摘要
语言的社会变异研究,到20世纪60年代逐渐发展为人们所知的社会语言学,已经挑战了索绪尔结构主义语言学的一些基本思想。索绪尔认为语言应该根据结构进行分析,他将语言看作一个不受时间影响的系统,并严格区分共时研究和历时研究。从社会语言学的视角来看,语言永远处于变异和变化中。不论是时间、地域还是社会维度上的变异与变化,我们不能抽象理解语言的某个本质特征而忽视这些,这是因为语言不是固定不变的,它受到使用者变化的影响。因此,社会语言学将语言变异作为其研究和解释的首要对象,寻找说话者的社会阶层、民族、职业、性别和年龄等社会因素与语言变体之间的相关性。但与此同时,不可否认的是,由于城市化、社会老龄化和人口流动等因素,社会也和语言一样在变化,然而社会语言学的理论建构一般忽视社会的时间维度。本文讨论社会语言学理论是否应该承认语言和社会都在时间中存在并具有时间维度,及其启示意义。
Abstract
The study of the social variation of language, which in the 1960s came to be known generally as Sociolinguistics, has challenged one of the fundamental tenets of Structural Linguistics à la Saussure, who taught that for language to be analysable in terms of its structure, it had to be conceptualized as system devoid of a temporal dimension, and a rigid distinction had to be observed between synchrony and diachrony. From a sociolinguistic point of view language is perpetual in flux and variation, be it temporal or regional or social, cannot be ignored without abstracting away one of its essential features. For, rather than being given, language is subject to modification by the society of its users. Thus, sociolinguistics made linguistic variation its principal object of investigation and explanandum, seeking correlations of speakers’ social class, ethnicity, level of occupation, gender, and age with language varieties. At the same time, however, the temporal dimension of society was generally ignored in sociolinguistic theory building, although it is undeniable that, as a result of urbanisation, social ageing, and migration among others societies change just as much as languages. This paper raises the question of whether the fact that both language and society exist in time and have temporal depth should be recognised in sociolinguistic theory and if so, what the implications would be.
关键词
时间 /
年龄变化 /
人口变化 /
社会语言学理论
Key words
time /
age variation /
demographic change /
sociolinguistic theory
弗洛里安·库尔马斯.
时间、人口和语言[J]. 语言战略研究. 2019, 4(6): 33-41 https://doi.org/10.19689/j.cnki.cn10-1361/h.20190603
Florian Coulmas.
Time, Demographics and Language[J]. Chinese Journal of Language Policy and Planning. 2019, 4(6): 33-41 https://doi.org/10.19689/j.cnki.cn10-1361/h.20190603
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