Sociolinguistics

Nov 3, 2008

Sociolinguistics: Methods

1. Observation 2. Observation of a small group over a period

of time 3. Interview 4. Surveys and questionnaires5. Accent Judgment Test 6. Language attitude studies 7. Role-playing 8. Discourse Completion Tests

Conversation Analysis: Some terms

Some definitions:1. Face 2. Power and Solidarity 3. Politeness (directness) 4. Speech Acts5. Floor

Analyzing a conversation:

What is the overall goal and organization of the conversation?

1.How is the speech act accomplished (what are the steps)?

2.How do people maintain power and solidarity?

3.How do people maintain face?4.How do people display politeness?5.How does each person know when to start

talking? 6.How do speakers bring a speech act to a

close?

Requests

A: I’ve only got $2.00. What am I going to do now? I guess I’ll have to go to the bank.

B: Oh you don’t have to go to the bank. I have money. I can lend you some.

A: Oh no, I don’t want to bother you. Thanks.

B: Really I have plenty. Believe me, you can have it.

A: Oh, I really appreciate this. Thank you.

B: You’re welcome. So where should we go to lunch?

Requests

A: I have a little problem. I just realize that I don’t have any money with me and the banks are closed now. Do you think is possible for you to lend me at least ten dollars for the weekend?

B: Ten dollars? Do you need that money for what? To eat?A: No just to have some money with me for the weekend in case any

emergency comes up.B: Yes, I can. I can borrow.A: I can lend youB: I can lend you ten dollars, but don’t forget next Thursday when you

yes when you get paid give me back ten dollars and if you want to give me some interests, well..

A: Oh, thank you very much (laughing) I appreciate it

Requests: Gender

Kristin: Okay. It might be useful—I’m not sure what we’re gonna show.Charles: Yeah. Well—like I—y’know I saw—I thought I’d like to have

an arsenal [Kristin: Yeah] Or a sort of y’know collection of things [Kristin: Yeah] from which we could pick and choose.

Kristin: Yeah. You might want to also—Well, w-would he—would Miller know that 12—12 dollars per unit is the same as twenty FFC?

Charles: Um, actually it’s 15 dollars, it’s more like this number we quoted before . . . [Kristin: Oh, Okay.]

Kristin: You know, you might put in parentheses you know, to—yeah—you—you could put dollars per unit, and then in parentheses put, you know, dollars per FFC.

Charles: OkayKristin: Just for--for people like me who are not that quick with

conversions [laughs] That would be good.

Statistics: Correlations

Correlation Are two measurements related to each other? How related are they? (age and g-dropping; social class and /r/ usage)

                                                                                    

(Correlation .79)

Statistics: Correlation

Charts taken from http://www.nvcc.edu/home/elanthier/methods/correlation.htm)

(Correlation -.63)

What does the correlation coefficient “R” mean?

R indicates the strength and direction of the correlation.

Positive Correlation means the more X the more Y (line slopes upward)

Negative Correlation means the more X the less Y (line slopes downward)

Coefficients close to zero indicate that there is no (or very little) relationship between the variables. The line would have no slope and the dots would be scattered all over the chart.

What does “p” mean?

p value = the probability that the data that was analyzed could have occurred by random chance.

Significance is defined as a smaller than 1 in 20 probability of occurring by chance. The statistics programs make this calculation. In sum, if the p is 0.05 or SMALLER, than means the results are significant; that is there is a small probability of getting the results by chance.

Some possible linguistic correlations:

Number of months in a foreign country and linguistic abilities in the country's language (positive or negative?)

What would this mean? R = 0.56, p < .03What would this mean? R = 0.56, p < .07

Number of native dialectal usages and time spent living outside of native dialect area (negative or positive?)

What would this mean? R = -.23, p < .0001What would this mean? R =-.67, p < .0001

Practice

Go to this website

Download this file

Do a correlation with number correct and age, number correct and region, number correct and gender

Caution: Correlation and Causation

Drowning and ice cream consumption: If you look up the statistics of the months with the greatest number of drownings they are also the same months with the greatest amount of ice cream sold—does that mean that they affect each other?

A lot of times researchers are suspicious of correlations—you have to have good reason to suspect that one factor causes another factor . . .

GoldVarb

GoldVarb is a program that was invented by sociolinguists in order to know the relative weighting of several social factors on a linguistic phenomenon (gender, age, social class, region of origin)

http://www.unh.edu/linguistics/lab/goldvarb.html

GoldVarb

In GoldVarb, you can put several factors into one “correlation”

(N 1 female thankyou 1 1 (Y 1 male youbet 1 2 (Y 1 female nothankyou 1 2 (Y 1 male sureappreciateya 1 2

GoldVarb (example study)Clark, 1997: use of –s in Newfoundland English

Linguistic Factors

Linguistic Factors

Non-linguistic Factors