Sociolect - Diversity

Question 1

Convergence

Answer 1

Changing one’s language in order to move towards another individuals language

Question 2

Divergence

Answer 2

Changing one’s language in order to move away from another individuals language

Question 3

Macro Level

Answer 3

Operating on a larger scale

Question 4

Micro level

Answer 4

operating on a small scale

Question 5

Post vocalic r

Answer 5

Pronouncing an /r/ after a vowel where there is an r in the spelling

Question 6

Received Pronounciation

Answer 6

An accent traditionally associated with high social class

Question 7

Density

Answer 7

Number of connections that people have

Question 8

Social network

Answer 8

A network of relations between people in their membership of different groups

Question 9

Informant

Answer 9

Someone who offers information to a researcher

Question 10

Dialect

Answer 10

Style of language used within a geographical region

Question 11

Ethnolect

Answer 11

Style of language thought to be characteristic of a particular ethnic group

Question 12

Familect

Answer 12

Style of language used within a family

Question 13

Social Practice

Answer 13

Ways in which people in groups habitually behave

Question 14

Community of practice

Answer 14

Group of people who share understandings, perspectives and forms of language use as a result of meeting regularly over time

Question 15

Lave and Wenger

Answer 15

• Community of practice: mutual engagement

Question 16

Deficit model

Answer 16

Assumption that something is lacking or deficient

Question 17

Elaborated code

Answer 17

Bernstein
Middle-class speakers use context free, complex forms of language

Question 18

Restricted code

Answer 18

Berstein
Lower-class speakers use less complex forms of language due to lack of contextual knowledge

Question 19

Who developed the Communication Accommodation Theory

Answer 19

Howard Giles

• Convergence
• Divergence

Question 20

Communication Accommodation Theory

Answer 20

• behavioral changes that people make to attune their communication to their partner, - the extent to which people perceive their partner as appropriately attuning to them.

Question 21

What did Labov conclude about his case study?

Answer 21

• Fishermen centralise /au/ and /ai/ more than any other occupational group
• People of the age group 30- 60 tend to centralise diphthongs more than younger or older people
• Up-Islanders used the centralised diphthongs more than people living in the area of Down-Island

Question 22

What is a dipthong

Answer 22

Two vowel sounds occurring in the same syllable e.g cow, eye

Question 23

What did Labov’s result show?

Answer 23

• generations, occupations, or social groups might be a big factor in language use as a sociolinguistic consideration

Question 24

What did Labov’s result show?

Answer 24

• generations, occupations, or social groups might be a big factor in language use as a sociolinguistic consideration

Question 25

Who is Peter Trudgill?

Answer 25

Studied the use of ‘ing’ in Norwich and made links between accent and social class.

Question 26

What were Trudgill’s conclusions?

Answer 26

Changing the velar nasal /n/ to an alveolar /n/ was more likely to feature in working class speech than in middle class speech, although he also found differences between men’s and women’s use of non- standard forms

Question 27

Lesley Milroy

Answer 27

Belfast speech in 1987

Question 28

What did Milroy research ?

Answer 28

Described social network as a web of ties. 
He studied 3 inner city working class communities in Northern Ireland and found that variations in language use could be explained by the residents' social networks

Question 29

What did Milroy find in her results?

Answer 29

Where people had a high network density score-through factors such as working together, living close to family members and socialising with each other- their accents were reinforced and stayed strong. On the other hand, people who were more isolated-perhaps through unemployed or looking after children at home- had less strong accents

Question 30

What were Milroy’s results on gender?

Answer 30

Where men were the ones who were isolated (one community had a lot of male unemployment) their accents were weaker than those of women, who had high density scores through working together in local factories

Question 31

What conclusions were drawn from Milroy’s study?

Answer 31

• social networks speakers were powerfully associated with their indentity and maintaining a strong accent was a way of demonstrating this sense of themselves.
• This was true for women as for men, there was nothing necessarily gender based about accent strength. It was more to do with their lifestyles rather than their gender

Question 32

Eckert 2000

Answer 32

• Social network approach

- Social practices of American high-school students: the jocks and the burnouts

Question 33

Who were the jocks and the burnouts?

Answer 33

• Jocks: participated in school life enthusiastically.

- Burnouts: actively rebellious and refused to take part in school activities

Question 34

What did Eckert find?

Answer 34

• People tended to speak more like those who they shared social practices and values.
• The burnouts used the exaggerated pronunciations associated with the urban accent of their Detroit neighbourhood.
• Jocks were more concerned with speaking in a socially prestigious way

Question 35

Jocks and burnouts use of language

Answer 35

The jocks were critical of the burnouts for their ungrammatical language, their frequent swearing and for not being articulate. The jocks were seen as talking like their parents

Question 36

Who came up with the study of the effects of groups of teenagers in an adventure playground in Reading?

Answer 36

Jenny Cheshire in 1992

Question 37

What did Cheshire find?

Answer 37

The toughest girls and boys conformed to the group of non standard grammatical forms such as ain’t

Question 38

What did Bernstein claim?

Answer 38

Working class speakers used a restricted code of language which related to the here and now while middle class speakers used an elaborated code, which was more explicit and independent of context.

Question 39

Problem with Bernstein’s work

Answer 39

Deficit model of language being associated with working class identity. What his work really shows was some of the differences between speech and writing

Question 40

What was Bernstein’s research method?

Answer 40

He showed pictures to children and asked them what was happening in them. Working class children used language that fitted with the fact that they share the same physical place with the researcher while middle class children spoke as if the researcher wasn’t there

Question 41

What Bernstein’s work show?

Answer 41

Middle class children are more aware of the nature of assessment and that it reveals the potential unnaturalness of school based practices

Question 42

Pragmatic rules

Answer 42

Unspoken rules that operate in interactions between people who share a common understanding