Language and Region

Question 1

What did Labov’s Department Store Study find?

Answer 1

• Direct correlation between class of store and usage of non prevocalic r in “fourth floor” by shop assistant
• Making the shop assistant repeat it increased care and usage of non prevocalic r
• both suggest that language is determined by class as well as region

Question 2

What did Labov’s Martha’s Vineyard Study find?

Answer 2

• Islanders who moved to MV change their accent from high -> low prestige to sound like fishermen who already lived there
  
  • e.g “white” sounded like “wait”
• Accents mark group membership and identity

Question 3

What is the Social Network Theory?

Answer 3

• Everyone you spend time with is a part of your network
• Closed networks (where they all know eachother) have strong norm enforcement

Question 4

What did Milroy and Milroy’s Belfast study find?

Answer 4

• Gave everyone a Network Strength Score based on how many connections + how many multiplex connections
• Those with higher scores had a stronger accent (e.g h/æ/t to h/ɔ:/t) due to stronger norm enforcement

Question 5

What is Howard Giles’ Accommodation Theory?

Answer 5

• People change their language according to their audience
• Converge/Diverge
• 📈 to 📉 prestige = downwards convergence
• 📉 to 📈 prestige = upwards convergence

Question 6

What did Nick Coupland’s Cardiff Study find?

Answer 6

• Found an indirect correlation between income of a customer and their use of glottalisation
• The travel agent “style shifted” her accent to suit her customer