Chapter 1 What is Sociolinguistics? Pygmalion by Bernard Shaw A phonetician changes a lovely flower girl into a lady by changing her working class talk into speech of an assistant. For once or twice, she succeeds in passing off as an educated lady with perfect pronunciation and choice of words. But in the end, she is seen through—her speech, particularly her accent betrays her. One of the often quoted quotations is “Once you open your mouth, you are placed.” （Pygmalion ：Greek Mythology A king of Cyprus who carved and then fell in love with a statue of a woman, which Aphrodite brought to life as Galatea.） Your speech contains a lot of information about yourself—your place of birth, education, work experience, personal interest, your mood, the state of mind, etc. 1 The purpose of this chapter A: to define the subject matter of sociolinguistics B: to show how a distinction between Macro-sociolinguistics and Micro-sociolinguistics has developed. C: to indicate the influence of other academic disciplines on the subject D: to sketch out the place of sociolinguistics within linguistics as a whole. 2 Indications of the interrelationship between language and society 2.1 While language is principally used to communicate meaning, it is also used to establish and maintain social relationship. 2.2 Users of the same language, in a sense, all speak differently. 2.3 Language especially the structure of its lexicon reflects both the physical and the social environments of society. There are only several words for “snow” in English but over 20 twenty words for “snow” in Eskimo. The rise and fall of “xiaojie” (miss): Before 1949, “daughter of rich and important family” During the Cultural Revoluti...
