Language and Social Variation

Session 1
My Fair Lady (1964)

This film is often referenced in

linguistic discussions as a
wonderful example of how
social class and accent were,
and are still, inextricably linked
in Britain.

Pygmalion (1912) Irish playwright, author 1856-1950

卖花女
 Some Features of Cockney English:
Glottal stop喉塞音: a speech sound produced by closing the vocal cords and
then opening them quickly so that the air from the lungs is released with force
Scotland = Sco'land statement = Sta'emen network = Ne’work
A little bit of bread with a bit of butter on it = A li'le bi' of breab wiv a bi' of bu'er on
i'.
Dropped ‘h’ at beginning of words:
house = ‘ouse hammer = ‘ammer
TH fronting: (the pronunciation of the English “th” as “f” or “v”
thin = fin brother = bruvver three = free bath = barf
Diphthong (双元音) alterations:
/eɪ/ → [æɪ~aɪ]
take = tike. make = mike
Received Pronunciation (RP)
Now turn to Page 9-10 and read the following part. (“This is
the British English accent”...... “they can’t speak English”).
Circle those words which tell you the key features of RP.

• Standard English; BBC English; Public School English

• RP is not associated with any particular location within
England.
• Because it is thought of as an “educated accent”, it appears
characteristically in upper and upper middle class speakers
and is more sociologically defined rather than
geographically defined.
• It is not, however, used by a large percentage of the
population.
• RP is the prestige accent---other varieties: deviation from a
norm(标准、规范)?
 non-localized accent pinnacle 小尖顶

as the pyramid narrows to its

vertically homogeneous, up the social scale

horizontally

Now please turn to P. 25 and read the first paragraph.

• Regional (geographical) variation is represented
along the broad base of the pyramid while the
vertical dimension exhibits social variation.
• It can be seen that working class accents display a
good deal of regional variety, but as the pyramid
narrows to its homogeneous, up the social scale, it’s
also apparent that upper class accents exhibit no
regional variation.
• Thus by definition, any regional accent would not
be considered upper-class and the more localizable
the accent, the more it will be described as a
"broad" accent.
broad accents reflect:

• regionally, the highest degree of local

distinctiveness
• socially, the lowest social class
• linguistically, the maximal degree of difference
from RP.
• -Wells(1982)
• social-class dialects/ sociolects
• grammatical differences
• phonetic and phonological differences
• social-class accents
• Why does social differentiation have
its effect on language?
 • A particular type of social
differentiation illustrated in the
example of speakers A and B

• --- social stratification(社会分层)

 social stratification
Any hierarchical ordering of groups within
a society especially in terms of power,
wealth and status. (p. 19)
social classes

Linguistically, social-class dialects

 • Social-class stratification is not universal,
however (p. 20)
Why? Now please read the two paragraphs (from “in
India” to “the more heterogeneous is its language”)
and circle key words to answer the question.

• stable and rigid ⎯ castes(印度的社会等级)

• fluid and fluctuating ⎯ classes

Language and Social Variation

Session 2
William Labov

American linguist, widely regarded

as the founder of the discipline of
variationist sociolinguistics (变异社
会语言学).
He has been described as “an
enormously original and influential
figure who has created much of the
methodology” of sociolinguistics.
The Social Stratification of English in New York City

first published in 1966; the 2nd

edition: 2006 (500-page book)

One of the first accounts of

social variation in language,
this groundbreaking study
founded the discipline of
sociolinguistics, providing the
model on which thousands of
studies have been based.
 • Hypothesis
Non-prevocalic /r/ usage would be correlated with
social class.

Sales people in the highest ranked store will have the highest
values of (r);
Those in the middle ranked store will have intermediate values
of (r);
and those in the lowest ranked store will show the lowest
values.
The three stores which were selected:
• “rapid and anonymous” survey
• “Excuse me, where are the women’s shoes?”
• “Fourth floor”
• “Excuse me?”
• “Fourth floor”

• The expected answer ‘fourth floor’ was carefully

chosen, as it contains two examples of the ’r’ he
was looking for: in fourth the ‘r’ occurs before a
consonant (辅音), and in floor it occurs at the end
of the word.
• When the clerk answered, he noted whether the
[r]'s in the words were pronounced, and then
asked "Excuse me?" to get a more emphatic,
careful pronunciation as well.
• Then he jotted down the pronunciations and
basic details about the clerk (sex, age, race, job).
• Overall stratification of (r)
• The results of the study showed clear and consistent
stratification of (r) in the three stores.
divide all informants into three categories:
all (r-1): some (r-1): no (r-1):
those whose records show only (r-1) and no (r-
0);
those whose records show at least one (r-1) and
one (r-0);
those whose records show only (r-0)

