Social Groups

Question 1

What are Expletives?

Answer 1

Swear words

Question 2

What is Multiple negation?

Answer 2

Using more than one negative in a sentence eg. I aint done nothing

Question 3

What are stndard forms?

Answer 3

Socially accepted way of saying things ( using Standard English)

Question 4

What is overt prestige?

Answer 4

Form of social value you get from using standard forms

Question 5

What is covert prestige?

Answer 5

Form of social value you get from using non- standard forms

Question 6

What is convergence?

Answer 6

Language becomes similar

Question 7

What is divergence?

Answer 7

Language becomes more different

Question 8

What is code?

Answer 8

Form of language

Question 9

What is genderlect?

Answer 9

Language of gender

Question 10

What is sociolect?

Answer 10

Language of a social group

Question 11

What is ethnolect?

Answer 11

Language of an ethnic group

Question 12

What is teenspeak?

Answer 12

Language of teenspeak

Question 13

What is polari?

Answer 13

Secret code used by gay men to communicte when homosexuality was illegal

Question 14

What was Penlope’s Eckert three forms of age?

Answer 14

Chronlogical: how long someone has been alive
Social: how someone interacts socially eg, marriage and birth of first child
Biological: physcial maturity

Question 15

Parrott’s theory of age?

Answer 15

Teenage identity is characterised by:
Rebellion
Forbidden behaviour
Exclusion
Idolisation

Question 16

Stenstrom and teenspeak

Answer 16

Teenspeak contains:
Slang
Expletives
Contractions
Name calling
Insult battles

Question 17

Penlope Eckert Teenspeak

Answer 17

Teenspeak distances teenagers from adults

Question 18

Zimmerman teenspeak

Answer 18

Teenspeak influenced by:
Media
Music
Internet

Question 19

DeKlerk’s age theory

Answer 19

Teenagers have ability and freedom to challenge and adapt linguistic norms

Question 20

Tagliamonte age theory

Answer 20

When communicating online teenagers use more intensifiers, no evidence to suggest a decline in grammar

Question 21

Penelope Eckert age and gender study

Answer 21

Reading study:
look at children’s use 9 different non standard forms including multiple negation, linked to whether they thought criminal activity was acceptable. Found that:
Boys more likely to approve
Children approved of non standard forms more likely to use non standard forms
Link between covert prestige of using non standard forms and standard forms

Question 22

Penelpe Jocks and Burnouts study

Answer 22

Studied two types of students in Detroit (Jocks and Burnouts)
Jocks highly engaged in school, Burnouts less interested by it and often engaged in immoral behaviou (smoking and drinking)
Studied non-standard forms and most notably multiple negation
Jocks used almost all standard forms
Burnouts predominatly used non standard forms
Showed those in same social group smoke similarly

Question 23

Labov’s Martha’s Vineyard study

Answer 23

Looked at inhabitants of the island of Martha’s Vineyard, noted the younger members (worked or studied there for some of the year) converged to vowel pronunctiation of older members of island when tourists arrived to distance themselves

Question 24

Labov Social Class

Answer 24

New York stores study:
looked at the presence of the post- vocalic rhotic /r/ ( r sund that comes after the vowel) very prestigious pronuciation in NY. Compared speech of sales assistants in 3 stores of different classes by getting them to say “fourth floor” and then repeat it:
Klein’s (working class)- used it the least
Macy’s (middle class)- wasn’t overly used when first asked but used more when asked to repeat it, shows assistants want to adapt their langiage to suit the class
Saks (upper class)- used it most

Question 25

Trudgill’s Norwich study

Answer 25

Looking at the pronunciation of words ending in -ing, looked at whether the pronunciation had the world final /g/, asked ppts to estimate how many times they used standard and non-standard forms, compared to what they actually did. Found that:
Higher the social class, lower number of non-standard forms
Lower the social class, higher the number of non-standard forms
Women of all classes reported higher usage of standard forms than they actually used
Women used more standard forms than men
Men of all classes reported higher usage of standard forms than they used
Social class influences language more thn gender

Question 26

Bernstein: Restricted and elaborated code experiment

Answer 26

Believes there are two types of “code” used to communicate
Restricted code uses lots of conjunctions, context dependant language and non-standard syntax
Elaborated code uses more standard English
Research found that:
Children of all classes understood both codes when spoken to them
Working class children speak using restricted code
Middle and upper class children speak using elaborated code mainly but can use restricted code
Disadvantages working class children as elaborated code is used in many formal situations

Question 27

What is Multicultural London English (MLE)?

Answer 27

Variety of English which started in London, popular amongst young black teenagers, it contains:
Lexical: peng (adjective meaning good)
Grammatical: sentences constructed starting with “why” and ending with “for” man replaces first person singular pronoun (I)
Phonological: th-stopping where the th at start of words becomes t
No standard set of MLE varies depending on location
Media often lables it “Jafaican” due to Jamaican roots

Question 28

Kerswill (Ethnicity)

Answer 28

MLE will replace Cockney Rhyming Slang

Question 29

Rampton (Ethnicity)

Answer 29

MLE is spread though friendship groups

Question 30

Drummond (Ethnicity)

Answer 30

MLE is key part of sociolect of young people in Manchester, Drummond retitled MLE and Multicultural Urban British English (MUBE) reflects its spread

Question 31

Khan (Ethnicity)

Answer 31

Ethnicity was a central factor influencing person’s language

Question 32

Rampton and Harris (Ethnicity)

Answer 32

Four ways to categorise view of ethnolects:
1: Defecit- there is something lacking
2: Difference- there is nothing wrong ith variety it is just different
3: Domination- variety should be oppressed
4: Discourse- previous three aren’t correct, too simple, its a community and its culture cannot easily be defined

Question 33

Leap (Sexuality)

Answer 33

Coined term Lavender LInguistics to describe study of langauge and sexuality

Question 34

Lakoff (Sexuality)

Answer 34

Gay men adopt defecit features to mirror women’s language

Question 35

Baker (Sexuality)

Answer 35

Speech of gay people uses puns, acronyms and lexical items, only make sense to those in the community

Question 36

Kulik (Sexuality)

Answer 36

Cannot tell someon’s sexuality because of their language

Question 37

Butler (Sexuality/ gender)

Answer 37

Use of lnaguage and your behaviour can perform and identity, eg. gay men may choose to adopt feminine speech patterns to consciously be different from heterosexual men