William Labov - Social Variation Flashcards
Where and when did this study take place?
New York, 1972
What were the different places that Labov studied?
Department stores in New York:
Sak’s (most prestigious)
Macy’s (middle)
S. Klein (least prestigious)
Who were the people he studied at these department stores?
The staff
What was the linguistic variable Labov focused this study on?
Rhoticity (rhotic accents)
What is thought of rhotic accents in New York?
Higher classes pronounce the |r| and therefore have a rhotic accent.
Is the rhotic accent thought of differently in New York compared to the UK?
Yes!
In the UK a rhotic accent represents a lower social class.
Whereas in NY. a rhotic accent is seen as more prestigious.
What was Labov’s hypothesis?
That the more prestigious the department store was, the more often you would hear the rhotic |r|.
What were the features of the different people working in the different department stores?
Sak’s - people were better educated, willing to have a lower pay to work there, good working conditions
Macy’s + S.Klein - lower working conditions, more ethnic differences.
What was Labov’s methodology?
Sent people into the different stores and asked staff for directions to things the knew was located on the FOURTH FLOOR.
Then asked to repeat so they were able to differ between a casual and formal style.
Did Labov take into account anything else?
Yes,
He also got people to note down the staff’s age, ethnicity and gender.
What were the percentages of the different department stores that used the rhotic |r| ?
Sak’s - 62%
Macy’s - 51%
S Klein - 20%
What did the results show?
That the more prestigious stores used the rhotic accent more, however there wasn’t that much different between Sak’s and Macy’s.
There also wasn’t that much difference between the casual and formal styles.
What was Labov’s conclusion?
There is a relationship between the prestigious stores and the use of the rhotic |r|. However there wasn’t as much of a difference as was first expected.
This could be because of Macy’s aspiration to be more prestigious.
What else did Labov come up with involving prestige?
Overt and covert prestige
What is overt prestige?
The status valued and shared by mainstream society and culture
