LANGUAGE VARIATION

Speech Communities
Basic Definition:
A group of people steadily in communication
with one another, steadily hearing one
another’s speech and following the same
conversation patterns/norms.

Keep in mind though, that this is an ideal

simplicity. Within speech communities, there
may be other smaller ones (based on
different sociolinguistic variables)
What aspects may cause you to belong in
a speech community & not in another?

Age Region/Space
Social Class Family
Education Religion
Occupation/Hobbies Gender
Ethnicity/Race

These aspects are called

“sociolinguistic variables”
AGE
Oldsters may occasionally be conscious of,
and annoyed by, the youngsters’ speech
(they hope that when they grow, they will
speak ‘better’, but it doesn’t really happen)

Kids may speak in one way in his home

and in another in the playground

High-schoolers abide by the rule of

‘conformity’
Region/Space
Latin (Romance) history
‘The group that doesn’t move changes
more’ (England)
American dialects (‘if all other historical
evidence were destroyed, the history of
the country could still be constructed
from the speech of modern America’).
Accents: ‘Bostonian’, ‘Southern’,
‘Western’, ‘Brit’
Social class

High social classes change more

(probably because low social classes
are so insecure of themselves that
they do not dare to innovate) and
overall the middle class changes more
than high or low.

Labov’s study – dialects are socially

and contextually distributed
Family
1st speech community of the child
Transitions to peer group and school
Children differ in how much they are
influenced.
Bi-dialectal tendencies
Occupation/Hobbies
Jargons, for example
Ethnicity/race
Hispanic accent??
African-American Vernacular??
EDUCATION
The more educated a person is, the
more standard (probably) this person
would sound like.
RELIGION
Do you talk to your family the
same when you are at church
than when you are at home?
Some people, even not religious
people, watch their language in
front of religious people
GENDER

Can you tell who said this sentence?:

(a woman or a man?)

 Isn’t that a precious little puppy?!

 That’s a really cute dog.