Language and Social Groups

Question 1

What was Milroy’s ‘Social Network Theory’?

Answer 1

• Argues that increased geographical mobility leads to the ‘large scale abruption of close-knit, localised networks that have historically maintained highly systematic + complex sets of socially structured linguistic norms’

Question 2

What was Petyt’s ‘H-dropping’ Theory?

Answer 2

• Study shows that the greater regional accent use in the working class, diminishes as you move up the social scale. Results from the study shows that the upper middle class rarely use H-dropping (12%) compared to the lower end of the social class scale, where they had frequent use of it (93%).
• When they may move up the scale, they would modify their speech, making it more towards RP as well as less use of non standard features
• Speakers moving up the scale made a conscious effort to change their pronunciation of vowel sounds , known as Hypercorrection

Question 3

What was Trudgill’s ‘Overt/covert prestige, velar nasal’ Theory?

Answer 3

• The effects of social class lang use explored the differences between working+ middle class backgrounds in their pronunciation f certain sounds
• E.g. saying runnin’ was more likely to feature in working class than middle class

Question 4

What was Giles’ ‘CAT Theory’?

Answer 4

Communication Accommodation Theory:

The notion that people change their speech to signal their feelings about who they’re speaking to

• Convergence: Changing your speech to match the person you’re talking to
• Divergence: Changing your speech to distance yourself from the person you’re talking to

Question 5

What was Labov’s ‘NYC dept stores’ study?

Answer 5

• Believed social class affected how people spoke; predicted that higher the social class, the more people would pronounce the (r). Due to the (r) having considerable social prestige
• Decided to study the speech of 3 sales assistants in 3 Manhattan stores, drawn from the top (Saks), middle (Macy’s) and bottom (Klein’s)
• Founded out assistants from Saks used (r) the most and those from Klein’s used it the least
  Macy’s showed the greatest upward shift when asked to repeat

Question 6

What was Labov’s ‘Martha’s Vineyard’ study?

Answer 6

• A group of fisherman exaggerated a tendency already existing in their speech, they did this seemingly unconsciously to establish themselves as an independent social group w/ superior status to the tourists
• A number of islanders regarded this group and subconsciously imitated the way its members talked.

The pronunciation was an innovation and as more people came to speak in the same way, the pronunciation gradually became the norm for the island

Question 7

What was Cheshire’s ‘Non-Standard Forms’ theory?

Answer 7

• Teens from Reading, Cheshire wanted to study the new peer group culture that affected spoken grammar.
• Believed that the higher the social class, the more non-standard forms would be used
• Found out that for both boys and girls, patterns of non-standard use were an important part of the identity of each group

Question 8

What is meant by the term ‘Sociolect’?

Answer 8

Sociolect;
An umbrella topic to bring in information from occupation, accent + dialect, world, and gender - as all of these make up our social group and identity

Question 9

What is meant by the term ‘Communities of practice’?

Answer 9

Communities of practice;

e.g. gamers, footballers fans, etc. have shared endeavours + shared goals, they also use language in a specific way