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English Language > Language and Social Variation > Flashcards

Language and Social Variation Flashcards

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Proverbs and Idioms flashcards
1
Q

What is an idiolect?

A

The speech habits peculiar to a particular person, almost like a language fingerprint

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2
Q

What did Thronborrow say about language?
(2004)

A

“One of the most fundamental ways we have of establishing our identity, and of shaping other people’s views of who we are, is through our use of language.”

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3
Q

What is a sociolect?

A

A form of language or a set of lexical terms used by a socioeconomic class, a profession, an age group, or other social group

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4
Q

What kind of groups influence our language?

A
  • Age group
  • Family
  • Ethnicity
  • Occupation
  • Hobbies
  • Social class
  • Sexuality
  • Gender
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5
Q

What is a social group?

A

People who connect with others because of certain commonalities. Language is often at the heart of these groups.

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6
Q

What is passive acquisition?

A

When a shared language is leanred subconciously because of the people around you

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7
Q

What is active learning?

A

People making a concious choice to change their language in order to fit in

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8
Q

What was Howard Giles’ theory?

A

Communication and Accommodation Theory (CAT), which showed how individuals adapt aspects of their own language when speaking to people who are different to them

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9
Q

What is language convergence?

A

When we change our language to be like that of the person we’re speaking

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10
Q

What is language divergence?

A

When we change our language to be different to the person’s we’re speaking to

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11
Q

How is language convergence shown in Mean Girls?

A

Cady changes her paralingustics, lexis and semantics, and grammar to reflect those of the ‘Plastics’ in order to fit in

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12
Q

What are parts of someone’s idiolect?

A
  • Body language
  • How it sounds
  • Words chosen
  • How it looks
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13
Q

When might divergence be used?

A

To gain control of a situation or to distance yourself from others

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14
Q

When might convergence be used?

A

When speaking to a small child or wanting to fit into a social group

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15
Q

What did Peter Trudgill propose?

A

Speech communities

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16
Q

What is a Speech Community?

Peter Trudgill

A

A group of people who share the same patterns of language use. It helps people to define themselves and others.
(Can be large regions or small units)

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17
Q

What did Penelope Eckert suggest?

A

In the 1990s she found that people’s language was affected by important life events. Therefore, we cannot assume all people of a certain age range speak the same.

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18
Q

What is chronological age?

A

Age since birth

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19
Q

What is biological age?

A

Physical maturity, puberty, hair loss

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20
Q

What is social age?

A

Events such as marriage, birth of first child, divorce, tax payments, ect..

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21
Q

What was Gary Ives’ Study?

A
  • 63 teens were asked if age affects language
  • 100% said yes
  • They assumed we stop swearing, use more Standard English, and become more posh as we get older
  • Done in 2014 in West Yorkshire schools
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22
Q

Where did slang orignate from?

A

British criminals, leading to its bad reputation

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23
Q

How are slang words formed?

A
  • Neologism
  • Old words, new meanings
  • Inversion of meanings
  • Clipping
  • Borrowed
  • Changes in word class
  • Initialism + Acronyms
24
Q

What is a neologism?

A

A completely new word

25
Q

What was Eble’s (1996) definiton of slang?

A

An ever-changing set of colloquial words and ohrases that speakers use to establish or reinforce social identity or cohesibeness within a group or with a trend or fashion in society at large

26
Q

What did Johnathon Green say about slang?

A

‘Slang reprsents us at our most human. It may not represent us as our nicest, or most compassionate, kind, or caring. But this is our human side, we may not like this side, but it is not a side we can pretend does not exist.’

27
Q

What did Stenstrom identity as the most prominent features of ‘Teenage Talk’?

A
  • Irregular turn-taking
  • Slang
  • Verbal duelling
  • Taboo
  • Indistinct articulation
  • Teasing
28
Q

What did Anderson + Trudgill say was the reason people use slang?
(1990)

A

To show belonging to a group or to keep outsiders outside

29
Q

What did Eckert (2003) say was the reason people use slang?

A

It is used to establish a connection to youth culture and to set themselves off from the older generation. To signal toughness or attitude.

30
Q

What did Klerk (2005) say was the reason people use slang?

A
  • Young people have the freedom to challenge linguistic norms
  • They seek to establish new identities
  • They need to be seen as modern, cool, and fashionable
  • Need to establish themselves as different
31
Q

What was Gary Ives’ study of teenspeak?

