BRITISH IDENTITY:

CLASS
WHAT IS CLASS?
Social class involves grouping people together and according
them status within society according to the groups they belong to.




WHAT DETERMINES SOCIAL CLASS?
-ACCENT
-WHERE THE PERSON LIVES
-OCCUPATION
-INCOME
-EDUCATION


OTHER FACTORS THAT DETERMINE SOCIAL CLASS
CLASS IN BRITAIN
There were originally three social classes:
UPPER , MIDDLE AND LOWER
NEW CLASSES IN BRITAIN
LANGUAGE AND CLASS
Language most shows a man. Speak that I may
see thee Bernard Shaw

All English people, whether they admit it or not, are fitted with a sort of social Global
Positioning Satellite computer that tells us a persons position on the class map as soon
as he or she begins to speak.

There are two main factors involved in the calculation of this position: terminology and
pronunciation the words you use and how you say them.

Pronunciation is a more reliable indicator.
STANDARD BRITISH ENGLISH
-The variety of the English language that is generally used in
professional writing in Britain (or, more narrowly defined, in
England or in southeast England) and taught in British schools.

-Standard English is what is seen as, the 'educated norm'.

-It's the language of formal written English - of newspapers, letters, reports
It's also, to some extent, spoken, by what could be described as an
'educated elite'.

-Sometime seen as POSH English.

NON-STANDARD BRITISH ENGLISH
-Non-standard English is everything else - the accents,
the dialects, the vocabulary that vary according to
where you live, or what social group you're in.

-Non-standard forms were just as expressive and
wonderful as standard - they have their own rules and
were in no way inferior.

ACCENTS
RECEIVED PRONUNCIATION

-RP is probably the most widely studied and most frequently described variety of
spoken English in the world, yet recent estimates suggest only 2% of the UK
population speak it.
-It is the accent on which phonemic transcriptions in dictionaries are based, and it is
widely used (in competition with General American) for teaching English as a foreign
language.
-It's identified not so much with a particular region as with a particular social group,
although it has connections with the accent of Southern England.
-RP is associated with educated speakers and formal speech.
-It has connotations of prestige and authority, but also of privilege and arrogance.
COCKNEY
-The term Cockney has geographical, social, and linguistic
associations.

-Traditionally, it refers to people born within
a certain area of London covered by "the sound of Bow
bells," that is St Mary-Le-Bow Church in Cheapside,
London.

-The word is often erroneously used to refer to
working-class Londoners in the East End, in the district
known as Bow.
OTHER ACCENTS
-Estuary English (Southeast British)
-West Country (Southwest British)
-Midlands English
-Northern England English
-Geordie
-Welsh English
-Scottish English

LINGUISTIC DISCRIMINATION
-It is the unfair treatment of an individual based
solely on their use of language.
-This use of language may include the individual's
native language or other characteristics of the
person's speech, such as an accent, the size of
vocabulary (whether the person uses complex
and varied words),