“Sociolinguistic Area”

Comme les «aires linguistiques» ou «alliances de langues» (Sprachbund) étudiées en Areal linguistics, une aire sociolinguistique est le produit d'une histoire partagée. Mais celles-là se définissent par des traits structuraux, celle-ci par des usages communs.

“In 1956, Emeneau's article, 'India as a Linguistic Area' appeared in Language, and it was followed by a number of additional studies, by Emeneau and others, of features of language STRUCTURE widely shared throughout South Asia that set that area apart from other regions of the world… In all these studies the concept of Sprachbund or linguistic area was used in its established meaning of a multilingual area having languages of different families, in which many of the shared structural features are held to represent convergence that has resulted from long periods of language contact…”

“Less attention has been paid to shared features of language USE that set South Asia apart from other regions of the world. This kind of regional unity, which may be called a 'sociolinguistic area', arises in the same way. In fact, some of Emeneau's commonalities are sociolinguistic in this sense, and all the authors who write about South Asia as a linguistic area at least assume that the shared features of structure have come about diachronically through particular patterns of language use. It is of value, however, to focus specifically on certain shared features of language use apart from features of structure — to the extent that this can be done — simply because such similarities may be of great significance in characterising different regions and in understanding general processes of language change.”

ferguson_southAsia_sociolinguisticArea.pdf — Charles Ferguson, South Asia as a Sociolinguistic Area, originally published in E. Dimock, B. Kachru, and Bh. Krishnamurti, eds., Dimensions of South Asia as a Sociolinguistic Area: Papers in Memory of Gerald Kelly, New Delhi: Oxford and IBH, 1991. Bibliothèque: Anthropologues > Ferguson (Charles).