Speech Communities and the Internet

The idea of the speech community is fundamental to sociolinguistic study of language. Let’s think about this in terms of language and in terms of memes, as is traditional.

Today, we’ll think about distinctive features of the speech communities you’re a part of, and think about the sociolinguistic variation which occurs there. When speaking of language, ‘sociolinguistic variation’ can be interpreted very broadly, including (but not limited to) differences in speech/pronunciation, spelling, word use, sentence structure, or anything else linguistic!

Remember that speech communities can often form around sensitive topics. You are welcome to discuss any community that you are a part of in this assignment, but please be kind and careful as we have these discussions. Also, remember you’re not required to disclose anything you’re not comfortable disclosing, and what happens in this discussion, stays in this discussion.

Speech Communities (Click in A)

With your group…

1. Identify a social group that one or more are you are a part of
   • Ideally something more specific than ‘UCSD students’ or ‘Gen Z people’, but if you find that’s bearing fruit, then OK!
   • If you can’t find a widely shared group, then feel free to go ‘around the table’ and share your individual answers for each of these.

Sociolinguistic Features (Click in B)

1. If you can, identify a singular feature or sociolinguistic variable which characterizes your speech community, such that it’s instantly recognizable
   • Please try to avoid using specific jargon or technical terms which are known only to your community (e.g. ‘natural 20’ for tabletop gamers or ‘pog’), and focus on more subtle features

As you’ve probably realized, this can be very difficult! Most sociolinguistic variables are not informative in isolation, but when a greater constellation of features is present, can be strongly indicative of affiliation with a group. To that end…

3. Are there features or sociolinguistic variables that, although any one may not be ‘evidence’ of community affiliation on its own, when taken together, strongly characterize your speech community?

4. Have you noticed intersectionality here? Do other identities affect how affiliation with this community is expressed?

Sociolinguistic Features online (Click in C)

OK, now that you’re primed and thinking about speech communities, it’s time for the least surprising plot twist ever: we’re going to think about memes and the internet. With your group…

1. Discuss what a ‘sociolinguistic variable’ could even look like in the meme and internet linguistic world, making reference to a related group
   • Consider making a list of possible meme differences which you’ve noticed to be socially informative
   • Think about features which are specifically diagnostic of this group, and not related to the functional needs of the people (e.g. ‘talks about pikachu’ isn’t a particularly interesting feature of Pokemon players)
2. Now, thinking about the same groups you discussed above, establish a constellation of features which indicates membership in that group

Social Network Features? (Click in D)

‘Social Network’ has a specific meaning in Sociolinguistics, referring to the system of social connections which any particular person has. This is often measured and studied using awesome bits of graph theory, and some brilliant scholars are working on quantifying this. But here, let’s think about the more mainstream sense of ‘social network’.

1. Are there sociolinguistic features which distinguish people in terms of which social network (e.g. Twitter, Tumblr, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and so forth) they use?