Sociolinguistics: Crash Course Linguistics #7 - Free Educational videos for Students in K-12

Sociolinguistics: Crash Course Linguistics #7 - By CrashCourse

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00:0-1	Hi , I'm taylor and welcome to crash course linguistics
00:02	. Everyone has an accent . There's no such thing
00:04	as an accent , this version of english or any
00:07	other language . The many varied ways we speak are
00:10	influenced by who we grew up with and where we
00:12	live and tons of other demographic factors and the way
00:15	we feel about how we speak and how other sound
00:18	to us is influenced by society . Language can have
00:20	a huge impact on our workplaces , media and even
00:24	a trip to the store . So it's no wonder
00:26	our personal accents and languages get tangled up in our
00:29	identities . Looking at the social element of language and
00:32	how language forms . Part of our identity is the
00:34	study of socio linguistics . We talk like the people
00:49	we know that can include our accent , the way
00:51	we pronounce things , but also other linguistic features like
00:54	the words and grammar we use and especially before the
00:57	internet . One of the biggest factors that affects who
01:00	we know and who we can talk to is geography
01:03	. One of the earliest kinds of socio linguistics was
01:06	dialect ology , trying to map out all of the
01:09	regional variations of a given language dialect . Ologists were
01:12	historically focused on regional variations . A dialect is any
01:16	variety of a language associated with a group of people
01:19	. Early dialect . Ologists traveled around by car or
01:22	bicycle with a notebook or tape recorder interviewing locals and
01:25	recording how they spoke as technology evolved . They also
01:29	started using telephone calls and then internet surveys and social
01:32	media data . They found that generally speaking , the
01:35	longer a group of people has been living somewhere and
01:37	speaking the same language , the more dense the linguistic
01:40	variation in that area . There are a few specific
01:43	languages that have stayed relatively stable in places like Switzerland
01:47	and Papua new guinea . So we see lots of
01:49	variation and a pretty small area between individual villages .
01:53	In contrast , languages like Arabic , chinese , english
01:56	, french spanish and Bansal have spread over wider geographic
02:00	areas because of more recent colonization . So we see
02:04	a variation between larger , more spread out regions like
02:07	the city or country level by the way , Bansal
02:10	is the name for the group of related signed languages
02:12	, including british sign language . Asl unused in Australia
02:16	. New Zealand sign language as well as south african
02:18	sign language . Anyway , you may even have encountered
02:21	some of the fruits of english dialect ology here on
02:24	Youtube . Those accent challenge videos you may have watched
02:27	actually use a list of words from a linguistic study
02:29	from 2003 and I've experienced variations in real life myself
02:34	. When I was growing up in Wisconsin , I
02:35	always called that thing that you drink water from in
02:37	school a bubbler . But then when I moved to
02:39	new york , I learned that people here didn't know
02:42	what I was talking about and I had to learn
02:43	to call it a water fountain . But it's not
02:45	a straightforward switch . When I'm on the phone with
02:47	my family in Wisconsin , I switch right back to
02:49	bubbler and bag instead of fountain and bag . I
02:53	also encountered regional accent variations . When I was learning
02:55	spanish , my professor in the U . S .
02:57	Spoke spanish from Argentina and sounded completely different from the
03:01	professors I met abroad in Madrid . Now in New
03:04	York , I mostly encounter Puerto Rican and Dominican varieties
03:07	of Spanish . It's fun to notice all the variations
03:10	even within a geographic region . Other factors influence how
03:13	we speak . For example , we tend to spend
03:15	more time with people close to our own age than
03:18	30 years older or younger than us which is why
03:21	linguists find that people of different ages talk differently .