A
  • Discussed with thirty 15 yr olds in West Yorkshire
  • They gave examples of text speech such as wtf and cba
32
Q

Why might teens use intialisms such as wtf and cba?

A
  • To avoid conflict by being less direct
  • To censor offensive words
  • To save time when typing
33
Q

What did Mary Kohn (2016) say about teenspeak?

A

She argues that teenspeak is not ruining language and offers explainations for why slang is more present in adolescent speech communities

34
Q

What is multi-modal communication?

A

Combination of spoken and written modes

35
Q

How is text language different to written language?

A
  • Lack of full stops
  • Phonetic spellings
  • Lack of captial letters
  • Graphological symbols ‘xxx’
  • Ellipsis
36
Q

What are some positives to texts?

A
  • Private
  • Efficent
  • Easy to ignore
  • Easier to end conversations
  • Groupchats
  • May improve reading
37
Q

What are some negatives to texts?

A
  • Harder to read emotions
  • May impact written English
  • Parents have less control
  • Negatvie effects on forming realtionships
38
Q

What’s a descritive view of language?

A
  • Open minded
  • Accept change
  • Describe what they see
39
Q

What is a prescriptive view of language?

A
  • Only like standard English
  • Dislike variety and change
40
Q

What does John McWhorter say about texting?

A
  • It isn’t killing language
  • Texting is ‘fingered speak’
  • It’s a new way of using language
41
Q

What does Crystal (2004) say are features of texts?

A
  • Vowel omission (pls)
  • Homophonic representation (L8, M8)
  • Phonetic spelling (luv, gurl)
  • Initialism (BBC)
  • Acronym (AWOL)
42
Q

What can be argued about acronyms and intialisms?

A

They are not new language habits (e.g. PM has been in use since 1500 AD)

43
Q

What are Thurlow’s Sociolinguistic Maxims? (2003)

A

Texts are used to meet these sociolingustic maxisms:
- Speed
- Brevity
- Paralinguistic restitution
- Phonological approximation

44
Q

What was Jenny Cheshire’s Reading Study? (1982)

A
  • 8 month long study
  • Done in Berkshire, Reading
  • Interested in how teenagers use non-standard morphogical and syntactical features
  • Observed 13 teenage boys + 13 girls at school and recorded their natural speech
  • Represented a ‘delinquent subculture’
45
Q

What non-standard varients did Cheshire discover?

A
  • Present tense ‘come’ (We come down here yesterday)
  • Multiple negation (Im not going nowhere)
  • Auxiliary ‘do’ with 3rd person singular subjects (How much ‘do’ he wanr for it)
46
Q

What did Cheshire find about delinquent social norms?

A
  • Fighting
  • Swearing
  • Following a specific dresscode
  • Carrying a weapon
  • Minor criminal activity
47
Q

What were Cheshire’s findings?

A
  • Teenagers who approved of peer group criminal activites were more likely to use non-standard forms, but boys more so
48
Q

What do Cheshire’s findings say about language use?

A
  • Variation is a concious choice influenced by social attitude
  • Language is associated with memebership to a social group
  • Males are more susceptible to covert prestige
49
Q

What are some criticisms + evaluations of Cheshire’s study?

A
  • Small sample size
  • Only looked at one region
  • Doesn’t consider social class
  • Can’t be sure social group is the reason they use this language
50
Q

What is overt prestigue?

A

Generally socially acknowledged as correct and valued highly among speakers

51
Q

What is covert prestige?

A

Getting prestige from deliberatly using non-standard English to appear cool

52
Q

What is Penelope Eckert’s Jocks and Burnouts study? (2000)

A
  • Detroit study
  • Jocks (academic)
  • Burnouts (rebellious)
53
Q

Characterisitcs of Jocks
(Penelope Eckert)

A
  • Paticipated in school life enthusiastically
  • Concered with speaking in a more socially prestigious way
  • Middle class background
  • Critical of Burnout’s swearing + non-standard grammar
  • Overt prestige
54
Q

Characterisitcs of Burnouts
(Penelope Eckert)

A
  • Actively rebellious + refused to partake in school activies
  • Used exaggerated pronunciations
  • Criticised Jocks for sounding like their parents
  • Covert prestige
55
Q

What are critcisms + evalutation of Eckert’s Jock and Burnout study/

A
  • Their different social backgrounds arent considered
  • Too much stereotyping
  • Ethnic differences

English Language (5 decks)

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