社会语言学研究——反思与展望

Sociolinguistic Studies:Reflection and Prospect

作为一门新兴的跨学科研究,社会语言学经过40年的发展,已经取得了众所瞩目的成就,成为当代语言学研究中一个不可或缺的重要组成部分。然而,任何学科的健康发展,都是离不开尊重事实的现状描述,深刻合理的批判精神,以及客观科学的导引前瞻的。对于中国的社会语言学研究来说,这些问题的讨论与回答,更是有着不同寻常的意义。出于这一研究目的,本文分别从学科特征、发展方向,以及研究意义三个方面,试图对于新时期的社会语言学研究,做进一步的反思与展望。

The present study concerns itself with three major issues in relation to sociolinguistic studies in the new century.By examining these research questions,we attempt to provide a thorough discus - sion of some theoretic issues facing a scientific community.These issues can be further summarized as subject features,developmental directions,and research significances.It is observed that a careful treatment of these issues will have many positive effects,both nationally and globally speaking.There are four parts in this paper.We open our discussion with a brief introduction to the rapid development in sociolinguistics over the past four decades.Then,we try to capture a generalization about this newly developed subfield by turning to a comprehensive representation of some distinc - tive features it possesses as a multidisciplinary subject in the domain of linguistics.Consequently,some unique features that distinguish it from its sister fields are summarized as anti - traditionality,humanistic consideration,eclecticism,multidisciplinarity,pragmicality,complementary marginality,and inductive empiricality.In this part,we also illustrate the essence of sociolinguistics as an applie - d science and its relation to other germane fields.The third part is introduced to examine some pos - sible directions and new frontiers in the study of sociolinguistics,along with a collection of instanti - ation being given.Some conclusions are drawn in the closing part by emphasizing the significance of sociolinguistic research in China.Implications obtained from the current study are many.When we look at sociolinguistic issues,a clear fact that should not be missed is that pluralism,eclecticism,and multidisciplinarity have be - come some indispensable elements in the linguistic study of the new epoch.Facing a situation like this,more meaningful interaction and more efficient communication should be encouraged among researchers from different but related fields if we want to have a more fruitful pursuit in this enter - prise.Following an argument like this,an insightful implication suggested by the present essay is that the distinction existing between the formal and functional research paradigms in linguistics may turn out not to be as sharp and absolute as it has been assumed to be.