bentuk abstrak

a. Abstrak deskriptif Abstrak ini melukiskan naskah atau laporan dan apa yang dibicarakan. Sering abstrak in berbentuk suatu epitoma yang mungkin terbagi dalam bagian-bagiannya. Karena cara melukiskan naskah itu bersifat deskriptif maka cara penyajiannya dan susunan pokok abstrak ini berbeda dari karangan aslinya. b. Abstrak informatif Abstrak ini merupakan suatu ringkasan dan memuat hal-hal pokok asli artikel. Oleh karena bersifat informatif, maka abstrak ini berupa kependekan dari naskah asli. Berlainan dengan abstrak deskriptif yang pada umumnya pendek dan hanya memuat hal-hal pokok, abstrak informatif itu biasanya agak panjang dan memuat hal-hal pokok berupa uraian singkatdan kesimpulan-kesimpulannya. Abstrak informatif terbagi 2 (dua) 1. Abstrak Informatif Ringkasan (Precise) Ringkasan merupakan penyajian singkat tentang isi tulisan dengan memperlihatkan urutan dari isi atau bab-bab yang terdapat dalam tulisan. Dalam bentuknya yang singkat itu, urutan tentang isi atau bab-bab tulisan disajikan secara proporsional. Pada prinsipnya di dalam ringkasan, gagasan dan pendekatan penulis telah tampak dan problematika berikut upaya pemecahan yang ada dalam tulisan disajikan berurutan sesuai bab-bab yang ada. Ilustrasi juga disertakan dalam ringkasan. 2. Abstrak Informatif Ikhtisar (Summary) Abstrak yang berbentuk ikhtisar sebenarnya sering digunakan para penulis dalam membuat kutipan secara tidak langsung ataupun di dalam menyimpulkan suatu uraian. Sebagai salah satu bentuk abstrak, ikhtisar juga merupakan penyajian singkat tentang isi tulisan namun tidak mempertahankan urutan bab-bab yang ada seperti halnya pada ringkasan. Dengan demikian, problematika dan upaya pemecahan yang tersaji dalam tulisan dijelaskan secara ringkas dan bebas tanpa memberikan penjelasan mengenai isi dari seluruh tulisan secara proporsional. Ilustrasi pun kadang juga diperlukan dalam sebuah ikhtisar.

ringkasan??

kita sering membaca tentang ringkasan, tapi kadang kita bertanya apa sih ringkasan? Ringkasan merupakan penyajian singkat dari suatu karangan asli, sedangkan perbandingan bagian atau bab dari karangan asli secara proporsional tetap di pertahankan dalam bentuknya yang singkat atau suatu cara yang efektif untuk menyajikan suatu karangan yang panjang dalam bentuk yang singkat. Kata précis berarti memotong atau memangkas. (catatansaku.blogspot.com)

BAB I PENDAHULUAN A. Latar Belakang Dalam dunia pengajaran bahasa Inggris di sekolah penggunaan metode atau teknik pembelajaran sangatlah penting. Dengan teknik yang tepat maka proses pembelajaran akan berlangsung dengan baik, sehingga proses “transfer of knowledge” dapat lebih maksimal dan hasil belajar pun akan optimal. Sebaliknya, jika guru kurang terampil dalam memilih dan menggunakan metode atau teknik pembelajaran yang tepat maka hasil dari proses belajar mengajar (PBM) akan kurang maksimal dan tujuan pendidikan nasional pun akan sulit tercapai. Tujuan pendidikan tersebut tercantum dalam Undang-undang Sistem Pendidikan Nasional nomor 20 pasal 3 tahun 2003 yaitu: Pendidikan nasional bertujuan untuk mengembangkan potensi peserta didik agar menjadi manusia yang beriman, bertaqwa kepada Tuhan Yang Maha Esa, berakhlak mulia, terampil, sehat, berilmu, cakap, kreatif, mandiri dan menjadi warga Negara yang demokratis serta bertanggung jawab. Untuk mencapai tujuan pembelajaran dalam proses belajar mengajar bahasa Inggris diperlukan suatu proses pengajaran dengan metode dan teknik yang benar dan menarik. Karena jika proses belajar mengajar dianggap menjemukan oleh peserta didik maka hasil pembelajaran tidak akan maksimal dan siswa akan kurang menangkap materi yang diajarkan. Menurut Maknun (1996:3-4) “guru harus selalu mengusahakan terciptanya situasi yang tepat (mengajar) sehingga memungkinkan terjadinya proses pengalaman belajar” Namun Masing-masing metode atau pendekatan mempunyai kelebihan dan kekurangannya, seperti yang dikatakan David Levy yang dikutip oleh Blair (1982:11) bahwa, “… No existing language teaching methodology has ever been empirically demonstrated to be superior to any other methodology, or even to random language exposure.” Sehingga guru harus mampu meramu metode pembelajaran yang tepat agar hasil belajar siswa meningkat. Dalam pengajaran bahasa Inggris, ada 4 (empat) kemampuan yang harus dikuasai peserta didik, yaitu Listening (mendengarkan), Speaking (berbicara), Reading (membaca) dan Writing (menulis). Kenyataan di lapangan, kebanyakan dari siswa hanya mampu berbahasa Inggris secara pasif, yang hanya mampu menulis dan membaca namun kurang fasih dalam berbicara dalam bahasa Inggris. Hal ini karena tujuan pembelajaran bahasa Inggris selama ini cenderung hanya untuk lulus dalam ujian dan memperoleh nilai yang baik. Ditambah lagi, kurangnya latihan berbicara dalam bahasa Inggris di sekolah yang membuat kemampuan berbicara siswa menjadi tidak terlatih dan cenderung lemah. Pada dasarnya suatu bahasa berfungsi sebagai alat komunikasi, tidak hanya sebatas tulisan tapi juga dalam bentuk lisan. Jika seseorang sudah mampu berkomunikasi dengan lisan dan tulisan baru dapat dikatakan orang tersebut menguasai bahasa. Dan penggunaan suatu bahasa hanya dapat dikuasai jika siswa dibiasakan untuk menggunakan bahasa tersebut. Jika tidak dibiasakan, sulit bagi siswa untuk menguasai bahasa Inggris dalam baik dalam bentuk tulisan maupun dalam bentuk lisan. Ada pepatah yang mengatakan “bisa karena biasa” sehingga penggunaan bahasa Inggris secara lisan harus selalu dibiasakan dalam proses pembelajaran. Apabila kenyataan diatas dibiarkan dan dibiarkan, maka sangat mungkin kemampuan berbicara siswa akan sulit meningkat. Maka dipandang perlu untuk meneliti bagaimana pengaruh metode pembelajaran yang tepat dalam meningkatkan kemampuan berbicara, dengan judul: Pengaruh Metode Pembelajaran “Total Physical Response (TPR)” dalam meningkatkan kemampuan berbicara siswa di SMK Negeri Setu Kabupaten Bekasi. B. Identifikasi Masalah Dari uraian-uraian di atas, terdapat beberapa masalah yang dapat diidentifikasi. Adapun masalah-masalah tersebut adalah sebagai berikut : 1. Bagaimana hasil belajar bahasa Inggris? 2. Bagaimana kemampuan berbicara siswa? 3. Bagaimana meningkatkan hasil belajar siswa? 4. Bagaimana meningkatkan kemampuan berbicara siswa? 5. Apakah ada pengaruh metode pembelajaran TPR terhadap kemampuan berbicara siswa? 6. Seberapa besar pengaruh metode pembelajaran TPR terhadap kemampuan berbicara siswa? C. Batasan Masalah Berdasarkan pada latar belakang masalah dan identifikasi masalah, maka penelitian ini penulis membatasi pada : 1. Apakah terdapat pengaruh metode pembelajaran TPR terhadap kemampuan berbicara siswa? D. Rumusan Masalah Berdasarkan pada latar belakang, identifikasi dan pembatasan masalah, maka dalam penelitian perumusan masalahnya adalah sebagai berikut : 1. Bagaimana pengaruh metode pembelajaran TPR terhadap kemampuan berbicara siswa? 2. Seberapa besar pengaruh metode pembelajaran TPR terhadap kemampuan berbicara siswa?? E. Tujuan Penelitian Berdasarkan pada latar belakang masalah, identifikasi, dan pembatasan masalah, maka tujuan penelitian adalah : 1. Untuk mengetahui hasil belajar bahasa Inggris di SMK Negeri Setu 2. Untuk mengetahui kemampuan berbicara dalam bahasa Inggris di SMK Negeri Setu 3. Untuk seberapa besar pengaruh metode pembelajaran TPR terhadap kemampuan berbicara di SMK Negeri Setu F. Kegunaan Penelitian Dalam pelaksanaan penelitian ini membutuhkan kecermatan dan ketekunan dalam memperoleh dan mengembangkan teori. Maka penelitian ini dapat berguna untuk perkembangan dunia pendidikan sehingga dapat memberikan manfaat bagi siswa maupun guru dalam hal meningkatkan prestasi belajar. 1. Secara teoritis Adapun Kegunaan dari penelitian ini adalah sebagai berikut : a. Untuk mengetahui pengaruh metode pembelajaran TPR terhadap peningkatan kemampuan berbicara siswa. b. Untuk mengetahui seberapa besar pengaruh metode pembelajaran TPR terhadap peningkatan kemampuan berbicara siswa Hasil penelitian dapat menjadi bahan evaluasi bagi penulis dalam rangka meningkatkan proses dan hasil kegiatan pembelajaran yang lebih bermakna dalam upaya meningkatkan kualitas para siswa dalam belajar bahasa Inggris. 2. Secara Praktik Informasi yang diperoleh dari hasil penelitian ini dapat dimanfaatkan oleh guru bidang studi bahasa Inggris bagi pelaksanaan pengajaran. Dengan adanya informasi tersebut diharapkan guru lebih memperhatikan metode atau teknik pembelajaran yang tepat sehingga akan meningkatkan hasil belajar dan kemampuan siswa. Dan sebagai bahan pertimbangan dalam pemilihan dan penggunaan metode atau teknik pembelajaran yang tepat sehingga proses belajar mengajar akan lebih menarik bagi siswa. G. Sistematika Penulisan Untuk memudahkan dalam memahami tulisan ilmiah ini, maka Penulis akan memberikan gambaran umum, yaitu: BAB I PENDAHULUAN Dalam bab ini diuraikan mengenai latar belakang masalah, identifikasi masalah, pembatasan masalah, perumusan masalah, tujuan dan kegunaan penelitian, serta sistematika penulisan. BAB II LANDASAN TEORI, KERANGKA BERPIKIR DAN RUMUSAN MASALAH Dalam bab ini akan membahas mengenai landasan teori, yang terdiri dari pengertian kosakata, pengertian bacaan bahasa Inggris, pengertian bahasa Inggris, pengertian hasil belajar, kerangka berpikir dan perumusan masalah. BAB III METODOLOGI PENELITIAN Dalam bab ini akan dibahas mengenai tempat dan waktu penelitian, metode penelitian, populasi dan sampel, instrumen penelitian, teknik pengumpulan data dan teknik analisa data. BAB IV HASIL PENELITIAN DAN PEMBAHASAN Dalam bab ini akan diuraikan mengenai karakteristik responden, pengolahan data, analisis beda rata-rata dan pengujian hipotesis, serta interpretasi data/pembahasan. BAB V PENUTUP Dalam bab ini akan disampaikan kesimpulan-kesimpulan yang diambil dari keseluruhan hasil penelitian yang telah dilakukan oleh penulis disertai saran-saran dari penulis yang dapat digunakan dalam rangka pengembangan dan peningkatan kualitas pengajaran.

