Social Class and Age Lecture

1 Social Class and Age zClass Defined zClass in Lg zTransmission and Age zExamples Social Class Regional Variation More variation by geography among lower classes Social Variation UC MC WC Why shape? -Mobility -Education -Networks -Prestige Typical Class Discriminants ? Barriers, distance/deprivation, mobility ?Labov ? occupation, education , family income ? Trudgill ? self?s occupation, income, education, housing, and locality, and father?s occupation ?Rickford ? Local usage: Estate, Non-Estate Class ? Sharp vs. gradient stratification ? Sharp: middle class (MC) and working class (WC) ? Gradient: lower (L), middle (M), or upper (U)? Class Matrix (Chambers 1995)? Unskilled laborers, seasonal workers Lower (LWC) Semi-skilled manual workers Middle (MWC) Clerks, skilled manual workers Upper (UWC)Working Class (WC) Semi-professionals, lower managers Lower (LMC) Professionals, lower managers Middle (MMC) Owners, directors, people with inherited wealth Upper (UMC)Middle Class (MC) Norwich Norwich (?):[n] by Class 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 LWC MWC UWC LMC MMC (?):[n] 98LWC 88MWC 74UWC 15LMC 3MMC 2 Other Norwich Patterns 0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 180 200 LWC MWC UWC LMC MMC [a?] [?] 187 178 160 98 42 (ai):[a?] (t):[?] 187LWC 184MWC 178UWC 123LMC 83MMC 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 (a:) (t) (ng) MMC - LMC LMC - UWC UWC - MWC MWC - LWC Differences between classes for three markers Norwich and Bradford Cross-Location Patterns 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 LWC MWC UWC LMC MMC Bradford Norwich 93 89 67 28 12 Bradford Norwich % (h):[Ø] 60LWC 60MWC 40UWC 14LMC 6MMC Style within Class 100986629LWC 95884423MWC 8774155UWC 4215100LMC 28300MMC Casual Speech Formal Speech Reading Passage Word List% (?):[n] Norwich Philadelphia (ð):[d] ? Social Class 0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 LWC MWC UWC LMC UMC Casual Careful Effects: higher index 1. Social class: lower SEC (shown above) 2. Age: younger (in a few slides) 3. Gender: men 4. Mobility: less 3 Life Stages and Dialectology 1. Language learner (prebirth to 4) ? Being a member of the species, setting parameters ? Expressing the ability to acquire a language via genetic growth 2. Norm learner (4 to 12) ? Adopting norms, acceptability ? Register (formality) > class differences ? Critical mass reinforcement ? Influenced by next oldest peers 3. Group Identifier (12 to late 20s) ? Unstable because subject to shifting identity choices 4. Stabilizer (30 or older) ? Provides initial input for children ? Affords apparent-change comparisons Real & Apparent Time Change ?Real time ?Chronological time ?Changes seen within a speaker?s life ? Apparent time ?Several ages at one time ?Assumes speech patterns ?freeze? ?Age grading Why do children and youth change? ? Peer pressure ? Conformity enforces innovation of adults ? Nonconformity enforces pushing the envelope ? Greatest influence are peers 1 year older ? Hypercorrection ?Identity formation ? Pick up a pattern and expand it in frequency ? Not innovators ? Across lifespan Age-Graded Changes ? Changes that reoccur across the population as they pass through different life stages (rare?)? ? NYC conformity with adult patterns ? 8-11: 52%; 12-13: 50%; 14-15: 57%; 16-17: 62% ? E.g. ? World: ?zed?; US: ?zee? ? Southern Ontario: 1979 (12yr) 66%; 1991 (25yr) 39%, (over 30) 12.5% ? Issue going back to mid-1800s ? E.g. [/] in Glasgow ? MC speakers lose between 10yrs and 15yrs Apparent Time Change 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 80 + 70s 60s 50s 40s 30s 20s Teens couch chesterfield sofa Labov?s Principles of Transmission 1. Children learn language (caretakers) 2. Variation = style (caretakers, teachers, peers) 3. Informal = lower class (community) 4. Changes from below by nonconformist children 5. Changes from below adopted by wider children speaker community 4 Philadelphia (ð):[d] ? Social Class and Age 0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 8~12 13~16 17~19 20~39 40~59 60+ LWC UWC LMC Compare to p. 61 in Coulmas NYC Department Stores (Labov 1972) 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 Saks Macy's S. Klein First Second 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 Saks Macy's S. Klein First Second Indicator and relation to age ? Occupation ? Family background and early speech patterns ?/ð/ sounds ?Education ? Early years to adult stabilization ? Identity perhaps ?NYC /?/ ?Income ? Socioeconomic factors most variable ? Might display incongruence (plumber with sudden wealth) Martha?s Vineyard ? Centralization: change in first element in diphthongs /aj/ and /au/ (Mass.) ~ [åI ´I], [åU ´U] MV (cf. 16/17 c English settlers: centralized)? ?Problems ? Origin of linguistic variations ? Spread and propagation of linguistic changes ? Regularity of linguistic change ? ?? social pressures are continually operating on language, not from some remote point in the past, but as an immanent social force acting in the living present.? (Labov 1972:3)? Background (from L72) ? 320 year settlement ? 6k native Vineyarders (cf 42k tourists)? ? Town (down-island 69%) ~ rural (up-island 31%)? ? 4 ethnic groups ? Connected English, 4 th generation Portuguese, Native American remnant, miscellaneous ? Mean of # of variants x 100 5 Details 8151Gay Head 1033Oak Bluffs 5548Edgartown 3335Down-Island 81100Chilmark 5151W. Tisbury 1335N. Tisbury 9971Oak Bluffs 6661Up-Island 3324Vineyard Haven [´U][´I] Martha?s Vineyard Centralization (Labov 1973) 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 14-30 31-45 56-60 61-75 75+ central /aj/ central /au/ Martha?s Vineyard Centralization (Labov 1973) 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 fishermen farmers others central /ai/ central /au/ Ethnicity 905654426067All ages 884752343135<30 13380837310910831 ? 45 100715937638546 ? 60 403226263436>60 [´U][´I][´U][´I][´U][´I] Native American PortugueseEnglish Comparison of four 15 yr olds 113-11900-00 90-10000-40 [´I]-[´U][´I]-[´U] Up-Island, Staying Down-Island, Leaving Centralization and Orientation Towards Martha?s Vineyard 89Negative6 4232Neutral19 6263Positive40 [´U][´I] Persons 6 Labov?s Conclusions ? Variable used by Group A marked with contrast with other groups ? Group A is reference for Group B by adoption of variable in response to outside pressure ? Hypercorrection and structural symmetry leads to generalization of other units in B ? New norm established ? New norm passed onto neighboring groups Tom Purnell Microsoft PowerPoint - Social Class.ppt