The Speech Community

This is something which is difficult to define precisely. We always have to ask what does this
term get us?
Chomsky's (formal linguistics) notion of an ideal speech community: 'completely
homogenous'. But we know from our discussions that this is a - lots of variation exists
within a group of speakers. So where do we draw the line between who is in and who is outside
of the s.c.?
Lots of definitions from various linguists:
*Lyons (1970): "All people who use a give language or dialect"
*Labov (1972): "Participation in a set of shared norms; these norms may be observed in
overt types of evaluative behavior, and by the uniformity of abstract
patterns of variation which are invariant in respect to particular levels of usage"
*Gumperz (1971): "A social group which may be either monolingual or multilingual,
held together by frequency of social interaction and set off from the surrounding areas
by weaknesses in the lines of communication"
Lots of models of the speech community and variation in it. Each focuses on a different level
of social organization as the starting point. Many emphasize the need for shared norms of
language use and potentially frequent interaction among members. So there seems to be
both a linguistic component and a social component. Assumption is that members of a speech
community share a single grammar: single set of rules for speaking. Part of this shared grammar
includes shared rules for evaluating (judging, perceiving, interpreting) language use, which
allows one to recognize other speech community members. (How do you know when someone
"sounds funny" or "has an accent" or "isn't from around here").
The notion of speech communities focus on a group, but what about the role of the individual
within the larger s.c.?
For the individual, a whole set of linguistic resources
Linguistic repertoire: a persons (or communitys) linguistic resources. For an individual,
depends on social history & social networks.
Parts of this repertoire include:
Vernacular: the most basic, earliest learned variety of language. It is the least subject to selfmonitoring and the least likely to change over ones lifetime.
Superposed varieties: later-learned varieties of speech. Used in more formal settings.

The vernacular comes out in certain circumstances - when someone is tired, upset, around other
speakers of the vernacular, very informal settings...
Goal of sociolinguistics is to understand this vernacular. But to do this we must examine
speech in natural settings, not artificial ones. But how do we get at this kind of speech?
Observers paradox: the speech we most want to observe is unobserved speech. We have to
come up with techniques for overcoming this.
We want to pay attention to the use of the vernacular when establishing the role of a single
person within/outside the speech community. By looking at extreme, we can define the core of
the group.
*Interlopers - people who move to a new dialect area. How well do they fit in? Depends
on their age, ability, motivation/desire
*Insiders - people at the very core of the social group. They're highly integrated, involved in
the group, but not necessarily group leaders. They are the leading force of spreading linguistic
change.
*Outsiders - they are not part of the mainstream, isolated, considered uncool. Also called
'lames'. Tend to be linguistically conservative, don't use slang, don't use vernacular -- less
'local'-sounding.
*Aspirers - social ambitions beyond the "immediate domain" (the local group). Tend to be
more standard.
How do we measure an individual's participation in the social group/speech community?
1) Social Network Analysis
emphasizes the individual's place within a social network to seek to account for the variability in
individual linguistic behavior rather than large scale characterization of the community. How do
various individuals play a role in linguistic change - someone with a lot of ties may spread a
change by coming into contact with a lot of people, someone who has ties outside the community
may initiate the change.
This is observing the micro-level social clusters. As a rule, the stronger a person's network
ties to a local group, the stronger the participation in the local vernacular.
Measuring network ties: density is the number of ties; multiplexity is the content of the ties
2) Sociometrics
A way to measure multiplexity -- how reciprocal is the relationship? (Measuring popularity, in
a way)

3) Network integration
kinship, work, territory-based activities (teams), social groups, physical proximity all play a role
4) Acts of identity: A individual creates for himself the patterns of his linguistic behaviour
so as to resemble those of the group or groups which he whises to be identified, and to be unlike
those from whom he wishes to be distinguished.
The social network, sociometric, acts of identity approaches focus on the behavior of the
individual, offering detailed information on the individuals they investigate, leading to more
depth and accuracy in our understanding of the larger group.
The speech community approach - looking at all the members as a whole rather than focusing on
any single individual's behavior - has statistical generalizability from sampling a broader
spectrum of the population. These approaches complement one another, and both are
necessary and useful.
Examples of sociolinguistic variables that can be explained (in part) by thinking about speech
community membership, social networks, sociometrics, etc.?
(Examples from film "American Speech")
Martha's Vineyard (Labov) - centralization of the diphthongs /au/ and /ai/ were strongly
correlated with attitudes and integration of speakers into the local
community (as opposed to the mainland, non-local community).