perception of language essay

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Speaking, writing and reading are integral to everyday life, where language is the primary tool for expression and communication. Studying how people use language – what words and phrases they unconsciously choose and combine – can help us better understand ourselves and why we behave the way we do.

Linguistics scholars seek to determine what is unique and universal about the language we use, how it is acquired and the ways it changes over time. They consider language as a cultural, social and psychological phenomenon.

“Understanding why and how languages differ tells about the range of what is human,” said Dan Jurafsky , the Jackson Eli Reynolds Professor in Humanities and chair of the Department of Linguistics in the School of Humanities and Sciences at Stanford . “Discovering what’s universal about languages can help us understand the core of our humanity.”

The stories below represent some of the ways linguists have investigated many aspects of language, including its semantics and syntax, phonetics and phonology, and its social, psychological and computational aspects.

Understanding stereotypes

Stanford linguists and psychologists study how language is interpreted by people. Even the slightest differences in language use can correspond with biased beliefs of the speakers, according to research.

One study showed that a relatively harmless sentence, such as “girls are as good as boys at math,” can subtly perpetuate sexist stereotypes. Because of the statement’s grammatical structure, it implies that being good at math is more common or natural for boys than girls, the researchers said.

Language can play a big role in how we and others perceive the world, and linguists work to discover what words and phrases can influence us, unknowingly.

How well-meaning statements can spread stereotypes unintentionally

New Stanford research shows that sentences that frame one gender as the standard for the other can unintentionally perpetuate biases.

Algorithms reveal changes in stereotypes

New Stanford research shows that, over the past century, linguistic changes in gender and ethnic stereotypes correlated with major social movements and demographic changes in the U.S. Census data.

Exploring what an interruption is in conversation

Stanford doctoral candidate Katherine Hilton found that people perceive interruptions in conversation differently, and those perceptions differ depending on the listener’s own conversational style as well as gender.

Cops speak less respectfully to black community members

Professors Jennifer Eberhardt and Dan Jurafsky, along with other Stanford researchers, detected racial disparities in police officers’ speech after analyzing more than 100 hours of body camera footage from Oakland Police.

How other languages inform our own

People speak roughly 7,000 languages worldwide. Although there is a lot in common among languages, each one is unique, both in its structure and in the way it reflects the culture of the people who speak it.

Jurafsky said it’s important to study languages other than our own and how they develop over time because it can help scholars understand what lies at the foundation of humans’ unique way of communicating with one another.

“All this research can help us discover what it means to be human,” Jurafsky said.

Stanford PhD student documents indigenous language of Papua New Guinea

Fifth-year PhD student Kate Lindsey recently returned to the United States after a year of documenting an obscure language indigenous to the South Pacific nation.

Students explore Esperanto across Europe

In a research project spanning eight countries, two Stanford students search for Esperanto, a constructed language, against the backdrop of European populism.

Chris Manning: How computers are learning to understand language​

A computer scientist discusses the evolution of computational linguistics and where it’s headed next.

Stanford research explores novel perspectives on the evolution of Spanish

Using digital tools and literature to explore the evolution of the Spanish language, Stanford researcher Cuauhtémoc García-García reveals a new historical perspective on linguistic changes in Latin America and Spain.

Language as a lens into behavior

Linguists analyze how certain speech patterns correspond to particular behaviors, including how language can impact people’s buying decisions or influence their social media use.

For example, in one research paper, a group of Stanford researchers examined the differences in how Republicans and Democrats express themselves online to better understand how a polarization of beliefs can occur on social media.

“We live in a very polarized time,” Jurafsky said. “Understanding what different groups of people say and why is the first step in determining how we can help bring people together.”

Analyzing the tweets of Republicans and Democrats

New research by Dora Demszky and colleagues examined how Republicans and Democrats express themselves online in an attempt to understand how polarization of beliefs occurs on social media.

Examining bilingual behavior of children at Texas preschool

A Stanford senior studied a group of bilingual children at a Spanish immersion preschool in Texas to understand how they distinguished between their two languages.

Predicting sales of online products from advertising language

Stanford linguist Dan Jurafsky and colleagues have found that products in Japan sell better if their advertising includes polite language and words that invoke cultural traditions or authority.

Language can help the elderly cope with the challenges of aging, says Stanford professor

By examining conversations of elderly Japanese women, linguist Yoshiko Matsumoto uncovers language techniques that help people move past traumatic events and regain a sense of normalcy.

To arrive at the edge of the world's knowledge, seek out the most complex and sophisticated minds, put them in a room together, and have them ask each other the questions they are asking themselves.

HOW DOES OUR LANGUAGE SHAPE THE WAY WE THINK?

For a long time, the idea that language might shape thought was considered at best untestable and more often simply wrong. Research in my labs at Stanford University and at MIT has helped reopen this question. We have collected data around the world: from China, Greece, Chile, Indonesia, Russia, and Aboriginal Australia. What we have learned is that people who speak different languages do indeed think differently and that even flukes of grammar can profoundly affect how we see the world. Language is a uniquely human gift, central to our experience of being human. Appreciating its role in constructing our mental lives brings us one step closer to understanding the very nature of humanity.

HOW DOES OUR LANGUAGE SHAPE THE WAY WE THINK?  By Lera Boroditsky

LERA BORODITSKY is an assistant professor of psychology, neuroscience, and symbolic systems at Stanford University, who looks at how the languages we speak shape the way we think.

Lera Boroditsky's Edge Bio Page

Humans communicate with one another using a dazzling array of languages, each differing from the next in innumerable ways. Do the languages we speak shape the way we see the world, the way we think, and the way we live our lives? Do people who speak different languages think differently simply because they speak different languages? Does learning new languages change the way you think? Do polyglots think differently when speaking different languages?

These questions touch on nearly all of the major controversies in the study of mind. They have engaged scores of philosophers, anthropologists, linguists, and psychologists, and they have important implications for politics, law, and religion. Yet despite nearly constant attention and debate, very little empirical work was done on these questions until recently. For a long time, the idea that language might shape thought was considered at best untestable and more often simply wrong. Research in my labs at Stanford University and at MIT has helped reopen this question. We have collected data around the world: from China, Greece, Chile, Indonesia, Russia, and Aboriginal Australia. What we have learned is that people who speak different languages do indeed think differently and that even flukes of grammar can profoundly affect how we see the world. Language is a uniquely human gift, central to our experience of being human. Appreciating its role in constructing our mental lives brings us one step closer to understanding the very nature of humanity.

I often start my undergraduate lectures by asking students the following question: which cognitive faculty would you most hate to lose? Most of them pick the sense of sight; a few pick hearing. Once in a while, a wisecracking student might pick her sense of humor or her fashion sense. Almost never do any of them spontaneously say that the faculty they'd most hate to lose is language. Yet if you lose (or are born without) your sight or hearing, you can still have a wonderfully rich social existence. You can have friends, you can get an education, you can hold a job, you can start a family. But what would your life be like if you had never learned a language? Could you still have friends, get an education, hold a job, start a family? Language is so fundamental to our experience, so deeply a part of being human, that it's hard to imagine life without it. But are languages merely tools for expressing our thoughts, or do they actually shape our thoughts?

Most questions of whether and how language shapes thought start with the simple observation that languages differ from one another. And a lot! Let's take a (very) hypothetical example. Suppose you want to say, "Bush read Chomsky's latest book." Let's focus on just the verb, "read." To say this sentence in English, we have to mark the verb for tense; in this case, we have to pronounce it like "red" and not like "reed." In Indonesian you need not (in fact, you can't) alter the verb to mark tense. In Russian you would have to alter the verb to indicate tense and gender. So if it was Laura Bush who did the reading, you'd use a different form of the verb than if it was George. In Russian you'd also have to include in the verb information about completion. If George read only part of the book, you'd use a different form of the verb than if he'd diligently plowed through the whole thing. In Turkish you'd have to include in the verb how you acquired this information: if you had witnessed this unlikely event with your own two eyes, you'd use one verb form, but if you had simply read or heard about it, or inferred it from something Bush said, you'd use a different verb form.

Clearly, languages require different things of their speakers. Does this mean that the speakers think differently about the world? Do English, Indonesian, Russian, and Turkish speakers end up attending to, partitioning, and remembering their experiences differently just because they speak different languages? For some scholars, the answer to these questions has been an obvious yes. Just look at the way people talk, they might say. Certainly, speakers of different languages must attend to and encode strikingly different aspects of the world just so they can use their language properly.

Scholars on the other side of the debate don't find the differences in how people talk convincing. All our linguistic utterances are sparse, encoding only a small part of the information we have available. Just because English speakers don't include the same information in their verbs that Russian and Turkish speakers do doesn't mean that English speakers aren't paying attention to the same things; all it means is that they're not talking about them. It's possible that everyone thinks the same way, notices the same things, but just talks differently.

Believers in cross-linguistic differences counter that everyone does not pay attention to the same things: if everyone did, one might think it would be easy to learn to speak other languages. Unfortunately, learning a new language (especially one not closely related to those you know) is never easy; it seems to require paying attention to a new set of distinctions. Whether it's distinguishing modes of being in Spanish, evidentiality in Turkish, or aspect in Russian, learning to speak these languages requires something more than just learning vocabulary: it requires paying attention to the right things in the world so that you have the correct information to include in what you say.