03:24	Other demographic factors also influence who people hang out with
03:27	and sound like things like education , class , race
03:31	, ethnicity , gender and sexuality . Traditionally speaking ,
03:34	socio linguists have studied these demographics as a way of
03:37	getting insight into how different people talk . And sure
03:40	enough , they do find linguistic varieties associated with all
03:43	of these demographics . The way I talk represents important
03:46	parts of me . I'm a 20 something college educated
03:49	, multiracial queer woman and I use differences in my
03:52	language to express each of those identities and all of
03:56	the combinations of them in certain ways at certain times
03:59	. Now that social media lets us more easily graph
04:01	out people's social connections though , linguists have found that
04:04	our individual networks play a big role in our language
04:07	choices beyond demographic categorization . So if most of your
04:10	friends are actually much older or younger than you ,
04:13	for example , you might talk more like them than
04:15	your age mates . Like I was on tumblr and
04:18	Youtube a lot in the early 20 tens and it
04:20	definitely had an effect on how I speak , like
04:23	saying lol out loud signed languages also display variations in
04:27	dialect . For example , american sign language is more
04:30	closely related to french sign language than to the Bansal
04:32	group because french signers were involved in early american schools
04:35	for the death . There are also differences between black
04:38	sl and white sl because of racial segregation in deaf
04:41	education . Similarly , in the past , there were
04:43	clear distinctions between the varieties of irish sign language used
04:46	by men and women because of gender segregation and irish
04:49	schools for the deaf . Though younger , I sl
04:52	signers have been breaking down these differences . Socio linguists
04:54	have also found that the more closely we identify with
04:57	a group , the more likely we are to speak
04:59	like members of that group , People who expressed more
05:01	rootedness in their local community tend to speak with more
05:04	features of Appalachian english , jewish women . In one
05:06	study showed variation depending on how closely they related to
05:09	their jewish faith and young men in Washington , D
05:12	. C . With one black parent and one white
05:14	parent are likely to talk differently depending on whether they
05:16	identify as biracial or black . But because people often
05:19	change the way they talk depending on who they're talking
05:22	to socio linguists trying to study linguistic variety can run
05:26	into the observer's paradox . That's when the very act
05:28	of participating in a study makes people talk differently .
05:31	Because university research is a formal social context with a
05:35	very different atmosphere than say talking to your friend on
05:38	twitter . Let's observe how one language researcher dealt with
05:41	the observers paradox with a visit to the thought bubble
05:44	. William Lobov is a linguist who is interested in
05:46	the classic new york city accent . The one that
05:49	drops the R after vowels . You might have seen
05:51	it on T shirts like I love new york ,
05:54	I'm new here , I'm very sorry . Back in
05:56	the 19 sixties Lobo wanted to figure out what social
05:59	factors influenced whether people said they are . Instead of
06:02	the lab , he went to a fancy department store
06:04	, a mid range department store and a bargain department
06:07	store . In each store , he picked a department
06:09	on the fourth floor , say the shoe section .
06:12	Liubov then approached various sales people and ask them where
06:15	to get shoes . Since both fourth and floor are
06:17	words with an R . After a vowel . He
06:19	could listen closely to hear whether they said they are
06:22	not . When they replied , the salesperson would either
06:24	say fourth floor or fourth floor and then Lobo would
06:27	say pardon . So the salesperson would repeat it more
06:29	carefully above would then head off . But instead of
06:31	buying shoes he'd pull out his notebook and write down
06:34	whether the person used the are . Each time He
06:36	repeated this over and over at three Department stores .
06:39	And if you think that sounds a bit suspicious you'd
06:41	be right . Apparently . He got questioned a few
06:43	times whoops . At the end of the study ,
06:46	Lebow found that the staff at the fanciest department store
06:49	were most likely to pronounce the R followed by the
06:52	mid range store and finally the bargain store . He
06:54	also noticed that people at all three stores were more
06:56	likely to use the r pronunciation when they were asked
06:59	to repeat themselves . If they had come into the
07:01	university for a study they might have all used this
07:04	more careful style of speech the whole time That are
07:07	, was associated with how prestigious someone wanted to sound
07:10	, even if everyone was from new york . Thanks
07:13	thought bubble for taking a shopping . This study found
07:16	a way out of the observers paradox and opened the
07:18	door to framing language differences around social identities and not
07:22	only where someone was from , other researchers have navigated
07:25	the observers paradox by studying a community that they are
07:28	a research assistant are members of this means people are
07:31	less likely to change the way they speak . Some
07:33	linguists also specifically look at language that's public , like
07:37	news interviews or Youtube videos because people in those recordings
07:40	have already decided who they're speaking for . However ,
07:43	there's also a certain Youtuber voice . When I started
07:46	to make vlogs , I noticed myself speaking differently .