We see that a total of 62 percent of Saks employees used all or some (r-1), 51
percent of Macy’s, and 21 percent of Klein’s. The stratification is even sharper
for the percentages of all (r-1). As the hypothesis predicted, the groups are
ranked by their differential use of (r-1) in the same order as their stratification by
extra-linguistic factors. (Labov, 1966)
A precise replication of the department store study was done by Joy Fowler of NYU in 1986. Fowler retraced Labov’s
steps as carefully as she could, substituting May’s for S. Klein, which had gone out of business.
In emphatic pronunciation of the final (r), Macy’s employees
come very close to the mark set by Saks.
It would seem that r-pronunciation is the norm at which a
majority of Macy employees aim, yet not the one they use most
often.
In Saks, we see a shift between casual and emphatic
pronunciation, but it is much less marked. In other words, Saks
employees have more security in a linguistic sense. (Labov, 1966)
• (r) stratification is an integral part of the linguistic structure of the
New York City speech community
• The overall results show that the clerks pronounced [r] more often
when they worked in a higher prestige store.
• (r-1) is one of the chief characteristics of a new prestige pattern
which is being superimposed upon the native New York City
pattern.
• the absence of (r-1) pronunciation in New York City in the 1930s

Implications?
How socially significant a relatively trivial
feature of accent can be
 the Study of Martha’s Vineyard
⏤the demonstration of the social motivation of
sound change
• Exercise: Read the introduction to this study in the
handout and use the following key expressions to
retell it. (P. 13-14)
• the vowel sound of words
• low-prestige, old-fashioned pronunciation
• RP and some mainland American prestige accents
• become exaggerated; occur more frequently;
• the subjective attitudes; natives; the massive invasion of
outsiders; identify with the island way of life; signal their separate
social and cultural identity;
• conscious; prestige form;
• group identification; group solidarity; the signaling of difference
Language and Social Variation

Session 3
Estuary English (EE)

• Where? -origin
• How?-pronunciation practice
• Why?- implications
 Where? -origin
• a term coined by David Rosewarne, a lecturer in linguistics
at the University of Surrey, in a ground-breaking article
published in 1984 in The Times Educational
Supplement (London).
• The term “Estuary” reflects the starting point for this
dialect as being the region along London’s River Thames
and its estuaries.

• The area around the Thames and its estuary is supposed to

be the cradle of this type of speech, but the influence of EE
is felt in the whole of the south-east.
• An estuary is a partially enclosed coastal body of brackish (somewhat salty) water with
one or more rivers or streams flowing into it, and with a free connection to the open sea
Estuary English (EE)
• Estuary English is a new name. But it is not a new
phenomenon. It is the continuation of a trend that
has been going on for five hundred years or more.

• He places Estuary English speakers on a

continuum of accents between RP and Cockney
(London speech) somewhere in the middle.
Why?- implications
• Estuary English can be used by those who hold power, as
well as working-class members. Its attractiveness lies in the
premise that it “obscures sociolinguistic origins”, thus
preventing a person from sounding too posh （上等阶层
的）and too common.

• Those who have come from a traditional RP background,

adopt it because it increases “street credibility”,

• and those who have local accents adopt it because it sounds

more “sophisticated”.
Estuary English (EE)
• Rosewarne sees the acquisition of Estuary
English as part of the process of
accommodation and a shift to the “middle
ground” so that the RP accent is
accommodated “downwards” and the local
accent is accommodated “upward”,
resulting in accent convergence.
Wrap-up
• 1. Discuss the following terms: social-class dialects, social-class
accents, social stratification (castes, classes).
• 2. In his book Sociolinguistics (1983), Peter Trudgill presented to us his
famous accent triangle. Please explain the social and regional accent
variation in England depicted in that Figure.
• 3. The American linguist William Labov carried out a research on the
pronunciation of ‘r’ among the workers at three New York department
stores. Discuss the implications of this research.
• 4. Discuss the implications of EE.
• 5. Discuss the relationship between language variation and social
attitude. Use specific examples to illustrate your point of view.