English Language - Social Groups

Social groups

A community that shares a common discourse due to a socially constructed identity or interest e.g. gender, region, occupation, social classes etc

Milroy's Belfast Study (1975) - Summary

-3 working class communities in Belfast were investigated (Hammer, Clonard, Ballymacarrel) and all 3 also had a high incidence of unemployment

-investigated the correlation between how individuals integrated and how this impacted the way they spoke

Closed and open social networks

Social networks may be ‘closed’ or ‘open’

Closed = person's personal contacts all know each other

Open = an individual whose contacts tend not to know each other

Milroy's Belfast Study (1975) - NSS

-Each person given a Network Strength Score by Milroy (based on the person's knowledge of other people and what they are like)

High NSS - close, strong ties to multiple areas

Low NSS - few strong ties across areas

Milroy's Belfast Study (1975) - Findings

-High NSS was correlated with the use of vernacular or non-standard forms and that they were mostly men

-HOWEVER, In Hammer and Clonard, more women than men tended to use non-standard forms

Milroy's Belfast Study (1975) - Explanation

-In Hammer and Clonard, both had unemployment rates of around 35% so men were forced to look outside the community for work so women also went out to work and therefore had a more dense and multiplex network cause of that

Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger (1991): Communities of Practice

-identifed three crucial strands that are about the ways groups do things, talk, their beliefs and values and power relations between members:

Mutual engagement: Regular interaction

Joint negotiated enterprise: A common goal

Shared repertoire: A similar communication style

Malcolm Petgyt (1985): Bradford h-dropping - Summary

-studied different classes in Bradford (Yorkshire)

-focused on initial /h/ sound - h-dropping

Malcolm Petgyt (1985): Bradford h-dropping - Conclusions

-Over 90% of working class people in Bradford h-dropped

-Regional accent decreased as you moved ‘up’ the class scale

-Absence of h-dropping seen as standard form

-Evidence of conscious upwards convergence in middle classes

Michael Halliday (1976): Anti-Languages

-used to explain the forms of sociolects that grow from groups who are on the fringes of society that seek some sort of convert identity e.g. queer people, criminals, swingers

Examples of features:

-Language of an anti-society (not mainstream)

-Different lexis, same grammar

-Relexicalising existing vocabulary

-Communicate meanings that are inaccessible to non-usere

-Users view it as an important part of their identity

-Mostly used in speech

Polari - Paul Baker (2002)

-Used mostly 1930s-1970s

-Originally London-centric but spread to the Theatre scene and the British Mechant Navy

-Anti-language used by gay men

-Lexis includes but not limited to (around 500 items in total): fantabulosa, camp, bitch (as a verb), scarper, bona