Talk:Sociolinguistics

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Johnson gracee. Peer reviewers: Kelseyb100.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 09:42, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 9 February 2021 and 22 May 2021. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): KRPatton.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 09:42, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

History of Sociolinguistics
I liked the article but I think in the tecnicalities, a general introduction to the subject has been ignored completely. In fact the article seems incomplete without dedicating a part of it to the history of sociolinguistics; the various approaches in the past, the gradual shift of focus from finding a pure dialect of the rural speaker to the more modern approach proposed by Labov and the ultimate establishment of the modern Sociolinguistics. Anyone..?


 * I agree. I was trained by a staunch sociolinguist, and I agree that the article is missing the "development of sociolinguistics", which I believe started pulling from identity theory in sociology, headed by Erving Goffman ("Presentation of Self in Everyday Life"). I consider him the Father of Modern Day Sociolinguistics, as opposed to Labov. (I'm a bit biased, but I'm not sure if its a controversy or not on the origins of the discipline) asshah (talk) 18:26, 6 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Go ahead and add a history section if you want - we could do with more contributors to this article. If there's doubt about who was the "creator" of sociolinguistics, then it's best just to describe the debate as presented in reliable sources (like sociolinguistics textbooks). Have a look at Wikipedia's policy on having a neutral point of view for more details. Best —  Mr. Stradivarius ♫ 08:06, 7 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the positive words. I'll post a "first draft" history/development section here in the talk section, give it a few days, and go ahead and make the change. Hopefully it'll stick. I'll go digging through my old textbooks. asshah (talk) 20:29, 7 December 2011 (UTC)
 * I'll be looking forward to seeing it! —  Mr. Stradivarius ♫ 22:46, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

The lead section
I have a stupid question. Sociolinguistics and "sociology of language" looked similar to me when I read the first few sentences. Chimin 07 (talk) 15:36, 14 February 2011 (UTC)


 * That's not at all a stupid question. The current descriptions of the difference are confusing. A source of the problem may be that it is difficult to specify in principle the differences between sociolinguistics and the sociology of language. I see the differences as related as much to academic histories as to principled differences in approach. For example, Joshua Fishman, author of The Sociology of Language (1972), is regarded as one of the leading scholars of that field, yet he's also listed on this page as a sociolinguist. (He also wrote Sociolinguistics: A Brief Introduction 1970.) Maybe we need to consult an introductory-level textbook or two to see how they define the differences. Cnilep (talk) 00:32, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

History of Sociolinguistics as a field
I am writing as a holder of a Masters in Linguistics with post-masters studied in linguistics, and notice that the historical development of sociolinguistics as a field is, in this article, possibly quite incomplete, and particularly missing early sociolinguistics research in France and Germany, and possibly more needful of information on the heavily sociolinguistically-oriented approach to the field of Linguistics as a whole that was long typical of French linguists. It would be interesting to compare those with insights and writings by Japanese linguists of the 1930s. Also important to consider sociolinguistic concepts studied before the term 'sociolinguistics' was coined, including references to anthropological linguistics. Uranian Institute (talk) 21:42, 5 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Writing about the history, I mention the following book: The Early Days of Sociolinguistics: Memories and Reflections, by Christina Bratt Paulston, G. Richard Tucker. Pete unseth (talk) 22:41, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

Individual scholars in "See also"
I have removed the individual scholars from the "See also" section. While the individuals listed are notable sociolinguists, it seems unpractical to link to every sociolinguist on Wikipedia. The link to Category:Sociolinguists should suffice. Also, some of those individuals (e.g. William Labov, Basil Bernstein) are already linked in the text, so repeating them in the See also section is unnecessary over-link. Cnilep (talk) 00:52, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

Impending major edits
Hello all! Brand-new to wiki-editing here, so bear with me if I make mistakes. The Canadian Linguistics Association is holding a "Wikipedia Edit-athon" at their annual conference this weekend, May 30-31, 2015. The sociolinguistics faculty and graduate students at my university were tasked with suggesting edits to this page and others linked to it, and many major changes were proposed to improve accuracy, completeness of information, and readability. Over the next weeks, I plan to implement these changes. Please let me know if this will be a problem, or if I should suggest edits before implementing them. Many thanks! -- LinguistSayWhat (talk) 16:11, 26 May 2015 (UTC)LinguistSayWhat

Conflicting definitions
Greetings!

