Year 12 Theories

Question 1

Labov Martha’s vineyard study

Answer 1

69 people were interviewed with different jobs, ages and ethnicities.

They all lived on a geographically isolated island which could only be accessed by air or sea.

The younger population used the vowels said by the native fishermen in a way to distinguish themselves to the tourists.

Question 2

Lakoff’s dominance approach

Answer 2

The dominance approach understands men as positioned above women because of their social and political power.

Question 3

Brown and Levison’s Face theory (1987)

Answer 3

Brown and Levison developed positive and negative face, and said that having regard for another person’s positive or negative face is an important aspect of politeness.

Question 4

Goffman’s face theory (1995)

Answer 4

A face is the positive social value a person effectivly claims for themselves.

Like a persona which we present in a conversation, it can change from situation to situation.

Question 5

Jespersen and Lakoff’s deficit approach

Answer 5

The theory that women’s language is weak or contains weak traits, compared to men’s language.

Jespersen investigated non-fluency features such as pauses and fillers.

e.g Women speak less frequency

Question 6

Zimmerman and West (1975)

Answer 6

Completed a study on a college campus.

Found that men were responsible for 96% of the interruptions occuring between men and women.

Men also took longer ‘turns’ and were less frequently interrupted.

Question 7

Joanna Thornborrow (2004)

Answer 7

Language is about forming an identity and sense of belonging as much as it is communicating.

Question 8

Deborah Tannen’s Negtiation Theory (1990)

Answer 8

Men see themselves as indivuals in a hierachially structured world.

Women see themselves as individuals in a world of connections.

Men negotiate power and status.

Women negotiate closeness, confirmation and support.

Question 9

Piggyback theory

Answer 9

The idea that indivuals adjust their speech to create, maintain or decrease social bonds and interactions.

Question 10

Hornyak (1994)

Answer 10

Shift from workplace to personal talk is always initiated by the highest ranked person in the room

Question 11

Herbert and Straight (1989)

Answer 11

Compliments in the workplace tend to flow from those of a higher rank to those of a lower rank.

Question 12

Wareing (1999)

Answer 12

There are two types of power:

Instrumental-Is because of who you are e.g police officers.

Influential-When you have to earn your power. Used when a person does not have authority but wishes to gain some.

Question 13

Lewin’s gatekeeper theory (1943)

Answer 13

The powerful institution restricts what lower ranked employees know and understand.

Question 14

Tannen’s difference theory

Answer 14

Men often use language to assert dominance, while women tend to use language to establish rapport.

Starts in childhood, when parents talk to girls about feelings, and use more verbs to boys.

Question 15

O’Barr and Atkins (1980)

Answer 15

Language differences are situation specific, relying on power and status in a conversation rather than gender.

Studied a courtroom for 30 months.

They found that Lakoff’s findings were not because of gender, but because of being powerless.

Question 16

Esther Grief (1980)

Answer 16

Examined gender differences between parents and pre-school children for simultaneous speaking and interruptions.

16 children aged 2-5.

No significant difference between the boys and girls, yet the husband interrupted the wife more than vice versa, supporting the dominance theory.

Question 17

Geoffrey Beatie (1982)

Answer 17

Recorded 10 hours of tutorial discussion between men and women.

Found men and women interrupted with equal or slightly male-dominated frequency.

So the margin is not as big as Zimmerman and West’s model.

Question 18

Jean Aitchison’s 3 theories of language decay and change

Answer 18

Damp spoon theory- people are lazy and disrespectful of language.

Infectious disease theory- Bad English is “caught”.

Crumbling castle theory- English was once a grand castle, but has broken and is in need of standardisation.

Question 19

Hockett (1958)

Answer 19

Language chance arises from random, unpredictable variations.

e.g literally meaning figuratively

Question 20

Cultural transmission theory

Answer 20

Language is passed on socially rather than genetically, and reflects societal and technological advancements

e.g emoji and streaming

Question 21

Theory of Lexical gaps

Answer 21

The idea that language fills in gaps in vocabulary for new concepts, and can also borrow from other languages.

Question 22

Substratum theory

Answer 22

Language change due to interaction between native and non-native speakers of a language, and the influence.

e.g Carribean English on MLE.

Question 23

Functional theory

Answer 23

Language changes to meet the needs of it’s users.

Words may appear or disappear if they are needed or not needed.

e.g. floppy disk or LOL.

Question 24

August Schleicher (19th Century)

Answer 24

The tree model of language change.

Language evolves like branches on a tree from a common ancestor.

e.g. Latin to French

Question 25

Schmidt (1872)

Answer 25

Changes in language spread out like waves and ripples in water. e.g. MLE influencing regional English

Question 26

Braj Kachru's Three Circles Model

Answer 26

Inner circle: Native English speakers Outer circle: Second language speaker where English has an important public function Expanding circle: English speakers in countries where English has little public function.

