H 714 Language Variation: Dialect, Speech Acts & Politeness September 26, 2006 Kendra Winner

Agenda  Language and Culture “Culture”  Course Administration  Levels of language variation  Speech Acts/Politeness

Our Group Culture  Learning & understanding  Participation & discussion What are my learning goals for the course? What will I contribute? (top 3) What will my colleagues contribute? (top 3) What will the course instructor contribute? (top 3)

Course Administration  Critical Response Papers Responses do need to be critical but can also include the personal References Other questions?  Discussion Facilitation Current sign up Preferences on how to manage

Dialect  General acceptance of a standard language variety accompanied by negative attitudes toward the other language varieties is an unavoidable product of the interaction of language and society (Fasold, 1984; Preston, 1996).

Levels of language variation  Phonological  Lexical  Syntactic  Discourse  Suprasegmental

Language Varieties  What is/are your language variety/varieties?  What distinguishes one of your language varieties from another?  How do you choose how to talk to whom and when?  What factors have an impact on your ability, willingness or motivation to give up your own variety/varieties?

Speech Acts  What they are and where they come from J.L. Austin  Examples I bet the Red Sox will go to the World Series this year.

Foundations of Brown & Levinson  Roger Brown Pronoun choice in German you du Si e

Foundations of Brown & Levinson  Roger Brown Pronoun choice in German  Goffman Face you du Sie

Brown and Levinson  Assumptions Rationality: “a precisely definable mode of reasoning from ends to the means that will achieve those ends” Face: “The want to be unimpeded (negative face) and the want to be approved of in certain respects (positive face)  Politeness Strategies Bald On-Record Positive Politeness Negative Politeness Off-Record