Language Diversity and Change

Sociolect

What is a social group?

Individuals who share interests and connections with others or have something in common with one another

What is a community of practice?

describes people coming together for a particular purpose or to achieve a shared purpose

What is a pragmatic rule ?

The unspoken rules that operate in interactions between people who share a common understanding

Bernstein =

restricted and elaborated code

syntax is more formally correct in …

elaborated code

more logical connectives like if and unless in …

elaborated code

there are more cliches in …

restricted code

it used to be implied that middle class children would generally use the …

elaborated code (whilst sometimes using the restricted code)

Whereas working-class children were more likely to use …

restricted code only - Bernstein modified this by saying working class children still may use the elaborated code and both classes would be able to understand either code when being spoken to

What are both of Labovs studies called ?

Marthas vineyard + The New York department store

What is marthas vineyard about ?

Marthas vineyard is an island of the USA and locals dislike the 40,000 summer visitors - a small group of fisherman began to exaggerate a tendency that already existed within their speech they did this somewhat subconsciously in order to establish themselves as an independent social group with a superior status to these summer visitors - Labov found this to be a movement away from the standard new England norms and this variation began to spread across the island and be more and more widely used.

What did Labovs New York Department store show ?

it showed that individual speech patterns were a part of a highly systematic structure of social and stylistic stratification.

What happened in the department store study ?

The speech of sales assistants in three Manhattan stores taken from the top (saks) the middle (Macy’s) and bottom (Klein’s) of the price and fashion scale. Each assistant asked a question designed for the “fourth floor” to be the answer looking whether it contained the variable final or the preconsonantal ( r ) — found saks used it most and Kelins used it least also Macys showed the greatest upward shift when asked to repeat the answer. Linking language use to social class.

What did Milroys Belfast Study look into ?

social networks - open and closed networks

A person who’s personal contacts all know each other belongs to a …

closed network

An individual where their contacts tend not to know each other belongs to an …

open network

Where individuals are linked in several ways e.g. job, family and leisure activities then the network ties are said to be …

Multiplex

What did Milroy do ?

investigated 3 working class communities in Belfast, all three areas were poor working class districts with high levels of unemployment. Milroy took part in the life of each community as a “friend of a friend” and looked into the correlation between integration of the individual within the community and the way they spoke.

To carry out her study Milroy gave each individual she studied a …

Network Strength Score based on the persons knowledge of other people within the community. 1-5 where 5 is the highest network strength score. Then she measured each persons use of several linguistic variables for example the (th) in mother and the (a) in hat which had both standard and non-standard forms.

What did Milroy find ?

A high network strength score was correlated with the use of vernacular or non-standard forms. showing how the use of language is linked to the socaill groups people belong to.

What did Peter Trudgill study ? (Norwich)

The final consonant in words like walking, talking and running as in standard British English the sound spelled -ng is a velar nasal but in norwich is pronounced as if the word ends with an “n” walkin and talkin

what did Trudgill note ?

This feature is not unique to Norwich and can be heard elsewhere.

What did Trudgill’s study discover ?

1) in all social classes the more careful the speech, the more likely people were to say walking rather than walkin

2) Walkin was seen more in lower social classes

3) The non-standard “in” forms occurred more in men’s speech, this was true for all social classes

What did Jenny Cheshire do ?

used long-term participant observation to gain data about relationships between use of grammatical variables and adherence to peer group culture by boys and girls in reading.

name some of the variables she measured in her study (there is 11 in total)

1) non-standard “s” - they calls me names

2) non-standard “was” - you was with me

3) non-standard “never” - i never went to school today

Emma Moore researched …

language of teenage girls in Bolton

Why does Moore suggest the use of non-standards is still prominent in the language teenage girls use in Bolton ?

she believes some girls use the non-standard variation to signal their localness to the area.

Moore collected around … hours of speech recordings across a 2 year period of studying the girls

50

Over this two year period Moore was also able to study the girls …

personal appearance and style, the people that each of them spent time with, the activities they engaged in and the girls’ attitudes to their own membership of groups and towards other groups.

From this Moore identified 4 …

Communities of Practice (CofP)

What were the 4 CofP’s in Emma Moore’s study ?

1) the Populars - who engaged in rebellious activities such as drinking and smoking and generally had an anti-school attitude

2) the Townies - a breakaway group who emerged from the populars who started to engage in even riskier activities such as drug-taking and sexual activity

3) the Geeks - who were “institutionally orientated” and took part in school activities such as the choir

4) the Eden Village girls - came from desirable home area, school orientated and engaged in activities such as dancing and shopping

What did Moore find out when looking into the Eden Village girls group?

The seven Eden Village girls used standard “was” almost all of the time and this was the only CofP to have speakers who were exclusively from the higher social group

What did she find about the geeks ?

generally disfavour the use of non-standard “were” and this may be because they engage in institutional norms of the school and conform to standard forms. HOWEVER 4/14 of the geeks do have high rates on non-standard were and upon review Moore found these four are from the lower social group.

What did she find about the populars ?

they neither favour nor disfavour the use of non-standard “were” but 3/14 of populars have no use of non-standard “were” at all. These three speakers are from a higher social class.

What did she find about the townies?

this group highly favours the use of the non-standard “were” due to hanging out with boys from the working-class more frequently

What do Emma Moore’s finding tell us about the use of the non-standard “were”?

the non-standard “were” is alive and well in the northwest area however there is not one explanation as to why, found to be a mixture of both linguistic and social factors.