Such a priori arguments about whether or not language shapes thought have gone in circles for centuries, with some arguing that it's impossible for language to shape thought and others arguing that it's impossible for language not to shape thought. Recently my group and others have figured out ways to empirically test some of the key questions in this ancient debate, with fascinating results. So instead of arguing about what must be true or what can't be true, let's find out what is true.

Follow me to Pormpuraaw, a small Aboriginal community on the western edge of Cape York, in northern Australia. I came here because of the way the locals, the Kuuk Thaayorre, talk about space. Instead of words like "right," "left," "forward," and "back," which, as commonly used in English, define space relative to an observer, the Kuuk Thaayorre, like many other Aboriginal groups, use cardinal-direction terms — north, south, east, and west — to define space.1 This is done at all scales, which means you have to say things like "There's an ant on your southeast leg" or "Move the cup to the north northwest a little bit." One obvious consequence of speaking such a language is that you have to stay oriented at all times, or else you cannot speak properly. The normal greeting in Kuuk Thaayorre is "Where are you going?" and the answer should be something like " Southsoutheast, in the middle distance." If you don't know which way you're facing, you can't even get past "Hello."

The result is a profound difference in navigational ability and spatial knowledge between speakers of languages that rely primarily on absolute reference frames (like Kuuk Thaayorre) and languages that rely on relative reference frames (like English).2 Simply put, speakers of languages like Kuuk Thaayorre are much better than English speakers at staying oriented and keeping track of where they are, even in unfamiliar landscapes or inside unfamiliar buildings. What enables them — in fact, forces them — to do this is their language. Having their attention trained in this way equips them to perform navigational feats once thought beyond human capabilities. Because space is such a fundamental domain of thought, differences in how people think about space don't end there. People rely on their spatial knowledge to build other, more complex, more abstract representations. Representations of such things as time, number, musical pitch, kinship relations, morality, and emotions have been shown to depend on how we think about space. So if the Kuuk Thaayorre think differently about space, do they also think differently about other things, like time? This is what my collaborator Alice Gaby and I came to Pormpuraaw to find out.

To test this idea, we gave people sets of pictures that showed some kind of temporal progression (e.g., pictures of a man aging, or a crocodile growing, or a banana being eaten). Their job was to arrange the shuffled photos on the ground to show the correct temporal order. We tested each person in two separate sittings, each time facing in a different cardinal direction. If you ask English speakers to do this, they'll arrange the cards so that time proceeds from left to right. Hebrew speakers will tend to lay out the cards from right to left, showing that writing direction in a language plays a role.3 So what about folks like the Kuuk Thaayorre, who don't use words like "left" and "right"? What will they do?

The Kuuk Thaayorre did not arrange the cards more often from left to right than from right to left, nor more toward or away from the body. But their arrangements were not random: there was a pattern, just a different one from that of English speakers. Instead of arranging time from left to right, they arranged it from east to west. That is, when they were seated facing south, the cards went left to right. When they faced north, the cards went from right to left. When they faced east, the cards came toward the body and so on. This was true even though we never told any of our subjects which direction they faced. The Kuuk Thaayorre not only knew that already (usually much better than I did), but they also spontaneously used this spatial orientation to construct their representations of time.

People's ideas of time differ across languages in other ways. For example, English speakers tend to talk about time using horizontal spatial metaphors (e.g., "The best is ahead of us," "The worst is behind us"), whereas Mandarin speakers have a vertical metaphor for time (e.g., the next month is the "down month" and the last month is the "up month"). Mandarin speakers talk about time vertically more often than English speakers do, so do Mandarin speakers think about time vertically more often than English speakers do? Imagine this simple experiment. I stand next to you, point to a spot in space directly in front of you, and tell you, "This spot, here, is today. Where would you put yesterday? And where would you put tomorrow?" When English speakers are asked to do this, they nearly always point horizontally. But Mandarin speakers often point vertically, about seven or eight times more often than do English speakers.4

Even basic aspects of time perception can be affected by language. For example, English speakers prefer to talk about duration in terms of length (e.g., "That was a short talk," "The meeting didn't take long"), while Spanish and Greek speakers prefer to talk about time in terms of amount, relying more on words like "much" "big", and "little" rather than "short" and "long" Our research into such basic cognitive abilities as estimating duration shows that speakers of different languages differ in ways predicted by the patterns of metaphors in their language. (For example, when asked to estimate duration, English speakers are more likely to be confused by distance information, estimating that a line of greater length remains on the test screen for a longer period of time, whereas Greek speakers are more likely to be confused by amount, estimating that a container that is fuller remains longer on the screen.)5

An important question at this point is: Are these differences caused by language per se or by some other aspect of culture? Of course, the lives of English, Mandarin, Greek, Spanish, and Kuuk Thaayorre speakers differ in a myriad of ways. How do we know that it is language itself that creates these differences in thought and not some other aspect of their respective cultures?

One way to answer this question is to teach people new ways of talking and see if that changes the way they think. In our lab, we've taught English speakers different ways of talking about time. In one such study, English speakers were taught to use size metaphors (as in Greek) to describe duration (e.g., a movie is larger than a sneeze), or vertical metaphors (as in Mandarin) to describe event order. Once the English speakers had learned to talk about time in these new ways, their cognitive performance began to resemble that of Greek or Mandarin speakers. This suggests that patterns in a language can indeed play a causal role in constructing how we think.6 In practical terms, it means that when you're learning a new language, you're not simply learning a new way of talking, you are also inadvertently learning a new way of thinking. Beyond abstract or complex domains of thought like space and time, languages also meddle in basic aspects of visual perception — our ability to distinguish colors, for example. Different languages divide up the color continuum differently: some make many more distinctions between colors than others, and the boundaries often don't line up across languages.

To test whether differences in color language lead to differences in color perception, we compared Russian and English speakers' ability to discriminate shades of blue. In Russian there is no single word that covers all the colors that English speakers call "blue." Russian makes an obligatory distinction between light blue (goluboy) and dark blue (siniy). Does this distinction mean that siniy blues look more different from goluboy blues to Russian speakers? Indeed, the data say yes. Russian speakers are quicker to distinguish two shades of blue that are called by the different names in Russian (i.e., one being siniy and the other being goluboy) than if the two fall into the same category.

For English speakers, all these shades are still designated by the same word, "blue," and there are no comparable differences in reaction time.

Further, the Russian advantage disappears when subjects are asked to perform a verbal interference task (reciting a string of digits) while making color judgments but not when they're asked to perform an equally difficult spatial interference task (keeping a novel visual pattern in memory). The disappearance of the advantage when performing a verbal task shows that language is normally involved in even surprisingly basic perceptual judgments — and that it is language per se that creates this difference in perception between Russian and English speakers.

When Russian speakers are blocked from their normal access to language by a verbal interference task, the differences between Russian and English speakers disappear.

Even what might be deemed frivolous aspects of language can have far-reaching subconscious effects on how we see the world. Take grammatical gender. In Spanish and other Romance languages, nouns are either masculine or feminine. In many other languages, nouns are divided into many more genders ("gender" in this context meaning class or kind). For example, some Australian Aboriginal languages have up to sixteen genders, including classes of hunting weapons, canines, things that are shiny, or, in the phrase made famous by cognitive linguist George Lakoff, "women, fire, and dangerous things."

What it means for a language to have grammatical gender is that words belonging to different genders get treated differently grammatically and words belonging to the same grammatical gender get treated the same grammatically. Languages can require speakers to change pronouns, adjective and verb endings, possessives, numerals, and so on, depending on the noun's gender. For example, to say something like "my chair was old" in Russian (moy stul bil' stariy), you'd need to make every word in the sentence agree in gender with "chair" (stul), which is masculine in Russian. So you'd use the masculine form of "my," "was," and "old." These are the same forms you'd use in speaking of a biological male, as in "my grandfather was old." If, instead of speaking of a chair, you were speaking of a bed (krovat'), which is feminine in Russian, or about your grandmother, you would use the feminine form of "my," "was," and "old."

Does treating chairs as masculine and beds as feminine in the grammar make Russian speakers think of chairs as being more like men and beds as more like women in some way? It turns out that it does. In one study, we asked German and Spanish speakers to describe objects having opposite gender assignment in those two languages. The descriptions they gave differed in a way predicted by grammatical gender. For example, when asked to describe a "key" — a word that is masculine in German and feminine in Spanish — the German speakers were more likely to use words like "hard," "heavy," "jagged," "metal," "serrated," and "useful," whereas Spanish speakers were more likely to say "golden," "intricate," "little," "lovely," "shiny," and "tiny." To describe a "bridge," which is feminine in German and masculine in Spanish, the German speakers said "beautiful," "elegant," "fragile," "peaceful," "pretty," and "slender," and the Spanish speakers said "big," "dangerous," "long," "strong," "sturdy," and "towering." This was true even though all testing was done in English, a language without grammatical gender. The same pattern of results also emerged in entirely nonlinguistic tasks (e.g., rating similarity between pictures). And we can also show that it is aspects of language per se that shape how people think: teaching English speakers new grammatical gender systems influences mental representations of objects in the same way it does with German and Spanish speakers. Apparently even small flukes of grammar, like the seemingly arbitrary assignment of gender to a noun, can have an effect on people's ideas of concrete objects in the world.7

In fact, you don't even need to go into the lab to see these effects of language; you can see them with your own eyes in an art gallery. Look at some famous examples of personification in art — the ways in which abstract entities such as death, sin, victory, or time are given human form. How does an artist decide whether death, say, or time should be painted as a man or a woman? It turns out that in 85 percent of such personifications, whether a male or female figure is chosen is predicted by the grammatical gender of the word in the artist's native language. So, for example, German painters are more likely to paint death as a man, whereas Russian painters are more likely to paint death as a woman.

