PAPER 2 section A Flashcards
(79 cards)
Dr Cole, 2021 - elaborate
- People from Essex or London were judged to be less intelligent than people from other areas - people from Essex correct/”moderate” their accent to get ahead
- People from an ethnic minority were judged to be less intelligent than white people based on accent alone
- Women were generally perceived as marginally less intelligent than men but more friendly and more trustworthy
BASED ON ACCENT ALONE!
Eckert, 1989 - elaborate
WLS: Penelope Eckert’s 1989 Jocks and Burnouts study
2 groups in the school: jocks and burnouts
jocks were actively engaged in and enjoyed school life, sports and school activities, respected authority
burnouts were anti-school, engaged in rebellious behaviour instead of school happenings
people tend to speak more like their friends (those who shared social practices together) than others belonging in the same demographic category as them (ie gender, ethnicity social class)
Labov, 1966 (NY study) - elaborate
Labov - 1966 New York study
labov studied how often the post-vocalic /r/ was sounded in words like “guard” or “floor”
pronunciation of post-vocalic /r/: a prestige feature since the 1940s
analysis of speech of sales assistants in 3 Manhattan stores, drawn from the top (Saks) middle (Macy’s) and bottom (Klein’s) of the price and fashion scale: question was asked to elicit the answer “fourth floor”, and pretended to mishear so the informant would repeat the answer
sales assistants from Saks had most incidences of post-vocalic /r/, Klein’s used it least, and Macy’s showed the greatest upward shift when they were asked to repeat
frequency of use of prestige variable varied with level of formality and social class
hypercorrection as a sign of the group’s linguistic insecurity
social stratification of post-vocalic /r/ also present WITHIN each store
nearly 50% of store supervisors used post-vocalic /r/ consistently and almost none of the stock boys used it
Labov, 1963 (Martha’s Vineyard study) - elaborate?
Labov - 1963 Martha’s Vineyard study
Martha’s Vineyard is an island lying on the East Coast of USA with a permanent population of about 6000. However over 40000 visitors, known somewhat disparagingly as the “summer people” flood in every summer
he focused on realisations of the dipthongs /aw/ and /ay/ as in “mouse” and “mice”, he interviewed a number of speakers drawn from different ages and ethnic groups on the island
a movement seemed to be taking place away from the pronunciations associated with the standard New England norms, and towards a pronunciation associated with conservative and characteristically Vineyard speakers: the Chilmark fishermen
the heaviest users were young men who actively sought to identify themselves as Vineyarders, rejected the values of the mainland, and resented the encroachment of wealthy summer visitors on traditional island way of life:
this is despite extensive exposure of speakers to the education system; some college educated boys from Martha’s Vineyard were extremely heavy users of the vernacular vowels
variation by age also shows the youngest and oldest speakers to be the least influenced by the ‘standard’
rather than the increased exposure to the standard New-England accent leading to dialect / accent levelling, the islanders exaggerated the pronunciation of vernacular vowels leading to a more pronounced difference + greater level of variation
this shows how covert prestige pronunciations can take hold and further entrench themselves
Milroy, 1997 (Belfast study) - elaborate?
Milroy’s Belfast study (1977) -
closed network: a person whose personal contacts all know each other (high density); open network: an individual whose contacts tend not to know each other (low density)
investigation of the correlation between then integration of individuals in the community and the way they speak, assigning a Network Strength Score based on the person’s knowledge of other people in the community, then she measured each person’s use of several linguistic variables (standard and non-standard forms)
a high Network Strength Score was correlated with the use of vernacular or non-standard forms
in most cases this meant that men whose speech revealed high usage of vernacular or non-standard forms were also found to belong to tight knit social networks. conversely, vernacular or non-standard forms are less evident in women’s speech because the women belong to less dense social networks
features of rural dialect more prominent among young men than older speakers —> marker of community identity
however, for some variables, the pattern of men using non-standard and women using standard form was reversed. Milroy’s explanation for this finding is based on the social pressures operating in the communities
the Clonard women all worked together, belonged to a dense, multiplex network, they lived, worked and amused themselves together.
the tight-knit network to which the young Clonard women belong clearly exerts pressure on its members, who are linguistically homogeneous
over and above gender differences, or class differences, Milroy discovered that it was how closely or loosely knit a social group a person belonged to that determined their use of the local dialect forms. the covert prestige of such forms works in a more complicated way that previously thought.
Trudgill, 1974 (Norwich study) - elaborate?
Peter Trudgill - 1974 Norwich study - how gender affects dialect in each social class
investigation of the variation of /ng/ across various factors: social class, gender, age and local area
FINDINGS: class is more of a determiner of non-standard usage than gender
though women in all social classes are more likely to use the overt prestige or RP form
men over-reported their non-standard usage, implying they wish to sound more non-standard and using more covert prestige forms —> men more susceptible to covert prestige
women over-reported their standard usage, implying they wish to sound more standard, assuming they used more overt prestige forms —> women more susceptible to overt prestige (women more conscious of appearance, thus hypercorrect ‘upwards’?)
What is AAVE? What are some of its noteable features?
African-American Vernacular English is a continuum of dialects/varieties of English influenced by the ethnicity of African Americans
Noteable features:
- Characteristically uses the verb form “be” instead of “is” e.g. “she be tired”
- Use of double negatives, e.g. “I don’t know nothing”
Attitudes towards AAVE?
- Everyone should speak Standard English (e.g. English First proponents campaigns against bilingual schooling)
VS - Tolerance towards ethnic/linguistic minority groups (e.g. English Plus proponents resist “official English” policies, advocate bilingual education, provides non-English social services)
They are NOT ORGANISATIONS
Lippi-Green (1997) - elaborate?
