Language and Social Groups, Language and Region

Paper 2 - Language Diversity

Sociolinguistic factors

Family

Age

Political ideology

Profession

Interests

Social class

Sexuality

Education

Religion

Upbringing/locality/region

Friendship groups

Ethnicity

Gender

Social media/online communities

Inter-speaker variation

Between speakers or groups of speakers

Intra-speaker variation

Variation within the individual in different contexts/situations

Accent

Differences in only pronunciation

Dialect

Differences in grammar, words and pronunciation

British Standard English BSE

The mainstream dialect of English - it is the variety considered to be correct and has the most prestige.

Most associated with writing, taught in the education system and to non-native speakers

Non-standard English

Different from normal or majority usage and may be considered wrong or incorrect by prescriptivists

Social group

A collective of people who share some characteristics which defines their identity

Janet Holmes 1992 Social networks

Our linguistic identity is often connected to the networks we belong to

Types of networks

Closed network

Open network

Closed network

An individual whose personal contacts all know each other

Open network

An individual whose personal contacts tend not to know each other

Lesley Milroy 1977

High network strength score = more non-standard forms

Men use more non-standard forms - Trudgill

More non-standard forms are being used when in closed networks

Vernacular

Non-standard

Occupational register

A specific linguistic style unique to a profession including words, phrases or particular grammatical constructions

Different types of power

Political

Instrumental

Personal

Social group

Influential

Shan Wareing’s Power classifications 1999

Political power - power held by politicians, the police and those working in the law courts

Personal power - those who hold power as a result of their occupation or role, such as teachers and employers

Social group power - those who hold power as a result of social variables such as class, gender and/or age

Instrumental power

Used by individuals or groups to maintain or enforce authority e.g. exam rules.

Think of it as authorative power used by those with authority

Influential power

Used to influence and persuade others e.g. advertising, TikTok celebs.

It is influential because the user does not actually exercise any authority over those they are trying to persuade.

What language-based evidence might you explore in an interaction to find out who has power?

Who has the floor

Imperatives

Speaking with conviction/confidence

Topic management

Less politeness conventions

More interruptions

Tone/volume of voice

Vocatives

Minimal responses

Drew and Heritage 1992

Said that workplace discourse is characterised by 3 typical factors:

Goal orientation

Particular constraints

Special inferential frameworks

Goal orientation

Aiming to achieve a particular purpose

Particular constraints

Constraints on what are considered ‘allowable’ contributions

Think about the knowledge of semantic fields, turn-taking, crossed purposes, time constraints, technology problems

Special inferential frameworks

Procedures particular to specific institutional contexts - accepted ways of communicating that aren’t made explicit

ie expectations for terms of address, levels of jargon, length of utterances, register

Frontstage discourse

Discourse that is ‘on show’ or takes place before the public

Backstage discourse

Discourse that is ‘behind the scenes’ or unofficial, e.g office chat

Transactional speech

Goal-directed conversation

Interactional speech

Social conversations

Phatic speech

Language used small talk or greeting, rather than conveying information

Janet Holmes and Maria Stubbe 2003

Research about getting people to do things in the workplace

Findings were imperatives dominate in blue collar environments

Modalised forms are preferred in white collar situations

One reason they suggest for this is the predominance of routine tasks and clear power relationships in a factory context

Further findings analyse the significance and use of humour in the workplace,  mitigation strategies, small talk and miscommunication.

Blue collar environment

Manual work

White collar situations

Office work

Ingrid Bax 1986

Research about getting people to do things in the workplace

Findings were powerful speakers use politeness strategies because they are aware they need to form good relationships with their subordinates.

Mode has a significant impact on the form of the directive, with written language being much more direct.

Over 70% written directives were imperatives

Fewer than 50% spoken directives were imperatives

More ‘mutual negotiation’ and ‘signalling of changes in the social relationship’ takes place in spoken directives.

Imperative

Grammatically has the verb at the beginning of a sentence

A type of directive

Directive

An umbrella term

An utterance that tells someone else what to do. It can use an imperative structure but might also take a different format.

Almut Koester 2006 and 2010

Research about getting people to do things in the workplace

Findings were modal verbs were used more frequently of the less direct variety - could, might, may

‘I want’ did not occur at all in the data, instead ‘you’ was found - resulting in a directive function 

‘You want’ was frequently used by those receiving instructions

Further findings examine the significance of humour and relationships at work as well as the use of English as a lingua franca in business.

