Sociolect Theories

Word of mouth; Like, Totally Awesome: The Americanisation of English

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08g5533

Americanisation of English is influenced by the TV show ‘friends’ as they use it 30 times in just over 200 episodes.

Such as ‘awesome’ and ‘black Friday’

Theories
https://aggslanguage.wordpress.com/4-4-%E2%80%93-the-basic-variation-theorists-%E2%80%93-labov-trudgill-cheshire-millroy-bernstein/
https://quizlet.com/136633892/sociolect-theories-flash-cards/

William Labov – 1966 New York Study

Excluding customers

Said that “individual speech patterns are part of a highly systematic structure of social and stylistic stratification”

-Labov studied how often the final (R) was sounded in words like guard, bare and beer. Use of this variable has considerable prestige in New York City.

-Studied the speech of sales assistants in 3 Manhattan stores drawn from- Top (Sak’s) Middle (Macy’s) bottom (Klein’s) of the price and fashion scale.

-Studied the frequency of the prestige variable final (R) varied with level of formality and social class. Sales assistants from Sak’s- used it most, Klein used it least and Macy’s showed the greatest upward shift.

-Of the 4 classes tested- Lower class, working class, lowers middle class upper middle class- Lower middle class were most susceptible to over prestige or the preconsonantal (R)

Lower middle class- Differed the most between the incidences in casual speech style (4%) to most careful speech (77%)

Upper middle class- casual (19%) and careful (60%)- showed that they were least susceptible to the prestige from, changing the way they spoke less than any other social class.

Lower class, Working class and Lower middle class are more aware of the preconsonantal (R) they are more likely to change the way they speak to reflect “how they should sound”

William Labov –Martha’s Vineyard Study

Excluding Tourists

Labov focused on realisations of the dipthongs (aw) and (ay) He interviewed speakers from different ages and ethnic groups.  (31-45 years) speakers a movement seemed to be taking place away from pronunciations associated with the standard New England norms. – The Chilmark fishermen

-The heaviest users of this pronunciation were young men who identify themselves as Vineyarders. These speakers seem to be exploiting the resources of the non-standard accent.  Some educated boys from Martha’ Vineyard were heavy users of vernacular vowels.

-A number of islanders regarded the summer visitors. For these people, the new pronunciation was an innovation and it gradually became norm for the island.

- The islands exaggerated the pronunciation of vernacular vowels- leading to a greater level of variation.

- Scouse accent is becoming more entrenched; young people are seeking to define themselves more as a group outside of their gender and class types.

Peter Trudgill – 1974 Norwich Study

 Excluding people with strong regional accents

Studied how gender affects dialect in each social class

-Looking at “walking” & “talking” considering the presence or absence or the third person.

-Differentiated between careful and relaxed speech in order I assess participant’s awareness of their own accents.

-Found at class is more of a determiner of non-standard usage than gender. Women are more likely to use the over prestige or RP form.

-Men over-reported their non-standard usage – implying that men wished to sound more non-standard and women over-reported their standard usage – implying that women wished to sound more standard. Concluded that women are more susceptible to overt prestige than men

	Male	Female
middle middle class	96	100
lower middle class	73	97
upper working class	19	32
middle working class	9	19
lower working class	0	3

Jenny Cheshire – 1982 Reading Study

Said that relationship between use of non-standard variables and adherence to peer group norms

Identified 11 non-standard features and measured their frequency of use in boys and girls in a Reading playground

“They calls me names.”

“You just has to do what the teacher says.”

“You was with me, wasn’t you?”

“It ain’t got no pedigree or nothing.”

“I never went to school today.”

“Are you the ones what hit him?”

“I come down here yesterday.”

“You ain’t no boss.”


-All children who approved of peer group criminal activities were more likely to use non-standard forms, but boys more so

–       All children who disapproved of such activities use non-standard  less frequently,- the difference between the groupings of girls was more stark

–       Suggests that variation in dialect is a conscious choice, influenced by social attitude

–       Males are more susceptible to covert prestige, but social attitude is more of a determining factor than gender

–       A more negative can be seen as aspirational, and therefore those children would be less susceptible to the covert prestige forms

Milroy’s Belfast Study –

Said that Members of a speech community are connected to each other in social networks which may be relatively ‘closed’ or ‘open’.

-A person whose personal contacts all show each other belong to a closed network. Individual who’s contact tend to not know each other belong to an open network.

-Closed networks are said to be of high density: open networks are said to be of low density.

-Dense networks are said to function as norm-enforcement mechanisms.

-She investigated the correlation between the integration of individuals in the community and the way those individuals speak.

- In most cases this meant that men whose speech revealed high usage of vernacular or non-standard forms were also found to belong to tight-knit social networks. However, for some variables, the pattern of men using non-standard and women using standard forms was reversed

Bernstein: Language and Social Class – Restricted code and Elaborated code – 1971

-Bernstein came up with the terms Restricted code and Elaborated code in order to distinguish between what he saw as two distinct ways of using language as opposed to the two distinct dialects of Standard English and the Regional Dialect

- The Elaborated code has a more formally correct syntax, having more subordinate clauses and fewer unfinished sentences

-An elaborated code arises where there is a gap or boundary between speaker and listener which can only be crossed by explicit speech

-The restricted code has a looser syntax, uses more words of simple coordination

–          A restricted code arises when speech is exchanged against a background of shared experience and shared definitions of that experience


Vera Regan




Sociolect, social groups and social class

Language: think about the different language levels. It’s more than just words (lexis), so consider phonology and grammar (and perhaps spelling, punctuation and graphology as well?)

Social groups: which social groups? Define this term and think of a variety of social groups who you could use as case studies. Think about age, class, interest groups, occupation groups etc. The more the merrier.

…designed primarily to keep others out: what does language do? Think about the functions of the language used within social groups: what is it primarily designed to do? Can you think of examples where it is the primary aim?