THE SILENT WAY Background The Silent Way is the name of a method of language teaching devised by Caleb Gattegno. Gattegno's name is well known for his revival of interest in the use of coloured wooden sticks called cuisenaire rods and for his series Words in Colour, an approach to the teaching of initial reading in which sounds are coded by specific colours. His materials are copyrighted and marketed through an organization he operates called Educational Solutions Inc., in New York. The Silent Way represents Gattegno's venture into the field of foreign language teaching. It is based on the premise that the teacher should be silent as much as possible in the classroom and the learner should be encouraged to produce as much language as possible. Elements of the Silent Way, particularly the use of colour charts and the coloured cuisenaire rods, grew out of Gattegno's previous experience as an educational designer of reading and mathematics programs. (Cuisenaire rods were first developed by Georges Cuis¬enaire, a European educator who used them for the teaching of math. Gattegno had observed Cuisenaire and this gave him the idea for their use in language teaching.) The Silent Way shares a great deal with other learning theories and educational philosophies. Very broadly put, the learning hypotheses underlying Gattegno's work could be stated as follows: 1) Learning is facilitated if the learner discovers or creates rather than remembers and repeats what is to be learned. 2) Learning is facilitated by accompanying (mediating) physical objects. 3) Learning is facilitated by problem solving involving the material to be learned. Let us consider each of these issues in turn. 1. The educational psychologist and philosopher Jerome Bruner distinguishes two traditions of teaching - that which takes place in the expository mode and that which takes place in the hypothetical mode. In the expository mode "decisions covering the mode and pace and style of exposition are principally determined by the teacher as expositor; the student is the listener." In the hypothetical mode "the teacher and the student are in a more cooperative position. The student is not a bench-bound listener, but is taking part in the "play the principal role in it" (Bruner 1966: 83), The Silent Way belongs to the latter tradition, which views learning as a problem-solving, creative, discovering activity, in which the learner is a principal actor rather than a bench-bound listener. Bruner discusses the benefits derived from "discovery learning" under four headings: (a) the increase in intellectual potency, (b) the shift from extrinsic to intrinsic rewards, (c) the learning of heuristics by discovering, and (d) the aid to conserving memory (Bruner 1966: 83). As we shall see, Gattegno claims similar benefits from learners taught via the Silent Way. 2. The rods and the coded-coded pronunciation charts (called Fidel charts) provide physical foci for student learning and also create mem¬orable images to facilitate student recall. In psychological terms, these visual devices serve as associative mediators for student learning and recall. The psychological literature on mediation in learning and recall is voluminous but, for our purposes, can be briefly summarized in a quote from Earl Stevick: If the use of associative mediators produces better retention than repetition does, it seems to be the case that the quality of the mediators and the stu¬dent's personal investment in them may also have a powerful effect on mem¬ory. (Stevick 1976: 25) 3. The Silent Way is also related to a set of premises that we have called "problem-solving approaches to learning." These premises are succinctly represented in the words of Benjamin Franklin: Tell me and I forget, teach me and I remember, involve me and I learn. In the language of experimental psychology, the kind of subject involve¬ment that promotes greatest learning and recall involves processing of material to be learned at the "greatest cognitive depth" (Craik 1973) or, for our purposes, involving the greatest amount of problem-solving activity. Memory research has demonstrated that the learner's "memory benefits from creatively searching out, discovering and depicting" (Bower and Winzenz 1970). In the Silent Way, "the teacher's strict avoidance of repetition forces alertness and concentration on the part of the learners" (Gattegno 1972: 80). Similarly, the learner's grappling with the problem of forming an appropriate and meaningful utterance in a new language leads the learner to realization of the language "through his own perceptual and analytical powers" (Selman 1977). The Silent Way student is expected to become "independent, autonomous and responsible" (Gattegno 1976) - in other words, a good problem solver in language. Approach Theory of language Gattegno takes an openly sceptical view of the role of linguistic theory in language teaching methodology. He feels that linguistic studies "may be a specialization, [that] carry with them a narrow opening of one's sensitivity and perhaps serve very little towards the broad end in mind" (Gattegno 1972: 84). Gattegno views language itself "as a substitute for experience, so experience is what gives meaning to language" (Gattegno 1972: 8). We are not surprised then to see simulated experiences using tokens and picture charts as central elements in Silent Way teaching. Considerable discussion is devoted to the importance of grasping the "spirit" of the language and not just its component forms. By the "spirit" of the language Gattegno is referring to the way each language is composed of phonological and suprasegmental elements that combine to give the language its unique sound system and melody. The learner must gain a "feel" for this aspect of the target language as soon as possible, though how the learner is to do this is not altogether clear. By looking at the material chosen and the sequence in which it is presented in a Silent Way classroom, it is clear that the Silent Way takes a structural approach to the organization of language to be taught. Language is seen as groups of sounds arbitrarily associated with specific meanings and organized into sentences or strings of meaningful units by grammar rules. Language is separated from its social context and taught through artificial situations, usually represented by rods. Lessons follow a sequence based on grammatical complexity, and new lexical and structural material is meticulously broken down into its elements, with one element presented at a time. The sentence is the basic unit of teaching, and the teacher focuses on prepositional meaning, rather than communicative value. Students are presented with the structural patterns of the target language and learn the grammar rules of the language through largely inductive processes. Gattegno sees vocabulary as a central dimension of language learning and the choice of vocabulary as crucial. He distinguishes between several classes of vocabulary items. The "semi-luxury vocabulary" consists of expressions common in the daily life of the target language culture; this refers to food, clothing, travel, family life, and so on. "Luxury vocabulary" is used in communicating more specialized ideas, such as political or philosophical opinions. The most important vocabulary for the learner deals with the most functional and versatile words of the language, many of which may not have direct equivalents in the learner's native tongue. This "functional vocabulary" provides a key, says Gattegno, to comprehending the "spirit" of the language. Theory of learning Like many other method proponents, Gattegno makes extensive use of his understanding of first language learning processes as a basis for deriving principles for teaching foreign languages to adults. Gattegno recommends, for example, that the learner needs to "return to the state of mind that characterizes a baby's learning surrender" (Scott and Page 1982: 273). Having referred to these processes, however, Gattegno states that the processes of learning a second language are "radically different" from those involved in learning a first language. The second language learner is unlike the first language learner and "cannot learn another language in the same way because of what he now knows" (Gattegno 1972: 11). The "natural" or "direct" approaches to acquiring a second language are thus misguided, says Gattegno, and a successful second language approach will "replace a 'natural' approach by one that is very 'artificial' and, for some purposes, strictly controlled" (1972: 12). The "artificial approach" that Gattegno proposes is based on the principle that successful learning involves commitment of the self to language acquisition through the use of silent awareness and then active trial. Gattegno's repeated emphasis on the primacy of learning over teaching places a focus on the self of the learner, on the learner's priorities and commitments. To speak... requires the descent of the will into the voluntary speech organs and a clear grasp by one's linguistic self of what one is to do to produce definite sounds in definite ways. Only the self of the utterer can intervene to make objective what it holds in itself. Every student must be seen as a will capable of that work. (Gattegno 1976: 7) The self, we are told, consists of two systems — a learning system and a retaining system. The learning system is activated only by way of intelligent awareness. "The learner must constantly test his powers to abstract, analyse, synthesize and integrate" (Scott and Page 1982: 273). Silence is considered the best vehicle for learning, because in silence students concentrate on the task to be accomplished and the potential means to its accomplishment. Repetition (as opposed to silence) "con¬sumes time and encourages the scattered mind to remain scattered" (Gattegno 1976: 80). Silence, as avoidance of repetition, is thus an aid to alertness, concentration, and mental organization. The "retaining system" allows us to remember and recall at will linguistic elements and their organizing principles and makes linguistic communication possible. Gattegno speaks of remembering as a matter of "paying ogdens." An "ogden" is a unit of mental energy required to link permanently two mental elements, such as a shape and a sound or a label and an object. The forging of the link through active attention is the cost of remembering paid in ogdens. Retention by way of mental effort, awareness, and thoughtfulness is more efficient in terms of ogdens consumed than is retention attained through mechanical repetition. Again, silence is a key to triggering awareness and hence the preferred path to retention. Retention links are in fact formed in the most silent of periods, that of sleep: "The mind does much of this work during sleep" (Stevick 1980: 41). Awareness is educable. As one learns "in awareness," one's powers of awareness and one's capacity to learn become greater. The Silent Way thus claims to facilitate what psychologists call "learning to learn." Again, the process chain that develops awareness proceeds from attention, production, self-correction, and absorption. Silent Way learners acquire "inner criteria," which play a central role "in one's education throughout all of one's life" (Gattegno 1976: 29). These inner criteria allow learners to monitor and self-correct their own production. It is in the activity of self-correction through self-awareness that the Silent Way claims to differ most notably from other ways of language learning. It is this capacity for self-awareness that the Silent Way calls upon, a capacity said to be little appreciated or exercised by first language learners. But the Silent Way is not merely a language teaching method. Gattegno sees language learning through the Silent Way as a recovery of innocence — "a return to our full powers and potentials." Gattegno's aim is not just second language learning; it is nothing less than the education of the spiritual powers and of the sensitivity of the individual. Mastery of linguistic skills are seen in the light of an emotional inner peace resulting from the sense of power and control brought about by new levels of awareness. Silent Way learning claims to "consolidate the hu¬man dimensions of being, which include variety and individuality as essential factors for an acceptance of others as contributors to one's own life" and even moves us "towards better and more lasting solutions of present-day conflicts" (Gattegno 1972: 84). Design Objectives The general objective of the Silent Way is to give beginning level students oral and aural facility in basic elements of the target language. The general goal set for language learning is near-native fluency in the target language, and correct pronunciation and mastery of the prosodic elements of the target language are emphasized. An immediate objective is to provide the learner with a basic practical knowledge of the grammar of the language. This forms the basis for independent learning on the learner's part. Gattegno discusses the following kinds of objectives as appropriate for a language course at an elementary level (Gattegno 1972: 81-83). Students should be able to correctly and easily answer questions about themselves, their education, their family, travel, and daily events; speak with a good accent; give either a written or oral description of a picture, "including the existing relationships that concern space, time and numbers"; answer general questions about the culture and the literature of the native speakers of the target language; perform adequately in the following areas: spelling, grammar (production rather than explanation), reading comprehension, and writing. Gattegno states that the Silent Way teaches learners how to learn a language, and the skills developed through the process of learning a foreign or second language can fee employed in dealing with "unknowns" of every type. The method, we are told, can also be used to teach reading and writing, and its usefulness is not restricted to beginning level stu¬dents. Most of the examples Gattegno describes, however, as well as the classes we have observed, deal primarily with a basic level of aural/ oral proficiency. The syllabus The Silent Way adopts a basically structural syllabus, with lessons planned around grammatical items and related vocabulary. Gattegno does not, however, provide details as to the precise selection and arrangement of grammatical and lexical items to be covered. There is no general Silent Way syllabus. But from observation of Silent Way programs developed by the Peace Corps to teach a variety of languages at a basic level of proficiency, it is clear that language items are introduced according to their grammatical complexity, their relationship to what has been taught previously, and the ease with which items can be presented visually. Typically, the imperative is the initial structure introduced, because of the ease with which action verbs may be demonstrated using Silent Way materials. New elements, such as the plural form of nouns, are taught within a structure already familiar. Numeration occurs early in a course, because of the importance of numbers in everyday life and the ease with which they can be demonstrated. Prepositions of location also appear early in the syllabus for similar reasons. Vocabulary is selected according to the degree to which it can be manipulated within a given structure and according to its productivity within the classroom setting. In addition to prepositions and numbers, pronouns, quantifiers, words dealing with temporal relations, and words of comparison are introduced early in the course, because they "refer to oneself and to others in the numerous relations of everyday life" (Stevick 1979). These kinds of words are referred to as the "functional vocabulary" of a language because of their high utility. The following is a section of a Peace Corps Silent Way Syllabus for the first ten hours of instruction in Thai. It is used to teach American Peace Corps volunteers being trained to teach in Thailand. At least 15 minutes of every hour of instruction would be spent on pronunciation. A word that is italicised can be substituted for by another word having the same function. Lesson Vocabulary 1. Wood colour red. wood, red, green, yellow, brown, pink, white, orange, black, colour 2. Using the numbers 1—10 one, two,... ten 3. Wood colour red two pieces. take (pick up) 4. Take (pick up) wood colour red two pieces give, object pronouns 5. Take wood colour red two pieces hive him where, on, under, near, far, over, next to, here, there 6. Wood red where? Wood red on table. Question-forming rules. Yes. No. 7. Wood colour red on table, is it? Yes, on. Not on. adjectives of comparison 8. Wood colour red long. Wood colour green longer. Wood colour orange longest. 