• Acknowledgements
  • 1. Language and Identity
  • 1.1. What Is a Speech Community?
  • 1.2. Coercive vs. Collaborative Relations
  • 1.3. Language Minority Stories
  • 2. Who Are English Learners?
  • 2.1. Reflection Model
  • 2.2. Inclusive Pedagogy
  • 2.2. Makoto Critical Incident
  • 2.3. Assumptions to Rethink about English Learners
  • 2.4. Critical Learning Domains
  • 3. Understanding Theory
  • 3.1. Communication, Pattern, and Variability
  • 3.2. Five Curriculum Guidelines
  • 3.3. Indicators of Instructional Conversation (IC)
  • 3.4. Indicators of the Standards for Effective Pedagogy
  • 3.5. Standards for Effective Pedagogy
  • 3.6. Examining Current Realities
  • 4.1. Input and Native Language Acquisition
  • 4.2. Input and Second Language Acquisition
  • 4.3. The Interdependence Hypothesis
  • 4.4. The Threshold Hypothesis
  • 4.5. Vocabulary Development and Language Transfer
  • 4.6. Text Modification
  • 5. Interaction
  • 5.1. Code Switching and Interaction
  • 5.2. Characteristics of Modifications for Interaction
  • 5.3. How Can Teachers Help Second Language Learners Begin to Communicate?
  • 5.4. Classroom Routines and Participation Structures
  • 5.5. We Can Talk: Cooperative Learning in the Elementary ESL Classroom
  • 6. Stages of Development
  • 6.1. Proficiency Levels Defined
  • 7. Errors and Feedback
  • 7.1. Points to Remember About Errors
  • 7.2. Effective and Appropriate Feedback for English Learners
  • 8. Types of Proficiencies
  • 8.1. Fostering Second Language Development in Young Children
  • 8.2. Instructional Conversation in Native American Classroom
  • 8.3. Student Motivation to Learn
  • 8.4. Language Learning Strategies: An Update
  • 8.5. Three Misconceptions about Age and L2 Learning
  • 9. Types of Performances
  • 9.1. Understanding BICS and CALP
  • 9.2. The Order of Acquisition and The Order of Use
  • 9.3. Schumann's Acculturation Model
  • 9.4. Implications From the Threshold and Interdependence Hypotheses
  • 9.5. Lily Wong Fillmore’s Cognitive and Social Strategies for Second Language Learners
  • 10. Classroom Practices and Language Acquisition
  • Translations

What Is a Speech Community?

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a definition for speech community

What is vernacular?

A speech community is a group of people who share rules for conducting and interpreting at least one variety of a language or dialect. The term can be applied to a neighborhood, a city, a region or a nation. We all belong to at least one speech community. The earliest speech community we belong to is the one we share with our primary caregivers (usually our parents) and is the basis for some of the most intimate and long term relationships we form across our life. The rules and norms of this speech community show up in a dialect referred to as the vernacular, the most basic variety or dialect of language we command. Our vernacular speech is least susceptible to monitoring and least likely to change across our lifetime.

Most of us were immersed in language from our first awareness of the world around us. Since infants can hear the sound of their mother’s voice and the noises and interactions in her environment in the womb, we probably hear our first sounds before we take our first breath. Fairly early in our development, we target in our babbling those sounds that form the phonology of our language or dialect. In interaction with us, our mother adjusts her speech to reflect the phonology, morphology, semantic and syntactic relationships that we are learning. Indeed, our vernacular speech forms the very basis of all future linguistic interaction and development. Across our lifetime we will participate in, construct, engage in, and possibly abandon many speech communities. No other will be as primary.

Identity and Vernacular Connection

How are identity and vernacular connected?

Our vernacular speech is the language of this earliest communication. Through this community, we are introduced to our culture, our heritage, and the ways of being that are important in our development as a member of the human community. It forms the basis of our adult identity. That is why vernacular speech is often called our mother tongue. It is the form of speech spoken to us by our mothers, and it is the mother of (the basis of) the development of other forms of speech.

Our next speech community involves our neighborhood and the larger extended family. Unless we were reared in multi or bilingual communities and neighborhoods, the norms of our vernacular speech community and other early speech communities are not that different from each other. In fact, the first contrast probably occurs when we begin to participate in religion or school. Both of these communities involve regular, face-to-face interaction between us and a larger group of people who may or may not share vernacular speech similar to our own.

Home and School

What may be sources of a conflict in one’s identity, particularly when children enter school?

When we enter school we bring more than the pronunciation patterns, lexicon, syntactic structures, semantic and interpretive frameworks of the language variation or dialect we speak. We have begun to learn to whom we should say what and when. Furthermore, we have learned rules of conversation and linguistic interaction. We have learned to identify whose turn it is to speak, how to get the floor ourselves, and when a person’s turn is over. All of these linguistic skills support us in our first steps toward the development of literacy. When the patterns of the speech communities we join at school are not that much different from the discourse patterns of the speech community (or communities) we participate in with our parents, literary development is more natural and easier.

