Classification of Social Class Based on Observation of Linguistic
Variables
Abstract: A speaker's command of language is much influenced by his social status. People from different social classes use different varieties of language. All social linguistic studies concern language in a social context, treating speakers as members of social groups.
Key words: social class; stratification; social dialect
Ⅰ. Introduction:
Language is the product of human evolution or a tool for human communication with respect of its function. But from a sociolinguistic point of view, language is influenced not only by the speech situation but also by the social variation, such as age, class, etc. Since human and society are related so closely that language, as a tool of human communication, is influenced by society more or less. However, society is generally regarded as a hierarchical one and it is classified into different social classes. Therefore, language spoken by different people maybe marked on the trait of his or his specific social class. Hudson (2000) hold the view that one of the characteristics of the hierarchical social structure of a country like Britain is that social class takes precedence over geography as a determinant of speech. In other words, language produced by a character is the mirror of his social status. However, what do we base our social stratification on, or in other words, under what condition, do we classify different social classes? This paper is designed to observe the classification of social classes from the perspective of social dialect and try to find out the relation between the two.
Ⅱ. Social Stratification and Social Dialect
2.1 Social stratification
The term, social stratification was first brought up in western political science, and then was developed gradually. According to Bilton,
Social stratification means the hierarchical division of a population into unequal layers or strata based on income, wealth, gender, ethnicity, power, status, age, religion or some other characteristics, or simply speaking, it refers to the social hierarchy where some have access to more power, wealth and prestige than others. (Requoted from ). That means, the parameters which decide a person ’s social class is his or her income, wealth, power, etc. To illustrate this point, William Labov( requoted from Li Mingjie, 2003) has a very famous formula.
Social stratification＝ profession ×2＋education×4＝income×1 housing×1 In this formula, compared with income and housing, Labov attached more importance to education and profession, which give us enlightment that education and profession play a decisive role in dividing a person’s social class. Ren Xiuping (2010) believes that among those leaving the educational system at an early age, there is a greater
tendency to use forms which are relatively infrequent in the speech of those who go on to the college. Generally speaking, people are classified into three classes according to the parameters in Labov ’s formula above. They are upper, middle and lower classes respectively. Social class is the product of social stratification. Social class is a broad, large--scale category. It has enabled linguists to shed light on the social functions of language in cities. Basically, people can be ordered with respect to the rest of society by qualified characteristics like income, education, Occupation, residence or life--style, All these characteristics can be ordered in accordance with the way they are evaluated by society at large---for example, a lawyer would be rated higher than a barber, a doctor higher than a farmer, based on numerical values of a combination of these factors. Societies can be ordered into classes as upper, middle and low. People with similar social and backgrounds are in the same social class. The internal differentiation of human societies is reflected in their language.
2.2 social dialects
Dialect is a variety of language, spoken in one part of a country, which is different in some words or grammar from other forms of the same language. Dialect can be divided in to several kinds according to different criteria: regional dialect, social dialect or individual dialect, etc. Dialects may different from each other geographically and socially. Different social groups use different linguistic varieties which includes grammatical phonetic and phonologically differences are called social-class dialects. Just as oceans and mountains separate people and lead distinct speech patterns, so social boundaries also separate people and can be helpful in promoting distinct speech ways. With the development of society, many advanced technology, such as jet plane, telephone have reduced the effect of physical boundaries and distances between communities, physical separation has become a less significant barriers to communication. Still, social barriers continue to play an important role in promoting and maintain characteristic speech patterns among groups of people. Most often, in talking about these regional dialects, we will be concentrating on those social dialects which are most unlike Standard English. In any given area, we find a social scale of dialects, with people at the top of social hierarchy tending to speak Standard English, and with more and more nonstandard regional features occurring as we go down the social hierarchy.
Ⅲ. Influence of Social Stratification on Social Dialect
Different class uses language in different ways. The variety of a language spoken by those who have high social status are referred to as standard language, because the variety is usually spoken by educated people and widely accepted by society.
