Slide 1 LING – Sociolinguistics – Spring 2011 Style  Style shifting can be thought of as intraspeaker variation  Recent work and attention to this element of ling variation leads to 2 points: (p. 378)  Speakers do not shift style merely, or primarily, in reaction to elements of the speech situation but rather are quite active and highly creative in their use of stylistic resources  Not only are speakers not bound to elements of the external situation as they shape their speech, but they use their speech to help shape and re-shape the external situation, as well as their interpersonal relationships and, crucially, their personal identities. Schilling-Estes – Style

Slide 2 LING – Sociolinguistics – Spring 2011 Style  ATTENTION TO SPEECH MODEL, Labov  This model shows a stylistic range directly related to speaker’s attention to speech as identified by different elicitation tasks  Range from most informal/unselfconscious = vernacular to most formal/self-conscious = standard  Designed to get range of style during sociolinguistic interview  Certain paralinguistic cues to help identify casual speech (laughter, speech rate increase, pitch, volume, breathing rate)  (most casual) Casual speech (narrative, talking to 3rd party); careful interview style, semantic differentials, reading passage, word list, minimal pairs (most formal)  This style shifting directly reflects interspeaker variation with respect to social class as a factor (see charts on pp ) - see Bell quote on p. 379 Schilling-Estes – Style

Slide 3 LING – Sociolinguistics – Spring 2011 Style  ATTENTION TO SPEECH MODEL, Labov  Hypercorrection of LMC hard to explain in terms of style shifting - more of a socially motivated phenomenon rather than a style thing - DO YOU AGREE WITH THIS?  Not all variables show the same stylistic variation with respect to attention to speech because not all variables are evaluated the same - stereotype variables will show erratic behavior with respect to style  LIMITATIONS:  Not all paralinguistic cues indicate more casualness (laughter);  There may be performance issues with reading styles that do not mean attention to speech (Philly butch lesbian breaking the rules)  Speakers are REACTING to attention to speech causing style shift - may not be accurate (no speaker agency) Schilling-Estes – Style

Slide 4 LING – Sociolinguistics – Spring 2011 Style  AUDIENCE DESIGN, Bell (see handout)  Speech Accommodation Theory (SAT) - Giles, States that people will converge linguistically toward their interlocutor (convergence) - can also have divergence for other social reasons  Audience Design states that “speakers adjust their speech toward their audiences if they wish to express or achieve solidarity with audience members; they adjust away from their audience if they wish to express or create distance.” (Wolfram and Schilling-Estes, 1998, p. 227)  Directly addressed participants = ADDRESSEE  Ratified (sanctioned to participate in conversation) but non-addressed participant = AUDITOR  Non-ratified non-addressed but known to speaker = OVERHEARERS  Presence unknown and unratified = EAVESDROPPERS Schilling-Estes – Style

Slide 5 LING – Sociolinguistics – Spring 2011 Style  AUDIENCE DESIGN, Bell (see handout)  Non-person factors also affect style shifting (from SPEAKING) such as Setting and Topic  Above were RESPONSIVE shifts - Below is INITIATIVE component (speaker as agent rather than respondent)  Speakers may wish to shift from present audience to absent audience - the non-present group that the speaker identifies with is REFEREE GROUP  Attributes speakers accommodate to could be 1-3 on p. 387  Personal characteristics of addressee  General style level of addressee  Levels of ling variables of addressee  Rickford and McNair-Knox found increase in AAVE features when interviewed by African American versus white person Schilling-Estes – Style

Slide 6 LING – Sociolinguistics – Spring 2011 Style  AUDIENCE DESIGN, Bell (see handout) - LIMITATIONS  Still very responsive rather than initiative focused  Other ways to achieve solidarity without convergence Schilling-Estes – Style

Slide 7 LING – Sociolinguistics – Spring 2011 Style  SPEAKER DESIGN MODEL, Eckert  Social constructionist approach (create identities through language)  Style shifts not seen as reaction to audiences or addressees or formality, but as a means of projecting one’s identity  LIMITATIONS include the loss of unidimensionality that the other approaches have; includes too many different types of variables at once; also can really only supply a post-hoc explanation for what triggers style shift (not control over trigger if speaker is 100% initiative and not responsive)  Also, if speech styles are individualistic (created each moment by individuals) then where do they get their meaning from which speakers draw on to create these identities when they shift styles? Schilling-Estes – Style

Slide 8 LING – Sociolinguistics – Spring 2011 Style  Questions for future research  Need to contrast large-scale interspeaker variation mapped onto individual intraspeaker variation (can only figure out what is happening by locating the individual within the society they are shifting in) - meaning of style shifting comes from individual as well as larger groups  How the meaning/evaluation of different variables affect the intraspeaker variation Schilling-Estes – Style

Slide 9 LING – Sociolinguistics – Spring 2011 Style  Carol Meyers in Philadelphia (Hindle, 1980) shows different shifts for different variables - why? Schilling-Estes – Style