Social class/groups

• Nexus


  a network of connections
• Idiolect


  own personal variety of language
• Accent

  variety of language that varies according to pronounciation
• Dialect


  a style of language used within a geographic region
• Sociolect


  a style of language used within a social group
• Ethnolect


  a style of language used by a particular ethnic group
• Families

  a style of language used within family
• Genderlect


  a style of language thought to be distinctive of either men or women
• Convergence 


  changing one's language towards that of another individual's
• Divergence


  changing one's language to move away from another individual
• Pejorative


  negative view, expressing disapproval
• Restricted and Elaborated code

  In 1971, Montgomery and Bernstein proposed restricted and elaborated code, acquired through the jobs we do, for example, factory work requires less verbal skill than an office job dependant on communication and through family, working class children don't tend to be encouraged to ask questions, whereas middle class children are more often encouraged to discuss and debate.
• Restricted code


  used mostly by lower class, amongst family and friends, and is frowned upon by the education system for lacking vocabulary and grammatical structure.
• Elaborated code


  Used by the middle class and the education system and classroom, in textbooks etc. giving middle class an advantage as they speak the language used in education, where intelligence is largely judged by communication skills.
• Cultural Capital 


  Cultural capital was proposed by Bourdieu as how much exposure you have to enriching cultural experiences. Middle-class children come into education well-equipped as their cultural capital is similar to that of the dominant class, their values, attitudes and behaviour align with teacher expectations. Knowledge of working-class children is dismissed as inferior and irrelevant. More cultural capital leads to more rewards, so lower-class tend to achieve less and continue the cycle.
• Influential power


  The power a person has to influence another person
• Institutional power


  the power a person has because of their position in a social heirarchy
• Tom Hayden's article 'Class Calculator'


  Tom Hayden's article criticized and evaluated the class system, particularly the BBC's Great British Class Calculator which groups citizens into one of seven class categories. He questions what class even is ' what is class today? an attitude? An accent? Is it what you buy? Your background or present??'. He identifies how complex and difficult class is to define.
• Professor Devine quote in the class calculator article 


  Professor Devine, a lead sociologist behind the British class calculator said "there isn't a clear hierarchy like in the past"
• Brita Stenstorm's Youth and Age Theory

  Brita Stenstorm proposed teenagers define themselves by their language to distance themselves from other groups they might no want to associate with. For example through slang, word shortening, taboo language, language mixing etc.
• Howard Giles Communication Accommodation Theory (CAT)


  Howard Giles's CAT theory proposes we make adjustments in our speech and language depending on out environments to get closer (convergence) or further away (divergence) from them socially.
• Social practices


  the way in which people in groups behave
• macro-level


  operating on a large scale, e.g. social class, gender etc.
• Micro-level


  operating on a small scale e.g. how individual language changes in small interactions
• Multiplexity


  the multiple ways in which people relate to one another e.g. friends, family, colleagues
• Discourse community 


  John Swales defined discourse communities as a group of individuals who share a set of discourses, understood as basic values and assumptions, and ways of communicating about their goals.
• Labov- Martha's Vinyard


  Labov investigated the use of the diphthongs [aw] and [ay] (like in mouse and mice) by interviewing speakers of different ages and ethnic groups from the island and noted younger speakers have moved away from standard new English norms and towards the pronunciation associated with the more conservative, Vineyard speakers. This was seen especially in young men who sought to identify as Vineyarders and reject values of the main land with its wealthy summer visitors. This happens despite extensive exposure to the education system.
• Trudgill's Norwich study

  In 1974 Trudgill investigated the use of the standard use of 'walking' and 'talking' with the velar nasal 'ng' versus the non-standard 'walkin' and 'talkin' with the simple 'n'. He found in all social classes, the more careful they were with their language the more likely they were to use the standard. The standard form was used more in higher classes. The non-standard was used more by men, who would also overstate their use of the non-standard if asked. Women overstated their use of the standard. Showing how both social class and gender affect language.
• Labov's Newyork department store study


  In 1966, Labov investigated the preconsonantal (r) sound in words, used a lot in New York. He used speech from 3 different department stores, Sak's (higher class), Macy's (middle) and Klein's (lower) and asked them a question where the answer would be 'fourth floor' which may contain the preconsonantal (r). People in Sak's used it most, Klien's the least and Macy's showed the greatest upward shift when asked to repeat it. Showing the variation in language varied with the level of formality/ class.
• Limitation of Labov's Newyork Department store study


  The study makes the assumption that because someone works in a store that is typically more visited by higher class members of the public, that they are also higher class which may not be true.
• Milroy's Belfast study


  Milroy investigated three working-class communities in Belfast: poor working-class areas with a high incidence of unemployment. Milroy acted as a 'friend of a friend' and gave each person she studied a  1-5 'Network Strength' score based on their knowledge of other people in the community, the workplace and leisure activities. She measured their use of certain linguistic features such as (th) in mother and (a) in hat, containing standard and non-standard forms.
• Milroy's Belfast study findings

  She found a high Network strength score correlated with the use of vernacular or nonstandard forms. Men who used these forms were also found to belong to tight-knit social networks and the forms were less evident in women because their social networks were less dense. However, for some variables, the roles were reversed. Milroy explained this was due to the differing social pressures in communities, the expectation for different genders to be out working or sharing more domestic tasks, affecting the density and multiplexity of their networks.
• Penney Eckert Jocks and Burnouts study

  in 2000 Penney Eckert defined groups of social practices the speakers engaged in by observing friendship groups in a school in Detroit. She established two groups, Jocks who engaged with and enjoyed school and Burnouts who were uninvolved and engaged with rebellious behaviour, both of which contained individuals of different social classes. She found People were more likely to speak like their friends, those who shared social practices with them rather than those of the same class.
• Jenny Chesire Reading Study, aim and conclusion

  Jenny Cheshire used long-term participant observation to gain data about the relationship between use of grammatical variables and adherence to peer group culture by boys and girls in Reading. The language of the group proved to be an integral part of the group.
• Jenny Cheshire Reading Study Method

  She made a distinction between the girls who did not approve of group activities as carrying weapons, fighting, crime, preferring job, dress and hairstyle and use of swearing (Group A) and those who approved. Then investigated their use of non-standard features such as a non-standard uses of  's' 'has' or 'was'. Similar findings when comparing boys and when boys and girls were compared, those who conformed to the conventions of the group also used the linguistic standards of the group - and that conforming boys conformed most of all.
• Petyt's Bradford study

  In 1985 Malcolm Petyt conducted a study on the omission of the phonological variable /h/(h dropping) e.g. hat to 'at' in relation to social class. Petyt measured the frequency of 'h' dropping by people from a variation of social classes, upper-middle, lower-middle, upper-working, and lower-working. He found lower the class, the higher the frequency of 'h' dropping, showing a divide between the middle and working classes. He concluded individuals modified their language as they moved up class towards RP.