9. Wood colour green taller. Wood colour red is it? 10. Review. Students use structures taught in new situations, such as comparing the heights of stu¬dents in the class. (Joel Wiskin, personal communication) Types of learning and teaching activities Learning tasks and activities in the Silent Way have the function of encouraging and shaping student oral response without direct oral instruction from or unnecessary modelling by the teacher. Basic to the method are simple linguistic tasks in which the teacher models a word, phrase, or sentence and then elicits learner responses. Learners then go on create their own utterances by putting together old and new information. Charts, rods, and other aids may be used to elicit learner responses. Teacher modelling is minimal, although much of the activity may be teacher directed. Responses to commands, questions, and visual cues thus constitute the basis for classroom activities. Learner roles Gattegno sees language learning as a process of personal growth re¬sulting from growing Student awareness and self-challenge. The learner first experiences a "random or almost random feeling of the area of activity in question until one finds one or more cornerstones to build on. Then starts a systematic analysis, first by trial and error, later by directed experiment with practice of the acquired sub areas until mastery follows" (Gattegno 1972: 79). Learners are expected to develop independence, autonomy, and responsibility. Independent learners are those who are aware that they must depend on their own resources and realize that they can use "the knowledge of their own language to open up some things in a new language" or that they can "take their knowledge of the first few words in the new language and figure out additional words by using that knowledge" (Stevick 1980: 42). The autonomous learner chooses proper expressions in a given set of circumstances and situations. "The teacher cultivates the student's 'autonomy' by deliberately building choices into situations" (Stevick 1980: 42). Responsible learners know that they have free will to choose among any set of linguistic choices. The ability to choose intelligently and carefully is said to be evidence of responsibility. The absence of correction and repeated modelling from the teacher requires the students to develop "inner criteria" and to correct themselves. The absence of explanations requires learners to make generalizations, come to their own conclusions, and formulate whatever rules they themselves feel they need. Learners exert a strong influence over each other's learning and, to a lesser degree, over the linguistic content taught. They are expected to interact with each other and suggest alternatives to each other. Learners have only themselves as individuals and the group to rely on, and so must learn to work cooperatively rather than competitively. They need to feel comfortable both correcting each other and being corrected by each other. In order to be productive members of the learning group, learners-thus have to play varying roles. At times one is an independent individual, at other times a group member. A learner also must be a teacher, a student, part of a support system, a problem solver, and a self-evaluator. And it is the student who is usually expected to decide on what role is most appropriate to a given situation. Teacher roles Teacher silence is, perhaps, the unique and, for many traditionally trained language teachers, the most demanding aspect of the Silent Way. Teach¬ers are exhorted to resist their long standing commitment to model, remodel, assist, and direct desired student responses, and Silent Way teachers have remarked upon the arduousness of self-restraint to which early expedience of the Silent Way has subjected them. Gattegno talks of subordinating "teaching to learning," but that is not to suggest that the teacher's role in Silent Way is not critical and demanding. Gattegno anticipates that using the Silent Way would require most teachers to change their perception of their role. Stevick defines the Silent Way teacher's tasks as (a) to teach, (b) to test, and (c) to get out of the way (Stevick 1980: 56). Although this may not seem to constitute a radical alternative to standard teaching practice, the details of the steps the teacher is expected to follow are unique to the Silent Way. By "teaching" is meant the presentation of an item once, typically using nonverbal clues to get across meanings. Testing follows immediately and might better be termed elicitation and shaping of student production, which, again, is done in as silent a way as possible. Finally, the teacher silently monitors learners' interactions with each other and may even leave the room while learners struggle with their new linguistic tools and "pay their ogdens." For the most part, Silent Way teacher's manuals are unavailable (however, see Arnold 1981), and teachers are responsible for designing teaching sequences and creating individual lessons and lesson elements. Gattegno emphasizes the importance of teacher-defined learning goals that are clear and attainable. Sequence and timing in Silent Way classes are more important than in many kinds of language teaching classes, and the teachers' sensitivity and man¬agement of them is critical. More generally, the teacher is responsible for creating an environment that encourages student risk taking and that facilitates learning. This is not to say that the Silent Way teacher becomes "one of the group." In fact, observers have noted that Silent Way teachers often appear aloof or even gruff with their students. The teacher's role is one of neutral observer, neither elated by correct performance nor discouraged by error. Students are expected to come to see supportive but emotionally uninvolved. The teacher uses gestures, charts, and manipulates in order to elicit and shape student responses and so must be both facile and creative as a pantomimist and puppeteer. In sum, the Silent way teacher, like the complete dramatist, writes the script, chooses the props, sets the mood, models the action, designates the players, and is critic for the performance. The role of instructional materials The Silent Way is perhaps as well known for the unique nature of its teaching materials as for the silence of its teachers. The materials consist mainly of a set of coloured rods, coded-coded pronunciation and vocabulary wall charts, a pointer, and reading/writing exercises, all of which are used to illustrate the relationships between sound and meaning in the target language. The materials are designed for manipulation by the students as well as by the teacher, independently and cooperatively, in promoting language learning by direct association. The number of languages and contain symbols in the target language for all of the vowel and consonant sounds of the language. The symbols are colour coded according to pronunciation; thus, if a language possesses two different symbols for the same sound, they will be coloured alike. Classes often begin by using Fidel charts in the native language, colour coded in an analogous manner, so that students learn to pair a sound with its associated colour. There may be from one to eight of such charts, depending upon the language. The teacher uses the pointer to indicate a sound symbol for the students to produce. Where native-language Fidels are used, the teacher will point to a symbol on one chart and then to its analogue on the Fidel in the other language. In the absence of native-language charts, or when introducing a sound not present in the native language, the teacher will give one clear, audible model after indicating the proper Fidel symbol in the target language. The charts are hung on the wall and serve to aid in remembering pronunciation and in building new words by sounding out sequences of symbols as they are pointed to by the teacher or student. Just as the Fidel charts are used to visually illustrate pronunciation, the coloured cuisenaire rods are used to directly link words and structures with their meanings in the target language, thereby avoiding translation into the native language. The rods vary in length from one to ten centimetres, and each length has a specific colour. The rods may be used for naming colours, for size comparisons, to represent people build floor plans, constitute a road map, and so on. Use of the rods is intended to promote inventiveness, creativity, and interest in forming communicative utterances on the part of the students, as they move from simple to more complex structures. Gattegno and his proponents believe that the range of structures that can be illustrated and learned through skilful use of the rods is as limitless as the human imagination. When the teacher or student has difficulty expressing a desired word or concept, the rods can be supplemented by referring to the Fidel charts, or to the third major visual aid used in the Silent Way, the vocabulary charts. The vocabulary or word charts are likewise colour coded, although the colours of the symbols will not correspond to the phonetics of the Fidels, but rather to conceptual groupings of words. There are typically twelve such charts containing 500 to 800 words in the native language and script. These words are selected according to their ease of application in teaching, their relative place in the "functional" or "luxury" vocab¬ulary, their flexibility in terms of generalization and use with other words, and their importance in illustrating basic grammatical structures. The content of word charts will vary from language to language, but the general content of the vocabulary charts (Gattegno 1972) is paraphrased below: Chart 1: the word rod, colours of the rods, plural markers, simple im¬perative verbs, personal pronouns, some adjectives and question words Charts 2, 3: remaining pronouns, words for "here" and "there," of, for, and name Chart 4: numbers Charts 5, 6: words illustrating size, space, and temporal relationships, as well as some concepts difficult to illustrate with rods, such as order, causality, condition, similarity and difference Chart 7: words that qualify, such as adverbs Charts 8, 9: verbs, with cultural references where possible Chart 10: family relationships Charts 11, 12: words expressing time, calendar elements, seasons, days, week, month, year, etc. Other materials that may be used include books and worksheets for practicing reading and writing skills, picture books, tapes; videotapes, films, and other visual aids. Reading and writing are sometimes taught from the beginning; and students are given assignments to do outside the classroom at their own pace. These materials are of secondary im¬portance, and are used to supplement the classroom use of rods and charts. Choice and implementation depends upon need as assessed by teachers and/or students. Procedure A Silent way lesson typically follows a standard format. The first part of the lesson focuses on pronunciation. Depending on student level, the class might work on sounds, phrases, or even sentences designated on the Fidel chart. At the beginning stage, the teacher will model the appropriate sound after pointing to a symbol on the chart. Later, the teacher will silently point to individual symbols and combinations of symbols, and on monitor student utterances. The teacher may say a word and have a student guess what sequence of symbols compromised the word. The pointer is used to indicate stress, phrasing, and intonation. Stress can be shown by touching certain symbol more forcibly than others when pointing out a word. Intonation and phrasing can be demonstrated by tapping on the chart to the rhythm of the utterance. After practice with the sounds of the language, sentence patterns, structure, and vocabulary are practiced. The teacher models an utterance while creating a visual realization of it with the coloured rods. After modelling the utterance, the teacher will have a student attempt to produce the utterance and will indicate its acceptability. If a response is incorrect, the teacher will attempt to reshape the utterance or have another student present the correct model. After a structure is introduced and understood, the teacher will create a situation in which the students can practice the structure through the manipulation of the rods. Vari¬ations on the structural theme will be elicited from the class using the rods and charts. The sample lesson that follows illustrates a typical lesson format. The language being taught is Thai, for which this is the first lesson. 1. Teacher empties rods onto the table. . 2. Teacher picks up two or three rods of different colours, and after each rod is picked up says: [mai]. 3. Teacher holds up one rod of any colour and indicates to a student that a response is required. Student says: [mai]. If response is incorrect, teacher elicits response from another student, who then models for the first student. 4. Teacher next picks up a red rod and says: [mai sti daeng]. 5. Teacher picks up a green rod and says: [mai sii khiawj. 6. Teacher picks up either a red or green rod and elicits response from stu¬dent, If response is incorrect, procedure in step 3 is followed (student modeling). 7. Teacher introduces two or three other colors in the same manner. 8. Teacher shows any of the rods whose forms were taught previously and elicits student response. Correction technique is through student model¬ing, or the teacher may help student isolate error and self-correct. 9. When mastery is achieved, teacher puts one red rod in plain view and says: [mai sii daeng nung an]. 10. Teacher then puts two red rods in plain view and says: [mai sii daeng song an]. 11. Teacher places two green rods in view and says [mai sii khiaw song an]; 12. Teacher holds up two rods of a different color and elicits student response. 13. Teacher introduces additional numbers, based on what the class can comfortably retain. Other colors might also be introduced. 14. Rods are put in a pile. Teacher indicates, through his or her own ac¬tions, that rods should be picked up, and the correct utterance made. All die students in the group pick up rods and make correction is encouraged. 15. Teacher then says: [kep mai sii daeng song an]. 16. Teacher indicates that a student should give the teacher the rods called for. Teacher asks other students in the class to give him or her the rods that he or she asks for. This is all done in the target language through unambiguous actions on the part of the teacher. 17. Teacher now indicates that the students should give each other com¬mands regarding the calling for of rods. Rods are put at the disposal of the class. 18. Experimentation is encouraged. Teacher speaks only to correct an incor¬rect utterance, if no peer group correction is forthcoming. (Joel Wiskin, personal communication) Conclusion Despite the philosophical and sometimes almost metaphysical quality of much of Gattegno's writings, the actual practices of the Silent Way are much less revolutionary than might be expected. Working from what is a rather traditional structural and lexical syllabus, the method exemplifies many of the features that characterize more traditional methods, such as Situational Language Teaching and Audiolingualism, with a strong focus on accurate repetition of sentences modeled initially by the teacher and a movement through guided elicitation exercises to freer communication. The innovations in Gattegno's method derive primarily from the manner in which classroom activities are organized, the indirect role the teacher is required to assume in directing and monitoring learner performance, the responsibility placed upon learners to figure out and test their hypotheses about how the language works, and the materials used to elicit and practice language.

