or listeners behaviour: we assume the world works according to a set of maxims in an activity that is of benefit to all, that benefit being mutual or rules, and we generally do our best to make it work in that way. Of understanding. course, everyday speech often occurs in less than ideal circumstances. Grice lists four maxims that follow the cooperative principle: Grice points out that speakers do not always follow the maxims he quantity, quality, relation, and manner. has described, and, as a result, they may implicate something. This is (1) Quantity (数量准则): The maxim of quantity requires you to called“conversational implication”by some linguists. They may make your contribution as informative as is required. To put it violate one of the maxims or two of the maxims may clash in simpler: to be informative. You should give sufficient information, particular instance. Eg. but not more than sufficient, not more information than enough. He a. Where’s Bill? gives an example like this: if you are assisting me to mend a car, I b. There’s a yellow motorcycle outside Mary’s house. expect you to be neither more or less than is required; I need four It seems this conversation has violated one of the maxims, but screws, I expect you to hand me four, not two or six. on a deeper level, the answer is relevant to the question. (2) Quality (质量准则): (Be truthful) If one needs sugar, he or a. Can you tell me the time? she does not expect you to hand him or her salt. That’s to say, don’t b. The milkman has just come. (The milkman always comes at say what you believe is false. Eg. seven.) a. Where is your mother? Superficially, the answer has violated the principles, but actually b. She’s at home. (be truthful) not. c. She’s either at home or at school. (not truthful) Let’s have a look at more examples:

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(1) a. Does your dog bite? relation, manner, and the process of implicature which allows them to b. No. figure out relationship between the said and the unsaid. Grice’s Then a touches the dog, and the dog bites a. Then a said: principles form a fundamental part of any understanding of a. You said your dog does not bite. conversation as a cooperative activity. b. My dog does not bite, but this is not my dog. Conversation is cooperative also in the sense that speakers and (2) a. Have you got the time? listeners tend to accept each other for what they claim to be: that is, b. Yes. they accept the face that the other offers. That face may vary In this conversation, b failed to catch the intended meaning of a, according to circumstances, for at one time the face you offer me may a means“what’s the time?”) be that of a“close friend,”on another occasion a“teacher”. And on (3) a. Hello, is Mr. Simatapung there please? a third occasion a“young woman,”but it is a face which I will b. Yes. generally accept. We will be involved in what Erving Goffman (戈夫 a. Oh…may I speak to him please? 曼, 1955) has called face-work（面子行为）, the work of presenting b. Yes. faces to each other, protesting our own face and protecting others’ c. Oh… are you Mr. Simatapung? face. This is the norm (规范) (Wardhaugh, 2000: 290). d. Yes, this is Mr. Simatapung. One particularly important principles used in conversation is the This is a telephone conversation. When a asked “ Is Mr. adjacency pair. This is an example of the findings of the Simatapung there please?”He means he wants Mr. …to answer the ethnomethodology (民族会话方法学) initiated by the American telephone. But b thinks a question is a question, he should answer the sociologist Sacks et al (1970s). Utterances types of certain kinds are question as it is. b does not know the conversation rules. found to co-occur: a greeting leads to a return of greeting; a summons Grice gives further examples, however, in which there is leads to a response; a question leads to an answer; a request or offer deliberate exploitation of a maxim. For example, a testimonial letter leads to an acceptance or refusal; a statement leads to some kind of praising a candidate’s minor qualities and entirely ignoring those that confirmation or recognition; a compliment leads to acceptance or might be relevant to the position for which the candidate is being rejection; a farewell leads to a farewell; and so on. It is claimed that considered violated the maxim of quantity. You said“You’re a fine the parts are dependent upon one another for coherence. An utterance friend”to someone who has just let you down (Wardhaugh, 2000: such as“yes, that’s a good idea”would make no sense unless it was 288). understood as the second part of a question\answer sequence. This is Conversations makes use of the cooperative principle; speakers called utterance pairs by Harvey Sacks (1968-72, 1970). These are and listeners are guided by considerations of quantity, quality, conversational sequences in which one utterance elicits another of a

153 154 Communication 社会语言学 specific kind. The first half of an utterance pair is responsible for The wh-questions demand an answer that substitutes for the giving the second half. The first half commands the person addressed question word. An“I don’t know”can also be given. The wh- to give one of the socially recognized appropriate responses. questions are what, when, why, who, where and how appearing at the Furthermore, the first half of the pair does not necessarily have to start of a question. What has to be answered with the name of a thing sound like what it really is. That is, a question does not have to be in or event; when with a time; where with a location; why with a reason; question form nor a command in command form. Situation, roles, and who, a person, a manner or way something was done (Chaika, 1982: social status are an inextricable part of meaning, often as much as, if 78). not more so, than the surface of an utterance. The answer to any question can be deferred by asking another, creating insertion sequences (插入序列) (Schegloff, 1971: 76). For instance, 6.4 Discourse rules a. Wanna come to a party? b. Can I bring a friend? 6.4.1 Questions and answers a. Male or female? b. Female. Goody (1978) points out that questions are powerful in forcing a. Sure. responses. There are two kinds of overt questions in English, yes-no b. OK. questions and wh-questions. The first, as the name suggest, requires Note that these questions are answered in reverse order, but all an answer of yes or no. If yes-no forms are used, one is forced to are answered. answer“yes”“, no”, or“I don’t know”. There is no way not to answer, As Philips (1976) has pointed out, answers do not necessarily except to pretend not to hear. If that occurs, the asker usually repeats follow questions. It is also the case that questions can be ignored or the question. It is because members of society all recognize that they remained unanswered among middle class white speakers of must answer a question and that they must respond“yes”or“no”to American English, and it is foolish to try to insist on a formula that a yes-no question. requires all utterances following questions to be heard as answers. If the preconditions for questioning are present, however, as Labov and Fanshel (1977) point out, a plain declarative statement 6.4.2 Compliments will be construed as a yes-no question, as in: Compliment is an utterance pair type that creates conflict. Q: You live on 114th Street. Compliments call for an acknowledgement. The acknowledgement A: No, I live on 115th. can properly be acceptance of the acknowledgement, as in“thank

155 156 Communication 社会语言学 you”. The problem is that to accept compliment is very close to 6.4.3 Commands bragging, and bragging is frowned upon in middle-class America Commands share the same preconditions as questions: (Chaika, 1982: 84). Hence, one typical response to a compliment is a 1) The speaker who commands has the right and \ or duty to disclaimer，like: command. 1) a: I really like that dress. 2) The recipient of the command has the responsibility and \ or b: It’s just an old thing. I really need some new clothes. obligation to carry out the command. 2) a: Oh, what pretty shoes! The problem is that the one who has the right to command is b: Oh, they are ancient. I’ve had them for years and years. usually clearly of higher status than the one who must obey. Having An exception is special occasions as, at a wedding, compliments the right to command implies that some are superior to others. This are easily received with“thank you”, and not to compliment may runs counter to our stated ideals. Therefore, in most actual American cause offense or disappointment. Except for such situations, speech, commands are disguised as questions. The substitution of compliments can lead to social embarrassment. If one persists in forms is possible because both speech acts share the same complimenting another, the other person often becomes hostile, even preconditions. Moreover, phrasing commands as questions maintains though nice thing are being said. Once Elain Chaika ordered a class the fiction that the one commanded has the right to refuse, even when to persistently compliment their parents, spouses, or siblings. The he or she does not. Consider: most common response was“Ok. What do you want this time?”One Would you mind closing the door? of the students received a new suit from a friend who owned a men’s Even though it is uttered as a yes-no question, merely to answer clothing store, with the friend practically shouting,“Ok. If I give you “ No ” without the accompanying action or“ yes” without an a new suit will that shut you up?” accompanying excuse would either be bizarre or a joke. Many of those complimented became overtly angry. Others In the movie The Return of Pink Panther, Peter Sellers asks a quickly found an excuse to leave, and several students found that passerby if he knows where the Palace Hotel is. The passerby those on whom they heaped praise shunned them the next time they responds“Yes” and keeps on going. The joke is that “Do you know met. Elain Chaika (1982: 84) claimed that anger results from the where the Palace Hotel is?”is not really a yes-no question but a polite social precariousness of being complimented. When a person who is command meaning“Tell me where the Palace Hotel is.” put at a social disadvantage so that he or she does not know how to Direct commanding is allowed and usual in certain respond, anger results. It’s very uncomfortable to receive too much circumstances. For instance, parents normally command young praise. children directly. For example,

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Pick those toys up right away. commanding context. The speaker uttering“It’s cold in here”must Intimates such as spouses or roommates often casually somehow have the right to ask another to close a window, if that is command each other about trivial matters, such as: the cause of the cold, or to ask another to lend his or her coat. In this Pick some bread up on your way home. situation, the fact that one person is closer to an open window may be Often these are softened by“please”,“will you,”“honey”or sufficient reason for him or her to be responsible for closing it. The the like. duty or obligation to carry out a command need not proceed only Direct commanding in command form occurs in the military from actual status but may proceed from physical circumstances in from those of superior rank to those of inferior. During actual battle, which the command has been uttered. That is why in the right it is necessary for combatants to obey their officers without question, circumstances ordinary statements or questions may be construed as unthinkingly and unhesitatingly. It is no surprise that direct commands, as in: commands are regularly heard in emergency situations, as during a. Any more coffee? firefighting: b. I’ll make some right away. Get the hose! Put up the ladders! a. No, I wanted to know if I had to buy any. A great deal of direct commanding is also heard in hospital If it is possible to do something about whatever is mentioned, an emergency rooms: utterance may be understood as a command. In this conversation, it Get me some bandages. was possible for b to make some coffee, and b must have been Suture that wound immediately. responsible for making it at least some of the time. Hence the In situations that allow direct commands, the full command form question about coffee was misinterpreted as a command to make need not always be invoked. Just enough has to be said so that the some. underling knows what to do, as in: Time for lunch. (Meaning“Come The same misinterpretation can occur in the question: in for lunch.”) Can you swim? Scalpel! Sutures! Dressing! Said by a poolside, it may be interpreted as a command“Jump Note that such commands are contextually bound. They are in,”but away from a body of water, it will be heard merely as a interpreted as commands only if the participants are actually in a request for information. commanding situation. Similarly, Susan Ervin-Tripp’s (1972) Although questions are often used as polite substitute for comment that: commands, the question command can sometimes be especially It’s cold in here! imperious: can be interpreted as a command works only in a specific Would you mind being quiet?

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Similarly, a command like the following may seem particularly 6.4.5 Repairs in conversation haughty: If a person uses the wrong style for an occasion, the other party If you would wait, please. to an interaction tries to repair the error. These two commands carry special force because the high There are two kinds of trouble repairs: formality signaled by“Would you mind”and“If you would…please” 1) Self-repairs: contrasts so sharply with the banality of keeping quiet and waiting Schegloff, Jefferson, and Sacks (1977) collected interesting that the effect of sarcasm is achieved (Chaika, 1982: 81-3). samples of self-correction in discourse, people repairing their own 6.4.4 Collapsing sequences errors. Sometimes this takes the form of obvious correction to a slip of the tongue, as in: Sometimes utterance pairs are collapsed (Sacks, 1967) as at an What are you so ha- er un – unhappy about? ice-cream counter: Sometimes the speakers make a repair when they have made no a. What’s chocolate filbert (一种植物，欧洲榛)? overt error, as in: b. We don’t have any. Sure enough ten minutes later the bell r- the doorbell rang. b’s response is to what b knows is likely to come next. If b had a. What are you so unhappy about? explained what chocolate filbert is, then a very likely would have b. He is going to the school. Oh, I mean, he is going to the asked for some. Indeed, by explaining what it is, b would be tacitly department store. saying that he or she had some to sell. In a selling situation, Because such repairs do not show a one-to-one correspondence explaining what goods or foods are is always an admission that they with actual spoken errors, Schelgloff preferred the term repair to are available. Imagine your reaction, if you asked a waiter or waitress correction. what some food was like, and he or she went into detail telling you 2) Other-repair: about it. Then, if you said,“Sounds good. I’ll have that,”and the If the speaker does not make an obvious error, the hearer will. response were,“We don’t have any,”you would think you were being Usually this is done by asking a question that will lead the speaker to made a fool of. repair his or her own error. Some examples: Another example: 1) a. It wasn’t snowing all day. a. Do you smoke? b. It wasn’t? b. I left them in my other jacket. a. Oh, I mean it was. Such collapsing sequence speed up social interaction by 2) a. Hey, the first time they stopped me from selling cigarettes foretelling unnecessary explanations (Chaika, 1982: 85).

