Language and Social Class

Question 1

Who coined the department store theory?

Answer 1

William Labov

Question 2

What did Labov set out to do on his department store study?

Answer 2

Labov wanted to see which social classes, in New York, dropped the R at the end of words.

Question 3

Which stores did Labov analyse in his department store study? What did he ask them to do?

Answer 3

He went to three different stores; Macy’s, Klein’s and Sak’s. He asked the employees to say ‘first floor’.

Question 4

What were Labov department store findings?

Answer 4

Labov found that Sak’s dropped the R the most, Klein’s dropped the R the least and Macy’s had the greatest upwards shift when asked to repeat what they had previously said.

This shows us that the workers in ‘lower class’ stores used the R the most, whereas workers in ‘higher class’ stores uses it the least.

Question 5

What did Malcolm Petyt carry out?

Answer 5

Petyt carried out the Bradford study, where he decided to see which different social classes were victims of H-Dropping and which ones did it more than others.

Question 6

What were Malcolm Petyt’s findings?

Answer 6

Petyt found that members of lower social classes, dropped the H in words a lot more than those in higher social classes.