TRENDS IN SOCIOLINGUISTICS ALI H RADDAOUI STATUSQUO SOCIOLINGUISTICS

TRENDS IN SOCIOLINGUISTICS ALI H. RADDAOUI

STATUS-QUO SOCIOLINGUISTICS l l l Status-quo Sociolinguistics Critical Sociolinguistics Program for today: l l l Quick review of lecture ‘Two Types of Sociolinguistics Presenting lecture 2: Issues in Sociolinguistics Work on Assignment 1: Tunisia’s linguistic Atlas Work on Assignment 2: article review Presenting Lecture 3: Chomsky versus Hymes

Status-Quo Sociolinguistics l l Classical correlational sociolinguistics does no more than link frequency values for isolated linguistic variables to frequency values for isolated social variables, without interpreting either the linguistic variables or the social variables as part of a theoretical whole on the basis of social and linguistic theory’’. Muysken, 1998. Establishmentarian sociolinguistics

Status quo sociolinguistics l Status quo sociolinguistics: 'non-critical, 'culturalist', 'scientistic', 'one-sided structuralist', 'subjectdemeaning', 'subject-pacifying', 'vulgar correlatism’, 'influential' and 'dominant'.

THE OBJECT OF CRITICAL SCIENCE l Beyond description or superficial application, critical science in each domain asks further questions, such as those of responsibility, interests, and ideology. Instead of focusing purely on academic or theoretical problems, it starts from prevailing social problems, and thereby chooses the perspective of those who suffer most, and critically analyzes those in power, those who are responsible, and those who have the means and opportunity to solve such problems. (van Dijk, 1986, 4)

CRTICAL SOCIOLINGUISTICS l Critical sociolinguistics: 'knowledgeable', 'responsible', 'critical', 'reflexive'. l Their main criticism is that most of this work tends to understress the essential power asymmetry in communication between members of dominant communities and ethnic immigrant communities, clouding the issue by looking at differences in communicative strategies. Muysken, 1998

Critical sociolinguistics l In my view, a method that includes political, social, and cultural analyses of the context that surrounds and creates the discourse will stand a better chance of being useful to the ‘participants themselves’, by creating a better understanding of “what the parties in the interaction understand themselves to be doing in it” Mey, 2001.

Critical sociolinguistics l “Productive future developments might be possible if the aim of sociological neutrality is abandoned as unrealizable, and the uncritical assumptions are replaced by explicit critical awareness” (Billig, 1999 a: 556).

THE PHILOSOPHER AS SOCIAL CRITIC Chomsky, N. 1968. P. 6

BROAD IMPLICATIONS FOR ACADEMIC AGENDA Chomsky, N. 1968. P. 7.

BIBLIOGRAPHY l l Chomsky, N. 1968. Philosophers and Public Philosophy. Ethics. Vol. 79. No. 1. Pp. 1 -9 Van Dijk, T. A. 1984. Prejudice in Discourse: an Analysis of Ethnic Prejudice in Cognition and Conversation. Amsterdam: Benjamins