Question 27

Eckert (2000)

Answer 27

Studied "Jocks" vs "Burnouts". Jocks enjoyed school life, so due to their contentment, spoke like their parents with little slang and polite. Burnouts were rebellious and used urban language and profanity to display anti-establishment outlooks.

Question 28

Swales (1990)

Answer 28

Members of a discourse community begin linguistic affiliation with colleagues who share the same knowledge, excluding those outside the discourse community.

Question 29

Fairclough (1992)

Answer 29

There is a modern trend towards "conversationalisim" at work where exchanges are becoming less formal.

Question 30

Herrgard (2000)

Answer 30

Jargon makes the workplace more efficient, especially in todays society where time is often constrained.

Question 31

Herring (1992)

Answer 31

In work emails, men's language is more direct and openly opinionated, whereas women's emails are more personal and emotional. Men's emails were also twice as long. But only 5 women took part, while they make up almost half the workforce.

Question 32

Eakins and Eakins (1976)

Answer 32

Studied 7 university meetings. Found that men's turns ranged from 10.66s to 17.07s, but women's from only 3s to 10s. Men could be more dominant in some occupations as they speak for longer.

Question 33

Edelsky (1981)

Answer 33

Observed face to face conversations on office floors. Found that men talked more, made more jokes and more arguments. However, in the "free-for-all", women outscored men in all the categories.

Question 34

Holmes (1998-)

Answer 34

Managers who were female were more likely to negotiate consensus compared to male managers who are less likely as they take time to ensure everyone genuinely agrees with what has been decided.

Question 35

Trudgill's Norwich Study (1974)

Answer 35

Studied the pronunciation of "ing". Middle class nearly all used "ing", and lower class nearly all used "in". Men used the non-standard variant more often, whereas women used the standard variant more often.

Question 36

Giles Matched Guise Experiment (1975)

Answer 36

Teenagers rated an RP accent higher in intelligence and competence than a Birmingham accent.

Question 37

Giles Matched Guise Experiment (1973)

Answer 37

Teenagers listened to arguments for and against the death penalty. RP speaker's arguments were seen to be more impressive. However, those who listened to the reigonal accent speaker's arguments found them to be more persuasive.

Question 38

Dixon, Mahoney, and Cox Matched Guise experiment (2002)

Answer 38

Interview between a police officer and two suspects. Suspect with a Birmingham accent was seen to be more likely guilty than the RP speaking suspect.

Question 39

Neuliep and Speten-Hansen Matched Guise Experiment (2013)

Answer 39

Looked for a link between ethno-centricisim and perceptions of non-native accent. Particpants considered ethnocentric gave lower ratings to the non-native speaker.

Question 40

Choy and Dodd (1976)

Answer 40

Teachers make judgements on student ability and personality based on their accent.

Question 41

Trudgill (n.d.)

Answer 41

RP speakers are percieved, as soon as they start speaking, as haughty and unfriendly by non-RP speakers until they are able to demonstrate the contray.

Question 42

Onella (n.d.)

Answer 42

Opposed Jespersen's deficit theory, as she found the MLU in master's students to be very similar regardless of gender. Dismisses Jespersen's study as folklinguistics due to much of his results coming from travellers and literature.

Question 43

Jennifer Coates (n.d.)

Answer 43

Researched all-male and all-female friendship groups. Stated that they converse differently, although topics of conversation tend to be similar. Also stated that techniques used by women to maintain conversation aren't signs of inferiority, but intelligence.

Question 44

Valentova and Havlicek Diversity model

Answer 44

Claimed that there is more difference in genders than between them. They looked at whether someone can tell a man's sexuality based on aesthetics and voice. Participants could do this, and found there was a certain femineity in a homosexual man's voice, such as elongating vowels.

Question 45

Bernstein (1970s)

Answer 45

Researched into the way classes talk. Asked groups of boys to describe a comic strip containing a football smashing a window. Found that while most middle class children could understand both codes, lower class children rarely understood more than restricted class.

Question 46

Labov (1962)

Answer 46

Went into 3 different stores in New York, high, middle and low statuses and asked employees questions with which they would respond with fourth floor. Then said that he hadn't heard them, and ask them to repeat it until they became concious of their speech. Lower middle class had the biggest change in speech, and the lower class changed quite a bit, but the higher class barely changed.

Question 47

Strenstrom Teen Speak (2014)

Answer 47

The 4 factors of teen speak are: Conversational overlapping Taboo and expletives Slang Shortening of words.

Question 48

A study on the Clonard women and Hammer men in Belfast

Answer 48

Challenged the study of Milroy and Milroy. Found that when men moved out of town they ended up with quite open networks and women with more closed networks.