07:49	I've watched enough videos online that I found myself doing
07:52	this sort of what's up guys upbeat Youtuber voice when
07:55	I was in front of the camera . I'm actually
07:57	a lot more mellow when I'm hanging out with my
07:59	friends or even in my own videos compared to this
08:01	video where I've two people directing me and I'm adjusting
08:04	my speech to the conventions of the more academic content
08:07	, changing the way we speak , depending on which
08:09	group we're speaking to is called code switching . I
08:12	also code switch depending on whether I'm talking with my
08:14	black friends and white friends because one of my parents
08:17	is black and the other one is white . I
08:19	was exposed to two varieties of english from my family
08:21	, african american english or E and standardized american english
08:26	. So I'm a swap dialects depending on the situation
08:29	. There's more pressure for many people to use white
08:31	sounding standardized accents in professional contexts . Kind of like
08:35	this one . And there's research backing me up socio
08:38	linguists like john baugh and kelly , right ? Have
08:41	found linguistic discrimination in areas like the housing market when
08:44	someone calls and asks about renting a house with the
08:46	black sounding accent , they're more likely to be told
08:49	that it's no longer available only to get a yes
08:51	. If they call back in a few minutes with
08:53	the white sounding accent , that's just one example .
08:55	But linguistic discrimination is pervasive affecting things from education to
09:00	job prospects , even though african american english speakers face
09:03	discrimination A . E . Has as much grammatical sophistication
09:07	as any other variety of english . One example of
09:10	the grammar of A is from a 2005 study by
09:13	Janice Jackson and lisa green . These linguists showed young
09:16	Children pictures of cookie monster's sick in bed with no
09:19	cookies while Elmo was nearby eating all the cookies .
09:22	When the kids were asked who is eating all the
09:24	cookies , all the kids pointed to Elmo . But
09:27	when Jackson asked who be eating cookies , the black
09:30	kids who spoke a E pointed to cookie monster .
09:33	While the white kids who spoke standardized american english pointed
09:36	to Elmo . That's because B is a specific verb
09:39	form and a E . Grammar known as the habitual
09:42	be , which indicates an action that someone usually does
09:46	. And as these kids new cookie monster's usual state
09:49	involves eating cookies . Words from e regularly get appropriated
09:52	into the non black american mainstream as the latest cool
09:55	trends and onto the rest of the world through american
09:58	cultural exports like shows and music . This popularity is
10:02	actually part of a problematic double standard where non black
10:05	people are rewarded for the same linguistic features that black
10:08	people , their original creators face discrimination for seriously brands
10:12	you can stop replying to my tweets like yes period
10:16	says just like e every linguistic variety has its own
10:19	cool features . When you start looking at it deeply
10:22	. We could do a whole series about any of
10:24	the hundreds of varieties just with an english alone ,
10:27	the social beliefs that people have about accents and dialects
10:30	, whether they sound cool or boring , ugly or
10:33	beautiful , silly or serious are really a reflection of
10:37	our attitudes toward the people we associate with those ways
10:40	of speaking . Standards like national languages and style guides
10:43	exist because they're supported by people with power , not
10:46	because some forms of language are inherently better than others
10:49	. As people learning about linguistics , we have a
10:52	responsibility to use our newfound understanding of how language works
10:56	, to fight linguistic discrimination and to use language as
10:59	a way of being more compassionate and respectful with each
11:02	other . Next time we'll continue learning about the way
11:04	people talk by looking at the study of speech sounds
11:06	and the way linguists write them down . Thanks for
11:09	watching this episode of crash course linguistics . If you
11:11	want to help keep all crash course free for everybody
11:14	forever , you can join our community on Patreon .

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