Phatic communication

The term comes from the Greek phatos (meaning spoken) and refers to a type of communication, where the social function of the utterance is more important than the information itself. In other words, the focus in on the channel of communication and not on the information conveyed. For example when we say You’re welcome it does not mean that the hearer is welcome; it is a response to being thanked.

Urbanová, Ludmila, Some thoughts on the phatic communion and small talk in fictional dialogues, Faculty of Arts, Masaryk University, Brno. Online article: http://www.phil.muni.cz/angl/thepes/thepes_01_03.pdf

Zegarac, Vladimir, Phatic communicationOnline article: http://vladimirzegarac.info/PHATIC%20COMMUNICATION%20encylopedia%20article.pdf

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phatic_expression

Pidgin

The term refers to a simplified language which is used for communication between groups of people who speak different languages and have no common language. Pidgins are reduced in structure with simple grammar and vocabulary. For example the West African Pidgin English is used between groups of people along the West African coast.

Mufwene, Salikoko, Pidgin and creole languages, International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences, 2002.Online article: http://mufwene.uchicago.edu/pidginCreoleLanguage.html

Crystal, David, English As a Global Language. Cambridge University Press, 2003. http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Pidgin+language

Pidginisation

The term refers to the process of creating a pidgin language by using the elements of two or more other languages. Most pidginisations involve Indo-European languages (English, French, Portuguese, Spanish).

http://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/pidginisation Estermann, Beat, The Formation of Pidgin Languages, Current Social Issues in English

Language, April 1999.Online article: http://archiv.soziologie.ch/texts/docs/PIDGIN.pdf

Politeness

In linguistics, the term refers to a speech act that expresses concern for others, intending to avoid giving offense. In other words, it is the way people use language to interact with the social world that surrounds them. It depends on various factors: age, social status, context, etc. For example Shut up! is considered to be impolite, even rude, whereas Do you think you would mind keeping quiet? is much more polite.

Beeching, Kate, PolitenessOnline article: https://www.llas.ac.uk/resources/gpg/695

Language in conflict: Politeness Online article: http://www.languageinconflict.org/how-people-interact/politeness.html

Politeness strategies: http://grammar.about.com/od/pq/g/Politeness-Strategies.htm

Political correctness

The term refers to the attitude of avoiding the usage of a language which could offend a certain group of people (for example racial, cultural or other identity groups). It is an attempt to insist on good manners and the use of euphemisms to avoid offence. For example the terms Negro and colored used for Black Americans are considered to be offensive. The terms Afro-American, Black, African-American and people of color are used instead as politically correct ones.

Chuan Lin, Hsien, A Study of the Use of Politically Correct Language on the Campus of A U. S. Midwestern University, Department of Foreign Languages, Fooyin University of TechnologyOnline article: http://ir.fy.edu.tw/ir/bitstream/987654321/1746/1/A+Study+of+the+Use+of+Politically+Correct+Language+in+the+Campus+of+One+U.S.+Midwestern+university+1.pdf

Online article: http://www.conservapedia.com/Politically_correct Merriam-Webster Dictionary: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/politically%20correct

Popular culture

The term refers to those ideas, attitudes, perspectives, images, etc. that reflect the taste of the mainstream in a certain culture. Also called pop culture, it is influenced by mass media, fashion, sports, technology, etc. For example the American English pronunciation in British pop songs is the effect of the popular culture.

Moody, Andrew, Language Ideology in the Discourse of Popular Culture, The Encyclopedia of Applied Linguistics, First Edition. Edited by Carol A. Chapelle. © 2013 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Published 2013 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd.Online article: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/store/10.1002/9781405198431/asset/homepages/5_Language_Ideology_in_the_Discourse_of_Popular_Culture.pdf;jsessionid=9CD5D383DFF0160CCFA77FF2B011F2E8.f04t04?v=1&s=8344a7b91a20ceea92a0ed6fe0aaa4eda66f7037

Dictionary.com: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/popular+culture

Positive face

It is a component of the Face Theory along with the negative face. Closely related to the term politeness, it reflects the need of people to be accepted or appreciated by the other members of a group. For example if A wants to borrow some money from B, then B will think that it would be better to give A that money because he wants A to like him and to appear as a reliable person and a good friend in front of him.

