Language and Social Class
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Speaker A Speaker B
I done it yesterday. I did it yesterday.
He ain’t got it. He hasn’t got it.
It was her what said it. It was her that said it.
Compare between the following two speakers’ speech:
► What kind of differences are there?
1. Grammatical differences.
2. Phonetic and phonological differences.
►These differences give us clues about their social backgrounds.
Social-class dialect/accents
Social-class dialects (sociolects): a socially distinct variety.
Social-class accents: (related to distinct pronunciations).
► Different social groups use different linguistic varieties (such as –
h dropping).
We, as experienced members of a speech community, have learnt
to classify speakers accordingly.
How did these social varieties develop?
The development of social and regional varieties
Geographical barriers and distance Social barriers and distance
Regional dialect boundaries coincide The diffusion of a linguistic feature
with geographical barriers, mountains, through a society may be stopped by
swamps, rivers. social barriers of social class, age, race,
religion, or other factors.
For example, ‘house’ [hu:s] north of For example, a linguistic innovation
the river Humber vs. [haus] that begins in upper class may reach
(diphthong) south of the river. the lower class last, if at all.
In this chapter, we will concentrate on
one of the many forms of social
differentiations of class, age, race, or
religion ► social stratification.
Social stratification
Social stratification is a term used to refer to any hierarchical
ordering of groups within a society especially in terms of power,
wealth, and status.
In the industrialized societies of the West, social stratification
takes the form of stratification into social classes and gives rise
linguistically to social-class dialects.
Social class is a controversial concept, no general agreement as
to the exact nature or definition or existence of social classes.
Social stratification
However, social classes can be taken to include individuals with
similar social and/or economic characteristics.
Social class stratification is not universal. In India, for example,
the society is stratified into different castes (caste dialects). Table
2 p.26
Caste dialects in India
Brahmin Brahmin Non-Brahmin Non-Brahmin
(Dharwar) (Bangalore) (Dharwar) (Bangalore)
‘it is’ ədə ide ayti ayti
‘inside’ -olage -alli -āga -āga
Infinitive -ō -ō -āk -āk
affix
Participle -ō -ō -ā -ā
affix
‘sit’ kūt- kūt- kunt- kunt-
reflexive kō kō kont- kont
Caste dialects vs. Social-class dialects
Table 2 shows that social distance is more differentiating than
geographical distance.
This stratification is different and complex than the class
societies of the English-speaking world for example (social-class
dialects).
How is it different??
Caste dialects vs. Social-class dialects
Caste Dialects Social-class dialects
Caste dialects are easier to study and
describe linguistically than social-class
dialects for many reasons:
a. Castes are relatively stable. a. The social situation is more fluid and
as a result the linguistic situation is
more complex.
b. Casts have clearly named groups b. Social classes are not clearly defined
which are rigidly separated from each or labeled entities but simply groups
other with inherited membership. people with similar social and
economic characteristics.
c. Little possibility of movement from c. Social mobility (movement up or
one caste to another. down the social hierarchy) is possible.
Accordingly, these dialects tend to be As a result, it is difficult for a linguist
clear-cut and social differences in to describe these dialects.
language are sometimes greater than
regional differences.
Social-class dialects
The linguistic
reaction to this
complexity of social
dialects
Dialectologists focused on the
speech of rural speakers for two
reasons:
Linguists ignore them by focusing on a. thinking of recording dialects
idiolects (the speech of a person at one that might die out.
time in one style). b. There was a feeling that in the
This proved to be a wrong approach speech of the elders are the ‘real’
because idiolects tends to be regular and ‘pure’ homogenous dialect.
than the speech of a community as a
whole.
Wrong: even small villages are
heterogeneous.
Social-class dialects
It is only after the Second World War, linguists realized that:
1. they are obtaining an imperfect and inaccurate picture of the speech of
different areas.
2. They are confining dialect studies to rural areas, they missed
important information about the majority of people who live in towns.
3. Urban dialectologist faced the problem of describing fully and
accurately the speech of large towns and cities with heterogeneous
populations such as in a city like New York with a population of 8+
millions?
