2. Class consciousness
Raymond Williams & E. P. Thompson
Each class contains the other(s) within itself, though in
distorted and ambivalent forms … each class views the
others … as images of their hopes and fears for their
own lives and futures … if much of working class
culture can be understood as … embodying the
ambivalence of upward mobility, much of middle-class
culture can be seen as embodying the terror of
downward mobility. (Ortner, 1991)
3. What is social class?
In everyday use, and even among sociologists, the word
‘class’ is used non-sociologically, meaning ‘a kind of
category’
‘A division or order of society according to status; a
rank or grade of society.’ (OED)
4. What is social class?
Objective Subjective
Applying a criteria of The individual places
inclusion to an individual in himself/herself in a class
order to place them in a category, regardless of
class category, regardless of whether the researcher
whether the individual thinks they belong in that
thinks they belong in that class category.
class category
5. Low, middle, upper …?
Your accent
Where you live Power
What you do Wealth
What you earn Prestige
How much you are worth
6. Class in the UK
Classless?
Upper Class Education
Income
(http://www.ifs.org.uk/wheredoyoufitin/)
Middle class
Upper middle class Occupation
Middle middle class Wealth
Lower middle class
Class Stereotypes
Working class Toff
Skilled working class Rah
Unskilled working class Sloane ranger
Worcester woman
Essex man
Underclass
White van man
chav
7. Trudgill: social class dialects
I done it yesterday./I did it yesterday.
He ain’t got it./He hasn’t got it.
It was her what said it./It was her that said it.
‘Why does social differentiation have this effect on
language?’
Geographical boundaries
Social boundaries
The study of
Idiolects
From a study of rural dialects to urban speech communities
The importance of Labov
8. Trudgill: social class dialects
The dialect continuum
Highest class: standard dialect
Social variation
Lowest class: most localised non-
standard
Regional variation
9. Trudgill: social class accents
The accent continuum
Highest class: RP
Social variation
Lowest class: most localised non-
accent
Regional variation
10. Trudgill: dialect correlations
From hunch to method to correlation to theory
Explanatory power:
We know what we are doing when we ascribe social status from
speech
We learn about social structure from an understanding of language
variation
Idiolects follow predictable patterns
It teaches us to be suspicious of stereotypes
11. Trudgill: accent correlations
Norwich: Trudgill
Variation across speech styles parallels variation across social
class
New York: Labov
Study in 1962 at department stores in New York.
12. The stores
Saks Fifth Avenue
At 50th Street and 5th Avenue, near the centre of the high fashion
shopping district
Macy's
Herald Square. 34th Street and Sixth Avenue, near the clothing
district
S. Klein
Union Square. 14th Street and Broadway, not far from the Lower
East Side
13. The shop assistants
The interviewer asked:
Excuse me, where are the (women's shoes)?
The salesperson answered:
Fourth floor.
The interviewer then leaned forward and said:
Excuse me?
The salesperson answered:
Fourth floor.
14. The hunch
In New York City the pronunciation of postvocalic (r) in
words like “fourth” and “floor” is variable.
Labov’s hypothesis
Salespeople in the highest ranked stores will have the most (r),
those in the middle ranked store will have an intermediate value,
and those in the lowest ranked store will have the least.
Was he right?
15. Conclusions
There is a sliding up and down between standard and vernacular forms
The ‘classic sociolinguistic finding’
People’s pronunciation tends to move closer to higher class speech
styles in formal situations, and closer to lower class styles when
situations are more relaxed.
Individual variation turns out to be a reflection of the speech
differences that emerge when you survey the class groups in society as
a whole.
Individuals internalise class hierarchy and act it out in the fine grain of
ordinary life. How?