ethnicity

An ethnic group (or ethnicity) is a group of people whose members identify with each other, through a common heritage, often consisting of a common language, a common culture (often including a shared religion) and/or an ideology that stresses common ancestry or endogamy.
The concept of ethnicity differs from the closely related term race in that "race" refers to grouping based mostly upon criteria that in the past have been presumed to be biological, while "ethnicity" also encompasses additional cultural factors. However, OMB defines the concept of race as outlined for the US Census as not "scientific or anthropological" and takes into account "social and cultural characteristics as well as ancestry", using "appropriate scientific methodologies" that are not "primarily biological or genetic in reference."
Members of an ethnic group are usually conscious of belonging to that ethnic group; moreover ethnic identity is further marked by the recognition from others of a group's distinctiveness. Processes that result in the emergence of such identification are called ethnogenesis
According to Hans Adriel Handokho, the study of ethnicity was dominated by two distinct debates until recently.
• One is between "primordialism" and "instrumentalism". In the primordialist view, the participant perceives ethnic ties collectively, as an externally given, even coercive, social bond.[24] The instrumentalist approach, on the other hand, treats ethnicity primarily as an ad-hoc element of a political strategy, used as a resource for interest groups for achieving secondary goals such as, for instance, an increase in wealth, power or status. This debate is still an important point of reference in Political science, although most scholars' approaches fall between the two poles.
• The second debate is between "constructivism" and "essentialism". Constructivists view national and ethnic identities as the product of historical forces, often recent, even when the identities are presented as old. Essentialists view such identities as ontological categories defining social actors, and not the result of social action.
According to Eriksen, these debates have been superseded, especially in anthropology, by scholars' attempts to respond to increasingly politicised forms of self-representation by members of different ethnic groups and nations. This is in the context of debates over multiculturalism in countries, such as the United States and Canada, which have large immigrant populations from many different cultures, and post-colonialism in the Caribbean and South Asia.
Weber maintained that ethnic groups were künstlich (artificial, i.e. a social construct) because they were based on a subjective belief in shared Gemeinschaft (community). Secondly, this belief in shared Gemeinschaft did not create the group; the group created the belief. Third, group formation resulted from the drive to monopolise power and status. This was contrary to the prevailing naturalist belief of the time, which held that socio-cultural and behavioral differences between peoples stemmed from inherited traits and tendencies derived from common descent, then called "race".[33]
"Ethnies" or ethnic categories
In order to avoid the problem of defining ethnic classification as labelling of others or as self-identification, it has been proposed to distinguish between concepts of "ethnic categories", "ethnic networks" and "ethnic communities" or "ethnies".
• An "ethnic category" is a category set up by outsiders, that is, those who are not themselves members of the category, and whose members are populations that are categorised by outsiders as being distinguished by attributes of a common name or emblem, a shared cultural element and a connection to a specific territory. But, members who are ascribed to ethnic categories do not themselves have any awareness of their belonging to a common, distinctive group.
• At the level of "ethnic networks", the group begins to have a sense of collectiveness, and at this level, common myths of origin and shared cultural and biological heritage begins to emerge, at least among the élites.
• At the level of "ethnies" or "ethnic communities", the members themselves have clear conceptions of being "a named human population with myths of common ancestry, shared historical memories, and one or more common elements of culture, including an association with a homeland, and some degree of solidarity, at least among the élites". That is, an ethnics is self-defined as a group, whereas ethnic categories are set up by outsiders whether or not their own members identify with the category given them.
• A "Situational Ethnicity" is an Ethnic identity that is chosen for the moment based on the social setting or situation.