3.1 Difference in Pronunciation
In order to find how people in different social classes use the same language, Labov conducted a famous experiment. That is the presence and absence of consonant
[r] in postvocalic position in car, card, four, fourth, etc. He wanted to prove that the linguistic variable [r] is a social differentiator in all levels of New York city speech. To start with the test，he selected three large department stores from top, middle and bottoms of the price and fashion scale，so we can expect that the employees will
be socially stratified, as well as the customers. The three stores which he selected are Sakes Fifth Avenues, Macy’s and S. Klein. The differential ranking of these stores may be illustrated in many factors. Their locations are one important point. Sakes lies in an area of high-prestige stores, Macy’s in middle ---range stores and the lowest ranking store is S. Klein, situated in Union Square. The advertising and price policies of the stores are very clearly stratified. Labov picks the employees of the three stores as his informants. He approaches the informant in the role of a customer asking for directions to a particular department which will be located on the fourth floor, so the answer would normally be “Fourth Floor". Then he would lean forward and said; "Excuse me?" The informant would usually repeat "Fourth Floor.” with emphatic stress. Then Labov goes somewhere takes down his notes. The result of the test showed clear and consistent stratification of [r] in the three stores which stand for the three social classes.
“Labov has figured that a total of 62% of Sakes employees, 51%of Macy’s and 20 % of Kleins used somewhat clear utterance of [r]. Labov’s hypothesis that the pronunciation of [r] after vowels was being introduced socially from above is testified. So to speak，it was more likely to occur in formal situations and at the end of a word ( e. g .floor) that in informal situations and before consonants (e. g. fourth). His work showed that lower--middle class speakers behave "hypercorrectly" in the use of
[r].They tend to over produce[r] when they attempt to emulate a more socially prestigious group ” (Hong Changchun, 1999). They may develop insecurities about their dialects and wish to identify with another language group. Lower middle class speakers who surpass middle class speakers in the use of prestige feature are using language to achieve upward mobility. People who consistently hypercorrect shows evidence of such insecurities as well.
Labov's 1966 model suggests an overwhelming tendency for people to aspire to the speech characteristics of the socio--economic class immediately above them. His later work suggests that language does more than reflect people’s positions in an abstract hierarchical society, indicating general social calls, sex and age groups.
3.2 Difference in Vocabulary
Despite the difference in pronunciation, “in vocabulary, the names for the course of a meal which follows the main course vary a lot with different social classes. For example:
Pudding (upper and middle class)
Sweet (middle class)
Dessert (lower middle class)
Afters (lower class)” (Yang Jie, 2001)
From the example above, we can see that upper and middle class people tend to use more form word, while lower class people, informal one.
3.3 Difference in Grammar
In Standard English, there is a clear requirement about the grammar of English. “Standard English is not often referred to as a dialect, but since it is a variety of the language that differs from others in its grammar, it is clearly just as much as any other variety. ” (Sun Qingjun, 2005). Standard English uses grammatical forms such as “ I
did it ” . However, some grammatical rules are always broken in oral English, especially English spoken by minority groups. For example, “Ain ’t much I ain’t seen an ’ done.” While the standard form should be “not much I haven’t see and done or I haven ’t seen and done much.”
Ⅳ. Conclusion
Depending on the group studied, we see languages not only vary greatly from region to region, but within regions, from social group to social group. Such differences are owing to socioeconomic, ethnic and educational background. For these subgroups, they share a language, they assume a similarity in outlook and especially in social behavior and cultural tradition and form very negative judgment of the other group, and they follow their own norms and rules. These varieties are reflected in pronunciation, grammar and vocabulary, and even in differing rules of speech behavior. After conducting many experiments, finally, Labov drew a conclusion that, women of the high social class play a leading role in language change (Chen Zhongmin)
R.A.Hudson Sociolinguistics 2000 外语教学与研究出版社
陈忠敏 语言变化原理：社会因素导读http://www.pkucn.com/viewthread.php?tid=204605 洪常春 Language and Social Class 黄山高等专科学校学报1999年第一期
李明杰 转型期社会阶层重构的语言学再现──以汉语泛尊称的社会分层为例
《二十一世纪》(http://www.cuhk.edu.hk/ics/21c) 《二十一世纪》
网络版第十六期 2003年7月31日
孙贺 从《根》看黑人英语与社会阶级的关系 中国科技信息2011年第1期
孙庆军2005 承德职业学院学报 2005年第三期
任秀萍
杨洁 Social Differences and English Varieties 延安教育学院学报 2001年第一期
Classification of Social Class Based on Observation of Linguistic
Variables
Abstract: A speaker's command of language is much influenced by his social status. People from different social classes use different varieties of language. All social linguistic studies concern language in a social context, treating speakers as members of social groups.
