Language variation (social)

3 types of linguistic variation in the English language: regional/ social /stylistic - Social variation (sociolect) - Stylistic variation (idiolect) (Halliday, 2003) 3 meta-functions 1) Textual: relates to mode; the internal organisation and communicative nature of a text 2) Ideational: choosing words that represent people, things, concepts and words about what these participants are doing to, with, or for one another (social practices and social identities) 3) Interpersonal: texts promote ideology in the way language is used to represent relationships between two people who are communicating In a wedding ceremony, an officiator says: “I pronounce you man and wife. You may now kiss the bride.” which are fixed expressions. The speech act “pronounce” and the modal auxiliary verb “may” is a politeness and formality marker that also shows the power of the officiator. Additionally, the phrase “man and wife” implies that the man is dominant in the relationship and, “the bride” is the recipient of the material verb “kiss” with the husband as the agent, reflecting a patriarchal ideology. Language variation (Grafmiller, 2019) Language variation is synchronic (during a specific period of time), influenced by factors such as region, class, gender setting - Speech community: any social or regional group in which the members share a number of linguistic characteristics - Social practice (Eckert, 2000): what speakers share when they take part in an activity together (purpose) - Introduced when people questioned Labov’s focus on demographic categories (age, gender, ethnicity, social class) as the biggest influence on language use (audience) - Social network (Milroy and Milroy, 1980): an abstract mechanism that denotes the social relationships an individual contracts with other individuals in a society; structure of the network defined by density and multiplexity (How many members know each other? How well do they know each other?) - Multiplexity refers to any factor or link that can deepen a social relationship, or how many layers are there to a relationship (e.g. three-way multiplex: two people are not only sisters, but are also each others close friend and colleague) Sociolect: language used by a particular social group, influenced by social variables to signal the users’ identity and their membership of particular groups

(Dent, 2016) “...our lingo is our identity.” “If language is used to signal aspects of our identity and our desire to show affiliation towards, or distance from, other groups of people, it is important to think about how and why this is done” - Example for class: The social stratification of English in New York City (Labov, 1966) Rhoticity had been a feature of prestige in New York City since the 1940s, Labov hypothesised that rhoticity would feature more heavily in the speech of those with higher socio-economic status. He selected 3 department stores that served as an index of social stratification and asked questions to first elicit the answer “fourth floor” as a natural response, he then pretended to mishear to elicit a more carefully spoken and emphasised response of fourth floor; in this way, Labov could record 4 occurrences of /r/ pronunciation. - Labov’s results showed generally more occurrences of rhoticity among those representative of the higher class as compared to the lower class, confirming the prestige value of rhoticity and its class stratification - He also found that there is greater /r/-stress when the speaker repeated, and was more emphatic and self-aware - More interestingly, among those representative of the middle class there was a much stronger emphasis on the final /r/ than expected from the steadily rising scale from lower to higher class; this group also showed a heavy emphasis on /r/-pronunciation when they were more aware of their own usage - Labov noted the same phenomenon in his larger New York study and termed the over-compensation in pronunciation as hypercorrection – a manifestation of linguistic insecurity in the lower-middle social group (a tendency to try and emulate the prestige variety ) - Example for influence of degree of relationship: Milroys’ Belfast Study (Milroy and Milroy, 1980) Tested for correlation between linguistic variations and a speaker’s integration in a social network, the social relationships an individual contracts with other individuals in a society; determined the structure of the network by factors of density and multiplexity (How many members know each other? How well do they know each other?). Hypothesised that the more an individual is integrated into a social network, the more they will adhere linguistically to the existing norm and values of the network, including its linguistic norms - Degree of integration into the network can give their members an “insider” (core member) or “outsider” (peripheral member) status - Multiplexity: determined by how many layers there are to a relationship - Gave a Network Strength Score based on a person’s knowledge of other people in the community workplace and at leisure activities, then she measured each person;s use of several linguistic variables

- Found that a high Network Strength Score was correlated to with the use of vernacular or non-standard forms - Tight-knight networks exerts pressure on its members as seen in the case of young Clonard women who all worked together, meaning they lived, worked and amused themselves together creating a dense and multiplex network - They were found to be linguistically homogeneous - Apparent time hypothesis: supposes that older people will manifest earlier forms of language learnt in their youth - Example for influence of shared social practice: High School Ethnography (Eckert, 2000) Eckert defined groups in terms of social practices – common activities a group did together. She identified 2 very different friendship groups, the Jocks and the Burnouts; both groups contained individuals with a mix of social class based on parental occupation, housing, etc. The Jocks actively engaged in and enjoyed school life, characterised by being school-oriented, showing respect for authority and taking part in school activities and clubs. On the other hand, the Burnouts were the opposite, they chose not to be involved in school activities and engaged in reckless behaviour; they were described to be anti-school, anti-authority, and often showed involvement in