Barouni, Athenia, Linguistic Approaches to PolitenessOnline article: http://www.socsci.uci.edu/~lpearl/CoLaLab/presentations/Barouni2013_PolitenessComputing.pdf

Face Theory by Erving Goffman, 1967.Online article: http://www.situatedgaming.com/CISTheoryPrimary/face.html

Online article: http://www.languageinconflict.org/how-people-interact/face.html

Post-Creole continuum

The term refers to a range of dialectal variations that occur in a creole language. This continuum has two limits: the upper limit which is the closest to the standard form is called acrolect, whereas the lower limit, the basilect is the most distant. The mesolect is situated between the two. For example the Jamaican post-creole continuum has as its lower limit the Jamaican creole proper, and its upper limit the Jamaican Standard English.

Siegel, Jeff, The Emergence of Pidgin and Creole Languages. Oxford Univ. Press, 2008 Leimgruber, Jakob R. E., From Post-Creole Continuum to Diglossia: The Case of Singapore

English, University of OxfordOnline article: http://www.ling-phil.ox.ac.uk/events/lingo/papers/jakob.leimgruber.pdf

http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O29-POSTCREOLECONTINUUM.html

Power

From a linguistic point of view, the term refers to the influence a speech has upon a certain audience. Therefore, we talk about powerful or powerless speech. A powerful speech has more influence, control and it is more persuasive, whereas a powerless speech lacks these qualities. For example during a political campaign the party which presents a powerful speech is more likely to persuade the audience to vote for them.

Pullum, Geoffrey K, Ideology, Power and Linguistic Theory, University of California, Santa CruzOnline article: http://people.ucsc.edu/~pullum/MLA2004.pdf

Fairclough, Norman, Language and power, Longman, UK, 1989. Bradac, James J, Power in Language: Verbal Communication and Social Influence

Online article: http://www.cjc-online.ca/index.php/journal/article/view/874/780

Pragmatics

It is a branch of linguistics that focuses on the social context in which the language occurs. Its main concern is how we interpret a certain utterance. For example the following short dialogue What are you going to be when you graduate? An old man. demonstrates that due to the ambiguity of the question, it can be interpreted in different ways.

Finch, Geoffrey, Linguistic Terms and Concepts. Palgrave Macmillan, 2000. Trask, R.,L., Language and Linguistics: The Key Concepts, 2nd ed., ed. by Peter Stockwell.

Routledge, 2007.

Purism

In linguistics, the term refers to the tendency of eliminating all those features that may have a negative effect on language (neologisms, loanwords, grammatical mistakes, jargon, etc.). Language purists try to keep the purity of the standard language from outside influences. For example the use of the term sfârşit de săptămână instead of the English term weekend in the Romanian language, shows a tendency towards purism.

Cser, András, English Purist Tendencies in a Comparative Perspective, Pázmány Péter Catholic University, 2009Online article: http://www.lingref.com/cpp/hel-lex/2008/paper2164.pdf

http://www.yourdictionary.com/purism Allan, Keith, Burridge, Kate, Forbidden Words: Taboo and the Censoring of Language.

Cambridge University Press, 2006.

R

Race

The term refers to a group of people having similar physical or genetic traits, common history, nationality and geographic distribution. For example the African Americans are considered to be one race, whereas the European Americans another one. Sociologists claim that this concept is unstable, highly influenced by political struggle, and symbolizes social conflicts and interests. In sociolinguistics, the term may be invoked to explain different social behavior.

Mufwene, Salikoko, Race, Racialism and the Study of Language Evolution in America, LAVIS III – Language Variety in the South: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives, ed. by Michael Picone & Katherine Davis. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, Apr. 2006.Online article: http://mufwene.uchicago.edu/publications/RACE_RACIALISM_LANGUAGE_EVOLUTION.pdf

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/race

Reduplication

The term refers to a word-formation process in which one part of the word (or the whole word) is repeated exactly, or with minor changes. Reduplication can occur at different levels (phonological, morphological) and has different roles: to imitate sounds (ding-dong), to suggest movements (ping-pong), to intensify meaning: for example, in the Nama language the verb go means look, and go-go means examine with attention. In English, this means of creating new lexemes is not the major one, however it is productive in almost every non-Indo-European languages.

Inkelas, Sharon, The Dual Theory of Reduplication, Linguistics 46–2 (2008), 351–401.Online article: http://linguistics.berkeley.edu/~inkelas/Papers/InkelasLinguisticsOffprint.pdf

Oxford Bibliographies: http://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780199772810/obo-9780199772810-0036.xml

David Crystal, The Cambridge Encyclopaedia of the English Language, 2nd ed. Cambridge Univ. Press, 2003.

