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Sociolinguistics is a marginal subject, which first appeared in the United States in the 1960s. It mainly refers to a subject that studies the social essence and differences of language from different social science angles by using the theories and methods of linguistics and sociology. There are some different understandings of this definition. Some scholars believe that this study should focus on language and combine the role of social factors to study language variation; Some scholars believe that it is sociology of language, which studies various relations between language and society and describes and explains social behavior with linguistic materials.

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General situation of sociolinguistics

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Sociolinguistics school

Introduction to Sociolinguistics in Linguistics Courses

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General situation of sociolinguistics

At present, in China, where sociolinguistics is mixed with cultural linguistics and linguistic culturology, it is best to distinguish them and give sociolinguistics a relatively fixed connotation and a relatively stable extension, instead of a "loose" and "muddleheaded" concept.

At present, sociolinguistics in China is mainly done by some scholars who study dialectology, or some scholars are transferred from the field of dialectology. There are reasons for this, such as the close relationship between dialects and culture, dialects and folk customs, and so on, which is also a reason for the formation of sociolinguistics in China.

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Saussure

Saussure (1857- 19 13) first put forward the research direction of sociolinguistics in 19 15. He thinks that language can be divided into two aspects. One is language, that is, the language system that people usually learn or the use of summative language, such as grammar, syntax and morphology. On the other hand, speech, that is, sociolinguistics, the contemporary preference of language and the research direction related to contemporary society. But it didn't get the attention of scholars at that time.

Brett

W.Bright, 1966) holds that sociolinguistics is a subject that studies language variation. The research content involves seven aspects: the social identity of the speaker, the identity of the listener, the conversation scene, the diachronic and diachronic study of social dialects, civilian linguistics, the degree of language variation and the application of sociolinguistics. His perspective involves context, diachronic language and diachronic language. His focus is "language variation", and sociolinguistics itself is based on variation.

Fishman

J.Fishman, 1972) divides the research scope of sociolinguistics into macro and micro aspects: micro sociolinguistics takes language as the starting point, studies social dialects and language variations, and investigates the influence of social factors on language structure; Macrolinguistics studies the role of language in community organizations from the social perspective. Fechmann divides sociolinguistics into macro and micro. He cares about different levels of research objects.

Hymes

Hymes (D.Hymes, 1974) hymes put forward that sociolinguistics has three important research goals: (1) There are both social goals and linguistic goals; (2) Social realistic linguistics refers to the work of Labauve and his colleagues; (3) Social Constitutive Linguistics aims to explore a wide range of language use theories. Hymes particularly emphasized that the goal of sociolinguistics should be universal, "interdisciplinary" and "multidisciplinary".

bright red

Zhu divided the research content into five aspects: (1) the language situation of a country or region, and the situation and characteristics of the same language using languages according to various attributes; (2) the structural features and social functions of various language varieties; (3) The relationship between conversation situation and code selection, and the interaction between code selection and interpersonal relationship; (4) the evaluation and attitude of the society and different groups to various language varieties and the social effects arising therefrom; (5) Due to social, cultural, economic, political and other reasons, as well as the ways and laws of language changes caused by language contact. Her definition mainly focuses on the following aspects: Tekurada style, language variety, code-switching, and the relationship between society and variety.

Yang

Yang Yonglin's sociolinguistics is a branch of linguistics that studies the relationship between language and society. Sociolinguistics research involves two aspects: one is language structure, and the other is social context. By studying the interaction between them. Sociolinguistics attempts to discuss speech acts by analyzing social and cultural phenomena. And through the phenomenon of language use to explain the social structure and its internal mechanism. Language structure is a part of traditional linguistics, but sociolinguistics is characterized by taking the background and context of language and speakers as the research part. Pay attention to the interaction between society and language.

You Rujie, Zou

You Rujie and Zou pointed out that the subject name of sociolinguistics is the combination of sociology and linguistics. The content includes two aspects. One is sociolinguistics, which basically means: from the social attribute of language, study language with sociological methods, and explain language variation and language evolution from a social perspective. The second is sociology of language, which basically means to explain related social phenomena and their evolution and development process from the facts of language variation and language evolution. Define sociolinguistics from the research direction. In short, the former studies language from society, while the latter studies society from language.