When the linguistic heritage we bring to school contrasts sharply with the norms of the speech community of the school, it creates difficulties not just for speaking but for participating. If our linguistic heritage is viewed as problematic, divergent, or substandard, we may think of ourselves as problems. We may feel shame for who we are and the community we come from. If how we speak, gain access to participation, interpret behavior, or respond politely is misunderstood by the school as laziness, recalcitrance, disrespectfulness, or stupidity, our entire educational future and our ability to achieve our intellectual potential may be called into question.

Linguistic heritage that is suspect usually comes from those who either speak a different language or use dialects judged to be non-standard. John Ogbu points out that just because people speak a different language or dialect does not mean they will not do well in learning a new language and in achieving success in a new culture. But in the United States as well as other countries in the world, some groups do better in this process than others. Some point to cultural patterns to account for differences in successful participation. Yet, as we look at different immigrant groups we find this may or may not be true. For example, people often suggest that the reason Puerto Ricans have not done well in American schools is because of differences in eye contact in their culture compared to the dominant or majority culture of the United States. However, the Punjabi usually do very well in the United States even though they share similar cultural differences involving eye contact. Furthermore, immigrant Korean and Japanese students do equally well in the majority culture of the U.S., even though their cultural practices are quite different from ours. Ironically, Korean students in Japan whose families were brought there as forced labor do significantly worse than Japanese students, even though the cultures of Korea and Japan are much more alike than the cultures of the U.S. and Korea.

Different Reactions

How do voluntary vs. involuntary groups react?

John Ogbu accounts for these discrepancies by pointing to the difference between voluntary and involuntary (or caste minority) groups. Voluntary immigrants are those who came willingly to this country. They expect to learn a new language and find ways to gain access to and participate in a new culture. Therefore, while the speech community they meet at school is different from their own, they expect to be able to use the vernacular speech they brought with them as the basis from which their new language will emerge. For voluntary immigrants, learning the new language and participating in this new speech community is, in the long run, viewed as a positive and exhilarating experience. Voluntary immigrants plan to add this new language and culture to their repertoire of language styles. They expect to participate in additive bilingualism.

Involuntary immigrants (caste minorities) come into a country against their will, or they represent caste minorities like the forced labor Koreans in Japan and the African Americans in this country. They are also represented by groups of conquered and oppressed people within a country, like Native American groups. In the foundations course we discussed resistance theory. After consistently experiencing rejection by the majority community, students sometimes become aggressive or belligerent toward or actively resist the majority culture. Involuntary immigrants respond in similar ways. Because of the response to their culture and language, these immigrants have developed cultural practices which have emerged either in response to their rejection by the majority culture or have been interpreted by the minority group as resistance toward the majority culture. In order to become part of the majority discourse community, involuntary immigrants feel they will have to give up their own culture and practice subtractive bilingualism. However, when individual members of the community have rejected the language of their speech community, this has not guaranteed their success in the dominant culture.

Language Choice

How do identity and culture formation/crisis translate to an individual’s choice of language(s) and attitudes toward culture(s)?

Involuntary immigrants and caste minorities may feel that they have to give up their vernacular, a vital and central part of their identity, to participate in the speech community of the schools. Caste minorities usually have a shared heritage of rejection by majority institutions. Parents and grandparents may have tried to participate in the discourse of schools and been rejected by those institutions. Therefore, while they recognize the power of the majority culture, they may not be willing or able to support their children in engaging successfully with school speech communities.

Most of us either now or in the past have participated in many speech communities. There is the speech community of our religious affiliations, our occupations or careers, our neighborhood, and our families. As adolescents, we all learned a new language consisting of the register of adolescents. We developed new words for old concepts. We shared language and interaction patterns with our peers that marked us as distinct from the adult culture we would one day join. What we learned as we participated in speech communities was that just because we use the correct language, have the right clothes, and use the right moves, doesn’t mean we will be able to command the discourse of the speech community. In fact, we might still be rejected by it.

When we don’t feel comfortable in a particular speech community, we may adopt strategies like silence, avoidance, or other social practices that protect us from what we perceive may result in public rejection.

Usually, we move easily and fluidly from one speech community to another. We are in the situation—the family reunion, the class reunion, the Sunday School class, and the grocery store—and we simply use the language and social interaction patterns that come to us. Only when we are uncertain of our ability to reproduce the linguistic and social norms appropriate for the community do we become uncomfortable. William Labov pointed out that teachers usually come from white lower-middle-class backgrounds. In the process of becoming educated as teachers, they have crossed the boundary into a different class. As a result, they are hypersensitive to the norms that govern academic discourse communities. This hypersensitivity results in their hypercorrection of the speech of their own students.

Classroom Rules and Power Relations

How do they influence classroom interactions and academic achievement?

As teachers, we often forget that we have authority and power in our classrooms. For the most part, we can decide what kinds of social interaction and linguistic styles, registers and patterns will be acceptable in our classrooms. We can create classrooms that have rigid performance standards rather than classrooms that are places for students to gain experience in learning the culture and linguistic practices of academic discourse. Instead of creating a speech community where all are not just welcomed, but the culture and language they bring is valued and respected, we create communities of exclusion. Research shows that children who can command participation in the widest range of academic discourse communities are those who will be most successful. It also shows that the best predictor of academic achievement is the home background of the child. What this implies is that for most children, schools are not environments for learning and developing skill and potential but a great sorting ground where they are constantly tested and evaluated on what they already know and can do.

