A LEVEL ENGLISH LANGUAGE: LANGUAGE CHANGE

Question 1

Accommodation

Answer 1

How people adjust their speech behaviours to match others; this can be aspects of
accent, grammar, vocabulary and even the style of speech delivery.

Question 2

Sociolect.

Answer 2

Variation in language use associated with membership of a particular social group.

Question 3

Standard English

Answer 3

The form of the English language widely accepted as the correct form of speaking and
writing.

Question 4

Code switching

Answer 4

When speakers who speak two or more different languages switch from one to the
other, often in mid conversation. Can also be used to refer to switching between
dialects of the same accent.

Question 5

Covert prestige

Answer 5

The less obvious or hidden prestige associated with the use of certain non-standard

Question 6

L1

Answer 6

English spoken as a first language.

Question 7

L2

Answer 7

English spoken as a second language.

Question 8

Phoneme

Answer 8

The smallest individual unit of sound in a language which conveys meaning.

Question 9

Non-Standard
English

Answer 9

Not conforming to the recognised way of speaking or writing.

Question 10

Overt prestige

Answer 10

The obvious prestige associated with the use of the standard variety of a language within a
particular society. Connected to notions of speaking ‘properly’.

Question 11

Queen’s English

Answer 11

Received pronunciation; how the Queen, and other members of the ruling classes,
stereotypically speak.

Question 12

Received pronunciation

Answer 12

An English accent which does not indicate a person’s geographical location, rather is
recognised as belonging to a person with a higher social status.

Question 13

Rhotic accent

Answer 13

An accent which pronounces postvocalic /r/

Question 14

Th-fronting

Answer 14

Pronounciation of ‘th’ as /f/ or /v/. e.g. ‘think’ becomes ‘fink’ and ‘with’ becomes ‘wiv’.

Question 15

Howard Giles
(1973)

Answer 15

Accommodation theory: The idea that people have different levels of formality of language
at their disposal, and will converge or diverge their language depending on their situation.

Question 16

Dixon,
Mahoney and
Cocks (2002)

Answer 16

Used a ‘matched guise’ approach to explore the correlation between accent and perceived
guilt. Suspects were perceived to be significantly more likely to be guilty when they spoke
with the non-standard Birmingham form.

Question 17

William Labov
(1960’s)

Answer 17

Martha’s Vinyard: The locals resisted dialect levelling due to ‘summer people’, claiming
their identity as residents. Divergence was used to mark the change.

Question 18

Divergence

Answer 18

Move language styles and patterns to be increasingly different from those of other
speakers.

Question 19

Occupation

Answer 19

A job or profession.

Question 20

Semantic field

Answer 20

A group of words which have similar connotations, or which are part of the same
theme.

Question 21

Dialect

Answer 21

Variation in words and grammatical structures associated with a particular geographical
region.

Question 22

Dialect levelling

Answer 22

The process by which language forms of different parts of the country converge and
become more similar over time, with the loss of regional features and reduced diversity of
language.

Question 23

Estuary English

Answer 23

Accent spreading outwards, along the Thames, from London containing features of both
RP and London speech.

Question 24

Robin Lakoff
(1975)

Answer 24

Deficit
Women are socialised into behaving like ‘ladies’ (linguistically and within
society) and that this subordinate position within society stops them
being powerful.

Question 25

Zimmerman and
West (1974)

Answer 25

Dominance
Men are more likely to interrupt women in a mixed sex conversation,
suggesting their dominance.

Question 26

Deborah Tannen
(1990)

Answer 26

Difference
Women use language differently from men not out of inferiority, but
because they have been socialised differently and have different
conversational goals. They are aiming to keep a conversation going
through their use of tag questions.

Question 27

O’Barr and Atkins
(1980)

Answer 27

Diversity
Studied courtrooms and the speech of witnesses. Found that language
differences are based on situation specific authority or power, rather
than gender.