Oppressive power

Linguistic behaviour that is direct and open in its exercising of power and control

Repressive power

A more indirect way of exercising power and control

Norman Fairclough

Says that oppressive discourse strategies are declining in favour of repressive ones

There is a modern tendency to be more indirect in the linguistic display of power

Sinclair and Coulthard 1975

The structure of classroom discourse using IRF - initiation, response, feedback

The teacher initiates the transaction by asking a question

The pupil follows this up with a response, usually an answer to the question

Its followed up with feedback often in the form of an evaluation from the teacher

Jargon

The specialist lexis of a particular occupation

Restricted occupational lexis

Specialist lexis that is limited to one occupation

Why can jargon be seen as a pejorative term?

Jargon is sometimes difficult to understand for outsiders

Semantic field

The is lexis which is more likely to occur in a particular occupational context but which would not be regarded as specialist

Advantages of jargon

Private chat - prevent non-users from understanding

Professionalism

Soften potentially face threatening information - less direct

Saves time

Sounds more knowledgeable

Creates a sense of community

Easier to discuss specifics

Could sound more polite

Can be used to deflect blame

Disadvantages of jargon

New employees in the workplace may not understand the jargons used there yet so might feel confused or left out of conversations

People can get frustrated - could be seen to skirt around topics

Takes a while for workers to acquire the jargon - new workers at a disadvantage

Could lack clarity - potential for miscommunication

Create hierarchy

Could cause discrimination between ‘in’ and ‘out’ groups

Could be used to exert power

Could be confusing if used with customers

Could waste time

Dehumanising

Can obscure/hide things

Can be used to deflect blame

The Plain English Campaign

Campaign against the use of jargon and unnecessarily complicated language, mainly in written documents

Social class scale

A - Higher managerial, administrative and professional workers

B - Intermediate managerial, administrative and professional workers

C1 - Supervisory and junior managerial, administrative and professional workers

C2 - Skilled manual workers

D - Semi-skilled and unskilled manual workers

E - Casual laborers, state pensioners and the unemployed

The Standard Language Ideology

Language is part of a cultural capital

People in society often associate lower class with non-standard language use - e.g. g dropping - the basis of some summer 2021 criticism of TV presenter Alex Scott doing this (‘othering’ her due to gender/race/class)

Isogloss

The geographical boundary of a certain linguistic feature

Regional accent markers

Rhotic

Strut vowel

Long or short a

Glottal stop

Rhotic regional accent marker

There is an accent split between accents that pronounce an /r/ after vowels and those that don’t e.g. father vs farther and ca vs car

Strut vowel regional accent marker

In the south, the vowel in foot and out is different to the vowels in strut and up

In the north, these vowels are the same

Long or short a regional accent marker

In the south, words such as dance, bath and laugh are pronounced with the long /a/

In the north, these vowels have the short /a/

Glottal stop regional accent marker

The t sound in words like bottle and water are not pronounced

Also the case for the t at the ends of words

Bailey et al 2020

Collected tweets to see the graphical representation of phonetic dialect features of the north of england on social media

style shifting used

computer mediated communication used

eye dialect spellings used

Style shifting

people speak different styles and can change

Computer mediated communication

how people talk on technology

Eye dialect spellings

spelling words how you pronounce it e.g. have = av

Online language style

orderly and systemic

construct our social and online persona

Happy laxing

Manchester, North West England

TH stopping

Multicultural London English

Dialect imitation

Some unexpected regional patterns, particularly in place names e.g. Landan

Accentism

Unconscious judgements/social stereotypes

Indexicality

how particular features of language become attached to things with social meaning

Alderton 2020 study on taps, stops and chavs

About how the /t/ is pronounced - as correct alveolar plosive or incorrect t-glottaling or t-tapping (sounds like /d/)

45 speakers aged 16-19 from Hampshire took part in the study - 26 attended state schools and 19 private schools

Exposed participants to 4 30sec recordings of teenage voices

After hearing the 4 recordings, participants were given a list of characteristics to apply to the speakers they’d heard.

They were asked to select which of 5 stereotypical social groups they felt each speaker might belong to (chav, geek, sporty, arty and popular).

