Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Contributors
- Preface
- 1 The study of language in its socio-cultural context
- 2 Language, culture, and world-view
- 3 Language and social class
- 4 Language and race: some implications for linguistic science
- 5 Language and gender
- 6 Bilingualism
- 7 Dialectology
- 8 Sociolinguistics and syntactic variation
- 9 Language birth: the processes of pidginization and creolization
- 10 Language death
- 11 Language planning: the view from linguistics
- 12 Ethnography of speaking: toward a linguistics of the praxis
- 13 The organization of discourse
- 14 Conversation analysis
- Index of names
- Index of subjects
- Contents of Volumes I, II, and III
Preface
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Contributors
- Preface
- 1 The study of language in its socio-cultural context
- 2 Language, culture, and world-view
- 3 Language and social class
- 4 Language and race: some implications for linguistic science
- 5 Language and gender
- 6 Bilingualism
- 7 Dialectology
- 8 Sociolinguistics and syntactic variation
- 9 Language birth: the processes of pidginization and creolization
- 10 Language death
- 11 Language planning: the view from linguistics
- 12 Ethnography of speaking: toward a linguistics of the praxis
- 13 The organization of discourse
- 14 Conversation analysis
- Index of names
- Index of subjects
- Contents of Volumes I, II, and III
Summary
Language: the socio-cultural context is the last of four volumes comprising Linguistics: the Cambridge survey. The first three volumes of the series are entitled Linguistic theory: foundations, Linguistic theory: extensions and implications, and Language: psychological and biological aspects. Their common thread is the treatment of language as a mental or biological entity. Thus they are devoted primarily to presenting the constructs of theoretical linguistics and to probing the evidence for their psychological reality, as well as to sorting out the implications that their reality may have for diverse areas of investigation. But language, of course, is more than a mental phenomenon. Indeed, many would say that such a function is secondary to its role in social interaction, i.e. to its function in communication and as the principal agent for the transmission of cultural and social values.
The point of departure of the chapters in this volume is the socio-cultural aspect of language; each explores a different dimension of this aspect. The volume begins with a critical overview by Beatriz R. Lavandera of studies of language in its socio-cultural context. She contrasts three different orientations guiding such studies: one in which the investigator's attention is focussed on practical goals, without challenging any of the precepts of normal mainstream linguistics; one which takes the position that most traditional problems of mainstream linguistics admit of a solution once social variables are incorporated; and a third which attempts to reconstitute linguistics itself to provide a theory of language in its social context.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Linguistics: The Cambridge Survey , pp. vii - xPublisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1988