5语系与社会语言学.ppt

* Language and society 1. The scope of sociolinguistics 1.1 Indications of relatedness between language and society An obvious indication of the inter-relationship between language and society is the fact that language is not always used to exchange information as is generally assumed, but rather it is sometimes used to fulfil an important social function--- to maintain social relationship between people. Another indication is that users of the same language in a sense all speak differently. The kind of language each of them chooses to use is in part determined by his social background. When we speak we cannot avoid giving our listeners clues about our origin and our background. Whereas English, for example, has only one word for snow ( or two if we include sleet), Eskimo has several. The reasons for this are obvious. It is essential for Eskimos to be able to distinguish efficiently between different types of snow. English, of course, is quite able to make the same distinctions: fine snow, dry snow, soft snow, and so on, but in Eskimos this sort of distinction is lexicalized---made by means of individual words. The social environment can also be reflected in language, and can often have an effect on the structure of the vocabulary. For example, a society‘s kinship(亲属关系）system is generally reflected in its kinship vocabulary. As society is reflected in language in this way, social change can produce a corresponding linguistic change. 2. Varieties （变体）of language It is an obvious fact that people who claim to be users of the same language do not speak the language in the same manner. For example all the English –speaking people do not speak the same type of English. And the language used by the same individual varies as circumstances vary. Varieties related to the user are normally known as dialects （方言） and varieties related to use as registers（语域变体）. Regional dialect boundaries often coincide with geographical barriers such as mountains, rivers, or