161 162 Communication 社会语言学 was this morning. b. Don’t mention it. b. From selling cigarettes? a. Okay, I’ll be back soon. a. From buying cigarettes. b. Okay, then, Bye. Take care. In most of the repairs made by the hearer, it seems that the a. Bye. hearer knows what the intended word was. 2) a. We’ll have dinner together soon. b. When? 6.4.6 Closing a. I’ll call you. In western society, greeting is a most commonly seen way of b. When? opening a conversation. But conversations must also be brought to a In the 2nd example,“We’ll have dinner together soon.”or“We close. Quite often the close itself is ritualistic, there is a clothing must get together soon,”are kinds of closing formula. b failed to formula, an exchange of goodbye. Such rituals do not come catch the closing formula. unannounced: they are often preceded by clear indications that closings are about to occur. All topics have been exhausted and 6.5 Politeness nothing more remains to be said, but it is not quite the time to exchange farewells. It is into such places that you fit pre-closing signals which serve to negotiate the actual closing. An actual closing Being polite is a common phenomenon in communication. It is a may involve several steps: the closing down of a topic, eg.“So, that’s very important principle in language use. It has been suggested that agreed”or“One O’clock, then”repeated by the other party or (for example, Robin Lakoff 1972, 1973b, 1977b; Brown and acknowledged in some form; then possibly some kind of pre-closing Levinson 1978; Leech 1980, 1983) politeness is another level to exchange, eg.“Okay–––Okay”; a possible further acknowledgement conversational interaction besides the rules of cooperative principle. of the nature of the exchange, eg “Good to see you again”or“See 6.5.1 Some important researches on politeness you soon”; and finally an exchange of farewells, eg“Bye–––Bye”. Let’s see some examples of closing: Robin Rakoff (1977b) sees Grice’s rules as essentially rules of 1) a. So, that’s agreed? clarity, and proposes that there are two prior rules of“pragmatic b. Yes, agreed. competence.”These are:“Make yourself clear”and“Be polite.” a. Good, I knew you would. Lakoff proposes her own three rules of politeness (R. Lakoff, 1973: b. Yes, no problem really. 292-305): a. Thanks for the help. 1) Formality: don’t impose \remain aloof.

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2) Hesitancy: give the addressee his options, that is, permit the so good that the guest naturally wants a piece of it, and is only addressee to decide his own options. waiting to get permission. 3) Equality or camaraderie: act as though you and the addressee Perhaps the most thorough treatment of the concept of politeness were equal or make him feel good. is that of Penelope Brown and Stephen Levinson (1978. They set up a Geoffery Leech also made up and developed the maxims of Paul model of politeness based on the theory of face-work (面子行为理论) Grice. His view of politeness involves a set of politeness maxims of Erving Goffman. Goffman thinks that in social interaction, we similar to Grice’s maxims. Among these are (Leech, 1983:132): should protect the face of others in order to avoid embarrassment of Tact maxim: Minimize cost to other. Maximize benefit to other. others, and this is a social norm. The wants related to politeness are Generosity maxim: Minimize benefit to self. Maximize cost to the wants of face. The concept directly related to the folk-expression self. “ Approbation maxim: Minimize dispraise of other. Maximize praise of other. Modesty maxim：Minimize praise of self. Maximize dispraise of self. Lakoff pointed out that a hostess would be seen as polite if she said“You must have some of this cake”, but very impolite if she said “You may have some of this cake”. This is strange, since ordinary you would think telling someone what they must do removes all other options, imposes on them, and is therefore impolite. On the other hand, if one is in a position to do it, makes it possible for the hearer to do what he or she wants to do, and would seem polite, or at least considerate. The answer hinges on the fact that the hostess is responsible for the quality of the cake. So offering the cake by placing an obligation on the hearer conforms nicely to the modesty maxim. By implying that she cannot assume that the guest will want the cake is a way in minimizing praise to herself. If the hostess had offered the cake by saying“You may have some of this cake”, she would have violated modesty by appearing to assume that the cake is

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Politeness, then, is the manifestation of respect for other’s face 7) Use a first- person plural pronoun. through speech. For example, in the hospital, a nurse says like this to the patient, Positive politeness involves strategies that let the addressee “Let’s take our pill now, shall we?”Here the action is really at least know that he or she is liked and approved of. We’ve got some of the a request, maybe even an order for the patient to take the pill, despite strategies for positive politeness proposed by Brown and Levinson: the use of“let’s”,“we”, and“our”. 1) Notice the hearer’s interest or need. Negative politeness, on the other hand, usually involves a show For example:“You must be hungry, it’s a long time since of deference and an assurance that the speaker does not wish to breakfast. How about some lunch?” disturb or to interfere with the other’s freedom. Brown and Levinson 2) Let the addressee know that he or she is liked and approved also propose some strategies for negative politeness. Let’s have a of. look at some of them: For example:“Goodness, you have cut your hair.” 1) Apologies: The positive evaluation of an addressee’s accomplishments, For example:“I don’t want to bother you, but…” appearance, or other attributes, a form of speech behaviour culturally 2) Respecting: defined by speakers of English as complimenting.“Tom, you did a Example:“Excuse me, sir, would you mind if I close the good job.”“I like your hairdo.” window?” 3) Exaggerate the interest to the hearer. 3) To be ambiguous: Example:“What a beautiful garden you have.” Example:“I suppose that Harry is coming”. 4) Use signals to show the addressee that he or she is considered 4) Try to minimize imposition on the hearer: a friend or a member of the speaker’s“in-group”. Example:“I just dropped by for a minute if you…”. Example:“Here mate, I was keeping that seat for a friend of “Would you please pass me the salt?” mine…”. 5) To be indirect: 5) Be cooperative. Example: If you want to borrow five dollars, you can say:“I Example: don’t suppose you could lend me 5 dollars”. a. John went to London this weekend. When the degree of threatening face is slight, we can choose b. To London. positive politeness strategy. For example, if you are friends, and you 6) Avoid contradiction. are in the same social position, you can say like this: “Goodness, you a. That’s where you live, Florida? cut your hair! By the way, I came to borrow some flour”. If you don’t b. That’s where I was born. know each other, the hearer is more powerful“I just want to ask if

167 168 Communication 社会语言学 you could lend me a tiny bit of paper.”Here you use the negative Ann: Yes, of course it’s possible. Why are you talking so proper? politeness strategy through the word “a bit” and “if you could lend Ann answered the question, and then attempted to find out why me…”. Therefore, to the negative face threatening act of“asking for the style was wrong. Notice though that when Ann answered the help”, you can use either positive face politeness or negative face question, she matched Trish’s formal style. “Yes, of course, it’s politeness; it depends on the degree of the face threatened. possible”is not a usual college girl’s response to her roommates. It is important to note that the outcome of Brown and Levinson’s “Yeah, sure”is more likely. approach does not contradict the conclusions we would draw by In a car on a date: applying Lakoff’s rules, “Don’t impose” and “Give options” can Pat: Jacques, could you tell me how far we are from our without effort be seen as explications of politeness based on destination? preserving negative face, while “Make A feel good–––be friendly” Jacques: Yes, Patricia. We are about 50 miles from our is just as clearly about positive face preservation. Whatever we have destination. Are you satisfied? said on the basis of a rule-type approach can also be accounted for in As we read this dialogue, we can see the sarcastic tone carried in Brown and Levinson’s terms. the response of Jacques. He uses the formal variant of his girlfriend’s Politeness is typically about preserving everyone’s face, since name: Patricia. Even the“yes”is a formal answer. He continues in a causing loss of face for someone else may inspire him or her to do superformal style, to the point of actually mimicking Pat’s words. something to embarrass you in the future. In a cafeteria: What is surprising is that being too polite seems just as bad Robert: Hi Dave. Hi Bob. socially. Politeness, as much as rudeness, calls for stylistic repairs or Dave: Hello Robert. How are you? even anger. Garfinkel (1967) had his students act too politely at home. Robert: Not bad. You take a test or something? The results were disastrous. Mothers cried. Fathers became furious. Dave: Why no. Of course not. Why do you ask? Since politeness indicates formality, therefore social distance. One’s Robert gives strange looks as if to say “What are you on?” and family interprets intimacy as a sign of affection and belonging. The leaves without replying. converse must seem like rejection (Chaika, 1989: 34). From this example, Robert says“You take a test or something?” In the near replication of Garfinkel’s work, Elain Chaika also actually implies the meaning of“Why are you talking so proper?”or instructed her students to be too polite to their friends. Let’s have a “Is anything wrong?” He wonders whether something happening to look at the results of their investigation: his friend to cause him to seem remote or cold. In the dormitory: Trish: Would it be possible for you to wait for me after class?

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6.5.2 Politeness formula misunderstood as an interrogative question, so the hearer may avoid the“request”. In social interaction, there is often such cases as need prompt Example: A father and a daughter are going out: response of politeness, for instance, greeting, farewell, gratitude, Daughter: You ready? (implies“Hurry up”) apology, compliment, refusal and so on. There are usually formulas Father: Not yet. of expressions. There are both similarity and individuality of 6) Hints：Frequently used between people who are very familiar politeness strategies in different cultures. Ervin-Tripp (1976) has with each other, or the task requested is most special. done detailed research on the expressions of “requests” in American Sister: Oh, dear, I wish I were taller! English. She separated the directives or requests into six categories: Brother: Here, can I get something for you? 1) Needs statements: Which she finds are used by superiors in Sister: Yes, please, some of these green dishes up there. work setting or to superiors in age in family setting. In a word, the more difficult the task is and the farther the For example: a doctor says to a nurse in the hospital: I’ll need a distance between the speakers on ranks, ages and social position, the 19-gauge needle, IV tubing, and a peptic swab. more complicated the structures are. A child to the mother: I need a spoon, Mummy. In the speech acts of Chinese, there are also similar expressions 2) Imperatives: Most frequently used within a family or when of“request”, now let’s see some examples from most indirect to the used downwards in rank or among equals. most direct: For example: When the adults are talking about something and a 1) Questions including 好、行、能、可以吗？好不好、行不 child is shouting, so the adult says to the child: Please. 行、能不能、可不可以，and 怎么样？ Student A speaks to student B in rising tone: Give me a copy. Example: A person walking in the street: 哎，小同学，请你过 3) Imbedded imperatives：Such as “could you…” are used to 来帮我扶一扶车好吗？我要重新捆一捆书。 superiors in rank and age, when the task is especially difficult. 2）Imperatives with 请、劳驾、借光、麻烦您、对不起 and so 4) Permission directives：Are infrequent and used most when the on. activity includes action by the addressee. They are used to superiors A patient: 麻烦您给我换一张，我挂的是眼科。 in rank in the workplace as well as in the family. 3）General interrogative question: Example: A niece to her aunt: Can I invite us to have dinner with A child: 阿姨，有一毛钱的冰棍吗？ you tonight? 4）Hints: 5) Question directives：This category of request is used to Two students were in the washhouse of the dormitory: superiors in rank and\or age. This kind of structure is easily a: 哎哟，我没肥皂。

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b: 用我的吧！ Example: 这是你要借的书。哎，下午你的车用不用？我想借 5) General imperatives: 来骑一下。 Customer: 再给我拿一双吧！这双鞋太小了点儿。你借给我车，我可以替你把你要的那本书买回来。 6) Statements: (祝畹谨, 1992: 167-170) The mother is making breakfast. And the daughter said: 妈，我 A speech act or act sequence, whether it be apologizing, 要吃炸鸡蛋。 thanking, scolding, complimenting, inviting, greeting or parting, or 7）Imperatives: even the telling of a performed story, has important cultural 检票员：把烟掐了。 information embedded in it. At the most superficial level, Through the comparison, we can see English speakers and sociolinguistic data collected systematically and analyzed objectively, Chinese speakers use similar strategies to express the meaning of can yield information as to what specific formulas and routines are in “requests”. In order to make the “requests”effective, and to protect use in a particular speech community, as well as their patterns of the face of the person who is requested, Chinese speakers usually add frequency and appropriateness in different speech situations (Wolfson, something besides the“request”. Let’s take ‘borrowing bicycles from 1989: 110). others’ as an example: An example of cultural information to be gained by an 1) State the reasons: examination of the surface structure of a speech act is the work on Example: 你把车借我用一下，行吗？我的车拿去修了。 how compliments function in the speech of middle-class native 2) Make the person who is required free of worry: speakers of American English (Pomerantz, 1978; Wolfson, 1978b; Example: 借给我车用一下，几分钟就回来，不会耽误你的。 Manes and Wolfson, 1981; Wolfson and Manes, 1980; Wolfson, 3）Flatter the person who is“required”: Make the person feel 1981a, b; Manes, 1983; Wolfson, 1983b; Knapp et al. 1984; happy, and then it’s easier for your desire to be satisfied. Daikuhara, 1986). In the study of compliments, Manes and Wolfson Example: 你的车骑起来真舒服，跑长途也不觉得累，我想借 showed that in American English, compliments are so highly 来用一下。 patterned that they may be regarded as formulas. That is, although it 4）Explore： is not explicitly recognized by native speakers, compliments tend to Example: have clearly definable forms, just as do greetings, apologies or a: 我想求你一件事。 expression of gratitude. The analysis of compliments given in Manes b: 什么事？你说吧！ and Wolfson (1981) and in Wolfson and Manes (1980) is based on a a: 把你的车借我用一下。 corpus of well over twelve hundred examples collected in a great 5）To state that is mutual beneficial: variety of everyday speech situations. An ethnographic approach

