Diversity - Social Group/Class Flashcards
What is a language repertoire?
A set of language varities used in speaking and writing practices of a speech community
What does a speaker’s language repertoire define?
Their communcative comptence
What is code switching?
The practice of moving back and forth between two languages , two dialects or reigesters of the same language
Who is RP associated with?
Rich and powerful groups
Why might the middle class adopt Estuary English?
To avoid the negative connatations of RP
What may regional accent speakers do to their accent?
Upwardly converge it
What can Men gain from downwardly coverging?
Covert prestige
What are women more likely to do in terms of convergence?
Upwardly converge their accent and dialect
How was RP viewed by the public? (Giles 1970)
With the highest status and intellegence , but seen as cold and ruthless
What do attitudes towards accent tend to reflect?
Social sterotypes of people
Which accent had the lowest status? (Giles 1970)
Regional urban accents
How was Dialect lexis and semantics viewed by the media?
It is often celebrated (e.g Lol, TTYL) in the media
How is non-standard grammar seen?
As wrong or bad
Why is non-standard grammer judged by the upperclasses?
Its used as a shiboleth to judge or dismiss people as uneducated and lower class
How did locals gain covert prestige on the Vineyard (Labov)
They converged to the local accent to seperate themselves from tourists
What did Trugils study in Norwich suggest about womens hypercorrectness?
It suggests that women are far more likely to upwardly converge
What did Chesires (1982) - ‘Reading teens’ study suggest about non-standard features of teen speak?
It suggests that non-standard features are a concious choice made by teens and are influenced by social group
What is a grammatical feature of teenspeak?
The use of double negatives ( I ain’t never)
What is a lexical feature of teenspeak?
Their use of tabbo language (e.g swearwords)
Whats an example of teenspeaks spoken mode?
The use of ‘like’ as a filler
(E.g ‘He was like, 6 foot 4)
What are two critisms of teen speak?
Its seen as lazy
Its accused of limiting teenagers vocab
What are two strengths of teenspeak?
It allows code switching
It helps establish teenage identity
What did Berstein write about?
Restricted and elaborated codes
What does restricted and eleborated code mean? (Berstein)
It’s the theory that some individuals speak the restricted version of English, where as some have access to the ‘elaborated’ version, meaning that they excel in areas which use elaborated code (e.g schools)
Who criticised Eleborated codes?
Labov
How did Labov critisise eleborated codes?
He said that complex arguments can exist without them
With what evidence did Labov make his claims against the necessity of Eleborated codes with?
He qouted a black boy from Harlem who dicussed the topic of ‘If God is real, is he white or black’ very well without any of the features of Eleborated code which Bernstine highlighted
