Socioeconomic Linguistics

From ELiX Wiki

Socioeconomic Linguistics (SEL) asks how linguistics can contribute to the satisfaction of socioeconomic needs.

The main goal is to transfer findings into curriculums for schools and universities (in both linguistic and non-linguistic subjects).

Please feel free to discuss the ideas here on the discussion page.

Contents 1 SEL Components 1.1 Component 1: The Role of Language for Society 1.2 Component 2: Global Triglossia 1.3 Component 3: Intercultural Communication 1.4 Component 4: Understanding and Commanding Text Styles 1.5 Component 5: Service Linguistics 2 Associative Comments, Open Questions 3 Literature

SEL Components

The program shall consist of 5 components:

1. The Role of Language for Society
2. Global Triglossia (= everyone should speak his/her mother tongue + Global English + a 3rd language of choice)
3. Intercultural and Interpersonal Communication Competence
4. Understanding and Commanding Text Styles
5. Service Linguistics

A basic article is available here. Readers are invited to discuss the ideas presented here on the EuroLinguistiX discussion forum.

Component 1: The Role of Language for Society

Current project connected with this component: comparing the developments in economics, lexicography, grammaticocraphy, standardization, and language teaching in different countries in order to find about the connection between socioeconomic and linguistic developments)

Language does not only serve to convey meaning, it serves to express feelings, it serves to create social bonds. Roman Jakobson has identified the following six functions of language:

• expressing the speaker’s own feelings (called emotive function); relevant e.g. in poems and therapeutical conversations
• getting the addressee’s attention (called conative/appellative function); relevant e.g. in ads
• getting an information across (called referential/contextual/informative function); relevant e.g. in manuals
• referring to the linguistic utterance itself (called metalinguistic function); e.g. by the insertion of explanations and examples
• attracting the reader’s interest through the choice of linguistic forms (called poetic/aesthetic function); relevant e.g. in the formulation of keywords/headings
• creating a social bond with an addressee (called phatic function); relevant e.g. in small talk)

What is the role of language, languages, texts, words and grammar in a given society? I would like to mention just four aspects:

1. For centuries there has been a continuing debate about language decay. Such discussions are mostly non-objective. Fears of cultural loss or even loss of identity due to language changes are mostly exaggerated. The fact that over 60 percent of the English word-stock are of foreign descent could not prevent English from becoming a global lingua franca.
2. It is also natural that a speech community considers certain linguistic variants (and varieties) better, or more appropriate (in formal situations), than other variants. And for each speech (sub-)community the command of linguistic norms is an indicator of education and intelligence. This is why teaching linguistic norms is still necessary. Moreover, it seems important that a speech community has something like a codified standard if it doesn’t want its language to be seen as a less valuable dialect of some other language or if it doesn’t want to be seen as less cultivated, primitive, minoritarian, rural, underdeveloped etc. These are some of the reasons why societies fix linguistic norms.
3. Language not only conveys information, language also creates social bonds. Therefore a speech community should also agree upon politeness rules. We could call this linguistic etiquette. Since a lot of communication takes place on the Internet today, we also need to agree on a (global) linguistic “netiquette”.
4. Finally, we can set up the formula: language = culture = thought = identity. Therefore, everybody should have the right to use the language s/he wishes to use as long as s/he doesn’t hurt anybody else. This right is, for instance, granted by the EU Charta of Regional and Minority Languages, which could serve as a model for other civilizations, too. It seems not amiss to think about a declaration of linguistic human rights.

We can break down the phenomenon of language into various levels: e.g. texts, words, grammar:

When you use language you produce texts. What is a text? A text is a coherent verbalized set of thoughts. Texts, in this sense, can be written or spoken. Most texts are produced by an author to address some form of audience, then the decisive role of the reader(s)/hearer(s) is the one of an interpreter, of a decoder. The success of the communication will depend on both the writer/speaker/sender’s performance of encoding and the reader/hearer/receiver’s performance of decoding. Dialogues are easier than monologues because clarification demands are possible, such as “What do you mean by that?” or “I didn’t hear you. Can you repeat?”. On the one hand, the internet enables more dialogic situations because unclear text passages can potentially be clarified quite easily on a forum or by an e-mail to the author. On the other hand, if monologic texts are too unclear too often or, in other words, if an author’s style or code is too “reader-unfriendly”, this can lead to dialogues that unnecessarily consume time and money. Dialogues should mostly be used to bring forth new ideas.