The fact that even quirks of grammar, such as grammatical gender, can affect our thinking is profound. Such quirks are pervasive in language; gender, for example, applies to all nouns, which means that it is affecting how people think about anything that can be designated by a noun. That's a lot of stuff!

I have described how languages shape the way we think about space, time, colors, and objects. Other studies have found effects of language on how people construe events, reason about causality, keep track of number, understand material substance, perceive and experience emotion, reason about other people's minds, choose to take risks, and even in the way they choose professions and spouses.8 Taken together, these results show that linguistic processes are pervasive in most fundamental domains of thought, unconsciously shaping us from the nuts and bolts of cognition and perception to our loftiest abstract notions and major life decisions. Language is central to our experience of being human, and the languages we speak profoundly shape the way we think, the way we see the world, the way we live our lives.

1 S. C. Levinson and D. P. Wilkins, eds., Grammars of Space: Explorations in Cognitive Diversity (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006).

2 Levinson, Space in Language and Cognition: Explorations in Cognitive Diversity (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003).

3 B. Tversky et al., “ Cross-Cultural and Developmental Trends in Graphic Productions,” Cognitive Psychology 23(1991): 515–7; O. Fuhrman and L. Boroditsky, “Mental Time-Lines Follow Writing Direction: Comparing English and Hebrew Speakers.” Proceedings of the 29th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society (2007): 1007–10.

4 L. Boroditsky, "Do English and Mandarin Speakers Think Differently About Time?" Proceedings of the 48th Annual Meeting of the Psychonomic Society (2007): 34.

5 D. Casasanto et al., "How Deep Are Effects of Language on Thought? Time Estimation in Speakers of English, Indonesian Greek, and Spanish," Proceedings of the 26th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society (2004): 575–80.

6 Ibid., "How Deep Are Effects of Language on Thought? Time Estimation in Speakers of English and Greek" (in review); L. Boroditsky, "Does Language Shape Thought? English and Mandarin Speakers' Conceptions of Time." Cognitive Psychology 43, no. 1(2001): 1–22.

7 L. Boroditsky et al. "Sex, Syntax, and Semantics," in D. Gentner and S. Goldin-Meadow, eds., Language in Mind: Advances in the Study of Language and Cognition (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2003), 61–79.

8 L. Boroditsky, "Linguistic Relativity," in L. Nadel ed., Encyclopedia of Cognitive Science (London: MacMillan, 2003), 917–21; B. W. Pelham et al., "Why Susie Sells Seashells by the Seashore: Implicit Egotism and Major Life Decisions." Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 82, no. 4(2002): 469–86; A. Tversky & D. Kahneman, "The Framing of Decisions and the Psychology of Choice." Science 211(1981): 453–58; P. Pica et al., "Exact and Approximate Arithmetic in an Amazonian Indigene Group." Science 306(2004): 499–503; J. G. de Villiers and P. A. de Villiers, "Linguistic Determinism and False Belief," in P. Mitchell and K. Riggs, eds., Children's Reasoning and the Mind (Hove, UK: Psychology Press, in press); J. A. Lucy and S. Gaskins, "Interaction of Language Type and Referent Type in the Development of Nonverbal Classification Preferences," in Gentner and Goldin-Meadow, 465–92; L. F. Barrett et al., "Language as a Context for Emotion Perception," Trends in Cognitive Sciences 11(2007): 327–32.

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The Power of Language: Exploring its Significance in Shaping Perceptions, Beliefs, and Relationships

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How Language Shapes Our World

What you think is what you see.

Posted September 10, 2015

When you open your eyes, you see a colorful three-dimensional world of objects and events. Add to the mixture a panoply of sounds, smells, tastes, and bodily sensations, and you’ve got the consciousness we all take for granted. We think we’re experiencing the world as it is, but we’re not—it’s a virtual reality constructed inside our heads.

Our perception of the world seems to be a passive process. Light comes into our eyes, sound comes into our ears, and our brains sort it out to create a conscious experience that more or less mirrors reality. But our brain isn’t just a passive receiver of information.

Instead, our brains are constantly making predictions about what’s out there. Our perceptions, then, are more about what the brain expects to encounter than what is truly there. In fact, the brain will blatantly disregard the information it receives from the senses, especially in situations where that sensory input doesn’t match up with years of experience.

The Cornsweet illusion is a good example. The upper tile in the picture appears to be darker than the lower tile, but in fact they’re the same color. You can verify this by placing your finger along the edge between them.

Now that you know the two tiles are the same color, you’d think the apparent difference would disappear when you removed your finger. But no! Your brain stubbornly goes back to its original interpretation. But why?

Here’s the reason for the Cornsweet illusion. For all your life, your brain has been dealing with patterns of lighting and shading. If both tiles appear to be the same color, then the top tile must be darker, because it’s in the light. Likewise, the bottom one must actually be lighter, since it’s in the shade. This is how your brain reasons. That is, your brain shows you what it thinks the colors should be, not what your eyes say they are.

Most of the visual illusions you encounter on the internet or in Psychology 101 classes can be explained in terms of “top-down” perception, in which you experience the world as the brain expects it to be. This is in contrast to “bottom-up” perception, in which the brain represents the sensory input more or less faithfully.

Scientists have known about top-down perception for a century now. But psychologists Gary Lupyan of the University of Wisconsin and Andy Clark of the University of Edinburgh argue that top-down perception isn’t just limited to low-level processing like adjusting for lighting and shading. Instead, they argue that this is the brain’s default method for engaging with the world.

Imagine navigating through your house in the dark. You can do this not because you can see the furniture and the stairs, but because you know where they are and how to navigate around them. Likewise, consider backing out of your driveway. You can’t see the edge of the garage door or the mailbox, but you know how to maneuver the car to miss them.

The brain uses information flowing in from the senses to verify its predictions. And when the brain isn’t confident about its expectations, as when driving down an unfamiliar road, it depends much more on bottom-up perception.

Perception-as-prediction influences all sorts of daily experiences. For example, we enjoy music not because the sounds coming in are inherently pleasing. Rather, we’re pleased by the music because it matches our expectations. That’s why music from other cultures (or other generations) can be hard to listen to. Since it’s unfamiliar, we can’t make good expectations about it.

Expectations also play an important role in our interpersonal relationships. We’re constantly making predictions about what others will say or do, and we’re right so much of the time that we don’t even notice it. It’s only when they behave contrary to our expectations that they catch our attention .

While language perception is driven by expectations, Lupyan and Clark point out that language also creates expectations that influence our perception of the world more generally. This is because we don’t just use language to communicate with others, we use it to think to ourselves.

Psychologists and linguists have debated since the early twentieth century whether the language we speak can influence the way we perceive the world. For example, different languages divides the color spectrum somewhat differently. Supporters of the linguistic relativity hypothesis take this as evidence that language influences thought and perception.

As long as we view perception as mainly a bottom-up process, with information mostly flowing from the eyes and ears to the brain, it’s hard to imagine how language could have an influence. But Lupyan and Clark’s model of perception-as-prediction explains why linguistic relativity effects occur.

Each language carves up the world somewhat differently. So each language provides its speakers with a particular worldview that won’t be quite the same as the one that speakers of other languages have. In other words, we see the world according to the framework our language imposes on us.

Lupyan, G. & Clark, A. (2015). Words and the world: predictive coding and the language-perception-cognition interface. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 24, 29-284.

David Ludden is the author of The Psychology of Language: An Integrated Approach (SAGE Publications).

David Ludden, Ph.D. , is a professor of psychology at Georgia Gwinnett College.

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Language and Identity Essay

Introduction.

• Language and Gender
• Language and Racial Identity
• Language and Social Status

Works Cited

Language serves as a vital means of expression, facilitating communication and interaction. It’s not merely a tool for conveying thoughts but is intrinsically linked with an individual’s identity. The question arises: How is language profoundly intertwined with identity?

Individuals, each with their unique characteristics, employ language to express their distinctions or commonalities. In particular, language can be a unifying force for people belonging to a specific social group, highlighting the bond between language and identity from the beginning.

An individual’s identity is not fixed; it varies depending on the situation, purpose, and context. When people find themselves in new environments, they often reshape their identities to adapt. This adaptability underscores the need to explore how environmental changes can redefine the link between language and identity.

Language can also indicate a person’s social status, race, nationality, or gender. Typically, members of a specific group share a common language, reinforcing their unity. This shared linguistic experience solidifies group identity and fosters a sense of belonging through shared experiences and ease of communication.

In this language and identity essay, we explore the dynamic interplay between these two concepts, exploring how they mutually influence and define each other.