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reduplication

Reference

It is the relationship that an expression has with the one it represents. In other words, it is when a grammatical unit refers to another grammatical unit. For example, in the sentences Peter bought a pen. His pen was blue. the pronoun his in the second sentence refers to Peter in the first one. The word comes from the Latin referre which means to carry back. When we make a reference to an earlier part of the discourse we call it anaphora, and when we refer to a later part, we call it cataphora.

David Crystal, Dictionary of Linguistics. Blackwell, 1997. Glossary of linguistic terms:

http://www-01.sil.org/linguistics/glossaryoflinguisticterms/WhatIsReference.htm Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reference

Referent

Closely related to the previous term, the referent is a person, a thing or an idea that a word refers to. In the example Peter bought a pen. His pen was blue. the referent is Peter because the pronoun his refers to this person.

David Crystal, Dictionary of Linguistics. Blackwell, 1997. Glossary of linguistic terms:

http://www-01.sil.org/linguistics/glossaryoflinguisticterms/WhatIsReference.htm Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reference

Register

Also called stylistic variation, it refers to the style or language variety we use in different situations. In certain contexts, people use different language (different vocabulary, mode and tenor). For example at school, pupils greet the teacher like this: Good morning Miss Teacher. At home they might greet their mother like this: Hi mum.

Montgomery, Martin, An Introduction to Language and Society, Psychology Press, 1995. Frank Parker and Kathryn Riley, Linguistics for Non-Linguists, 3rd ed. Allyn & Bacon, 1999.

Relexification

It is one of the major processes of new language formation. It refers to the substitution of one language’s vocabulary with words drawn from another language, without changing (or slightly changing) its grammar. The language from which the words are taken is called the lexifier. This process plays a central role in the formation of pidgin and creole languages. For example the Lanc-Patuá creole spoken in Brazil is a relexified language, its lexifier being the French language.

The relexification account of creole genesis The case of Haitian CreoleOnline article: http://www.archipel.uqam.ca/260/1/Haitian_Creole.pdf

Degraff, Michel, Relexification: A Reevaluation, Vol. 44, nr. 4, 2002.Online article: http://web.mit.edu/linguistics/people/faculty/degraff/degraff-anthling-44-04.pdf

Dictionary.com: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/relexification Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relexification

Restricted code

The term was introduced by Basil Bernstein (1960) and it is the opposite of the elaborated code. It is mainly used in informal situations, relies on context and lacks stylistic range. Speakers of a restricted code share common knowledge, and their language reflects the group they belong to. An example for restricted code: If you’re going to town, get Rupert a new April from you-know-where.1

The same utterance in elaborated code: If you are going into Bedford, please get a new toy for Rupert the dog from the pet-shop (which we can't name because if the dog hears it he will go mad), to replace the one which we have come to call "April", which he has almost chewed to bits.2

Steensland, Brian, Restricted and Elaborated Modes in the Cultural Analysis of Politics, Sociological Forum, Vol. 24, No. 4, December 2009.Online article: http://www.indiana.edu/~soc/pdf/Steensland_2009ab.pdf

Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O29-ELABORATEDANDRESTRICTEDCD.html

Dictionary.com: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/restricted+code

Rheme

1 http://www.doceo.co.uk/background/language_codes.htm2 http://www.doceo.co.uk/background/language_codes.htm

In linguistics the term refers to that part of a sentence which describes the topic or the theme. It adds new information to what has already been said. For example, in the following sentence The dog barks in the garden. the topic or the theme is the dog and the rheme (that tells something about the topic) is barks in the garden.

Alonso Belmonte, Isabel, Theme-Rheme patterns in L2 writing, Universidad Autonoma de Madrid.Online article: http://www.researchgate.net/profile/Maria_Isabel_Belmonte/publication/27571982_Theme-Rheme_patterns_in_L2_writing/links/00b7d52cb11c0c0e3c000000.pdf

Dictionary.com: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/rheme

Rhetoric/al

The term refers to the art of communication. It is the use of language in such a way as to produce an impression upon the hearer. A rhetorical speech can occur in a very formal context but also in a very familiar one. For example a salesman may use a rhetorical speech to persuade the people to buy his products. On the other hand, a politician may also use a rhetorical speech to influence the audience.

William A. Covino, The Art of Wondering: A Revisionist Return to the History of Rhetoric. Boynton/Cook, 1988.

Sam Leith, Words Like Loaded Pistols: Rhetoric From Aristotle to Obama. Basic Books, 2012. Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhetoric

Rhyming slang

The term refers to a form a slang, where the lexical items in a construction are replaced with words that rhyme with them. It is often associated with the Cockney dialect, also called Cockney Rhyming Slang. For example: Would you Adam and Eve it? the rhyming slang Adam and Eve stands for the word believe: Would you believe it? It evolved as a secret language usually related to business dealings.

