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Chapter 7 - Finding Issues

The document summarizes several studies on linguistic variation and discusses some of their key findings: - Labov's early study of (r) pronunciation in New York City found it was more common among younger people and in more formal settings. Subsequent studies showed attitudes toward (r) pronunciation in the city have changed over time. - Trudgill's study of variables in Norwich, England found pronunciation was linked to both social class and gender, with higher social classes and women favoring standard variants. - The Detroit study found a very close relationship between social class and use of multiple negation, with higher social classes using it far less. - Studies in Belfast found stronger social networks were

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Yesicha Ryona
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165 views

Chapter 7 - Finding Issues

The document summarizes several studies on linguistic variation and discusses some of their key findings: - Labov's early study of (r) pronunciation in New York City found it was more common among younger people and in more formal settings. Subsequent studies showed attitudes toward (r) pronunciation in the city have changed over time. - Trudgill's study of variables in Norwich, England found pronunciation was linked to both social class and gender, with higher social classes and women favoring standard variants. - The Detroit study found a very close relationship between social class and use of multiple negation, with higher social classes using it far less. - Studies in Belfast found stronger social networks were

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Yesicha Ryona
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Yesicha Ryona A1B011041

Some Findings and Issues

Some Findings and Issues


An Early Study New York City Norwich and Reading A Variety of Studies Belfast Controversies

An Early Study

An Early Study

New York City

Labovs work in New York City is usually regarded as setting the pattern for quantitative studies of linguistic variation. Labov raised many of the issues that are still addressed and devised

many methods for tackling these issues. One of his earliest


studies of linguistic variation was a small-scale investigation of the (r) variable (Labov, 1966). Labov believed that r-pronunciation after vowels was being reintroduced into New York speech from above, was a feature of the speech of younger people rather than of older people, was more likely to occur as the formality level in speech increased, and would be more likely at the ends of words (oor) than before consonants (fourth).

New York City

Table 7.4 shows the incidence of r use that Labov found among individuals employed in the three stores (Labov, 1972b, p. 51). The table shows that 32 and 31 percent of the personnel approached in Saks and Macys respectively used r in all possible instances but only 17 percent did so in S. Klein; 79 percent of the seventy-one employees in S. Klein who were approached did not use r at all, but only 38 percent of the sixty-eight employees approached in Saks and 49 percent of the 125 employees approached in Macys were r-less.

New York City

Figure 7.1 Percentage of (r); [r] in rst (I) and second (II) utterances of fourth (white) and oor (solid) in three New York City department stores Source: based on Labov (1972b, p. 52)

New York City

Labov claims that today in New York City pronunciations of words like car and guard with the r pronounced are highly valued. They are associated with the upper middle class even though members of that class do not always use such pronunciations, nor do they use them on all occasions. We should note that r-pronunciation has not always been highly valued in New York City. New York City was r pronouncing in the eighteenth century but became r-less in the nineteenth, and r-lessness predominated until World War II. At that time r-pronunciation became prestigious again, possibly as a result of large population movements to the city; there was a shift in attitude toward r-pronunciation, from apparent indifference to a widespread desire to adopt such pronunciation.

New York City

Norwich and Reading


social class and level of formality.

Trudgill (1974) investigated sixteen different phonological variables in his work in Norwich, England. He demonstrates, in much the same way as Labov does in New York City, how use of the variants is related to Trudgills analysis of the variables (ng), (t), and (h) shows,

for example, that the higher the social class the more
frequent is the use of the [], [t], and [h] variants in words like singing, butter, and hammer rather than the

corresponding [n], [?], and variants.

Norwich and Reading


the majority of occasions.

However, whereas members of the lower working class almost invariably say singin, they do not almost invariably say ammer. Moreover, although members of the lower working class say

singin when they are asked to read a word list containing words
ending in -ing, they pronounce the (ng) with the [] variant on The data also suggest that, so far as the (ng) variable is concerned, its variant use is related not only to social class but also to gender, with females showing a greater preference for [] than males, regardless of social-class

membership.

A Variety of Studies
that city.

The Detroit study (Shuy et al., 1968) and Wolframs follow-up to that study (1969) have some ndings which are worthy of comment in the present context. For example, the Detroit study

investigated the use of multiple negation as a linguistic variable in


The study showed that there is a very close relationship between the use of multiple negation and social class. Whereas upper middleclass speakers used such negation on about 2 percent of possible occasions, the corresponding percentages for the other three social classes were as follows: lower middle class, 11 percent; upper working class, 38 percent; and lower working class, 70 percent.

A Variety of Studies

From such gures we can make a further observation: it is not that members of the upper middle class always avoid multiple negation and members of the lower working class always employ it; it may be

our impression that such is the case, but the facts do not conrm
that impression. No class uses one variant of the variable to the exclusion of the other, regardless of circumstances. For example, as the situation becomes more formal, an individuals linguistic usage comes closer to standard usage, and the higher the social class of the speaker, the more standard too is the speakers behavior. Moreover, children are less standard in their linguistic behavior than adults with similar social backgrounds, and males are less standard than females.

Belfast
What we see in these working-class communities in Belfast, then, is that the stronger the social network, the greater the use of

certain linguistic features of the vernacular. The results support


Milroys (1980, p. 43) hypothesis that a closeknit network has the capacity to function as a norm enforcement mechanism; there is no reason to suppose that linguistic norms are exempted from this process. Moreover, a closeknit network structure appears to be very common. . . In low status communities.

Controversies
deletion of l in Montreal.

In a previous section I noted that linguistic variables may show correlations not only with social variables but also with other linguistic features, i.e., they may be linguistically constrained too, as with the

Controversies

Constraints may also mix phonological and grammatical features. Wolfram (1969, pp. 5969) explains a situation in Detroit in which black speakers also delete nal stops in

clusters, but in this case make a distinction according to


the grammatical function of the stop. In the nal cluster in cold the d has no independent grammatical function it is

part of a single unit of meaning but in burned it marks


past tense and is grammatically the -ed ending, and therefore has its own meaning.

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