LINGUIST List 25.2913
Mon
Jul 14 2014
Review:
Sociolinguistics: Bell (2013)
Editor for this issue:
Mateja Schuck <mschucklinguistlist.org>
Date: 04-Mar-2014
From: Elizabeth Pyatt
<ejp10
psu.edu>
Subject: The Guidebook to
Sociolinguistics
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Book announced at
http://linguistlist.org/issues/24/24-5064.html
AUTHOR: Allan Bell
TITLE: The Guidebook to Sociolinguistics
PUBLISHER: Wiley-Blackwell
YEAR: 2013
REVIEWER: Elizabeth J. Pyatt, Pennsylvania
State University
SUMMARY
Allan Bell's “The Guidebook to
Sociolinguistics” is a textbook for an
undergraduate level of sociolinguistics.
According to Bell's preface, the book assumes
little or no background in formal linguistics.
Bell also states a goal of providing
instruction in ''how sociolinguistics is done:
''that is, providing both research-based
project assignments and examples of how to
interpret sociolinguistics. This facet turns
out to be one of the great strengths of the
book.
The topics covered in the textbook are typical
for those of an introductory undergraduate
sociolinguistics course and include
multilingualism, pidgins and creoles, attitudes
towards language, interaction between language
and social class, the concept of codes within
different communities (or ''communities of
practice''), register and style, traditional
dialectology, the social reality of
''language'' vs. ''dialect,” documenting
variation and usage patterns and tracking
language change, including language death.
The book is organized into the following
chapters and includes an extensive bibliography
and topical index. Each chapter includes a set
of references and further reading relevant to
the chapter topics at the end and typically
includes a number of possible research projects
and exercises in the chapter. These could be
used as the basis of a homework assignment or
as discussion points for students.
1. What Are Sociolinguistics?
2. A Profusion of Languages
3. Language Shift and Maintenance
4. Language Birth and Death
5. Codes and Choices
6. Situated Language
7. Variation in Language
8. Language in Time
9. Language in Space
10. Valuing Language
11. Styling Language and Identities
12. Theory and Engagement
Chapter One is “What are Sociolinguistics?” and
the use of the plural is a reference to the
multiple approaches taken in the study of
language usage and variation. The chapter
introduces basic concepts of sociolinguistics,
including language as a social construct, and
how it relates to other fields such as
sociology, anthropology, applied linguistics,
historical and theoretical linguistics,
discourse/pragmatics and language planning
policy. Unusual for a sociolinguistics
textbook, Bell discusses links between
sociolinguistics and constructivist analysis.
The chapter concludes with an overview of the
textbook's philosophy and organization.
The focus of Chapter Two, “A Profusion of
Languages,” is multilingualism and the chapter
discusses different parameters of analyzing
multilingualism (individual vs. community,
immigrant vs. indigenous, levels of
proficiency, vitality and others). The chapter
features a case study of multilingualism in
Canada, particularly the status of French vs.
English, and discusses the use of census and
survey data in analyzing a multilingual
population. The final research project is
creating a survey.
Chapter Three, “Language Shift and
Maintenance,” continues with the theme of
multilingualism and maintenance of a
non-dominant language. Topics include usage
patterns of different languages in a
multilingual context and how usage may change
across time and generations. The case study is
changes in usage of Maori over time and the
“research project” is actually a discussion of
how to find a research project and plan the
collection of the data.
The title of Chapter Four is “Language Birth
and Death” and covers the formation and social
position of pidgins and creoles (birth) as well
as the conditions of language death, including
the deterioration of grammatical features as a
language loses speakers who actively use it.
Focus languages are Gaelic (endangered) and
Melanesian Pidgin (a Pacific Creole).
Chapter Five, “Codes and Choices,” introduces
the concept of variation in smaller language
communities. It begins with definitions of
different types of variations and communities,
including overlapping communities. There is
also an extensive discussion of diglossia and
code switching with a look at the
German-Hungarian bilingual community of
Oberwart on the border of Austria and Hungary.
The research activity asks students to document
variation in different scenarios.
The theme of individual usage variation
continues in Chapter Six, “Situated Language”.
