Elaboration on the Social Theories of Language Use, offered by Gumperz, Labov, and Hymes

The present article is a brief elaboration on the three social theories of language use, having offered by Gumperz, Labov and Hymes. All the theories locate language in society. For Gumperz, social meaning does not adhere in a text, or in an institution, but is negotiated interaction. For Labov, language is a social fact, which is imposed on the individual in concourse with other social institutions such as class and gender. For Hymes, social meaning is to be found in the culturally defined patterned use of language. Although structural view of language has been widely spread and utilized by many language teaching programs, social aspects of language use should not be ignored. In fact, every language consists of both linguistic and socio-cultural paradigms, the combination of which forms the language system. Thus, language use adheres its actual entity from the socio cultural interactions among the people concerning their prestigious social level, which differentiates between the people belonging to different social classes.

کلیدواژه ها:

Gumperz ، Hymes ، Labov ، Language Use ، Social theories