Review Articles: Introduction

Florian Coulmas (ed.). The Handbook of Sociolinguistics (Blackwell Handbooks in Linguistics, 4). Oxford: Blackwell. 1997. x + 532 pp.Cloth (0–631–19339–1) £#187;70.00.     

What is a ‘Handbook of Sociolinguistics’?

Florian Coulmas (ed.). The Handbook of Sociolinguistics (Blackwell Handbooks in Linguistics, 4). Oxford: Blackwell. 1997. x + 532 pp.Cloth (0–631–19339–1) £70.00.     

Some 'fractious energy'

Florian Coulmas (ed.). The Handbook of Sociolinguistics (Blackwell Handbooks in Linguistics, 4). Oxford: Blackwell. 1997. x + 532 pp. Cloth (0–631–19339–1) £70.00.     

Historical and theoretical perspectives in language policy and planning

This paper explores the evolution of language policy and planning (LPP) as an area of research from the end of World War II to the present day. Based on analysis of the LPP literature, three types of factors are identified as having been instrumental in shaping the field. These factors – macro sociopolitical, epistemological, and strategic – individually and interactively have influenced the kinds of questions asked, methodologies adopted, and goals aspired to in LPP research. Research in LPP is divided into three historical phases: (1) decolonization, structuralism, and pragmatism; (2) the failure of modernization, critical sociolinguistics, and access; and (3) the new world order, postmodernism, and linguistic human rights. The article concludes with a discussion of current research trends and areas requiring further investigation.     

Orderly mixing and accommodation in South African codeswitching

'Mixed Language,' a characteristic pattern of language use among African township residents in South Africa, may well include words or full constituents from several languages. However, from both a structural and a social perspective, such speech has a systematic nature. In reference to grammatical structure, within any CP (projection of COMP) showing codeswitching, only one language (the Matrix Language) provides the grammatical frame in the data studied. Also, while speakers from different educational levels engage in codeswitching with similar frequencies, the types of codeswitched constitutents they prefer are different. In reference to the social use of language, we argue that specific patterns of codeswitching indicate how language is both an index of identity and a tool of communication in South Africa. In the codeswitching patterns they use, speakers exhibit strong loyalty to their own first languages. Yet, because they recognize that codeswitching facilitates communication with members of other ethnic groups, they use a number of codeswitching strategies as a means of accommodating to their addressees and simultaneously as a means of projecting multiple identities for themselves.     

Coming of age in African American English: A longitudinal study1

This study examines trajectories of development in the use of African American English (AAE) for 32 speakers through the first 17 years of their lives based on a unique, longitudinal database. Temporal data points in the analysis include 48 months, Grade 1 (about age 6), Grade 4 (about age 9), Grade 6 (about age 11), Grade 8 (about age 13), and Grade 10 (about age 15). Complementary methods of analysis for assessing AAE include a token‐based Dialect Density Measure (DDM), a type‐based vernacular diversity index, and frequency‐based variation analysis. The study reveals different trajectories and peak periods for the use of AAE, including a ‘roller coaster’ and a curvilinear trajectory; at the same time, there is a common dip among speakers in the overall use of vernacular AAE from Grade 1 through Grade 4. Examination of a selective set of demographic and self‐regard measures shows no significant differences for gender, school racial density, racial peer contacts, and measures of Afro‐centrality, but does show a significant correlation between mothers’ and child use of AAE as well as age/grade.     

An Analog Study of First Language Dominance and Interference over Second Language

The purpose of this study was to design a model for “first language” dominance over “second language” performance and the interference of one language over the other. Two sets of equivalence relations showing a common element (i.e., the reference) were established under different contextual conditions. One set (“first language”) was over trained relative to the other (“second language”). Dominance of the “first language,” as demonstrated in relations involving the common element, was determined by examining performances in the absence of contextual stimuli. Interference by one language over the other was modeled by examining the degree to which resurgence of “first language” and “second language” relations would occur in extinction, following a period of exposure to inconsistent test trials. In addition, both selection-based (i.e., copy text) and topography-based (i.e., intraverbal) equivalence were examined in these areas. The results demonstrated that the development of an analog for a bilingual repertoire, the domination of the “first language” over the “second language” and the interference of one language over the other, were established.     