Ethnicity and language
When people belong to the same group, they often speak similarly, their ethnic language. But there are many different group in a community, and so individual may share linguistic feature with a range of other speakers. Some features indicate a person’s social status. Other distinguished women and men or identify a person as a teenager rather than as a middle-aged citizen.
When people speak to other group from different ethnics, they may use a choice of language which is available for communications ( the majority language ) but signal their ethnicity by using short phrases, words, linguistics tags, and other types.
Where a choice of language is available for communication, it is often possible for an individual to signal their ethnicity by the language they choose to use.

Sociolinguistics

Until this point, we have essentially been considering language as a formal system that can be profitably studied independently from the people who use it. This type of approach is often referred to in the field as the are of "formal" linguistics. People use the term "formal" because such investigation revolves around constructing formal models that allow us to understand how various subparts or modules of the linguistic grammar function. These subparts or modules consist of the areas that we have been studying all semester, such as phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, and semantics.

There is, however, a lot more to understanding language than focusing on these core theoretical areas. If we can gain insight into how language works by studying its formal grammatical properties, we must also realize that language as a "thing" to be studied is necessarily a kind of simplification, because language isn't a "thing" external to human beings, but rather, something that makes up a part of who we are.

What I want to stress here is that language must also be profitably studied in its social context. In so doing, we learn both about language and about ourselves, the people who use it, live with it, and live in it. Sociolinguistics, then, as the name implies, is the study of language in human society. We'll focus here on a major aspect of sociolinguistic research in the past decades, an area generally referred to as language variation. As its own name implies, language variation focuses on how language varies in different contexts, where context refers to things like ethnicity, social class, sex, geography, age, and a number of other factors.

Language Variation

Before we review various aspects of language variation in more detail, I want to make sure we've got some basic terms and concepts down. So, here goes...

SOME IMPORTANT TERMINOLOGY

Internal Variation: the property of languages having different ways of expressing the same meaning. Importantly, this refers to within language, not across language, differences. An example of internal variation in English is "ask" vs. "aks".

Language variety: This is a general term that may be used at a number of levels. So, we can use the term to distinguish between English and French, but we can also use the term to distinguish between two varieties of English, such as New York City English vs. Appalachian English.

Dialect: This is a complex and often misunderstood concept. For linguists, a dialect is the collection of attributes (phonetic, phonological, syntactic, morphological, semantic) that make one group of speakers noticeably different from another group of speakers of the same language.

COMMON SOURCES OF MISUNDERSTANDING

1) DIALECT is NOT a negative term for linguists. . Often times, for example, we hear people refer to non-standard varieties of English as "dialects", usually to say something bad about the non-standard variety (and thus about the people who speak it). This happened quite a bit during last year's ebonics controversy. But, the term dialect refers to ANY variety of a language. Thus, by definition, we all speak a dialect of our native language.

2) DIALECT is NOT synonymous with accent. Accent is only a part of dialectal variation. Non-linguists often think accents define a dialect (or that accents alone identify people as non-native or foreign language speakers). Also, non-linguists tend to think that it's always the "other" people that have "an accent". So, what is "accent"?

3) ACCENT: This term refers to phonological variation, i.e. variation in pronunciation Thus, if we talk about a Southern Accent, we're talking about a generalized property of English pronunciation in the Southern part of the US. But, Southern dialects have more than particular phonological properties. Accent is thus about pronunciation, while dialect is a broader term encompassing syntactic, morphological, and semantic properties as well.

A final note on accent. WE ALL HAVE ONE! There is no such thing as a person who speaks without an accent. This is not an exercise in political correctness, by the way. It is a fact.

In sum, a dialect is a particular variety of a language, and we all have a dialect. Accent refers to the phonology of a given dialect. Since we all have a dialect, we all have an accent.

Idiolect: Another term that we must be familiar with is idiolect. "What's an idiolect?" you ask, on the edge of your seat. An idiolect is simply the technical term we use to refer to the variety of language spoken by each individual speaker of the language. Just as there is variation among groups of speakers of a language, there is variation from speaker to speaker. No two speakers of a language speak identically. Each speaks her or his own particular variety of that language. Each thus speaks her or his own idiolect.

A Snapshot of "The Big Picture":

A language, say English, is really a collection of dialects.
A dialect is a particular variety of a language that differs noticeably from the variety or varieties of the same language spoken by another group or groups of people.
Dialects themselves are collections of idiolects (and thus so are languages).

Some Issues that complicate the "Big Picture" a bit

While the big picture is relatively simple, the world is a fuzzy and complex place. How do we know where one dialect begins and another ends? How do we even know if two language varieties are dialects of the same language or are dialects of different languages altogether? Let's set aside the first question for a moment, and address the second.

Linguists use a particular criterion to address the issue of how to determine whether two dialects are varieties of the same language or not. What we use is the criterion of mutual intelligibility. That is, if speakers of the two dialects can converse fluently with one another, although they recognize themselves to be speaking different varieties of the language, then we are looking at two dialects of the same language.

Many of you are speakers of "Southern" English (I use quotes because it is actually a BIG oversimplification to treat "Southern English" as a monolithic dialect), while I speak something akin to so-called standard English. (Though I grew up in the New York City metropolitan area, I do not have many of the linguistic properties in my dialect that are usually associated with that region.) Anyway, you can understand me in lecture, and I can understand you when you ask questions or come to talk to me in office hour. The point, to belabor the obvious, is that such communication is possible because although we may speak different dialects of English, the differences are not so great as to prevent us from understanding one another.

Regarding the issue of different languages, clearly there are cases where no one is going to wonder whether two speakers are speaking dialects of one language or whether they are speakers of different languages. So, if I come in and lecture to you in Spanish, I doubt that you'll scratch your heads and say, "Gee, is this a variety of English or is it something else?" But, there are many situations where the dividing line is far less clear.

There are a number of reasons why things get tricky, both linguistic and non-linguistic. A major linguistic complication comes in the form of what we call a dialect continuum. This is a situation in which there are a number of contiguous dialects that are closely related but that are not all mutually intelligible.

What's a dialect continuum?

To simplify somewhat, think of it this way. Imagine we've got ten dialects (1-10) in a row:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Now, imagine that each dialect is highly similar to its immediately adjacent neighbors, but that as we move farther away the similarities become fewer and fewer. So, 1 is very similar to 2, less similar to 3, even less similar to 4, and by the time we get to 8, 9 or 10, 1 is no longer mutually intelligible with these. By the criterion of mutual intelligibility, we'd want to thus say that 1 and 10 belong to different languages. That's fine. But what do we do about 5, which may be mutually intelligible with both 1 and 10? Which language does 5 belong to? How many different languages are we talking about here?

An example of the dialect continuum problem

An interesting example that I have first hand experience with is the case of the Mixtec languages in Mexico. There are roughly 300,000 Mixtec speakers in Mexico, primarily spread out in the state of Oaxaca. Mixtec is an indigenous language that is a member of a larger family called the Otomanguean language family. But, Mixtec itself is actually composed of a number of mutually unintelligible dialects. Estimates of how many such dialects there are vary, but a fairly trustworthy study puts the number at 22. Perhaps more meaningful than the number 22, however, is the observation that mutual intelligibility among Mixtecs is best measured in terms of walking distance. Specifically, it has been reported that the geographical extension of mutual intelligibility is roughly the equivalent of two days walking from any given Mixtec village. (Mixtecs, as I've told you, are incredibly hearty walkers in general!) This is a clear case of a dialect continuum similar to our case of 1-10 above, except that all the Mixtecs obviously aren't all lined up in a row.

In fact, what more sophisticated studies of mutual intelligibility try to do is quantify in some fashion over the issue of intelligibility. That is, rather than take mutual intelligibility to be an all or nothing issue, they try to break the issue down into percentages so that we might be able to distinguish between degrees of intelligibility. As a case in point, the particular variety of Mixtec that I have worked on is among the most isolated, and has been reported to only have a 25% intelligibility level with the closest dialect to it.

What you should take away from this discussion is that while the criterion of mutual intelligibility is a good and useful criterion for determining whether two varieties of a language are dialects of the same language or not, dialects often form a continuum which makes finding an exact dividing point between languages quite difficult, if not downright impossible.

Nonlinguistic Factors and the dialect vs. language issue

Non-linguistic factors also often complicate matters further. A famous linguists once said, "A language is a dialect with an army and a navy." What he was calling attention to were the political factors involved in how people determine just what a language is. A good, though very depressing, example of this can be found in the former Yugoslavia. The majority language in the former Yugoslavia was called Serbo-Croatian. This language was spoken throughout the country (Albanian and Macedonian, for example, were also spoken in parts of Yugoslavia, so Serbo-Croatian wasn't the only language.) Anyway, now that Croatia has broken off into its own independent state, the language of Croatia is officially Croatian, and the language now spoken in what is still called Yugoslavia is officially called Serbian. These are now officially two completely different languages, due to the fact that there is a political border between Croatia and Serbia.

From the point of view of the linguist, of course, they are still a single language, and the differences between them are examples of dialectal variation on a par with, say, New York vs. Boston English. But, the animosity between Serbs and Croats makes them refuse to admit that they are speaking the same language (even though they know they are and can, of course, understand one another!).

