社会语言学或与社会有关的语言研究是语言上的相对新来者。直到1960年代初期，威廉·拉伯夫（William Labov）在美国的工作和彼得·特鲁德吉尔（Peter Trudgill）在英国的工作很大程度上，它才发展成为公认的语言学分支。在此之前，通常在偏远的农村地区（作为语言调查的一部分）研究方言的悠久传统，但其议程主要是由记录和保留语言历史特征的关注所决定的。这种辩证法本质上是保守的，并且是在语言学学科下追求的更大，比较语言研究的一部分。拉伯夫是最早将注意力从农村转移到城市主题的语言学家之一，试图分析美国演讲的当代特征。

社会语言学在许多方面都是社会学和语言学的融合。It is sometimes referred to as the ‘sociology of language’, although that label suggests a greater concern with sociological rather than linguistic explanations, whereas sociolinguists are principally concerned with language, or, to be more precise, with what Dell Hymes crucially calls ‘socially constituted’ language: with the way language is constructed by, and in turn helps to construct, society. Its popularity has grown very much as a reaction to the more ‘armchair’ methods of generative linguists of the乔姆斯基学校。生成语言学家检查了“理想化的”语音样本，其中语音以标准的语言形式完整，没有性能错误。另一方面，社会语言学家对社区内外的“真实”演讲更感兴趣。他们的压倒性关注是语言根据使用的社会背景以及其所属的社会群体的方式变化的方式：Labov称这种“世俗语言学”。影响言语的社会变量包括个人因素，例如年龄和教育，以及更普遍的国籍，种族和性别。所有这些都与语言使用有关。

威廉·拉伯夫（William Labov）

社会语言学家研究这种使用的标准方式是通过对人群的随机取样。In classic cases, like those undertaken in New York by Labov, or in Norwich by Trudgill, a number of linguistic variables are selected, such as ‘r’ (variably pronounced according to where it occurs in a word) or ‘ng’ (variably pronounced /n/ or /ŋ̍/). Sections of the population, known as informants, are then tested to see the frequency with which they produce particular variants. The results are then set against social indices which group informants into classes, based on factors such as education, money, occupation, and so forth. On the basis of such data it is possible to chart the spread of innovations in accent and dialect regionally. One complicating factor, however, is that people do not consistently produce a particular accent or dialect feature. They vary their speech according to the formality or informality of the occasion. So tests have to take into account stylistic factors as well as social ones. Interestingly, the findings which have emerged from such studies show that some variables are more subject to stylistic variation than others. What appears to happen is that people monitor their production of a variable they are particularly conscious of, whilst those they are less conscious of, they ignore. The first kind of variable is termed a marker and the second an indicator. Most innovations start as indicators, with certain social groups unconsciously producing them; a good example is ‘h’ dropping. If successful, they become adopted more widely by other groups, for whom they become markers. At a final stage a feature may become so distinctive of a certain section of the public that it becomes a stereotype. Such changes are examples of change from below, that is, from below conscious awareness. Once a feature has emerged into consciousness, however, and particularly if it becomes a stereotype, there may be attempts to check its progress by reintroducing some supposedly ‘correct’, and there-fore more prestigious, form. This has happened in the case of ‘r’ dropping in parts of America, and ‘h’ dropping in New Zealand and Australia, where vigorous attempts have been made to reintroduce these vulnerable sounds in the environments in which they are most likely to disappear. Both of these cases are examples of change from above, rather than below.

Labovian型社会语言学的一个主要目标是低估语言如何以及为什么变化。其核心是一种非常精确的经验方法，其程序基于在社会科学领域的既定方式。但是，由于这些经典研究，探究方法的变化改变了社会语言学家收集其材料的方式。特别是，使用参与者观察的程序，观察者将自己沉浸在社区中，而不是依靠随机抽样来收集数据，从而产生了对语言行为的更完善的说法。例如，詹姆斯和莱斯利·米尔罗伊（James and Leslie Milroy）在贝尔法斯特（Belfast）在工人阶级演讲中的工作表明了社交网络在调解言语习惯中的重要性。网络会以微妙的方式运行自己的群体动态，并以更常规的社会学探究方法使用的简单班级类别来影响言语。

尽管社会语言学的“坚硬边缘”与口音和方言有关，但此外还有很多其他内容。Since the growth of so-called ‘political correctness’ the relation-ships between language on the one hand, and sex, race and ideology, on the other, have been extensively explored, and we have, as a result, learnt much about the way in which language not only mirrors social reality, but, more controversially, constructs it. The degree to which it does this is still debated and to a certain extent depends on insights from social anthropology and philosophy, but it gives to sociolinguistics a distinctive modernity and relevance.

在其外边缘，社会语言学将其合并为文体学的相关领域，尤其是话语分析。两个子分支，民族训练学和传播的民族志涉及其上下文和交流方面的风格。第一个专门用于分析对话和规则或原则，这些规则或原则控制转弯。知道何时说话以及什么是回答，而不是中断，是语言使用中的重要社交因素。第二个在更广泛的范围内，社会和文化变量对宽松称为“语言行为”的影响。例如，知道是否将某人称为“琼斯先生”，“吉米”还是“琼斯”，取决于与情境背景，我们的关系的本质和我们所说的文化假设有关的许多因素。众所周知，“地址条款”是一个复杂的研究领域，尤其是因为国家和国籍之间的习俗有所不同。

类别：语言学，，，，文学批评，，，，俄罗斯乌克兰比分直播，，，，社会学

标签：戴尔赞美诗，，，，与社会有关的语言，，，，语言学，，，，Noam Chomsky，，，，社会语言学，，，，社会学，，，，社会学和语言学，，，，特鲁吉尔，，，，威廉·拉伯夫（William Labov）