William Labov
In 1966 the American linguist
William Labov published The Social
Stratification of English in New York
City, in which a large scale survey,
tape-recorded interviews with 340, by
random sample (each person has a
chance to be interviewed).
William Labov
Labov’s work:
His informants were randomly selected (not friends or relatives).
His informants’ speech was representative of New York city (esp. the
Lower East Side) since these informants were a representative sample.
Therefore his work was an accurate description of all the varieties in
this area.
Labov showed that variation is not free in the speech of New Yorkers
as was claimed by traditional linguists, e.g ‘guard’, ‘beard’, and ‘bad’.
Variation is not random, but determined by extra-linguistic factors in a
predictable way (if they were of a certain class, age, and sex).
William Labov
Labov’s work was a revolution because he:
1. developed techniques to draw out normal speech from people in
spite of the recorder.
2. developed methods for quantitative measurements of linguistic
data.
3. The problem of heterogeneity of speech communities has been
overcome because we are able to correlate linguistic features
with social class accurately.
Social and regional dialect variation in Britain
Social variation
highest class: standard dialect
regional variation lowest class: most localized non standard (dialect continuum)
A lexical example
Standard English:
scarecrow
Regional variation in the most localized regional English
dialects:
bogle, flay-crow, mawpin, mawkin, bird-scarer, shay, guy, moggy,
bogeyman, shuft, rook-scarer, etc.
A grammatical example:
Standard English:
He’ a man who likes his beer.
He’ a man that likes his beer.
Regional non-standard variation is greater than social variation (≠ to
India).
He’ a man who likes his beer.
He’ a man that likes his beer.
He’ a man at likes his beer.
He’ a man as likes his beer.
He’ a man what likes his beer.
He’ a man he likes his beer.
He’ a man likes his beer. (Ø)
Social and regional accent variation in Britain
social variation
highest class: RP
regional variation lowest class: most localized variant
Social and regional accent variation in Britain
Edinburgh Newcastle Liverpool Bradford Dudley Norwich London
RP hØʊm hØʊm hØʊm hØʊm hØʊm hØʊm hØʊm
Intermedi- hoːm hoːm hoʊm hoʊm hɔʊm huːm hum
ate huom hɔːm ɔʊm hɔm ʊm
Most heːm hiem oʊm ɔːm wʊm ʊm æʊm
localized jem
Sociolinguistic studies showed how RP, the intermediate, and the
most localized accents are related to social class.
Measuring
If we want to obtain a correct picture of the relationship between
language and social stratification we must be able to measure both
the linguistic and social phenomena. How?
►Social class: Assign individuals a numerical index score on the basis
of income, education, other factors, then group them with others who
have similar indexes.
►language: (more difficult). Labov’s approach: Taking a linguistic
feature and check its varieties in a community.
Study: -s (the 3rd person singular present simple tense) in Detroit USA
and in Norwich, England:
Study of –s in Norwich and Detroit
In Norwich and in Detroit, the 3 rd p.suffix –s is not present in the speech
of some people:
She like him very much.
He don’t know a lot, do he?
It go ever so fast.
Hypothesis: Since –s is standard, and since standard English is associated
with higher classes, we may suspect that there is a correlation between the
usage of –s and social class.
Methodology: Tape record, listen, transcribe, count.
Study of –s in Norwich and Detroit
Table 4, p. 34
Norwich (%) Detroit (%)
MMC 0 UMC 1
LMC 2 LMC 10
UWC 70 UWC 57
MWC 87 LWC 71
LWC 97
Study of –s in Norwich and Detroit
General Result:
There is a correlation between social class and usage of –s
Correlational Sociolinguistics
Studies like these have been labeled to be under correlational
sociolinguistics which deals with:
1. Assigning a social status to speakers.
2. Correlation between the social class and the linguistic forms.
3.Tells us something about the social structure of particular communities.
4. It tells us more about idiolects and their characteristics.
5. It tells us about social-class dialects.
6. It tells a great deal of information about the processes involved in
linguistic change.
Thanks a lot
See you next class