An example of politics working in the other direction is the case of China. There are quite a few languages spoken in China, but the Chinese government refers to them all as dialects of Chinese. Two of these so-called dialects are Cantonese and Mandarin. Cantonese is spoken in part of Southern China (it's spoken in Shanghai), while Mandarin is spoken in the north (it's the language spoken in Beijing). Though these two languages are both historically related, they are NOT mutually intelligible. Yet the Chinese refer to them as dialects of a single language as a means of enforcing a vision of cultural and political unity. Imagine if the Europeans decided that they were all going to call Spanish, French, Catalan, Italian, Portuguese, Romanian, and Provencal dialects of a single language, Romance, and you start to get the picture. Or imagine that we decide that English, Dutch, and German are all dialects of a single German language. Yes, these languages ARE historically related, but from the point of view of the linguist, their non-mutual intelligibility makes them different languages, not dialects of a single present day language.



Speech Communities





Okay, if we've got a pretty clear idea of what a dialect is, then the idea of a speech community is fairly straightforward.

A speech community is a group of people who speak a common dialect.

Linguists working on language variation often characterize speech communities in terms of extra-linguistic factors, i.e. along ethnic or geographical lines. While this can be useful and can shed light on the hows and whys of dialect variation, it is important to note that the linguists who do this KNOW that there is really no such thing as a pure dialect spoken only by a particular ethnic group or by people from just one perfectly definable region. In large part, people are in contact with one another and with many varieties of a language.

For example, your book Language Files gives you an example of speech from an older man with many well known characteristics of Appalachian English:

1) I used to could read. (double modal)
2) I ain't no girl now. (multiple negation)
3) He has a broken back ____ was never set. ("that" deletion)
4) Put some bakin' sody on it. (sody instead of soda)
5) I fell upside of the building. (lexical substitution--upside of for against the side of)

What they point out, though, is that the speaker is a native of Southern Ohio, not actually a native of Appalachia. And his speech is affected by factors such as age, sex, and socio-economic status.

To cite another simple example, linguists study African American English (most recently called ebonics), but there is no assumption here that ALL African Americans speak this dialect. Nor is there an assumption that this dialect is limited to African Americans only. It does happen to be true, however, that most speakers of this dialect are African Americans.

So, big picture again. A dialect is a variety of a language. A speech community is the group of people who speak the dialect. What makes a particular group of people speak a particular dialect has to do with a number of factors which may play a more or less significant role in any particular case. These include socio-economic status, ethnicity, sex, and geographical location.

Kinds of Variation

Now we're ready to get down to particular aspects of language variation. Returning to our grammatical modules, we can see that carefully examining language variation requires both attention to grammar and attention to society. What do I mean by this? Simply, that if we identify a particular dialect, our understanding of how that dialect works requires an understanding of the phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, and semantics of that dialect, as well as an understanding of who speaks it. So, here we'll cover grammatical aspects of language variation.

Phonetic Variation

Your textbook, Language Files, is actually a bit unclear regarding the difference between phonological and phonetic variation.

Though it doesn't come out and say so specifically, your book treats phonetic variation as variation in pronunciation that don't affect the phonemic level of the grammar. Two examples are provided. Here's the case of New York alveolar consonants.

In some New York City dialects, alveolar consonants are systematically produced with contact between the tongue tip and the upper teeth (i.e. they are dento-alveolar), while in so-called standard dialects, the alveolars are not dental. So, in New York English, the [t] word "two" is produced with contact between the tongue tip and the teeth. In so-called standard English, this isn't the case. Alveolar consonants are not always realized as dentals.

So, why is this a case of phonetic variation? The answer is basically this. At the phonemic level, there is really no difference between NY English and standard English. Both have the exact same set of alveolar consonant PHONEMES. What's different is that the place of articulation differs ever so slightly between the two dialects. NY English speakers always produce their alveolar consonants with contact between the tongue tip and the upper front teeth. Standard English speakers only do this sometimes, as in words like [tenth].

In short, the difference is not found at the phoneme level but rather at the allophone level. This is what your book is referring to by this example of phonetic variation between NY English and standard American English.

Phonological Variation

Now let's turn to the case of phonological variation. This situation is a little different. Here, the variation in pronunciation represents variation at the level of the phoneme or at the level of phonotactic constraints on things like syllable shape. How so? The book gives a few useful examples. Here's one:

I have a difference in my dialect between the vowel in the word "caught" and the vowel in the word "cot". For me, these are a minimal pair. The first, "caught" has a lax, mid, rounded, back vowel (its phonetic symbol is a backwards "c"), while the latter is the low, back, unrounded vowel [a]. In a few dialects of American English, this difference has been neutralized, aka lost. That is, these two different phonemes have merged. Specifically, people who speak these dialects pronounce the vowel in "caught" as an [a]: [kat], thus rendering the two words "caught" and "cot" homophonous.

Why is this a case of phonological and not phonetic variation? Because, the result of this kind of variation is the loss of a phonological contrast. Whereas in my dialect these vowels are allophones of two different phonemes, the dialects that don't have this difference have lost a contrast. Another way of putting this is to say that the dialect that has lost the backwards "c" vowel that I still have in my dialect, has one less vowel phoneme than my dialect has. What's most important here is that we understand that the difference is relevant at the level of the phoneme. This is what your book classifies as an example of phonological variation.

So, the big picture is that the variation means that the phoneme system is different in the two varieties. In the case of NY alveolars above, the allophones of the alveolar consonant phonemes are different, but both dialects still have the same alveolar phonemes in the same words. Here's another interesting example:

In some African American dialects, the sequences Cr and Cl (C stands for consonant) are prohibited in unstressed syllables. So, "professor" is "pofessor". This is a case of phonological variation because in SAE, the word professor has an /r/ as the second phoneme of the word, but in AAE, /r/ is simply not allowed to appear in this position.

This is a case of phonological variation because we are able to identify a particular difference in phonotactics between AAE and SAE. AAE doesn't allow Cl and Cr clusters, while SAE does. This literally means that there is a significant difference in the phonological rules of the two dialects Specifically, the inventory of possible syllable types differs from one to the other.

Morphological Variation

Examples of morphological variation should be fairly easy for you to identify. Your book notes the case of northern England and Southern Wales, where the -s suffix is used as a general present tense marker. In many other dialects of English, -s is reserved for marking the present tense in third person singular forms only.

I likes him.
We walks all the time.

Another example comes from Appalachian English, which has a number of past tense forms that are non-standard. "Et" for "ate", "hEt" for "heated". These are all examples of morphological variation.

Syntactic Variation

As the name suggests, syntactic variation involves syntactic differences among dialects. Keeping close to home, it is common in many Southern dialects to find the word "done" used as an auxiliary, as in "she done already told you" or "I done finished a while ago." In SAE, this isn't the case. And, in fact, many times people who want to imitate Southern American English speech often pick up on this rather salient property.

Double modals (combinations of auxiliaries) are also common across parts of the South. Examples are: "I might could do it" or "They useta could do it" or "He might would if you asked him nice enough."

These are examples of syntactic variation. Another famous example is the use of so-called double negatives, as in "I didn't see nobody."

Semantic Variation

Often times, what people studying variation talk about when they discuss semantic variation is the different meanings that particular words have from dialect to dialect, or the different words that are used for the same thing in different dialects. We might more accurately refer to this as the study of lexical semantic variation. That's a fancy way of saying that we are studying variation in the meanings of words.

So, an example of a single word meaning different things is the compound "knocked up". In England it means 'rouse from sleep'. Here in the States it means "to make pregnant".

Examples of different words being used for the same thing also abound. I remember when I first went to college that someone asked me if I liked frappes. I literally had no idea what he was talking about. It turns out that frappe is a common term for "milk shake" in New England. Obviously, it wasn't a common term in the New York area that I was from.

Other examples are words like "soda". For me, this is a general term for soft drink. For speakers of other dialects, "soda" may mean seltzer water or club soda only. In some of these dialects, the general term for soft drink is "pop". In yet other dialects, the general term is "coke", while for me, "coke" refers to only a specific brand of cola.

By the way, when you go to the store, what do you get your groceries in? A bag or a sack? In my dialect, it's a bag. But when I lived in Montana, I quickly learned that you get your groceries there in a sack.



Language and Socioeconomic Status





One of the most persistent and pernicious misunderstandings of the concept dialect revolves around the problem of standard vs. nonstandard varieties of a language. Before I discuss this problem in a bit more detail, let's make sure the big picture is clear. Specifically, let's break the problem down into two categories: the WRONG view, and the RIGHT view. (I know, I know, I'm being absolutist here. But the point is important to make, and this issue is important to address, so why not be direct about it.)

THE WRONG VIEW
A language is composed of a "standard" dialect from which all of the other non-standard dialects emerge.
The standard dialect is the "correct" way to speak the language.
The other dialects represent erroneous or inferior ways of speaking the language.
The non-standard language is more complex, more logical, more expressive than the non-standard dialects.
Non-standard dialects are a product of "lazy" speech.
THE RIGHT VIEW

Languages have various dialects.
There are actually a range of varieties that people consider to be standard. So, Bill Clinton speaks the "standard" and so do I, but my dialect is clearly NOT the same as Clinton's.
What is considered standard is associated with prestige, a non-linguistic factor.
From a linguistic standpoint, what is considered standard has NOTHING to do with correctness or superiority.
From a linguistic standpoint, ALL DIALECTS are equally correct, equally expressive, equally complex, equally logical and so forth. That is, the term non-standard dialect means just that, not the standard dialect. It DOES NOT MEAN inferior or sub-standard.
Non-standard dialects are not simply offshoots from the standard. That is, don't think of non-standard dialects simply as daughters of some standard variety. This is important, because when we compare non-standard and standard dialects people tend to think that the properties of the non-standard have evolved out of the standard. This is not the case. Non-standard and standard dialects taken together simply make up the range of dialects that constitute a language.

