Textbook: An Introduction to Sociolinguistics (Janet Holmes, 2012) - 4th edition Unit 10 Lecturer and Slide Provider: Maryam Farnia (PhD)

1. Sociology
Week 7- Unit 10
Lecturer and slide provider: Maryam Farnia (PhD)
Payame NoorUniversity
mfarniair@gmail.com
Textbook: An Introduction to Sociolinguistics (Janet Holmes, 2012) - 4th edition
Academic year 2014-2015

2. Compare the speech style in these two sentences:
(a) Excuse me. Could I have a look at your photos too, Mrs
Hall?
(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

3.  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

4.  “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.

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

6.  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.”

7.  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.

8.  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.

9.  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.

10.  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.”

11.  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

12.  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.

13.  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

14.  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…
“Why on earth do you want to study a
dying language with a dismal future?”
 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!

15.  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

16.  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.

17.  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.

18.  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.

19.  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

20.  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.

21.  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.

22.  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).

23. - 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'.

24. Lower middle
class
And exterior standard
of correctness
Insecurity about their
own speech
It is called HYPERCORRECTION
They try to use the prestige norm used by upper class.

25.  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?

26.  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.

27. - 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.

28. - 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)