In sociolinguistics, we need a specific definition of a group in order to do research. The kind of group that sociolinguists have generally attempted to study is called the speech community (see Patrick 2002 and Morgan 2001, 2004, for a general survey of the research). For purely theoretical purposes, some linguists have hypothesized the existence of an ‘ideal’ speech community. However, such a speech community cannot be the concern of sociolinguistics: it is a theoretical construct employed for a narrow purpose. Consequently, we must try to find some alternative view of speech community, one helpful to investigations of language in society rather than necessitated by abstract linguistic theorizing.
Lyons (1970, 326) offers a definition of what he calls a ‘real’ speech community: ‘all the people who use a given language (or dialect).’ However, that merely shifts the issue to making the definition of a language (or of a dialect) also the definition of a speech community. If, as we saw in chapter 2, it proves virtually impossible to define language and dialect clearly and unambiguously, then we have achieved nothing. It is really quite easy to demonstrate that a speech community is not coterminous with a language: while the English language is spoken in many places throughout the world, we must certainly recognize that it is also spoken in a wide variety of ways, in speech communities that are almost entirely isolated from one another, for example, in South Africa, in New Zealand, and among anglophone immigrants in China. We must ask ourselves in what sense does this modern lingua franca produce a speech community that might be of interest to us, that is, ask what else is shared other than the very language itself. Furthermore, if speech communities are defined solely by their linguistic characteristics, we must acknowledge the inherent circularity of any such definition in that language itself is a communal phenomenon. Language users do use linguistic characteristics to achieve group identity with, and group differentiation from, other language users, but they use other characteristics as well: social, cultural, political, and ethnic, to name a few. Our search must be for criteria other than, or at least in addition to, linguistic criteria if we are to gain a useful understanding of ‘speech community.’
We should also note that a recognizable single speech community can employ more than one language, whether we use national boundaries to define it (e.g., Switzerland, Canada, Papua New Guinea, all countries with more than one official language), city (or city‐state) designations (e.g., Berlin, Singapore, New York City, where multiple languages are used for everyday interactions, education, and commerce), or neighborhood boundaries (e.g., in Little Village in Chicago you can hear both Spanish and English and in San Francisco’s Chinatown both Cantonese and English are commonly used). While these speech communities are all defined in terms of geographic areas, as we will see in the discussion below, there are other criteria besides language and region we can use to define speech communities.
Shared norms
One approach to defining a speech community often taken in sociolinguistics is to say that the language users in such a community share some kind of common feeling about linguistic behavior in that community, that is, they observe certain linguistic norms. Such an appeal to norms is an essential part of Labov’s definition of speech community (1972, 120–121):
The speech community is not defined by any marked agreement in the use of language elements, so much as by 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.
This definition shifts the emphasis away from members of a speech community speaking the same to ascribing the same social meanings to particular ways of speaking. Milroy (1987, 13) has indicated some consequences of such a view:
Thus, all New York speakers from the highest to lowest status are said to constitute a single speech community because, for example, they agree in viewing presence of post vocalic [r] as prestigious. They also agree on the social value of a large number of other linguistic elements. Southern British English speakers cannot be said to belong to the same speech community as New Yorkers, since they do not attach the same social meanings to, for example, (r): on the contrary, the highest prestige accent in Southern England (RP) is non‐rhotic. Yet, the Southern British speech community may be said to be united by a common evaluation of the variable (h); h‐dropping is stigmatized in Southern England … but is irrelevant in New York City or, for that matter, in Glasgow or Belfast.
Thus it is not so much how one speaks as how one evaluates ways of speaking that forms a speech community according to this definition. For the purpose of research, however, this is not a practical definition; values of particular ways of speaking are even less immediately apparent than linguistic patterns. Thus while this idea about shared norms is an important one, it does not easily lead to clearly demarcated speech communities.
Exploration 3.1 Acceptability Judgments
Consider whether you judge each of the following usages acceptable, unacceptable, or maybe acceptable. Then ask yourself why you respond that way, that is, what are you actually responding to? Do you associate these usages with particular groups of language users? Do you have a perception of regional or social‐class difference? Have you been told that particular ways of speaking are ‘wrong’? In other words, try to figure out a basis for your judgment (and your willingness to judge). Discuss this with the other members of the class; do you share norms about these utterances, and assign them the same social meanings? Can you explain similarities and differences in judgments in terms of speech community membership?
1 He hurt hisself.
2 She done it.
3 The boy run away last week.
4 To whom did you give it?
5 They ain’t got no money left.
6 Can I leave the room now?
7 Just between you and I, I think he’s crazy.
8 There’s twenty people in the room.
9 Stand over there by them boys.
10 Sally dove in at the deep end.
11 That’ll learn you!
12 I’m going to buy me a car.
The concept of the speech community is also somewhat abstract because the particular norms that a community uses may or may not be exclusively linguistic in nature, and along with norms about particular linguistic variables and their social meanings and values, these norms involve evaluations of ways that language is used as well. In other words, we again are using the concept of communicative competence, that is, that language users within a speech community share a sense of social norms in discourse, along with ideas about the social group identities indexed by various varieties or features of language. One example of how discourse patterns may be significant within a speech community is found in Hymes (2004). He presents analyses of narratives from various Native American groups, showing how, even when they are produced in English, there are distinctive features which can be traced back to narrative structures in the Native American languages. These speakers use English in special ways to maintain their separate identities within the dominant English‐speaking community (see chapter 5 for more on social dialects).
Gumperz (1971, 114) expresses much the same view of the importance of shared norms, and also notes that the groups may be of various sizes and formed for various purposes:
Most groups of any permanence, be they small bands bounded by face‐to‐face contact, modern nations divisible into smaller subregions, or even occupational associations or neighborhood gangs, may be treated as speech communities, provided they show linguistic peculiarities that warrant special study.
Thus the relationship between language and social structure is paramount in the development of the concept of the speech community, and this includes the idea that there are different levels