Language and Identity: Gender

The intersection of language and gender identity reveals distinct patterns. Across various cultures, gender-based variations in speech are prevalent. Historically, linguistic differences have been observed in how women and men communicate. These differences often stem from the divergent social statuses of men and women, significantly influencing their manner of speaking. Power dynamics and societal roles of subordination between genders typically manifest in their vocabulary choices.

In many societies, there is an expectation for women to use more refined and polite language compared to men. Such cultural norms frequently discourage women from using profanity or obscene language. In these contexts, women often occupy a subordinate position, with their social liberties being more restricted than men’s. This disparity can increase insecurity, uncertainty, and a lack of confidence among women (Talbot 35). Consequently, the use of language within a society can indicate the level of social freedom and gender equality. The linguistic choices of men and women are integral to the discourse on language and identity. Those are not merely reflections of individual preferences but norms deeply embedded in societal structures and expectations. Gendered language norms, as explored in educational settings, not only shape communication styles but also reinforce gender stereotypes and roles, perpetuating inequality. Thus, studying language about gender identity, a key component in teacher education programs, provides critical insights into the broader societal dynamics and power relations that govern gender interactions.

Language and Identity: Race

The intricate relationship between language and racial or ethnic identity is undeniable. An individual’s history shapes their language, leading to those with similar racial backgrounds often using similar languages for communication. One’s mother tongue, acquired at birth, is a fundamental aspect of racial identity, providing a crucial sense of belonging, especially in early life.

In many households, a specific language is used for family communication. This habitual use of a language fosters an association with affection and intimacy, setting it apart from the language used in public settings. For example, Hispanic families living in America often identify Spanish as a critical component of their racial identity.

Consequently, while they might use English in public spaces, they prefer Spanish for intimate conversations with friends and family. Spanish allows for expressing emotions and thoughts in ways that might be more challenging in English (Talbot 173). Speaking a particular language can create a bond among its speakers, delineating an ‘us versus them’ dynamic with those who do not say it.

However, this practice can also lead to social isolation for minorities who speak a different language than the majority. They may struggle to relate to those who do not speak their native language or express themselves in the dominant public language. Even in monolingual societies, people often resort to a distinct language or dialect within their close social circles, aiding in more apparent emotional expression.

The narrative “Aria” by Richard Rodriguez illustrates the role of language as a marker of racial identity. Rodriguez recounts how Spanish, the sole language spoken at home, influenced his upbringing in California, where English was the norm. This use of Spanish fostered a warm, familial environment.

This language choice created a comfortable and inviting atmosphere at home, but it also labeled English speakers as “flos gringos” – the others (Rodriguez 134). While Spanish strengthened familial bonds and provided a sense of identity, it simultaneously isolated the family socially, limiting their interactions to Spanish-speaking relatives.

The exclusive use of Spanish at home adversely affected Rodriguez and his siblings’ educational progress. A shift occurred when nuns from their school intervened, prompting the family to start using English at home. This change markedly improved their social interactions. However, over time, Rodriguez lost proficiency in Spanish, leading his relatives to call him “pocho derogatorily” – a term for someone who has lost their identity (Rodriguez 137). To his relatives, speaking Spanish was a crucial element of their identity. “Aria” underscores the significance of language in racial identity. Despite assimilating into American society, Rodriguez experienced a nostalgic connection to his heritage whenever he heard Spanish spoken, indicating its enduring link to his racial identity.

Language and Identity: Social Status

The social status of individuals often manifests in their speech patterns. Educational attainment significantly influences language proficiency, as those from higher social classes typically access better education. This access equips them with the skills to use language effectively in communication.

People from various social backgrounds tend to exhibit distinct dialects. These dialectic variations reflect their diverse social experiences. Grammatical differences are not the only distinguishing factors; phonological and phonetic variations are also prevalent, leading to distinct accents among different social statuses. Therefore, the linguistic divide between social classes acts as both a consequence and a reinforcer of social stratification, mirroring the complexities of societal hierarchies. This phenomenon underscores the intricate relationship between language use and social identity, where speech patterns become markers of social positioning and mobility.

During the nineteenth century, slavery was a prevalent institution in America. Slaves were relegated to the lowest social echelon. Slave owners were intent on preserving this hierarchy, deeming it improper for slaves to acquire literacy skills. The ability to read and write was seen as a potential elevation of the slaves’ intellectual status, which could threaten the established order. Thus, the enforced illiteracy of slaves perpetuated their subjugation and created a linguistic divide between them and their masters (Jones and Christensen 45). In modern times, every society exhibits some form of social stratification. This concept refers to the structured ranking of social classes within a societal hierarchy. Their relative social distances influence the linguistic impact between social groups. Language changes in a higher social class might have little to no effect on the language used by lower social classes. Conversely, social groups closely aligned in status may share similar linguistic traits.

Language is integral in facilitating effective communication between two parties. However, its efficiency largely depends on both parties’ language understanding. As such, language can be a tool for enhancing or impeding communication. Individuals need to understand the nuances of words within the specific language used.

Misinterpretation of language can lead to incorrect perceptions of the message being conveyed. This issue often arises because some words may have varied meanings depending on the context. Therefore, the speaker must assess the listener’s ability to comprehend the information, which should be a central consideration in the communication process (Tan 142). This ensures that the intended message is accurately understood.

Language has two main functions. It helps communicate and gives a group of people a sense of identity and pride. People usually identify themselves with a specific language. Various groups use jargon that is only comprehensible to people within the group.

Language may show the social status, gender, and race of an individual. People who belong to different social statuses usually use other languages. In addition, different genders use different language vocabularies. A study on the language vocabulary of different genders may help determine a society’s social freedom. Language is a source of racial identity. People usually use a specific language when communicating with people from their race. The use of this language creates racial identity.

Jones, Malinda E., and Ann E. Christensen. “Learning to Read.” Constructing Strong Foundations of Early Literacy . Routledge, 2022. 33-46.

Talbot, Mary, ed. Language and Power in The Modern World . Edinburgh University Press, 2019.

Rodriguez, Richard. “Aria.” The Blair Reader: Exploring Issues and Ideas . Ed. Laurie G. Kirszner and Stephen R. Mandell. Ontario: Pearson Education Canada, 2007, pp. 133-139.

Tan, Amy “Mother Tongue.” The Blair Reader: Exploring Issues and Ideas . Ed. Laurie G. Kirszner and Stephen R. Mandell. Ontario: Pearson Education Canada, 2007, pp. 140-144.

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• Published: 08 March 2023

Changing perceptions of language in sociolinguistics

• Jiayu Wang 1 ,
• Guangyu Jin 1 , 2 &
• Wenhua Li 1  

Humanities and Social Sciences Communications volume  10 , Article number:  91 ( 2023 ) Cite this article

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• Language and linguistics

This paper traces the changing perceptions of language in sociolinguistics. These perceptions of language are reviewed in terms of language in its verbal forms, and language in vis-à-vis as a multimodal construct. In reviewing these changing perceptions, this paper examines different concepts or approaches in sociolinguistics. By reviewing these trends of thoughts and applications, this article intends to shed light on ontological issues such as what constitutes language, and where its place is in multimodal practices in sociolinguistics. Expanding the ontology of language from verbal resources toward various multimodal constructs has enabled sociolinguists to pursue meaning-making, indexicalities and social variations in its most authentic state. Language in a multimodal construct entails the boundaries and distinctions between various modes, while language as a multimodal construct sees language itself as multimodal; it focuses on the social constructs, social meaning and language as a force in social change rather than the combination or orchestration of various modes in communication. Language as a multimodal construct has become the dominant trend in contemporary sociolinguistic studies.

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Introduction.

This article will review a range of sociolinguistic concepts and their applications in multimodal studies, in relation to how language has been conceptualized in sociolinguistics. While there are reviews of specific areas of research in sociolinguistics, including prosody and sociolinguistic variation (Holliday, 2021 ), language and masculinities (Lawson, 2020 ), and Language change across the lifespan (Sankoff, 2018 ), there have been few reviews works set out to delineate the most fundamental ontological questions in sociolinguistic studies; that is, what is and what constitutes language? How do sociolinguists perceive language in relation to other semiotic resources that are part and parcel of social meaning-making and social interaction? Relevant discussions are scattered in passing mainly in the introductory sections of various sociolinguistic works, such as Blommaert ( 1999 ), García and Li ( 2014 ) and Makoni and Pennycook ( 2005 ). However, there have not been review articles systematically dealing with the changing perceptions of language in sociolinguistic studies.

These issues are worthwhile to pursue in the sense that though sociolinguistics studies language, yet no reviews were done regarding what on earth constitutes language, especially in relation to a wider range of semiotic resources. What even makes the review more imperative is that in an increasingly globalized and high-tech world, linguistic practices are complicated by the super-diversity of ethnic fluidity, communications technologies, and globalized cross-cultural art.

Centring on the ontological perception of language in sociolinguistics, this article consists of five sections. After the “Introduction” section, the next section will review traditional (socio)linguistic perceptions of language as written or spoken signs or symbols that people use to communicate or interact with each other. The next section will review representative sociolinguistic approaches that place language in multimodal settings which involve the relationship between language and other semiotic resources. They are categorized as the conceptualizations of “language in multimodal construct” and “language as multimodal construct”. These conceptualizations share the common feature that language is not researched merely in terms of written and spoken signs and symbols, but it is probed (1) in relation to its multimodal contexts and (re)contextualization (regarding language in multimodal construct), (2) in terms of its own materiality and spatiality, and linguistic representations of multimodality, for instance, social (inter)action and “smellscapes” (Pennycook and Otsuji, 2015a ) which are in turn conflated with linguistic features (regarding language as multimodal construct). The penultimate section and the last section will present a critical reflection and a conclusion of the review, respectively.

