Transcript ELL217 Sociolinguistics

Sociolinguistics
Social Groups & Social
Networks
Dr Emma Moore
1
Contents




2
What are the limitations of survey studies?
Why study local groups?
How can we study local groups?
What have social network/community of
practice studies told us about sociolinguistic
variation?
Limitations of surveys

Do surveys make assumptions about the
community and its structure?
–

Do large scale studies make assumptions
about what speakers think?
–
3
What does it mean to talk about social class?
Do all speakers view the same linguistic variant in
the same way?
Labov’s speech community

“The speech community is not defined by any
marked agreement in the use of language elements,
so much as by participation in a set of shared norms;
these norms may be observed in overt types of
evaluative behaviour, and by the uniformity of
abstract patterns of variation which are invariant in
respect to particular levels of usage” (Labov 1972:
120).
–
–
4
All speakers share the same norms
Uniformity in style shifting behaviour
Challenging abstract social
categories: local definitions of class

Rickford (1986)
–
–
Cane Walk, village in Guyana
Three main social groups:



–

5
The senior staff
The estate class
The working class
All three groups bound by ethnicity & historical
ties (19C semi-forced migration from India)
Differences in life chances based on local
definitions of class
Explaining language use

Language use:
–

Analysing singular pronoun use
–
–

WC: 18% StE
Estate class: 83% StE
Why?
–
–
6
Guyanese Creole  Standard English
Can we say all social
classes are adhering
to the same norms?
Estate class: StE = getting ahead
WC: no chance to get ahead; Creole = social
solidarity, militancy
Challenging abstract social
categories: social groups

Cheshire (1982)
–
Reading adventure playgrounds

–
Examining morphosyntactic variation

–
E.g. use of nonstandard has, was etc.
Considered style shifting


7
Groups of ‘delinquent’ children (WC)
Language used with peers
Language used with the teacher in school
Adhering to different norms
Use of nonstandard present tense forms
Vernacular style
School style
Noddy
81%
78%
Kitty
46%
33%
Barney
32%
54%
–
Inconsistent style-shifting



8
Noddy: hated school, disliked teacher
Kitty: regular school attender
Barney: hated school, disliked teacher
Boys do not adhere to ‘community’ norms of evaluation, but to
‘vernacular culture’ norms
Vernacular speakers & vernacular
norms?


Are standard variants always the most
“prestigious”?
Social psychological studies investigating
responses to different language varieties
–
Giles and Powesland (1975):


–
9
RP = “competence”
Vernacular = “personal integrity”; “social attractiveness”
Revealing the positive value of vernacular
varieties
Understanding how forms gain value

Bourdieu (1977): The linguistic market
–
The value of a linguistic variety is determined by
the status of those who use that variety, in the
marketplace in which it is used
Standard language
Spoken by high status speakers
10
Standard language itself assigned high status
Understanding how forms gain value

Woolard (1985): There is more than one
linguistic market
–
Vernacular varieties are valued in vernacular
settings (the vernacular market)
Vernacular language
Spoken by speakers in local communities (loyalty, integrity, friendship)
11
Vernacular language itself assigned status as symbolic of local attributes
Competing norms


Vernacular varieties
= low mainstream status,unattractive
Vernacular varieties
= high local status, attractive
–
How do we understand the social function of
vernacular forms?