This chapter focuses on linguistic ethnography,
politeness and the concept of changing a
language to suit a different audience. The
connection between language and gender is
briefly discussed in this chapter. The research
activity is to describe an linguistic
ethnographic scenario, and there is an
extensive case study of slang use in Rio de
Janeiro.
Variation between social classes is the focus
of Chapter Seven “Variation in Language”. Much
of the data comes from William Labov's studies
of language variation in New York City, but
also includes data from studies in Detroit,
Guyana, Norwich, New England and other
locations. The concepts of covert prestige are
discussed here as is the distinction of
ethnicity versus class and gender as a social
variable.
Chapter Eight, “Language and Time,” discusses
how language changes across generations and as
people themselves age. The focus then shifts to
the processes of change in language such as
sound change and morphosyntactic change. The
role of class, particularly working class
speakers as innovators, is also discussed. This
chapter also introduces the concepts of social
networks and the linguistic “marketplace”. The
case study focuses on documenting language in
different cliques in Belten High school (a
pseudonym for a real high school in the Detroit
area). The research study is an activity in
which students trace change in online document
archives.
The topic of Chapter Nine is “Language in
Space” or roughly regional dialectology.
Traditional dialect maps are introduced,
including the Rhenish fan, but the chapter also
focuses on contemporary understanding of
regional differences, including urban vs.
rural. The final part of the chapter discusses
dialect birth and death, the relationship
between regional and standard dialects and
dialect contact. The case study is the
development of New Zealand English.
Chapter Ten, “Valuing Language” covers issues
of language and identity or ideology. Attitudes
towards language are discussed as are
linguistic stereotypes and discrimination. This
chapter introduces centripetal linguistic
forces (towards standardization) vs.
centrifugal ones (towards more regional
diversity).
Chapter Eleven “Styling Language and
Identities,” puts the focus on how individuals
may vary style depending on audience. In many
cases, variation may include accommodation in
order to show closeness to a speaker or
community. Specific cases include adjusting
newscast styles for different radio stations
and even “performing gender.”
The book concludes with Chapter Twelve, “Theory
and Engagement,” in which Bell argues that
sociolinguistics may be evolving in a direction
away from important sociological factors. That
is, Bell argues that sociolinguistic analysis
may not be taking individual choice enough into
account. Bell also postulates that academics
with linguistic expertise have a responsibility
towards helping disadvantaged communities who
may be suffering the effects of discrimination
or linguistic stereotyping.
EVALUATION
As indicated earlier, the topics are what most
instructors would expect for an undergraduate
linguistics course, and the examples of
different phenomena are plentiful and well
chosen. They include ''classic'' examples from
the discipline of sociolinguistics and newer
data sources as well. For classic
sociolinguistics this includes Labov's (1966,
2006) studies of New York dialects, Rubin's
(1968) comparison of Spanish vs. Guaraní usage
in Paraguay (1968) and Brown and Gilman's
(1960) description of T/V pronoun usage across
languages as examples.
In terms of newer examples (at least new to
this reviewer) Bell works in New Zealand, so
not surprisingly, many of these unique data
sources relate to New Zealand and Australia,
but examples are pulled from elsewhere such as
Africa, South Asia, Denmark and London. Two
notable topics include discussions of the Maori
community in New Zealand and ethnographies of
modern Western cultures such as Bucholtz's
(1999) discussion of Cross Racial AAVE (CRAAVE)
in the U.S. These are all valuable additions
for any instructor looking to update course
material.
A major strength of this book is indeed the
focus on research. Bell not only provides
different types of data from the field, but
also detailed explanations on how data has been
collected and interpreted. The textbook also
provides a number of potential research
activities, including designing an interview or
searching a newspaper archive for patterns of
usage across time. Each chapter also ends with
a list of recommended reading sources which
would be valuable for student researchers.
Although the content of this textbook is very
rich, I did have some concerns about the
organization of the book, especially in terms
of using it in a U.S. higher education
environment. First, the concept of linguistic
discrimination/stereotypes is not fully
discussed until Chapter 10. This is surprising
to me since this is a major facet of
sociolinguistics that relates to almost all
other topics such as language policy, attitudes
towards creoles and rationales for individual
language choices.
