Style Flashcards
Theories of style
- Attention paid to speech
- Audience design
- Speaker design
Attention paid to speech - careful articulation in NYC
+ easy to replicate (sociolinguistic interview)
- artificial
- reduces variation to a liner scale
Speech accommodation theory (2. Audience design)
Giles & Powesland (1975)
Convergence and Divergence
Coupland (1984) travel agents
Voicing of intervocalic /t/ reflected that of clients
Bell (1984) newsreaders on New Zealand radio
Style shifted according to the station they were on and therefore the audience who were listening
Evaluate audience design
+ more flexible
+ tailored to specific context
- only one dimension
- doesn’t account for full creativity
Attention to speech and audience design don’t reflect how dynamic speakers are
Eckert (2000)
Speaker design
Don’t fit predefined categories that align with features
The features combine in an infinite number of ways
Podesva (2008) Heath - caring doctor vs diva
More frequent -t/-d deletion in relaxed setting
More intonation on declaratives when working as doctor
Frequent falsetto when relaxed
Eckert (2000) Connie
Jock who uses the raising (ay) burnout feature
Wanted to be independent/rebellious
Ochs (1992) direct/indirect indexing
- few features directly index social categories
- index stances, acts
- index different meanings dependant on context
Advantages of indexicality explanation
- less deterministic
- relates class to other social identities
Bell - extent of style-shifting
The closer the header the more influence they have - addressee vs eavesdropper
Intraspeaker variation greater than interspeaker
Foxy Boston (Richard & McNair - Knox, 1994)
More -s agreement of verb be agreement when speaking to African American
Robert Vana (1998) Spanish/Catalan speakers
Childhood networks have more impact than those at any other point of life
