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Part I
Sociolinguistics: Origins,
Definitions and Approaches
In this first part of the book we have assembled extracts from some of the
most influential writers in sociolinguistics to illustrate their views on what
sociolinguistics is, what it does, and what it might become. From the short
chapters by Hymes, Labov, (Joshua) Fishman and Halliday we get a strong
sense of the core ideas that have brought sociolinguistics into existence: the
limitations of a study of language that ignores the social and contextual basis
of language; the need to develop an understanding of what language can do
socially and communicatively - a functional perspective - as well as under-
standing what language is like as an abstract system; the need to account for
language in use across many formal and informal, casual and ceremonial,
ordinary and poetic situations; the commitment to displaying and accounting
for variation, at all levels, in social uses of language; the pursuit of equality
and social justice in a social world riddled with linguistic prejudice.
This socially-based view of language was a reaction to a more idealized
view of language as code, conceptualized by Chomsky as linguistic
competence: knowledge of the grammatical rules of a language by an
idealized speaker-hearer. A degree of idealization will be present in linguistic
analysis of any sort (as Halliday points out in Chapter 4 and Milroy in
Chapter 8). But from a sociolinguistic point of view, the Chomskyan
approach was limited and limiting. Therefore Hymes argued for the
broadening of the object of linguistic inquiry into communicative com-
petence - knowledge of grammatical but also social and cultural rules of a
language, and reflecting the competences of actual speakers, not some
idealized norm (see Gumperz's Chapter 5).
At the same time, a sense of history is important in this regard.' Although
sociolinguistics is still a young discipline, dating mainly from the 1960s, its
priorities have shifted over the years. Today, these priorities are being quite
vigorously debated and challenged. A close reading of this part's chapters
will show up significant differences of emphasis, and these will be repeated in
later parts of the book. How we should 'frame' the discipline of
sociolinguistics is therefore something of an open question, and it will be
valuable to return to this introductory section from time to time to refine
your own views. In the meanwhile, we can usefully highlight some of the
principal areas of debate.
5
Sociolinguistics: Origins, Definitions and Approaches
6
The 'shape' or morphology of the word 'sociolinguistics' sets up an
expectation that sociolinguistics is a version of, or a way of doing,
linguistics. It seems to be that part of linguistics which attends to 'social'
questions. But several writers have pointed to the inaccurate assumptions
behind this interpretation. In his short but much-quoted Introduction to the
book Sociolinguistic Patterns (the extract is reprinted here as Chapter 2),
Labov writes that he resisted the term sociolinguistics because it implies,
mistakenly, that there can be a sort of linguistics that is not social. What is
language if not a means of establishing contact between people? So isn't
language an inherently social process? Doesn't language define the sociality
of human beings? Sociolinguists of all persuasions would of course agree
that this is the case. To answer the questions that Labov has set for himself,
there is no alternative to studying actual uses of language in its natural
contexts. Only a 'socially realistic' approach will reveal patterns in the
distribution of language forms within communities and over time. Certain
truths about language can only emerge from analyses based on real
language data.
But other sociolinguists have argued (see, for example, Cameron in
7) that Labov himself does not go far enough; he doesn't go beyond
Chapter
asking questions about the linguistic system. His work extends the notion of
system by accounting for linguistic variation and change, but it does not
combine its results with a broader social theory, except in limited respects.
Halliday takes Labov's (and others', most notably Bernstein's) work as a
starting point in his version of sociolinguistics. He shares Labov's
assumptions, but with rather different goals for his analyses. His argument
is that we need a social perspective in order to model language, and in
particular the meaning-options that are captured in the grammar and
vocabulary of any sentence or utterance. Again, then, the general argument
is that any adequate account of language - any viable sort of linguistics -
needs to be social. Sociolinguistics would be a redundant concept if
linguistics properly reflected the social basis of all language use.
Halliday also challenges Hymes's view of communicative competence,
conceptualized as knowledge. Halliday argues for studying language as
action, or 'doing', in which speakers produce particular forms and meanings
by choosing from all those which are potentially available to them. We
could say that Halliday's perspective is therefore one which grows out of
sociolinguistic assumptions, but moves back into the traditional territory of
linguistics - the modelling of grammatical organization at the level of the
individual utterance. Most sociolinguists, on the other hand, feel that their
analyses should illuminate both language and society in some specific
respects.
Hymes's chapter, apart from introducing the notion of communicative
competence, is helpful in showing us different theoretically possible links
between language and society. What Hymes calls the linguistic and the social
Editors' Introduction 7
is merely a matter of bringing each of these concepts to bear upon the
other - the minimal requirement for sociolinguistics. Socially realistic
linguistics, Labov's formulation, sets up criteria for basing the study of
language on observable instances of language-in-use. But Hymes sets out his
case in favour of a socially constituted linguistics, an approach in which
whatever questions we might ask about language are embedded in a social
analysis- language as part of communicative conduct and social action.
