Social Class and Language Quiz

Study Notes

Social class dialect (sociolect): Refers to grammatical and vocabulary differences that characterize speech associated with specific social classes.
Social class accent: Encompasses phonetic and phonological differences that reflect social class identity.
Regional dialect boundaries: Influenced by physical barriers (rivers, mountains, swamps) that impact language variation.
Social varieties: Dependent on social barriers and distance, including class, age, sex, race, and religion.
Social stratification: Describes the hierarchical ordering within society based on power, wealth, and status.
Social class: A category combining individuals with similar social and/or economic characteristics.
Caste dialects: Easier to study than class dialects; characteristic of India’s traditional caste system with stable, clearly named groups and limited mobility.
Class dialects: In the English-speaking world, these are less clearly defined with possible movement up or down the hierarchy; reflects societal diversity and language variability.
Idiolect: The unique speech style of an individual at a specific time, highlighting personal linguistic choices.
Dialectology: Focused on rural informants with minimal education, leading to misconceptions about "pure" dialects; older populations aren't reliable indicators of accurate regional speech.
Pronunciation studies: In urban areas (e.g., New York, San Francisco) are often imprecise due to the large and diverse populations involved.
Sociolinguistics origins: Developed from urban dialectology, emphasizing the study of language in social contexts.
William Labov (1960s): Conducted a significant survey in New York, using 340 randomly selected informants; his methods provided an accurate portrayal of diverse English varieties in that area.
Extra-linguistic factors: Various influences such as sex, social class, and age affect the variation of idiolects.
Dialect continuum: A range of interconnected nonstandard dialects that show gradual transitions in speech, despite significant differences at the extremes.
Accent in Britain: Notably unique due to the role and presence of Received Pronunciation (RP).
Accent continuum: Represents a spectrum from RP through local accents to localized accents typical of lower social classes.
Sociological parameters of accent: Variations in pronunciation linked to social class, including:
- Substitution of "n'" for "ng" (e.g., walking)
- Use of glottal stops instead of "t" (e.g., butter)
- Dropping "h" sounds (e.g., hammer)
Social class dialects: Show correlation between social class and grammatical structures like third person singular "s" and use of double negation; no class consistently uses one form.
Social class accents: Reflect distinctive phoneme pronunciations, indicating social class membership, noticeable in patterns such as:
- Walking pronounced as /wɔ:kn/
- Butter pronounced as /bʌɁə/
- Hammer pronounced as /æmə/