Subject: paulston and tucker : early days of sociolinguistics

the early days of sociolinguistics : memories and reflections ( 1997 ) christina bratt paulston and g . richard tucker ( eds . ) dallas , tx : summer institute of linguistics . 162 pages , $ 37 ( paper ) . reviewed by joyce milambiling at some point in the 1960 's , along with social and political upheaval , landmark court decisions in education and a host of other social events , the discipline of sociolinguistics emerged . scholars from various other disciplines and places had of course , been doing sociolinguistic research for some time , but it was only in that decade that a group of people started systematically calling it sociolinguistics . why did this happen and who was responsible for the coming together of a talented group of people who often did not ( and to some extent still do n't ) consider themselves to be a cohesive group ? some answers to these questions can be found in this new volume edited by christina bratt paulston and g . richard tucker . the book is sub-titled " memories and reflections , " which describes very well the tone of the more than 30 contributions to this book . the contributions range from the editors ' introduction and epilogue , personal accounts from the practitioners and supporters of early sociolinguistic research , and short essays in memory of several important figures in the field . most of the contributions are reflections by a wide range of scholars who were instrumental in the launching of sociolinguistics . the line-up of these early participants in the enterprise of sociolinguistics is impressive ( including joshua fishman , susan ervin - tripp , wallace lambert , dell hymes , charles ferguson and others ) , and creates high expectations on the part of the reader from the outset . these expectations are , for the most part met , with the reader coming away with a real sense of the zeitgeist which allowed sociolinguistics to blossom . the book is based on the premise that if you want to find out what a certain historical period was like , you talk to the the people who were there . the editors provided the contributors with a list of 18 questions , all of which are listed in the introduction of the early days of sociolinguistics ( tedos ) . the main group of contributors , those that the book calls " pioneers " in sociolinguistics , come from a wide variety of disciplines and countries ( although the majority are from north america ) . the method by which the editors chose to elicit these memories has many advantages . the range of questions allows the contributors to choose which aspects of the beginning of sociolinguistics they wish ( or are able ) to talk about . most of the questions , in fact , are useful and important for the task at hand . one of these key questions was : " please characterize for us the intellectual , social and economic ' climate ' of the time . . . " ( pp 6 ) . this question received a great deal of attention from the contributors , and taken together their responses convince the reader that the 1960 's were an exciting time to be doing and hearing about research on language and its social context . another question asked the writers to identify " a critical milestone - - a conference , a publication , an event . . . that marks for you the beginning of sociolinguistics " ( page 6 ) . many of the contributors identified as milestones the conference at the university of california at los angeles ( ucla ) on sociolinguistics in 1964 which later resulted in william bright 's edited volume of the proceedings . many of them also mentioned the linguistic society of america 's ( lsa ) summer seminar that same year in bloomington , indiana . another frequently mentioned milestone was the creation of the committee on sociolinguistics of the social science research council ( ssrc ) , also in 1964 . however , an overview of the articles that were written for this book ( there were also a couple of reprinted articles ) reveals that the authors focused only on a handful of the questions that the editors said they might consider . some , such as the two mentioned above , provide fascinating information about the people and events at that time . other questions , for example the one that asked who received the first doctorate in sociolinguistics , seem to be less germane to the purpose of the book and were not answered ( at least not definitively ) by many of the contributing authors . the articles in tedos vary greatly in terms of length and personal involvement of the author with the subject . susan ervin tripp 's article ( the development of sociolinguistics ) deals mostly with the history of organizations that were crucial to the early development of sociolinguistics , in particular the sociolinguistics committee at the social science research council ( ssrc ) . basil bernstein included his remembrances of the beginnings of the discipline and his part in the difference / deficit debate , which he pointedly states " was of little theoretical significance and , indeed , obscured more than it revealed " ( page 47 ) . as an appendix to his article , bernstein adds a point-by - point critique of william labov 's paper , " the logic of non - standard english . " dell hymes credited noam chomsky with the development of the field of sociolinguistics " because of his statement in aspects of the theory of syntax . . . which defined the goal of linguistic theory in such a way as to eliminate people and use ( page 122 ) . these contributions give the reader important insights into what the contributors were doing and thinking about over 30 years ago , as well as how they see that involvement today . not all of the contributors were positive about what was happening in sociolinguistics at the time , which adds balance and a touch of reality to the book . an interesting feature of tedos is the inclusion of some of the institutional actors in the development of sociolinguistics . without adequate funding , research and interaction among scholars and practitioners happens haphazardly or not at all , and institutions like the ford foundation , the u . s . department of education , the center for applied linguistics and the summer institute of linguistics were all key players in the early era of sociolinguistics . dick thompson of the department of education added his own voice to the group , saying that the launching of sputnik was , for him , " the beginning of ' modern sociolinguistics ' " in that funds for education and language study skyrocketed ( pun intended ) and thus deeply impacted educational attitudes and projects . another important feature of this volume is the effort taken by the editors to include as diverse a group as possible , especially scholars who represent third world countries . bonifacio sibayan talks about the serious problem of funding in countries like his philippines , and how collaboration with foreign institutions and researchers allowed some third world countries to better investigate language issues and problems within their own borders . e . annamalai discusses the development of sociolinguistics in india , and how linguistic research done in india ( both by indigenous and outside researchers ) has contributed to a greater understanding of sociolinguistic phenomena . the editors also do a fine job of introducing their book and providing final comment on its contents . taken together , these chapters function as conceptual bookends . bratt paulston 's introduction provides explanations for their rationale and choice of contributors , as well as what the contributors were asked to address , and tucker 's epilogue sums up the major themes that emerged . these five themes were : the interdisciplinary nature of the field and the events that launched it ; the social issues that sparked the emergence of socio - linguistics as a discipline of study ; the importance of a number of key individuals ; the difference between the north american / european perspective and that of researchers from developing countries ; and the important role of a few funding organizations in supporting sociolinguistic research and dialogue . the book is generally well edited with few errors . the bibliography is valuable in that it combines the references from all of the contributed articles into one collective group of books and articles . the one disadvantage to this is that the references have come from scholars working in different fields and thus using different bibliographic styles . a result is that some of the first names are abbreviated while others are written using the full names . this is minor if your discipline abbreviates first names , but is more of a problem if you want to cite or look up a reference and do not have the full first name . there are also a couple of typographical errors : for example , on page 302 in an article commemorating the work of heinz kloss , the term " abstand " is misspelled ( although it is spelled correctly elsewhere in the article ) , and on page 217 the biographical note on sibayan should read that he is on the " komisyon sa wikang filipino . " as a final note , the publishers of tedos say that the audience of the book should include people in the fields represented by the contributors ( such as sociolinguists , social psychologists , linguistic anthropologists and applied linguists in general ( back cover ) . they also speculate that historians of science will be interested in reading about the evolution of the discipline of sociolinguistics as an academic discipline which has grown over the decades in importance and visibility . a problem with this is that researchers and practitioners who are involved with sociolinguistic issues may not be interested in how the field came about unless this history is somehow explicitly folded into their own disciplines . i would like to see tedos on the syllabus for a history of linguistics course , for example , but am not optimistic that that it would generally be accepted as such . i do believe , however , that this is an important book for anyone interested in the people and institutions that were responsible for the existence and growth of sociolinguistics . references : bright , william , ed . 1966 . sociolinguistics : proceedings of the ucla sociolinguistics conference , 1964 . janua linguarum , series major 20 . the hague : mouton . chomsky , noam . 1965 . aspects of the theory of syntax . cambridge , ma : mit press . labov , william . 1970 . the logic of non-standard english . proceedings of the georgetown university round table on language and linguistics , 1969 . washington , d . c . : georgetown university press .
