Social Variation

Explain the term Social Variation and illustrate with eg

Def : language change due to social factors; appeals to the notion of prestige

1) socio-economic status

Eg : Labov NYC departmental store
the Saks (high class) use more of the prestigious variant/ postvocalic / than the other classes
this shows that the higher the social class, the greater awareness there is for the standard form of english to sound more prestigious and move up the social ladder.

Eg : Trudgill Norwich case study
However, the social value of the postvocalic /r/ is the opposite in Norwish.
the upper middle class produce less/r/ than the working class

2) Age
- looks at the difference in speech cross generation ( grandparents and grandchildren)

Eg:
-Many devises used previously have progressed or is no longer is use.
- changes due to new invention and new way of life
eg- cinema vs cinplex, icebox bs refrigerator

3) gender
-differences in women and men speech

1) norms of correctness
Trudgill and Labov supports the finding that women are more concerned about the soical value that the linguisitic feature holds. tend to hycorrect as well as adopt the more prestigious proninciation. Men on the other hand prefer to converge with the working class as working class speech is considered rough and manly.

2) difference in roles of women and men in conversation
Acker observes that although women initiate the conversation, they play the supporting role while men tend to dominate and interrupt conversations

3) difference in conversation intent
Tannen observes that while women express themselfs to release their emotions, men view it as wanting a solution. Also, men do not make use of hedging , which may hurt the females who are looking for comfort

4) difference in linguistic features
Lakoff observes that women tend to use more fillers, tag questions , empty adjectives and intensifiers in their conversation

5) Sexism in lexical words.
- gender stereoptype in profession. tend to state the gender if the profession is not conforming to the norm.
----> female taxi driver, male nurse
words used to highlight certain roles meant for man
---> chairman, policeman.
- society's perception and mindset about how gnder differences
---> sexism (feminine wiles and masculine charm)
thus the use of PC language would be more apt. (eg : use of MS, instead of MISS/ MRS)

4) ethnicity
Eg: Singapore
in this multicultural and multi ethnic society, it is realised that the malays tend to have a delayed pitch in questions compared the other 2 ethnic groups