Theorists

Question 1

George Lakoff/Mark Johnson- Standard English

Answer 1

English was born and will die, can move and needs nourishment.

But it is a global language, has grammatical structures and vocabulary.

Question 2

Linda Thomas- Standard English

Answer 2

Norms of spoken and written language are not the same.

Educated speakers use a variety of different forms of English.

Question 3

Peter Trudgill- Standard English

Answer 3

Standard English is a dialect.

Standard English is simply one variety of English amongst many.

Standard English is a sub-variety of English.

Question 4

William Labov- Standard English

Answer 4

Standard English carries the most prestige.

Standard English is most widely understood.

However, Standard English is not widely produced because only a minority of people within a country actually use it when they talk.

Question 5

Paul Kerswill- Standard English

Answer 5

There are two grammars at play: some people have the default-accusative rule in conjoined subjects whilst others don’t.

Standard English has both informal and dialectal features with the 3rd person being strongly preferred.

Question 6

Jean Aitchison- Language Change

Answer 6

Questioned the way that language change was represented in the media.

Argued that such views of language change were evidence of people being ill-informed on linguistic matters and that such views are somewhat futile, given the inevitability of change.

Many peoples ideas on language were outdated- a ‘cobweb’ of old ideas.

Question 7

Jean Aitchison- Language Change
(3 metaphors)

Answer 7

1) Language Change is a disease
2) Language Change is lazy behaviour
3) Language is a listed building

Question 8

David Crystal- Language Change

Answer 8

Proposed the metaphor of ‘Language is a tidal flow’ to explain Language Change.

This metaphor captures the idea that Language is like a tide- constantly changing and shifting in unpredictable ways, whilst retaining some form of uniformity and pattern.

The tide brings in new words and removes others in natural ways

He argues that a view of language change shifts towards one where changes are not for the worse or better, but ‘just changes, sometimes going one way, sometimes another’.

Question 9

Vyvyan Evans- Language Change

Answer 9

Suggests that emojis can work as helpful non-verbal cues, allowing us to better express our emotions and attitudes in written language in more nuanced ways.

These kinds of non-verbal cues are usually restricted to face-to-face, spoken channels of communication so therefore emojis offer us a multi-modal system of communication, combining spoken/written forms of a language (transcend linguistic borders).

Question 10

Lane Green- Language Change

Answer 10

Views language as being in a state of constant decline from a once great peak.

Question 11

Jean Aitchison- Language Change
(Neologisms)

Answer 11

Suggests that once a new word has been identified, this can trigger the process of lexical diffusion, whereby its usage is gradually taken up by a speech community.

When a word gains currency through widespread use by a variety of people and in different contexts, then it becomes established, with its meaning and pronunciation gradually becoming more uniform.

Lexical expansion takes place for two main reasons:
1) Need
2) Contact with others

Question 12

Francois Grosjean & David Crystal- World Englishes

Answer 12

Grosjean estimates that around half of the world’s population is bilingual, meaning that they don’t just have a L1 (first language), but an L2 (Second language) as well.

For many people around the world, this L2 is English and it can also happen when a country decides to teach the language in schools, known as EFL (English as a foreign language).

Crystal estimates that nearly a quarter of the world’s population are fluent or competent in English (1.5 billion people)

Question 13

Peter Strevens- World Englishes

Answer 13

He published a map in 1980 which attempted to show the global distribution of English.

It showed the distribution of English from the two main branches, American English and British English.

Question 14

Braj Katchru- World Englishes
(‘Three Circles’)

Answer 14

Katchru proposed a model of World Englishes in the 1980s and onwards, in what is known as the ‘three circles model’.

The expanding circle is parts of the world where English is recognised and used as an international language but does not have a colonial history and is often taught as an L2 (or L3 or L4)

The outer circle is the earlier phases of the spread of English in non-native settings, where English is used as an L2.

The inner circle is the traditional bases of English, where it is used as an L1.

Question 15

Tom McArthur- World Englishes

Answer 15

He created a circular model which placed ‘World Standard English’ at its centre, from which all other varieties are derived.

The next layer shows regional varieties, which includes standard and standardising forms (where ‘standardising’ means undergoing a process of standardisation).

The outer layer divides the world into 8 regions, described by McArthur as a ‘crowed fringe of sub-varieties such as Aboriginal English, Black English Vernacular, Gullah, Jamaican Nation Language, Singapore English and Ulster Scots’.

