sociolinguistics

What does langauge illustrate?

Holmes and Wilson 2022: “Linguistic variation can provide social information”

• speakers choice gives us hints about social factors, feelings relationships etc

Waves Eckert 2012

1) quantitive studies of variation (broad social catogories) - labovb

2) ethnographic studies (local, participant designed catogories) Milroy

3) stylistic and identity catogories (stylistic practice)

Speech communities

Broad - people who speak a common lanague

Refined - a complex interlocking network of communication whose members share knowledge about and attitudes towards language use” (Spolsky, 1998, p.125)

• no limitations to the size of one

Variables

Social: gender, age, occupation etc

Linguistics: langauge, dialect, register, style, syntactic patterns, lexical items, phonological features

Indexicality

Malory and Tusting 2022: the process of association between linguistic forms and social meaning”

• can be conscious or unconscious

Accommodation

Adjusting speech to converge with or diverge from the speech style of an interlocutor

Such as standards and prestige:

Malaroy and Tusting 2022 - standard vs venecular language

• mersthrie 2009 example in England with RP at the top and low status accents and dialects at the bottom

Diglossia

Ferguson 1959

• different lanagues/variations used in formal/informal settings exist side by side with a (H) and (L)

Descriptions vs prescription

Sociolinguistics = descriptive approach: language variation is a natural and interesting phenomenon

Prescriptive view can come from standard language ideology - the belief that the most prestigious form is more correct, civil and pure

Language attitudes

Linked to sociology and psychology, language is an important part of social judgement

• language is a powerful social force that does more than convey intended referential information - Carlisle 1994

Lambert 1969

The sentimental language attitudes paper introduced the “matched guise technique”

• One speaker takes on several “guises”, performing different languages or accents

• Other variables (pitch, voice quality, speech rate) controlled as much as possible

• Speakers rated on a set of scales showing different attributes (e.g., intelligent, kind, rich)

• Ratings function as expressions of social judgement based solely on linguistic cues

The matched guise legacy

Common findings across different contexts:

• standard accents are rated more highly on “competences” or “status” traits

• Non standard accents are rated highly on traits of kindness and solidarity

Accent bias

Britain - still see a hierarchy penalising non-standard variations and accents over the “national prestigious one”

Education - teachers in UK told to modify their northern accents to sound more “standard”

• London school trying to ban fillers and slang (Robert Booth 2021)

• “Poor” variations can cause teachers to make negative judgements of the students - Giles and Billings 2004

2 way concept

Langauge shapes society and social structures and these shape langauge and language interactions/change

Wave 1 1960s-70s

Quantitative studies William Labov

• understood quantative techniques and wanted to measure variations

• Martha’s Vineyard 1963

• “Fourth floor” 1966

Variation was connected with “large” demographic variables like class and gender

2nd wave 1980s

Ethnographic (locally significant) Milroy

Focused on identity catogories like the Belfast study

• separate catogories class and religion in Belfast And nature of social networks shapes language change

• Weak - more change

• Denser networks - more change

• More local networks - more vernacular forms and so you need to understand the locally meaningful groups not just big demographic categories

3rd wave 1990s - now

The waves do not replace each other

This one (Eckert) focused on identity, style and persona where we construct social identity through stylistic practices combining language and other meaning making choices

• method = natural observation

• 1980 jocks and burnouts study identified meaningful categories to the local social school order

Youth language

Youth language is important as it helps explain language change, young people are often the leaders of language change,

• adolescents may be the most influential transmitters of langauge change - makes sense both in developmental and social terms (Kerwill 1996)

  • 2005 kerswill and Williams’ Milton Keynes study

Multicultural London English

Sebastian 1993 - identified black London English/London Jamaican variant

• kerswill documented a shift in dominant London language cockney > MLE

May be heard all over the country in young people especially due to the technology and ease of moving around

• accommodation to peer groups

• Media - Stuart-smith (2017) connections of MLE influencing langauge change in Glasgow

• Social media

Multicultural British English

• not necessarily seen as London speech it more as a “normal” teenager speech pattern and MLE has even been tracked across youths in Sweden, Denmark, Kenya etc showing the spread and change of langauge that these youths will bring with them

Attitudes toward youth languages are critical (crushing 2022) describes this as “raciolinguistic ideologies” in schools

Challenge:

• linguists are descriptive not prescriptive

• Youth language is often highly creative

• Young people use language to play with identities gives insight into bigger social questions around class and identity (Rampton 1998, 2006)