This page and Sociology of language share a problem: they both define themselves as one thing, and define the other as the opposite.

From this page:


 * "... the focus of sociology of language is the effect of the society on the language, while the sociolinguistics focuses on language's effect on the society."

From sociology of language:


 * "Sociology of language is the study of the effect of language on society. It is closely related to the field of sociolinguistics, which focuses on the effect of society on language."

As you can see, one of these definitions has to be inherently wrong. The question is, which one? JaykeBird (talk) 12:04, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

Social Language Codes
This section seems lacking in referential sources. I've attached some sources that I'll read and use to check the information in this section. The references I'm thinking are best to add/use are:

Bernstein, B. (2003). Class, codes and control. Applied studies towards a sociology of language. London: Routledge.

Hudson, R. A. (2011). Sociolinguistics. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press.Lee, V. (1973). Language and learning. some aspects of the work of

Basil Bernstein ; prepared by Victor Lee for the Course Team: with an account of the theory of codes ; by Basil Bernstein. Milton Keynes: Open University Press.

Do you have any suggestions/revisions for sources for this section?

Johnson gracee (talk) 05:51, 12 March 2018 (UTC)

Adding References
Can anyone explain to me how to add references to this page? The section completely disappears in edit mode. Thank you.. Johnson gracee (talk) 16:24, 30 April 2018 (UTC)


 * Hello, Johnson gracee, and thanks for all the work you've been putting in on this page.
 * To add a reference supporting a specific point, place a
 * If you want to cite the same reference several times, give the reference a name the first time you use it. Then just use the name for later citations.
 * This is sentence one. This is sentence two.
 * The references will show up in the Reference section thanks to either the or tag. (Somehow that section got removed. I've just re-inserted it.) The reference section should look like this:
 * There is more detailed help at Help:Footnotes and Citing sources. I'll also try to answer any questions I see posted here. Happy editing, Cnilep (talk) 01:23, 1 May 2018 (UTC)
 * There is more detailed help at Help:Footnotes and Citing sources. I'll also try to answer any questions I see posted here. Happy editing, Cnilep (talk) 01:23, 1 May 2018 (UTC)
 * There is more detailed help at Help:Footnotes and Citing sources. I'll also try to answer any questions I see posted here. Happy editing, Cnilep (talk) 01:23, 1 May 2018 (UTC)

Clarify parentheticals
Currently the section "Covert prestige" says the following:


 * There will thus be a considerable difference in use of non-standard varieties when going to the pub or having a neighborhood barbecue (lower), and going to the bank (higher)

Until about a day ago, it said roughly the opposite:
 * having a neighborhood barbecue (high), and going to the bank (lower)

I reversed an edit from an IP address that switched the high/low parentheticals, but then User:Pete unseth reversed my edit in turn.

The problem, I think, is that this prose is not clear. Does this mean that there is a lower tendency to use non-standard varieties at barbecues than in banks? If so, it is wrong. Or does it mean that non-standard varieties have low prestige? If so, that is generally true – though not necessarily in cases of covert prestige. In any event, this section is unclear and should be rewritten. It also should cite published sources. Cnilep (talk) 00:09, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

Sociolinguistics of mobility
I reverted 's addition to the "Community of practice" section as I believe its inclusion may give too much attention to a minor viewpoint. Currently the only source is the book itself which isn't helpful for understanding how the theory has been received by the field, and because of that makes claims which appear non-neutral. For example, the addition describes the concept as new, but the central argument "language patterns must be understood as patterns that are organized on different, layered (i.e. vertical rather than horizontal) scale-levels" was proposed at least a decade prior in Irvine and Gahl (2000)'s description of fractal recursivity. While there may be broad theoretical trends in the field that The Sociolinguistics of Globalization is a part of, citations to reliable secondary sources such as book reviews or literature reviews would be more useful for developing the article. — Wug·a·po·des​ 16:43, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

Related discussion
I've opened a discussion related to this page in Multilingualism. All comments are welcome. --Jotamar (talk) 22:51, 6 August 2020 (UTC)