Chen yuan

Chen Yuan (19 18—2004), a native of Xinhui, Guangdong, was born on May 23rd, 2008. 1938 graduated from Technical College of Sun Yat-sen University. From 1938 to 1948, he worked as an editor in Xinzhi Bookstore, Life Bookstore and Sanlian Bookstore in Guangzhou, Guilin, Chongqing, Shanghai and Hong Kong, and participated in editing magazines and books such as World Knowledge, Reading and Publishing, and Selected International English. After liberation, he successively served as a leader in People's Publishing House, Sanlian Bookstore, World Knowledge Publishing House, Zhonghua Book Company, Commercial Press and Character Transformation Publishing House. He once held leadership positions inside and outside the Party in the Publishing Bureau of the Ministry of Culture and the State Publishing Bureau. At present, he is the vice chairman of the All-China esperanto association, vice chairman of the China Publishers Association, director of the Chinese Language Society, director of the China Translators Association, consultant of the Shanghai Dictionary Society, honorary chairman of Friendship Publishing Company, member of the World esperanto association, member of the International Cybernetics Society, and director of the International Council of the World Cybernetics, Information Theory and System Theory Society. He is the author of Language and Social Life, Sociolinguistics, Dictionaries and Information, In the jungle of words, etc. People and Books is his column collection in Reading.

Since 1930s, Chen Yuan has been engaged in publishing, Latinization and Esperanto movement, meanwhile, he has studied international politics, economy, geography and language, and has some translations and works. In the 1950s and 1960s, I was mainly a leader in publishing. He once said modestly, "I have no research on language, but I am just a lover outside the door." However, in the Cultural Revolution, the villain Yao gave a severe blow with a dictionary. The black line reappeared and recovered, and big hats came everywhere. He was dizzy and unconvinced. So he plunged into the ocean of linguistic phenomena and linguistics. Since then, I have embarked on the road of studying sociolinguistics. His first Chinese book, Language and Social Life, was based on reading notes written during the Cultural Revolution. This book has more than 60 thousand words, covering some problems of comparative lexicology and sociolinguistics. The author first demonstrates the close relationship between society and language with some linguistic facts, indicating that language is a social phenomenon, and the rapid change of social life has a great influence on language vocabulary, and then discusses several special influences of social life on language. First, there are superstitions that turn language into spiritual objects in different times, especially citing many examples from the Cultural Revolution. The second is the abuse of loanwords in language pollution. He believes that "Pidgin" is the peak of language pollution and should be completely denied. Third, the mutual influence of society leads to loanwords between languages. This paper discusses the historical process of Chinese loanwords, especially the internationalization, standardization and standardization of terms with the introduction of modern science and technology. This book also devotes considerable space to discussing euphemisms arising from various communication needs. This book has a strong flavor of the times and is exposed to a large number of language phenomena in real life. The words are fluent and sharp, and the author's distinct love and hate are vividly on the paper. In the preface, the author said: "This 60,000-word note ... as a record of a pupil's linguistic resistance to cultural despotism ... may be a small reflection of this turbulent era." Although it is a modest sentence, it just shows its characteristics of the times.

Sociolinguistics, published in 1983, is a continuation and development of language and social life, and an exploration of relevant theoretical and practical issues in sociolinguistics. Although sociolinguistics has long attracted people's attention and become a discipline abroad, it is still a blank in China. Chen Yuan's Sociolinguistics fills this gap and is of pioneering significance. The author tries to study sociolinguistics with Marxist historical materialism. The first few chapters of the book focus on the understanding of the essence of language by Marxist classic writers-language is a social phenomenon, the most important communication tool for human beings and the direct reality of thought. These three points are the starting point for the author to study sociolinguistics. Related to the above viewpoints, the author expounds the important role of language as an information carrier or information system in social communication from the perspective of information theory. Chapter 10 "Observing the change of language from social life" and Chapter 11 "Exploring the prospect of social life from the change of language" are the themes discussed in the book. These two chapters reflect the author's basic views on sociolinguistics: "As far as I know, this subject should observe the variation of language from the changes of social life on the one hand, and explore the changes and prospects of social life from the changes of language or the remains of language on the other."

In the tenth chapter, he explained through many concrete examples of various languages that the changes in social life have caused variations in pronunciation, grammar and vocabulary, and the new development of science and technology has brought corresponding new vocabulary. There is a special section to explain that when new things or new relationships appear in the change of spouse's address, new words will inevitably be produced. In other words, language develops with the development of society. Only when social life stops can language not change, but this situation does not exist in real life. Finally, the author points out that language changes are caused by many factors-time, region, society, social groups and so on. In the eleventh chapter, the author expounds how to explore the change of social life from the change of language or the remains of language, and quotes twelve arguments in Morgan's Ancient Society from the perspective of sociolinguistics, emphasizing that the essence of social phenomena can be explored from the change of language. In this chapter, the author compares the differences and changes of some languages, kinship terms and appellations to examine the differences and changes of social life reflected. It also explores the picture of ancient China society from the language recorded in Oracle Bone Inscriptions and other ancient Chinese characters.