Question 16

Edgar Schneider- World Englishes

Answer 16

His Dynamic Model accounts for the nature of language contact.

His Model is a particularly useful way of looking at global change because it shows how language co-exist with one another (either at peace or in conflict), rather than simply existing as varieties by themselves that bear no relation to each other.

Also, he suggests that language evolves as a process of ‘competition and selection’.

Question 17

Edgar Schneider- World Englishes
(5 ‘phases’ of global change)

Answer 17

Phase 1 (Foundation)- when English is brought into a country where it was not previously used, normally by English speaking settlers which therefore creates a bilingual community.

Phase 2 (Exonormative Stabilisation)- as English begins to have more influence, two varieties co-exist: the settler strand and the indigenous group strand. This leads to the gradual movement of the settler variety towards the indigenous variety and therefore, code-switching occurs.

Phase 3 (Nativisation)- the most important and dynamic phase, which sees the establishment of a new identity as the gap between settler and indigenous varieties is reduced. This therefore leads to changes in the phonology, lexis and grammar of English.

Phase 4 (Endonormative Stabilisation)- this is when the new variety becomes gradually accepted as the local norm, moving towards a linguistic homogeneity. This leads to members of the settler groups start to see themselves as part of the ‘new nation’ and ethic boundaries are redefined for indigenous groups.

Phase 5 (Differentiation)- the new variety reflects local culture and identity and more local varieties of English develop, perhaps as settler and indigenous groups seek to re-establish their ethnic heritage.

Question 18

Jennifer Jenkins- World Englishes
(English as a lingua franca 1)

Answer 18

Movement of English around the world is often described as taking the form of two distinct diasporas.

Jenkins argues that these diasporas are characterised in the following ways:

The first diaspora involved relatively large-scale migrations of mother-tongue English speakers from England, Scotland, and Ireland predominantly to North America, Australia and New Zealand.

English became established as mother tongue varieties in these countries

The second diaspora took place at various points during the 18th and 19th centuries in very different ways and with very different results from those of the first diaspora.

In the countries of the second diaspora- Nigeria, Kenya, India and Singapore, colonisation led to the establishment of second language varieties (‘New Englishes’)

Question 19

Jennifer Jenkins- World Englishes
(English as a lingua franca 2)

Answer 19

She says that a lingua franca is often described as an ‘auxiliary’ language, used for functional rather than social purposes, and speakers are just as likely to be native users as they are non-native.

However, when English is used as a lingua franca (ELF), it is not a variety as such, with specific features, but something that changes to suit the needs of its users at a given time and given context.

Question 20

Jennifer Jenkins- World Englishes
(5 characteristics of English as a lingua franca)

Answer 20

1) It provides a mutually intelligible language, used by speakers of different languages allowing them to communicate with one another.

2) It is an alternative to English as a foreign language, rather than a replacement- it serves a functional communicative purpose rather than being associated with education

3) It is just as likely to include elements of Standard English as well as linguistic features reflective of more local forms.

4) Accommodation and code-switching are common practice during lingua franca communication.

5) Language proficiency in speakers may be low or high.

Question 21

Barbara Seidhofer- World Englishes

Answer 21

In terms of the linguistic structure of English as a lingua franca, Seidhofer identifies the following typical characteristics:
1) non-use of the third-person present tense
2) interchangeable use of the relative pronouns who and which
3) omission of the definite and indefinite articles where they are obligatory in native speaker English and insertion where they do not occur in native speaker English
4) use of an all-purpose question tag such as ‘isn’t it?’ or ‘no?’ instead of ‘shouldn’t they?’
5) increasing of redundancy by adding prepositions or by increasing explicitness
6) heavy reliance on certain verbs of high semantic generality, such as ‘do’, ‘have’, ‘make’, ‘put’ and ‘take’
7) pluralisation of nouns which are considered uncountable in native speaker English
8) use of that-clauses instead of infinitive constructions

Question 22

Larry Trask- World Englishes

Answer 22

He defines language death as where ‘people abandon their language in favor of some other language seen as more prestigious or useful’.

This could occur when all of the languages speakers die- through natural causes, or more likely, killed by more powerful neighbours.

Question 23

Hans-Jurgen Sasse- World Englishes

Answer 23

He proposed a model of ‘language shift’ to demonstrate what processes are at work when languages are endangered.