Literacy in the modern world

Books reviewed in this article:
Clark, R. and Ivanic, R. The Politics of Writing
Hasan, Ruqaiya and Williams, Geoff (eds.). Literacy in Society (Applied Linguistics and Language Study)
Johns, Ann M. Text, Role, and Context: Developing Academic Literacies (Cambridge Applied Linguistics)
Lankshear, Colin with Gee, James Paul; Knobel, Michele and Searle, Chris. Changing Literacies
Andre´e, Tabouret-Keller; Le Page, Robert B.; Gardner-Chloros, Penelope and Varro, Gabrielle (eds.). Vernacular Literacy: A Re-evaluation (Oxford Studies in Anthropological Linguistics)     

Contact,the feature pool and the speech community: The emergence of Multicultural London English

In the multilingual centres of Northern Europe's major cities, new varieties of the host languages are emerging. While some analyse these ‘multiethnolects’ as youth styles, we take a variationist approach to an emerging ‘Multicultural London English’ (MLE), asking: (1) what features characterise MLE; (2) at what age(s) are they acquired; (3) is MLE vernacularised; and (4) when did MLE emerge, and what factors enabled this? We argue that innovations in the diphthongs and the quotative system are generated from the specific sociolinguistics of inner‐city London, where at least half the population is undergoing group second‐language acquisition and where high linguistic diversity leads to a heterogeneous feature pool to select from. We look for incrementation ( Labov 2001 ) in the acquisition of the features, but find this only for two ‘global’ changes, BE LIKE and goose ‐fronting, for which adolescents show the highest usage. Community‐internal factors explain the age‐related variation in the remaining features.     

The language ideologies of multilingual nannies in London

In the globalized economy, multilingualism is increasingly perceived as a way of maximizing competitiveness, even in the family home. In the United Kingdom, multilingualism has become an asset for nannies, granting privileged access to a niche job market. Adopting the theoretical lens of language ideology, we identify sites and forms of language evaluation within the nannies’ discursive construction of their language work. Using thematic analysis of interview and focus group data with nannies, we examine how nannies represent their English and L1 language practices, verbalizations, and embodiments. Findings suggest that, rather than language practices, it is the verbalization of the symbolic value of multilingualism (normally through the medium of English) that grants nannies an advantageous position in the market. This market is made possible by upper-middle-class families, whose privileging of specific languages and speakers perpetuates eliteness, gendered language work, and problematic approaches to second language learning.     

Mock Ebonics: Linguistic racism in parodies of Ebonics on the Internet

This study describes and analyzes outgroup linguistic racism in parodies of Ebonics (‘Mock Ebonics’) that appeared on the Internet in the wake of the December 18, 1996 resolution of the Board of Education of the Oakland (California) Unified School District on improving the English-language skills of African-American students. We examined 23 World Wide Web pages containing 270,188 words, from which we chose nine pages containing 225,726 words for in-depth analysis. Drawing on a characterization of Mock Spanish, our analysis shows that Mock Ebonics is a system of graphemic-phonetic, grammatical, semantic, and pragmatic strategies for representing an outgroup's belief in the imperfection and inferiority of Ebonics and its users. We show how producers of Ebonics parody pages employ these strategies, which are common in speech stereotypes, to articulate an anti-Ebonics language ideology and shift the blame for the poor academic performance of African Americans from a racist society to learners and the community from which they come.     

More willingly to school: tools for teachers to cope with linguistically diverse classrooms

Students’ lack of school success often lies in the differences between the language used at home and the ‘school language’ they are required to use at school. A framework was drawn up in which five domains are distinguished where specific problems might be located: language-internal aspects (mastery of vocabulary, grammar, etc.), literacy (reading and writing skills), interaction (interpersonal communication skills), learning (content-related organizational and studying skills), and presentation (explanatory skills). To test the (practical) viability of this framework two studies were carried out (European policy experts and secondary-school teachers). New opportunities for teacher training are addressed.     

