Sociolinguistics
A speech community is a group of people who share a set of norms and expectations regarding the use of language. Sociolinguistics is the study of the relationship between language and society. Social dialects is mainly concerned with speakers in towns and cities. It can be broken into two groups of social classes.
- middle class - have more years of education and perform non-manual work
- working class - fewer years of education and perform manual work of some kind
The terms upper and lower class are use to subdivide the groups mainly on economic basis making upper-middle-class speech a type of social dialect also known as a sociolect. In the study of differences we focus on:
- pronunciations
- words or structures that are regularly used in one form by one class and another form by the other class
When we look for other examples of language use that might be characteristic on a social dialect, we treat class as the social variable and the pronunciation or word as the linguistic variable. An individuals way of speaking is called a personal dialect or idiolect. In the 1960s a sociolinguist names William Labov did a study going to different department stores in NYC and asking questions that required the employees to reply and then counting the occurrence of their postvocalic /r/. The study showed that The higher the socio-economic status of the store the more /r/ sounds were produced, the opposite occurred in a study in Reading, UK. These studies showed that the people use the posted the postvocalic /r/ as a social marker. A social marker is a linguistic feature that marks the speaker as a member of a particular social group.
A consistent social marker for the lower class and less educated across the English speaking world is the final pronunciation of -ing with [n] instead of [ŋ]. Another social marker is [h]-dropping which makes the words at and hat sound the same. It occurs at the beginning of words and can result in utterances that sound like I’m so ‘ungry I could eat an ‘orse. This feature is also associated with the lower class and less education. Charles Dickens made use of this in his character Uriah Heep.
Speech Style and Style-Shifting
The department store study also allowed for the investigation of something known as speech style which is a way of speaking that is either formal/careful or informal/casual. When one changes between speech style it is called style-shifting. The study showed this when Labov would pretend to be hard of hearing and ask the salespeople to repeat things. The NYC study showed that middle-class speakers were more likely to shift their speech into the careful style. Among the lower class the shift was so great they produced more postvocalic /r/ then the upper-middle-class speakers. This is known as hypercorrection.
If a speaker changes their speech in the direction of a form that is more frequent in the speech of those perceived to have higher social status then one is experiencing overt prestige. When they “shift down” it is called covert prestige, and is often done by younger-middle-class speakers. When we adjust our speech style toward or away from the perceived style of the person(s) we are talking to the adjustment is known as speech accommodation. When we adopt a speech style that attempts to reduce social distance we call this convergence. In contrast if we adjust out speech style to emphasize the social distance we call it divergence.
Register
Register is a conventional way of using language that is appropriate to a specific context which may be identified as situational (e.g. in church), occupational (e.g. among lawyers) or topical (e.g. talking about language). One of the defining features of register is the use of jargon, which is a special technical vocabulary, typically noun associated with a specific area of work or interest. This helps to create and maintain connections among those who see themselves as insiders and excludes outsider.
Slang
Slang is words or phrases used instead of more conventional forms by those who are typically outside established higher status groups. Taboo terms are words and phrases, often involving body parts or functions and sexual acts, that people avoid for reason related to religion, politeness, and prohibited behaviour.
African American English
African American English (AAE) is a social dialect used by many African Americans in different regions of the USA. It has a number of characteristic features that, taken together, form a distinct set of social markers. These features have often been stigmatized as bad language, following a regular pattern whereby the social practices. especially speech, of dominated groups are treated as abnormal by those dominant groups who have decided that they are in charge of labelling normal. African American Vernacular English (AAVE) is the casual speech style used by many African Americans as vernacular. Vernacular itself is a general expression for a king of social dialect, typically spoken by a lower status group, which is treated as non-standard because of marked differences from the standard language. AAVE shares a number of features with other non-standard varieties such as Chicano English.
A pervasive feature in most English vernaculars is the tendency to reduce final consonant clusters, so that words ending in two consonants (left hand) are often pronounced as if there is only one of them (lef han). Initial dental consonants (think, that) are frequently pronounced as alveolar stops (tink, dat) with the results that the definite article (the) is heard as [də]. Other features are the removal of possessive -’s and third person singular -s it is also not used when a phrase contains an obvious indication of a plural number (two guy, one of my friend).
The grammar of vernaculars is often stigmatized as being illogical or sloppy. One frequently criticized element of AAVE is the double negative construction. Yet this can be found in French and other languages too. The sloppy criticism focuses on the frequent absence of forms of the verb “to be” (are, is) in AAVE expressions such as You is crazy or She workin now. Many languages such as Russian and Arabic do not require this either. AAVE speaker may add the word be as a way of expressing habitual or recurring action and use bin to describe something that started or happened earlier (=from the past).
Study Questions
- How would you define a “speech community”? A group of people who have similar sets of norms and expectations regarding the use of language.
- What kind of variable is class in the study of language and society? Social variable
- Why did Labov try to elicit answers with the expression “fourth floor”? It gave two opportunities for him to assess pronunciation (or lack of) of postvocalic /r/ which was his linguistic variable.
- Which of these expressions has the most instances of postvocalic /r/: armed robbery or birth order or race car driver or red underwear? Birth order
- In Trudgill’s study of Reading speech, which group produced the fewest instances of postvocalic /r/? Upper middle class
- In what way can the pronunciation of -ing be a social marker? Pronunciation of -ing with [n] instead of [ŋ] is a sign of being lower class and less educated.
- Among which social group is hypercorrection more likely to occur when more attention is paid to speech? Lower middle class
- What is meant by “divergence” in analyzing speech style? Adjusting speech style to emphasize social distance.
- What kind of motivation has been identified for the existence of covert prestige in particular uses of language? To mark solidarity with others in their social class.
- What is the difference between jargon and slang? Jargon is technical vocabulary connected to occupation while slang is colloquial speech used in place of everyday terms.
- What is meant by a “register”? The conventional way of using language that is appropriate to a specific context.
- In AAVE, what is communicated by be in He don’t be smokin now? That he used to smoke but has stopped.