Social Groups/identity Theorists

Question 1

Howard Giles

Answer 1

• Communication Accommodation Theory (CAT)
• Concepts of convergence and divergence
• Studied how individuals adapted aspects of their own language to signal their feelings about the person they are talking to
• They either adapt to move closer to others’ speech or to distance themselves

Question 2

Susie Dent (2016)

Answer 2

• Uses the term “tribes” to describe social or occupational groups that many people belong to.
• “Our lingo is our identity”

Question 3

Lesley Milroy

Answer 3

• Focuses on urban and rural dialectology and language ideology
• Best known for her work on social networks and linguistic variation in Belfast in the 1970s
• Introduced herself as a friend of a friend to allow her to access networks in three working class communities in Belfast
• Used network strength on a scale of 1-5 to see how integrated people were and how it linked to language
• Typically men had higher density networks and women had lower density networks

Question 4

Basil Bernstein (1971)

Answer 4

• Elaborated code
• Restricted code
• The idea of code switching and the fact that people from middle-class backgrounds switch codes more easily as they are more socially and geographically mobile
• The code a person uses can affect their opportunites

Question 5

Jenny Cheshire (1982)

Answer 5

• Recorded the speech of groups of teenagers in an adventure playground in Reading
• The “toughest” girls and boys conformed to the group use of non-standard grammatical forms e.g. ain’t
• Cheshire recorded how often each group used each of the 11 variables e.g. non-standard -s
• The language was an integral part of the group

Question 6

Martin Joos (1961)

Answer 6

• Classifies the spoken and written styles in 5 levels of formality (frozen, formal, consultative, casual, intimate)

Question 7

Julie Coleman

Answer 7

• Book “The slang of life”
• Slang “creates in-groups and out-groups and acts as an emblem of belonging”
• E.g. “crunk” in the context of hip hop and rap music - the use of the word confirms that the person likes and understands the music and its cultural trends

Question 8

Penelope Eckert (1989)

Answer 8

• Jocks and Burnouts
• Jocks participated in school life and were more concerned with speaking in a socially prestigious way
• Burnouts were actively rebellious and refused to take part in school activities. They used exaggerated pronunciation associated with the urban accent of their Detroit neighbourhood
• People tended to speak more like those they share their social practice and values with rather than social differences such as class

Question 9

Anna-Brita Strensom

Answer 9

• Identified common features of teen-speak such as Irregular turn-taking, overlaps, indistinct articulation, word shortenings and name calling

Question 10

Vivian De Klerk

Answer 10

• Teenagers use language to establish new identities
• Young people challenge linguistic norms
• Teenagers are challenging their parents’ speech patterns establishing themselves as a different social group

Question 11

Trajfel and Turner

Answer 11

• Social Identity Theory
• A person’s social identity is shaped by the groups to which they belong to
• An individual’s identity is influenced by both interpersonal and intergroup interactions

Question 12

Lave and Wenger (1991)

Answer 12

• Situated learning
• Developed the concept of communities in practice (a group of people who share understandings, perspectives and forms of language as a result of regularly meeting over time)
• Example - football fans are sometimes called the “twelfth man” as they don’t actually play for the team but they are closely connected to the joint enterprise of the team’s success

Question 13

Gary Ives (2014)

Answer 13

• Bradford study
• Code switching between English and Punjabi
• 8 teenage boys who mostly identified as Pakistani but were all born in UK
• The boys used language to create group identity and show their ethnicity
• They code switched to Punjabi when swearing and code switching was used to exclude those who didn’t speak Punjabi
• Examples of slang terms which they felt contributed to their group identity are sick and swag

Question 14

William Labov (1966)

Answer 14

• New York department store study
• The three department stores were Saks, Macy’s and S.Klein (upper to working class)
• He wanted to see whether or not people pronounced the rhotic /r/ in the phrase “fourth floor”
• Asked directions to an item he knew was on the fourth floor and then pretended not to hear the employee to elicit a more carefully spoken response to the phrase
• Employees with a higher socioeconomic status pronounced the rhotic /r/ more frequently (62% in Saks compared to 20% in S.Klein)

Question 15

Peter Trudgill

Answer 15

• Norwich study
• Effects of social class on language use
• People of lower social classes are more likely to use non-standard forms whereas those in higher social classes are more likely to use language closer to the prestige variety
• Men used more non-standard forms than women regardless of social class
• Variables that Trudgill looked at included the pronunciation of -ing at the end of words (walking/walkin’) and the subject -verb agreement with the third person singular (“she say” instead of “she says”)

Question 16

Unni Berland (1997)

Answer 16

• Group of teenagers
• ‘Innit’ was more commonly used among working class teenagers
• ‘Yeah’ was more commonly used by middle class teenagers
• ‘Okay’ was used more by boys than girls but both genders used ‘innit’ ‘right’ and ‘yeah’ in equal measures