Language And Social groups Flashcards
Convergence
Changing one’s language in order to move towards that of another individual
Divergence
Changing one’s language in order to move away from that of another individual
Macro level
Operating on a large scale
Micro level
Operating on a small scale
Post vocalic r
Pronouncing an /r/ after a vowel where there is an r in the spelling
Received Pronunciation
An accent traditionally associated with high social class
Density
Number of connections that people have
Multiplexity
Number of ways in which two individuals might relate to each other
Social network
A network of relations between people in their membership of different groups
Informant
Someone who offers information to a researcher
Case study
In depth study of a single context. Used for further studies
Dialect
Style of language used within a geographical region
Ethnolect
Style of language thought to be characteristic of a particular ethnic group
Familect
Style of language used within a family
Genderlect
Style of language thought to be distinctive of either men or women
Social practices
Ways in which people in groups habitually behave
Sociolect
Style of language used within a particular social group
Community of practice
Group of people who share understandings, perspectives and forms of language use as a result of meeting regularly over time
Lave and Wenger
-Community of practice:
mutual engagement
Joint negotiated enterprise
Shared repertoire
Deficit model
Assumption that something is lacking or deficient
Elaborated code
Middle-class speakers use context free, complex forms of language
Restricted code
Working class speakers use context based, limited forms of language
Who developed the Communication Accomodation Theory?
Howard Giles
Communication Accomodation Theory
Showed how individuals adapt aspects of their own language to signal their feelings about the person they are talking to
Give one case study that shows the effects of social class
The Social Stratification of English in New York City in 1966 by Labov
What did Labov conclude about his case study?
Differences in the pronunciation of certain sounds could be attributed to social class
What did Labov’s result show?
they showed how culture-specific ideas about language and status are.
What differences did Labov see?
Pronouncing the /r/ in American English is seen as high status, whereas in the UK post vocalic /r/ is an aspect of rural speech and is often stereotyped
Who is Peter Trudgill?
Sociolinguist who studied in 1974 Norwich speech and explored the differences between people of working and middle class backgrounds in their pronunciations of certain sounds, including the velar nasal /n/ at the end of words like running
What were Trudgill’s conclusions?
Changing the velar nasal /n/ to an alveolar /n/ was more likely to feature in working class speech than in middle class speech, although he also found differences between men’s and women’s use of non- standard forms
Category system based on the occupation of the head of each household
A- Higher managerial, administrative or professional
B- intermediate managerial, administrative or professional
C1- supervisory or clerical and junior managerial, administrative or professional
C2- skilled manual workers
D-semi skilled and unskilled manual workers
E- casual or lowest grade workers, pensioners, and others who depend on the state of their income
Criticism of the category system based of the head of each household
Fairly crude measurement. Eg. For a married couple where the woman didn’t work, her category was based on that of her husband
Problematic trying to identify gender
Lesley Milroy
Belfast speech in 1987
What did Milroy research ?
Described social network as a web of ties. He studied 3 inner city working class communities in Northern Ireland and found that variations in language use could be explained by the residents' social networks
What did Milroy find in her results?
Where people had a high network density score-through factors such as working together, living close to family members and socialising with each other- their accents were reinforced and stayed strong. On the other hand, people who were more isolated-perhaps through unemployed or looking after children at home- had less strong accents
What were Milroy’s results on gender?
Where men were the ones who were isolated (one community had a lot of male unemployment) their accents were weaker than those of women, who had high density scores through working together in local factories
What conclusions were drawn from Milroy’s study?
social networks speakers were powerfully associated with their indentity and maintaining a strong accent was a way of demonstrating this sense of themselves.
This was true for women as for men, there was nothing necessarily gender based about accent strength. It was more to do with their lifestyles rather than their gender
BBC, LSE, York and Manchester Universities’ study in 2013
Survey of 161,000 people System: -Household income -Whether you own a property or rent it -savings -the kinds of people you mix and know socially - cultural activities you engage in
Penelope Eckert 2000
Social network approach
Social practices of American high-school students: the jocks and the burnouts
Who were the jocks and the burnouts?
Jocks: participated in school life enthusiastically.
Burnouts: actively rebellious and refused to take part in school activities
What did Eckert found?
People tended to speak more like those with whom they shared social practices and values. The burnouts used the exaggerated pronunciations associated with the urban accent of their Detroit neighbourhood. Jocks were more concerned with speaking in a socially prestigious way
Jocks and burnouts use of language
The jocks were critical of the burnouts for their ungrammatical language, their frequent swearing and for not being articulate. The jocks were seen as talking like their parents
Who came up with the study of the effects of groups of teenagers in an adventure playground in Reading?
Jenny Cheshire in 1992
What did Cheshire found?
The toughest girls and boys conformed to the group of non standard grammatical forms such as ain’t
Harriet Powney
Lexical items have also been found to be strong indicators of social group membership in studies of different kinds. Eg. Family to
What did Bernstein claim?
Working class speakers used a restricted code of language which related to the here and now while middle class speakers used an elaborated code, which was more explicit and independent of context.
Problem with Bernstein’s work
Deficit model of language being associated with working class identity. What his work really shows was some of the differences between speech and writing
What was Bernstein’s research method?
He showed pictures to children and asked them what was happening in them. Working class children used language that fitted with the fact that they share the same physical place with the researcher while middle class children spoke as if the researcher wasn’t there
What Bernstein’s work show?
Middle class children are more aware of the nature of assessment and that it reveals the potential unnaturalness of school based practices
Pragmatic rules
Unspoken rules that operate in interactions between people who share a common understanding