Key words: social class; stratification; social dialect
Ⅰ. Introduction:
Language is the product of human evolution or a tool for human communication with respect of its function. But from a sociolinguistic point of view, language is influenced not only by the speech situation but also by the social variation, such as age, class, etc. Since human and society are related so closely that language, as a tool of human communication, is influenced by society more or less. However, society is generally regarded as a hierarchical one and it is classified into different social classes. Therefore, language spoken by different people maybe marked on the trait of his or his specific social class. Hudson (2000) hold the view that one of the characteristics of the hierarchical social structure of a country like Britain is that social class takes precedence over geography as a determinant of speech. In other words, language produced by a character is the mirror of his social status. However, what do we base our social stratification on, or in other words, under what condition, do we classify different social classes? This paper is designed to observe the classification of social classes from the perspective of social dialect and try to find out the relation between the two.
Ⅱ. Social Stratification and Social Dialect
2.1 Social stratification
The term, social stratification was first brought up in western political science, and then was developed gradually. According to Bilton,
Social stratification means the hierarchical division of a population into unequal layers or strata based on income, wealth, gender, ethnicity, power, status, age, religion or some other characteristics, or simply speaking, it refers to the social hierarchy where some have access to more power, wealth and prestige than others. (Requoted from ). That means, the parameters which decide a person ’s social class is his or her income, wealth, power, etc. To illustrate this point, William Labov( requoted from Li Mingjie, 2003) has a very famous formula.
Social stratification＝ profession ×2＋education×4＝income×1 housing×1 In this formula, compared with income and housing, Labov attached more importance to education and profession, which give us enlightment that education and profession play a decisive role in dividing a person’s social class. Ren Xiuping (2010) believes that among those leaving the educational system at an early age, there is a greater
tendency to use forms which are relatively infrequent in the speech of those who go on to the college. Generally speaking, people are classified into three classes according to the parameters in Labov ’s formula above. They are upper, middle and lower classes respectively. Social class is the product of social stratification. Social class is a broad, large--scale category. It has enabled linguists to shed light on the social functions of language in cities. Basically, people can be ordered with respect to the rest of society by qualified characteristics like income, education, Occupation, residence or life--style, All these characteristics can be ordered in accordance with the way they are evaluated by society at large---for example, a lawyer would be rated higher than a barber, a doctor higher than a farmer, based on numerical values of a combination of these factors. Societies can be ordered into classes as upper, middle and low. People with similar social and backgrounds are in the same social class. The internal differentiation of human societies is reflected in their language.
2.2 social dialects
Dialect is a variety of language, spoken in one part of a country, which is different in some words or grammar from other forms of the same language. Dialect can be divided in to several kinds according to different criteria: regional dialect, social dialect or individual dialect, etc. Dialects may different from each other geographically and socially. Different social groups use different linguistic varieties which includes grammatical phonetic and phonologically differences are called social-class dialects. Just as oceans and mountains separate people and lead distinct speech patterns, so social boundaries also separate people and can be helpful in promoting distinct speech ways. With the development of society, many advanced technology, such as jet plane, telephone have reduced the effect of physical boundaries and distances between communities, physical separation has become a less significant barriers to communication. Still, social barriers continue to play an important role in promoting and maintain characteristic speech patterns among groups of people. Most often, in talking about these regional dialects, we will be concentrating on those social dialects which are most unlike Standard English. In any given area, we find a social scale of dialects, with people at the top of social hierarchy tending to speak Standard English, and with more and more nonstandard regional features occurring as we go down the social hierarchy.
Ⅲ. Influence of Social Stratification on Social Dialect
Different class uses language in different ways. The variety of a language spoken by those who have high social status are referred to as standard language, because the variety is usually spoken by educated people and widely accepted by society.