Participants used t tapping 9% of the time who attended private schools

The other 91% was a mix of the other 2 options but it depended particularly in the word

Coupland and Bishop 2007

RP rated highest for social attractiveness

Birmingham rated lowest for social attractiveness

RP rated highest for most prestige

Birmingham rated highest for most prestige

Howard Giles Capital Punishment study 1975

5 groups of 50 heard an argument against capital punishment

5 different accents: typed copy of text, RP accent, Somerset accent, South Welsh accent, Birmingham accent.

The matched guise technique is used

Giles tested responses to different accents based on status, personality and persuasiveness

RP was ranked the highest for highest quality and Birmingham was ranked the lowest and responses were least enthusiastic.

Questionnaire showed that those who had heard a regional accent had changed their minds about capital punishment a week later so therefore regional accents are deemed more persuasive.

The matched guise technique

A single actor puts on different accents for different audiences but keeps the content of the speech the same

This is to avoid the influencing factors such as personality, appearance, etc

The method is often criticised for artificiality

The Accent Bias Project 2020

Explores whether accent bias is present when it comes to employability

Experiment set up a scenario of a mock interview in a corporate law firm

Answers were played to a group of over 1000 participants and participants asked to rate for perceived employability. Another separate group of 60 were participants with a legal background.

In a separate part of the experiment participants were asked to rate 38 accents for prestige and social attractiveness - RP top, Birmingham bottom

The gap between highest and lowest was smaller in 2019

Under 40s responded positively to MLE whereas over 40s responded positively to RP

RP gave the most high quality answers

Stephen Fry 2011 Planet Word series about a Newcastle call centre

The Geordie accent was traditionally viewed as poverty and working class but is now viewed as one of the most desirable accents around

A recent survey showed the perception of the Geordie accent is most likely to make you feel happy and is very trustworthy and helpful

When a customer wishes to complain they pass on the phone to someone with a RP accent as they have more status and authority

Malcolm Petyt 1985

Pronunciation of /h/ at the start of words like ‘horrible’

He researched in Bradford, Yorkshire

The percentage of h dropping increased as you go down the classes: 12% for upper middle class compared to 93% for lower working class.

In instances of social mobility, where individuals may have moved up the socio economic scale, they would modify their speech a bit further towards RP and make use of features like h dropping less.

Speakers who had tried to move up the social scale and tried to implement this modification in their speech - this is resulted in hypercorrection.

Hypercorrection

A mistaken correction to text or speech made through a desire to avoid non-standard pronunciation or grammar

e.g. ‘between you and I’ is a hypercorrection of ‘between you and me’

Peter Trudgill 1974

Variable he was investigating was the use of non-standard pronunciation of ‘n’ for ‘ing’ in words like thinking.

Trudgill observed that this was a frequent feature heard in and around Norwich

A score of 0 meant total non-standard use whereas 100 meant use entirely of the ‘ing’ pronunciation.

Collected in 4 different styles in order to vary participants consciousness of speech style: Word list style, Reading list style, Formal style and casual style.

The upper working class for men in the Reading list style have a higher score than the lower middle class

As you go down the classes, there is an obvious social stratification with non-standard use - supports Petyt’s research

Social stratification

A society’s hierarchal ranking of people on factors like wealth, education etc

Percentage of newsreaders that speak RP

70%

less than 10% speak RP around the country

RP

A pronunciation of British English, originally based on the speech of the upper class of south-eastern England

‘king’s English’

William Labov’s New York Department stores 1966

Investigated the presence or absence of the phonological variable r in the post vocalic position in car, card, four, fourth

It was believed that the pronunciation of r after vowels was recognised as a prestigious form.

Labov visited 3 well known stores: Saks (high class), Macy’s (mid), S.Klein (low class) and investigated speech of the workers

Pretending to be a shopper he asked workers for the location of a particular department which he knew was on the fourth floor

r pronunciation was favoured in the highest ranking store - Saks (62%), Macy’s (51%) and S.Klein (20%)

Shows middle class speakers’ awareness of the prestige associated with the r-pronunciation

Older workers used r pronunciation less

When asked to repeat their responses (emphatically), there was an increase in r-pronunciation across all of the stores – a hypercorrection

William Labov’s Martha’s Vineyard 1963

Island about 3 miles off New England on the East coast of the USA.

Labov noticed the pronunciation of certain vowel sounds (diphthongs) as in mouse /aw/ and mice /ay/ was subtly changing amongst some of the population

This change was most pronounced amongst the island's
fishermen community

After the fishermen, were the younger (31-45 yrs) speakers, who were moving away from the pronunciations associated with the standard New England norms and towards a pronunciation associated with the Vineyard fishermen.

