Language and social stratification

Eliciting Style Variation: Labov's Technique

•

Casual Speech

• ethics of unacknowledged recording
• 'danger of death'

Language and Social Stratification
Style, Class, Ethnicity, andGender

• • • •

Careful Speech
• interview

Reading Style Word Lists

• informant asked to read a passage • containing the forms with the target sounds • like toe and tore
LIN103 Language,Culture, and Society 17/07/05

Minimal Pairs

2

Style and Class Distribution of Postvocalic /r/ in New York City
r-index 100

/r/ in New York City

R-Pronunciation in New York CitySocio-Economic Class 6-8

r-index 100

•! /r/ use increases as formality increases in all classes •! /r/ use increases as class index increases •! LMC /r/ index 'crossover' in formal styles ashypercorrection
0

R-Pronunciation in New York City

Socio-Economic Class 6-8

9 4-5 2-3 1 0

9 4-5 2-3 1 0

0

A

B
Careful Speech

C
Reading Style

D
Word Lists

D'
Minimal Pairs

ACasual Speech

B
Careful Speech

C
Reading Style

D
Word Lists

D'
Minimal Pairs

Casual Speech

Contextual

Style

Contextual

Style

LIN103 Language, Culture, and Society17/07/05

3

LIN103 Language, Culture, and Society

17/07/05

4

Markers and Indicators

cot/caught Merger in North America

•

sociolinguistic marker
• speakers aware in some wayof social value (positive or negative) of values of the variable • NYC postvocalic /r/ and LMC hypercorrection • Australian diphthongs

•

sociolinguistic indicator
• may be social correlates, butno evidence that speakers recognise any social 'value'
• cot/caught merger in North America

• [!] to ["] in sit, etc.
LIN103 Language, Culture, and Society 17/07/05 5 LIN103 Language, Culture,and Society 17/07/05 6

Australian English Diphthongs

Sharp Stratification

mate hoe buy how

• •

Sharp stratification is to sociolinguists what isogloss bundles are to dialectologists....