173 174 Communication 社会语言学 toward the collection of these data made possible a sampling of the 6. You have (a) ADJ NP! (Examples:“You have such a nice speech behaviour of both men and women of different ages and a bike.”“You have such beautiful hair.”) (2.4 percent) wide variety of occupational, educational, and ethnic backgrounds. 7. What (a) ADJ NP. (Examples:“What a lovely baby you Thus, the data include compliments given and received by jewelers, have!”“What a beautiful car!”) (1.6 percent) hairdressers, clergymen, doctors, and salesclerks. In addition, careful 8. ADJ NP! (Examples:“Nice game!”“Good shot!”) attention was paid to the relationships of the interlocutors, with data 9. Isn’t NP ADJ! (Examples:“Isn’t your skirt beautiful!”“Isn’t collected from such dyads as employers and employees, landlords your ring beautiful!”) (1.0 percent) and tenants, professors and students, classmates, friends, co-workers All these nine patterns account for 97.2 percent of the data. No and family members. The topics of the compliments collected include other pattern occurs more than twice in their data (Wolfson, 1989: personal attributes and professions, children, pets, accomplishments, 111). and changes in appearance (Wolfson, 1989: 110). What we have here is a syntactic formula. Compliments exhibit The analysis of the syntax of all the compliments collected a striking regularity. Compliments fall onto two major categories: the reveals that they are very regular. Well over 50% of all the adjectival and the verbal. The most frequently used adjectival compliments in the corpus make use of a single syntactic pattern: compliments are five different adjectives: nice, good, beautiful, pretty, 1. NP is\looks (really) ADJ (For example:“Your blouse is and great. Indeed, the most frequently used words good and nice are beautiful”.“Your ring is nice”.) so vague and general that they are equally appropriate when referring The other two syntactic patterns: to such diverse subjects as hair (For example:“That’s a good 2. I (really) like \love NP (Examples:“I like your car”.“I like haircut”), clothing (Example:“That sweater looks good”), ability your hairdo.”) (16.1 percent) (Example:“He is a good actor”), and accomplishments of all sorts 3. PRO is (really) (a) ADJ NP. (Examples:“That’s a nice wall (Examples:“Nice shot!”or“Your lecture was good”). That is, because hanging.”“Those are beautiful earring you’re wearing.”) (14.9 nice and good lack specificity, they are usable with almost any percent) subject. In present-day American English, the adjective beautiful is These three major patterns account for 85 percent of the data. In rapidly approaching the same status. The word pretty is used more addition to the major three patterns, they found other six patterns: than great, that is, pretty is the more general adjective. This fact 4. You V (a) (really) ADJ NP. (Example: “You did a good job.”) seems to reflect that greater compliments are directed at women in (3.3 percent) American society. 5. You V (NP) (really) ADV. (Examples:“You ran really fast.” The overwhelming majorities of the verbal compliments are like “You really handled the situation well.”) (2.7 percent) or love. These two verbs can be applied to almost any topic from

175 176 Communication 社会语言学 kittens and ice creams to sports, clothing, jewelry, and people. 86 2) Your husband is a nice guy. percent of compliments which rely on a verb for their positive 3) I like your friends. evaluation make use of either like or love (Wolfson, 1989: 112). 4) a: Hi, Jane. It’s clear that in American English there is an overwhelming b: How’re you doing? Hey, you got your haircut, didn’t you? tendency for speakers to choose from one of only five adjectives and a: (laughs) Yeah. two verbs to express their positive evaluations. b: Looks nice. The compliment formula found in this analysis will look very a: Thanks. familiar to the native speakers, though they themselves may be not The second category of compliments seems to be rather aware of it. Native speakers, even those helped to collect the data, straightforward on the surface. It’s about ability or accomplishment were shocked when they discovered that the way in which Americans (For instance:“You are so efficient.”Or“Nice job!”“She’s eighty and give verbal expressions to the approval and appreciation of one she still does beautiful handiwork.”“You do this kind of writing so another’s appearance and accomplishments is largely prepatterned. well. It has just the right tone.”) With respect to topic, compliment seems to fall naturally into By far the greatest number of compliments involves two general categories: those that focus on appearance and \or interlocutors of equal status. Interestingly enough, however, intimacy possessions, and those that have to do with ability and \or does not favor frequency of complimenting. Indeed, among family accomplishments. The first category is most simple and the most members and housemates we found relatively few compliments. For difficult to characterize. In addition to compliments on apparel, example, a husband does not normally thank his wife for cooking hairstyle, and jewelry, it is not at all unusual for Americans to (though in these days of working wives, it may well be that a wife compliment one another on such seemingly personal matters as does not thank her husband for performing this service ); a housemate weigh loss. Being slim has strong positive value among mainstream does not normally thank another for marketing or cleaning or taking speakers of American English, and the adjective thin (For example: out the trash. “ You look thin ”“ You’ve lost weight ” ) is interpreted as By far the greatest number of appearance\possession complimentary in itself in this society. Speakers from other societies compliments are given and received by acquaintances, colleagues, may be confused, and even consider as an insult. Americans like to and casual friends. It is useful for nonnative speakers to know, for make favorable compliments on the attractiveness of one’s children, example, that the quality of newness is so highly valued in American pets, and even husbands, boyfriends, wives, girlfriends or cars and society that a compliment is appropriate whenever an acquaintance is houses (Wolfson, 1989: 113). Let’s have a look at some examples: seen with something new, whether it is a car, a new article of clothing, 1) Your baby is adorable. or a haircut. The fact that the new appearance may be due to an

177 178 Communication 社会语言学 alteration (such as a new hairstyle or the loss of weight) as well as to b: I just throw soothing into the pot. a purchase leads us to conclude that the true importance of the Anther very frequent response to a compliment is to return it. comment lies in the speaker’s having noticed a change, thereby Pomerrantz points out that this is most frequent in“openings and proving that he or she considers the addressee worthy of attention closings of interactions”. For example, in an opening: (Wolfson, 1989: 114). a: You lookin good. In her study of compliment responses, Pomerantz (1978) takes b: Great, S’r you. note of a different sort of cultural value at work in the In speech situations in which compliments are given by persons compliment\response sequence. Thus, although the preferred of higher status than the addressee, the safest and most appropriate behavior is for the recipient of a compliment to accept it with an response is simple“thank you”. appreciation, this conflicts with another norm, or what she calls“the Another significant finding, mentioned by Wolfson (1978) and self-praise avoidance ” constraint. For this reason, she says, it elaborated by Maes (1983), is that in downgrade compliments, frequently happens that speakers will downgrade the compliment by responses by speakers of American English rarely deny that the praising the same referent in weaker terms or by shifting the credit recipient has the quality mentioned. In this respect, compliment away from themselves. This shift is an important technique, occurring responses in American English are rather different from those that are rather frequently in the Maes and Wolfson corpus as well. Pomerantz appropriate in some other speech communities where the very quality gives the example: being complimented may be denied. In response to a compliment on a: This is beautiful. the beauty of a house, therefore, an American might say,“Well, we b: …’N that nice. would have liked to have a bigger one”or“We wish the neighborhood c: Yah. It really is. were quieter,”but Americans would be very unlikely to say that the b: It wove itself. Once it was set up. speaker was wrong and that the house was not beautiful at all Examples from the Maes and Wolfson corpus: (Wilfson, 1989: 116). In discussing giving and responding to 1) a: This is beautiful. I’ve been admiring it since I came in. compliments, it is important to stress that the findings presented here b: It’s from Israel. relate specifically to middle-class speakers of American English. 2) a: Boy, it’s nice work. I don’t know how you do it. In Chinese, the compliments are also regular, most compliments b: It’s easy when you have good tools. includes adverb intensifiers such as“真”、“太”、“这么”、“很”、“挺”、 3) a: That’s a pretty sweater. “特别”、“多”、“好”. b: My mother gave it to me. For example: 4) a: Great meal! 1) 这套家具真不错！

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2) 今天你干得太棒了。 social relationships they reveal was published by Rodger Brown and Compared with English, Chinese speakers do not like to use the Albert Gilman in 1960 (Brown and Gilman, 1960, 1972). Using a pattern as“我喜欢你的……”to compliment the possessions of others, variety of methods, such as informal interviews, the analysis of works for fear that others will feel you want their possessions. English of literature (particularly drama), and the results of a survey speakers use“thanks”much more frequently than Chinese speakers, questionnaire, they investigated second-person pronoun usage in for example English speakers use “thanks”between family members, French, German, Italian and Spanish. They proposed that pronoun and between customers and shop assistants. Chinese speakers usually usage was governed by two semantics, which they call power and do not express thanks in such situations; they consider the service as solidarity (权势和同等关系) (Fasold, 2000: 3). They use the terms natural. On the other hand, Chinese speakers will be much more power and solidarity to show the complicated personal relationship. grateful when they accept the offer of help from others, so when it is The power pronoun semantic, like the power relationship, is necessary for them to express thanks, the acts of thanks are usually nonreciprocal. A person has power over another person to the degree accompanied by rewards. that he or she can control the other person’s behavior. This relationship is nonreciprocal because two people can’t have power over each other in the same area. In the same way, the other semantic 6.6 Forms of address governs the nonreciprocal use of two pronouns. Less powerful person says V (the term Brown and Gilman use to designate the deferential How do you name or address another? By title (T), by first name pronoun in any of the languages, taking the first letter from Latin (FN), by last name (LN), by a nickname, by some combination of vous) to the more powerful one and receives T (the familiar pronoun, these, or by nothing at all, so deliberately avoiding the problem? from Latin Tu). The bases of power are several. Older people are What factors govern the choice you make? Is the address process assumed to have power over younger people, parents over children, asymmetrical or symmetrical? When we speak, we must constantly employers over employees, nobles over peasants, military officers make choices of many different kinds, and we will see that certain over enlisted soldiers (Fasold, 2000: 4). For example, A is older than linguistic choices we make indicate the social relationship between B. A is B’s father. A is richer than B. A is stronger than B. A is B’s people. employer. Among these relations, A has power over B. The power semantic would be sufficient only if a society were 6.6.1 Research of second-person pronoun so finely stratified that each individual had an asymmetrical T\V usage relationship with every other individual; in other words there were no The classic and most influential study of address forms and the power equals. Since this was never the case, at least in Europe, a

181 182 Communication 社会语言学 residual rule for power equals was necessary. This rule called for the of the higher classes (Fasold, 2000: 4-5). reciprocal use of the same pronoun between power equals. Since the Brown and Gilman proposed that, by the mid-twentieth century, V form entered European society from the top, the V form was solidarity had almost completely won out over power as the dominant associated with the noble classes, and nobles originally address each governing semantic. And they held that: first, although solidarity had other with mutual V. Among the common people power equals used T succeeded power as the dominant semantic in French, German, and with each other. Italian, and the basis for solidarity seems to be broadening for Since not all differences between people are connected with speakers of all three languages, speakers of these three languages power, a second semantic, the solidarity semantic, developed. Two seemed to pick out different factors as the favored bases for solidarity. people can be equally powerful in the social order, but be from For example, family relationships were more likely to lead to mutual different families, come from different parts of the country, and be in T for German speakers, while “ shared fate ” (such as being different, if equally respected, professions. In other words the need fellow-students or fellow-countrymen abroad) appeared to be more developed to distinguish a degree of common ground between people important to French speakers. Second, there was a striking correlation which went beyond simply having equal power. This is where between reported individual usage of mutual T and political solidarity came in. solidarity implied a sharing between people, a radicalism. degree of closeness and intimacy. This relationship was inherently Since Brown and Gilman reported their research, a number of reciprocal; if you are close to some one else, in the most natural state other scholars have conducted research on the same and other of affairs, that person was close to you. Wherever the solidarity languages, among them Lambert and Tucker (1976) and Bates and semantic applies, then, the same pronoun is used by both people. Benigni (1975). Their studies are both in total agreement, with each Originally, according to Brown and Gilman, the solidarity other and with other studies, that there is considerable variation in semantic came into play only where it did not interfere with the pronoun choice based on the background of the speaker. Not only is power semantic. This would be, of course, between power equals. It this true across languages, as Brown and Gilman stated, but even two people were equally powerful, but not solidarity–––they did not within the same language and community, depending on the share anything significant, like family background or origins in the speaker’s social class, age, sex, and other social factors. same village–––they would exchange V, as the noble classes did 6.6.2 Address forms of American English before the solidarity semantic developed. The difference was that now mutual V would be used between nonsolidary equals, among One of the earliest sociolinguistic studies of speech behaviour common people as well as among nobles. If power equals were among speakers of American English concerns the way people in this solidary, they would exchange mutual T, even if they were members society address one another. Perhaps because forms of address are

