LOYOLA COLLEGE (AUTONOMOUS), CHENNAI – 600 034
M.A. DEGREE EXAMINATION – ENGLISH LITERATURE
FOURTH SEMESTER – APRIL 2012
EL 4953 – SOCIOLINGUISTICS
Date : 25-04-2012 Dept. No. Max. : 100 Marks
Time : 1:00 – 4:00
PART-A
- Write short notes on any EIGHT of the following: (8×5=40)
- What are speech communities?
- Bring out the difference between dialect and Sociolect.
- Describe what you mean by Register.
4 .How did pidgin emerge? How does pidgin differ from Creole?
- What do you understand by Bilingualism?
- Sociolinguistics
- Semantic relativity
- The social nature of speech.
- Sociolinguistic Phenomenon in a real and exotic world.
- Compare and contrast ‘childhood’ and ‘Adolescence’ in Sociolinguistics development of a child
- Answer the following in about 400 words each: (4×15=60)
- The codes elaborated and restricted are acquired through exposure to different speech models.
Explain.
OR
’ Saussure was wrong in thinking of speech simply as an individual activity,’ Elucidate your point
of view with reference to speech acts.
- Explain the concept of language and inequality in terms of subjective, strictly linguistic and
communicative aspects.
OR
Highlight the contribution of ‘sapir-whorf’ hypothesis in the study of language and culture
- Illustrate the difference and dominance approaches in determining the linguistic variables in the
gender pattern of speech.
OR
Analyze the circumstances and causes for code choice, code-switching and code-mixing in
discourse.
- Analyze the conversation based on Sociolinguistic factors
An extract from Bernard Shaw’s ‘Pygmalion.’
THE FLOWER GIRL [picking up her scattered flowers and replacing them in the basket] Theres menners f’ yer! Te-oo banches o voylets trod into the mad. HE FLOWER GIRL. Ow, eez ye-ooa san, is e? Wal, fewd dan y’ de-ooty bawmz a mather should, eed now bettern to spawl a pore gel’s flahrzn than ran awy athaht pyin. Will ye-oo py me f’them? [Here, with apologies, this desperate attempt to represent her dialect without a phonetic alphabet must be abandoned as unintelligible outside London.]
THE FLOWER GIRL [springing up terrified] I aint done nothing wrong by speaking to the gentleman. Ive a right to sell flowers if I keep off the kerb. [Hysterically] I’m a respectable girl: so help me, I never spoke to him except to ask him to buy a flower off me.
THE NOTE TAKER [coming forward on her right, the rest crowding after him] There, there, there, there! whos hurting you, you silly girl? What do you take me for?
THE FLOWER GIRL [with feeble defiance] Ive a right to be here if I like, same as you.
THE NOTE TAKER. A woman who utters such depressing and disgusting sounds has no right to be anywhere—no right to live. Remember that you are a human being with a soul and the divine gift of articulate speech: that your native language is the language of Shakespeare and Milton and The Bible; and dont sit there crooning like a bilious pigeon.
THE FLOWER GIRL [quite overwhelmed, and looking up at him in mingled wonder and deprecation without daring to raise her head] Ah-ah-ah-ow-ow-ow-oo!
THE NOTE TAKER [whipping out his book] Heavens! what a sound! [He writes; then holds out the book and reads, reproducing her vowels exactly] Ah-ah-ah-ow-ow-ow-oo!
THE FLOWER GIRL [tickled by the performance, and laughing in spite of herself] Garn!
THE NOTE TAKER. You see this creature with her kerbstone English: the English that will keep her in the gutter to the end of her days. Well, sir, in three months I could pass that girl off as a duchess at an ambassador’s garden party. I could even get her a place as lady’s maid or shop assistant, which requires better English. Thats the sort of thing I do for commercial millionaires. And on the profits of it I do genuine scientific work in phonetics, and a little as a poet on Miltonic lines
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