Transcript SOCIOPHONETICS
SOCIOPHONETICS
Labov, 1966
The Social Stratification of English in New York City “Investigating the
r
pronunciation after vowels.”
Method
1.
2.
Walking around three New York City Department Store (Saks, Macy’s, and S.Klein).
Asking the location of department he knew to be situated on the fourth floor.
Result
1.
r
-pronunciation after vowels was being reintroduced into New York speech from
above.
Result
2.
r
-pronunciation after vowels was a feature of the speech of
younger people
rather than of
older people
Result
3.
r
-pronunciation after vowels was more likely to occur as the
formality level
increased
Result
4.
r
-pronunciation after vowels would be more likely at the
ends of words
than
before consonants
Trudgill, 1974
The Social Differentiation of English in Norwich How the use of variants is related to social class and level of formality Analysis of the variables (ng), (t), and (h)
Result
1. The higher the social class, the more frequent is the use of the [ ], [t], and [h] variants rather than the corresponding [n], [ ], and [ ] variants.
Result
2. The higher the level of formality, the more frequent is the use of the [ ], [t], and [h] variants rather than the corresponding [n], [ ], and [ ] variants.
Result
3. The use of [ ] is not only related to social class, but also to gender.
Females show greater preference for [
] than males.