183 184 Communication 社会语言学 frequent and easily observed, and they have long been considered a to region and social class. In some cases, variation is great enough to very salient indicator of status relationships, they have received cause miscommunication and in others it may merely serves as a considerable attention in the scholarly literature. The significance of marker of social or regional differences. Wolfson and Manes (1978) work on personal address forms are elegantly described by authors: report that address form ma’ma has different meanings in the Personal address is a sociolinguistic subject par excellence. In southern part of the United States than it has elsewhere. In the South, every language and society, every time one person speaks to another, the term ma’am is often used as a substitute for the formula“I beg there is created a host of options centering on whether and how your pardon?”or“Pardon?”in asking someone to repeat what she has persons will be addressed, named, and described. The choices said or to explain something. For example: speakers make in such situations, and their meanings to those who 1) a. Could you tell me how late you’re open this evening? interpret them are systematic, not random. Such systematicity in b. Ma’am? (= Pardon?) language behavior, whether of use or interpretation, is universal; a. Could you tell me how late you’re open this evening? although what elements comprise the personal address system and b. Until six. what rules govern its deployment, vary across contexts. And such In addition, it was found that the phrase“Yes, ma’ma.”Is often variation in structure is correlated with social ends and social used instead of“You are welcome.”as a response to“Thank you.” contexts of language use. From this view, personal address is a For example: systematic, variable, and social phenomenon, and these features of it 2) a. Could you tell me how late you open this evening? make it a sociolinguistic variable of fundamental importance b. Until nine. (Philipsen and Huspek, 1985: 94). a. Thank you very much. As Ervin-Tripp (1966) has pointed out, there are differences b. Yes, ma’ma. (=You are welcome.) even in the way different social groups in the United States use forms Not only is the form ma’ma given different meaning in the of address. For speakers in the West Coast academic community of South, it is also used in very different social contexts than elsewhere which she is a member, the title“Doctor”is always followed by the in the country. In the Northeast, for example, ma’ma was found to last name of the addressee. Lower-status occupational groups, occur between strangers and, to a lesser extent, from lower- to however, often use such titles as“Doctor”without last name as upper-status speakers. In the South, however, it was found that the address forms. Unlike the situation involving pronoun selection in term ma’ma is used not only to strangers but also to acquaintances Sweden described earlier by Paulston in 1976, however, this differing and even intimates. Thus, graduate students at the University of pattern in address forms does not lead to miscommunication. Virginia were heard to be addressed as ma’ma by their male Sociolinguistic rules are subject to considerable variation with respect professors, female colleagues were given this address form by their

185 186 Communication Communication 社会语言学 who has just moved into a neighborhood meets the new neighbors, necessary social difference were present) to mutual FN: that is, two mutual FN is commonly exchanged as soon as the introductions are people might start out calling each other by TLN, then the older or over. This is characteristic of Americans and would not be true of higher-status person might begin calling the other by FN and later speakers of other languages, or even other English speakers. In fact, they might use mutual FN. the meaning of such notions as“solidarity”“, power”and“intimacy” This model has proved to be extraordinarily powerful as a means from one country to another, and even from one social group to of analyzing address forms not only in English but in a number of another in the same country, is a major source of variation in address other languages as well. form usage (Fasold, 2000: 8-9). A noteworthy phenomenon concerning address forms among The nonreciprocal pattern is governed by two dimensions: age speakers of American English, however, is the way in which and occupational status. The member of a dyad who is older (a strangers in public situations address unknown women by terms of difference of 15 years or more seems to be significant) will be called endearment (Wolfson and Manes, 1978). In an ethnographic by TLN and call the younger person by FN. The person with higher investigation of the forms of address used to women in service occupational status also has a privilege to be addressed with TLN encounters (eg. Address by gas station attendants, waiters and while addressing the other person with FN. When there is a conflict waitresses, salesclerks), it was observed that women in American between these two dimensions, it will be occupational status that society are often addressed with a good deal less respect than are men takes precedence; the older janitor will be called by FN and address (Wolfson, 1989: 81). We have already talked about it in detail when the executive by TLN (Brown and Ford, 1964: 237). concerning language and gender, but it is still worth noting here that It is easy to see that the Brown and Ford results are remarkably such usage is one of the many ways in which forms of address play a similar to the early work on T and V. The mutual exchange of FN, part in both expecting and perpetuating inequality between the sexes like mutual T, marks a socially acceptable level of solidarity. The in American society. absence of sufficient solidarity, but with no difference in power, Sometimes people do“violates”address form usage to express mutual TLN will be used in the same way that mutual V is. If we social relationships. Ervin-Tripp cites a real-life example of it in interpret age and occupational status as manifestations of power, and English. The example is taken from a magazine article written by the it’s clear that it is what Brown and Gilman intended, then the black American psychologist, Alvin Poussaint. Dr. Poussaint gave the nonreciprocal pattern seems to be very much like the receding use of following account of being stopped a number of years ago by a white nonreciprocal T/V in the European languages (Fasold, 2000: 9). policeman in a southern town in the United States. Let’s have a look Brown and Ford also noticed that there was a natural at the scene on a public street in contemporary US: progression from mutual TLN to nonreciprocal TLN/FN (provided the “What’s your name, boy?”the policeman asked…

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“Dr Poussaint. I’m a physician…” other person is an adult. Her model calls for addressing any child by “What’s your first name, boy?…” his or her first name if you know it and not using any name if you do “Alvin.” not. (An adult, according to Ervin-Tripp, is a person who has reached We know that“boy”is a derogatory address form for black the age appropriate for completing secondary school; about 18 in people. Anybody familiar with American address rules can tell the USA.) The next two junctures in Ervin-Tripp’s model involve“status feelings reported by Dr Poussaint:“As my heart palpitated, I muttered marked setting”and whether or not the other person’s name is known. in profound humiliation…or the moment, my manhood had been Neither of these is mentioned in earlier research, but setting is surely ripped from me…no amount of self-love could have salvaged my important and probably accounts for the “depends on the situation” pride or preserved my integrity…[I felt] self-hate.”Simply by his responses. As for the middle of the top part of Ervin-Tripp’s display, manipulation of the address form system, the officer was able to there is striking agreement with Brown and Ford. If the speaker is not show that, as far as he was concerned, no black person could possibly on intimate terms with the addressee (that is, not a“friend or be treated any more deferentially than a small child, even if he were colleague”) then some form of TLN will be used. This agrees with an adult member of a respected profession (Fasold, 2000: 23). what we know about the use of FN to people the speaker is on The asymmetric use of names and address terms is often a clear reasonably close term with. Notice that rank precedes age, if the other indicator of a power differential. School classrooms are almost person is of higher rank, the age juncture will not enter into the universally good examples; John and Sally are likely to be children decision. Again, we have agreement with what we have already seen: and Miss or Mr. Smith to be teachers. For a long time in the southern rank dominates age as a criterion. It is possible for a younger or states of the United States, white used naming and addressing lower-status person to address an older or higher-status person by FN, practices to put blacks in their place. Hence the odious use of Boy to but only if there is a“dispensation”. In other words, the older or more address black males. The asymmetrical use of names also was part of highly ranked person is privileged to decide how he or she will be the system. Whites addressed blacks by their first names in situations addressed, as we have already seen. Where there is overlap between which required them to use titles, or titles and last names, if they Ervin-Tripp’s work and the other studies, there is agreement. were addressing whites. There was a clear racial distinction in the Earvin-Tripp (1969) gives a very clear description of the rules practice (Wardhaugh, 2000: 265). for American English: Ervin-Tripp took a quite different approach to the study of A priest, physician, dentist, or judge may be addressed by title American address form use. She presents the address form system as alone, but a plain citizen or an academic person may not. In the latter a series of choices, using the computer flow chart format(计算机流 cases, if the name is unknown, there is no address form (or zero, 0) 程图). First Ervin-Tripp calls for a decision about whether or not the available and we simply noname the addressee.

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So, when people use language, they do more than just try to get pronoun in the language. another person to understand the speaker’s thoughts and feelings. At The address forms of even these European languages are simple the same time, both people are using language in subtle ways to to use compared with the choices in many Asian languages. In Hindi, define their relationship to each other, to identify themselves as part for example, there are three second-person pronouns to select from. of a social group, and to establish the kind of speech event they are In Thai, speakers not only have to select from a long list of in. second-person forms, but have several socially determined words for In no areas of sociolinguistics is this function of language, the people to choose from, in addition to sentence-ending particles that function as an“act of identity”, more clearly highlighted than in convey social information. address forms. Address forms are the words speakers use to designate 6.6.3 Address forms of Chinese the person they are talking to while they taking to them. There are two main kinds of address forms: names and second-person There are a lot of research on Chinese address forms. In early pronouns. 1950s of the 20th century, Zhao Yuanren (1956: 217-241) had detailed English speakers have it easy compared to speakers of most description on modern Chinese address forms. According to his languages in the world. They need only decide what name to use and article, Xiao Jie (小姐), Tai Tai (太太), Xian Sheng (先生) are most can probably avoid using any name at all for quite a long while. commonly used address forms in Chinese. But he didn’t talk about Speakers of French, German, Italian, like speakers of all European the changes of the address forms after the liberation of China. languages, have to make choice in the word for you as well, and this In Chinese, the use of address terms has changed as the social is also true in Chinese address system. These languages have two and political situation has altered. Chinese has forms for“you”that forms for“you”; One is for people who deserve deference either roughly parallel the T and V forms in European languages with ni (你) because their social station is above the speakers, or because the as the T form and nin (您) as V. According to Fang and Heng (1983), speaker does not have a sufficiently close personal relationship with this distinction largely fell out of use after the revolution of 1949. At them. The other one is used for people who are either close to the present, nin (您) has been largely replaced by ni (你) in spoken usage speaker or of lesser social standing. In some languages, like French, in some parts of the country, including the south. Even in the south, the deferential pronoun is grammatically and historically a plural nin (您)might be used by educated speakers to show respect for the form (vous) but is used when speak to one individual who deserves person they are addressing. In Beijing and other parts of northern deference, rather than the grammatical singular tu. In others the China, nin (您) is still commonly used when someone is talking to an deferential pronoun come from somewhere else in the language. For older person. In writing, nin is sometimes still used, especially in the instance, The German deferential Sie is the same as the third-person opening greeting formula nin hao (您好) functionally something like

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“Dear sir”. eg. de Wang Tongzhi (王同志’) The use of generic honorific titles, particularly 先生 (Mr), 太 4）Adjective + surname +同志太 (Mrs) and 小姐 (Miss), fell out of favor after 1949, as well as eg. Lao Wang Tongzhi (老王同志) titles based on status that had no meaning in the new society. After 5）surname + first name + 同志 liberation, women’s social position was improved, the address forms eg. Wang Weiguo Tongzhi (王卫国同志) between the husband and wife became 爱人 (lovers). So is the word 6) first name +同志老板 (proprietor) (it was no longer possible to be a proprietor). This eg Weiguo Tongzhi (卫国同志) removed more titles than it would in English, since title based on 7) title+同志 employment were and are more common than in English, where eg. Juzhang Tongzhi (局长同志) “doctor”,“professor”, and military ranks are only common ones (祝畹瑾, 1992: 151) used like this. The form tongzhi“Comrade”, was the replacement, During the Cultural Revolution of 1966-76, some supervisory since it reflected the egalitarian ideals of the new order. The positions were eliminated and their function taken over by appearance of 同志 is a very important marker of the Chinese revolutionary committees, making the titles associated with those address forms after 1949. Some titles were retained, like 老师 positions obsolete. At the same time, workers were moved to (teacher), 主任 (director), and 师傅 (master), in the sense of professional positions while professional people were sent to work in master craftsperson, used to skilled workers like machinists and factories. This led to some spread of tongzhi where other titles are carpenters Carol Scotten and Zhu Wanjin (1983) had done detailed used before, and considerable increase in the use of Shifu (师傅), research on the word 同志. Tongzhi can be used alone to address because the virtue of the working people was being emphasized， someone, or with a name or another title. It is also possible to use Shifu (师傅) was used as an address form to show respect. Some Tongzhi with a first name, especially between newly-acquainted speakers used this word to flatter others. For example, a young people of equal standing in formal letters, and from superiors to worker said like this to a worker at the post office：同志，我要发份 inferiors. 电报。Then the worker in the post office handed him a piece of According to Zhu Wanjin, there are seven types of Tongzhi telegraph paper. Then the young worker said again：师傅，这电报纸 address forms: 怎么写法？ 1) title alone Tongzhi (同志) A young worker in a hotel said to a female ticket inspector：师 2) Adjective+Tongzhi 傅，让我们进去吧！The ticket inspector answered：不行，没有票， eg. Lao Tongzhi (老同志), Xiao Tongzhi (小同志) 不让进。And the young worker said at last: 叫你师傅，还不行吗？ 3）surname+同志 (祝畹瑾, 1992: 154)