Cockney Rhyming Slang: http://www.fun-with-words.com/crs_example.html Francis Katamba, English Words, 2nd ed. Routledge, 2004. http://www.cockneyrhymingslang.co.uk/

S

Sapir-Whorf hypothesis

The term refers to a linguistic theory named after Edward Sapir and Benjamin Lee Whorf which claims that the structures of a language limit the speaker’s thought or his concept of the world. In other words, the language he speaks, influences the way he perceives the world. Whorf’s example to support this theory was the case of the Inuit people who have several words for snow. Being part of their everyday life, they perceive it differently than someone who lives in another area where there is little or no snow at all.

Benjamin Whorf, Science and Linguistics, 1956. Edward Sapir, The Status of Linguistics as a Science, 1929. Chandler, Daniel, The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis

Online article: http://visual-memory.co.uk/daniel/Documents/short/whorf.html Introduction to the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis, Linguistics 3430, 2007

Online article: http://www.colorado.edu/linguistics/courses/LAM3430/Whorflecture.pdf http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Sapir-Whorf+hypothesis

Second-language acquisition

The term refers to the process by which somebody learns a language other than his mother tongue. A second language is any other language that a speaker uses besides his native or first language. For example, a person whose mother tongue (L1) is Romanian, decides to learn English, this is going to be his second language (L2). This process can be non-conscious and it may develop invariantly.

Jürgen M. Meisel, "Age of Onset in Successive Acquisition of Bilingualism: Effects on Grammatical Development." Language Acquisition Across Linguistic and Cognitive Systems, ed. by Michèle Kail and Maya Hickmann. John Benjamins, 2010.

Krashen, Stephen, Second Language Acquisition and Second Language Learning, Pergamon Press, 1981.Online: http://www.sdkrashen.com/content/books/sl_acquisition_and_learning.pdf

Semantic field

In linguistics, the term refers to a set of words which are grouped by meaning. In other words, they all relate to the same subject. For example the words teacher, blackboard, catalogue, mark, class are possible words in the semantic field of school.

Ronald Carter, Working With Texts: A Core Introduction to Language Analysis. Routledge, 2001. Edward Finegan. Language: Its Structure and Use, 5th ed. Thomson Wadsworth, 2008. Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantic_field

Semantics

Originating from the Ancient Greek word semantikós meaning `significant`, it is a branch of linguistics that studies the meaning in language. It focuses on the relation between the significant (which are words or phrases) and their meaning. For example the verb to create may have several meanings depending on the context in which it is used: to build, to make, to construct, to erect, to compose, to imagine.

David Crystal, How Language Works. Overlook, 2006. Nick Riemer, Introducing Semantics. Cambridge University Press, 2010. Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantics

Semiotics

The term refers to the study of signs and symbols and their role in everyday life. It was defined by the Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure who treated language as a sign system. He distinguished two terms related to the study of signs: considering language, the signifier is a set of speech sounds and the signified is the idea behind the signs. The study of signs does not limit only to language. It is present everywhere around us. For example if we see smoke (sign) than we know that there is fire.

Mario Klarer, An Introduction to Literary Studies, 2nd ed. Routledge, 2004. Daniel Chandler, Semiotics: The Basics. Routledge, 2006. Encyclopaedia Britannica: http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/534099/semiotics Daniel Chandler, Semiotics for Beginners

Online article: http://visual-memory.co.uk/daniel/Documents/S4B/

Setting

In sociolinguistics, the term can be analyzed in connection with register. Register is the variety of language we use in a particular social setting. For example if the social setting is formal we choose the words more carefully, and if the setting is informal, we are not likely to use the prescribed features of grammar. For example, in an informal setting (at home, with friends) we may use cause instead of because, whereas in a formal setting (the director’s speech at a graduation ceremony) the form because is likely to be used.

Wikipedia: http://visual-memory.co.uk/daniel/Documents/S4B/ Nilep, Chad, “Code Switching” in Sociocultural Linguistics, University of Colorado, Colorado

Research in Linguistics. June 2006. Vol. 19. Boulder: University of Colorado. © 2006 by Chad Nilep.

Online article: http://www.colorado.edu/ling/CRIL/Volume19_Issue1/paper_NILEP.pdf?q=sociocultural

Sexism

In language, the term refers to words or phrases that stereotype the speakers according to their gender (male or female). These stereotypes sometimes disadvantage the males, other times the females. For example in the following sentence the males are in disadvantage: After the nursing student graduate, she must face a difficult state board examination. (Not all nursing students are women). In the next example, the females are in disadvantage: Wives of senior government officials are required to report any gifts they receive that are valued at more than $100. (Not all senior government officials are men).

