Glossary for L anguage in the City accent 1) Strictly speaking this refers to the pronunciation of a dialect, i.e. it is a reference to the collection of phonetic features which allow a speaker to be identified regionally or socially. It is frequently used to indicate that a given speaker does not speak the standard form of a language. The term is used in German to refer to grammatical features as well. 2) The stress placed on a syllable of a word or the type of stress used by a language (pressure or pitch). (German: Akzent, Aussprache) accommodation A phenomenon in the use of language whereby speakers tend to adopt features of their interlocutors, perhaps in an effort to make them feel at ease or to be socially accepted by them. If this happens on a broad front in a speech community then it can lead to language change. (German: Akkommodation) address system The set of rules which specify what forms are appropriate when speaking to others in a certain social context; usually the rules are for pronominal usage. In most European languages (except English and Irish) there is a twofold system with one set of pronouns used for familiar address (du, d ich, d ein, etc.) and one for formal address (Sie, Ihr, etc.). The range of each set differs among groups in any given society and among different countries but in general the former correlates with first names and the second with surnames though cross combinations are possible. S ee T-form and V-form. (German: Anredesystem) argot Linguistic features, mostly vocabulary, used by a certain group in society, usually secretive. back slang A kind of slang in which the order of sounds and/or letters is reversed, e.g. y ob ‘lout, hooligan’ from boy in 19th century English. bidialectlism A situation in which a speaker is able to converse effortlessly in two dialects, to switch at ease between both and keep them apart. It is in fact a type of bilingualism. (German: B idialektalismus) bilingualism The ability to speak two languages with native-like competence. In every individual case one language will be dominant. Lay people often use the term if someone can simply speak a second language well. (German: B ilingualismus) cafeteria principle Refers to the opinion that pidgins arose by combining various features and rules from a set of regional varieties of British English which were represented in the English which developing world inhabitants were exposed to at the beginning. code markers Any linguistic item which serves the function of identifying a given code (language variety). For instance the use of a glottal stop [?] as a marker of popular London speech. Raymond Hickey Glossary for Language in the City Page 2 of 8 code mixing Amongst bilingual individuals this is the act of mixing elements from one variety/language with those from another. code In a sociolinguistic context this term is used as a very broad term for a variety or a language; it is intended to be the most general and neutral of terms. (German: Kode) code switching Moving from one language to another within a single sentence or phrase. This is a phenomenon found among bilinguals who feel it is appropriate to change languages (or dialects in some cases) - perhaps to say something which can only be said in the language switched to. Code-switching is governed by fairly strict rules concerning the points in a sentence at which one can change over. colloquial A term referring to a register of language which is informal, normally only spoken and deliberately contrasting with written norms of a language. Colloquial registers are innovative in that many instances of language change first occur in them. (German: umgangssprachlich) correctness An extra-linguistic notion, usually deriving from institutions in society like a language academy or a major publishing house, which attempts to lay down rigid rules for language use, especially in written form. Notions of correctness show a high degree of arbitrariness and are based on somewhat conservative usage, intended to maintain an unchanging standard in a language - a complete fiction. (German: K orrektheit) deficit theory A view, proposed by Basil Bernstein, that working class children in Western industrialised societies are disadvantaged in society because their native variety of a language, i.e. that which they learn in the home, is not the standard, as opposed to the position of the middle and upper classes. (German: Defizittheorie) dialect continuum A continuous geographical region in which the transition from one dialect to the next is gradual, for instance the Romance dialects spoken on the Northern coast of the Mediterranean from Spain through the south of France to Italy. Another instance would be the continental varieties of German which stretch from the Netherlands in the north-west to Lower Austria in the south-east and which form a continuum dialectally. (German: Dialektkontinuum) dialect A traditional term referring to a variety of a language spoken in a certain place. There are urban and rural dialects. The boundaries between dialects are always gradual. The term dialect is used to denote a geographically distinct variety of a language. Two major points in this connection should be noted: 1) ‘dialect’ does not refer to the social or temporal aspect of language and 2) the term ‘dialect’ makes no reference to the standard variety of a language. In connection with the latter point it is important to stress that the standard of a language is nothing more than a dialect which achieved special political and social status at some stage in the past and which has been extensively codified orthographically. (German: Dialekt) dialectology The area of linguistics which