Okay, I've given you the wrong and the right views. But this isn't sufficient, because I don't want you to believe these things simply because I say so. Rather, I want you to understand why the evidence overwhelmingly supports what I've told you.

Evidence for the RIGHT VIEW

What kinds of evidence might we look for to support these claims? Here are some ideas:

If there is a correct way to speak a language, and that correct way is reflected in the standard, then we predict that through time the standard will be unchanging with respect to this "right" way of doing things.

But, time and time again, we see that this is simply not the case. Language Files provides a simple example regarding multiple negation. In current standard American English, multiple negation structures are non-standard and people who use them are often ridiculed, e.g. "I don't want no help". We saw an example of this in the video that we watched in class. An upper class Southern woman ridiculed what she referred to as uneducated speech by imitating one speaker's use of multiple negation (something about "not running into no stump and not wanting to make no hole in the bottom of a boat").

In fact, some particularly pedantic types argue that two negatives actually cancel each other out logically. As a consequence, they suggest that anyone who says "I don't want no help" is actually requesting aid. Clearly, there is often an attempt to demean speakers who use double or other multiple negative constructions.

Well, let's be pedantic ourselves, just for fun, by pointing out that in Chaucer's time, multiple negation WAS the norm. Language Files quotes a passage from the General Prologue to the Canterbury Tales:



He never yet no villany not said

In all his life to no kind of creature

By my count, there are FOUR (count 'em) negations in this sentence: "never" , "no", "not", and "no". According to the rules of logic, since this is an even number of negations, I suppose a paraphrase should have them all canceling each other out, so the passage should mean something like: "He always said bad things to all creatures". Of course, we KNOW that it doesn't mean that. Even with its four negations, we have a clear sense that it means that "He never said anything bad to anyone".

So, in our time, multiple negation is non-standard. Big deal. In Chaucer's time, it was standard. In fact, multiple negation is highly common across languages the world over. All that stuff about multiple negations canceling each other out is basically bunk. Sure, we can use multiple negation to this effect, but intonation plays a big role when we do so. So, I can say, "I didn't say I saw nobody" to suggest that I did see somebody. But note that if you do this, your intonation is not that of a normal declarative. In fact, you put extra emphasis on the word "nobody" so as to call the listener's attention to the fact that you are playing with the double negative. Essentially, you are being coy.

Anyway, the bottom line here is that there is nothing inherently more or less correct about multiple negation. Thus, whether it is standard or not in contemporary English has nothing to do with correctness or logical purity. It has to do with factors that are non-linguistic. Specifically, our objections to multiple negation tell us more about our attitudes towards the people who use it than about the adequacy or inadequacy of multiple negation itself.

What other kinds of things should be true if the views above are correct?

Well, if we're right, we might expect to find cases of language change in progress that show how arbitrary the notions of standard are.

Here is a nice example that shows just this point. In contemporary American English, we have a couple of changes that are presently taking place. Both involve "misuse" of pronouns. Note that I put quotes around "misuse" to point out that both involve uses that depart from the traditional prescriptive standard. Interestingly, one of these is generally accepted, while the other is considered "incorrect". Here is an example of each:

John and me went bowling last Friday night.
Mary gave the books to John and I.

Does one of these seem somehow "worse" to you. My intuition, at least, is that the first one sounds worse than the second one. In fact, according to old time grammar rules, both are equally wrong. Each involves a misuse of a pronoun. "Me", as an object pronoun, is should not be used as a subject. In the second case, "I", as a subject pronoun, should not be used as the object of the verb "gave". If both are equally wrong, why does the second one not sound as wrong as the first (if this is the case for you)? One explanation is that highly educated people say the second one all the time, but tend not to say the first one as often. It's not the case that either one is actually better (or worse). They both reflect ongoing changes in how we use pronouns in English. As an aside, it is perhaps not surprising that such changes should happen. The pronoun system is a relic of a case system that has been lost in the rest of the language, so losing the old case driven uses of the pronouns isn't shocking. But, what is important here, is that our judgments about which of the two sentences sounds better or more standard may have more to do with the speakers than what's actually said.

Here's another example of the arbitrariness of what constitutes the standard.

An even more glaring example can be found in the Spanish spoken in Spain. In so-called standard peninsular Spanish, there's a phonemic difference between the voiceless interdental ("th") sound and [s], so we find pairs of words like: casa (pronounced kasa) and caza (pronounced katha). All over the Americas, this difference has been lost, and both words are pronounced the same, with an [s] and not a [th]. Both varieties are considered "standard" or "acceptable" by the Spanish Royal Academy. In parts of Spain, however, there is another dialect spoken in the southern part of the country in which both words are also pronounced the same. In this case, however, both are pronounced as [katha]. In this dialect, rather than all cases of [th] in the standard being realized as [s], all interdental fricatives and [s] are realized as [th]. I hope you can see that essentially the same process has occurred from a phonological point of view. In one dialect (or set of dialects), there is no /th/ phoneme, only /s/. In another, there is no /s/ phoneme, only the interdental /th/. BUT, only one of the dialects is accepted as falling into the standard. The southern dialect is considered "unacceptable" by the royal academy and is frequently ridiculed. Why? Well, the people who speak the "unacceptable" dialect are largely poor and uneducated. Again, the message, it's not what is said, it's who says it! There is NOTHING inherently better about either dialect. In fact, it is only attitudes towards speakers that result in one falling into the sphere of acceptable varieties while the other remains outside.

Let's provide another argument along these lines.

If we are right above then we should expect to see the very same linguistic features be standard in one place but non-standard in another.

This is, in fact, simple to show. English, as we all know, has an American Standard and a British standard. In American English, "r" dropping is considered non-standard. Think about all the "r" dropping you saw in the video of the non-prestige dialect speakers from Boston. Stereotypical New Yorkese also has "r" dropping as a feature and "r" dropping is often taken as a sign of lack of education and social status. By contrast, in standard British English, "r" dropping is a prestige feature. Imitate a Brit saying "bird" or the word "car" and you'll see that the [r] is dropped. So, here you have "r" dropping as a marker of non-standard American English but standard British English. This should be surprising to anyone who thinks that what is found in the standard is inherently better. It should come as no surprise to someone who thinks that the linguistic differences between standard and non-standard dialects are simply that, differences.

One more point here:

If we are correct in our RIGHT VIEW /WRONG VIEW statements above, then we should expect that today's standard might be tomorrow's non-standard.

And this happens all the time. I've already discussed above the example of multiple negation in Middle English, but closer to home, it is useful to remember that "r" drop in New York English was a marker of prestige around the turn of the last century. Now, it marks the opposite. What gives? People. What is standard is not a matter of "better" from a linguistic point of view. What is standard is dictated by attitudes in the society towards particular groups of people who speak in particular ways.

Big Picture Time Again





Once we recognize the arbitrary nature of what constitutes a standard variety of a language, it is simply impossible to maintain that any dialect is "superior" to any other. Different? Yes. Better? Worse? Never.

Prestige

If what makes a language standard or non-standard is not a linguistic issue, what is the difference? Of course, the reality of the situation is that the situation is VERY complex. There are many factors that come into play. But, it is important to note that dialects are intimately related to the notion of prestige within a society. Basically, the standard dialect is the dialect that is associated with prestige in the society at large. Does this mean that all prestigious people MUST speak the standard? No. But an overwhelming number do. That's why we have no trouble associating the standard with prestige. (Just what constitutes prestige is bundled up in a number of issues that are beyond the scope of this review sheet!)

This raises an apparently simple question. If the standard confers prestige on its speakers, why doesn't everyone just learn the standard? Well, what looks simple isn't always so simple. One thing is this. The question assumes that everyone is WELCOME to speak the standard. As the case of NY "r" dropping might suggest, when lots of people in NY starting dropping their r's, the prestige group put their "r's" back in. And, if we know anything about dialects at this point, we should know that people's attitudes towards dialects tells us more about their attitudes towards the speakers of those dialects.

Also, think about how you feel about your own dialect. Even if you speak a non-standard variety, do you want to be told by someone else that the way you speak is "wrong" or inadequate and that YOU should change? Dialects are intimately wound up with identity and with a sense of community. It is not realistic to pretend that this is not the case and that people can simply shrug off one dialect and adopt another with no cost. In fact, once you are an adult, learning the speech patterns of another dialect may even require a lot of training. It is important to realize that there are prestige factors, within group prestige factors, involved in non-standard dialects. Even though a speaker may speak a non-standard variety of a language, she or he may gain prestige within her or his dialect community by using the non-standard variety.

This thus brings us to two concepts:

Overt Prestige: This refers to speakers of non-standard varieties who adopt (to some degree) the standard variety. We use the term Overt Prestige to indicate that the speaker is seeking to associate her or himself with the general prestigious dialect within a society.

Covert Prestige: This refers to speakers who choose not to adopt a standard dialect. We use the term Covert Prestige because the prestige associated with this choice is that gained from within group social identification.

So, in simple terms, overt prestige is about seeking prestige by assimilating to the standard, while covert prestige is about not choosing to assimilate to the standard. Clearly, either choice has a distinct set of costs and benefits.

A final note on the prestige question. Many speakers of non-standard dialects are bidialectal. What does this mean? Basically, that they control both their own non-standard dialect and are fluent (to a greater or lesser extent) in a standard variety. This isn't surprising and is an obvious and logical strategy for pursuing the rewards of adopting the standard without losing the sense of group identity that is intimately related to the non-standard dialect.

Ways of classifying dialects

Okay, so we've seen that there are standard and non-standard dialects. I've tried to argue that this distinction isn't about the linguistic properties of the dialects in question, but rather, about sociological factors. In a society, standard dialects can also be called prestige dialects. By prestige, we mean that these dialects are not stigmatized in the society in which they are spoken.

