sociolects Flashcards
what is a social group?
the idea that society is not a collection of isolates individuals
what was Howard Giles’ Accomodation Theory?
Convergence – change one’s language to be like others
Divergence – change one’s language to be different from others
what was Lesley Milroy’s study?
According to Milroy, a social network is a “web of ties”:
*relationships between people and contact patterns
*strengths of ties between people
*nature of connections – their density and their multiplexity
Milroy studied three inner-city working class Northern Ireland communities – found that language variations could be explained due to the residents’ social networks.
High Network Density: working together, living close to family members and friends, socialising together – accents were reinforced and stayed strong
*Low Network Density: more isolated people – not getting out much (unemployed, looking after children at home) – weaker accents. Where men were “isolated” (one community had high male unemployment), their accents were weaker than the women’s who had higher-density scores through working together in local factories
For speakers in these social networks, strong ties within communities were associated with their identity.
*Maintaining a strong accent was a way of demonstrating and affirming this sense of themselves.
Milroy’s study showed this was true for men and women – nothing gender-based about accent strength.
what factors influence social class?
Household income
whether you own or rent
savings
kinds of people you mix with and know socially
cultural activities you engage in
what is dialect?
a style of language within a geographical region
what is an ethnolect?
a style of language thought to be associated with a particular ethnic group
what is a familect?
a style of language used within a family
what is a genderlect?
a style of language thought to be distinctive of either men or women
what is a sociolect?
a style of language used within a particular social group
what is overt prestige?
status that is publicly acknowledged
what is covert prestige?
status gained from a group, not the general public
what was Penelope Eckert’s study?
2000
The Jocks and the Burnouts
among high-school students in the Detroit, Michigan, area of the USA.
Jocks – group that participated in school life enthusiastically.
Burnouts – actively rebellious and refused to take part in school activities.
findings of Penelope Eckert’s study?
People tended to speak more like those with whom they shared social practices and values
*Burnouts used the exaggerated pronunciations associated with the urban accent of their Detroit neighbourhood (covert prestige)
*Jocks were more concerned with speaking in a socially prestigious way (overt prestige), reflecting their more middle-class backgrounds
The Jocks were critical of the Burnouts for their “ungrammatical” language, frequent swearing and for not being articulate
*The Burnouts thought that the Jocks talked like their parents.
what was Jennifer Cheshire’s theory?
*Found that the “toughest” girls and boys conformed to the group use of non-standard grammatical forms, such as ain’t.
what was Harriet Powney’s theory?
idea of familect – shared language and meanings with one’s family, such as pet names
Basil Bernstein’s theory?
1971
Restricted Code – Basil Bernstein claimed that working-class speakers used this context-based, less formal way of speaking
Elaborated Code – Bernstein said this one was for the middle class.
Sadly, his work created a deficit model – that working-class language was deficient – later challenged by William Labov (see accent and dialect work).
what was Lave and Wenger’s theory?
Community of Practice: A group of people who share understandings, perspectives and forms of language use as a result of meeting regularly over time.
1) mutual engagement – regular interactions based around
2) a joint negotiated enterprise and with group members using
3) a shared repertoire.
what are pragmatic rules?
the unspoken rules that operate in interactions between people who share a common understanding
what was Gary Ives’ study?
Do people speak differently because of their age?
Gary Ives survey in West Yorkshire secondary school – 100% of teens (63 surveyed) said yes.
In the same survey, he asked them to remember words they used when younger that they no longer used. They remembered some (kissy-catch, tig, kerby – semantic field of games) but had trouble doing so. Does that mean their vocabulary hadn’t changed much?
What was Anna-Brita Stenström’s theory?
2014
characteristics of teen language:
Irregular turn-taking
Overlaps
Indistinct articulation
Word shortenings
Verbal duelings
Slang
Taboo
Language mixing – using language from other cultures
what is lavendar language?
the language of the lgbtq community
what did William Leap do?
held the first Lavendar Language and Linguistics conference in 1993 for a small group of colleagues working in linguistic anthropology with an interest in language and sexuality
since then it has become an annual evenet
called lavender instead of queer linguistics bc of long-term association of ‘lavender’ with gays
lavender = synonym for homosexual in Gershan Leyman’s 1941 glossary of American Slang
1990s, William Heap published articles on language of gays and lesbians called ‘Lavender Linguistics’
‘Lavender’ seen as a neutral term which wouldn’t exclude research areas, neither was it explicitly political and would be welcoming to all those interested in language and sexuality
what did Arnold Zwicky find?
homosexual vs gay - he says some prefer one to the other as a referencing term. Also refers to article by Jeffery Schmalz in 1992 which states many people prefer the term ‘queer’
lesbian or dyke - he argued that dyke has been reclaimed as it was a pejorative term
gay (adj) vs gay (noun). he suggests many dislike the use of the noun form
queer (adj), he argued many young people preferred it to gay, older people less enthusiastic
he targeted folk belief that u can identify a non-straight person from language
common misconceptions = homosexuality was an identification with opposite sex eg lesbians think and act like men, gay men think and act like women. from this it was wrongly thought that gay men would imitate female speech etc
conclusions of zwicky?
considering that there would be different speech was erroneous because it made the assumption that people had rigid patterns of how they identified themselves
ppl had different ‘communities of practice’ (eckert + mcconnell-ginet, 1992), it is ‘foolish’ to assume there is a single gay/straight community)
zwicky’s research is quite dated and does not include trans, nonbinary and other groups
zwicky did not allow for difference between gender identity and sexual orientation