Contribution of William Labov

Labov, 1966
The Social Stratification of English in New York City

Investigating the r pronunciation after vowels.

Method
Walking around three New York City Department Store (Saks, Macys, and S.Klein). 2. Asking the location of department he knew to be situated on the fourth floor.
1.

Method
Not practical to interview speakers extensively Instead, needed to quickly elicit possible /r/

pronunciations in both spontaneous and careful speech

Walked around 3 NYC department stores, asking the location of

departments he knew were on the fourth floor By pretending not to hear, he got each informant to pronounce the two words twice, once spontaneously, and once carefully

3 stores catering for distinct social groups:

Saks (upper), Macys (middle), S. Klein (lower)

Informants were shop workers at different grades, giving a

further possible stratification

Result
1. r -pronunciation after vowels was being reintroduced into New York speech from

above.

Result
2. r -pronunciation after vowels was a feature of the speech of younger people rather than of older people

Result
3. r -pronunciation after vowels was more likely to occur as the formality level increased

Result
4. r -pronunciation after vowels would be more likely at the ends of words than before consonants

Results
Use of [r]

Use of [r]
100 80

corresponded to higher class of store Furthermore, use of [r] increases in careful speech Similar finding with rank of employee (management, sales, shelf-stackers)

60 40 20 0 Saks Macy's store S Klein

never sometimes always

first and second utterances

100 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 Saks Macy's store S Klein

fourth I fourth 2 floor I floor 2

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Types of prestige
Overt vs covert overt prestige: seeking prestige by assimilating to the standard covert prestige: choosing to differ from the standard Positive vs negative positive: seeking prestige by adopting some feature negative: seeking prestige by avoiding some feature

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Another factor
Labov had expected results to reflect prestige, but

difference between careful and casual pronunciation suggests other factors at work Follow-up study looked at use of [r] in different styles of speech by different social classes

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Pronunciation and style

Adoption of

prestige form increases with formality of style, in each case with a higher baseline for higher classes EXCEPT in one case

[r] pronunciation by class and style

100 90 80 70 60 0 1 2,3 4,5 6,8 9

50 40 30 20 10 0 casual careful reading word list minimal pairs style

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Hypercorrection
middle class

outperform upper middle class on word lists and minimal pairs this cross-over due to hypercorrection (according to Labov) not sure whether results are statistically significant though Labov reported group means, but did not indicate how much variance there was

[r] pronunciation by class and style

100 90 80 70 60 6,8 9

50 40 30 20 10 0 casual careful reading word list minimal pairs style

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Conclusion
Labov established that a number of factors were involved, not just locale

Notably, not just class but also style

And prestige complicates matters

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The Sociolinguistic Variable

A linguistic variable is an item in the structure of a

language, an item that has alternate realizations, as one speaker realizes it one way and another a different way or the same speaker realizes it differently on different occasions. For example, one speaker may say singing most of the time whereas another prefers singin, but the first is likely to say singin on occasion just as the second may be found to use the occasional singing. What might be interesting is any relationship we find between these habits and either (or both) the social class to which each speaker belongs or the circumstances which bring about one pronunciation rather than the other.

The Sociolinguistic Variable

Indicator = ling variable to which little or no social

import is attached

caught/cot merger - untested hypothesis!!!

Marker = ling variable that carries social significance NYC r-lessness, (ING) Stereotype = ling variable that is a popular and,

therefore conscious characterization of the speech of a particular group (not necessarily reality)

Boston r-lessness (park the car in Harvard yard), toidy-toid NYC

The Sociolinguistic Variable

Variation in the blender is broken / the blender is broke

gives us an idea of social information of the person who would choose the 2nd over the first Age, gender (typically sex of speakers) important social factors Social class - usually devised from an index of occupation, education and residence value to give someone a category like lower, middle, upper middle class or working class (LWC, MMC, etc)