Age + Social Groups

William Labov - Covert + Overt Prestige

Overt Prestige = Publicly Valued, Posh and Formal

Covert Prestige = High social value in local communities, Non-standard

Peter Trudgill - Social Status + G-Dropping

1974 Norwich England

Divided a group of speakers into social class groups

Primarily focused on g-dropping

-Working class g-dropped, Middle class did not

Social status shaped pronunciation

Penelope Eckert - Jocks and Burnouts - People speak like their friends

Detroit Highschool

Observed natural social groups

-Jocks were engaged, middle class and enjoyed school life

-Burnouts engaged in rebellious behavior and did not interact with school on-goings.

Findings: Burnouts used non-standard english (Negative Concord)

Jocks used an advanced vocabulary, elaborated pronunciation and standard lexis

People speak like their friends

Vivian Deklerk - Challenge Linguistic Norms

No research

Young people have the freedom to “Challenge Linguistic Norms” more than adults

-Teenagers seek to establish new identities through their language #

-patterns of speech modeleed by adults are slowly being eroded by their peer groups to distinguish themselves as up-to-date