investigates dialects. For most linguists Raymond Hickey Glossary for Language in the City Page 3 of 8 nowadays this branch is regarded as conservative and not concerned with theoretical questions. Also called dialect geography. (German: Dialektologie; Dialektgeographie) diastratic A term referring to variation in language between social classes. (German: diastratisch) diatopic A term referring to variation in language on a geographical level. (German: diatopisch) dissociation A type of sociolinguistic behaviour in which one group attempts to make its speech different from another group, usually one with lower social prestige. If this is similar across a broad section of the population then it can lead to language change as is the case in the English of present-day Dublin. See accommodation. (German: Dissoziation) elaborated code A term stemming from the British sociologist Basil Bernstein in the late 1960’s. It refers to the kind of language employed by the better situated classes in Britain which is supposedly capable of making finer distinctions than the restricted code putatively used by the working classes. (German: elaborierter Kode) eye dialect An alteration of standard spelling to indicate roughly some of the prominent features of a dialect, e.g. walkin’ for [wo:k(] in a dialect which has alveolarisation of [n]. (German: A ugendialekt) fieldwork The process of gaining data on language use from informants. Various techniques are used in this sphere, such as tape-recording, filling in questionnaires and completing word-lists, each of which has advantages and pitfalls. (German: Feldarbeit) formality An axis along which language differs in a social context. High degrees of formality are expected in situations of minimum familiarity and maximum social exposure, e.g. a public lecture or religious ceremony. (German: F ormalität) glottalisation A phonetic process of substituting [?] for voiceless consonants in intervocalic/word-internal position, as in Cockney, e.g. bo ttle [b>?1]. This feature is currently spreading in the urban dialects of British English. (German: G lottalisierung) h-dropping A feature which is endemic in most urban varieties of British English. It consists of eliminating the initial /h/ of words; this can lead to hypercorrect forms like /h>nq/ for honour. (German: H-Tilgung) h-less A term referring to dialect of English which with do not have an /h/-sound in initial position; this applies to most urban dialects in present-day Britain. (German: h-los) hedge A device, used in conversation, which serves the purpose of weakening the force of a statement, e.g. He’s not up to s cratch, I s uppose. She w on’t l eave u s, w ill s he? Hedges are often realised by tag questions and are putatively characteristic of women’s speech. Raymond Hickey Glossary for Language in the City Page 4 of 8 hypercorrection A kind of linguistic situation in which a speaker overgeneralises a phenomenon which he/she does not have in his/her native variety. For example if a speaker from northern England pronounces bu tcher /but$q/ with the vowel in but , i.e. as /bvt$q/, then this is almost certainly hypercorrection as he/she does not have the but-sound in his/her own dialect and, in an effort to speak ‘correct’ English, overdoes it. The same applies to native speakers of Rhenish German when they pronounce Kirschen like K irchen when they are talking to speakers of High German. (German: Hyperkorrektion) idiolect The language of an individual as opposed to that of a group. (German: I diolekt) informant Any individual who supplies data for a linguist carrying out an investigation. (German: I nformant) isogloss A line shown on a map and which represents the boundary between two linguistic features, e.g. the isogloss which separates the use of [u] (in the north of England) from [v] (in the south of England) in a word like but. Such a line is normally taken to refer to pronunciation but can also apply to morphological or lexical items. (German: Isoglosse) jargon A term for specialised or technical language which is generally unintelligible to those outside the field it refers to. l-vocalisation A phonetic process whereby a velarised /l/ ( = [1]) is realised as [u], e.g. m ilk as [miuk] in Cockney. This has obviously happened historically in English and accounts for the lack of /l/ in words like walk, talk and in names like Holmes. (German: L-Vokalisierung) langue A term used by Saussure to refer to the collective knowledge of a community of the language spoken by its members. lexical set A lexical set is a group of words which all show the same pronounciation of some key sound. For instance, the lexical set FACE contains a vowel which can be realised as [ei] (RP), as [e:] (American English) or in a number of different ways. The advantage of using lexical sets is that with a single word one can refer to a whole class, or set, i.e. the speakers who have [ei] in face will also have this vowel in na me, place, tale, etc. linguistic prestige Refers to the value ascribed to a variety by the whole community. In modern societies, the standard form of a language enjoys the greatest prestige. (German: sprachliches Prestige) linguistic stigma The condemnation of certain forms in a language by the majority of a social group. (German: sprachliches Stigma) linguistic taboo Forbidding the use of certain forms. Taboo words change from generation to generation, e.g. the means of referring to sex and sexual practices, as older taboo words lose their strength and become part of general vocabulary. (German: s prachliches Taboo) Raymond Hickey Glossary for Language in the City Page 5 of 8 linguistic variable Any item which can be used to