专著推荐 | 《语言社区的连贯性：有序的异质性与社会意义》Routledge

Varieties of language are seen – by linguists and non-specialists alike – as constituting sets of linguistic characteristics, items, and structures. This is true of languages, dialects, ethnolects, and sociolects, as well as of genres, styles, and registers. However, the boundaries and internal unity of all such lects are known to be problematic. Frontiers between lects are fuzzy, definitional characteristics are often scalar, and usage is not uniform across all speakers. Hence, an open question in sociolinguistics is how coherent the characteristics associated with a lect are, or have to be, and whether a lect should even be considered to constitute a coherent object, an issue we call the “unity dilemma”. Recent research in sociolinguistics has taken contrasting approaches to the unity dilemma. In a double issue of Lingua on the topic of sociolinguistic coherence, Guy and Hinskens (2016) argue that the postulate of “orderly heterogeneity” as a defining property of speech communities (Weinreich et al. 1968) presumes coherence and covariation among sociolinguistic variables: “the orderly variables that define the community should collectively behave in parallel: variants (or rates of use of variants) that index a given style, status, or a social characteristic should co-occur” (Guy and Hinskens 2016:2). Several approaches have been taken to the articulation of these inter-variable parallels. One treats them in terms of correlations (e.g., Guy 2013) and another in terms of implicational relationships (e.g., Fasold 1970). Yet another approach to the dilemma of linguistic unity treats the “definitional” characteristics of a lect as similar to a “repertoire” (cf. Benor 2010) from which speakers may draw a particular combination of variants in the construction of social meaning and in the performance of identity. Speakers’ choices may constitute “bricolage” (Eckert 2008), in which speakers assemble clusters of variants to construct interpretable personae they are trying to portray. According to Eckert, “linguistic variables do not index categories, but characteristics” (Eckert 2012:93). The research program that Eckert terms the “third wave” has focused on individual agency and micro-interaction, illuminating how variables, unified in local practice, tie up to larger social structures (Moore and Carter 2015; Sharma 2011). From this perspective, coherence is not to be found in rigid categories of speakers or clusters of variables but in a fluid and shared understanding among speakers of the indexicalities of linguistic variables and their agentive usage to evoke identities, stances, or styles