In sociolinguistics, the author also investigates some problems of language and thinking, and touches on the problem of vague language, which shows that fuzziness of language is universal and cannot be abolished in social life, but accurate information cannot be completely excluded in some communication situations. The last chapters of this book further expound some problems in language and social life. Such as language contact and loanwords, the social functions of terms and abbreviations; Euphemism and language taboo. Finally, the author also discusses the problems of language emotion and international auxiliary language. He believes that the practice of Esperanto for nearly a hundred years proves that this program is promising as an international auxiliary communication tool.

Analyzing the maximum information and the best efficiency of language communication from several use cases [patterns] of modern Chinese —— Notes of a Sociolinguist (1983) is a popular article adapted from the author's paper at the second annual meeting of the Chinese Language Society. At the beginning of this paper, several information theory terms related to linguistics are introduced, such as information quantity, maximum information quantity, primary information, secondary information and redundancy derived from it. He pointed out that social language communication activities not only require the transmission of the largest amount of information under the most economical conditions, but also emphasize that such news can cause the best social efficiency every week. He cited ten use cases [models] and said: 1 Send a message and try to maximize the information content of this message. Therefore, in communication occasions when time is tight (such as the coach's on-site guidance to the players when the game is suspended, telegrams), the requirements are straightforward and concise. Sometimes you don't use language, you just use certain symbols (such as various signs used in traffic). 2. In social communication, the dissemination of news also emphasizes the best efficiency, that is, it can cause the best effect. In order to achieve the best efficiency, we must conform to social factors such as social norms, thinking habits, language habits and psychological state. , is not just a simple technical problem. 3. In order to maximize the main information and achieve the best social efficiency, it is sometimes necessary to eliminate redundant information and reduce secondary information, but sometimes it is necessary to consciously increase redundant information according to the specific social environment, such as repeating the main information, increasing the volume or bold printing, repeating the parts that are easy to cause ambiguity one or more times, adding synonyms or supplementing redundant information to the main information, and properly assisting secondary information. Sometimes in order to achieve the best social efficiency, it is necessary to add emotional factors, especially when dealing with potential information.

In addition, Chen Yuan has published some papers on lexicography and Esperanto.

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Sociolinguistics school

Sociolinguistics has made some obvious progress now. Since the 1960s, with the deepening of linguists' understanding of language heterogeneity, sociolinguistics has developed schools such as communicative ethnography, cross-cultural communication, communicative sociolinguistics, language socialization and language acquisition, conversation analysis, and language variation research.

Communicative ethnography

1. Communicative ethnography mainly studies the law of language use from the relationship between language culture and society. It focuses on describing the use of language with the concept of cultural anthropology, especially focusing on the restrictive characteristics brought by different societies, organizations, communities and different cultural customs in society, such as sociolinguistic resources in specific communities and how these resources are developed and utilized in actual speech activities.

Intercultural communication

2. The study of cross-cultural communication mainly discusses the communication strategies and specific differences in different language and cultural environments;

Communicative sociolinguistics

3. Communicative sociolinguistics focuses on the study of communication differences within a race, just like the influence of gender differences within a race on communication strategies, and does not involve cross-cultural and cross-racial communication strategies;

Language Socialization and Language Acquisition

4. The study of language socialization and language acquisition regards the essence of language as a social phenomenon, so children's language acquisition is closely related to their cultural environment;

Conversation analysis

5. Conversation analysis is a special school (capital CA is often used to replace it in English literature), which mainly studies conversations between two or more people, providing a very useful analytical framework for other sociolinguistic schools concerned with actual speech;

Research on language variation

6. Linguistic variation is a "variation school" represented by Lapov. 1966, American sociolinguist Ralph published the article "Social st Classification of English in new york, Washington, D.C.: Center for Applied Linguists", which had an important influence. He carefully investigated the phonetics of the employees of middle and upper grade department stores in new york, and used a sentence containing fourth as a means of investigation. He found that different R pronunciations actually represent different social classes: some people pronounce R clearly, while others pronounce R unclear or hardly at all. After statistics, he found that the proportion of middle and high-level employees making R sounds is relatively high (62% and 5 1% respectively), while the proportion of low-level employees making R sounds is much lower (only 20%).