quantitatively assess a variety of a language. Speakers may be aware of these variables or they may be only known to linguists. The term refers to a specific feature of a language which shows particular variation in a community and which is used as a tag for classifying a speaker’s speech. For example, in New York the realisation of /r/ is just such a variable. A common non-linguistic designation for a linguistic variable, which derives from the Bible, is shibboleth where the first sound could have been pronounced [$] or [s]. (German: sprachliche Variable) matched-guise technique A common method in present-day sociolinguistic research for evaluating informants reactions to dialects and sociolects. The technique involves a speaker reading a passage of text in two or more different accents. The informants are unaware that in each case it is the same person reading and they are requested to rate the tape-recorded playback of each reading. The result is taken to reflect attitudes to linguistics stereotypes, since all other variables - bar accent - are constant across different readings. non-verbal communication A collective term for all aspects of communication which do not involve speech, e.g. facial expression, stance, gestures, etc. Sometimes included in the term body language. (German: non -verbale Kommunikation) observer’s paradox A phenomenon to be seen in sociolinguistic investigations; by this is meant that the object of an investigation changes under observation, e.g. speakers change their linguistic behaviour when they know they are being observed. parole A term deriving from Ferdinand de Saussure and which refers to language as it is spoken, contrast this with langue. patois An unwritten dialect. peer group Any group of people of approximately the same age. (German: Altersgruppe) phatic A reference to language use which has the function of establishing contact in a social situation rather than of conveying meaning. (German: phatisch) power-solidarity Two aspects of social position which find expression in the use of forms of address. (German: M acht und Solidarität) prescriptive A reference to guides to language usage which assume that certain forms are ‘correct’ and hence better than others. The opposite of descriptive. (German: p räskriptiv, vorschreibend) prestige An important factor in the judgement of language varieties. Usually a standard variety enjoys highest prestige in a community and the other varieties correspondingly less. If a particular variety has a long tradition and high awareness then it may have increased prestige compared with other non-standard varieties. This is the case with Cockney in English and Bavarian in German, different though they are. (German: Prestige) Raymond Hickey Glossary for Language in the City Page 6 of 8 proscriptive A reference to prescriptive instructions which forbid a certain usage, i.e. a set of don’ts in a language as in ‘Do not end a sentence in a preposition’. (German: proskriptiv) purism An attitude to language which demands the preservation of conservative forms which are somehow viewed as ‘correct’. A noticeable characteristic of purism is its rejection of foreign influences on a language. (German: P urismus) quantitative linguistics The application of statistics in linguistics to underline one’s results, especially in sociolinguistics. (German: quan titative Linguistik) rapid anonymous observation A technique developed by William Labov in the 1960’s in which a brief interview takes place and where the informants are not aware that they are being interviewed. (German: schnelle anon yme Beobachtung) regional standard A type of standard which is used in one region of a country. The term is used to distinguish these varieties from dialects on the one hand and from a national standard on the other. (German: r egionaler Standard) register A style level in a language. When we speak we automatically locate ourselves on a specific stylistic level. This can vary depending on the situation in which we find ourselves. For example when talking to the postman one would most likely use a different register than when one is holding a public address. (German: R egister) restricted code Bernstein’s term for the type of language used by the working classes (in England) and which is taken to be poor in formal means but rich in expressive content. (German: r estringierter Kode) restricted language Any variety of language which does not show the full complement of expressive means possible. This may be because speakers have not been exposed to the variety sufficiently (as with dialect speakers vis à vis the standard of a language) or it may be simply that a certain context only requires limited means of expression. (German: restringierte Sprache) rhyming slang A feature of Cockney in which two words are used one of which rhymes with yet another word which is that which is really referred to, e.g. trouble and strife for wife. sex roles Language differences between the sexes are undeniable. Part of the process of socialisation would seem to consist of internalising the roles which obtain in one’s community for a given sex. (German: G eschlechterrollen) shibboleth A linguistic item which serves the function of identifying a speaker as belonging to one community and not another; the term stems from a story in the Old Testament where members of a community could be identified according to whether they pronounced a Raymond Hickey Glossary for Language in the City Page 7 of 8 certain segment (the initial of the word s hibboleth) as [s] or [$]. A linguistic variable need not only be phonological. Examples of grammatical variables are double negation, the use of ain’t and the lack of