Social relationships and shifting languages in Northern Thailand1

This paper explores how speakers’ understandings of the conduct of social relationships mediate changing and socially distinctive syncretic language practices in a Northern Thai community. Although a shift away from vernacular (Kam Muang) speech styles to Standard Thai was emblematically tied to young and urban speakers in nostalgic discourses, syncretic speech styles and metalinguistic discourses also reflected local and socially positioned understandings of institutional roles and social relationships. I argue that scholars of language change and shift should foreground the mediating role of social relationships in speakers’ uses and understandings of their communicative repertoires across multiple timescales.     

Book Reviews

Honey, John. Language is Power: The Story of Standard English and its Enemies .
Ó Snodaigh, Pádraig. Hidden Ulster: Protestants and the Irish Language .
Edwards, Derek. Discourse and Cognition .
Blaney, Roger. Presbyterians and the Irish Language .
Traill, Anthony. Extinct South African Languages Compact disk plus booklet
Kasper, Gabriele, and Kellerman, Eric (eds.). Communication Strategies: Psycholinguistic and Sociolinguistic Perspectives .     

‘Pure’ Farsi and political sensitivities: Language and ideologies in Farsi complementary language classrooms in Denmark

This paper presents an insight into two Farsi complementary language classrooms in Copenhagen, Denmark, characterised by political sensitivities. We illustrate a number of characteristic features of the classrooms concerning language use, pedagogical methods and cultural phenomena, which were related to key adults’ preferences, and we consider possible interpretations of them as indexical signs. In particular, we emphasise ideological interpretations (e.g. the monolingualism norm and language purism) and we relate the classroom characteristics to the contemporary state of Iran as well as to the time and place in which the classes occurred. We analyse both explicit metapragmatic messages and implicit ways of indicating ideologies, and see both types as characterised by avoidance of particular referents, that is, by unmentionables.     

Watching Dutch Change: A Real Time Study of Variation and Change in Standard Dutch Pronunciation

The study investigates phonological variation and change in two varieties of standard Dutch: southern standard Dutch (spoken in Flanders, the northern part of Belgium) and northern standard Dutch (spoken in the Netherlands). A new source for studying language change in progress is introduced: archived recordings of radio broadcasts. The study covers the period from 1935 to 1993. Changes in progress are studied by a combination of insight and techniques from historical linguistics and sociolinguistics. The outcomes of analyzing separate linguistic variables are presented, but the focus of the analysis is on the presence of more general patterns of covariation within the set of linguistic variables and on the possibility of distinguishing (prototypical) temporal and community-based varieties of standard Dutch. The results reveal a pattern of divergence between the two varieties of standard Dutch. The southern variety remained more or less stable between 1935 and 1993. Northern standard Dutch, however, changed substantially.     

Language attitudes as predictors of morphosyntactic variation: Evidence from Catalan speakers in southern France

This article explores the potential role of attitudes as motivating factors in language variation and change. This study represents an important departure from existing scholarship through its consideration of quantitative measures of language attitudes as factors in multivariate analyses of linguistic data. Four morphosyntactic variables in Northern Catalan (an obsolescent variety spoken in France) will be examined in order to determine which factors significantly correlate with use of local or supralocal variants. Linear regression modelling reveals firm correlations for two of the variables, wherein positive evaluations of Catalan varieties on the status dimension (cf. Carranza & Ryan, 1975; Woolard, 1989, inter alia) align with supralocal variant use. We will see that attitudes can be helpful in uncovering motivations for language variation, but that qualitative ideological data are indispensable in the interpretation of findings.     

Diglossia and identity in Northeast Thailand: Linguistic,social, and political hierarchy

The paper explores diglossic relations between Central Thai and phasa isan, a variety officially known as a dialect of Thai, but linguistically close to Lao. Phasa isan is spoken by almost one‐third of Thailand's population but its speakers in the Northeast are often stigmatized as uneducated and backward. We conducted field research mainly among university students in Ubon Ratchathani, a northeastern border province, by drawing upon data from survey questionnaires, reflective essays, interviews, and field observations. The findings suggest a transitional diglossic relationship in which Central Thai is the High and phasa isan the Low variety. These relationships are discussed in terms of nationalism, social hierarchy, and language maintenance and shift.