3.1 Difference in Pronunciation
In order to find how people in different social classes use the same language, Labov conducted a famous experiment. That is the presence and absence of consonant
[r] in postvocalic position in car, card, four, fourth, etc. He wanted to prove that the linguistic variable [r] is a social differentiator in all levels of New York city speech. To start with the test，he selected three large department stores from top, middle and bottoms of the price and fashion scale，so we can expect that the employees will
be socially stratified, as well as the customers. The three stores which he selected are Sakes Fifth Avenues, Macy’s and S. Klein. The differential ranking of these stores may be illustrated in many factors. Their locations are one important point. Sakes lies in an area of high-prestige stores, Macy’s in middle ---range stores and the lowest ranking store is S. Klein, situated in Union Square. The advertising and price policies of the stores are very clearly stratified. Labov picks the employees of the three stores as his informants. He approaches the informant in the role of a customer asking for directions to a particular department which will be located on the fourth floor, so the answer would normally be “Fourth Floor". Then he would lean forward and said; "Excuse me?" The informant would usually repeat "Fourth Floor.” with emphatic stress. Then Labov goes somewhere takes down his notes. The result of the test showed clear and consistent stratification of [r] in the three stores which stand for the three social classes.
“Labov has figured that a total of 62% of Sakes employees, 51%of Macy’s and 20 % of Kleins used somewhat clear utterance of [r]. Labov’s hypothesis that the pronunciation of [r] after vowels was being introduced socially from above is testified. So to speak，it was more likely to occur in formal situations and at the end of a word ( e. g .floor) that in informal situations and before consonants (e. g. fourth). His work showed that lower--middle class speakers behave "hypercorrectly" in the use of
[r].They tend to over produce[r] when they attempt to emulate a more socially prestigious group ” (Hong Changchun, 1999). They may develop insecurities about their dialects and wish to identify with another language group. Lower middle class speakers who surpass middle class speakers in the use of prestige feature are using language to achieve upward mobility. People who consistently hypercorrect shows evidence of such insecurities as well.
Labov's 1966 model suggests an overwhelming tendency for people to aspire to the speech characteristics of the socio--economic class immediately above them. His later work suggests that language does more than reflect people’s positions in an abstract hierarchical society, indicating general social calls, sex and age groups.
3.2 Difference in Vocabulary
Despite the difference in pronunciation, “in vocabulary, the names for the course of a meal which follows the main course vary a lot with different social classes. For example:
Pudding (upper and middle class)
Sweet (middle class)
Dessert (lower middle class)
Afters (lower class)” (Yang Jie, 2001)
From the example above, we can see that upper and middle class people tend to use more form word, while lower class people, informal one.
3.3 Difference in Grammar
In Standard English, there is a clear requirement about the grammar of English. “Standard English is not often referred to as a dialect, but since it is a variety of the language that differs from others in its grammar, it is clearly just as much as any other variety. ” (Sun Qingjun, 2005). Standard English uses grammatical forms such as “ I
did it ” . However, some grammatical rules are always broken in oral English, especially English spoken by minority groups. For example, “Ain ’t much I ain’t seen an ’ done.” While the standard form should be “not much I haven’t see and done or I haven ’t seen and done much.”
Ⅳ. Conclusion
Depending on the group studied, we see languages not only vary greatly from region to region, but within regions, from social group to social group. Such differences are owing to socioeconomic, ethnic and educational background. For these subgroups, they share a language, they assume a similarity in outlook and especially in social behavior and cultural tradition and form very negative judgment of the other group, and they follow their own norms and rules. These varieties are reflected in pronunciation, grammar and vocabulary, and even in differing rules of speech behavior. After conducting many experiments, finally, Labov drew a conclusion that, women of the high social class play a leading role in language change (Chen Zhongmin)
R.A.Hudson Sociolinguistics 2000 外语教学与研究出版社
陈忠敏 语言变化原理：社会因素导读http://www.pkucn.com/viewthread.php?tid=204605 洪常春 Language and Social Class 黄山高等专科学校学报1999年第一期
李明杰 转型期社会阶层重构的语言学再现──以汉语泛尊称的社会分层为例
《二十一世纪》(http://www.cuhk.edu.hk/ics/21c) 《二十一世纪》
网络版第十六期 2003年7月31日
孙贺 从《根》看黑人英语与社会阶级的关系 中国科技信息2011年第1期
孙庆军2005 承德职业学院学报 2005年第三期
任秀萍
杨洁 Social Differences and English Varieties 延安教育学院学报 2001年第一期