Language as written and spoken signs and symbols

What constitutes language(s)? Saussure ( 1916 ) distinguishes between langue and parole. The former refers to the abstract, systematic rules and conventions of the signifying system, while the latter represents language in daily use. Chomsky ( 1965 ) refers to them as competence (corresponding to langue) and performance (corresponding to parole). Chomsky ( 1965 ) assumes that performance is bound up with “grammatically irrelevant conditions as memory limitations, distractions, shifts of attention and interest, and errors (random or characteristic) in applying his knowledge of this language in actual performance” (Chomsky, 1965 , pp. 3–4). He advocates that the agenda of linguistics should be the study of competence of “an ideal speaker-listener, in a completely homogeneous speech-community, who knows its (the speech community’s) language perfectly” (in brackets original). His conception of the ideal language rules out the “imperfections” arising from the influences of social or pragmatic dimensions in real language use. This can be seen as the conception of language as innate human competence. By contrast, constructionists have argued that language cannot be separated from the societal and social domain; social reality is constructed through languages (Berger and Luckmann, 1966 ), and linguistics should take social dimensions into account, as shown by Systemic Functional Linguistics developed by Halliday. These approaches to language studies, nevertheless, do not pay much attention to the ontological issues of language or linguistics concerning what constitutes language, whether languages can be separated from each other, and whether there are different conceptions of language(s).

Sociolinguistics, taking as its departure an interdisciplinary attempt to be the sociology regarding linguistic issues or linguistics regarding sociological issues, faces the ambivalent positioning of whether it should be sociologically oriented (that is, more explanatory) or linguistically oriented (that is, more descriptive) (Cameron, 1990 ). Also, there are contentions regarding whether more attention should be paid to epistemically linguistic minutiae (as in conversation analysis or CA), or to the macro-social interpretation of ideology not necessarily dependent on the evident orientation of the participants (as in critical discourse analysis, or CDA), as debated in Blommaert ( 2005 ) and Schegloff ( 1992 , 1998a / 1998b , 1999 ). As such, more sociolinguists than linguists in other disciplines are concerned with the ontology of language regarding its nature and its relation with broader social structures. In other words, such concerns can, firstly, justify the identity of sociolinguistics being either a branch of sociology, or linguistics, or even more broadly, anthropology. They can also delineate the contour of the macro vis-à-vis micro research subjects: are languages seen as separate systems, or inseparable but relatively fixed systems or an integrated construction in relation to their social dimensions of power, ideology and hegemony?

Such ontological concerns are important, because different approaches to research may be engendered accordingly. For instance, variational sociolinguistics is concerned with the linguistic differences within a language (standard language vis-à-vis its variations in dialects) and examines how these differences are linked to social aspects of linguistic practices, such as gender and social status. These differences within a certain category of language may be placed in the changing situations of various language communities or areas (e.g., Labov, 1963 , 1966 ), or in contextualized pragmatic situations (Agha, 2003 ; Eckert, 2008 ). Assumptions of separable or separate languages may be well-encapsulated in the works regarding language ideology and linguistic differentiation, such as the studies by Kroskrity ( 1998 ), Irvine and Gal ( 2000 ), as well as considerable other works on bilingualism or multilingualism. These works treat language as belonging to different standard systems (e.g., English, French, German, and so on) and can be pursued by “enumerating” these categories. In other words, these standard language systems are seen as having clear boundaries between them, and language can be researched by attributing different linguistic resources to (one of) these systems. The stance of the inseparability of language problematizes the enumeration of languages, by discrediting their explanatory potential in linguistic practices. In pedagogical contexts, transnational students are found using language features beyond the boundaries of language systems (Creese and Blackledge, 2010 ; Lewis et al., 2012 ). In the context of youth or urban culture, there are loosely fixed assumptions between language and ethnicity (Maher, 2005 ; Woolard, 1999 ). In some globalized contexts, new communications technologies as well as globalization itself are changing the traditional power structure in linguistic practices (Jacquemet, 2005 ; Jørgensen, 2008 ; Jørgensen et al., 2011 ). Furthermore, Makoni and Pennycook ( 2005 ), by advocating the disinvention of languages, problematize the process of “historical amnesia” (Makoni and Pennycook, 2005 , p. 149) of bi- and multilingualism, and their tradition of enumerating languages which reduces sociolinguistics to at best a “pluralization of monolingualism” (Makoni and Pennycook, 2005 , p. 148). However, this does mean that languages cannot be probed as standard categories. It holds a more intricate stance: on the one hand, it problematizes the separation of languages, as language is characterized by fluidity in multi-ethnic settings; on the other hand, it assumes the fixity of the relationship between a given (standard) language and its corresponding identity, ethnicity, and other societal factors (Otsuji and Pennycook, 2010 ); fluidity and fixity, however, are not binary attributes that exclude each other; they coexist, mutually influence each other in real-life linguistic practices. By the same token, Blackledge and Creese ( 2010 ) and Martin-Jones et al. ( 2012 ) also hold a dynamic view on language and identity: while language functions as “heritage” (see Blackledge and Creese, 2010 , pp. 164–180) and the positioning or maintenance of national identity, the bondage, however, frequently loosens as it is always contested, resisted and “disinvented” (Makoni and Pennycook, 2005 ). Table 1 illustrates three kinds of sociolinguistic conceptualizations of language.

The above discussion briefly delineates how contemporary sociolinguistic studies attempt to capture the complex ways in which the notion of language is construed, resisted or reinvented in and through practices. Most of these approaches are based on the traditional assumption of language as written signs and symbols in its verbal forms. Other forms of resources are generally seen as contexts where these verbal signs and symbols take place. They are contextual facets that contribute to the ideological and sociological corollary of language use, but they are not seen as ontological components in linguistics. Later developments, which integrate multimodal studies into sociolinguistics, show differing stances regarding the ontology of language, as shown in the next section.

Language in vis-à-vis as multimodal construct

Jewitt ( 2013 , p. 141) defines multimodality as “an inter-disciplinary approach that understands communication and representation to be more than about language”. This should be seen as a definition oriented toward social semiotics, in which different semiotic resources are seen as various modes of representation or communication through semiosis. For a sociolinguistic version of the definition, we prefer to interpret it as language in vis-à-vis as a multimodal construct. By using the word “construct”, we would like to point out that multimodality or multimodal conventions enter into sociolinguistic studies because they are socially constructed; that is, sociolinguists research these multimodal dimensions because they are semiotic resources and practices which are constructed by social subjects with power, manipulation and ideology. They are not neutral resources by which people communicate information or by which the process of meaning-making, or semiosis, is realized. Instead, they are a social construct that constitutes the type of Foucauldian knowledge in which sociological power and ideology lie at the core. In this sense, the notions, frameworks, and approaches that we discuss as follows are socially critical in nature and are predominantly related to socially constructed ideologies such as hegemony, power, and identity. As Makoni and Pennycook ( 2005 ) note, languages are “invented” by the dominant (colonial) groups through classification and naming in history; they are not neutral practices and they are constructed and invested with ideologies, power and inequality. Sociolinguistics thus needs a historically critical perspective. In fact, since its birth, sociolinguistics has been a discipline focusing on language use in relation to socially critical issues, such as gender, race, class and politics. This focus can date back as early as Labov’s ( 1963 , 1966 ) ethnographical research on variations of English on the island of Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts and in New York City. The sound change or phonetic features are studied in relation to ethnicity, social stratification and class. Agha ( 2003 ) and Eckert ( 2008 ) also probe the phonetic features or regional change of variations in relation to ethnicity and social and economic status.

In fact, the above-mentioned concerns of sociolinguistics are also consistent with CDA (see Wang and Jin, 2022 ; Wang and Yang, 2022 ), especially multimodal critical discourse analysis (MCDA), which also contributes to the research trend in terms of language in multimodality. Kress and van Leeuwen ( 1996 ) postulates a set of visual grammar based on systemic functional grammar. Machin ( 2016 ) and Machin and Mayr ( 2012 ) and other scholars have also adopted MCDA in various types of discourse. Semiotic resources other than language are analysed to reveal the social construct of power, ideology, and inequality in relation to verbal resources (Wang, 2014 , 2016a , 2016b ). Language in the multimodal construct in sociolinguistics is quite similar to the social semiotic and critical discourse approach to multimodality: language is seen as one type of resource, amongst other non-language resources (visual, aural, embodied, and spatial) in the meaning-making process. The difference lies in that sociolinguistic approaches toward language in multimodality have much more focus on social interaction, power and ideology and their research frequently includes ethnographical data and observations. Language as a multimodal construct, by contrast, sees language as a more integral part of multimodal resources, and vice versa; less distinct boundaries are seen as existing between languages and non-languages. These two trends of conceptions are discussed below.