Teachers can also be so non-judgmental and inclusive they send false messages to their students. My own daughter once said to me, “My teacher says it doesn’t matter if I can add and subtract. What matters is that I feel good about what I can do.” While I want my daughter to have a strong self-concept, it does indeed matter for her long-term success whether she can command the language of mathematics with precision and accuracy. Thus, as Lisa Delpit points out, teachers may disenfranchise students if they pretend that whatever they bring is enough and if they do not help students from minority and culturally diverse backgrounds to position themselves to command the academic discourses that lead to future success.

Impact on Identity and Development

How do classroom rules impact our students, their identity, and their development?

Teachers need to create classroom communities that not only embrace diversity, but school students in discourse practices allowing and encouraging them to become bidialectal, bilingual, and bicultural and support their identity. We can do this by teaching students the rules of speech communities, by helping them understand differences in the vernacular language they bring to schools and the language of schools—not in ways that discredit their language and cultural heritage but in ways that support its value and complexity.

Teachers belong to many speech communities. More importantly, every year they have the opportunity to co-construct a new speech community. Each year they have a new opportunity to engage students in ways that guarantee them ongoing access to their vernacular speech and primary culture and also give them access to the majority discourse of schools.

Christian D. (1994). Vernacular dialects and standard American English in the classroom [annotated bibliography]. Washington D.C.: ERIC Clearinghouse on Languages and Linguistics.

Clandinin, D.J. & Connelly, F. M. (2000). Narrative inquiry: Experience and story in qualitative research. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers.

Duranti, A. (1997). Linguistic anthropology. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.

Gleason, J.B. (1997). The development of language, 4th Ed . Boston: Allyn and Bacon.

Hawkins, M.R. (1997). Positioning, power, and the construction of knowledge in groupwork in a graduate second language teacher education course. Unpublished Dissertation University of Massachusetts Amherst.

Labov, W. (1969). A study of non-standard English. Washington, DC: ERIC Clearinghouse for Linguistics.

Linde, C. (1993). Life stories: The creation of coherence. New York: Oxford University Press.

Ogbu, J. (1995). Understanding cultural diversity and learning (pp. 582–593). In J.A. Banks and C.A.M. Banks (Eds.) Handbook of Multicultural Education. New York: McMillan Publishing, USA.

Ogbu, J. (1999). Beyond language: Ebonics, proper English, and identity in a Black-American speech community. American Educational Research Journal, 36 (2), 147–84.

Owens, R. E., Jr. (2001). Language development: An introduction, 5th Ed . Boston: Allyn and Bacon.

Shaffer, D.R. (1999). Developmental psychology: Childhood and adolescence, 5th Ed. Pacific Grove, CA: Brooks/Cole Publishing.

Wolfram, W., Adger, C. T. , & Christian, D. (1999). Dialects in schools and communities. Mawah, NJ: Lawrence Earlbaum Associates, Publishers.

Adapted with permission from:                                                                                              

Teemant, A. & Pinnegar, S. (2007). Understanding Langauge Acquisition Instructional Guide. Brigham Young University-Public School Partnership. 

a definition for speech community

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a definition for speech community

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speech community

Definition of speech community

Word history.

1894, in the meaning defined above

Dictionary Entries Near speech community

speechcraft

Cite this Entry

“Speech community.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary , Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/speech%20community. Accessed 12 Mar. 2024.

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Speech Communities in Context of Sociolinguistics

Speech Community

In the vast realm of sociolinguistics, one captivating concept that stands out is “Speech Communities.” These communities form the basis of human language interactions, shaping the way we communicate and connect with one another. In this article, we will delve into the intriguing world of speech communities, exploring their definitions, intersections, and the concept of a community of practice.

What are Speech Communities?

A speech community refers to a group of people who share a common language or dialect and use it to communicate with one another regularly. It is essential to note that speech communities are not solely defined by geographical boundaries but can transcend physical distances through shared linguistic characteristics. In the social context, we expect certain individuals to exhibit linguistic behaviors similar to others, signifying that they may use the same language, dialect, or variety, and thus belong to the same speech community.

The term “speech community” originates from the German Sprachgemeinschaft. Another way to define it is as a group of people who share linguistic norms and expectations concerning language usage. However, there are some ambiguities surrounding this term, and its precise definition remains a topic of debate in scholarly literature.

When defining speech communities, certain aspects are often emphasized, including shared community membership and shared linguistic communication. As sociolinguistics examines language use within or among groups of speakers, the notion of a “group” becomes crucial. Defining a group can be challenging, so instead, we can consider its characteristics:

  • A group must consist of at least two members, with no upper limit.
  • People can come together in groups for various reasons, such as social, religious, political, cultural, familial, vocational, or avocational purposes.
  • Groups may extend beyond their members as individuals can join or leave.
  • Group members might also belong to other groups, and they may or may not have face-to-face interactions.
  • The organization of a group can be either tight or loose.

Lyons (1970) provides a definition of a ‘real’ speech community as “all the people who use a given language (or dialect).” However, this definition raises questions about how to define a language or dialect, making it synonymous with the definition of a speech community. Thus, a speech community is essentially a social group with distinct speech characteristics that are of interest and can be described coherently.