There are 3 main categories: External Setting, Speech Behaviour and Structural Consequence.

Question 24

Malcolm Coulthard- Idiolect and Sociolect/Age

Answer 24

Some people argue that we have a linguistic fingerprint- a style of language that is unique to each of us and that can be used to identify us

However, Coulthard argues that this is still some way off but he notes that every speaker has a very large active vocabulary built up over many years, which will differ from the vocabularies others have similarly built up not only in terms of actual items but also in preference for selecting certain items rather than others.

Question 25

John Swales- Idiolect and Sociolect/Age

Answer 25

Those who belong to a particular groups- either social or occupational- often belong to discourse communities. (A discourse community is a group of people engaged in similar activities, usually work-based or around a specialist interest, who use language in distinct and identifiable ways.)

Swales defines a discourse community as having members who:
1) have a shared set of common goals
2) communicate internally, using one or more mechanisms and genres of communication
3) use specialist vocabulary and discourse primarily to provide information and feedback
4) have a required level of knowledge and expertise to be considered eligible to participate in the community

Question 26

Peter Trudgill- Idiolect and Sociolect/Age

Answer 26

He argues that some accents are perceived to be more ‘posh’ than others and for a long time RP (Received Pronunciation) has carried these connotations.

He also says that RP was perceived as being an accent associated, with speakers who were competent, reliable, educated and confident and it was also perceived as being the most aesthetically pleasing of all British English accents.

However, RP speakers scored low on traits like friendliness, companionability and sincerity and messages in RP also proved to be less persuasive than the same messages in local accents.

Question 27

Milroy & Milroy and Foulkes and Docherty- Idiolect and Sociolect/Age

Answer 27

Milroy & Milroy identified what they termed ‘social networks’ and their importance to language use (Networks are patterns of connections that individuals have to others in their community and beyond.)

Foulkes and Docherty argued that more middle-class communities tend to be characterised by looser network structures, with greater mobility for work, leisure and housing and strong networks promote the maintenance of local linguistic features while looser networks are conduits for linguistic change.

Question 28

William Labov- Idiolect and Sociolect/Age

Answer 28

He argues that the sociolinguistic view is that we are programmed to learn to speak in ways that fit the general pattern of our communities.

Question 29

Penelope Eckert- Idiolect and Sociolect/Age

Answer 29

She argues that there are different ways of defining the concept of ‘age’ and that it means people within the same age group (for example, 18-25) will not necessarily share the same linguistic features:
1) Chronological Age (number of years since birth)
2) Biological Age (physical maturity, normally linked to levels of puberty)
3) Social Age (links with marriage, career job, having children etc)

Question 30

Anita Stenstrom- Idiolect and Sociolect/Age

Answer 30

She identified the following features of teenspeak and the use of non-standard grammatical features when they focused on the speech of 14-16 year olds in schools within London:
1) Irregular turn-taking
2) Overlaps
3) Indistinct articulation
4) Word shortenings
5) Teasing and name calling
6) Verbal duelling
7) Slang
8) Taboo
9) Language mixing- using language from other cultures

Question 31

Ignacio Palacios Martinez- Idiolect and Sociolect/Age

Answer 31

He says teenagers are more direct in the way that they speak, whereas adults are more conscious if what they say, for fear of coming across too direct.

Frequent phrases are ‘nope’, ‘dunno’ and ‘nah’ as well as the use of double negatives.

Question 32

Unni Berland- Idiolect and Sociolect/Age

Answer 32

He says that all genders use these tags (‘innit’, ‘yeah’ and ‘right’) in equal measures, though ‘okay’ was used more by boys.

‘Innit’ was found to be more frequent in working class areas, whereas ‘yeah’ was found in more middle class areas.

Question 33

Zimmerman- Idiolect and Sociolect/Age

Answer 33

He found that the following factors influenced teenage speech within Britain, focusing on their lexical and grammatical use, as well as accents they may have mimicked from TV and film.

The four factors included:
1) The media and the press
2) New means of communication (social media)
3) Music
4) Street art and graffiti

Question 34

Penelope Eckert- Idiolect and Sociolect/Age
(Language and Adolescent Peer Groups)

Answer 34

She identifies a more positive view towards the use of slang, recognising how it can be used to coin new terms or “neologisms”

She also says slang is used to establish a connection to youth culture and to set themselves off from the older generation… to signal coolness, toughness or attitude.

