Introduction to Sociolinguistics Sumarized by Tri Rina Budiwati

How Language and Society Have Co-relation?
Society: any group of people who are drawn together for a certain purpose or purposes. Meanwhile, Language: what the members of a particular society speak. the following is some brief language phenomena in society.

Some Language Phenomena in Society

• The language of formal written document
• Cockney and Black English
• Fast colloquial speech
• Completely novel sentences
• Slips of the tongue

The Problems of Variation What might cause a speaker to say….?

1. Do you think it’s cold in here?
2. The airport, as fast as you can.
3. I do.
4. Do you love me?
5. How strange!
6. Can we have some silence at the back?
7. Will you marry me?
8. You don’t love me anymore.

Possible Relationship between Language and Society

1. Social structure may influence or determine linguistic structure and/or behavior ( S ==> L) .
2. Linguistic structure and/or behavior may influence or determine social structure (L ==> S) .
3. Language and society may influence each other (bi-directional) (S < --> L).
4. There is no relationship at all between language and society  (asocial linguistics) (S + L).

Relationship between Language and Society
Language and society may influence each other. According to Gumperz, Sociolinguistics is an attempt to find correlations between social structure and linguistics structure and to observe any changes that occur.

Here are Brief Description between Sociolinguistics and Sociology of Language

                                           Sociolinguistics                    Sociology of Language

Sociolinguistics and Sociology of Language

Sociolinguistics

• Considers “who speaks (or writes) what language (or what language variety) to whom and when and to what end” (Fishman).
• Empirical science: based on fact and data

Variety of Questions and Data in SociolinguisticsCorrelational Studies: Relate 2 or more variables

• Implicational Studies: If X, then Y (bes or best?)
• Microlinguistic Studies: focus on very specific linguistic items (individual differences) for Example: Slang, Black, etc.
• Macrolinguistic Studies: large amount of language data  to draw broad conclusion (e.g. choices in language planning)