Definitions of Speech Communities

Throughout the history of sociolinguistics, several distinguished linguists have offered their perspectives on speech communities:

  • Bloomfield (1933) offers a definition of a speech community as “a group of people who communicate through speech.”
  • Charles Hockett, a prominent linguist, defined a speech community as a group of people who share a set of rules for communication. These rules encompass both verbal and non-verbal elements, enabling effective understanding and interaction within the community.
  • Gumperz (1971) describes a speech community as “any gathering of individuals who regularly and frequently interact using a common set of spoken symbols, and they are distinguished from similar gatherings by notable differences in language usage”.
  • William Labov, another influential figure in the field, emphasized the role of social factors in defining speech communities. According to Labov, members of a speech community not only share linguistic features but also adhere to specific norms and attitudes towards language usage.
  • As stated by Patrick (2002), the category of group that sociolinguists have typically endeavored to investigate is referred to as the speech community.
  • Dell Hymes introduced the concept of “communicative competence” as a defining characteristic of speech communities. This notion emphasizes the ability of community members to understand and produce language appropriately within various social contexts.

Intersecting Communities

Speech communities often intersect, leading to intriguing linguistic phenomena. In areas where multiple speech communities coexist, language contact can result in dialectal variations, code-switching, and language borrowing.

  1. Multilingual Communities

In regions with diverse language groups, multilingual communities emerge. These communities foster a rich linguistic environment, where individuals might be proficient in multiple languages and engage in code-switching effortlessly.

  2. Urban vs. Rural Communities

Urban centers, characterized by greater diversity and mobility, often house a variety of speech communities. On the other hand, rural areas might have more homogeneous speech communities with distinct linguistic features.

The Idea of Community of Practice

The concept of a “community of practice” complements the notion of speech communities by focusing on shared activities and interests. A community of practice involves individuals who come together to pursue a common goal, develop their skills, and create a shared language related to their domain. For example, within a workplace, employees involved in a specific project form a community of practice, exchanging domain-specific jargon and expressions that outsiders may find difficult to understand.

Speech communities play a fundamental role in shaping our linguistic identities and social interactions. From the definitions proposed by renowned linguists to the fascinating intersections with other communities, the study of speech communities provides valuable insights into the intricate world of sociolinguistics. Understanding the dynamics of speech communities can lead to enhanced cross-cultural communication, better appreciation of linguistic diversity, and the promotion of inclusive practices in various social settings.

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Definition of 'speech community'

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Definitions of Speech Community and Author's Views |Psycholinguistics and Sociolinguistics|

a definition for speech community

In spite of the fact that the speech community is something that is difficult to define accurately but the study of the speech community is central to the understanding of human language. The kind of group that sociolinguists have generally attempted to study is called the speech community. (Patrick,2002) A speech community is defined as a group of people who speak the same language and share the same words and grammar rules. For instance, English language speakers throughout the world. Speech communities may be huge locales like an urban area with a common, distinct accent (think of a Boston with its dropped r,s) or little units like families and companions (think of a nickname for sibling). They help people characterized themselves as individuals and community members. The study of speech communities has therefore interested linguists for some time, at least since Leonard Bloomfield wrote a chapter on speech communities in his book Language(1933:ch.3). For absolutely hypothetical purposes, the existence of an "ideal" speech has been hypothesized by a few linguists This is actually what Chomsky (1965, pp.3-4) proposes, his 'completely homogeneous speech community'. Such a speech community cannot be our concern in any case: it is a hypothetical development utilized for a contracted purpose. Our speech communities, whatever they are, exist in a genuine world. Subsequently, we must attempt to discover a few alternative views to the speech community, one supportive to the examination of language in society instead of required by unique linguistic theorizing. However, there have been impressive confusions and disagreements over exactly what a speech community is, as the taking after overview appears. 

(1) John Lyons (1970,p.326) defines what he calls a real "real" speech community:  

             "All the people who use a given language(or dialect)"

Read:  Diglossia and its Examples

According to this definition, speech communities may overlap (where there are bilingual individuals) and require not to have any social or cultural unity. It is conceivable to delimit speech communities in this sense as it was to the extent that it is conceivable to delimit languages and dialects without referring to the community that speaks them(R.A.Hudsen,1996). It is truly very simple to illustrate that a speech community isn't coterminous with a dialect: whereas the English dialect is spoken in numerous places all through the world, we must certainly recognize that it is moreover spoken in a wide mixture of ways, in speech communities that are almost entirely disconnected from one another, e.g., in South Africa, in New Zealand, and among expatriates in China. We must also acknowledge that using linguistic characteristics alone to determine what is or is not a speech community has proved so far to be quite impossible because people do not necessarily feel any such direct relationship between linguistic characteristics A, B, C, and so on, and speech community X.

(2) A more complex definition is given by Charles Hockett(1958:8):

"Each language defines a speech community: the whole set of people who communicate with each other, either directly or indirectly via the common language."