Diana Hacker, The Bedford Handbook, 6th ed. Bedford/St. Martin's, 2002. Allyson Jule, A Beginner's Guide to Language and Gender. Multilingual Matters, 2008. Lei, Xiaolan, Sexism in Language, Journal of Language and Linguistics Volume 5 Number 1

2006 ISSN 1475 – 8989Online article: http://webspace.buckingham.ac.uk/kbernhardt/journal/5_1/5LingLei.pdf

Shibboleth

The term refers to a way of speaking which shows that a person belongs to a certain group. It can be interpreted as a boarder sense of the jargon. For example, the sailors name the left side of the vessel port and the right side starboard. These words show that the speakers belong to a close group, that of the sailors. The term also refers to pronunciation, style and customs that define a specific group.

Traute Ewers, The Origin of American Black English: Be-Forms in the Hoodoo Texts. Walter de Gruyter, 1995.

List of shibboleths: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_shibboleths Merriam-Webster: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/shibboleth

Sign language

The term refers to a language where hands and body movements and facial expressions are used to convey meaning instead of sounds and words. It is also called signed language or signing. It is the primary communication form of deaf people. Sign languages differ according to the country where they are used. For example, we talk about American Sign Language, Indian Sign Language, Danish Sign Language, Japanese Sing Language, etc.

Perlmutter, David, What is Sign Language? Linguistic Society of AmericaOnline article: http://www.linguisticsociety.org/files/Sign_Language.pdf

Adam Frost and Valerie Sutton, American Sign LanguageOnline article: http://www.signwriting.org/archive/docs9/sw0827_American_Sign_Language_Hand_Symbols_Frost_Sutton_2013.pdf

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sign_language

Slang

The term referred to the vocabulary of “low, disreputable” people (1756). Nowadays it is associated with a language use that is below the standard level. To some extent, it has the role of distinguishing group membership. Examples of slang words in English: dunno (don’t know), gonna (going to), bro (brother), karzy (toilet), kit (clothes), kooky (crazy), etc.

English slang and colloquialisms used in the UK: http://www.peevish.co.uk/slang/ The Online Slang Dictionary: http://onlineslangdictionary.com/ Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slang

Social class

The term refers to the classification of people in different social categories which have hierarchical differences among them. The most common classes are the upper, middle and the lower classes. The members of a particular social class have some common features according to which they are classified: economy, culture, education, language, etc.

What is a social class?Online article: http://study.com/academy/lesson/what-is-a-social-class-definition-lesson-quiz.html

Dictionary.com: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/social+class

Social group

The term refers to two or more people who share similar characteristics, share the sense of unity, interact frequently and consider themselves as members of that group. Social groups may vary according to number and function. For example two persons in a relationship may form a social group, but also a family, a sport team, a church group, a college class or even a whole society can be considered as being a social group.

Types of social groups: http://study.com/academy/lesson/types-of-social-groups-primary-secondary-and-reference-groups.html

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_group

Sociolinguistics

It is the study of the relationship between language and society. It is a branch of both linguistics and sociology. Its core idea is that social factors (age, education, groups, race, ethnicity, etc.) influence the way we speak. For example, people at different ages speak differently. They also speak differently if they don’t share the same educational level, if they belong to different groups (teachers, doctors, etc.), or have different ethnicity.

Ronald Wardhaugh, An Introduction to Sociolinguistics, 6th ed. Wiley, 2010. Peter Trudgill, A Glossary of Sociolinguistics. Oxford University Press, 2003. G. Hudson, Essential Introductory Linguistics. Blackwell, 2000.

Sociology of language

Closely related to the field of sociolinguistics, the term refers to the study of the effect of language on society. Here, the focus is on society, whereas in sociolinguistics the focus is on the language. It focuses for example on how a social group is formed according to the language they use, what are their attitude towards language.

Fishman, Joshua A., The sociology of language: An interdisciplinary social science approach to language in society.Newbury House Publishers, 1972. Online article: http://mahimahi.uchicago.edu/media/faculty/vfriedm/128Friedman98.pdf

Ofelia Garcia and Harold Schiffman, Fishmanian Sociolinguistics (1949 to the Present)Online article: https://ofeliagarciadotorg.files.wordpress.com/2011/02/fishmanian-sociolinguistics.pdf

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sociology_of_language