When attempting to characterize more precisely particular dialects, linguists conduct their research along a number of lines. I'll review here the three major sources of language variation that we mentioned in class. These are: geography, ethnicity, and social class.

Geography

A major factor in dialect diversity is geography. The study of regional dialects is called dialectology. In File 10.4 of Language Files there is a nice discussion of regional dialect variation in the US, so I won't regurgitate this here. It is important to note that classifying regional variation proceeds similarly to work in historical linguistics. Your book mentions things called isoglosses. What are these? They are geographical areas that exhibit shared dialectal features. In the review notes for historical linguistics, I cited you the examples of isoglosses for Balto-Slavic, Germanic, and Indo-Iranian. People use isoglosses in dialect research, for example, to mark the regions where people say bucket instead of pail, or soda instead of pop, or drop their r's, or monopthonize their diphthongs. This results in general shared dialect properties that run along certain geographical lines. Of course, the lines are never perfectly clear, but in broad strokes, we can get a nice sense of how dialect varies with geography.

Ethnicity

Another factor driving language variation is ethnicity. Often, ethnicity is also closely tied to a particular geographical area, as is the case with the so-called Pennsylvania Dutch that we saw on the video in class. Other times, ethnicity is a factor despite geographical dispersion, as is the case of African American Vernacular English (AAVE or Ebonics). Linguists have long noted that there are many shared characteristics in African American English, regardless of whether speakers live in the South, the Northeast, or the far West. This is most likely due to the recent migration of many African Americans from the South in the early part of the 20th Century, which in historical terms is only yesterday.

Your book provides a nice general sketch of AAVE in File 10.5. One controversy surrounding AAVE is its origins, which are in broad strokes broken down into the dialectologist view and the Creolist view. The former maintains that AAVE is essentially originally a regional variety of English spoken by a particular ethnic group that for obvious historical reasons was originally concentrated in the South and which underwent a great migration from the South. The Creolist view maintains that AAVE emerged as a Creole from pidgins used by slaves who spoke different African languages and that this Creole underwent a process of decreolization after increased contact with English.

Here's my two cents. Let me start by saying that I am not an expert in this area. So, I can't really judge which is the better account. Many people have argued (loudly) on both sides of the debate. From my point of view, though, I'm not convinced that either answer much matters at this point. I'm much more interested in making sure that we recognize that no matter what its historical origins, AAVE is a dialect of English that is every bit as "complete" as any other dialect of the language. This may seem obvious given what I've said above, but it certainly didn't seem obvious to the people screaming in the newspapers, on the radio, and on tv last year during the ebonics controversy. What your book does a nice job of is presenting a sketch of the structural features of AAVE (pp. 322-324), simply to highlight its highly regular, rule governed nature. Review these. (HINT)

Class

A third major factor in language variation is social class (the term class almost feels quaint in these post-Marxist times! But, heck, it's useful enough to get the job done here). Often times, it is important to bear in mind that class plays a role in dialects. Remember the case from the video of the Boston Brahmin dialect, or the reference by an upper class Southern woman to the "poor white trash" dialect also spoken in the South.

Regarding class, you should all review File 10.7, especially William Labov's study of R-lessness in New York City. What did Labov's experiment show? Well, he showed that people, especially middle class people, exhibit a large difference between whether they drop r's or produce them, depending on how unguarded their speech is. The more unguarded, the more they drop r's. The more guarded, the more r's they produced. Why? Labov concluded that class consciousness played a big role. In guarded moments, their class aspirations were visible. That is, they produce r's as a way of seeking the prestige of the r-ful dialect spoken by the upper class in NY. In unguarded moments, they don't produce as many r's because they are not trying to put on more prestigious airs. By contrast, the upper class group produced its r's regularly, in both careful and casual speech. Labov concluded that they were more comfortable with their class status as reflected in this aspect, at least, of their speech.

An Important Point

It's important to bear in mind that these factors are intermingled. The video we saw in class did a very nice job of illustrating this by filling the screen with a range of speakers from Boston. All spoke dialects identifiable as Boston English (a regional classification); they represented different ethnic sub-groups with distinct speech patterns within Boston English, and they clearly were differentiated along class (economic, education, etc.) lines. So, when we are looking at variation, we have to constantly bear all of these factors in mind as potential extra-linguistic factors. In fact, we also need to factor in such things as age and sex, which also play important roles in understanding language variation.



Speech Style

One more aspect of language variation that merits discussion is the notion of speech style. Frequently, speech style is confused with dialect. This happens for example with people who erroneously think "rap" is synonymous with African American English.

All people, regardless of what dialect they speak, control a range of speech styles. Depending on who we are talking to, and where we are, and so forth, we use different styles of speech. This is called style shifting. Think about how you talk to a) your friends, b) your parents, c) your professors. Do you use the same style with all three. I suspect not. If you are like me, maybe you are casual with your friends, more formal but still familiar with your parents, and most formal (sometimes you even feel stiff) with your professors (by the way, you don't need to be so formal...).

There are a number of dimensions along which we exhibit variation in speech style. These involve pronunciation, syntax, and vocabulary.

Pronunciation

One obvious area where speaking style shifts is how "carefully" we pronounce things. Specifically, we see that in "casual" speech, we often "drop" endings in words such as "hunting" which we might pronounce as something like "huntin". We see that we contract things, such as "watcha" for "what do you" and so forth.

Again, prescriptivists argue that this is evidence of laziness and so forth. At this point in the semester, I hope we are not fooled by such things. It's actually often evidence of efficiency and economy of speech gestures--like building a more fuel efficient car!!! Seriously, there's nothing wrong with such contractions. In fact, many contractions are necessary even in careful speech if we don't want our speech to sound ridiculously stupid. Imagine saying to your partner, "you love me, do you not?". Not real effective, I suspect.

My point: there is nothing inherently sloppy about fast speech pronunciation features. There are simply more and less appropriate times to use them.

Syntax

Style shifting also occurs in syntax. Here's a case in point. In the prescriptive standard, we are supposed to use "there are + plural noun" and "there is + singular noun". But, in more casual speech registers, people often say "there's three problems with your analysis". This is a case of syntactic style shifting. Another interesting example of syntactic style shifting is this. People often use more passive constructions when they want to sound more formal. Note how the first of the following sentences sounds more formal because it is in the passive:

The use of antibiotics to treat bacterial infection is generally successful.
If you use antibiotics to treat bacterial infections, you'll generally be successful.

This example also shows that the general prescriptive rule that we should never use passive constructions where active ones are possible is simply a lot of bunk. Sometimes passive constructions elevate your prose or speech to a necessarily more formal level.

Vocabulary

A major area of style shifting involves choice of vocabulary. We all know, for example, which words are "dirty" words in our language and when they are acceptable and when they are not acceptable to use. We also know which words are high-brow words that we use to impress people. In English, it is the case that we often use more Latinate words when we want to sound formal and impressive and intelligent. What sounds more impressive, for example, "divine" or "godly"? My intuition is that "divine" sounds more learned. Think about differences like "there are many factors" as opposed to "there are multiple factors". See how "multiple" makes the phrase sound fancier? We also have words that we know constitute the technical jargon of a particular field and we know how and when to use them (if we participate in that field). I read you a passage from a linguistics book that was filled with what most likely sounded like impenetrable jargon to you and which is pretty straightforward for a phonologist familiar with the technical language of the field.

Finally, we know that some words are SLANG. Slang is actually a tricky thing to define, but that doesn't stop us from having a clear sense that there are words that are clearly slang words. So, if someone comes up to you and says, "yo, dude, you see that tight car?" I bet you don't think that the speaker is talking about a car that doesn't have a lot of leg room. Instead, the word "tight" is being used to express the speaker's admiration of the way the car looks. "Tight" here (as well as the word "dude" is an example of slang).

From a linguistic point of view, there is nothing particularly unique about slang words as words. They are just words and are formed by the same morphological processes as other words and are subject to the phonotactic constraints and so forth of the language that they are a part of. What's special about them is what we might call their sociopsychological role--i.e. how and when we use them and how we feel about them as words. Here are a couple of properties that slang words have:

Informality. Slang words are almost inevitably used in very informal contexts. Think about when you'd use clueless as opposed to unaware.

Group identification. Many slang words are markers of membership in a particular group that is outside of the "mainstream" adult society. People who use the term "dude" to refer to a person are generally younger (though "dude" has been around for quite some time now). I didn't know the slang use of the word "tight" above, but one of you all (who will remain nameless) taught me. I'm older than the group that knows and uses that word. Many ethnic groups have specific slang terms that identify people who use them as clued in members. In fact, of course, membership works both ways. If you don't know the slang terms, you are also clearly identifying yourself as a non-member of a particular group.

Short life span. Slang terms often have a short life span, though not all do. There are examples like "cram" (particularly relevant here) that mean "study intensely over a short period of time" that have been around for a long time. Other slang terms appear and then disappear from the language fairly quickly. Maybe "groovy" is one such example. I don't think that "groovy" has really had much staying power. It feels dated, as if its productive use really didn't extend beyond the sixties.

Slang terms are scalar. Slang terms actually seem to fall along a continuum of slanginess. Think about the following three examples: unaware, dense, clueless. I'd say that "unaware" is not slangy at all, while "dense" feels marginally slangy, and finally "clueless" feels the slangiest of the three.

A final note. Often times, when slang terms hang around for a long enough time in a language, they lose their slanginess and become more accepted as a part of the standard use of the language. In most cases, they still feel informal to some degree, but they don't feel like slang anymore. An example might be the verb "rip off" meaning "steal". Basically, the idea is that if slanginess is a scale, i.e. a continuum, there is a middle ground where items feel like they somehow aren't clearly slang but they don't feel very formal either. Such words are what linguists sometimes refer to as COLLOQUIAL terms. They are informal, but they do not feel like slang.