SOCAIL CLASS

PREAENTED BY
ZAHRAA SALIM
CONTENT

• 1. Introduction
• 2. What is social class
• 3. Defining class in nonindustrial economies
• 4. Pidgins, creoles, and class
• 5.Class and other social dimensions
• 6.Stratification studies
• 7.Class and language change
INTRODUCTION

• The term class first came into wide use in the early 19th century, replacing such terms
as rank and order as descriptions of the major hierarchical groupings in society. This usage
reflected changes in the structure of western European societies after the industrial and
political revolutions of the late 18th century. https://www.britannica.com/topic/social-class
Social class is a central concept in sociolinguistic research, one of the small number of
social variables by which speech communities are stratified.
• Trudgill (1974: 32) states that “most members of our society have some kind of idea,
intuitive or otherwise, of what social class is,”.
 KARL MARX’S SOCIAL
THEORY OF CLASS

• One of the most influential thinkers on the subject of social class

is of course Karl Marx (1906). Marx's theory of class and
political economy is a rich and complex one.
• For Marx, what distinguishes one type of society from
another is its mode of production (i.e., the nature of its
technology and division of labour), and each mode of
production engenders a distinctive class system in which
one class controls and directs the process of production
while another class is, or other classes are, the direct
producers and providers of services to the dominant class.
• https://www.britannica.com/topic/social-class
KARL MARX’S SOCIAL THEORY OF CLASS

• In Marx's view, the basic dynamic of human history is conflict between classes. Classes
are groups of people who share common economic interests; that is, they are defined by
their common role in the economic system, their 'relationship to the means of production.'
In a capitalist economy, the principal class division is between those who own productive
capital (the capitalists or bourgeoisie) and those who do not (mainly the workers).
Capitalists can live off the earnings of their capital - profits, rents, interest - while workers
can support themselves only by their own labor.
• The Marxist definition of class thus focusses on conflicting interests and differences in
power, and not on status.
 MAXIMILIAN KARL EMIL WEBER

He was one of the central figures in the development of sociology and the
social sciences, and his ideas profoundly influence social theory and
research.
Weber also formulated a three-component theory of stratification,
with social class, social status and political party as conceptually
distinct elements (
The three components of Weber's theory were:
1.Social class – Based on an economically determined relationship
with the market
2.Status (Stand) – Based on non-economic qualities such as honour
and prestige
3.Party – Affiliations in the political domain
(Weber 2015, pp. 37–40; Parkin 2013, p. 90.).
WHAT IS SOCIAL CLASS

• Social class has long been associated with how much money a person has; the amount of money a person
possesses or can earn places a person in a particular position in a social class hierarchy.
• Even in a country with low objective inequality, social class and attitudes about social class can still be found,
and linked to linguistic performanc.
• we can see the very negative attitudes toward the working class language variety he was accommodating to.
Deacon represented Osborne’s speech in the following way:
• He spoke up for the Briddish, for people ooh wanna gedd on, for people ooh doan wanna be oudda work. It was
iz job da make sure they be bedder off in work. Things ud be bedder fa business too, now he’d rejuiced
corporation tax da twenny-three per cent. (Deacon 2013)
• The way Deacon describes Osborne’s speech as ‘a swamp of slurring vowels, a tar pit of glottal stops’ (Deacon
2013) demonstrates the negative views of working people’s language. Moreover, it assumes that all people who
work in a warehouse share a social class and a linguistic variety. Mooney and Evans (2015).
https://slideplayer.com/slide/10844017/
 Social Class Dialects
(Sociolects)

 The variety of language that is used by a particular social class is called a sociolect.

 A sociolect may include phonological, grammatical, lexical, and phonetic (accent) differences.

 The different classes of society are separated by social barriers and distance, similar to ‘geographical ones’.

 So, the diffusion of linguistic features may be halted by barriers of social class, age, race, religion, etc, and social
distance may also have the same effect as geographical distance.

 This type of social differentiation is known as social stratification ( Trudgill4th edition. 2000,)
 Social Stratification

 Social stratification is a term used to the hierarchical ordering of a society, especially in terms of wealth, power and social
status.

 In the industrialized Western World, societies are stratified into social classes, which gave rise to social class dialects.

 Social classes are not clearly defined or labeled entities. They are simply aggregates of people with similar socioeconomic
characteristics.

 Social mobility – movement up or down the social hierarch – is possible.

 Sociolects are not particularly easy to study, and describe, because, like regional dialects, they form a continuum and are
rather complex and fluid entities.

 The more heterogeneous a society is, the more heterogeneous is its language.

 Western-type social-class stratification is not universal..

 ( Trudgill4th edition. 2000,)
 Labov’s New York Study

 The study tests Labov’s hypothesis that non-prevocalic /r/ usage (as in farm, fair) correlates with social class of
the speaker.

 Labov examined the speech of shop assistants in three different department stores, of high, medium and low
social status.

 The procedure was to find out which departments were on the 4th floor and then ask as many assistants as
possible a question like: Excuse me, where are the women’s shoes?

 The answer to this question would be 4th floor, with two possible occurrences of non-prevocalic /r/.

 Information on /r/ usage was obtained from 264 informants.

 ( Trudgill4th edition. 2000,)
 Results of Labov’s New York Study

 38% of the high ranking store assistants used no /r/.

 49% in the middle ranking store used no /r/.

 83% in the low ranking store used no /r/.

 Thus, Labov’s study showed how a relatively trivial feature of accent can be
important socially.
 ( Trudgill4th edition. 2000,)
• People from upper-middle-classes and the aristocracy speak mostly Received
Pronunciation (RP), which is the only accent that is considered standard in England; the
equivalent to RP in the United States is General American. However, it should be
mentioned that standard English can be spoken without using RP and is not explicitly
linked to a specific region (Trudgill, 2000: 7-8).
• Trudgill (2000: 8) suggests that the use of a certain dialect of English marks the speaker
being either middle class (MC) or working class (WC). However, nonstandard dialects
are more frequently used by the working class and are more likely to have low prestige
(Taavitsainen and Melchers, 1999).
 REFERNCES

• Trudgill, P. 1974. The social differentiation of English in Norwich. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Trudgill, P. (2000). Sociolinguistics: An introduction to language and society (4th. Ed). London: Penguin.
Wardhaugh, R. (2010). An introduction to sociolinguistics (6th. Ed). Malden, MA: WileyBlackwell.
• Taavitsainen, I., & Melchers, G. (1999). Writing in nonstandard English: Introduction. In I. Taavitsainen, G.
Melchers & P. Pahta (Eds.), Writing in nonstandard English (1-26). Philadelphia, Amsterdam: Benjamins.
• Mooney and Evans(2015). Language society and power an introduction. By Routledge.

https://slideplayer.com/slide/10844017/