Texts consists of words. What is a word? The decisive point is: words have form and meaning and they stand for something in the world (an object, an idea, a notion) which linguists call concept. The connection between form, meaning and the concept is usually motivated, but it is always arbitrary in the sense that a concept does not force the speech community to name it in just one specific way. A problem of classification may also come up when two different groups (or cultures) gather, as can be illustrated by the following example: Latin Americans would classify the banana as a vegetable, Europeans as a fruit, but probably only the botanist will categorize it as a berry (while the strawberry is a nut for the botanist). Moreover, we must distinguish the bare, objective meaning of a word and the cultural and emotive associations attached to it. Thus, the words negro and African American both denote “American citizen of color”, but the association, or connotation, attached to the latter is rather a neutral one, while the first one arouses negative feelings. The use of words is connected with the rules of politeness, or adequacy. Europeans may well remember the debate on the EU constitution when people discussed whether the EU’s future should be that of a federal construct. Whereas the term federal normally triggers positive associations among Germans, the associations of Brits will normally be of a negative kind.

In order to produce texts we also need grammar. What is grammar? Grammar is a set of rules to form sentences. We mostly think of grammar as standard grammar. But non-standard varieties certainly have rules for sentence constructions, too—although it doesn’t seem so, because they sometimes allow more variation. We should also be aware that a sentence construction may actually have several functions. An interrogative sentence need not always be a question. Can you close the window?, for instance, is a request rather than a question. Such rules may even differ from group to group, but they differ at least from culture to culture. Thus, the use of constructions, too, is connected with the rules of politeness, or adequacy.

The factors that determine a speaker’s choice of words, grammatical constructions and sounds are, among others, the speaker’s origin, profession, place of living, nationality, education, social class, ethnicity, religion, gender, age—these factors are sometimes called sociolinguistic variables. But apart from these are also the factors of the specific communication situation: What is the setting? What is the relationship of the interlocutors? What are the interlocutors’ objectives? What is the medium? What are the communicative rules for this specific setting?

Component 2: Global Triglossia

Current projects connected with this component: spreading Basic Global English; spreading Lernen durch Lehren (LdL) (= Learning by Teaching) as a didactic model in foreign language teaching (cf., e.g., this article); searching for skills enabling faster acquisition of foreign languages (e.g. EuroCom in this article))

With respect to the relation between language and economic growth we can make the following assumptions:

1. Global economic growth secured by the competition and selection of innovative ideas. A global language helps to spread ideas from all parts over all parts of the world.
2. Global economic growth is endangered by monocultural thinking, with a lack of intercultural thinking. Promoting ethnic/national/regional languages helps to prevent this.
3. Global economic growth is secured if humans show empathy for others’ ways of thinking. Knowing somebody’s elses language helps to achieve this goal.

This will require from all nations to participate in a global and peaceful dialogue. With respect to the relation between language and global peace we can state the following:

1. Global peace and stability are secured by a feeling of belonging to a common culture with access to equal rights. A global language helps to achieve this goal.
2. Global peace and stability are endangered if freedom of individual thinking, living, speaking etc. is restricted. Promoting ethnic/national/regional languages helps to prevent this.
3. Global peace and stability are secured by understanding each other. Knowing someone else’s language helps to achieve this goal.

From this I deduce that the linguistic formula for the world’s future is “global triglossia”. What do I mean by this? The linguist Charles Ferguson has introduced the term diglossia to refer to the linguistic situation in a speech community where there are two languages with (more or less) clearly distinct functions. “Triglossia” refers to a situation where there are three languages with distinct functions. My “global triglossia” would then mean that everybody would have to be competent in (at least) their mother-tongue, the global language and a third language of their choice.

At present, English is the first choice as a global language. But if English is to be permanently accepted as a global lingua franca, this English must be an English that is not bound to a specific culture, but allows all variants proven to be unproblematic in lingua franca communication : Global English.

In order to achieve a level of communicative competence in Global English very rapidly, Basic Global English (BGE) has been invented (cf. the BGE website).