Here the basis of communication inside the community is included so that if two communities both spoke the same dialect but have no interaction at all they would count as distinctive speech communities. According to this definition, interaction is very important if two communities do not contact(either directly or indirectly)  each other then they will be considered as two separate speech communities although they speak the same dialect of a language. For example; if people of Pakistan and India speak the same dialect of the English language but they interact neither directly nor indirectly then they will be taken as two different speech communities.

(3) another definition shifts the stress completely from shared dialect to communication. A simple form of it was given by Leonard Bloomfield(1933:42):

"A speech community is a group of people who interact by means of speech."

This leaves open the possibility that some interact by means of one language and others by means of another. Bloomfield recognized that, in addition to speaking the same language, these people also agree about what is considered “proper” or “improper” uses of language (ibid.:155). The single-language, or single-variety, criterion is also a very suspicious one. Gumperz  (1971, p.101) points out that :

‘there are no a priori grounds which force us to define speech communities so that all members speak the same language.’

Many societies have existed and still exist in which bilingualism and multilingualism are normal. For example, early in the year, 2000 London was judged to be the most ‘international’ of all cities in the world based on the number of different languages spoken there – over 300. It is such considerations as these which lead Gumperz (p. 101) to use the term linguistic community rather than a speech community. He proceeds to

define that term as follows:

"A social group which may be either monolingual or multilingual held together by

frequency of social interaction patterns and set off from the surrounding areas by

weaknesses in the lines of communication. Linguistic communities may consist of

small groups bound together by face-to-face contact or may cover large regions,

depending on the level of abstraction we wish to achieve."

In this definition, then, communities are defined partially through their relationships with other communities. Individuals will therefore shift their sense of community as different factors come into play. Leonard Bloomfield(1933,42) uses to open his chapter on speech communities: ‘a speech community is a group of people who interact by means of speech.’ The extension is provided by the insistence that a group or community is defined not only by what it is but by what it is not: the ‘cut-off’ criterion.

(4)  A later definition by Gumperz, however, introduces the requirement that there should be some specifically linguistic differences between the members of the speech community and those outside it (1968): 

The speech community: any human aggregate characterized by regular and frequent interaction by means of a shared body of verbal signs and set off from similar aggregates by significant differences in language use.

According to this definition, there is no requirement that there should be just one language per speech community. The effect of emphasizing communication and interaction as in these two last definitions is that different speech communities will tend not to overlap much, in differentiating with the prior definitions where overlap naturally comes about from bilingualism.

(5) For Fishman (1971), a Speech community is a sub type of community:

“All of whose members share at least a single speech variety and the norms for its appropriate use”.

 In this definition, he put forward the concept of speech variety and norms of usage which was a great step forward. 

(6) William Labov (1972a;120) defined it as:

"Participation in a set of shared norms; these norms may be observed in overt types of evaluative behavior, and by the uniformity of abstract patterns of variation which are invariant in respect to particular levels of usage"

 He proposed the first definition of a speech community and his perspective was most influential in that it emphasized linguistic production, social perception, and evaluation. It gave an insight into the essence of this term and has been followed by all the subsequent scholars.

(7) For Hymes ( 1974 ),

 however, the Speech community is “not a naive attempt to use language to compass a social unit”, but rather “an object defined for purposes of linguistic inquiry”, not to be confused with “attributes of the counterpart of that object in social life… It postulates the unit of the description as a social, rather than linguistic, entity” Then, Hymes (1986) proposes to divide the speech community into individual communities and groups, which is considered a descriptive theory including two aspects: a community that shares "rules for the conduct and interpretation of speech and rules for the interpretation of at least one linguistic variety". Thus, he was concerned with approaches of speaking  

Richard Nordquist explains in his article in grammar.about.com the evolution of definitions from the early times up to the modern era. Early definitions have tended to see speech communities as bounded and localized groups of people who live together and come to share the same linguistic norms because they belong to the same local community.

Our last quotation, by Dwight Bollinger, identifies these groups as speech communities, and stresses the unlimited amount of complexity that is possible  (Bolinger 1975:333): 

"There is no limit to how human beings league themselves together for self-identification, security, gain, amusement, worship, or any of the other purposes that are held in common; consequently there is no limit to the number and variety of speech communities that are to be found in the society"

According to this view, any population(whether of a city, a village, or a whole state) may be expected to contain a very large number of speech communities indeed with overlapping memberships and overlapping language systems.

After, taking the overview of all the above definitions presented by various linguists I've concluded that Labov's definition leads to speech community in a real sense because Labov's definition concentrates on shared norms while other definitions emphasize the shared language or variety. The emphasis on shared linguistic characteristics is evident in all the definitions except Labov's. One may suggest that Labov's definition is more psychological than linguistic in its orientation. This, however, is not to imply that other definitions don't lead to real sense, but that Labov's offers more scope for

real sense.

Labov's theory of speech community rests on two premises:-

a) that reaction/attitude to linguistic variables are the same throughout the community despite differences in the actual use of variables by each group of speakers.

b) that various social groups in the society use the linguistic variables (or language variety) in the same way, although not necessarily to the same level.

Based on premise (a) Labov regards New York City as one speech community because the subjective reactions to the linguistic variables such as (r) reflect agreement among speakers even though each group of speakers uses the variables differently. For example, he writes: (1972a:158).

"A speech community cannot be conceived as a group of speakers

who all use the same forms; it is best defined as a group who share

norms in regard to language."

