Social Class

• Social Class is defined as a division of a society based on social and economic wealth.
• Labov -New York City: investigating presence of rhoticity in phoneme 'r' in pre - consonant and final positions in words. Use of this variable has considerable prestige in NYC. Examining whether this 'r' sound was impacted by social class.
• Labov, NYC, Method: 3 department stores chosen. Sacks (upper middle class); Macys (lower middle class); Kleins (discount, associated with working class).
• Labov, NYC Method: sales assistants in each store were approached with a question designed to elicit reply 'fourth floor'. Next asked to repeat answer. Enabled analysis of casual response and when put language is questioned.
• Labov NYC, Results: employees at saks most commonly used the rhotic phoneme and klein's used it least. Employees at macys showed greatest upward shift in second iteration;
• Evaluation of Labov NYC: middle class store changed most - are middle class more aware of accent. Observer's paradox used in second iteration positively. Overt prestige of rhotic 'r', are kleins unaware of prestige, or have covert prestige of something else?. Dont know class of store workers just store - people of all class work everywhere.
• Trudgill, England, 1974 (not applicable in modern conditions). One variable examined was 'g-dropping'. NOT dropping has overt prestige in england.
• Trudgill Methodology: participants grouped by social class and sex. Participants invited to speak in a variety of situations (relaxed and careful - reading from word list/passage and a causal conversation). Participants asked how often they felt they 'gdropped'.
• Trudgill Results: higher socioeconomic status meant more frequent use of standard variant. Women used standard more than men. Men over reported non standard use. Women over reported standard use. Data could suggest women have a greater social awareness or each gender has different overtly prestigious pronunciations.
• Petyt - investigating the link between class and 'h' dropping in words such as 'hat', also /u/ phoneme.
• Petyt - divided participants in bradford into groups according to social class, he examined upper middle to lower working.
• Petyt found a strong correlation between social class and h-dropping. Biggest gaps between lower middle and upper working showing clear class divide. Lower classes hdropped more often, which is covertly prestigious variety.
• Petyt: Found that is people moved up the class system they would modify speech towards RP and standard forms. Often led to hyper correction as people were making an exaggerated effort.
• Petyt: uk based in 1985
• Basil Bernstein - 1971, in the UK
• Bernstein: came up with elaborated/restricted code, wanted to study language variation in a different way, rather than accents which carry clear biases.
• Bernstein: felt elaborated code had a more formally correct syntax, more logical connectives and more explicit reference, usually associated with formal situations.
• Bernstein: felt restricted code had looser syntax, and more words of simple connection ('and;'but'), more implicit reference, associated with informal situations and is used to convey opinion/feeling, is background dependant.
• Elaborated and restricted code should not be confused with social dialects.
• Bernstein: studies 2 five year olds (one working class and one middle class) were shown 3 images of boys playing football and breaking a window.
• Bernstein: one child spoke in elaborated and the other restricted. In earlier articles it was implied that higher classes use elaborated whereas working class only have the restricted. Bernstein later modified this to say that both classes can use both codes.
• Bernstein argues a link not between language and social class, but a link between social class and access/exposure to elaborated code.
• Bernstein, my analysis: most speakers, regardless of class and education will default to the most appropriate code. Do higher class childeren are better judges of when to use each code or are they trained to default to elaborated? do working class childeren have ability to use elaborated
• Lesley Milroy, 1987, belfast. Studies social network and their impact on language.
• Social Networks: can be open or closed. When people relate in multiple ways (Eg are a work colleague and a friend) the links are multiplex. Said that dense networks function as norm-enforcement mechanisms.
• Milroy: studies individuals in 3 areas of belfast. She gave each individual a network strength score (NSS) based on the persons knowledge of other people in the community. (1 - 5 where 5 is highest NSS). Also measured an individuals use of several linguistic variables.
• Milroy Findings: correlation between high NSS and use of non standard language variables. Non standard forms were usually less evident in womens speech.
• Milroy: in the 'hammer and the clonard' areas of belfast the pattern was reversed. Both areas had high unemployment rates, men and women searching for work/working. They belonged to a dence and multiplex social network. Became linguistically homogenous.
• Milroy main finding: the density of your social network was the biggest factor in peoples use of standard forms of language. The covert prestige of different variables between groups was complex.
• Milroy: links to trudgill (gende, not social class) and Ives (identity, not social class) and Bernstein (context, not social class)
• Jenny Cheshire - england, 1982. Investigating use of non standard variables within different peer groups.
• Cheshire focused on 11 non standard variables Eg non standard -s; non standard 'was'
• Cheshire observed 3 adolescent groups (2 male groups and 1 female group); over 8 months (ethnographic) in two adventure playgrounds. Cheshire observed and recorded their use of language and made a distinction between those who approved of minor criminal activity and 'violent' behavior (such as swearing, fighting and carrying weapons).
• Cheshire: Results - found that particpants who approved of the activities listed in the methodology were more likely to use the non standard variables.
• Cheshire, results - whether they approved or disapproved, boys consistantly used more of the non standard forms than girls, links to other studies with girls having more social awareness.
• Both cheshire and milroy suggested social groups were the most influential factor in the way we use language.
• Cheshire - weakness, 3 groups of same age, childeren are potentially more likely to experience peer pressure.
• Key idea - language is influenced not just by class, but also other factors. It is hard to pinpoint most influential factor as studies tend to focus on one.
• The Northern Cities Chain Shift: language change in the north - east cities in the USA. Short vowel sounds are being elongated, which can have a domino effect on other vowel sounds.
• The northern cities chain shift can lead to misunderstanding of words - Eg 'bus can sound like 'boss'.