Component 3: Intercultural Communication

Current projects connected with this component: spreading Basic Global English; spreading Lernen durch Lehren (LdL) (= Learning by Teaching) as a didactic model in foreign language teaching (cf., e.g., this article)

For a general improvement of intercultural and interpersonal communication we could set up the following rules:

1. The only generalization one can make: “Don’t generalize.”
2. Language not only serves for transporting information, but also for creating interpersonal bonds.
3. Formulate questions in a way that the addressee cannot answer with “yes” or “no”, but that the addressee has to make explicit statements or explicitly choose an option.
4. Listen and watch others and yourself attentively and consciously. There might be hidden misunderstandings.
5. Respect other culture’s values as equally valuable and in the entire context of the other culture.
6. Use standard speech or general colloquial speech. Speak slowly and distinctly. Your sentences shouldn’t be too complex. You may support your utterance with body language.
7. Don’t make unexplained utterances that require “insider” knowledge.
8. Be aware that linguistic rules may be different from situation to situation.
9. If you feel that there is a misunderstanding, you should verbalize this in a circumspect manner.
10. Feel friendly toward the other. Smile!

Component 4: Understanding and Commanding Text Styles

Current projects connected with this component: article on knowledge management in the internet encyclopedia Wikipedia as a frequent type of expert-layperson communication here; spreading Lernen durch Lehren (LdL) (= Learning by Teaching) as a didactic model in foreign language teaching (cf., e.g., this article))

In modern societies, we meet all kinds of text styles: texts that predominantly aim at drawing attention, texts that predominantly aim at managing information and knowledge, etc. Therefore, training in decoding and encoding texts seems necessary—espeically for expert-layperson communication, which becomes more and more important in information and knowledge societies. What could the elements of such a program be?

(1) What could the contents of the decoding (semasiological) section be?

• how to see whether I read a profit or a non-profit text
• eye-catcher vs. core message
• what’s the relevance of a text to a specific question or topic? what is the core message? what question does it answer?
• who is the addressee of the text? who is or might be the author?
• what is the style? what are possible hidden messages (culture-specific features, irony, humor)?
• what is the quality of the text? what are the sources of the results? what were the methods (knowledge of the basic academic methods: induction, deduction, falsification of hypotheses, qualitative vs. quantitative research, types of argumentation, use of academic instruments such as certain dictionaries etc.)?
• how to deal with non-linear texts

(2) What could the contents of the encoding (onomasiological) section be?

• how to ask questions (e.g. in an e-mail)
• how to answer questions (e.g. in an e-mail)
• who is meant to be the addressee of the text (other colleagues of the same discipline, scholars from other disciplines = the general public) and what is the medium used (lecture, internet, book) and what style should I then use (e.g. amount of technical terms)?
• how to use coherence and cohesion
• how to embed small findings into a larger context
• using scholarly methods, presenting results in an intelligible way, using all features of the medium chosen (e.g. hierarchization possibilities of the Internet)
• how to use general language and yet respect administrative constraints
• politeness/etiquette: choice of words (thinking and talking good will facilitate communication for both interlocutors)
• how to formulate an eye-catcher and how to integrate eye-catchers into informative texts?
• being frank vs. being deceptive
• how to be user/reader/customer-friendly (and create a lasting bond, i.e. some sort of confidence, so that the reader/customer will want to come back)
• how to formulate an eye-catcher

There is some indication that texts can generally be rendered more render-friendly on various levels:

• on the lexical level: by the reduction of rare technical or foreign terms, of unusual metaphorical terms; use of frequent technical terms if explained
• on the syntactic level: by the reduction of complex sentences, of attribute abundances, unusual sentence orders; by paying attention to coherence and cohesion, of hierarchizations, of juxtapositions
• on the pragmatic level: by the clarification of implications, the accentuation of intentions, comments, paraphrases, metacommunicative elements
• structuring by means of paragraphs, numbers, headings, lists
• focussing by means of bold-print etc.
• supplementing and explaining of text by means of tables, pictures, graphs, etc. as well as indexes, glossaries, abstracts, visually separated definitions and explanations

But: none of these items can be looked upon generally and unindependently.

Apart from the items just mentioned people should also become familiar with the specific possibilities of the Internet:

• choosing a non-linear, but hierarchical structure (through the use of hyperlinks)
• using frames
• using audio-video material (moving elements)
• using discussion forums, chatrooms or any other tool that allows dialogic exchange.

