class

• Emma Moore (2010) studied patterns of variation in speech among teenage girls in Bolton
• Found that non-standard 'were', as in 'She were', was common in their dialect
• Some girls used non-standard 'were' to signal their localness to their area, reflecting Labov's Martha's Vineyard study
• Identified four "Communities of Practice" within the school:

  • The Populars: rebellious, anti-school, drinking/smoking
  • The Townies: drug taking, sexual activity
  • The Geeks: institutionally orientated
  • The Eden Valley Girls: privileged, dancers/shoppers
• All girls were upper working class or lower middle class
• Found that Eden Valley Girls used standard 'was' all the time due to higher class
• Other three groups had mixed classes, and non-standard 'were' could reflect social status
• Concluded that although class was a factor, there was no single explanation for its use
• William Labov (1966) investigated social stratification of the pronunciation of the /r/ in New York department stores
• Pronunciation of /r/ depended on social-class membership; higher socioeconomic status pronounced /r/ more frequently
• Basil Bernstein (1971) theorised two types of language: restricted code and elaborated code
• Restricted Code:

  • Working classes tend to use this
  • Characterised by short, simple, sometimes incomplete sentences; limited use of adjectives and adverbs; use of idiom and reliance on implicit meaning. Middle and upper classes use this code when talking to friends and family
• Elaborated Code:

  • Used by middle and upper classes
  • Characterised by more complex, grammatically complete sentences; wide range of adjectives, adverbs and conjunctions and explicit meanings
• Claimed that the working class were disadvantaged as education uses a lot of elaborated code