The fishermen were viewed by other islanders as independent, skilful, physically strong, courageous.

The young men were actively seeking to identify themselves as Vineyarders, rejecting the values of the mainland and resenting the encroachment of wealthy summer visitors on the traditional island way of life.

Dialect

Variety of a language, including lexis, grammar, particular to a region

Accent characteristics of Cockney accent

Different vowel pronunciation e.g. me family

h dropping

glottalising

th-fronting

Cockney rhyming slang

A collection of phrases associated with London, thought to have originated in the East End during the 19th century

Works by replacing a word with a rhyming word or expression

e.g. lies to pork pies, stairs to apples and pears

Alan Ross idea in the 1950s

Hierarchies of words or phrases that associate with a certain class

e.g. napkin is used up upper and middle classes whereas serviette is used by lower classes

Examples of dialect grammar

Loss of concord

Negation

Ain’t

Determiner use

Unmarked plurality

Pronoun use

Loss of Concord dialect grammar

When there is a lack of agreement between the subject and verb of the sentence, in line with the ‘standard’ variations e.g. I was, you were, he/she was, they were.

e.g. I were late/you was late yesterday

Negation dialect grammar

Multiple negation - this is linked to the idea that ‘two negatives make a positive’. In many languages, double negatives are commonly used to emphasise a point, and in fact, double negation was once frequent in English.

e.g. I didn’t do nothing

Ain’t dialect grammar

One of the most stigmatised features, but it was used by upper class educated writers up until about 1800.

This can have various functions in dialects. It can be used as the negative form of present tense ‘be’ or ‘have’.

e.g. They ain’t there yet, I ain’t doing it, you ain’t got a clue

Determiner use dialect grammar

Possessive determiners - pronouns may be used in place of determiners in non-standard dialects (mostly northern England): e.g. I’ve lost me bike

Demonstratives - use of the object pronoun ‘them’ in place of determiner ‘those’: e.g. I like them shoes

Unmarked plurality dialect grammar

Omitting the plural marker on a noun. This is particularly common in Yorkshire dialect. However, more widespread than realised e.g. ask yourself, are you ‘10 stone’ or ‘10 stones’?

e.g. There’s only two mile to go

Pronoun use dialect grammar

Relative pronouns - Standard English uses the relative pronouns who (for humans), which (for non-humans) and that (for both types). Varieties of this are found in many dialects: that was the man what/which done it.

Reflexive pronouns - reflexive pronouns in English are in fact irregular, so some dialects regularise these forms e.g. myself, yourself, herself/hisself, theirselves

Plural ‘you’ form - some dialects, for example in Liverpool, use ‘yous’ as the plural form of the 2nd person pronoun.

Snell 2015 - give us my shoe back!

Analysed ways children of different classes in Teeside spoke and associated meanings. Explored the use of singular ‘us’ in place of ‘me’.

Method - participant observation, weekly visits to 2 schools as a classroom helper over 7 months (one working class and one lower middle class).

Results - children in working class school used ‘us’ instead of ‘me’ more (16.9% compared to 3.8%). Only occurred in the imperative mood. Mostly used to show inclusion, solidarity and in-group membership.

Conclusion - believes regional dialects are valuable and important for people to express shared identity. Attempts to discourage in school won’t work.

Peter Trudgill discusses attitudes to languages across what 3 areas?

Correctness - idea that language has fixed rules that shouldn’t be allowed to change

Adequacy - certain types of English are argued to be less adequate for communication. RP is often claimed to be the adequate variety

Aesthetics - idea that certain varieties are more attractive

Language in education

Frequent examples of schools restricting uses of regional English or other forms of language e.g. slang. These bans are examples of the adequacy argument - the idea that local forms of English are not a suitable means of communication compared to others.

Employment language use

Concerns that using regional dialect will reduce employment opportunities

Public shaming of those with non-standard accents

Football pundit Alex Scott, TV presenter Steph McGovern

Difference between will and shall

shall - it will happen at some point in the future

Will - resolution, you will do it for certain, for 1st person

Literally meaning

Not understanding the meaning and that it is metaphorical

2 paninis plural confusion

Panini doesn’t exist - its only plural

Panino is singular

Basil Bernstein 1971