The study of societal effects on language use and of language use on society.
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2answers
50 views
Are there any loanwords in Turkish / Armenian languages?
In the Ottoman Empire, both Turks and Armenians shared common social and cultural domains, but are there any loanwords in either language from either side - i.e. Turkish loanwords in Armenian or ...
-1
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1answer
111 views
What are the job opportunities in linguistics? [closed]
I like learning new languages so I am curious in getting a degree in linguistics.
What kind of jobs are available as a linguist?
What are the opportunities available in this field?
From what I am ...
11
votes
1answer
223 views
Correlation between politeness of a culture and its languages
In the question Is there any reason why English doesn’t add respectful words in every sentence? that was asking why there's more respectful language in Korean and Japanese compared to English, the ...
3
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0answers
81 views
Do teachers of ESL need to know how first language is acquired?
In my class we are discussing teaching English as a second language. Some contend that to teach ESL we need to know the processes an theories about first language acquisition and it is not clear to me ...
5
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2answers
165 views
Is redundancy in language really impossible? (Case of the Spanish imperfect subjunctive)
I have heard time and again that languages will reject words and structures that are redundant. That is, for example, if though two words may seem like they are perfect synonyms (e.g., rotund and ...
3
votes
3answers
285 views
What does it mean if a person says, “I think” a lot
When I speak or write I tend not to speak in absolutes. I generally use phrases like "I think" or "I don't think" a lot. Further, I usually qualify my statements with words like "generally" or ...
5
votes
2answers
300 views
In what ways do the fields of linguistics and sociology overlap?
I'm a linguistics major and I'm considering a minor in sociology (among others). In what ways do these fields overlap? More specifically, what types of sociology classes are good for a linguistics ...
4
votes
1answer
83 views
Is there a recognized foremost social factor from which idioms are derived?
I've heard some people posit that the reason a large amount of idioms in American English come from sports terminology (e.g. "ballpark figure" or "the whole nine yards") is due to the "competitive ...
3
votes
3answers
219 views
Which languages are used for purposes other than facilitating communication?
Although it seems that most languages are used to facilitate communication, some languages seem to have secondary purposes as well. For instance, expatriates of a nation may continue to speak the ...
6
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2answers
132 views
What strategies for efficiency are adopted by languages with minimal phonemic inventories?
As the size of a phonemic inventory decreases, the information rate allowed by the inventory should likewise decrease. So are there any (semantico-)pragmatic or morphosyntactic strategies that ...
0
votes
1answer
62 views
measuring relative importance/social proximity of an addressee based on length of written explanation in letters with multiple addressees
I have a corpus of personal letters in which writers explain a tough decision to multiple addressees, each in its own section/paragraph of the letter (for the most part).
I wonder if anybody has ...
3
votes
0answers
196 views
In cultures where genders speak different languages, how do genders quote each other?
In some cultures, females and males speak different languages[1].
When retelling, for example, what a man said, would a female say it in the male language or translate it into the female language?
...
2
votes
1answer
179 views
How does individual linguistic behavior relate to one's attitude of language politics in Norwegian?
In his great answer to this question, the user kaleissin alluded to something that I've been particularly interested in, so I want to turn it into a question of its own to all Norwegian and ...
8
votes
2answers
450 views
What explains the Icelandic language conservatism?
The Icelandic language is often used as an example of a very conservative language, compared to other Indo-European languages, in general, and to other North-Germanic languages, in particular, all of ...
15
votes
4answers
317 views
Why do rhotics pattern together?
Looking at the IPA, many different types of sounds are given symbols based of of the Latin R,r: approximants, trills, taps/flaps; both coronal and uvular segments.
Sometimes, these sounds are ...
13
votes
1answer
178 views
How powerful is literacy to slow down language change?
The degree of literacy of a certain community of speakers is generally proposed as one of the factors that affect the pace of language change. More specifically, literacy would slow down change, since ...
9
votes
3answers
773 views
What exactly is diglossia?
Any language has a formal variety, primarily (although not exclusively) used in writing, and one or more informal varieties, used in everyday speech. Yet, for some languages, like Norwegian and ...
4
votes
1answer
207 views
Vanishing phonemes, nasalization of vowels, tones
Looking at modern French in light of vulgar Latin, or Chinese compared with Proto-Sino-Tibetan (if that can even be reconstructed), there seems to be quite a few contexts in which phonemes are ...
2
votes
2answers
217 views
Is grammar the main barrier to Japanese people understanding English?
Although a much higher proportion of Japanese people understand English than people from English-speakering countries understand Japanese, it isn't as high as the Scandinavian countries.
I wouldn't ...
12
votes
1answer
230 views
Is there an equivalent to the Flesch Kincaid test for measuring quality and understandability of speech?
I want to measure the quality of speech: is it higher level/lower level (vocabulary grammar etc.) and also the understandability of the speech, i.e. is the teacher using language above a student's ...
9
votes
3answers
215 views
Is urbanization correlated with language innovation?
In Brazil, the Portuguese dialects spoken in rural areas preserve, despite their own innovations, several features of the language that were common in the 16th century. This phenomenon is particularly ...
7
votes
2answers
105 views
What is the term for, and a list of, “continuous dialects”?
I remember reading that Portuguese and Spanish are really just extremes on a continuum of a dialects. That is, if one travels slowly from (for example) Madrid to Lisbon, one would note nothing more ...
5
votes
0answers
97 views
Reference request: ways of indicating disagreement
There are lots of ways to indicate you disagree with some aspect of an utterance. I'm thinking here of the spectrum that includes "No, not-X," "Well, not-X," "Hey, wait a minute! Not-X!" "Yes, you're ...
9
votes
2answers
207 views
Is anyone studying change in constructed language?
Is there any serious work being done on linguistic change in constructed languages (e.g. Esperanto, Interlingua, Lojban)?
I would imagine it might be difficult given the small population of native ...
5
votes
2answers
67 views
Is it usual for facultative phenomenons to be socially connoted?
The sandhi phenomenon known as liaison in French bears a strong social connotation, that is to say when its realisation is facultative, it is a marker of a high social class.
Are there facultative ...
