Further notes on sociolinguistic scales

Abstract

AbstractThis short paper seeks to reformulate and refine the notion of sociolinguistic scales as relative scope of understandability, thus drawing the notion fully into the realm of semiotics, rather than in the rather unproductive sphere of spatiotemporal and distributional interpretation where it has been deployed. Differences in scope of understandability are differences in the presupposability of signs, and such differences are not equivalent but stratified in a polycentric environment. Scales, in that sense, point towards the non-unified and hierarchical-layered nature of the sign and of meaning making practices. Scalar effects, once established, can furthermore be carried over into different indexical orders deployed on different topics. We draw on the results of a recent study of hip-hop culture in Finland to establish these points.