Match the theories to the THEORISTS!

Coined the term “Multicultural London English” Coined the term “Multicultural London English”. In his research found out lots of information about the dialect – for instance, that it is spoken by younger people whereas the traditional “Cockney” accent is spoken by older people. It is spoken by people of all ethnicities. “H” dropping is on its way out, despite David Starkey dismissing the speech as improper.

Focused his work on Communication Accommodation Theory (CAT) which includes “convergence” and “divergence”, and how people use them socially. He also studied how accents were perceived in terms of status, personality and persuasiveness, using the “matched guise” technique (one speaker using three different accents). RP was shown to be perceived as highest status in terms of wealth, education and employment, whilst regional accents were seen as being more reliable, friendly and humorous.

Author of Watching the English, she studies the social interactions and language use of Brits. Among her theories are that factors such as which car you drive, which pet you own and what you buy from M&S are class indicators. Her ideas link with those of Fiona Devine, in that money is not the only class divider!

Recorded the speech of teenagers in a Reading playground Recorded the speech of teenagers in a Reading playground. Although lots of her work is on gender, she found that the “toughest” boys and girls were more likely to use non-standard forms of English.

Decided that the main difference between Standard English and Non- standard varieties is that Standard English uses “elaborated code” and Non-standard (slang) varieties use a “restricted code”. His ideas are prescriptivist, and his focus is on looking at language as being either correct or incorrect.

Collaborated with the BBC Research Lab Great British Class survey, reclassifying working, middle and upper classes into the 7 classes from “The Precariat” to “The Elite”. These social classes take cultural, economic and social capital into account, insinuating that a person’s class is just as much about lifestyle as it is about wealth.

Found that class is more of a determiner of the usage of non-standard English than gender, though women in all social classes are more likely to use the overt prestige or RP form. He concluded that women wanted to sound more “standard” and are more susceptible to overt prestige than men (and men more susceptible to covert prestige)

The Jocks and the Burnouts The Jocks and the Burnouts! The Jocks (enthusiastic, sporty, participating in school life) were more concerned with speaking in a socially prestigious manner, reflecting their middle-class backgrounds, whilst the burnouts (reluctant, rebellious, don’t get involved in school life) spoke with more pronounced urban accent, and in non-standard forms of English.

Studied working class communities in Northern Ireland and discovered that the residents’ social networks influenced their accent – the more social the individual, the stronger their accent seemed to be. Those who were more isolated had weaker accents, showing perhaps that accents are an important part of social interaction.

People may think that they have no accent because they believe they sound no different to the people around them but everyone has an accent. We think we are the best example of the ‘norm’. Our accents can tell the listener everything about us, they reflect our experiences. After a while spent around people who have a different accent, we begin to forget that people around us have an accent.

Coined the term “Estuary English” as the accent between RP and cockney used in the South of England. Key features include Glottal stops (look like ? without the dot when written), pronunciation of the “dark” L, and confrontational tag questions (“I said that would happen, didn’t I?”) It’s thought that people speaking Estuary English are aiming for a “classless” profile.

In 1966 Labov completed the “New York department store study”, looking at the ‘post-vocalic’ /r/ sound in American speech in 3 different department stores in New York representing different social classes, being Saks (upper class), Macy’s (middle class) and S. Klein (lower class), to listen to how they pronounced “fourth floor”. The more “overt” the prestige, the more they pronounced the /r/.