Chapter 11

Student resources for Chapter 11: Language and the Social World

Terminology
You should be able to simply define or explain the following terms and concepts.

African American English (AAE)	accent	alternation
code-switching	bidialectal	community of practice
dialect	diglossia	identity
indexicality	interactional roles	interlanguage
insertion	language ideology	lexical borrowing
linguistic feature	linguistic repertoire	linguistic variety
loanword	monolingual	multilingual
persona	register	relational roles
slang	sociocultural linguistics	stance
standard	style	style shifting
tag switching	variable	variant
vernacular	"women's language"

Important Points

Through the linguistic choices we make, we are constantly positioning ourselves and others as particular kinds of people who are members of particular social groups, and who have particular beliefs and attitudes; this is how language constructs identity.
We hold beliefs about language and its users that can profoundly shape how we treat them.
All varieties of a language are equally “good”; there is no sense in which a dialect is a “corrupt” version of a standard.
All varieties are regular and systematic.
Everyone speaks a dialect; everyone has an accent; everyone has a vernacular.
There are social ramifications of speaking different varieties. Certain varieties that are institutionally less powerful may carry social stigmas in some situations.
Social meanings of variants are not inherent; they may be different across groups and contexts, and may change over time.
“Women’s language” is not a description of the speech of most women but rather a language ideology about how women are expected to speak.
Code-switching requires two (or more) speakers fluent in BOTH languages; code-switching is not a sign of disfluency in either language.
Membership in different communities of practice may override shared demographic membership in accounting for language use.

Skills
On completion of this chapter, you should be able to perform the following tasks:

You should be able to distinguish style shifting, code-switching, diglossia, and interlanguage
You should be able to distinguish dialect, register, style, accent, and slang
You should be able to identify linguistic features that differentiate language varieties
You should be able to speak knowledgably about language ideologies
Provide examples of how language is used to create different forms of identity
You should be able to identify different features of African American English
You should be able to identify different types of code-switching