Sociology Week 7- Unit 10Lecturer and slide provider: Maryam Farnia (PhD)Payame Noor Universitymfarniair@gmail.com

Textbook: An Introduction to Sociolinguistics (Janet Holmes, 2012) - 4th editionAcademic year 2014-2015

Compare the speech style in these two sentences:

(a) Excuse me. Could I have a look at your photos too, MrsHall?

(b) C’mon Tony, gizzalook, gizzalook.

Factors affecting the degree of social distance and solidarity: Relative age, gender, social roles, whether people work together or are part status

When addressing people of different age, the speaker generally talk differently.

Some features in speaking to children:- Using short and grammatically simple structures- Using simple range of vocabulary - Using We rather than You to refer to addressee- Using the sing-song intonation which

characterizes baby-talk

“The speech used by native speakers to foreigners who do not speak English well. It has features similar to the speech with young children.”

Some features of foreigner talk- High frequency vocabulary - Fewer contractions (e.g. must not rather mustn't)- Use of nouns rather than pronouns so referents are clear

(e.g. then you open the oven and you put the cake into the oven rather then put it in the oven).

- Shorter sentences with simple grammar.- Use of tag questions like don’t you? And isn’t it?(which are

easy to respond to).- Repetition.

Your speech might be influenced by the social background of the people you talk to, e.g. newsreaders at different stations in New Zealand

Audience design “the influence of the addressee or audience on a

speaker’s style.”

In the previous example, the newsreader read the same news happening in the same context but used different style because of the one factor : the addressee.

Style“Language variation which is influenced by

changes in situational factors, such as addressee, setting, task or topic.”

Peter Trudgill interviewing people in Norwich, use of [t] in better, bet. Glottal stop used up to 98% with lower class interviewees (100%). With higher class (25%), Trudgill’s use dropped to 30%. He was accommodating to his interviewees.

The social background of the addressee might influence our speech style. Out speech accommodation signals our desires to keep on the conversation and our attitude about the addressee.

Accommodation theory was developed by Howard Giles and others in the 1970s. It suggests that we adjust our speech to ‘accommodate’ the person we are addressing. This may result in convergence or divergence.

Convergence: this is more common and occurs when we move our speech closer to that of the other person.

Divergence: when people’s speech styles move further apart.

Speakers tend to change the way they are speaking depending on who they are talking to.

Speakers may Converge (modify their speech to sound similar) or diverge (maintain linguistic distinctiveness to distinguish themselves from interlocutor e.g. some minority ethnic groups).

If both participants in a conversation converge towards the other, this is called mutual convergence.

Divergence has the effect of emphasizing the differences between people. Two supporters of rival football teams might exaggerate their respective regional accents in an argument, if unconsciously.

Convergence decreases the social distance between people.

Motivation: in the case of convergence to express solidarity or reduce social distance, polite speech strategy, sarcastic effect.

Referee design“Deliberately diverging both from one’s usual style and that of

addressee(s) towards the style of a third party for special effect.”

Accent divergence

To disassociate from the listener the speaker

may emphasise pronunciation dissimilarities

Accent convergence

To gain another’s approval, the speaker may

reduce pronunciation dissimilarities

Upward accent convergence

Downward accent convergence

Examples of downward and upward convergence?

Someone with an RP accent ‘toning down’ their accent to speak someone with a ‘lower class’ accent is called downward convergence.

Someone with a ‘working class’ accent trying to eliminate some of the stronger regional features of their speech for a job interview with an RP speaker is called upward convergence.

COUPLAND (1984)

Observed accent convergence in a travel

agency.

▪ Number of h’s sounded by assistant varied from 3.7%

to 29.3%

▪ Significantly correlated with the proportion sounded

by her clients

Welsh students on Welsh language course… Ss asked to take part in a survey concerned with 2nd language learning

techniques.

Ss listened to questions posed by very English sounding tutor who at one point asked…

Responses showed extreme accent divergence following this attack:

▪ Broadened their Welsh accent

▪ Introduction of Welsh words and phrases

▪ 1 Ss was silent – then produced Welsh expletive into the microphone!

“Why on earth do you want to study a dying language with a dismal future?”

When someone goes beyond their usual or normal ways of speaking and behaving and engages in a ‘high’ or ‘strong’ performance of some sort, the term ‘stylization’ is used, e.g. the speech of comedians and singers.