Question 35

Christopher V. Odato- Idiolect and Sociolect/Age

Answer 35

He found children as young as 4 use ‘like’.

He also collected evidence that younger children copy the language of those older than them.

Question 36

Joanna Thornborrow- Language Diversity

Answer 36

She argues that one of the most fundamental ways we have established our identity, and of shaping other people’s views of who we are, is through our use of language.

This may include specific lexical choices to help form this identity, grammatical constructions in speech and variations in phonology.

Question 37

William Labov- Language Diversity
(Martha’s Vineyard)

Answer 37

Labov focuses on dialectology in Martha’s Vineyard, an island which, although part of the state of Massachusetts, is fairly isolated and can be only accessed via boat or by air.

He was interested specifically in the pronunciation of the diphthongs /au/ and /ai/ and he interviewed 69 people from different social groups including age, occupation and ethnicity and asked them specific questions that would encourage the participants to use words that contained these vowels.

His main finding was that certain groups within his sample shared the tendency to pronounce the diphthongs more like /əu/ and /əi/.

Question 38

Gary Ives- Language Diversity
(London and Bradford case study)

Answer 38

In an attempt to explore these newer dialects, he commissioned two case studies to be carried out in London and Bradford and in each study, the participants were questioned and subsequently discussed their language use and, more specifically, their dialect.

He found that in school A (Bradford), 95% of students are from Pakistani backgrounds and in school B (South London), students came from a wide range of ethnic, religious and cultural backgrounds.

Question 39

Leslie Milroy- Language Diversity

Answer 39

He argues that increased geographical mobility leads to the ‘large-scale disruption of close-knit, localised networks that have historically maintained highly systematic and complex sets of socially structured linguistic norms’.

Question 40

Paul Foulkes and Gerard Docherty- Language Diversity

Answer 40

Discussed the replacement of ‘th’ with ‘f’ or ‘v’ and how the phonological variant has spread from its original origins of London.

According to Foulkes and Docherty, the order of spread seems to be as follows:
. London area
. South East: Reading, Milton Keynes
. Central England: Midlands, East Anglia, South Yorkshire
. Northern England: Hull
. North East of England and Lowlands of Scotland: Newcastle, Glasgow

Question 41

Howard Giles- Language Diversity

Answer 41

He often used what is termed the ‘matched-guise’ approach- this involves participants listening to the same speaker using a range of different accents and then passing judgement on each different variant.

He used this approach when researching the perception of RP and the Birmingham accent by two groups of 17-year-olds in 1975.

Question 42

Dixon, Mahoney and Cocks- Language Diversity

Answer 42

They used the ‘matched guise’ approach as well to see if there was a correlation between accent and how we perceive someone’s guilt.

Again, they used the Birmingham accent as the non-standard form, the participants listened to a dialogue between a policeman and a suspect and the results showed that the suspect was perceived to be significantly more likely to be guilty when he spoke with the non-standard Birmingham form.

Question 43

Neuliep and Speten-Hansen- Language Diversity

Answer 43

They again used the ‘matched guise’ approach to research attitudes from an ethnocentric viewpoint (Ethnocentricity is when people perceive their culture to be the most important and superior to others.)

They were interested in the link between ethnocentrism and the perception of a speaker with a ‘non-native accent’.

Question 44

Choy and Dodd- Language Diversity

Answer 44

They reached conclusion which suggest that teachers make judgements on a students ability and their personality based on the way they speak.

Question 45

Jenny Cheshire- Language Diversity

Answer 45

She argues that adult language, as well as child language, develops in response to important life events that affect the social relations and social attitudes of individuals.

Question 46

Vivian de Klerk- Language Diversity

Answer 46

Draws several conclusions about language;
1) Young people have the freedom to ‘challenge linguistic norms’
2) They ‘seek to establish new identities’
3) The patterns of speech previously modelled on the speech of adults are ‘slowly eroded by the patterns of speech’ by their peer group
4) They need to be seen as ‘modern, cool, fashionable and up-to-date’
5) They need to establish themselves as ‘different’
6) They need to belong to a group whose ‘habits are different from their parents, other adults and other young people’ distinguishing themselves as members of a distinctive social group