Another choice Bell makes is to focus on macro
level issues (multilingualism in nations,
minority language maintenance) first. I am not
sure how well this topic ordering would work in
an American context, which is monolingual
English in many regions. Unless a course is
being taught in an urban environment or one in
which other languages are present, these issues
are difficult for American students to
understand until they are acquainted with more
non-Anglo history than is usually taught. Thus,
some textbooks (e.g. Wardhaugh's “An
Introduction to Sociolinguistics” (1992, 2010))
are organized to first discuss microlevel
descriptions (e.g. jargons, register, regional
dialects) more familiar to this audience.
Fortunately, an instructor can choose to
reorder the topics to his or her
preference.
A third issue particular to this book is the
labeling and organization of some chapters. I
was able to guess the topics of many chapters
based on their names, but a few did leave me a
little puzzled. These included titles such as
''Language in Space'' (regional dialectal
variation), ''Language in Time'' (overview of
language change) and ''Language Birth and
Death'' (pidgins, creoles plus language death).
The last was particularly confusing because
each end of a language's life cycle involves
different issues, and I thought it didn't give
enough focus to creole sociolinguistics or the
differences between Atlantic vs. Pacific
creoles. The creole issue is especially
important because many immigrants to the U.S.
and elsewhere may be creole speakers and the
concept of creole is poorly understood by the
general public. I would not rule out using this
book because of this issue, but I would want to
clarify topics more for the students.
A final comment I have is a lack shared by
several sociolinguistics textbooks I have
examined. When concepts such as dialect vs.
language, code switching, creoles vs. a
standard language or related languages are
being discussed, I feel it is important to
provide some sample linguistic data. For
instance seeing samples of Standard French vs.
Haitian Creole or Tok Pisin vs. Standard
English really helps students understand the
nature of these creoles. Unfortunately, I did
not see as many of these examples in this
textbook as I would have liked. As a corollary,
this textbook also lacks exercises that include
data for analysis (language samples, data sets,
charts). If an instructor wishes to include
such an exercise, he or she would be forced to
develop some, which can be more time
consuming.
This textbook is also lacking in photographic
realia, that is photographic examples of
different types of sociolinguistic phenomena
(e.g. a multilingual sign). This may have been
done to keep the price of the book down, but I
find that they do help students understand the
context of some situations. Again, it is
possible for an instructor to find appropriate
examples online, but it would be beneficial to
have more included within a textbook so
students can see the images as they are
reviewing the content.
Having set out these critiques, though, I would
still say this book is a fine candidate for an
undergraduate sociolinguistics course. It
introduces the key topics, provides lots of
excellent and modern examples and is written in
an accessible style suitable for introducing
material to students not yet familiar with
linguistic theory or social science research
methodology. Its focus on research issues is
one that I also agree is important for helping
students understand the different ways language
can and should be analyzed.
REFERENCES
Brown, Roger and Albert Gilman. 1960. “The
pronouns of power and solidarity.” In Thomas A.
Sebeok, ed., Style in Language, 253-76.
Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Bucholtz, Mary. 1999. “You da man: Narrating
the racial other in the production of white
masculinity.” Journal of Sociolinguistics 3(4).
443-460.
Labov, William. 1966, 2006. The Social
Stratification of English in New York City,
Second Edition. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Rubin, Joan. 1968. “Bilingual usage in
Paraguay.” In Joshua A. Friedman (ed.),
Readings in the Sociology of Language, 512-30.
The Hague: Mouton
Wardhaugh, Ronald. 1992, 2010. An Introduction
to Sociolinguistics, Sixth Edition. Oxford:
Wiley-Blackwell.
ABOUT THE REVIEWER
Elizabeth Pyatt is a Lecturer in the Program of
Linguistics at Penn State. She has researched
Celtic languages, particularly Welsh, with a
focus on documenting the morphosyntactic
properties of Celtic mutations, including
dialectal variation and diachronic development.
Dr. Pyatt has also taught introductory
undergraduate sociolinguistics at Penn
State.
Page Updated: 14-Jul-2014