At another point he writes:

"the linguistic variable became one of the norms which defined the

speech community, and all the members of the speech community

reacted in a uniform manner to its use" (Ibid: 179).

 Labov's concept of speech community abandons any notion of uniformity in the actual employment of language or linguistic variables but relies on a shared evaluation of linguistic variables.

Considering premise (b), Labov writes:

''that New York is a speech community and not a collection of

speakers living side by side, borrowing from each others' dialects.

maybe demonstrated by many kinds of evidence. Native New

Yorkers differ in their usage in terms of absolute values of the

variable, but the shift between contrasting styles follow the same

the pattern in almost every case." (1966:7).

In other words, New Yorkers form a single speech community because all

group exhibit an increase in the variant (r) as the level of formality increases.

Labov's study in 1966 showed that every group exhibited a regular style

shifting in the same direction.

This definition is more prestigious as compared to others. There is uniformity in style-shifting behavior. Social distinction influence both the production of speech and its evaluation by community members. Labov's work developed techniques to draw out normal speech from people despite the recorder. It developed methods for quantitative measurements of linguistic data. The problem of heterogeneity of speech communities has been overcome because we can correlate linguistic features with social class accurately.

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The Difference Between a Speech and Discourse Community

Shared Language Usage Practices in Speech and Writing

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The term discourse community is used in composition studies and sociolinguistics for a group of people who share certain language-using practices. It posits that discourse operates within community-defined conventions.

These communities can include anything from groups of academic scholars with expertise on one particular study to readers of popular teen magazines, wherein the jargon, vocabulary, and style are unique to that group. The term can also be used to refer to either the reader, the intended audience or people who read and write in the same particular discourse practice.

In "A Geopolitics of Academic Writing," Suresh Canagarajah makes the point that the " discourse community cuts across  speech communities ," using the fact that "physicists from France, Korea, and Sri Lanka could belong to the same discourse community, though they may belong to three different speech communities."

The Difference Between Speech and Discourse Communities

Although the line between discourse and speech communities has narrowed in recent years thanks to the advent and spread of the internet, linguists, and grammar scholars alike maintain that the primary difference between the two hinges upon the distance between people in these linguistic communities. Discourse communities require a network of communication where the members of it can be any amount of distance apart as long as they operate with the same language, but speech communities require proximity to convey the culture of their language.

However, they also differ in that speech communities establish objectives of socialization and solidarity as prerequisites but discourse communities do not. Pedro Martín-Martín posits in "The Rhetoric of the Abstract in English and Spanish Scientific Discourse" that discourse communities are socio-rhetorical units that consist of groups "of people who link up in order to pursue objectives that are established prior to those of socialization and solidarity." This means that, as opposed to speech communities, discourse communities focus on the shared language and jargon of an occupation or special interest group.

This language presents the final way in which these two discourses differ: the way in which people join the communities of speech and discourse differ in that discourse often pertains to occupations and special-interest groups while speech communities often assimilate new members into the "fabric of society." Martín-Martín calls discourse communities centrifugal and speech communities centripetal for this reason.

The Language of Occupations and Special Interests

Discourse communities form because of a shared need for rules regarding their use of language, so it stands to reason that these communities occur the most in workplaces.

Take for instance the AP Stylebook, which dictates how most journalists write using proper and commonly accepted grammar, though some publications prefer the Chicago Manual Of Style. Both of these style books provide a set of rules which govern how their discourse community operates.

Special interest groups operate in a similar manner, wherein they rely on a set of terms and catchphrases to convey their message to the general population as efficiently and precisely as possible. The pro-choice movement, for instance, would never say they are "pro-abortion" because the group's ethos centers on the necessity of giving the choice to the mother to make the best decision for the baby and herself.

Speech communities, on the other hand, would be the individual dialects that develop as a culture in response to things like the ​ AP Stylebook or the Pro-Choice movement. A newspaper in Texas, though using the AP Stylebook , might develop a shared language that developed colloquially but is still commonly accepted, thus forming a speech community within its local area.

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What does speech community mean?

Definitions for speech community speech com·mu·ni·ty, this dictionary definitions page includes all the possible meanings, example usage and translations of the word speech community ., princeton's wordnet rate this definition: 0.0 / 0 votes.

  • speech community noun

people sharing a given language or dialect

Wiktionary Rate this definition: 0.0 / 0 votes

A group of people sharing a language, or a particular way of using that language

Wikipedia Rate this definition: 0.0 / 0 votes

Speech community

A speech community is a group of people who share a set of linguistic norms and expectations regarding the use of language. It is a concept mostly associated with sociolinguistics and anthropological linguistics.

ChatGPT Rate this definition: 0.0 / 0 votes

Speech community.

A speech community is a group of individuals who share a common language or dialect and communicate with one another through shared linguistic codes and patterns. Members of a speech community may have similar speech patterns, vocabulary, pronunciation, and grammatical rules. They also develop shared understandings, norms, and social practices related to language use. Speech communities can exist at various levels, ranging from small groups within a larger society to entire nations or ethnic groups.

