social class Flashcards
what is vernacular?
the language form that is naturally spoken by people in a certain area
what did petyt study?
-focused on the omission of the initial /h/ sound; h-dropping in words
-e.g. ‘hat’, ‘happen’, ‘horrible’
-he studied this across various social classes
where did petyt conduct his study?
west york, bradford
what was petyt’s results?
-lower class almost always dropped /h/ in words (93%)
-upper middle class on dropped /h/ 1/10 times (12%)
what did petyt find in instances of social mobility?
if an individual has moved up the socio-economic scale, then they may modify their speech closer to rp, making less use of h-dropping
what vowel did petyt look into, and what discovery did that lead to?
-the vowel /u/ in ‘put’ and /uh/ in ‘putt’
-in many north england accents, there was no distinguishment between the two sounds- he therefore this was a good test of social class
-though, he found that if people moved up the socio-economic scale, them they were more likely to distinguish the difference between the two
what are some conclusions of petyt?
-found that those moving up social scale tried to implement distinguishment in their language-often leading to hypercorrectness and incorrect vowel sounds
-exhibits a linear trend of lower class dropping the /h/ more often
-working class had a greater regional accent
what did trudgill study?
class-based use of regional accents in norwich
who’s studies is trudgill’s research similar to?
petyt, though trudgill produced more complex findings as he looked into male and female differences within language in social class
what did trudgill look into?
-the suffix -‘ing’ and 3rd person /s/ in norwich
-the standard -‘ing’ often had a nasal sound to it, though in norwich that could not be heard as much
-used 5 categories based on social class
what did trudgill differentiate in his study?
the difference between careful and relaxed speech to assess participants awareness of their own accent and observe whether they attempted to alter it
what are some conclusions of trudgill?
-lower middle class and upper working class were more susceptible to overt prestige, often leading to hypercorrectness
-in all classes careful of speech, the suffix -ing’ was used more
-in all classes, women were more likely to use overt prestige
-trudgill argued that women were more likely to use overt prestige as they were less socially secure, their social and economic status depended on men
what did bernstein study?
elaborated and restricted code
what was bernstein’s experiment?
the broken window experiment- a way of accounting for working class pupil’s poor performance in language based subjects in comparison to middle class counterparts
what did bernstein argue?
-that there is a correlation between social class and the use of elaborated/restricted code
-argued that those of working class would only use restricted code as that is what they have learned through their socialisation process
-though, middle class would use both elaborated and restricted code as they are more socially, culturally and geographically mobile
what is giles’ accommodation theory?
the idea that people adapt their language to match/fit/ contrast another individual’s communication style, and achieve the desired social gap
what are the two forms of accommodation theory?
-convergence; social distance shortened, making gap smaller
-divergence; social gap widened, making gap larger
what did giles find the benefits of accommodation to be?
-gain of social approval and gain of desired social gap
-increased efficiency of communication between individuals
-reinforces an individual’s identity
what is overaccommodation?
when an individual overdoes their efforts in regulating, modifying, or responding to another person when trying to accommodate to their communication style
what did giles find?
-that rp was associated with being educated and confident, but in some cases stubborn and superior
-stereotypical regional accents were associated with being friendly and trustworthy
what did milroy believe about members of speech communities?
that they were connected through either ‘open’ or ‘closed’ networks
what is an open network?
when an individual’s contacts do not know each other, they are widespread across the world
what is a closed network?
when an individual’s contacts do know one another (high density)
what did milroy’s study involve?
-investigated correlation of individuals in a community and the way they speak
-she did this by giving everyone a network strength score based on how well an individual knew people in a community; then their use of linguistic variables e.g. /th/ in ‘mother’