From this perspective, language and society are not theoretically distinct
concepts. Language is itself a form of social action. Speaking and writing are
the fulfilment of purposes which are defined socially and culturally. Equally,
we might argue that society itself is a concept that depends intimately on
exchange of meanings between people, and therefore on language.
Similarly, in (Joshua) Fishman's version of sociolinguistics, or what he
prefers to call the sociology of language, sociological and linguistic concerns
are inextricably linked. Fishman argues that, in multilingual communities,
questions of nationalism, group equality, dominance and political change
have a strong basis in attitudes to language, language choice and language
policies. The sociology of language therefore needs to concern itself with
psychological (or, more appropriately, social psychological) questions
of attitudes, beliefs, stereotypes, allegiances and antipathies. Its range of
research methods (as we shall see in Part II of the Reader) needs to be broad
enough to give us access to cognitive processes as well as to the facts of
linguistic distribution and patterns of use. This is why sociolinguistics has
developed a strong tradition of sociopsychological work, as represented in
Part V of the book.
We can therefore ask whether the scope of sociolinguistics in fact needs to
be restricted to developing a better understanding of language itself. For
Hodge and Kress, the overriding concern is social semiotics, or the symbolic
and ideological meanings that sustain social groups and all social categories.
Only some of these meanings will be strictly linguistic, and Hodge and
Kress's analyses highlight the social significance of all conventional codes,
including visual and behavioural conventions. We might think of Hodge
and Kress's social semiotics as a particular version of sociolinguistics which
addresses familiar linguistic topics - such as accent, dialect or style - within
a distinctively social theory of meaning. For them, language styles have
symbolic meanings that represent different positions in social conflicts, such
as class interests and associated power struggles. Their social theory is
influenced by Voloshinov,2 who insisted that words and other linguistic
forms are 'filled with dialogic overtones', echoing the voices of different
social experiences and interest groups.
Voloshinov's ideas, developed as early as the 1920s, have attracted
renewed interest in recent years as part of a movement towards critical
linguistics. Within sociolinguistics, the critical perspective has begun to
challenge the orthodoxy of variationist sociolinguistic research associated
Sociolinguistics: Origins, Definitions and Approaches
8
with William Labov. Note how Hodge and Kress, similarly to Cameron,
acknowledge the ground-breaking importance of Labov's research in urban
settings - his detailed and rigorously conducted observations of language
variation in New York City, for example (well overviewed in Cameron's
chapter). But these last chapters also criticize Labov for what they see as the
narrowness of his social theorizing. Cameron argues that Labov is too ready
to accept the belief that language reflects society, and that his research is
designed on that assumption. Examining how features of pronunciation co-
vary with social dimensions like social class, gender or age leaves us unable
to explain the symbolic force of such features. Even the most thorough
descriptive account of language variation leaves us unable to explain the
social constitution of linguistic features.
So, for all the obvious successes of sociolinguistics from the 1960s
onwards, sociolinguists are reappraising the trust they have placed in
objective, observational research, and in quantification as their main
research tool. Systematic observation and counting has revealed important
facts about how language forms are distributed - between women and men,
across age-groups and over time. On the other hand, does commitment to
this sort of research limit the questions we can ask about language in
society? Halliday seemed to suggest so when he wrote that sociolinguistics
sometimes appears to be a search for answers which have no questions!
Questions of method are taken up in the chapters in Part II, but there is
more at stake than methods themselves. If we endorse Hymes's appeal for a
'socially constituted' study of language, do we dare to place language at the
centre of our model of social life? If we do, then the agenda for
sociolinguistics is, perhaps paradoxically, far broader than that of
linguistics. Sociolinguistics can provide a coherent way of investigating
social processes generally. This is why it is probably useful to keep the
terminological distinction between linguistics and sociolinguistics, despite
Labov's wish to do away with the 'socio' element.
There is no reason to expect that a uniform vision of sociolinguistics will
prevail, and we have tried to reflect the diversity of sociolinguistic
approaches and priorities, past and present, throughout the Reader.
NOTES
A sense of history is also important in appreciating the writing conventions of
sociolinguists. To contemporary readers, it is very striking that eminent theorists
of language and society should have tolerated what are arguably sexist modes of
reference, such as Labov's 'people ... arguing with their wives', the first word
of Fishman's chapter, or Halliday's 'language and social man'. It is very largely
through the sociolinguistic research which these authors brought into existence
that we have become aware of the divisiveness and inequality that such patterns
of usage can promote.
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