Language in multimodal construct

To place language studies in the multimodal construct is not a new practice in sociolinguistics. Agha ( 2003 , p. 29) analyses the Bainbridge cartoon, treating accent not as “object of metasemiotic scrutiny”, but as an integral element in “the social perils of improper demeanour in many sign modalities” such as dress, posture, gait and gesture. His discussion demonstrates how language studies can be embedded in a larger multimodal scope. Language is contextualized by its peripheral multimodal paralinguistic sign systems. In Eckert ( 2008 , p. 25), the process of “bricolage” (Hebdige, 1984 ), in which “individual resources can be interpreted and combined with other resources to construct a more complex meaningful entity”, is linked to the style and language variations which reflect social meaning. She gives examples of how the clothing of students at Palo Alto High School affords them certain types of styles to convey social meaning. Eckert ( 2001 ), Coupland ( 2003 , 2007 ) and other scholars’ research represent the “third-wave” sociolinguistic studies, which see the use of variation in terms of personal and social styles (Eckert, 2012 ). Language and other semiotic resources constitute a stylistic complex that makes social meaning and constructs social styles and identities together. Goodwin ( 2007 ) extensively encompasses multimodal interaction in the examination of participation, stance and affect in a “homework” interaction between a father and his daughter, where gaze, gesture, and the spatial environment are taken into account. Goodwin’s research is partly premised on Bourdieu’s ( 1991 , pp. 81–89) associating bodily hexis with habitus , which is also a notion that is multimodal in itself. The deployment of different bodily modes in different contexts of participation (such as homework, archaeology, and surgery) depends on conventions of various social practices or their respective habitus .

Research regarding language in multimodal construct shares some common ground with the social semiotic approach towards multimodality. First, in communication, there are different modes of resources or semiotic types that convey social meaning and embed ideology. Second, these resources consist of language and “non-language”: the former being written or spoken signs and symbols that social actors use to communicate, and the latter being visual, aural, or embodied ones in that language are situated. Third, meaning-making is done through the orchestration of these resources.

In contrast to social semiotic approaches, with an anthropology-oriented concern, language in the multimodal construct as a sociological and sociolinguistic approach usually bases itself on ethnographical observations of social interaction. Language is seen as a component in social interactional discourse; other semiotic modes or resources are also important resources through which language use is contextualized. To be more specific, language in multimodal construct shows concerns with language as one type of semiotic resource that is placed in multimodal contexts in the following aspects:

First, meaning-making through other resources is seen as “add-ons” to that of language. In other words, language indexes social meaning and ideology in collaboration with other types of resources. An example is Agha’s ( 2003 ) analysis of the Bainbridge cartoon in which clothes, demeanour, and even body shape work in collaboration with accent in conveying register and social status. Second, language as one type of social meaning-making resource can be conceptualized in relation to the meaning-making process of other resources. For example, the process of “bricolage” is probed in relation to variations with their indexed styles and social categorization in terms of “gender and adolescence” (Eckert, 2008 , p. 458). This concept is used to offer clues regarding how “the differential use of variables constituted distinct styles associated with different communities of practice” (Eckert, 2008 , p. 458). Third, language is one of the communicative modes in social interactional discourse. It does not necessarily take the central role, because other types of resources, such as gestures, gaze, and the environment where these actions take place, jointly constitute the social meaning-making process. This can be best encapsulated in Goodwin’s ( 2007 ) analysis of the “homework” interaction between a father and his daughter. In this quite mundane interactional discourse, the father uses different embodied actions to negotiate different moral and affective stances through the “homework interaction” with his daughter. Conversation as a linguistic resource plays a role in the interaction, while embodied actions are key factors in affecting these stances.

Language as a multimodal construct

A slightly different approach to studies of language in multimodal contexts is to view it as a multimodal construct: either in the way that language is considered as autonomously constituting the semiotic texture (e.g., in the art form of the “text art” where text is also seen as picture) or in the way that some traditionally assumed extra-linguistic modes are considered as special forms or dimensions of language. This trend of research includes recent studies on language in space, social interactional multimodal discourse analysis, and new concepts or conceptualizations of language in society, as discussed below.

Language in space: semiotic landscape, place semiotics, and discourse geography

Jaworski and Thurlow ( 2010 ) review the notion of spatialization , that is, the semiotics and discursivity of space (Jaworski and Thurlow, 2010 ), and the extension of the notion of the linguistic landscape. By so doing, they frame the concept of semiotic landscape as encapsulating how written discourse interacts with other multimodal discursive resources with blurring boundaries in between.

In their opinion, space is “not only physically but also socially constructed, which necessarily shifts absolutist notions of space towards more communicative or discursive conceptualizations” (Jaworski and Thurlow, 2010 , p. 7). Sociological research on space thus is more oriented toward spatialization, “the different processes by which space comes to be represented, organized and experienced” (Jaworski and Thurlow, 2010 , p. 6). This spatialization—as represented discursively—is intrinsically multimodal:

Echoing the sentiments of Kress and van Leeuwen quoted at the start of this chapter, Markus and Cameron argue that ‘[b]uildings themselves are not representations’ (p. 15), but ways of organizing space for their users; in other words, the way buildings are used and the way people using them relate to one another, is largely dependent on the spoken, written and pictorial texts about these buildings… Architecture and language (spoken and written) may then form an even more complex, multi-layered landscape (or cityscape) combining built environment, writing, images, as well as other semiotic modes, such as speech, music, photography, and movement…(Jaworski and Thurlow, 2010 , pp. 19–20)

The “spatial turn” (Jaworski and Thurlow, 2010 , p. 6) in sociolinguistics thus adds the analytical dimensions of multimodal resources to the traditional concept of the linguistic landscape. Written language itself does convey social meaning and ideologies, while it is situated in materiality (the materials it is written on) and spatiality (the places where it appears). The concept of the semiotic landscape blurs the traditional boundary between language and non-language.

Different from social semiotic approaches towards multimodality, researchers of semiotic landscape pay predominant attention to the “metalinguistic or metadiscursive nature of ideologies” (Jaworski and Thurlow, 2010 , p. 11). In Kallen’s words, the concept of semiotic landscape starts from the assumption that “sinage is indexical of more than the ostensive message of the sign”. (Kallen, 2010 , p. 41); signage indexes ideologies that are embedded in, or indicated by, different types of space or spatiality: city centre, tourist places, districts and so on. Less interest is invested in the process of semiosis regarding how different modes of signs are orchestrated to communicate information, which is one of the primary endeavours of social semiotics (Li and Wang, 2022 ; Wang, 2014 , 2019 ; Wang and Li, 2022 ). As such, in ethnographical studies or data analysis, language, materiality, and spatiality are usually seen as interwoven with each other, with no distinct boundaries in between; or at least, boundary-marking is not the primary concern of semiotic landscape.

In the same vein, Scollon and Scollon ( 2003 , p. 2) coin the term “geosemiotics” (or “place semiotics”) which is “the study of the social meaning of signs and discourses and of our actions in the material world”. Their research objects are signs in public places. The conceptual framework of “geosemiotics” sees language as a multimodal construct in terms of the following aspects. First, verbal language is analysed by using social semiotic approaches to visuals. Code preference (regarding which language is seen as “primary” language) shown on signs or buildings is analysed by using Kress and van Leeuwen’s ( 1996 , p. 208) conception of compositional meaning indexed by different positions in pictures. Second, language is seen as multimodal itself. Language on signs or buildings is analysed in terms of the multimodal inscription (see Scollon and Scollon, 2003 , pp. 129–142) that includes fonts, letter form, material quality, layering and state changes. Third, the emplacement (referring to meaning-making through positioning signs in different places) in geosemiotics, similar to Jaworski and Thurlow’s ( 2010 ) approach towards the semiotic landscape, is predominantly concerned with spatiality and metalinguistic or metadiscursive ideology, rather than the interaction and orchestration of different modes (language vis-à-vis non-language) in semiosis.

Similar to the concepts of semiotic landscape and place semiotics, Gu ( 2009 , 2012 ) postulates the framework of four-borne discourse and discourse geography. Based on Blommaert’s ( 2005 , p. 2) view of discourse as “language-in-action”, Gu analyses the language and activities in social actors’ trajectories of time and space in the land-borne situated discourse (LBSD): a type of discourse categorized by Gu ( 2009 ) according to different types of spatiality as carriers and places where the discourses take place. In Gu’s ( 2012 ) conceptualizations, language and discourse are metaphorically spatialized: language is seen in terms of the place where it takes place. Multimodality is evaluated based on space (Gu, 2009 ). Though it is arguable to what extent language is seen as a conflation of modes or semiotic attributes in Gu ( 2009 ), his work demarcates an ambivalent boundary between language and the “non-language”. Also, in “spatializing” language as discourse geography, it represents language and discourse as a PLACE or SPACE metaphor that is multimodal itself. In addition, it analyses the translation between different modes, for instance, the “modalization” of written language into visuals and sounds; visuals are also seen as forms of “modalized” language and vice versa. As such, Gu ( 2009 ) also represents the “spatial turn” of sociolinguistics which can be seen as the research trend that regards language as multimodal construct.

