Linguistic Communities

This seminar will consider the concept of linguistic communities and the changes in interpretation and use in the course of the twentieth century and early twenty-first century. We will start with a consideration of the concept of community in sociology and then move on to Bloomfield’s first reference to the Speech Community in 1933. We will trace the development of the concept throughout the 20th century, with specific reference to Chomsky’s ‘homogenous speech community’ and the reactions thereof in the fields of ethnography (Gumperz and Hymes) and Gumperz’ particular switch to the term linguistic community and further changes in perspective over a four-decade period, and early sociolinguistics (Labov). Later developments which will be included for consideration are Discourse Communities (Swales) and Communities of Practice (Wenger), and how the latter concept has been used in research in sociolinguistics and gender studies (Eckert & McConnell- Ginet), and in the field of research into English as a Lingua Franca (Cogo and Dewey). The final “reconsideration” will be that of the concept in modern multilingual contexts.

For the purposes of particular seminar assignments, the focus of the students will be alerted to the change in interpretation of the concept and the presentation of new concepts, in line with particular academic research.