Definition of Sociolinguistics The Scope of Sociolinguistics

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CHAPTER II LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapt er cont ains som e t heories and references w hich are relat ed t o t he research. A socio- pragm at ics approach is t aken as t he w ay of analysis t o carry out t he research. Therefore, t he references relat ed t o sociolinguist ics and pragm at ics, especially about com plaint st rat egy are necessary t o guide t he researcher t o describe and int erpret t he dat a.

A. Sociolinguistics

1. Definition of Sociolinguistics

Sociolinguistics is one of linguistics branch which study about the relationship between language and society. Language cannot be separated from the society. Society influences how language is used. Hudson 1996:4 states that Sociolinguistics is the study of language in relation to society. While Chaika 1994: 3 states that Sociolinguistics is the study of the ways people use language in social interactions of all kinds. In addition, Holmes states that Sociolinguistics studies the relationship between language and society 2001:1. They are interested in identifying ways of describing and explaining why we speak differently in different social context and they are concerned with identifying the social functions of a language and the ways it is used to convey social meaning ibid: 2. In other words, xxvii Sociolinguistics does not study language but also society. It explains why people can speak differently in any different social context. In any situation linguistics choices will generally reflect the influence of one or more of the following components: a. The Participants: who is speaking and who are they speaking to? b. The Setting or social context of the interaction: where are they speaking? c. The topic: what is being talked about? d. The function: why are they speaking? Based on t he definit ion above it can be concluded t hat Sociolinguistics concerns on analyzing how social com m unit y use language in social int eract ion. It also rules t hat w hen w e speak, w e cannot separat ed from t he social fact ors of w ho speaks t o w hom , in w hat sit uat ion, w hen, w hy, and w here t he conversat ion happens.

2. The Scope of Sociolinguistics

According t o Fishm an, Sociolinguist ics has t w o scopes of st udy; t hey are m icro- sociolinguist ics and m acro-sociolinguist ics 1972: 242. a. Micro-sociolinguistics, it concerns with the study of language in specific speech communities with the scope of discussion such as the behavior toward language, style of speech, domains of language use, register, speech act, etc. It means that micro-sociolinguistics covers the intra-group interaction or relatively small group of speakers. b. Macro-sociolinguistics, it concerns with the study of language history and development in the scope of society in general. It stresses on the social xxviii aspects. It means that macro-sociolinguistics covers the inter-group interaction or large group of speakers. In t his research, t he researcher t akes m icro-sociolinguist ics as t he fram e of t he st udy since it focuses on t he individual int eract ion, especially com plaining act s em ployed by t he charact ers in t he m ovie ent it led “ Sex and t he Cit y” .

3. The Dimension of Sociolinguistics