In general, the trend to spatialize language and discourse (or the “spatial turn”), with the concepts or frameworks such as semiotic landscape, place semiotics, and discourse geography, treats language as multimodal construct in the following two aspects. First, it focuses on metalinguistic or metadiscursive ideologies that are embedded in different modes of signs or symbols; also, Gu’s research metaphorically theorizes social interaction through multimodality. In other words, it posits that language itself is multimodal or modalizable in meaning-making. Written language has its multimodal dimensions such as facets of its inscription including fonts, letterform, material quality, layering and state changes (Scollon and Scollon, 2003 ). Different forms of language are multimodal in terms of spatiality: they can be naturally multimodal and aural-visual for instance in televised discourse; written language can also be “modalized” (Gu, 2009 , p. 11) into visuals (Gu, 2009 ). Overall, language is either considered as signs in the spatialized system or actions in trajectories of activities. It is an integral part of multimodal construct, where other modes (visual, gesture, action, and so on) are not peripheral or auxiliary, but frequently they also belong to linguistic resources, for instance, the visual resources in text arts.

Multimodal studies from the social interactional perspective

There are sociolinguistic approaches towards multimodality that combine social interactional sociolinguistics (Goffman, 1959 , 1963 , 1974 ), social semiotic approach towards multimodality (Kress and van Leeuwen, 1996 ), and intercultural communication (Wertsch, 1998 ). We summarize these approaches as multimodal studies from the social interactional perspective, which include mediated discourse analysis (Scollon and Scollon, 2003 ) and multimodal interaction analysis (Norris, 2004 ); the latter grew out of the former.

Multimodal studies from the social interactional perspective focus on people’s daily actions and interactions, and the environment and technologies with(in) which they take place. This trend of research sees discourse as (embedded in) social interaction and sets out to investigate social action through multimodal resources used in daily interaction, such as gestures, postures, and language (see Jones and Norris, 2005 ). In Norris’s ( 2004 ) framework for multimodal interaction analysis, units of analysis are a system of layered and hierarchical actions including the lower-level actions such as an utterance of spoken language, a gesture, or a posture, and the higher-level actions consisting of chains of higher-level actions. Norris ( 2004 ) also coins the term “modal density” to refer to the complexity of modes a social actor uses to produce higher-level actions.

The focus on hierarchical levels of actions and the concept of “modal density” entail reflections on the question with regard to what constitute(s) mode and language. Language in multimodal interaction analysis is seen as a type of lower-level action amongst other different embodied resources that are at interactants’ disposal. These embodied resources are seen as different modes such as gesture, gaze, and proxemics. But arguably gestures and gazes in Norris ( 2004 ) are also seen as forms of language in interaction as well. Furthermore, regarding the mode of spoken language, Norris ( 2004 ) and her other works methodologically treat it as a multimodal construct where the pitches and intonation are visualized through various fonts in the wave-shaped annotation, along with the policeman’s gestures, as shown in Fig. 1 .

The policeman’s spoken language is treated as a multimodal construct where the pitches and intonation are visualized through various fonts in the wave-shaped annotation, along with his gestures.

Multimodal studies from the social interactional perspective, similar to other sociolinguistic approaches to multimodality, target the meta-modal or metadiscursive facets of ideology. This is done through a bottom-up approach, that is, examining the general social categories of such as power, dominance and ideology from people’s daily (inter)action. This trend of research focuses on basic units of actions in people’s daily interaction; the conception of mode and language is oriented toward seeing language as multimodal; the methodological treatment of languages also shows this orientation. Multimodal studies from the social interactional perspective are intended to reveal the ideology and power embedded in language as action. Overall, they perceive language as a multimodal construct in social (inter)action.

Metrolingualism, heteroglossia, polylanguaging and multimodality

In the second section of the paper, we mentioned the works on some similar notions such as metrolingualism and polylanguaging. In this section, we will review the latest application of the notion of metrolingualism in multimodal analysis and discuss why other related notions or approaches also encapsulate the conceptualization regarding language as a multimodal construct.

Metrolingualism is a concept postulated by Otsuji and Pennycook ( 2010 ) originally referring to “creative linguistic conditions across space and borders of culture, history and politics, as a way to move beyond current terms such as multilingualism and multiculturalism” (Otsuji and Pennycook, 2010 , p. 244). Their later works (Pennycook and Otsuji, 2014 , 2015a , 2015b ) develop the concept and reformulate it as a broader notion encompassing the everyday language use in the city and linguistic landscapes in urban settings.

In Pennycook and Otsuji ( 2014 , 2015b ), metrolingualism involves the practice of “metrolingual multitasking” (Pennycook and Otsuji, 2015b , p. 15), in which “linguistic resources, everyday tasks and social space are intertwined” (Pennycook and Otsuji, 2015b , p. 15). Metrolingualism thus is not only concerned with the mixed use of linguistic resources (from different languages), but it involves how language use is involved in broader multimodal practices such as (embodied) actions accompanying or included in the metrolingual process, (changing) space or places where these actions and language use take place, and the objects in the environment. Pennycook and Otsuji ( 2015b ) include an olfactory mode in their analysis of the metrolingual practices in cities. Smell is represented through linguistic or pictorial signs in the city and suburb to constitute “smellscapes” in relation to social activities, ethnicities, gender and races. Metrolingual smellscapes are represented through the conflation of written and visual signs and symbols (e.g., street signs), social activities (e.g., buying and selling, and riding a bus), objects (e.g., spices), and places or spaces (e.g., suburb markets, coffee shops, buses and trains). The conventional distinction between language and the non-language is less important, or not at issue here, as smells have to be represented through language or visuals, and more resources are conceptualized as metrolingual other than languages.

Language in Pennycook and Otsuji’s ( 2014 , 2015a , 2015b ) conception of metrolingualism, in this regard, is seen as being integrated into different types of activities and actions; it is also spatialized in the sense that metrolingual practice is seen as involving the organization of space, the relationship between “locution and location” (Pennycook and Otsuji, 2015b , p. 84), (historical) layers of cities (Pennycook and Otsuji, 2015b , p. 140). The spatialization is intrinsically multimodal, which we have discussed in earlier sections.

In relation to metrolingualism, Jaworski ( 2014 ) briefly reviews the history of arts and writing, from which he chose the art form of “text art” as his research subject. Referring to the notion of metrolingualism, he sees these art forms as “metrolingual art”, where language interacts with other modes or is seen as part of the visual mode. He suggests that it be useful to “extend the range of semiotic features amenable to metrolingual usage to include whole multimodal resources” (Jaworski, 2014 , p. 151). The multimodal representations in text art are realized by mixing, meshing and queering of the linguistic features, as well as by its relation to a “melange of styles, genres, content, and materiality” (Jaworski, 2014 , p. 151). In this regard, the multimodal affordances (Kress, 2010 ; Jewitt, 2009 ) realized by materiality (e.g., papers, cloths, walls where the language is written), media (e.g., soundtrack, video, moving images, etc.), and styles (e.g., fonts, letterform, layering like add-ons or decorations) are an integral part of the metrolingualism. Subsequently, he postulates that it would be useful to align the concept of heteroglossia with metrolingualism, so as “to extend the idea of metrolingualism beyond ‘hybrid and multilingual’ speaker practices (Otsuji and Pennycook, 2010 , p. 244) and move towards a more ‘generic’ view of metrolingualism as a form of heteroglossia” (Jaworski, 2014 , p. 152). In this way, it relates the subject position taken by the producers of the text arts to their social orientation or alignment as regards power, domination, hegemony, and ideology in a broader social realm. This is also in line with Bailey’s discussion about heterogliossia: “(a) heteroglossia can encompass socially meaningful forms in both bilingual and monolingual talk; (b) it can account for the multiple meanings and readings of forms that are possible, depending on one’s subject position, and (c) it can connect historical power hierarchies to the meanings and valences of particular forms in the here-and-now” (Bailey, 2007 , pp. 266–267; also quoted in Jaworski, 2014 , p. 153). Overall, Jaworski ( 2014 ) shows how metrolingualism and heteroglossia can be used to analyse features of language and their place in multimodal construct. He also discusses how other notions which are similar to metrolingualism may bear a relationship with multimodality in that they stress “the importance of linguistic features (rather than discrete languages) as resources for speakers to achieve their communicative aims” (Jaworski, 2014 , p. 138).

Apart from the concepts of metrolingualism and heteroglossia, Jaworski ( 2014 ) touches upon the relationship between polylanguaging and multimodality, but he does not elaborate on it. Jørgensen ( 2008 ) demonstrates how polylanguaging is concerned with the use of language features in language practice among adolescents in superdiverse societies. Some of these language features “would be difficult to categorize in any given language” (Jørgensen et al., 2011 , p. 25); that is, they do not belong to any standard language system (e.g., English, Chinese, German). In addition, emoticons are frequently used in communication via social networking software. If some of these language features do not belong to any given language, it is difficult to say whether they can be seen as languages. The attention on features of language hence blurs the boundary between language and other semiotic resources. Of course, these features can be seen as a type of linguistic (lexical, morphemic or phonemic) units which still belong to language, but they are frequently used in multimodal meaning-making. Below I use Jørgensen et al.’s ( 2011 , p. 26) example (Fig. 2 ) to illustrate this.

The “majority boy” makes use of resources from the minority’s language (the word “shark”).

