Social Groups/identity Theorists Flashcards
Howard Giles
- 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
Susie Dent (2016)
- Uses the term “tribes” to describe social or occupational groups that many people belong to.
- “Our lingo is our identity”
Lesley Milroy
- 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
Basil Bernstein (1971)
- 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
Jenny Cheshire (1982)
- 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
Martin Joos (1961)
- Classifies the spoken and written styles in 5 levels of formality (frozen, formal, consultative, casual, intimate)
Julie Coleman
- 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
Penelope Eckert (1989)
- 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
Anna-Brita Strensom
- Identified common features of teen-speak such as Irregular turn-taking, overlaps, indistinct articulation, word shortenings and name calling
Vivian De Klerk
- 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
Trajfel and Turner
- 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
Lave and Wenger (1991)
- 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
Gary Ives (2014)
- 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
William Labov (1966)
- 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)
Peter Trudgill
- 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”)
Unni Berland (1997)
- 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
Martha’s Vineyard (1963) One sentence summary
Showed how locals used vowel shifts to express identity and resistance to outsiders
Younger islanders were shifting the pronunciation of diphthongs like ‘house’ and ‘mice’ moving towards a more central starting point for the vowels
Evaluation of Labov’s research
+ Groundbreaking in linking language variation with social factors
- Criticised as it mainly focuses on correlation, not causation
Wider application of Berstein’s elaborated and restricted code
In the context of education, it has been argued that schools favour elaborated code, disadvantaging working-class children
Evaluation of Bernstein’s theory
+ Sparked debate on language and education
- Criticised for being deterministic and deficit-focused (inferiority of restricted code is implied)
- Overgeneralisation
Evaluation of Peter Trudgill’s research
+ Reinforces Labov’s findings in a UK context
Evaluation of Eckert’s research
+ Emphasises the importance of identity In language use
- Moves beyond class-based models
Application of Communication Accommodation Theory
- Intergroup communication
- Accent/dialect use
- Customer service
Evaluation of Giles’ theory
+ Valuable in understanding real-time interaction
- Less focus on wider social power
Weak tie theory
- Less-close connections can significantly impact language use
- Weak ties offer connections to diverse social circles
African American Vernacular English (AAVE) case study
- AAVE is a dialect spoken primarily by African American communities in the United States. It is often considered a social group marker that is connected to African American identity.
- The use of AAVE reflects both cultural heritage and social group identity.
- Speakers of AAVE may shift between standard English and AAVE depending on the social context, a phenomenon known as code-switching.
- In professional settings, African American speakers may modify their speech to conform to standard English norms, while in informal or community settings, they may use AAVE to maintain group identity.
Criticisms of social group theories in linguistics
- Overemphasis on social groups - Some argue that social group theory can overemphasise the role of social identity in shaping language, sometimes neglecting the individual’s agency or broader societal factors such (economic or political influences)
- Simplification of language use - Social group theory can oversimplify the complexity of language use. People may not always conform to a single social identity, and language can be fluid and context dependent
- Risk of reinforcing stereotypes - while social group theory helps identify linguistic patterns, it can also unintentionally reinforce stereotypes (e.g. associating specific accents with lower intelligence or lower social status)
Level 4 and Level 5 answer - Belfast study
A study of Clonard women and Hammer men found that due to a rise in unemployment, men had to travel out of the community to find a job and the women all ended up working together in the town. As a result, the men ended up with quite open networks and women ended up with quite a closed network.
This research allows us to deduce that a social group is more controlling of a person’s language than their gender.
