Sociolects

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Sociolects Prestige

• Linguistic Variables
• Age In-Groups

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Outline

• Definition of Terms
• Important Representatives
• Linguistic Variables
• 3.1 Theoretical Approach
• 3.2 Real Life Examples
• Age In-Groups
• 4.1 Theoretical Approach
• 4.2 Real Life Examples
• 5. Bibliography

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1. Definition of Terms

• What does Sociolect mean?
• Kind of word formation - blending
• ? Social Dialect
• Variety of speech used by a particular group
• Dialect Form of language in certain area
• Ethnolect Form of language of certain
  ethnic groups
• Ecolect Form of language unique to household
• Idiolect Form of language used by
  particular individual

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What does Prestige mean?

• French for status not categorization of the
  person in social class
• BUT
• Sort the person into a certain linguistic class
• Characterized by mode of speech

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2.) Important Representatives

• William Labov
• U.S. linguist, born 1927 in Rutherford, N.J.
• Pioneer in sociolinguistics
• Work on class-based variation in the speech of
  New York and elsewhere led the field into the
  1980s
• Focused on regional and class differences in
• English pronunciation

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Important Representatives (contd)

• Peter Trudgill
• British linguist, born 1943 in Norwich, England
• First to apply Labovian sociolinguist methodology
  in the UK
• Focused on regional and class differences in
  English pronunciation in the UK

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3.) Linguistic Variables

• 3.1) Theoretical Approach
• Term introduced by Labov
• Refers to units in language beeing subject to
  social or stylistic variation
• With reference to social class, gender and age
• Diachronic change fast (i.e., change through
  time)

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Dialect Accent?

• Dialect
• Regionally or socially distinctive variety of
  language
• Identified by a particular set of words,
  grammatical structures and distinctive
  pronunciation
• If you speak a human language, you must speak
  some dialect of it
• Accent
• Refers to pronunciation only
• Standardized accents, e.g., Oxford English, RP

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Dialects and Intelligence?

• Language variety does not correlate with
  intelligence or competence
• Misbelief some varieties of a language not as
  good as others
• However some varieties of a language are more
  standard than others
• Product of social facts

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Dialects and Intelligence (contd)
http//youtube.com/watch?vCKGEnXqJZos
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Dialects and Intelligence (contd)

• Who do you think this conversation was
• between?
• Doctor-patient-conversation
• What was wrong with it?
• Doctor uses inappropriate language
• Highly informal words
• Curse words
• Double negatives

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Dialects and Intelligence (contd)

• Certain people are expected by society to use
  formal speech
• Associations of certain varieties of English with
  professional and intellectual competence run deep
  
• The Movie, the clip is taken from, picks-up the
  topic of the decay of language

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3.2) Real Life Examples

• The Social Stratification of English in
• New York City
• (W. Labov)
• Variable (r) has two variants namely r and Ø
  (empty set)
• Either you do or you do not use the final or
  preconsonantal (r) in words like guard and beer
• Question Use of variable (r) dependant on social
  status?

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The Social Stratification of English in
NYCREALIZATION

• Study was conducted in Lower East Side of
• New York City (Manhattan) in 1960s
• Analyzed speech of sales assistants in 3 stores
• Saks (top of price and fashion range)
• Macy's (middle of price and fashion range)
• Klein's (bottom of price and fashion range)
• Sales assistants were approached with a factual
  enquiry designed to elicit the answer - "Fourth
  floor"

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The Social Stratification of English in
NYCRESULTS

• Sales assistants from Saks used (r) most (62)
• Sales assistants from Klein's used it least (20)
• Sales assistants from Macy's showed greatest
  upward shift when asked to repeat
• Results show that frequency of use of the
  prestige variable final or preconsonantal (r)
  varied with level of social class
• The more the variable (r) was used the higher the
  social status

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Real Life Examples (contd)

• Norwich by social class and sex for formal style
• (Peter Trudgill)
• Norwich speech studied by Peter Trudgill in 1970s
• Wanted to find out how and why peoples way of
  speaking varies
• One of variables studied was final consonant in
  words like walking, running
• Conclusion
• Nonstandard -in' (as in walkin) forms occurred
  much more often in lower social classes
• Also use of walkin' type forms occured much more
  in men's speech than in women's (in all social
  classes)

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4.) Age In-Groups

• 4.1) Theoretical Approach
• Age fundamental dimension of social identity
• Influences the way we speak
• Affects how we perceive and treat others
• Way of speech changes with age
• Another important factor gender
• (mother-child-relationship)

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• Age and Language Variation (contd)

• Communicative Competence defined in terms of
• four components
• Grammatical competence words and rules
• Sociolinguistic competence appropriateness
• Discourse competence cohesion and coherence
• Strategic competence appropriate use of
  communication strategies

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• Age and Language Variation (contd)
• 4 stages in life
• Childhood
• Adolescence
• Adulthood
• Old Age

Characteristic linguistic behaviour at each life
stage
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Prestige
Vernacular speech
30
50
70
Age
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• Age and Language Variation contd

• Childrens speech influenced by parents and peers
• Acquisition of local dialect from ages 4-13
• Adults use more prestigious linguistic forms than
  younger speakers
• Young and older people reflect language change
• Age interacts with other social variables
  (gender, ethnicity, class, etc.)

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• Age and In-Groups

• Differences according to age groups by street
  youth
• Dress differently from the "norm "
• Often have their own "language"
• Reasons
• (1) Enhance own cultural identity
• (2) Identify with each other
• (3) Exclude others
• (4) Invoke feelings of fear or admiration
• from the outside world

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4.2) Real Life Examples
http//youtube.com/watch?vf0zm6JLAqJs
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White Hip Hoppers

• Why?
• White, middle-class young people who affiliate
  with hip hop
• Most live in predominantly white middle-class and
  upper-middle-class neighborhoods
• Yet they affiliate with a cultural form that has
  its origins in urban black working-class
  communities
• Are socially and physically removed from hip
  hops creative and ideological space
• Exposure to this language takes place principally
  through electronic media (MTV, BET, CDs, etc.)
• Also imitated style, gestures, attitude, etc.

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White Hip Hoppers (contd)

• How?
• Use a set of widely recognized socially
  eye-catching linguistic features of another
  speech variety to stylize their speech
• AAVE (African-American Vernacular English)
  features
• You know (what) Im sayin. Typical hip hop
  discourse marker that draws the dialog partner
  into the conversation 
• Use of aint a feature of AAVE and many other
  vernacular varieties of English
• To omit words (I Ø seen ya before, right?)
• Unmodiefied be that signals a habitual or
  repetitive action
• (People be callin me...)
• There aint no such thing as... double negative
  

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Bibliography

• Llamas, Carmen Mullany, Louise and Stockwell,
  Peter, 2007, The Routledge Companion to
  Sociolinguistics, Routledge
• J.K. Chambers, 1995, Sociolinguistic Theory,
  Basil Blackwell, Inc.
• Crystal, David, 1991, A Dictonary of Linguistics
  and Phonetics, Basil Blackwell, Inc.
• Holmes, Jannet, 1992, An Introduction to
  Sociolinguistics, Longman