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After the leaders of Cultural Revolution were politically solidarity and familiarity are not sufficient to allow a title to be left defeated and workers returned to factories, the use of shifu declined, out. although it is still more widely used in some regions and segments of According to Scotton and Zhu’s analysis, the use of tongzhi can society than it was previously. In spite of official support for the use have special effects when power and solidarity are both part of the of tongzhi as a universal address title, it has not become the only form social interaction precisely because other address forms are possible in actual use. On the basis of a substantial number of observations of and a speaker deliberately chooses tongzhi. When solidarity is part of actual use in China, Scotton and Zhu developed an analysis using the a relationship, for example, even when one person has more authority, basic concepts of Brown and Gilman. However, they distinguish both a form like Lao Liang“, Old Liang”, might be expected. If the speaker solidarity and familiarity from power and from each other. Solidarity with more authority has to reprimand the other, Liang Tongzhi might is a common characteristic“that can not be denied, such as kinship, be used instead. For example, a college teacher intends to change his nationality or party membership”. Familiarity refers to a history of job, he wants to work in a research institute, he talks with the voluntary encounters between individuals; basically they choose to be vice-president of the university like this: Teacher：黄副校长，我有 friends. These three conditions do not exclude each other (in fact 件事跟你谈谈。我想调动工作到科研岗位去 (“Vice-president familiarity usually means that solidarity is also present), but one or Huang, I’d like to talk with you about something. I’d like to know if I another can become most salient. can transfer to a job of research”). The vice-president of the When solidarity and familiarity are sufficiently strong, there are university：梁同志，有困难，我们帮你解决；调工作，我们不能 a number of forms that will be used. Kin terms can be used, or first 同意. (“Comrade Liang, we will help you if you are in trouble, but names alone. Another possibility is to use Lao“, old”(for people of the we won’t let you go.”) As Scotton and Zhu explain it, the use of same age or older), or Xiao,“Little”(to younger people) before the tongzhi emphasizes not the solidarity between the speaker and the surname. To address someone as Lao Wang,“old Wang”is very hearer, but the solidarity relationship between the addressee and the friendly in Chinese and does not have the slightly insulting flavor it Chinese people as a whole. In other words, the vice-president is might have in English. When there is a power differential, and the saying, in effect,“I can’t let our relationship influence me here, I have person with the greater power has an occupational title, they can be to treat you just like anybody else.”Tongzhi ironically becomes a way addressed by that title along with their surname. This practice is not of temporarily establishing a certain social distance between speaker uncommon, although Fang and Heng find it contemptibly contrary to and addressee. the ideals of Chinese society. In solidarity remain unknown, tongzhi, If the speakers have power differences but they have solidarity, with or without a name, is to be expected. Tongzhi is also used to an the less powerful speaker may address the more powerful one as“同 addressee whose occupation is known, but does not have a title, and 志 (Tongzhi)”or“同志 (Tongzhi) + title”in order to remove the

197 198 Communication 社会语言学 social distance between them. For example: A driver went to visit a of the office and would be offended at being addressed with tongzhi cadre: instead of the occupational title and might not grant your request. Driver: 张司长，没出门啊！忙吧？ More recently, the use of tongzhi is sharply declining, because it Commander：哟，老宋，你家小宋现在开车不错了吧？ is associated with the era of the Cultural Revolution, an era that is Driver：我跟他妈担心，怕他撞人，司长同志，你能不能给 now not looked at favorably. While tongzhi might be used in writing 他换一个工作？ and to address strangers, especially in the north, to use tongzhi to If the speakers are quite familiar with each other, one can call address some one you know now seems unnecessarily formal to the other 同志 (Tongzhi) to remind the other that they have many Chinese people, and is often used to make jokes. The most solidarity. For example: common address forms are lao, xiao. Shifu is still used to address an A cadre named Zhang Daming (张大明) went to visit his sister. unknown man, and dajie,“elder sister”, would be preferred for Usually the sister will call his name Zhang Daming, but when talking addressing an unknown women if she is middle-aged or older. To about traveling to Huangshan, the sister said like this：“张大明同志， some extent, the use of xiansheng,“Mr” and xiaojie,“Miss”, are 我可要说清楚，你这次去黄山，一切费用我都包了。”So we know increasing, particularly in the coastal provinces, Guangdong and people use the word 同志 deliberately to adjust their social distance Fujian, where there is more contact with outsiders. (祝畹瑾, 1992: 152-3). The use of address forms in Chinese is fascinating for two Used to an addressee with great authority who is well known, reasons. The use of tongzhi, shifu, and other forms has ebbed and tongzhi has the opposite ultimate effect, but in a way by the same flowed with social and political change and reflects those changes. At route. By emphasizing the solidarity that all Chinese people have. the same time, the alternative forms available allow speakers to The power difference in the immediate relationship is reduced. So for manipulate the tone of some encounters in quite subtle ways. example, one of Scotton and Zhu’s examples has a section head Perhaps the most obvious point where social factors influence bringing a report to his superior. He first addresses the superior as language is in the selection of address forms. In many languages, and “Bureau Head Wang”, and then delivers the report. But his goal is in English at an earlier time in its history, there are two or more to get Wang to agree to some changes, so after finishing the report, he words for“you”. One of these is used for people you are close to, or says,“Comrade Bureau Head, I know our comrades have some who have a lower social position than you do. The other is used for opinions. Do you think you can make some changes in the project?” people you are less well acquainted with or who are socially superior. The tactic would be hazardous if you are approaching an official you The use of these forms in several European languages was analyzed do not know personally, according to Fang and Heng. There is a in a classical article By Roger Brown and Albert Gilman (1960/1972). chance that the official might be one who insisted on the prerogatives They found that the use of the familiar pronoun T and the deferential

199 200 Communication 社会语言学 pronoun V were governed by two forces, which they called power even differences from one individual speaker to another. and solidarity. Power derives from higher or lower social status, and Both uniformity and considerable group and individual variation solidarity derives from intimacy and shared fate. According to Brown are characteristic of address form systems. At least in Western and Gilman, European dual second person pronoun systems societies, forces that can loosely be called“power”and“solidarity” originally expressed power familiarity and solidarity only secondarily. govern address forms. But the relative strength of each, how they are Now solidarity dominates power as the semantic that is most defined, and how to apply them to everyday choices varies a good important in selecting T or V form. deal. A brief look at the use if tongzhi and other address forms in In English, as well as other languages, the choice between first Chinese (Fang and Heng 1983; Scotton and Zhu 1983) shows that name (FN) and title and last name (TLN) is in many ways parallel to they are more intricate than is typical in European languages, but the the T/V dichotomy. Roger Brown and Marguerite Ford (1964) influences on its use–––and the variation in applying those influences conducted a study on how these forms are socially distributed in –––are quite reminiscent of what we find in western societies. American English. Their results indicate that, for the most part, only three patterns are used: reciprocal FN, reciprocal TLN, and Questions for consideration nonreciprocal FN/TLN. The two reciprocal patterns are governed by intimacy (similar to solidarity) and the nonreciprocal pattern is governed by age and occupation status (related to power). Susan 1．Comment on each of the following address practices. What’s Ervin-Tripp conducted another classic study of American English your own practice, if relevant, in each case? Teacher–––student: address, using a computer flow chart model that has been much TLN\FN; FN\FN. Physician–––patient: T\FN; TLN\TLN; FN\FN. imitated since then. Father and son: T (Dad)\FN; FN\FN. Older people who lives next In 1968, Slobin et al. conducted a replication of the Brown and door to you: TLN\TLN; FN\FN; TLN\FN. Ford research, which verified the main points they had made. 2．How do you address a stranger? Does the form of address Numerous scholars have followed up the Brown and Gilman research. depend in any way on factors as that person’s sex, age, ethnicity, While the broad outlines of Brown and Gilman’s analysis seem to be dress, perceived role, physical well-being, or behavior? Is it true that valid, some refinements seem to be necessary. Several studies–––for the primary consideration in addressing strangers is“be polite”and example, Lambert and Tucker (1976), Bates and Benigni (1975), and therefore“be deferential”? Paulston (1975)–––make it clear that the application of the power and 3．In what circumstances might a specific individual be addressed solidarity semantics can vary substantially not only from language to as Smith, Mr. Smith, Professor Smith, Smithie, John Smith, John, language, but from one community where the language is spoken to Johnnie, Honey, Sir, You, and by no term at all? another in the same community. Furthermore, it is clear that there are

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American Indian languages spoken here before the Europeans came is recognized at one level but rarely taken into consideration in the 7 Language contact context of the multilingual/multicultural composition of the population. In addition, as we all know, millions of immigrants speaking literally hundreds of different languages have been coming to settle here ever since. By the late 17th century, approximately 20 7.1 Bilingualism and multilingualism different languages were spoken here apart from the many Native American languages. Two centuries later, at the height of the great One of the most persistent misunderstandings about language is wave of immigration that took place during the end of the 19th that there is, or should be, a one-to-one correspondence between century and the beginning of the 20th century, the United States language and nation. The fact is that we would be hard pressed to Immigration Commission reported that almost 50 percent of all find a single example of a completely monolingual nation. There are students in secondary schools were of foreign-born parentage. Indeed, majority languages, minority languages, dominant languages and “a July 1975 survey by the National Center for Education Statistics oppressed languages, but there is hardly a country in the world in found that 13 percent of the U.S. population lives in households in which only one language is spoken. Far from being a deviant which languages other than English are spoken”(Glazer, 1978: 32). In phenomenon, bilingualism and multilingualism are in fact, the norm fact, census report from 1970 showed that well over 16 percent of the (Wolfson, 1989:257). In many parts of the world, the ability to speak United States population claimed a language other than English as more than one language is not at all remarkable. their mother tongue. Given the negative attitude towards the minority The United States is an immigrant country. Except the Indians language, it is impossible to know how many of those people asked and their descendants, all the others are immigrants. Thus, the United chose not to admit their foreign background. What this means is that States is and always has been a multilingual and multicultural country. in spite of great efforts made to Americanized and de-ethnicized both In spite of this well-known historical fact, there is an illusion that the Native Americans and immigrant groups in this country, large United States is a monolingual English-speaking country. Although numbers of people in the United States have continued to speak a every schoolchild learns that the United States was colonized not great variety of languages other than English. only by the English but also by Spanish, French, German, and Dutch At the present time, for example, after more than a century of settlers as well, it is often forgotten that English was far from being the most stringent efforts to eradicate American India languages, the only colonial language spoken by Europeans who came to live in there are approximately 150 of them still being spoken in this country. this part of the“new world.”The fact that there were hundreds of Even today, many Indian adults remember being taken to schools run

203 204 Language contact 社会语言学 entirely in English by the Bureau of Indian Affairs. And the Indian they speak, and must be suitably promoted to enumerate which children were punished and even beaten if they were heard speaking languages they speak and to describe how well they speak each one their own languages. In spite of these and other pressures, both social (Wardhaugh, 2000: 95-6). and economic, many Native American and immigrant groups have In many parts of the world people speak a number of languages made strong and often successful attempts to maintain their ancestral and individuals may not be aware of how many different languages languages (Wolfson, 1989:231-2). they speak. They speak them because they need to do so in order to One of the interesting examples of multilingualism exists among live their lives. In such situations language learning comes naturally the Tukano of the northwest Amazon, on the border between and is quite unforced. Bilingualism or multilingualism is not at all Columbia and Brazil (Sorenson, 1971). The Tukano are a remarkable. To be a Tukano you must be multilingual and a skilled multilingual people because men must marry outside their language user of the languages you know; that is an essential part of your group; that is, no man may marry a wife who speaks his language, for Tukano identity (Waudhaugh, 2000: 97). that kind of marriage relationship is not permitted and would be A different kind of bilingual situation exists in Paraguay (see, viewed as a kind of incest. Men choose the women they marry from Rubin, 1968). Because of its long isolation from Spain and the small various neighboring tribes who speak other languages. Furthermore, number of its Spanish-speaking population, an American Indian on marriage, women move into the men’s households. Consequently, language, Guarani, has flourished in Paraguay to the extent that today in any village several languages are used: the language of the men; it is the mother tongue of about 90 percent of the population and a the various languages spoken by women who originate from different second language of several additional percent. On the other hand, neighboring tribes; and a widespread regional“trade”language. Spanish, which is the sole language of less than 7 percent of the Children are born into this multilingual environment: the child’s population, is the official language of the government and the father speaks one language, the child’s mother another, and other medium of education, although in recent years some use has been women with whom the child has daily contact perhaps still others. made of Guarani in primary education. In the 1951 census just over However, everyone in the community is interested in language half the population were bilingual in Guarani or and Spanish. The learning so most people can speak most of the languages. capital city, Asuncion, is almost entirely bilingual, but the further one Multilingualism is taken for granted, and moving from one language goes into the countryside away from the cities and towns the more to another in the course of a single conversation is very common. In monolingually Guarani-speaking the population becomes. fact, multilingualism is so usual that the Takano are hardly conscious Spanish and Guarani exist in a relationship that Fishman (1980) that they do speak different languages as they shift easily from one to calls“extended diglossic”in which Spanish is the H (High) and the another. They cannot readily tell an outsider how many languages Guarani the L (Low) variety. Spanish is the language used on formal