Moreover, the author’s attitude will also have a positive effect on the production of a text. The author should show empathy and sympathy for the reader.

Suggestions for the production of administrative texts

• It should be made clear at the beginning what the topic/issue of the letter is and who is affected by, or should be concerned with, the letter.
• Citations of laws, or regulations, should be put at the end of the sentence/letter or in footnotes.
• The letter should be written in general, everyday language, but not in colloquial language.
• Legalese expressions and phrases as well as abbreviations should be avoided, unless commonly known. If technical/legal terms must be used, they should be explained or be set off in brackets after an everyday expression.
• Sentences should not be longer than 12-20 words.
• Subheadings may be used for structuring, e.g. in the form of a question-answer structure.

Component 5: Service Linguistics

In the 1970’s a new service started to spread in the Netherlands, in Amsterdam: the wetenschaapswinkels, the “science shops”. These science shops offered help to non-profit customers with specific questions their customers needed answered in an academic, scientific way. Other countries also established science shops. These shops specialized basically in technical, sociological, medical and ecological problems. None of them specialized in linguistics. Yet with the growing importance of information and knowledge transportation, the globalization of all kinds of ideas, the globalization of ways of life and the simultaneous desire for local identity as well as the ongoing debate on language changes, the demand for linguistic services may very well exist. The world will offer new fields for linguists and linguistically-trained persons (especially journalists and language teachers).

Associative Comments, Open Questions

The basic hypothesis is: If economy is cultural achievement and if language is part of culture, then language contributes to economic development.

• What can be means to illustrate the correlation of linguistic and (a person's, a company's, a nation's, the world's) socioeconomic developments?
• How can I learn languages more effectively and efficiently?
• How can readers evaluate the quality of texts?
• Should there be something like ethical onomasiology?
• What will be the role of formalized texts?
• What text-linguistic metaknowledge do we need?
• How can linguistic competence help manage life?
• Why do businessmen in rich countries transfer employment possibilities out of their countries despite a loss of quality of their products? Why do costumers accept this loss of quality despite their loss of quality of security, health etc.?