Crossing: a particular type of stylization in which young people temporarily cross over into another group’s speech style

Parody or pantomime

Overdoing convergence might offend listeners.

Listeners might react differently to different types of convergence.

Reasons behind convergence or divergence are very important.

Deliberate divergence are regarded as uncooperative or antagonistic.

“Context” of the speech is one of the best way to avoid accommodation problems.

Speech accommodation or style shifting which often occurs unconsciously in casual contexts may not be appropriate in more formal context.

Characteristics of the addressee are not the only influential factors on speech style.

The choice of appropriate form is influenced not by the personal relationship between the participants, but by the formality of the context and their relative roles and statuses within the setting.

People’s roles in some formal contexts strongly influence the appropriate speech forms.

American sociolinguist, William Labov, carried out research in New York City in 1962. He looked at thepronunciation of /r/ in the middle, and at the end of words for example car and heart.

The New York accent is a non-rhotic accent, unlike most American accents, meaning that the /r/ is not pronounced, just as in most British varieties of English; hence /ca:/.The phonemic representation for a rhotic pronunciation of car is [car].

He collected data through a variety of methods including, asking participants to read a word list and apassage, and an informal interview; this was to try and collect natural speech in the interview and the carefully considered speech in the reading of lists and passages.

Labov found a higher use of rhoticity in all social classes when reading the word list as opposed to in an interview. Labov concluded from these findings that rhoticity appears to be related to social status. From a sociolinguistic point of view, this tells us that rhoticity in New York is an important, useful indicator of social status.

Labov’s work on language use in New York City provided a blueprint for current methods of investigating variation in language use.

It comprises an informal part (consisting of free conversation) for eliciting vernacular or local use, and a formal part (consisting of a reading passage, word lists and minimal pairs) to elicit various degrees of formal or standard language use.

The person’s most relaxed style was referred to as vernacular.

Careful style vs. casual style

Techniques to elicit vernacular style:- Topic manipulation - Recording small groups of people rather than individual

Example of colloquial or casual style:- Pronunciation features:

[h]-dropping: e.g. ‘oh well, ‘e said, ‘I suppose you can ‘ave‘im[in] (vs formal [iŋ]: e.g. We was up there cuttin’

Grammatical features:was with plural subject we, e.g. We was up there cuttin’Come (vs Came): Frazer come on to us.

From the way people from different social groups speak with information about the way people speak in different contexts indicates that the features of social class and contextual style interact.

Inter-speaker variation: when the same linguistic features distinguishes between speakers socially (variation between the speakers).

Intra-speaker variation: the difference in the way a single speaker talks in two or more different situations (variation within a speaker).

- Hypercorrection: it is the exaggeration of some lower class speakers in imitating middle class standard speech.

- For example: the use of 'I' rather than 'me' in constructions such as 'between you and I'.

Lower middle

class

And exterior standard

of correctness

Insecurity about their

own speech

It is called HYPERCORRECTIONThey try to use the prestige norm used by upper class.

The Use of I for Me and Whom for Who"Perhaps the most common example of hypercorrectness is the use of I for me in a compound subject: between you and I.

Other common hypercorrect forms include whom forwho, as for like (She, as any other normal person, wanted to be well thought of), the ending-ly where it doesn't belong (Slice thinly), some verb forms (lie for lay, shall for will), and many pronunciations."

(W. R. Ebbit and D. R. Ebbitt, Writer's Guide. Scott, 1978)

She had very little to say to Cathy and I.

Whom are we inviting to the party?

Japan Iran France (tu vs. vous)

When addressing a person, the choice between these pronouns is influenced by the relationship between the speaker and the addressee and the social context in which they are speaking.

- Register : occupational style using specialized or technical jargon, it describes the language of groups of people with common interests or jobs, or the language used in situations associated with such groups, such as the language of doctors, engineers, journals, legalese, etc.

A variety of language used in a particular social or economic setting, for example, legal or academic register.

- Play-by-play commentary: it focuses on actions by using telegraphic grammar, e.g. syntactic reduction, inversion of normal word order in sentence

- Colour commentary: it focuses on people, with heavy and long modifications or descriptions of nouns, e.g. when having time, noun modification (refer to page 263)