Question 47

Robin Lakoff- Gender

Answer 47

She lists the main features of female speech which remains an integral part of language and gender discussion:
1) Hedges: phrases like ‘sort of’ and ‘kind of’ etc
2) Empty adjectives: ‘divine’, ‘adorable’ and ‘gorgeous’
3) Super polite forms: ‘Would you mind…’, ‘Is it OK if…?’
4) Apologies more: ‘I’m sorry, but I think that…’
5) Speak less frequently
6) Avoid coarse language or expletives
7) Tag questions: ‘You don’t mind eating this, do you?’
8) Hyper-correct grammar and pronunciation: Use of prestige grammar and clear articulation
9) Indirect requests: ‘I’m so thirsty.’ - really asking for a drink
10) Speak in italics: Use tone to emphasis certain words, e.g, ‘so’, ‘very’, ‘quite’

Her research can be seen as representative of the ‘deficit approach’ or ‘deficit model’ to language and gender.

Question 48

Otto Jespersen- Gender

Answer 48

He attributes the deficit approach and argues that male language forms were the ‘norm’ and the language of others (including women) were ‘deficient’.

Question 49

Jenny Cheshire- Gender

Answer 49

She looked specifically at certain grammatical variations in the speech of young children and considered the frequency of the children using:
1) non-standard -s (She calls me…)
2) non-standard has (you has to…)
3) non-standard was (you was…)
4) multiple negation
5) non-standard never
6) non-standard what (are you the boys what hit…)
7) non-standard do (She do…)
8) non-standard come (I come here yesterday…)
9) use of ain’t

Overall, boys used the non-standard forms more frequently than girls did and she concluded that ‘variation is controlled by both social and linguistic factors’.

Question 50

Pamela Fishman- Gender

Answer 50

She attributed the dominance model and she specifically looked at aspects of language and came to a very different conclusion.

She said that tag questions were far more commonly used by women (four times more than men). However, she argued that questions are actually used to start conversations with males and to subsequently continue and sustain dialogue.

She also claims that men often do not respond to a declarative statement or will only respond minimally, females use tag questions to gain conventional power rather than as a sign of tentativeness.

Question 51

Deborah Tannen- Gender

Answer 51

She attributed the difference model (the theory that men and women do speak differently) and she represents male and female language use in a series of 6 contrasts to show this difference:
1) Status vs Support: Men use language to show power and dominance in conversations; women are more likely to use language choices that support and agree with others.
2) Independence vs Intimacy: Men will use language to show they do not need to rely on others; women will prefer to use language as a way of connecting with others and maintaining closeness.
3) Advice vs Understanding: Men are more likely to offer solutions to a problem through their language choices; women will show emphathy and understanding to a given situation.
4) Information vs Feelings: Similar to Tannen’s Advice vs Understanding concept, Men are far more likely to be factual in their language choices; women, in contrast, will use language choices that are less factual and stem from a more emotional viewpoint.
5) Orders vs Proposals: In conversations, Men are far more likely to be direct in their language using imperatives to command others; women will avoid such a commanding tone and be more suggestive in their language choices (for example, a man may say ‘Close that window it’s cold’ whereas the woman is more likely to say ‘Isn’t it cold in here?’ suggesting the window needs to be closed.)
6) Conflict vs Compromise: Men are more likely to use language to argue a point; women will use language to avoid such conflict and are far more likely to negotiate with others to try and find a solution.

Question 52

Jennifer Coates- Gender

Answer 52

She argues that girls and boys tend to belong to same-sex friendship groups when growing up and subsequently develop different styles of speaking.

She also theorises that female language is cooperative in single-sex conversations and she views tag questions and modality as characteristics that help to make women’s talk supportive and cooperative.

Question 53

Jane Pilkington- Gender

Answer 53

She found that women in same sex conversations were collaborative and used positive politeness strategies.

She also found that men in same sex talk talk were a lot less collaborative, less complimentary and less supportive than women.

Question 54

Deborah Cameron- Gender

Answer 54

She criticised the idea that there are innate differences in male and female speech.

She argues that the idea that men and women use language in very different ways and for very different reasons is one of the great myths of our time.

Question 55

Howard Giles- Gender

Answer 55

He came up with the Accommodation Theory which recognises how, at times, speakers will try to make their language resemble, and be more in line with, that of their audience to improve communication.

However, in contrast, some speakers may attempt to use language to distance and distinguish themselves from others (The former is known as convergence and the latter is known as divergence).