205 206 Language contact 社会语言学 occasions; it is always used in government business, in conversation limiting. There is a long history in certain western societies of people with strangers who are well dressed, with foreigners, and in most actually“looking down”on those who are bilingual. They give business transactions. People use Guarani, however, with friends, prestigious to only a certain few classical languages (eg. Greek and servants, and strangers who are poorly dressed, in the confessional, Latin) or modern language of high culture (eg. English, French, tell jokes or make love, and on most casual occasions. Spanish is the Italian, and German). You generally get little credit for speaking preferred language of the cities, but Guarani is preferred in the Swahili，and until recently at least, not much more for speaking countryside, and the lower almost always use it for just about every Russian, Japanese, Arabic, or Chinese. Bilingualism is actually purpose in rural areas. sometimes regarded as a problem in that many bilingual individuals Parents may attempt to help the children improve their tend to occupy rather low social positions in society. Bilingualism is knowledge of Spanish in their presence, for: after all, Spanish is the sometimes seen as a personal or social problem, not something that language of educational opportunity and is socially preferred. But has strong positive connotations. One unfortunate consequence is that between themselves and with the children absent they will switch to some western societies go to great lengths to downgrade, even Guarani. In the upper class, males may well use Guarani with one eradicate, the languages that immigrants bring with them while at the another to show friendship; upper-class female prefer Spanish in such same time trying to teach them foreign languages in schools. circumstances. Outside Paraguay, Paraguayans may deliberately A bilingual or multilingual situation can produce still other choose to converse in Guarani to show their solidarity, particularly effects on one or more of the languages involved. It can lead to loss, when among other South American Spanish-speaking people. eg. language loss among immigrants. But sometimes it leads to Spanish may also be the language they choose to use when diffusion, that is, certain features spread from one language to the addressing superiors. Men tell jokes and talk about women and sports other as a result of language contact situation, particularly certain in Guarani, but they discuss business affairs in Spanish. syntactic features. This phenomenon has been observed in such areas We can see, therefore, that the choice between Spanish and as the Balkans, the south of Indian, and Sri Lanka. Guarani depends on a variety of factors: location (city or country), formality, sex, status, intimacy, seriousness, and the type of activity. 7.2 Bilingualism and diglossia The choice of one code rather than the other is obviously related to situation (Wardhaugh, 2000:98). According to Wardhaugh (2000:98), bilingualism and As we have seen, populations speaking different languages come multilingualism are normal in many parts of the world and that into contact with one another not only through conquest but also people in those parts would view any other situation as strange and through the effects of large-scale migration. Such resettlements

207 208 Language contact 社会语言学 frequently result in situations in which different ethnolinguistic sociolinguistic situation in which two languages are used in mutually groups live side by side in the same geographic area, each exclusive domains by the same speech community. One of the two, maintaining its own language and culture, sometimes for centuries. the high language (H), has a standardized writing system, possesses a Interactions occur, and, depending on a variety of factors, one or well-developed literature, and is used in government and in education. more of the populations in question may become bilingual in the The low language (L), characterized by Ferguson as a nonstandard language(s) of the other. In some such situations, the languages are variety of H, is the everyday spoken language of the community and roughly equal in status. More often, however, it happens that at least rarely appears in written form at all. In a diglossic situation it is one of the groups has greater prestige than the other(s). If groups usually the case that the lower language is the mother tongue of the from many different language backgrounds migrate to an area where entire speech community, while H is learned through formal there is already a population firmly in place that has a strong schooling. The low language is used at home and among families and language tradition of its own, then the immigrant groups will be friends, as well as in other speech situations which are private and expected to learn the dominant language. informal. The high language, on the other hand, is culturally accepted Then, bilingualism is the study of those who speak two or more as the only appropriate medium of communication in public or formal languages, when and where they speak each, and the effect of one settings, such as church, government, or school. The examples chosen language on another (Chaika, 1982: 225). The term used to refer to by Ferguson (1959: 338-40) to illustrate the way in which diglossia bilingualism among populations (as opposed to situations where has been found to operate are Swiss German (瑞士德语, 65% of the individuals become bilingual for one reason or another) is societal Swiss speak it), Arabic, Modern Greek, and Haitian Creole. bilingualism, and it takes many forms. In describing the various types In order to clarify some of the resulting ambiguity and to give a of bilingualism that may result from language contact, it is usually complete description, Fought (1985) provided a preliminary referred to the languages in question according to their status. Thus, classification of nine distinctly different types of bilingual situation: Bloomfield (1933) distinguished between a high or prestigious (1) a postconquest situation in which the upper group uses one language, which he called the upper language, and the language(s) of language and the lower group another (the community is bilingual but the dominated group as lower languages. In this context,“upper” and the individuals are monolingual); (2) a situation in which all “lower”refer to the status of the speakers and not to such linguistic individuals in the community are bilingual and all use both languages attributes as relative size of vocabulary, for example. in a variety of speech situations; (3) diglossia, a situation in which One of the most widely known types of bilingual situation is that everyone in the society knows two languages but one is used in which Ferguson (1959: 336) has classified as diglossia. In his formal and the other in informal domains; (4) a situation similar to (1) description of this phenomenon, Ferguson defines it as a stable except that only a portion of the population among the dominated or

209 210 Language contact 社会语言学 the lower group are bilingual in the upper language; (5) a situation conquest of a foreign territory, with army’s occupation moving in and similar to (1) and (4) except that, in this case, it is members of the residents taken as slaves to faraway places. In addition, we know that upper group who have become bilingual while the lower group as a result of wars and famines or other natural disasters, there have remain monolingual; (6) similar to the diglossia situation described in been movements of peoples from one area to another throughout (3) except that the higher social groups use H more often and in more history, just as there are today. These factors explain how situations or domains, while the lower social groups use more L; (7) linguistically different populations come into contact with one split diglossia of what Fought calls the“superstrate”type (in this case, another. the lower-status group(s) use H very little or not at all, while the If within a specific geographic area, there are communities of upper-status group use both H and L, but in different domains); (8) people who speak different varieties of the same language, and if split diglossia of the type called“substrate”by Fought (this situation these smaller speech communities are separated from one another by is the opposite of the“superstrate diaglossia”in that the lower social great distance or by geographic hindrance such as mountains or large group is diaglossic while the upper groups uses H in all situations; (9) body of water, it usually happens that their dialects become more and mixed diglossia, a situation in which the lower group is diglossic with more different from one another as time goes on. Language is always members using H in formal situations, but different from classic in the process of change, and when speakers of what was once the model in that they code-switch or alternate languages in formal same language are separated by time and space, their pronunciation, domains. At the same time, the lower group(s) is diglossic in formal vocabulary, and syntax are likely to change in different ways, so that situations using a mixture of both languages, and in informal using L eventually the dialects are no longer mutually intelligible to one alone (Wolfson, 1989: 261-4). another and come to be recognized as separate languages. We have already mentioned the differences among the speech patterns of English speakers of different regions today. And, because we have 7.3 Origin of linguistic diversity written records, we know that the first English settlers in what was to become the United States spoke a number of different regional Then, how does bilingualism or multilingualism arise in the first dialects of British English as they arrived as colonists. The same is place? We have spoken about dialect differentiation within a single true for the English-speaking colonists of such recently settled language, and discussed the fact that people speak what is thought of countries as Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and Canada. A as the same language very differently from region to region. There few hundred years of separation has been sufficient to cause changes were nomadic peoples whose way of life involved moving from one in the speech patterns used in all these countries. Thus, because location to another, and there were wars that often ended in the language is always in the process of change, it is clear that if speakers

211 212 Language contact 社会语言学 do not have opportunity to interact with one another because of scholarship, administration, diplomacy, and commerce. differences in location, their dialects will slowly diverge. If there When the speakers of one language migrate or conquer the were no air travel, no telephone, radios, television sets, or films, it is territory of speakers of another, the two groups are forced into very likely that the dialects of the English-speaking nations of the contact with one another. If the area is small and there are only two world would have diverged much more sharply than they have. A few major languages in question, they may continue to coexist for centuries of isolation from one another would have been sufficient to centuries, as Norman-French and English during did in England make them into mutually unintelligible languages. during the Middle Ages. In such a situation, it is clear that those in If there is a lack of communication between two or more power have the ability to impose their language to the conquered dialects over a considerable amount of time, the dialects of the same group, and the conquered group must become bilingual. language may diverge into separate languages. As we know, rural As another example of what can happen in a situation of people who seldom travel have the most extreme dialect differences conquest and colonization, let us consider the fate of the Native from one another. The Latin spoken in Europe during and after the Indian languages in the United States. In this case, we are speaking Roman Empire, for example, must have shown some regional dialect not of a single language but of a great number of unrelated languages. differences almost from the beginning. When the empire fell, Many did not survive at all. Those did have been heavily influenced however, and the steady flow of soldiers and administrators who by English. As we have seen, it is almost impossible for Native spoke the Latin of Rome was halted, each region gradually developed Americans not to become bilingual in English, the language of the its own divergent dialect. Conquests by non-Latin-speaking groups dominant society. One result of this bilingualism and close contact aided the change. Great care was taken to preserve Latin as the with the language spoken by the mainstream population is that classical language, but since only a tiny elite could write, this had numerous vocabulary borrowings from English have entered all of little effect on the spoken vernaculars (dialects, indigenous language the Native American languages still spoken in the United States. For 土语). Since few but the wealthy had the means or the motivation to example, many of the Native American groups in the Southwest who travel, the poor–––illiterate, tied as they were to their villages and had occupied the territories first conquered and colonized by Spain, farms–––began to speak more and more differently from one another. came into contact with Spanish before English speakers won these Thus, the Roman languages, all modern forms of Latin, came to be lands. The effect of this contact with one European language after separated, mutually unintelligible languages. A form of Latin another was that the India languages now spoken in these areas have continued to be spoken by the wealthy and the educated, but it was no been influenced by both Spanish and English and are likely to contain longer anyone’s mother tongue. Kept artificially alive, it served as a vocabulary items and other linguistic material from both. In contrast, means of communication, a lingua franca for the Catholic Church, for the English language as spoken in the United States has been almost

213 214 Language contact 社会语言学 untouched by contact with Native American languages. There are contact that comes about through migration is one of the major means only two areas in which the traces of contact can be found: the which linguistic diversity arises (Wolfson, 1989: 258-60). vocabulary borrowing that has occurred both in place names and in words for which English had no equivalents, such as moccasin (莫卡 7.4 Code-switching 辛鞋, 北美印第安人穿的鹿皮软鞋) and tepee (北美印第安人的帐篷). This kind of borrowing is common in situations where the conquering group meets material culture or with concepts that are Let’s first look at an example: either altogether unfamiliar or quite different. Nessa Wolfson claimed Wu Changyong, a professor in East China Normal University, this kind of borrowings only have superficial effects on the language. told us that when he was in San Francisco, he met a person who Multilingualism, then, arises through the separation and gradual looked like a Chinese in a bus. The person first asked him in English: divergence of regional dialects of the same language, and through “Are you from China?”And Professor Wu answered,“Yes.”Then the language contact. These phenomena usually act together. For person switched to Chinese.“na li ren (哪里人)？”“shang hai ren (上 example, when speakers of Polish migrated to the United States, they 海人).”Then the person switched to Shanghai dialect. They continued came from many different areas of Poland and spoke a number of their talking in Shanghai dialect, and they became good friends later. nonstandard regional dialects. As they came together in the United This is a good example of code switching. States, the dialect differences among them tended to disappear According to Wardhaugh (2000: 99), the particular dialect or gradually so that the resulting variety was different any in existence language that a person chooses to use on any occasion is a code. And in their original homeland. In addition, as immigrants to an English it is unusual for a speaker to have command of, or use, only one code. dominant society, they tended to learn to communicate in English. Command of only a single variety of language, whether it is a dialect, Since English was the language of the government, the media, the style, or register, would appear to be an extremely rare phenomenon. schools, and, above all, the workplace, words phrases were quickly Most speakers command several varieties of any language they speak, learned and often found their way into the Polish of these new and bilingualism, even multilingualism, is the norm for many people Americans. The next generation, bilingual and schooled in the United throughout the world rather than monolingualism. People are usually States, was even more likely to borrow words from English into required to select a particular code whenever they choose to speak, Polish. In the end, the combination of being separated from Poles and they may also decide to switch from one code to another even living in Poland, and the heavy influence of borrowing from English within very short utterances and thereby create a new code. made the dialect spoken by Polish Americans considerably different Furthermore, as Gal (1988) says,“code-switching is a conversational from any of the language spoken in Poland. We can see that language strategy used to establish, cross or destroy group boundaries; to