Wikidata Rate this definition: 0.0 / 0 votes

A Speech community is a group of people who share a set of norms and expectations regarding the use of language. Exactly how to define speech community is debated in the literature. Definitions of speech community tend to involve varying degrees of emphasis on the following: ⁕Shared community membership ⁕Shared linguistic communication Early definitions have tended to see speech communities as bounded and localized groups of people who live together and come to share the same linguistic norms because they belong to the same local community. It has also been assumed that within a community a homogeneous set of norms should exist. These assumptions have been challenged by later scholarship that have demonstrated that individuals generally participate in various speech communities simultaneously and at different times in their lives each of which has a different norms that they tend to share only partially, communities may be de-localized and unbounded rather than local, and they often comprise different sub-communities with differing speech norms. With the recognition of the fact that speakers actively use language to construct and manipulate social identities by signalling membership in particular speech communities, the idea of the bounded speech community with homogeneous speech norms has become largely abandoned for a model based on the speech community as a fluid community of practice.

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Chaldean Numerology

The numerical value of speech community in Chaldean Numerology is: 1

Pythagorean Numerology

The numerical value of speech community in Pythagorean Numerology is: 9

  • ^  Princeton's WordNet http://wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=speech community
  • ^  Wiktionary https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Speech_Community
  • ^  Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speech_Community
  • ^  ChatGPT https://chat.openai.com
  • ^  Wikidata https://www.wikidata.org/w/index.php?search=speech community

Translations for speech community

From our multilingual translation dictionary.

  • Sprachgemeinschaft German
  • 언어공동체 Korean
  • பேச்சு சமூகம் Tamil

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Definition of speech community noun from the Oxford Advanced American Dictionary

speech community

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A man pointing

Hitler-quoting candidate wins North Carolina Republican gubernatorial primary

Mark Robinson, who has history of making inflammatory comments, will face Democrat Josh Stein, in what’s expected to be a close race in November

Mark Robinson, North Carolina’s lieutenant governor who has a history of making inflammatory comments and has said he would abolish abortion rights, has won the state’s Republican nomination for governor.

Robinson, North Carolina ’s first Black lieutenant governor, will face Democrat Josh Stein, the state attorney general, in what’s expected to be a close and hotly contested race in November. Robinson and Stein are attempting to succeed the current Democratic governor Roy Cooper, who is term limited.

Because Republicans already control North Carolina’s legislature, a Robinson victory would give them a trifecta and unilateral control over policymaking in a critical battleground state.

Issues like the right to abortion would be at stake. Robinson said last month that he would “absolutely” protect life from conception . “We got it down to 12 weeks,” he said. “The next goal is to get it down to six, and then just keep moving from there.”

A former factory worker, Robinson launched his political career when his 2018 speech on gun laws to his hometown council went viral. During that speech, Robinson said he represented average Americans who feel targeted and whose safety feels threatened by attempts to restrict firearm access.

The attention following the speech earned him a spot as a conservative commentator and National Rifle Association board member, and he used his new fame to launch his successful bid for lieutenant governor.

Robinson has a history of controversial statements. He has described Covid-19 as a “globalist” conspiracy to destroy Donald Trump . In 2021, he criticized efforts to teach LGBTQ+ issues in sex education, referring to transgender and homosexual people as “filth” . He has also said people who are gay are equivalent to “what the cows leave behind” as well as “maggots” and “flies”.

He implied at a campaign event last month that transgender women should be arrested if they use women’s restrooms.

He once described the movie Black Panther as “created by an agnostic Jew and put to film by [a] satanic marxist”. He then said it “was only created to pull the shekels out of your Schvartze pockets”.

In 2014, he quoted Hitler on Facebook in a statement about racial pride. He defended the post in a speech last July, saying quoting the Nazi leader doesn’t equate to supporting him.

“Because you quoted Hitler, you support Hitler,” he said. “I guess every history book in America supports Hitler now. They all quote him.”

If Stein were to win in November, he would be North Carolina’s first Jewish governor. Robinson would be the state’s first Black governor.

At a rally last weekend endorsing Robinson, Trump praised Robinson’s rhetorical skills and called him “Martin Luther King on steroids”.

The race, just one of two gubernatorial contests in swing states this year, will command national attention, with Democrats likely to paint Robinson as an extremist and Republicans tying Stein to Biden and his unpopularity. While Republicans currently control the state legislature, Democrats have lost only one gubernatorial race in North Carolina since 1992.

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  • speech community

the aggregate of all the people who use a given language or dialect.

a group of people geographically distributed so that there is no break in intelligibility from place to place.

Origin of speech community

Words nearby speech community.

  • speech center
  • speech clinic
  • speech correction
  • speech form
  • speech from the throne

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024

British Dictionary definitions for speech community

a community consisting of all the speakers of a particular language or dialect

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

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  3. Speech communities

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  6. Speech Community in Sociolinguistics| Speech Community in

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  1. Individual speech

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COMMENTS

  1. Speech community

    A speech community is a group of people who share a set of linguistic norms and expectations regarding the use of language. It is a concept mostly associated with sociolinguistics and anthropological linguistics. Exactly how to define speech community is debated in the literature. Definitions of speech community tend to involve varying degrees ...

