peter trudgill's norwich study

Question 1

What is overt prestige?

Answer 1

making your language “more standard” in order to gain status in a wider community.

Question 2

What is covert prestige?

Answer 2

the practice of making your language “less standard” in order to be considered a member of a particular community.

Question 3

What was Peter Trudgill’s Norwhich study (1974) about?

Answer 3

• He found out how and why people’s ways of speaking varied.
• He examined how residents’ pronunciation varied based on their social standing.

Question 4

What is one of the variables he studied?

Answer 4

• Velar nasal (phonological feature) - the sound spelled -ng (in standard British English.)
• However in Norwich, the pronunciation of walkin’, talkin’ is frequently heard, as if there was simply ‘n’ on the end.
• This feature is not unique to Norwich.

Question 5

Which class is ‘ng’ apart of in the English-speaking world?

Answer 5

higher-class/formal

Question 6

Which class is ‘n’ apart of in the English-speaking world?

Answer 6

lower-class/informal

Question 7

He found that in all social classes, the more careful the speech is…

Answer 7

the more likely people were to say walking instead of walkin’.

Question 8

Which gender speech did he find that the non-standard -in’ forms occurred more often in?

Answer 8

women’s speech in all social classes

Question 9

Which social class did he find that the proportion of walkin’ type forms were higher in?

Answer 9

lower social classes

Question 10

When women were questioned about what they thought they were saying, what did they tend to say?

Answer 10

that they used the standard -ing forms more often than they really did.

Question 11

When men were questioned about what they thought they were saying, what did they tend to say?

Answer 11

that they used the nonstandard -in’ forms more often than they really did.

Question 12

Which ending of words like walking/talking is the prestigious variable?

Answer 12

‘ng’