Sociolinguistic differentiation

Abstract

Early work in sociolinguistics offered key insights for studying the social meanings of linguistic differentiation. Three of these remain strong inspirations for current research programs. First, there was a deep understanding that many apparently different disciplinary approaches were closely related and together would shed light on linguistic variation and change. Dialectology, ethnographies of communication, conversation analysis, and studies of standardization and of language politics sat comfortably side-by-side in the early edited collections (Hymes 1964; Bright 1966). In a second insight, researchers proposed that all social signaling occurs in interaction of some kind: Linguistic changes correspond to shifts in the social situation (Fischer 1958; Hymes 1962; Labov 1963; Gumperz and Hymes 1964). In studies of communication, a concern with reflexivity was present from the start. Anthropologist Bateson (1955) highlighted the necessity of metasignals that give cues to listeners about how they should understand or respond to utterances. Jakobson (1960) discussed the metalinguistic (i.e., reflexive) function of language. Both theorists recognized that many levels of linguistic structure can carry metamessages, and such signaling occurs in every kind of interaction and social group. A third insight followed: If the selective display of linguistic variants can signal the definition of situation, it can also reconstruct it. Linguistic variation does not simply reflect but also performatively creates social meaning that is a spur and enactment of social differentiation (Labov 1963; Blom and Gumperz 1972). In this way, linguistic variation participates in sociocultural as well as linguistic change.