  2. 1

    Speech communities are groups that share values and attitudes about language use, varieties and practices. These communities develop through prolonged interaction among those who operate within these shared and recognized beliefs and value systems regarding forms and styles of communication. While we are born with the ability to learn language ...

  3. A Definition of Speech Community in Sociolinguistics

    Speech community is a term in sociolinguistics and linguistic anthropology used to describe a group of people who share the same language, speech characteristics, and ways of interpreting communication. Speech communities may be large regions like an urban area with a common, distinct accent (think of Boston with its dropped r's) or small units like families and friends (think of a nickname ...

  4. What Is a Speech Community?

    A speech community is a group of people who share rules for conducting and interpreting at least one variety of a language or dialect. The term can be applied to a neighborhood, a city, a region or a nation. We all belong to at least one speech community. The earliest speech community we belong to is the one we share with our primary caregivers ...

  5. Speech community Definition & Meaning

    The meaning of SPEECH COMMUNITY is a group of people sharing characteristic patterns of vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation.

  6. PDF The Speech Community

    of the speech community to mere extension of a linguistic system (Hymes 1972, p.54), and Chomsky's famous "ideal speaker-listener, in a completely homogeneous speech community" (1965, p.3). Within the field, Labov's (1966) definition has been repeatedly attacked, often by researchers with similar methodological and analytical predilections.

  7. Speech Communities in Context of Sociolinguistics

    Lyons (1970) provides a definition of a 'real' speech community as "all the people who use a given language (or dialect)." However, this definition raises questions about how to define a language or dialect, making it synonymous with the definition of a speech community. Thus, a speech community is essentially a social group with ...

  8. PDF The Speech Community

    The Speech Community John J. Gumperz Although not all communication is linguistic, language is by far the most powerful and ver-satile medium of communication; all known human groups possess language. Unlike other sign systems, the verbal system can, through the minute refinement of its grammatical and semantic structure, be made to refer to a wide

  9. Speech communities

    This book focuses on a range of speech communities, including those that have developed from an increasing technological world where migration and global interactions are common. Essential reading for graduate students and researchers in linguistic anthropology, sociolinguistics and applied linguistics. Explores a variety of speech communities ...

  10. [PDF] The speech community

    The speech community (SpCom), a core concept in empirical linguistics, is at the intersection of many principal problems in sociolinguistic theory and method. This paper traces its history of development and divergence, surveys general problems with contemporary notions, and discusses links to key issues in investigating language variation and change.

  11. (PDF) The Speech Community

    The speech community (SpCom), a core concept in empirical linguistics, is the intersection of many principal problems in sociolinguistic theory and method. I trace its history of development and ...

  12. SPEECH COMMUNITY definition and meaning

    A community consisting of all the speakers of a particular language or dialect.... Click for English pronunciations, examples sentences, video.

  13. PDF Dell Hymes SPEAKING

    Hymes (1972) also defined a speech community as people who share "rules" for when and how to speak (p. 54). In 1974, he said that for someone to be counted as a member of a speech community, he or she must share at least one "way of speaking" with others. Hymes later includes the meanings of what people say. For instance, users of a particular ...

  14. speech community noun

    Definition of speech community noun in Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary. Meaning, pronunciation, picture, example sentences, grammar, usage notes, synonyms and more.

  15. PDF Speech Community and SLA

    A. Definitions of Speech Community from Different Linguists For general linguistics, a speech community is all the people who speak a single language and so share notions of what is same or different in phonology or grammar. This would include any group of people, wherever they might be,

  16. speech community

    Examples of how to use "speech community" in a sentence from Cambridge Dictionary.

  17. SPEECH COMMUNITY Definition & Usage Examples

    Speech community definition: . See examples of SPEECH COMMUNITY used in a sentence.

  18. Definitions of Speech Community and Author's Views |Psycholinguistics

    The kind of group that sociolinguists have generally attempted to study is called the speech community. (Patrick,2002) A speech community is defined as a group of people who speak the same language and share the same words and grammar rules. For instance, English language speakers throughout the world.

  19. Speech Community Definition & Meaning

    Speech Community definition: A group of speakers, whether located in one area or scattered, who recognize the same language or dialect of a language as a standard.

  20. What Is a Discourse Community in Sociolinguistics?

    The term discourse community is used in composition studies and sociolinguistics for a group of people who share certain language-using practices. It posits that discourse operates within community-defined conventions. These communities can include anything from groups of academic scholars with expertise on one particular study to readers of ...

  21. What does speech community mean?

    Definition of speech community in the Definitions.net dictionary. Meaning of speech community. Information and translations of speech community in the most comprehensive dictionary definitions resource on the web.

  22. speech-community noun

    Definition of speech community noun from the Oxford Advanced American Dictionary speech community noun. noun jump to other results. all the people who speak a particular language or variety of a language the Kodava speech community in India speech communities such as high school students or hip hop fans feminine and masculine speech communities.

  23. Hitler-quoting candidate wins North Carolina Republican gubernatorial

    The attention following the speech earned him a spot as a conservative commentator and National Rifle Association board member, and he used his new fame to launch his successful bid for lieutenant ...

  24. SPEECH COMMUNITY Definition & Usage Examples

    Speech community definition: . See examples of SPEECH COMMUNITY used in a sentence.