12
By accessing local communities where the forms are
meaningful
Looking at local connections NOT abstract categories
Modelling local communities: Social
networks
Social network: refers to the social ties which link people to one another

Network density

Multiplexity
Work
network
Kinship
network
13
Milroy’s (1980) study of Belfast

Three WC Belfast communities
–

Ballymacarrett, Hammer & Clonard
Speakers classified by their social networks

Assessing network strength scores for speakers
–
Leisure activities
– Employment
– Knowledge of other community members
14
Milroy’s (1980) study of Belfast

Linguistic variables:
–
Local vs. incoming prestige forms

E.g. (a)-backing in words like bad
–
/a/ (standard pronunciation)
– /ɔə/ (vernacular change in progress)

Results
–
–
15
Men tended to use more vernacular variants than women in
Ballymacarratt and Hammer
Young women had higher use of particular vernacular
variants in Clonard
Network ties and language use

Ballymacarratt and Hammer
–
Men had stronger network ties



Clonard
–
Young women had higher network strength
scores

16
Employment
Roles in the community/visibility
Employment (loss of linen industry)
Significance of Milroy (1980)

The importance of LOCAL relationships to
the use of language
–

Dense, multiplex networks & VERNACULAR
norms
Building on earlier work:
–
–
Provides more information about the community
being studied
Allows us to explain language behaviour in
relation to local social factors

17
Not just gender or class, but social network
Modelling local communities:
Communities of Practice
Community of Practice (CofP): “an aggregate of people who come together
around mutual engagement in an endeavor” (Eckert and McConnell-Ginet 1992:464).
“The people at the Jones’s breakfast table, in Mrs. Constock’s
Latin class, or in Ivan’s garage band get together fairly regularly
to engage in an enterprise. Whether the enterprise is being a
family, learning (or not learning) Latin, or playing music, by virtue
of engaging over time in that endeavour, the participants in each
of these groups develop ways of doing things together. They
develop activities and ways of engaging in those activities, they
develop common knowledge and beliefs, ways of relating to each
other, ways of talking – in short, practices. Such a group is what
Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger (1991) have termed a community
of practice” (Eckert and McConnell-Ginet 2003: 57).
18
How is a CofP different to a social
network?


Social networks: who is connected to who in
a community
Communities of Practice: who shares social
practice with who in a community
–
–
19
Not just about connectivity, but quality of
connectivity
Studying CofPs require ethnography
Eckert’s (2000) study of Detroit

High school community in Detroit, US
–

Speakers classified by their CofP
membership
–
20
Two years of ethnographic participant observation
Practices: territory, clothing, substance use,
language
Eckert (2000): Jocks and Burnouts

Two oppositional CofPs:
–
–

Variables studied:
–
21
Jocks: institutionally-orientated
Burnouts: rebellious, anti-school
Six phonetic variables (vowels); one syntactic
variable (Negative concord)
Variable distribution and CoPs

Distribution of linguistic variants best
explained by the Jock-Burnout split
–
Social class relevant BUT not as strong an
explanation as practice
…and especially interesting findings with gender
22
CofPs and gender
Raising of
(ay): right
/aɪ/ to /ɔɪ/
Burnout girls > Burnout boys > Jock boys > Jock girls
23
Significance of Eckert (2000)

The importance of LOCAL relationships to the use of
language
–

CofP membership (i.e. local social practice) constrains
linguistic behaviour more than abstract social categories
Building on earlier work:
–
–
Provides more information about the community being
studied
Allows us to explain language behaviour better

24
Not just gender or class, but how local speakers LIVE gender
& class
Summing up…

Early variationist studies provide a broad
view of sociolinguistic variation
–
BUT to explain variation, we sometimes need
closer analysis of communities




25
Prevents overgeneralisation
Allows us to explore competing norms
Gets us closer to the precise social correlates of
variation
The social network & the CofP approach
provide frameworks for more local analyses
Reading and selected references




Cheshire, Jenny (1982) Variation in an English Dialect: A
Sociolinguistic Study. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Eckert, Penelope (2000) Linguistic Variation as Social Practice:
The Linguistic Construction of Identity at Belten High. Oxford:
Blackwell.
Milroy, Lesley (1980) Language and Social Networks. Oxford:
Basil Blackwell.
Rickford, John (1986) “The need for new approaches to social
class analysis in sociolinguistics”. Language and
Communication 6: 215-221.
Required reading: Meyerhoff (2006: Chapter 9)
26