1. How do formal contexts and social roles influence code choice?

It influences the speaker’s speech code by making them choose the most
appropriate way to address someone whether has a higher status or the
situation requires formality.

2. Explain how and why the style of the participants in the study cited in your
materials changed/was shaped

The basis for the distinctions between the styles was the amount of attention
people were paying to their speech. In a situation which involved two strangers,
an interview schedule of questions to be answered and a recording device as
another member of the audience, it was relatively easy to elicit more formal
styles.

3. When do people use the vernacular or colloquial style?

Usually in a very informal or a very comfortable environment.

4. How does social class interact with style?

Usually the lower social class has a minor vocabulary and tends more to the
use of a vernacular language more frequently than the upper social class

5. What does ‘Hypercorrection’ refer to?

Hypercorrect usage goes beyond the norm; it involves extending a form beyond
the standard. hypercorrect behaviour tend to occur when people are involved in
unfamiliarly formal situations.

6. Explain the following terms:

 Stereotypes: linguistic features which are generally negatively evaluated or
stigmatised.

 Markers: linguistic features which indicate people’s social class, style and
identity.

 Indicators: is used to refer to a feature which does not have any overt social
evaluation attached to it. It may distinguish different regional or social
groups or communities but not different styles.

7. What is register?
to refer to language variation which is influenced by changes in situational
factors, such as addressee, setting, task or topic. Some linguists describe this
kind of language variation as ‘register’ variation. Others use the term ‘register’
more narrowly to describe the specific vocabulary associated with different
occupational groups. The distinction is not always clear, however, and many
sociolinguists simply ignore it. Styles are often analysed along a scale of
formality, as in the examples from social dialect research discussed above.
Registers, on the other hand, when they are distinguished from styles, tend to
be associated with particular groups of people or sometimes specific situations
of use.

8. Explain the features mentioned of “Sports announcer talk”

Play-by-play description focuses on the action, as opposed to ‘colour

commentary’ which refers to the more discursive and leisurely speech with
which commentators fill in the often quite long spaces between spurts of action.
Play-by-play description is characterised by telegraphic grammar. This involves
features such as syntactic reduction and the inversion of normal word order in
sentences. Each feature contributes to the announcer’s aim of communicating
the drama of the moment.

In colour commentary, by contrast, where there is more time, nouns tend to be

heavily modified. In both types of commentary, as well as in the ‘state of the
play’ score or summary, sports announcers make extensive use of linguistic
formulas and routines.