Jørgensen et al.’s analysis of this example focuses on the “majority boy” using the word “shark”, which is a loan word from Arabic. As a majority member, he is using the minority’s language to which he is not entitled. Judging by the interaction, it can be seen that “both interlocutors are aware of the norm and react accordingly” (Jørgensen et al., 2011 , p. 25). As such he noted that one feature of polylanguaging is “the use of resources associated with different ‘languages’ even when the speaker knows very little of these” (Jørgensen et al., 2011 , p. 25).

What also needs attention but is not discussed by Jørgensen et al. ( 2011 ), is the interlocutors’ creative way to use these features in polylanguaging: the word “shark” is written as a prolonged “shaarkkk” in terms of its phonetic and visual effects. The creative configuration of the language feature “shark” functions to draw other interlocutors’ attention toward the polylanguaging practice. The emoticon “:D” following it is to demonstrate that the speaker knows that he is using language features by violating the “normal” rules; that is, he is using the minority language features to which he is not entitled. The repeated words “cough, cough”, followed by the emoticon “:D”, also demonstrate this.

Polylanguaging, as formulated by Jørgensen et al. ( 2011 ), deviates from the tradition of multilingualism to enumerate languages, but focuses on language features that may not belong to any given language. In this sense, the emoticons or creative configuration of words can also be seen as language features—the language features that are creatively used by a virtual community of (young) netizens in communication. These features are multimodal in the following aspects. First, they visualize the polylanguaging practice by creating new forms of words, for instance, the prolonged word “shaarkkk”. This creation itself is in fact also a process of polylanguaging, in the sense that it uses the features of common language, or language in people’s daily life (that is, non-cyber language) to create new cyber-language that is used by members of a virtual community. Second, these language features utilize the multimodal resources of embodiment in polylanguaging. For example, emoticons use different letters or punctuations (as language features from people’s daily written language) to represent different facial expressions and emotions. The repetition of the words “cough, cough”, as “a reference to a cliché way of expressing doubt or scepticism” (Jørgensen et al., 2011 , p. 27) also takes on an embodied stance. It shows that the interlocutors are aware that the majority boy is using the minority’s language to which he is not entitled. Hence, this embodied stance indexes the polylanguaging practice. To summarize what is discussed above, polylanguaging entails seeing language as a multimodal construct, as interlocutors creatively adapt language features in daily communication (face-to-face or written communication not involving the internet) or utilize embodied language features when polylanguaging in online communication.

Discussion and a critical reflection

In the sections “Language as written and spoken signs and symbols” and “Language in vis-à-vis as multimodal construct” above, we delineated the ontological perceptions of language in sociolinguistics, including language as spoken and written signs and symbols, language in vis-à-vis as a multimodal construct. In teasing out various trends of approaches, language in sociolinguistics is found to have undergone several stages of development. Language as spoken and written signs and symbols have been pursued in variational sociolinguistics, bi- and multilingualism, and the latest theoretical and conceptual trends of research that do not see language as separate and separable systems or codes. Language in sociolinguistics, however, has been predominantly placed in nuanced and complicated relationships with other semiotic resources. Research regarding language in multimodal constructs sees language and non-language resources as different modes, or types of resources. These different modes have boundaries, and efforts are made to see how each mode combines with each other in meaning-making; language itself is a distinctive type of mode, interdependent with but different from other modes. Research regarding language as a multimodal construct sees language itself as multimodal, language is spatialized (that is, probed in relation to various spatiality and materiality where they appear); in the social interactional approach to multimodality, it is embodied and seen as embedded in a layered and hierarchical system of modes (including gesture, posture, and intonation) in social interaction; in the latest concepts built on languaging, language is regarded as “inventions” (Makoni and Pennycook, 2005 ), as cross- and trans-cultural practice, instead of separable and enumerable codes, or system. Language is entangled and integrated with objects (for instance, signage, and the materiality where it appears) and multitasking with embodied resources (gestures, talking, and simultaneously doing other things).

Expanding the ontology of language from verbal resources toward various multimodal constructs has enabled sociolinguists to pursue meaning-making, indexicalities and social variations in its most authentic state. Language itself is multimodal, though it cannot be denied that language and other modes do have boundaries and distinctions (yet not always being so). Whenever a language is spoken, the stresses, intonations, and paralinguistic resources are all integrated into it. Focusing on language per se has generated fruitful outcomes in sociolinguistic studies, but placing language in the multi-semiotic resources has innovated the field and it has become the dominant trend in contemporary sociolinguistics. Both languages in or as multimodal constructs have captured the complex ways in which language interacts with multi-subjects, materiality, objects and spatiality. But it may be found that the latest research in sociolinguistics comes to increasingly see language itself as an intricate multimodal construct, as encapsulated by various new concepts and theories including translanguaging, metrolingualism, and polylanguaing, in the contexts of globalization, migration, multi-ethnicity, and new communication technologies. Language is not only seen as separable codes and systems spoken or written by a different group of people, but it entails a wider range of communicative repertoires including embodied meaning-making, objects and the environment where the written or spoken signs are placed. It hence may be speculated that sociolinguistics will be increasingly less concerned with the boundaries of language and non-language resources, but will focus more on the social constructs, social meaning, and language as a force in social change. The enumerating and separating way of studying language and multimodality—that is, delineating inter-semiotic boundaries and focusing on how modes of communication are combined in meaning-making—has generated various outcomes, especially in the field of grammar-oriented social semiotic research and MCDA. However, contemporary sociolinguistic studies have immensely expanded their scope toward a wider range of areas other than discursive, grammatical, and communicative. The three research paradigms regarding language as a multimodal construct reviewed in “Language as multimodal construct” have proved themselves as a feasible approach toward language in social interaction, geo-semiotics, and language use in ethnographical and multi-ethnic settings. The ontology of language in sociolinguistics, in this regard, may be perceived in terms of the sociology and societal facets of multimodal construct, rather than language placed in a multitude of semiotic types or the verbal resources per se. A critical reflection on the ontology of language is one of the prerequisites of innovations in contemporary linguistics, which is also the objective of this comprehensive review.

As can be seen through the above discussion, there are several versions of the perception of language in sociolinguistics. First, perceptions of language as a written or verbal system are moving from, or have moved from, the enumerating traditions bi- or multi-lingualism towards seeing language as an inseparable entity with fixity and fluidity. In other words, new approaches in sociolinguistics come to see languages as comprising different features, repertories, or resources, rather than different or discrete standard languages such as English, French, German and so on. The negotiation, construction, or attribution of ethnicity, identity, power and ideologies through language also has taken on a more dynamic and diverse look. Second, there is sociolinguistic research that places language with in the multimodal construct. Language is seen as being contextualized by other multimodal semiotics that is seen as “non-language”. However, more research comes to see language as multimodal construct; that is, language, be it written or spoken, is multimodal in itself as it comprises multimodal elements such as type, font, materiality, intonation, embodied representations and so on. It is also activated (seen as actions or activities) or spatialized in different approaches such as mediated discourse analysis, multimodal interaction analysis, geosemiotics, semiotic landscape, and metrolingualism discussed earlier. Third, these changing perceptions of languages in sociolinguistics result from researchers’ innovative efforts to view language from different perspectives. More importantly, they arise from the fact that language itself is also changing as society changes. As mentioned in the beginning, the world has been increasingly globalized and communications technologies have fundamentally changed the ways people interact with each other. Linguistic practices are complicated by the super-diversity of ethnic fluidity (e.g., the diversity of ethnic groups and the ever-present changes in ethnic structure), communications technologies, and globalized cross-cultural art.

In sum, it can be argued that contemporary sociolinguistics has become increasingly concerned with languaging (trans-, poly-, metro-, and pluri- and so on), rather than languages as a type of (static and fixed) verbal resource with demarcated boundaries separating them from other multimodal resources. Language is multimodal; it is embedded in or represents social activities, places or spaces, objects, and smells. Language in society belongs to and constitutes the “semiotic assemblage” (Pennycook, 2017 ) that can be better analysed holistically so as to reach an understanding of “how different trajectories of people, semiotic resources and objects meet at particular moments and places” (Pennycook, 2017 , p. 269). At a fundamental level of sociolinguistic ontology, this trend of research reflects the changing ways in which sociolinguists come to understand what language is and how it should be understood as part of a more general range of semiotic practices.

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Acknowledgements

Our thanks are extended to Dr. William Dezheng Feng for his constructive advice on the earlier drafts of the paper. This work is supported by the National Social Science Foundation of China (Project No. 18CYY050); the Foreign Language Education Foundation of China (Project No. ZGWYJYJJ11A030); and the Self-Determined Research Funds of CCNU from MOE for basic research and operation (Project No. CCNU20TD008).

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Jiayu Wang, Guangyu Jin & Wenhua Li

Inner Mongolia Agricultural University, Hohhot, China

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All three authors contributed to the conception and design of the study. JW mainly participated in drafting the work. GJ revised it critically for important intellectual content. WL participated in major intellectual contributions to the Chinese versions of the paper (unpublished); her ideas and points are integrated into the final version of this paper. All three authors are corresponding authors responsible for the final approval of the version to be published.

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Correspondence to Jiayu Wang , Guangyu Jin or Wenhua Li .

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Wang, J., Jin, G. & Li, W. Changing perceptions of language in sociolinguistics. Humanit Soc Sci Commun 10 , 91 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-023-01574-5

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Received : 12 September 2022

Accepted : 20 February 2023

Published : 08 March 2023

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-023-01574-5

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