marking with verbs in the 3rd person singular among African Americans. slang A more or less vulgar form of colloquial speech. This is not a linguistic term and is used widely by non-linguists. (German: Umgangssprache) socialisation The process by which individuals grow into the society they are surrounded by during their childhood. Socialisation has many aspects of which linguistic behaviour is only one. The process is largely unconscious but has far-reaching consequences for individuals in their later life. (German: So zialisierung) sociolect A variety of a language which is typical of a certain class. Sociolects are most common in urban areas. In history, sociolects may play a role, e.g. in the formation of the English standard, Received Pronunciation, which derives from a city dialect (that of London in the late Middle Ages) but which has long since become a sociolect (Cockney being the dialect of London nowadays). (German: Soziolekt) sociolinguistics The study of the use of language in society. Although some writers on language had recognised the importance of social factors in linguistic behaviour it was not until the 1960’s with the seminal work of Labov that the attention of large numbers of linguists was focussed on language use in a social context. In particular the successful explanation of many instances of language change helped to establish sociolinguistics as an independent sub-discipline in linguistics and led to a great impetus for research in this area. (German: So ziolinguistik) sociology The study of society. This is a very diversified discipline which like many others has a linguistic component, known as the sociology of language. Note that the latter is practised by sociologists. Sociolinguists on the other hand are linguists who are interested in the use of language in society. (German: So ziologie) solidarity The act of sympathising with another individual or group. It can be expressed linguistically in several ways. One of the most common expressions of solidarity is in social groups which use special forms of address to express group identity. Special forms of language may also be used as in the case of Yiddish among New York Jews. (German: Solidarität) speech community Any identifiable and delimitable group of speakers who use a more or less unified type of language. (German: Sprachgemeinschaft) standard A variety of a language which by virtue of historical accident has become the leading form of the language in a certain country. As a result of this, the standard may be expanded due to the increase in function which it experiences due to its position in society. There is nothing inherently superior about a standard although nearly all speakers of a community accept that it has highest prestige. (German: Standard) Raymond Hickey Glossary for Language in the City Page 8 of 8 stereotypes A simplified representation of some features which are taken to be characteristic of a group of speakers, a region or country. (German: Stereotyp) subjective reaction tests A type of test in which the informants are examined (consciously or unconsciously) with regard to their attitude to certain linguistic forms.

T-form A generic reference to those forms in systems of address which are used to express familiarity or intimacy, cf. tu in French. Forms a dichotomy with V-form (cf. vous in French). (German: T-Form) taboo Certain words in a language exist but should not be used (according to general opinion). There is a great deal of force attached to the use of such words as a consequence. In industrialised societies such words are nowadays restricted to areas of intimate behaviour but formerly, and today in many developing countries, large sections of a language were/are taboo, e.g. all vocabulary associated with death or the supernatural. Words may become taboo in the course of time or, more frequently, taboo words may loose their special character and consequently their force as they no longer have a shock effect. (German: Tabu) urban dialectology The investigation of the speech patterns of urban dwellers in deliberate contrast to the study of conservative rural speech which used to be common in dialectology until the mid 20th century. (German: S tadtdialektologie) variable rule Any rule which is dependent for its realisation on external factors. For instance the glottalisation of intervocalic /t/ in British English, as in butter [bv?q], is dependent on the degree of formality. (German: variable R egel) variety A term used to refer to any variant of a language which can be sufficiently delimited from another variant. The grounds for such differentiation may be social, historical, spatial or a combination of these. The necessity for a neutral term such as variety arose from the loaded use of the term d ialect: this was not only used in the sense defined above, but also with the implication that the linguistically most interesting varieties of a language are those spoken by the older rural population. This view is understandable given the origin of dialectology in the 19th century, that is in the heyday of historical linguistics. Nowadays, sociolinguistic attitudes are prevalent and the need for a term which can include the linguistic investigation of urban populations from a social point of view became evident. (German: Varietät) verbal duelling A type of linguistic behaviour where the participants attempt to gain a position of dominance and power by the skilful use of language. (German: verbales Kämpfen) verbal play Linguistic behaviour which is characterised by a playful use of language, in particular to produce additional meanings and associations and thus to cause amusement. (German: v erbales Spielen)