Social Groups

Question 1

Martinez- Use of negatives

Answer 1

In 2011, Martinez studied use of negatives by teenagers. He found teenagers use negative grammatical constructions more frequently than adults such as “nah” “no way”. Argued teenagers tended to be more direct in there language than adults, who are more conscious of what they say and how they say it, for fear of coming across too direct and threatening the speakers face (the public self image of a person acc to Goffman)

Question 2

Penelope Eckert (2003) carried out research on teenage talk

Answer 2

She comments: “Slang is used to establish a connection to youth culture and to set themselves off from the older generation”. Specifically set out to use words their parents do not e.g. ‘sick’ instead of ‘great’. Also, linguistic change is far more common in teenagers, for example the coining of new lexical items.
Eckert suggests that typical features include:
Use of ‘like’ and ‘okay’
Rising intonation
Multiple negation

Question 3

2010 Daily Mail Article “The Teens who can barely talk”

Answer 3

“Teenagers have been warned they are becoming unemployable because they use a vocabulary of just 800 words” Vocabulary consists of ‘teen speak’, which has developed through modern communication methods such as text messaging and social networking sites e.g. “lol”

Question 4

Fortman 2003 Language is a powerful tool.

Answer 4

Acceptance by ones peers is crucial to teenagers. So language becomes a powerful tool, it signals to others what group you belong to.

Question 5

Bulcholtz (2011) in-groups

Answer 5

Language is one of the primary means of marking group norms. Used to include other teens and exclude out-group members

Question 6

Gary Ives (2014)

Answer 6

Study of 2 schools in London and Bradford. Found Language is used to create a form of social identity.

In London, culturally diverse. Students used Lexis of Afro-Caribbean origin e.g. ‘bruv’ ‘bare’ , even those who were white. Therefore, language is not about ethnicity but is instead synonymous with shared lived experience and group identity e.g. growing up in London.

In Bradford, 95% of students from Pakistani backgrounds.
Inclusion of Punjabi when speaking to friends, and code switched to Punjabi when using “taboo” words. However, they distinguished themselves from those born in Pakistan, who they termed “Freshies”. Language is a unifying mechanism for teens.

Question 7

Labov 1966 New York Study

Answer 7

Saks Macys and Kleins.
Labov wanted to see whether or not use of the post-vocalic / r / in the phrase ‘fourth floor’, changed dependent on social class. This pronunciation of the / r / sound is called rhoticity.

Saks workers used postvocalic “r” which is a sign of prestige and indicator of high social status.
The results showed that the employees with higher socioeconomic status (in higher class stores) pronounced the rhotic /r/ more frequently than the employees with lower socioeconomic status.

There was a higher use of the post-vocalic r in the second, repeated utterance.
The biggest shift in pronunciation was seen in Macy’s- HYPERCORRECTION. susceptible to overt prestige? The shift was not as big for Sak’s employees, suggesting they have more linguistic security.

Validity- Labov aimed to collect casual and anonymous speech by posing as a customer in the department store.