Introduction: When we study language and regional variation, we focused on variation in language use found in different geographical areas. However, not everyone in a single geographical area speaks in the same way in every situation. We recognize that certain uses of language are more likely to be used by some individuals in society and not by others. We are also aware of the fact that people who live in the same region, but who differ in terms of education and economic status, often speak in quite different ways. Indeed, these differences may be used, implicitly or explicitly, as indications of membership in different social groups or speech communities.
Speech Community:
It is a group of people who share a set of norms and expectations regarding the
use of language. The study of the linguistic features that have social
relevance for participants in those speech communities is called
‘sociolinguistics.
Sociolinguistics: The
term sociolinguistics is used generally for the study of the relationship
between language and society. This is a broad area of investigation that
developed through the interaction of linguistics with a number of other
academic disciplines. It has strong
connections with anthropology through the study of language and culture. With sociology
the investigation of the role of language plays in the organization of social
groups and institutions is carried out. With social psychology, particularly
with regard to how attitudes and perceptions are expressed and how in-group and
out-group behaviors are identified. We use all these connections when we try to
analyze language from a social perspective.
Social Dialects:
Whereas the traditional study of regional dialects tended to concentrate on the
speech of people in rural areas, the study of social dialects has been mainly
concerned with speakers in towns and cities. In the social study of dialect, it
is social class that is mainly used to define groups of speakers as having
something in common. For Example:
‘Working-class speech’ The terms ‘upper’ and ‘lower’ are used to further
subdivide the groups.
Education and Occupation: A personal dialect is idiolect: an individual
way of speaking. However, we generally tend to sound like others with whom we
share similar educational backgrounds and/or occupations. Among those who leave
the educational system at an early age, there is a general pattern of using
certain forms that are relatively infrequent in the speech of those who go on
to complete college. Those who spend more time in the educational system tend
to have more features in their spoken language that derive from a lot of time
spent with the written language. The observation that some teacher “talk like a
book” is possibly a reflection of an extreme form of this influence from the
written language after years in the educational system. As adults, the outcome
of our time in the educational system is usually reflected in our occupation
and socio-economic status. The way bank executives, as opposed to window
cleaners, talk to each other usually provides linguistic evidence for the
significance of these social variables.
In one of the earliest studies in sociolinguistics,
Labov (1966) combined elements from place of occupation and socio-economic status
by looking at pronunciation differences among salespeople in three New York
City department stores. Labov went into each of these stores and asked
salespeople specific questions, such as where are the women’s shoes, in order
to elicit answers with the expression fourth floor. The higher the socio-economic status of the
store, the more /r/ sounds in “fourth” were produced, and the lower the status,
the fewer /r/ sounds were produced by those who worked there. So, the frequency
of occurrence of this linguistic variable (r) could mark the speech samples as
upper middle class versus middle class versus working class.
Social Markers: The use of this particular speech sound
functions as a social marker. For Example: The significance of the linguistic
variable (r) in Labov’s study
Speech Style and Style-shifting:
In his department store study, Labov included another subtle element that
allowed him to investigate not only the type of social stratification, but also
speech style as a social feature of language use. The most basic distinction in
speech style is between formal uses and informal uses. Formal style is when we
pay more careful attention to how we’re speaking and informal style is when we
pay less attention. They are sometimes described as ‘careful style’ and ‘casual
style’. Change from one to the other by an individual is called style-shifting.
When Labov initially asked the salespeople where certain items were, he assumed
they were answering in an informal manner. After they answered his question,
Labov then pretended not to have heard and said, “Excuse me?” in order to
elicit a repetition of the same expression, which was pronounced with more
attention to being clear. This was taken as a representative sample of the
speaker’s more careful style. In a finding, that has been confirmed in other
studies, middle-class speakers are much more likely to shift their style of
speaking significantly in the direction of the upper middle class when they are
using a careful style.
Prestige: In
discussing style-shifting, we introduced the idea of a ‘prestige’ form as a way
of explaining the direction in which certain individuals change their speech.
1. Overt
prestige: It is when the change is in the direction of a form that is more
frequent in the speech of those perceived to have higher social status, or
status that is generally recognized as ‘better’ or more positively valued in
the larger community.
2. Covert
prestige: Not changing the speech style from casual to careful as radically as
lower-middle-class speakers. It is may be that because they value the features
that mark them as members of their social group and consequently avoid changing
them in the direction of features associated with another social group. They
may value group solidarity more than upward mobility. For Example: Among
younger speakers in the middle class, there is often covert prestige attached
to many features of pronunciation and grammar (I ain’t doin’ nuttin’ rather
than I’m not doing anything) that are more often associated with the speech of
lower-status groups.
Speech Accommodation: Our
speech style is not only a function of speakers’ social class and attention to
speech, but it is also influenced by their perception of their listeners. Hence,
speech accommodation is defined as our ability to modify our speech style
toward or away from the perceived style of the person(s) we’re talking to. We
can adopt a speech style that attempts to reduce social distance, described as
convergence, and use forms that are similar to those used by the person we’re
talking to. In contrast, when a speech
style is used to emphasize social distance between speakers, the process is
called divergence. We can make our speech style diverge from another’s by using
forms that are distinctly different.
Register: It
is a conventional way of using language that is appropriate in a specific
context, which may be identified as: Situational (e.g. in church), Occupational
(e.g. among lawyers), Topical (e.g. talking about language).
Jargon: One of the
defining features of a register is the use of jargon, which is special
technical vocabulary (e.g. suffix) associated with a specific area of work or
interest. In social terms, jargon helps
to create and maintain connections among those who see themselves as ‘insiders’
in some way and to exclude ‘outsiders’. Whereas jargon is specialized vocabulary used
by those inside established social groups, often defined by professional status
(e.g. legal jargon).
Slang: It is more
typically used among those who are outside established higher-status groups.
Slang, or ‘colloquial speech’, describes words or phrases that are used instead
of more everyday terms among younger speakers and other groups with special
interests. For Example: The word bucks (for dollars or money) has been a slang
expression for more than a hundred years, but the addition of mega- (‘a lot
of’) in megabucks is a more recent innovation. Like clothing and music, slang
is an aspect of social life that is subject to fashion, especially among
adolescents. It can be used by those
inside a group who share ideas and attitudes as a way of distinguishing
themselves from others. As a marker of
group identity during a limited stage of life such as early adolescence, slang
expressions can ‘grow old’ rather quickly. For Example: Older forms for ‘really good’ such as groovy,
hip and super were replaced by awesome. Age: The difference in slang use
between groups divided into older and younger speakers shows that age is
another important factor involved in social variation.
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