Sociolinguistics
What is "sociolinguistics"?
The study of how language and identity/society influence each other.
Name Grice's four maxims.
Quantity, Quality, Relation (relevance), Manner
Define presupposition.
Presupposition: what the sender assumes the receiver already knows.
"I hereby declare the meeting open."
Direct, indirect or performative?
Performative
Name the four types of context.
Linguistic, situational, background knowledge, cultural
Sam speaks regional dialect with her grandmother, formal standard English with her manager, and slang with her friends. Name this phenomenon.
code switching
A: "Where's the nearest gas station?"
B: "Somewhere on Earth."
Which maxim is not met, and is it intentional?
Quantity; intentional (joking/sarcastic)
Give one (non-existential) presupposition of: "Sarah stopped playing football."
Sarah used to play football
"It's cold in here." Which speech act type is this, and what is the speaker probably asking?
Indirect; a request to close the window or turn up the heat
What is implicature?
Meaning beyond the conventional meaning of words.
Explain what "verbing" is and give an example.
When you turn a noun into a verb, e.g. "to Google"
(1) "We hit our targets. Well done!"
(2) "I'll talk to the board and we will decide on bonuses."
Which "we" is inclusive and which is exclusive?
(1) Inclusive (speaker + team)
(2) Exclusive (speaker + board, not the team)
"It wasn't Anna who broke the vase."
Give the presupposition and say what it shows about negation.
Someone broke the vase; presuppositions survive negation
"Hey friend, your outfit looks awesome today!"
Positive or negative politeness, and how is it reinforced?
Positive: compliment, exaggeration, attention to the other
What is the Sapir-Worf hypothesis?
What doesn't exist in a language often doesn't exist in people's minds.
Teachers, nurses and army officers are expected to speak and behave in certain ways. Which concept does this illustrate, and what does it mean?
Identity as a social construct: a framework created by society for how you live and are perceived, generating expectations and rituals
Name the deixis types in:
"I'll meet you here tomorrow."
I, you = person
here = spatial
tomorrow = temporal
will = temporal, future tense
You find a note: "I'll meet you tomorrow at 6 at this place." What must the reader infer, and why is that impossible?
Who, where and when; the deictic words have no anchor and situational context and background knowledge are missing
"Could you possibly lend me your notes, if it's not too much trouble?"
Positive or negative politeness, and how is it reinforced?
Negative: modal, weakening the directive
"You're a genius" is said after solving a puzzle, and again after spilling coffee on a laptop.
Which maxim is violated in the second case, and which context makes the difference?
Quality (irony); situational context (plus background knowledge/intonation)
Explain
- the semantic shift in "your presentation ate";
- the social variable that stratifies this variety;
- who it excludes.
- Ate = performed brilliantly
- Age/generation
- Outsiders, e.g. older generations
Anna: "Did you like the restaurant I booked for us last night?"
Ben: "The waiter was very tall."
Name the maxim Ben flouts and what he implicates.
Relation; he didn't like the restaurant (and avoids saying so)
"We're not saying this body wash will make your man smell like a romantic millionaire jet fighter pilot, but we are insinuating it."
What is inferred, which maxim is flouted, and why is it funny?
The product will make a man attractive/adventurous; Quality (exaggeration);
the obvious untruth and the self-aware "insinuating"
Define face and face-threatening act (FTA).
Face = public self-image; FTA = an act that threatens it (orders, criticism, bad news, personal questions)
"Gen-Z slang is cooperative within the group but uncooperative for outsiders."
Explain using at least two of these:
A) Cooperative principles of Grice
B) presupposition & inference
C) Sapir-Whorf/ Wittgenstein
D) sociolinguistic terminology from the Gen-Z video
Insiders share the background knowledge and presuppositions (e.g. ate = excellent), so they infer the meaning.
Outsiders see a Manner violation (unclear).
Semantic shift changes meanings.
The slang marks the limits of the group's "world" (Sapir-Whorf/Wittgenstein).
Code-switching shows Gen-Z adapting to audiences. Homogenisation raises the linguicide risk