Language And Social groups Flashcards

Question

Give one case study that shows the effects of social class

Answer 1

The Social Stratification of English in New York City in 1966 by Labov

Answer 2

Differences in the pronunciation of certain sounds could be attributed to social class

Answer 3

they showed how culture-specific ideas about language and status are.

Answer 4

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

Answer 5

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

Answer 6

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

Answer 7

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

Answer 8

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

Answer 9

Belfast speech in 1987

Answer 10

``` 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 ```

Answer 11

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

Answer 12

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

Answer 13

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

Answer 14

``` 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 ```

Answer 15

Social network approach | Social practices of American high-school students: the jocks and the burnouts

Answer 16

Jocks: participated in school life enthusiastically. Burnouts: actively rebellious and refused to take part in school activities

Answer 17

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

Answer 18

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

Answer 19

Jenny Cheshire in 1992

Answer 20

The toughest girls and boys conformed to the group of non standard grammatical forms such as ain't

Answer 21

Lexical items have also been found to be strong indicators of social group membership in studies of different kinds. Eg. Family to

Answer 22

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.

Answer 23

Deficit model of language being associated with working class identity. What his work really shows was some of the differences between speech and writing

Answer 24

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

Answer 25

Middle class children are more aware of the nature of assessment and that it reveals the potential unnaturalness of school based practices

Answer 26

Unspoken rules that operate in interactions between people who share a common understanding