215 216 Language contact create, evoke or change interpersonal relations with their rights and obligations”. According to Bernard Spolsky (2000: 49),“bilinguals often switch between their two languages in the middle of a conversation. These code-switches can take place between or even within sentences, involving phrases or even parts of words.”Eg. “今天早上我吃了一个 Sandwich.” Hudson (2000: 51) says code-switching is the inevitable consequence of bilingualism (or more generally, multilingualism). Anyone who speaks more than on

217 Language contact 社会语言学 follows is in a local dialect Ranamal. Metaphorical switching is a 7.5 Code-mixing more complicated phenomenon. One type may tend to occur when government officials and local citizens transact business together. Although in such cases, the standard Norweigian language is Code-mixing is a concept different from code-switching. There generally used, but it is not unusual for both parties to use the can be a switch of codes within a simple utterance without any occasional local dialect for special effort. associated topic change. Pfaff (1979) provide the following examples When we are considering code-switching, we shouldn’t neglect of this kind of code-switching (sometimes called intra-sentential another aspect of it, that is the psychological state of the bilinguals: code-switching, or code-mixing) among Spanish-English bilinguals: the phenomena of convergence (语言靠拢) and divergence (语言偏 No van a bring it up in the meeting. (=“They are not going to 离). Convergence means that the speaker tries to adjust his or he own bring it up in the meeting.”) language or style, so as to be close to that of the addressee. Tedos los Mexicans were riled up (angry). (=“All the Mexicans Divergence means the speaker tries to make his or her own language were riled up.”) (Wardhaugh, 2000:108) or style different from the addressee’s. Generally speaking, when two In Philippines，there is a mixed language, called mix-mix, to mix persons meet and began to talk with each other, both of them hope Tagalog (他加禄语) and other local dialects with English, and it is their languages will be similar. The similarity can promote the mutual called Taglish or Englog. This kind of mixed language is commonly understanding and attraction between them, thus they can carry on used among the ordinary people. But now it is used even in official the conversation successfully. Convergence reflects the kind of meeting or other social interaction (祝畹瑾, 1992: 202). feeling that you will agree or flatter the addressee. The stronger the John Gibbons had a careful study of the language situation in feeling, the more convergent you will be. That’s why in a department Hongkong. In Hongkong, three kinds of languages are used: store, it is more likely for the shop assistant to be more convergent Cantonese, Standard Chinese, and English. On the one hand, most of than the customer. Here the shop assistant is trying to flatter the the population is Chinese (98%), so Cantonese and Standard Chinese customer in order to sell something to the customer. are commonly used among the majority of the population; On the The code we choose to use on a particular occasion indicates other hand, Hongkong was once a colony of England, so English how we wish others to view us. If we can comfortably control a plays an important part in language use. Many of them are bilingual, number of codes, then we would appear to have an advantage over and they speak both Cantonese and English. It is said that 25% of the those who lack such control. Speaking several of the languages can Chinese can speak English in Hongkong. Gibbon’s investigators are obviously be distinctly advantageous in a multilingual gathering. students of Hongkong University. These bilinguals mix Cantonese Code-switching may be a very useful skill (Wardhaugh, 2000: 113). with English. Eg.

219 220 Language contact 社会语言学

heui canteen yam chah (= 我们到 canteen 去吃饭) language-systems. Whereas code-switching and code-mixing neih group ge ia ( = 你在哪个 group 啊？) involved mixing languages in speech, borrowing involves mixing the ngoh take sei fo (= 我 take 四个课程) system itself, because an item is“borrowed”from one language to hou touching a! (= 好 touching 啊！) (转引自, 祝畹瑾, 1992: become part of the other language (Hudson, 2000: 55). This is a 203) counterpart of a dialect copying. Janda (1975) shows that Hungarians In mainland, now we sometimes hear“今天早上我吃了一个 in Chicago who are bent upon not becoming Americanized and refuse Sandwich.” to learn English still borrow English words. Similarly, despite the Monolinguals are likely to be very critical of the new codes that railings of the purists, people in one country will borrow words from result. They may even use derogatory terms to describe what they another language if they admire its speakers or consider them hear (Wardhaugh, 2000:108), eg. Franglais (French and English in trendsetters. In France, for example, to the horror of some Quebec), Fragnol (French and Spanish in Argentina), Spanglish academicians, words like drugstore, weekend, and interview have (Cuban Spanish and English in the USA), and Tex-Mex (English and been adopted into French. In Israel, English words have been adopted Mexican Spanish in Texas). Such dismissal of the phenomenon wholesale into Hebrew, such as bebi siter“baby sitter”, agresii demonstrates serious misunderstanding. What we have here is not “aggressive”, and obyektiviut“objective” (Davis, 1979). In the just a haphazard mixing of two languages brought by laziness or United States, many immigrants borrowed Americanisms because ignorance or some combination of these. What we have are they were anxious to become American as soon as possible. Even conversants with a sophisticated knowledge of both languages who those who were less anxious to assimilate had to borrow some are acutely aware of community norms. These norms require that aspects of U.S. culture and inevitably some vocabulary. English itself both languages be used in this way so that conversants can show their has a long history of such borrowing. Even common words like veal, familiarity or solidarity. The ability to mix codes in this way is now pork, beef, chair, table, and very derive from the days after the often a source of pride (Wardhaugh, 2000: 108-9). Norman Conquest when the conquered English borrowed French culture. A major part of our educated and scientific vocabulary was borrowed from Greek and Latin. Among these borrowings are 7.6 Borrowing physician, mathematics, logic, even the word educate itself. Words for art and music have been borrowed from Italian, such as arpeggio, Another way in which different languages may become mixed opera, tempo, chiaroscuro, and concerto (Chaika, 1982:231). We up with each other is through the process of Borrowing (Heath, 1994). treat these words as ordinary English words, used in ordinary English At this point, we’re shifting our view from speech to sentences, but at the same time we know that they are modeled on

221 222 Language contact 社会语言学 words in other languages. (椴木). And there are many loanblends from English into Chinese: But in some countries all loan words are frowned upon because 迷你裙 (miniskirt)、卡车 (truck)、霓虹灯 (neon). of their foreign associations. It is important to distinguish examples 3) Loanshift: borrow the meaning of a word from a foreign word. like these from enormous number of words which are borrowings Loanshift from Chinese: bean curd (豆腐)、teahouse (茶馆)、red bean only in the historical sense, and which ordinary people no longer (赤豆) associate with any other language. Such words account for more than And there are some loanshifts from English: 篮球 (basketball)、 half of the vocabulary of the English words, which has borrowed a 黑板 (blackboard)、汽船 (steamboat)、蜜月 (honeymoon)、蓝领 great deal from Latin, Greek and French (Hudson, 2000: 56). Words 工人 (blue-collar). like money, car, church, and letter can all be traced to borrowings (祝畹瑾, 1992: 206) from these languages, but people are not aware of this and use them just like ordinary English words, without any trace of foreign 7.7 Pidgins and Creoles associations. For example, the word obtain was borrowed from Latin. At the time of borrowing, Latin was the prestigious language, in fact a High language in a diglossic situation, with English as the low (and Apart from code-switching and borrowing, there are other ways French in between as the language of the Court). The same is true of in which varieties may get mixed up with each other. They are called most Latinate vocabulary in English. pidgins and Creoles. More than any other categories of languages, According to Einar Haugen (1950: 210-31), there are three kinds pidgins and Creoles owe their existence to exploration and conquest, of borrowings: trade and slavery, colonialism and nationalism. As Hymes (1971a: 5) 1) loanwords：words that come directly from a foreign language. has said,“And while these languages have come into being and Sputlik in English is borrowed from Russian. English has borrowed a existed largely at the margins of historical consciousness on trading lot of words from Chinese：silk (丝绸)、tea (茶)、litchi (荔枝)、 ships, on plantations, in mines and colonial armies, often under the ginseng (人参)、oolong (乌龙茶). Chinese has borrowed a lot of most limiting or harshest of conditions–––their very origin and words from English. For example, 雷达 (radar)、苏打 (soda)、咖 development under such conditions attests to fundamental 啡 (coffee)、白兰地 (brandy)、沙发 (sofa)、拷贝 (copy)、尼龙 characteristics of language and human nature.” (nylon)、加仑 (gallon)、三明治 (sandwich)、威士忌 (whisky)、可 Then, what are the languages that are classified as pidgins and 口可乐 (Coca-Cola)、摩托 (motor)、台风 (typhoon) and so on. Creoles? How can they be defined and described? To begin with, 2) Loanblend：part of the word or phrase is borrowed from a Wolfson (1989: 268) said, it must be admitted that there is no general foreign language. Loanblend from Chinese: silkworm (蚕)、satinwood agreement on this issue. While it is not possible to give a satisfactory

223 224 Language contact 社会语言学 linguistic definition of pidgin and Creole languages, there is unlikely ever to return to their hometown. In the Pacific, under considerable agreement concerning the social definition of these indentured labor system, the work force was almost exclusively male languages. The phenomenon known as pidginization is perhaps the and the term of labor was a fixed number of years rather than a most dramatic example of the way social forces shape language use. lifetime. What slavery and the indentured labor system had in Because Creoles are, by definition, derived from pidgins, it would be common was that people from a great many different ethnolinguistic well to begin our talk with a description of the characteristics of groups were transplanted from their homes and forced to work pidgin languages and the theories that have been advanced to explain together in distant lands. A common means of communication their origins and development. between fellow workers and between workers and masters was To begin with, pidgins are no one’s native language. They arise clearly a necessity. As the dominated groups, the workers were in situations of contact between speakers of mutually unintelligible expected to bear the burden of learning to understand and to respond languages and develop into relatively stable linguistic systems with to their European masters, if necessary. Had all the dominated their own syntax, lexicon, and phonology. Pidgins are the contact peoples thus thrown together been speakers of a single language, the languages that develop as vehicles of communication between people outcome would very likely have been bilingualism, however who have need to interact and who have no common language. As imperfect, in the language of the ruling class. In these cases, however, long as the need for communication across groups speaking different the workers themselves were from many different language first languages continues, the pidgin language may continue to exist. backgrounds, and the languages that developed were not simply However, if pidgin speakers intermarry and form a community where varieties of the prestige languages but new linguistic systems the pidgin becomes the common language, the children of these altogether (Wolfson, 1989: 269). speakers acquire the language in the way all children acquire first Pidgins and Creoles are usually spoken by people at the bottom language, and, because the language must now function as the main of the socioeconomic structure and many pidgin and Creole speakers or only means of communication, it develops a much more extensive lack formal education. It is not strange for pidgin and Creole vocabulary and syntactic system. Once a pidgin gains native speakers, languages to be considered as the subordinate language. Actually, it becomes classified as a Creole language (Wolfson, 1989: 269). many people considered them as the corruption of the more The historical situation in which pidgin and Creole languages prestigious standard language. They were even regarded as the came into being was the European colonialism of the 18th and 19th deformed. It was not until the second half of the 19th century did centuries. Under this system, dominated people were frequently historical linguists begin to describe the languages objectively. In transported as cheap and free labor to distant places. In the Americas, 1950s of the 20th century, sociolinguists and theoretical linguists where slavery was practiced, these displaced populations were began to do some research on pidgins and Creoles together. In 1959,

