Language & Communication 

About: Language & Communication is an academic journal published by Elsevier BV. The journal publishes majorly in the area(s): Sociolinguistics & Theoretical linguistics. It has an ISSN identifier of 0271-5309. Over the lifetime, 1233 publications have been published receiving 31874 citations. The journal is also known as: ways to talk & speech.

Indexical order and the dialectics of sociolinguistic life

Abstract: The concept of indexical order is introduced, necessary to any empirical investigation of the inherently dialectical facts of indexicality. Indexical order is central to analyzing how semiotic agents access macro-sociological plane categories and concepts as values in the indexable realm of the micro-contextual. Through such access their relational identities are presupposed and creatively (trans)formed in interaction. We work through several classic examples of indexicality well-known in the literature of sociolinguistics, the clarification of which can be enhanced by using the concept of indexical order, viz., ‘T/V’ deference-indexicality, speech levels, indexically significant variation in phonetics informed by a standard phonological register. We conclude with an analysis of identity-commoditizing indexical overlays such as the American English register here dubbed ‘‘oinoglossia,’’ ‘wine talk’. # 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

From communicative competence to communicative language pedagogy

Abstract: Communicative competence includes not only the mastery of grammar and lexicon, but also the rules of speaking. This chapter argues that the individual who wishes to learn a new language must, in addition to acquiring a new vocabulary and a new set of phonological and syntactic rules, learn what Hymes calls the rules of speaking: the patterns of sociolinguistic behaviour of the target language. The inclusion of sociolinguistic interests within language teaching and the recognition of the necessity to make communicative competence the goal of the second language curriculum is a major step both for the theory and the practice of language teaching. The chapter argues that the understanding and knowledge of appropriate speech behaviour is crucial if learners are to communicate effectively with native speakers of the language they are learning. One of the earliest studies of sociolinguistic behaviour in American English focused on terms of address.

The social life of cultural value

Abstract: In this article I discuss processes through which the values of cultural forms are formulated, maintained and communicated across social populations. My empirical focus is the emergence and spread of a prestige register of spoken British English, nowadays called ‘Received Pronunciation’. I discuss a number of characterological discourses of speech and accent that articulate the values of the register and bring them into circulation before particular audiences. I argue that the historical spread of the register was linked to the circulation of such discourses during the 18th and 19th centuries. I propose specific models for understanding the circulation of discourse across social populations and the means by which these values are recognized, maintained and transformed.

Semiotics and the social analysis of material things

Abstract: This article discusses certain aspects of Peircean semiotics as they can contribute to the social analysis of material artifacts. It focuses on the concepts of iconicity and indexicality, paying particular attention to their roles in mediating contingency and causality, and to their relation with possible actions. Because iconicity and indexicality themselves ‘assert nothing,’ their various social roles turn on their mediation by ‘Thirdness’. This circumstance requires an account of semiotic ideologies and their practical embodiment in representational economies. The article concludes with a call for a richer concept of the multiple possible modes of ‘objectification’ in social life.