Finally, let's look at sociolinguistics. So according to the book, sociolinguistic meaning varies according to the norms of a particular culture or co-culture. So in chapter three, we learned about kind of rules of different co-cultures. So we have dominant culture, and then we have a bunch of co-cultures that make up our cultural identity. Well, each of those co-cultures and the dominant culture have rules for living, beliefs and values, all of those things.
Well, sociolinguistics... plays into that. So there are certain rules or norms that we follow within a culture or co-culture that we follow for word choice.
So I'm going to go over three main rules that have to do with sociolinguistics and word choice. The first of these rules is that cultures have norms that assign meaning to specific words and combinations of words that may be different from their semantic meaning. So if you remember, semantics has to do with the what do words actually mean? And so like the vocabulary. Right.
And so that we know that there's connotative and there's denotative meaning. But then with sociolinguistics, there's another layer. So this means what is the norm of a culture when they use that word? A good example of this in U.S. culture would be that we usually refer to women who are people who identify as female as. pretty in people who identify as male as handsome, right?
That is not necessarily part of the denotative or connotative meaning of the word, although sometimes connotation can come from sociolinguistics. But, you know, if you looked up that word in the dictionary, pretty and handsome, if you look that up, those are going to be basically the same thing. It's not until you look at those words in U.S. culture, in the dominant culture of the U.S., that we see that that is applied that way, right?
And then another layer of that is idioms. So another part of this rule for sociolinguistics is an idiom is like a phrase that we use that holds a meaning that may be kind of odd to someone who's not part of that culture or co-culture. So, for example, another U.S. phrase that I remember hearing growing up was, who let the cat out of the bag? If you don't know what that phrase means or if that's not part of your... culture or co-culture to use that phrase, that sounds very odd.
Why is there a cat in a bag? Who put the cat there, right? But it's really referring to like who told a secret or who ruined the surprise. But that wouldn't necessarily be able, you couldn't understand that unless you were part of the culture and you know like that that is a normal phrase to use. So it's like a norm that we have.
So idioms are a major part of this first. aspect of sociolinguistics. The next rule that we kind of follow or that we do follow is cultures develop different norms about what is appropriate to say to whom, by whom, when, and about what. So there are ways that are appropriate to communicate with people, certain words that are appropriate to use by some people and not by others.
And it kind of depends on the situation. But a very basic example that I think of with this would be like with my, when I was growing up, my dad, I remember we were driving down to see my grandmother. And I noticed that he would just wave at random people that he drove by. And my mom or my grandmother lives in South Arkansas.
Okay, so very, very kind of Southern culture. And he would wave at everybody. And so I finally asked my dad, hey, do you know that person?
And he said, no, I don't. And I was like, well, why did you wave at them? And he said, oh, that's just saying hi. That's just like acknowledging them. So then I started doing it and people started waving back to me.
And I was like, oh, okay, that's interesting. Well, then I visited, I think, maybe Washington, D.C. or something when I was a little older.
And I was walking by and I was acknowledging people as they walk by. I'd be like, hi, how are you? And they kind of look at me.
I'm like, why are you doing that? And I realized then, oh, well, in this... Culture in this play, in the culture of Washington, D.C., is kind of odd to acknowledge everybody. And it's probably because they're all doing a million things.
It's a very busy city. And I don't know you, so why are you waving at me? I don't know.
But it was obvious to me that wasn't a norm there. But that was something that was appropriate in the South to do where it wasn't appropriate in a Northern city to do. And then you can also look at, that's like nonverbal communication, but then you can also look at specific words or phrases or things like that.
So another one might be like saying, yes ma'am or no sir, that those phrases are often associated with a culture or co-culture and accepted and looked at as respectful and should be used in like say in the South. Children should use those things or should say those things. Whereas maybe in some northern culture, northern U.S., that's not needed or not wanted, right?
And so they would not want those things. And but then also you would think about in the South, children would say that, but an adult wouldn't say it to a child. So you see how there's like rules for what's appropriate for somebody to say and to whom and about what.
So okay, so that's that one. And finally, we have um Preferred verbal style differs from culture to culture, particularly in terms of how direct or indirect one ought to be. So verbal style has to do with are you a direct communicator or are you a non or a indirect communicator?
So we all have kind of a I think that's like a spectrum. You're not just one or the other. You're you know, you're on a spectrum. But direct verbal style looks at.
like language that openly states the speaker's intention and is very straightforward. Whereas indirect characterizes language that is masked by the speaker's true intentions in a roundabout or ambiguous way. So I would say, especially because of the co-cultures I was raised in, you know, I lean a little bit more towards indirect. I'm still a direct communicator, especially when I'm dealing with conflict. I'm very direct.
And I want to insert here, directness should not be. confused with rudeness. Okay, so being a direct communicator doesn't mean that you're rude and like don't care what anybody else thinks and just say whatever you want. That's poor communication. Direct communication is just that you say actually what you mean and there is no like you have to figure that out.
So like when I when I deal with conflict, I am very direct, still respectful, not rude, none of that. But I'm very direct about what I actually mean and how I'm actually feeling. I try very hard not to be indirect and kind of like lie about how I feel or not say exactly what I mean.
Like if I was my husband and I got in an argument and I and he said, are you OK? And I went, I'm fine. That would be being indirect. Right. Because obviously I'm not fine.
But that's something I try not to do. I try very hard to be like, well, right now I'm actually still kind of upset. I need a little more time to think that would be direct communication.
So different cultures and different co-cultures are more direct than others. And because of that, when we communicate with, I think that's sometimes remember in chapter three, when we talk about culture shock, sometimes that's where we have culture shock. Say if we're a very indirect person and we try to communicate, we talk to somebody and they're very direct and it kind of throws us off. We think it's rude.
When I think especially about like Dom, this is definitely their dominant cultures. Like if you think about the U S versus Asian cultures or like China, China is going to be more indirect, whereas America is probably a little bit more direct. So two people communicating from those two dominant cultures, it might be a little bit of a culture shock because of that.
But even in our coal cultures, we see differences too. So how do we improve our sociolinguistics? So first we want to develop intercultural competence. So we talked about that in Chapter 3, if you don't remember what that is. Definitely want to go back and look at that because that is super important with sociolinguistics and being a good communicator.
Then practice mindfulness. So mindfulness is a practice of paying attention to what is happening at any given moment during conversation. So basically try to not zone out during conversations, but pay attention to what the person is saying, why they're saying it. You're looking at both the semantics and the pragmatic meaning. And then respect and adopt and adapt to the sociolinguistic practices of others.
So this is like, you know, when people would say things to me like, well, I'm just really direct and I say whatever I mean and they just need to get over it. This is why I say that you're not, that's not direct communication. That's just considered rude. That has to do with this particular way of improving sociolinguistics. We're not trying to be offensive to others.
We need to care and be ethical communicators and care about making other people feel like they matter. Sometimes with sociolinguistics, we can really offend others. So we should always try to be respectful to kind of adhere to what, especially if something that they're doing, something I'm doing is really offending, or the way I communicate is really offending someone else.
We should try to be respectful of them and kind of try to adapt what their communication style is. And if we do that, we're more likely to avoid miscommunication and achieve shared meaning.