225 226 Language contact 社会语言学 the first international meeting on pidgins and Creoles were held in Jamaica, and the position of pidgins and Creoles were certain (祝畹瑾, 1992: 209). The phenomena of pidginization and creolization 8 Language planning were considered as two important stages of language development which should not be neglected. The low position of the pidgins and Creoles is symbolic of sociocultural attitudes towards their speakers. Many new nations are formed from completely different groups A pidgin is itself a language, with a community of speakers who pass or tribes, all speaking radically different languages. And the problem it on from one generation to the next, and consequently has its own is complicated by the lack of writing systems for many native history (Hudson, 2000:62). A Creole is just an ordinary language as languages. What will be the official orthography for the country? any other languages except its origins. A pidgin is not simply the What script will newspapers use? What will be used in business? result of heavy borrowing from one variety into another, since there Because of the problems caused by multilingualism in new nations, is no pre-existing variety into which items may be borrowed. In any some linguists and sociolinguists have become involved in language case, it is not clear which community would be the borrowers, since planning. They must decide what language(s) will be used for the pidgin is developed jointly by both sides of the communication government and for education. gap, each trying to help bridge the gap. A pidgin, unlike ordinary languages, has no native speakers, which is a consequence of the fact 8.1 Language planning that it is used only for communication between members of different communities (Hudson, 2000: 63). Because language is an all-important agent in the transmission of cultural and social values, and it is shaped by the same political, Questions for consideration social and cultural forces which produce the world’s diverse civilizations and cultures. So there are“numerous attempts that have 1．Please give some examples to show what code-switching is. been made to change a particular variety of language, or a particular 2．Give at least one example to show the meaning of the term language, or some aspect of how either of these functions in society” diglossia. (Wardhaugh, 2000: 346). These changes are described as Language 3．What are the languages that are classified as pidgin and planning. Creole languages? How do pidgin and Creole languages arise? Our initial reaction to the term“language planning”may be that it is an unnecessary or even impossible activity. We perhaps look

227 228 Language planning 社会语言学 upon language as something that cannot be planned, and we may ask communication problems.” It may involve assessing resources, ourselves why people cannot communicate with each another as they complex decision-making, the assignment of different functions to have always done. The fact is that people cannot communicate with different languages or varieties of a language in a community, and the each other today as they used to do in the past. Society is developing commitment of valuable resources (Waudhaugh, 2000: 346). and language has to adjust to reality. Political decisions are taken and this may mean that new communities are created which may lack a 8.2 National languages and official common means of communication. In such cases language planning is desirable and indeed necessary. languages Language planning has been characterized by Bamgbose (1991: 109), referring to by Fishman (I974: 79), as“the organized pursuit of solutions to language problems”. Related notions are“language The topic of language planning will inevitably arouse the cultivation”“, language policy”, and“language politics”. In English, concept of“national language”, which refers to, in sociolinguistics, less conscious instances of language planning are sometimes the language of a political, cultural and social unit. In multilingual designated as“language treatment”. The“language problems”evoked countries, the government often declares a particular language to be in the above quotation could include such phenomena as the lack of a the national language for political reasons. The declaration may be a common language in a politically defined unit, the absence of a step in the process of asserting a nationhood of a newly independent writing system, the lack of technical vocabulary, the shortage of or established nation, for instance, as in the case of Swahili in school textbooks, and so on. Presumably every multilingual political Tanzania, Hebrew in Israel, and Malay in Malaysia. Where this unit, in which some languages are stronger and others are weaker national language cannot serve all the internal and external functions (which often means that the latter are endangered), can be called a of government business, however it has been necessary to identify linguistically problematic area. Even in monolingual nations, the one or more official languages, i.e. languages used for government insufficiency of the national language in any domain has to be business. So French is an official language in many African countries, regarded as being a linguistic problem. In fact, every region in the and Arabic is an official language in Israel alongside Hebrew. world where languages come into contact, such as through invasion, The concepts of national and official languages are tightly migration, or the creation of new nations, is relevant in this context. related to language planning, which was once defined by Haugen According to Weinstein (1980: 56),“language planning is a (1959, 1968) as an activity concerned mainly with the internal government authorized, long-term, sustained, and conscious effort to aspects of language: it consisted in “ preparing a normative alter a language’s function in a society for the purpose of solving orthography, grammar, and dictionary for the guidance of writers and

229 230 Language planning 社会语言学 speakers in a non-homogeneous speech community. ” Haugen’s orthography, new sources of vocabulary, dictionaries, and a literature, definition was based on his analysis of the ongoing effort in Norway together with the deliberate cultivation of new uses so that the to modernize, promote and implement a national language. According language may extend its use into such areas as government, education his view, language planning aimed to settle problems related to“the and trade. Corpus planning has been particularly important in presences of conflicting norms whose relative status needs to be counties such as Indonesia, Israel, Finland, India, Pakistan, and Papua assigned.” New Guinea (Waudhaugh, 2000: 347). Bamgbose (1991) largely but not completely equates the division between“status planning”and“corpus planning”with 8.3 Status planning and corpus planning activities having to do with language policy and implementation respectively. According to him, status planning would be equated Language planning is an attempt to interfere deliberately with a merely with language policy or language politics, whereas corpus language or one of its varieties. The attempt may focus on either its planning largely overlaps with language cultivation. Status planning, status with regard to some other language or variety or its internal for example, involves the allocation of languages to different societal condition with a view to changing that condition, or on both of these domains, such as the official sphere, education, business, media, etc. since they are not mutually exclusive. The first focus results in status The explicit proclamation of a language as the official medium of planning; the second results in corpus planning. communication naturally enhances its importance to a significant Status planning changes the function of a language or a variety extent, but the introduction of a particular language in schools, for of language and the rights of those who use it. For example, when example, can have far-reaching consequences. Corpus planning refers speakers of a minority language are denied the use of that language in to such activities as the production of grammars and dictionaries, the educating their children, their language has no status. Alternatively, design of orthographies, the choice of script, spelling reforms, the when a government declares that hence force two languages rather production of primers and readers, etc. In normal practice, a policy than one of these alone will be officially recognized in all functions, decision aimed at granting status to a given language in a particular the newly recognized one has gained the status. The examples of societal domain is first taken, and is then implemented in some way, status planning can be found in Norway, Belgium, Canada, etc. to the extent that some kind of concrete language material is Corpus planning seeks to develop a variety of language or a produced. As Bamgbose (1991: 110) points out, policy-making language, usually to standardize it, that is, to provide it with the without implementation does not lead to much progress, whereas means for serving every possible function in society. Consequently, implementation without policy decisions is difficult to achieve corpus planning may involve such matters as the development of an (although Bamgbose observes that the lack of a policy in some

231 232 Language planning 社会语言学 countries has worked to the advantage of linguists and missionaries notion of“correct” speech and spelling (B. Spolsky, 1998: 73). This who have been able to describe and codify“exotic”languages without attitude, which is termed prescriptivism, is an understandable the intervention of the authorities). In fact, Bamgbose (1991: 133) development in a mass education system where successful learning of points out that“it would appear that there is a correlation between the prestige speech styles is a first step in social upward mobility. strength of a country’s language policy and the nature of its However, it reveals a mistake belief that standard languages are implementation machinery.” inherently better than so-called non-standard languages, thus people who speak a non-standard language are less intelligent or capable than those who speak standard languages. This assumption does not 8.4 The linguists’ role in language planning bear examination. As a linguist, his task is to describe and analyze the phenomena of language. He has no concern with preferring one Each language operates in a system of its own, but it’s also true dialect to another, nor with prescribing how should people use their that individuals have often had an enormous influence on language language. Description, and not prescription, is his work, and is his planning, especially on the standardization or codification of a work enough (R. H. Robins, 1989: 56). particular variety. Typical examples include Samuel Johnson and Language planning is defined most simply as deliberate 40,000-word dictionary’s influence on the codification of English, language change. It covers a wide variety of activities including the Ivar Aasen’s creation of a composite variety for Norwegian, etc. introduction of new labels for fruit, the reform of spelling systems, Today, language planning projects are often handled by committees, the provision of advice on non-sexist terminology. The development commissions or academies. Codification and vocabulary expansion of national languages and standard dialects are the most important are their main concerns. topics in language planning. Just as Daoust (1997) points out, change Then what kind of standpoint can a sociolinguist take? One in linguistic behavior and in attitudes is what language planning is all prevailing attitude held by most western-educated people is the about. And it is more likely to succeed with respect to attitude than assumption and expectation that language rules are set, clear, with respect to behavior, and in the long term, it is attitude that leads unambiguous, and to be enforced. Some teachers of English as a to change. foreign language complain in the same way about differences between British and American usage. This idea of correctness is a mark of developed literate societies. In preliterate societies, one regularly find notions of“a good speaker”, by which is meant some one who has power to speak persuasively in public, but seldom the

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Questions for consideration: Bibliography

1．Give some examples to show the noticeable characteristics of language planning. [1] Aitchison, J. Pidgins and Creoles[A]. In Asher, 1994 2．Can you find any instances in your own community of [2] Abbott, E.A. A Shakespearian Grammar[M]. New York: languages that enjoy different statuses? That is, how many different Dove Publications. 1966 languages do you come across, and how do those in authority deal [3] Austin, J.L. How to Do Things with Words[M]. New York: with people who use these languages? Oxford University Press. 1962 [4] Bloom, J-P& Gumperz, J. Social Meaning in Linguistic Structure: Code-Switching in Norway[A]. In Language in Social Groups[C]. ed. J. Gumperz. Stanford: Stanford University Press. 1971. 274-310 [5] Bamgbose, A. Language and the Nation. The Language Question in Sub-saharan Africa[M]. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. 1991 [6] Bloomfield, L. Language[M]. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1933 [7] Chaika, E. Language: the Social Mirror[M]. Rowley, MA: Newbury House, 1982 [8] Canale, M. and Swain, M. Theoretical Bases of Communicative Approaches to Second Language Teaching and Testing[J]. Applied Linguistics 1:1-47. 1980 [9] Chomsky, N. Aspects of the Theory of Syntax[M]. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press. 1965 [10] Coulmas, F. The Handbook of Sociolinguistics[C]. Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press. 2000 [11] Cooper, P. Sex Role Stereotypes of Stepparents in 235 236 Bibliography 社会语言学

Children’s Literature (A). In Communication, Gender, and Sex Roles Smith P. eds. Oxford: Pergamon press. 1980 in Diverse Interaction Contexts (C). ed. Stewart, L. and [22] Crosby, F. and Nyquist, L. The Female Register; An Ting–––Toomey, S. Norwood, New Jersey: Ablex Publishing Empirical Study of Lakoff’s Hypotheses[J]. Language and Society Corporation, 1987. 20-31 Vol. 6, 1977: 313-322 [12] Denison, N. Some Observations on Language Varieties and [23] Grice, H. P. Logic and Conversation[A]. In Cole and Plurilingualism[A]. In. Social Anthropology and Language [C]. E. Morgan. 1975 Ardner, ed. London: Tavistock, 1971 [24] Goody, E. N. ed. Questions and Politeness[C]. New York: [13] Daoust. D. Language Planning and Language Reform [A]. Cambridge University Press In The Handbook of Sociolinguistics[C]. Coulmas, F. ed. Beijing: [25] Garfinkel, H. Studies in Ethnomethodology [M]. Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press. 2000 Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall. 1967 [14] Ervin-Tripp, S.M. Is Sybil There? The Structure of [26] Gumperz, J. Linguistic and Social Interaction in Two American English Directives[J]. Language in Society 5 (1): 25-66. Communities[J]. American Anthropologist 66: 137-153. 1964 1976 [27] Gal, S. The Political Economy of Code Choice[A]. In Heller, [15] Ervin-Tripp,S. On Sociolinguistic Rules: Alternation and 1988 Co-occurance[A]. Gumperz, J and Hymes, D. ed. 1972. 213-250 [28] Giles, H. and Coupland, N. Language: Contexts and [16] Fasold, R. The Sociolinguistics of Language[M]. Beijing: Consequences[M]. Buckingham: Open University Press, 1991 Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press. 2000 [29] Giles, H. and Powesland, P. Speech Style and Social [17] Ferguson, C. A. Diglossia[A]. In Language Structure and Evaluation[M]. London: Academic Press, 1975 Use[C]. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1971. 1-26 [30] Glazer, N. The Process and Problems of Language [18] Fishman, J.A. Prefatory Notes[A]. In Languages in Contact Maintenance: An Integrative Review[A]. In A Pluralistic Nation: The and Conflict[C]., Nelde, P. H. ed., XI. Weisbaden: Steiner. 1980. Language Issue in the United States[C], ed. M.A. Lourie & N.F. [19] Fishman, P. Conversational Insecurity[A]. In The Feminist Conklin, Rowley, MA: Newbury House, 1978: 32-43 Critique of Language[C]. Cameron, D. ed. London: Routledge, 1990. [31] Goodwin, M. Tactical Uses of Stories: Participation 236-239 Frameworks Within Girls’ and Boys’ Disputes[A]. In Gender and [20] Fought, J. Patterns of Sociolinguistic Inequality in Conversational Interaction[C]. Tannen, D. ed. Oxford: Oxford Mesoamerica[A]. In Language of Inequality[C], N. Wolfson,N. & University Press. 1993. 111-143 Manes, J. ed. Berlin: Mouton, 1985.21-39 [32] Holmes, J. Women, Men, and Politeness[M]. New York: [21] Fishman P. Conversational Insecurity[A]. In Language: Longman. 1995 Social Psychological Perspectives[C]. Giles, H., Robinson,W. , and [33] Holmes. J. An Introduction to Sociolinguistics[M]. London:

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