Literature

• Antos, Gerd [unter Mitarbeit von Stefan Pfänder] (2001), “Transferwissenschaft: Chan­cen und Barrieren des Zugangs zu Wissen in Zeiten der Informationsflut und der Wissensexplosion”, in: Wichter, Sigurd / Antos, Gerd (eds.), Wissenstransfer zwi­schen Experten und Laien: Umrisse einer Transferwissenschaft, [Trans­fer­wis­sen­schaften 1], 3-33, Frankfurt (Main): Lang.
• Antos, Gerd (2003), “Wie kann sich die Linguistik Öffentlichkeit ‘schaffen’? Wissen­schafts­praktische Perspektiven einer künftigen Linguistik”, in: Linke, Angelika et al. (eds.), Sprache und mehr: Ansichten einer Linguistik der sprachlichen Pra­xis, 471-488, Tübingen: Niemeyer.
• Antos, Gerd / Wichter, Sigurd (eds.) (2005), Wissenstransfer durch Sprache als gesellschaftliches Problem, [Transferwissenschaften 3], Frank­furt (Main): Lang.
• Brown, Gordon (2001), Tackling Poverty: A Global New Deal—A Modern Marshall Plan for the Developing World. Pamphlet based on the speeches to the New York Fe­deral Reserve, 16 November 2001, and the Press Club, Washington D.C., 17 December 2001.
• Franck, Georg (1998), Ökonomie der Aufmerksamkeit: Ein Entwurf, München/Wien: Hanser.
• Grondona, Mariano (2000), “A Cultural Typology of Economic Development”, in: Harri­son/Huntington 2000: 43-58. [dt. Ausgabe: “Eine kulturelle Typologie der wirtschaft­lichen Entwicklung”, 75-91]
• Grzega, Joachim (2003), “LdL in universitären Kursen: Ein hochschuldidaktischer Weg zur Vorbereitung auf die Wissensgesellschaft”, http://www.ldl.de/material/berichte/uni/ldl.pdf (auf http://www.ldl.de).
• Grzega, Joachim (2004), “Why We Need an Internet Venue for Studying European Language Culture”, Journal for EuroLinguistiX 1: 1-8. (www.eurolinguistix.com)
• Grzega, Joachim (2005a), “Reflections on Concepts of English for Europe: British Engl­ish, American English, Euro-English, Global English”, Journal for EuroLinguistiX 2: 44-64. (www.eurolinguistix.com)
• Grzega, Joachim (2005b), “Socioeconomic Linguistics (or Linguistic Socioeconomics)—a New Field of European and Global Research and Teaching”, Journal for EuroLinguistiX 2: 65-164. (www.eurolinguistics.com)
• Grzega, Joachim (2005c), “Towards Global English and Basic Global English (BGE): So­cio­economic and Pedagogic Ideas for a European and Global Language (with Didact­ic Examples for Native Speakers of German)”, Journal for EuroLinguistiX 2: 19-43. (www.eurolinguistix.com)
• Grzega, Joachim (2005d), “Lernen durch Lehren und Forschen: Lehr-, lern- und bil­dungs­ökonomische Hinweise und Materialien”, http://www.ldl.de/material/berichte/uni/grzega2005.pdf (auf http://www.ldl.de).
• Grzega, Joachim (2005e), “Learning by Teaching: The Didactic Model LdL in University Classes”, http://www.ldl.de/material/berichte/uni/grzega-english.pdf (auf http://www.ldl.de).
• Grzega, Joachim (2006), "Weltwirtschaftswachstum und Weltfrieden: Sprachwissenschaftliche Gedanken für Europäer und andere", in: Grzega, Joachim (ed.), EuroLinguistischer Parcours: Kernwissen zur europäischen Sprachkultur, 275-295, Frankfurt (Main): IKO.
• Händeler, Erik (2003), Die Geschichte der Zukunft: Sozialverhalten heute und der Wohl­stand von morgen (Kondratieffs Globalsicht), Moers: Brendow.
• Harrison, Lawrence E. (1997), The Pan-American Dream: Do Latin America’s Cultur­al Values Discourage True Partnership with the United States and Canada, New York: Westview.
• Harrison, Lawrence E. (2000), “Promoting Progressive Cultural Change”, in Harrison/ Huntington 2000: 296-307. [dt. Ausgabe: “Zur Förderung eines fortschrittlichen Wan­dels”, 311-326].
• Harrison, Lawrence E. / Huntington, Samuel P. (eds.) (2000), Culture Matters: How Values Shape Human Progress, New York: Basic Books. [dt. Fassung mit aus­ge­wähl­ten Artikeln: Streit um Werte: Wie Kulturen den Fortschritt prägen, Ham­burg/ Wien: Europa-Verlag, 2002].
• Huntington, Samuel (1996), The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Or­der, New York: Simon & Schuster. [dt. Der Kampf der Kulturen, München: Europa­verlag 1997].
• Kondratieff, Nikolai D. (1926), “Die langen Wellen der Konjunktur”, Archiv für Sozial­wissenschaft und Sozialpolitik 56: 573-609.
• Radermacher, Franz Josef (2002), Balance oder Zerstörung: Ökosoziale Markt­wirt­schaft als Schlüssel zu einer weltweiten nachhaltigen Entwicklung, Wien: Öko­sozia­les Forum Europa.
• Riegler, Josef et al. (1999), Die Bauern nicht dem Weltmarkt opfern! Lebensqualität durch ein europäisches Agrarmodell, Graz/Stuttgart: Stocker.
• Rifkin, Jeremy (2004), The European Dream: How Europe’s Vision of the Future Is Quiet­ly Eclipsing the American Dream, New York: Penguin.
• Schmidt, Helmut (1998), Globalisierung: Politische, ökonomische und kulturelle Her­aus­forderungen, Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlagsanstalt.
• Schmidt, Helmut (2002), Die Selbstbehauptung Europas: Perspektiven für das 21. Jahr­hundert, München: Ullstein.
• Schmidt, Helmut (2004), Die Mächte der Zukunft: Gewinner und Verlierer in der Welt von morgen, München: Siedler.
• Strohm, Jürgen (2001), “Internationale Maßnahmen zur nachhaltigen Entwicklung: Aus­wirkungen und Akzeptanz eines ökonomisch, ökologisch und sozial aus­ge­wogenen weltweiten Ordnungsrahmens”, Ökologisches Wirtschaften 5/2001: 36.