She sees the need for bidialectalism in order to integrate into society and to gain social mobility/success (while balancing AA identity, solidarity)
Garrard Mcclendon (2007) on Black English?
Shares the same sentiments as Lippi-green that there is a need to learn to codeswitch
Role of certified educators to enforce the correction from AAVE to SAE for appropriate contexts - so that AAVE does not become a linguistic barrier to academic achievement and success
Communication & Accommodation Theory (Giles & Wiemann 1987) - elaborate?
Concerns the changes we make to become either more or less similar to the people we communicate with.
Convergence
- polite speech strategy
- same wavelength
- effect: putting at ease/ gaining rapport/ gain approval; may be perceived as aping, overly familiar
Divergence
- accentuate differences to distinguish themselves
- effect: assertion of identity to exclude or increase appeal
Women more likely to converge and men more likely to diverge
What is change from above? Examples?
Change from above:
A change that people are aware of, conscious of social significance as desirable or prestigious features of speech
Source of change as spreading downwards through social groups in a speech community
E.g. Rhotic accent in New York, standard varieties
What is change from below? Examples?
Change from below: Spread of vernacular forms
Beyond forms which people are conscious of commanding prestige, a vernacular feature can acquire social significance and spread through the community
Example: Vowel centralisation on Martha’s Vineyard
- Covert prestige; unconsciously valued by the community
- Marker of person’s status as a Vineyarder; identity
Examples of language loss/death due to English?
E.g. Maori people in NZ moved from monolingualism in Maori to bilingualism to monolingualism in English
Aboriginal people in Australia, American Indian tribes in the US. Many have lost their language over four or five generations.
In the past 50 years, _________ syntax has shifted towards ________________________, e.g.in the use of _________ instead of __________ to indicate body parts
In the past 50 years, Italian syntax has shifted towards patterns that mimic English models, e.g.in the use of possessives instead of reflexives to indicate body parts
_______________ made English its official language when it became independent despite ______________________________________ to allow the country to communicate with the rest of the world
South Sudan made English its official language when it became independent despite having very few resources or qualified personnel with which to teach it in schools to allow the country to communicate with the rest of the world
After Brexit, EU still ____ despite there being little ____ in it
After Brexit, EU still uses English as one of the bloc’s working languages despite there being little native speakers in it
Attributes/purpose of an international language? Linguist + year?
AN INTERNATIONAL LANGUAGE
attributes (smith, 1976)
- An international language becomes “de-nationalised”.
- There is no necessity for L2 speakers to internalise the cultural norms of L1 speakers of that language.
- The purpose of teaching an international language is to facilitate communication of learners’ ideas and culture in an English medium.
- Continues to serve an important function as a ‘link language’ within nations and as a language to facilitate communication with other nations (e.g. sole official language of Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN))
Integrative motivation? Linguist + year?
Concept of integrative motivation (Gardner, 1985)
- Describes the desire to come close to the target language community, to perhaps even the extent of complete identification
- But the growing number of speakers means English now represents the language of ‘the world at large’ rather than specific language community (e.g. UK)
⇒ With a greater difficulty in establishing ONE variety, there is no longer a desire to emulate a certain language community (no longer prestige)
Widdowson (1997) - elaborate?
English as language of ‘others’
- Widdowson’s (1997) distinction between ‘language distribution’ and ‘language spread’
- New paradigm where English spreads and adapts according to the linguistic and cultural preferences of its users
Downes Language & Society research 1998 (WLS) - elaborate?
age and vernacular forms: Downes Language & Society research 1998
Vernacular Forms (VF): Non-standard, non-prestige
usage of VF high for age groups 0 –30.
gradually decreases, moves towards standard or prestige forms as people grow older, peaking at middle age.
speakers in the age group 50 and above exhibit a higher usage of VF
adolescent age range: VF as a form of solidarity
peer group pressure to not conform to societal norms?
middle age range: time to improve status both socially and professionally
susceptible to outside pressures of work and societal values
maximum societal pressure to conform
50 and above: out of the work force, slower pace of life
less need to conform to prestige language forms
switch back to VF
Give an example for symmetry and asymmetry (in gender) in the English language? Marked and unmarked terms?
The terms for human beings are not symmetrical.
“Man” is a generic term which covers both men and women, but man is also = male while female = woman. To some extent, this is biased towards men → can also be seen in the fact that humanity in general is referred to as “mankind” (asymmetry)
In general, unmarked terms tend to refer to males. On the other hand, to refer to a female, the terms are marked by adding a suffix (asymmetry)
E.g. lion is unmarked for gender, but lioness is marked with the suffix -ess to indicate that it is a female lion
What is semantic derogation + examples?
Words that acquire demeaning or sexual connotations
- Master versus Mistress, Sir versus Madam
- “He’s in the room entertaining a client” vs “She’s in the room entertaining a client”
Approaches to speech differences?
deficit approach: Otto Jespersen (1922)
- male language taken to be the norm
- assumption that women’s language is deficient in some way, lacking in certain respects (less semantic or logical content, half-finished sentences, etc.)
dominance approach: Robin Lakoff (1975)
- moves on from the notion of the masculine as norm and the feminine as marked
- argues that differences arise because of women’s subordinate status in society
- views male discourse as oppressive
difference approach: Deborah Tannen (1990)
- gender speech differences as comparable to cultural differences (e.g. US and Japan)
- men and women view conversations differently: men —> information-gathering and asserting dominance, while women —> support mechanism, relationship-building
- women not insecure, tentative talkers BUT facilitative and supportive conversationalists!
