1. Social Groups & Social Networks Dr Emma Moore
Sociolinguistics
Social Groups & Social Networks
Dr Emma Moore

2. Contents What are the limitations of survey studies?
Why study local groups?
How can we study local groups?
What have social network/community of practice studies told us about sociolinguistic variation?

3. Limitations of surveys
Do surveys make assumptions about the community and its structure?
What does it mean to talk about social class?
Do large scale studies make assumptions about what speakers think?
Do all speakers view the same linguistic variant in the same way?

4. Labov’s speech community
“The speech community is not defined by any marked agreement in the use of language elements, so much as by participation in a set of shared norms; these norms may be observed in overt types of evaluative behaviour, and by the uniformity of abstract patterns of variation which are invariant in respect to particular levels of usage” (Labov 1972: 120).
All speakers share the same norms
Uniformity in style shifting behaviour

5. Challenging abstract social categories: local definitions of class
Rickford (1986)
Cane Walk, village in Guyana
Three main social groups:
The senior staff
The estate class
The working class
All three groups bound by ethnicity & historical ties (19C semi-forced migration from India)
Differences in life chances based on local definitions of class

6. Explaining language use
Guyanese Creole  Standard English
Analysing singular pronoun use
WC: 18% StE
Estate class: 83% StE
Why?
Estate class: StE = getting ahead
WC: no chance to get ahead; Creole = social solidarity, militancy
Can we say all social classes are adhering to the same norms?

7. Challenging abstract social categories: social groups
Cheshire (1982)
Reading adventure playgrounds
Groups of ‘delinquent’ children (WC)
Examining morphosyntactic variation
E.g. use of nonstandard has, was etc.
Considered style shifting
Language used with peers
Language used with the teacher in school

8. Adhering to different norms
Use of nonstandard present tense forms
Inconsistent style-shifting
Noddy: hated school, disliked teacher
Kitty: regular school attender
Barney: hated school, disliked teacher
Vernacular style
School style
Noddy
81%
78%
Kitty
46%
33%
Barney
32%
54%
Boys do not adhere to ‘community’ norms of evaluation, but to ‘vernacular culture’ norms

9. Vernacular speakers & vernacular norms?
Are standard variants always the most “prestigious”?
Social psychological studies investigating responses to different language varieties
Giles and Powesland (1975):
RP = “competence”
Vernacular = “personal integrity”; “social attractiveness”
Revealing the positive value of vernacular varieties

10. Understanding how forms gain value
Bourdieu (1977): The linguistic market
The value of a linguistic variety is determined by the status of those who use that variety, in the marketplace in which it is used
Standard language
Spoken by high status speakers
Standard language itself assigned high status

11. Understanding how forms gain value
Woolard (1985): There is more than one linguistic market
Vernacular varieties are valued in vernacular settings (the vernacular market)
Vernacular language
Spoken by speakers in local communities (loyalty, integrity, friendship)
Vernacular language itself assigned status as symbolic of local attributes

12. Looking at local connections NOT abstract categories
Competing norms
Vernacular varieties
= low mainstream status,unattractive
= high local status, attractive
How do we understand the social function of vernacular forms?
By accessing local communities where the forms are meaningful
Looking at local connections NOT abstract categories

13. Modelling local communities: Social networks
Social network: refers to the social ties which link people to one another
Network density
Multiplexity
Work network
Kinship network

14. Milroy’s (1980) study of Belfast
Three WC Belfast communities
Ballymacarrett, Hammer & Clonard
Speakers classified by their social networks
Assessing network strength scores for speakers
Leisure activities
Employment
Knowledge of other community members

15. Milroy’s (1980) study of Belfast
Linguistic variables:
Local vs. incoming prestige forms
E.g. (a)-backing in words like bad
/a/ (standard pronunciation)
/ɔə/ (vernacular change in progress)
Results
Men tended to use more vernacular variants than women in Ballymacarratt and Hammer
Young women had higher use of particular vernacular variants in Clonard

16. Network ties and language use
Ballymacarratt and Hammer
Men had stronger network ties
Employment
Roles in the community/visibility
Clonard
Young women had higher network strength scores
Employment (loss of linen industry)

17. Significance of Milroy (1980)
The importance of LOCAL relationships to the use of language
Dense, multiplex networks & VERNACULAR norms
Building on earlier work:
Provides more information about the community being studied
Allows us to explain language behaviour in relation to local social factors
Not just gender or class, but social network

18. Modelling local communities: Communities of Practice
Community of Practice (CofP): “an aggregate of people who come together around mutual engagement in an endeavor” (Eckert and McConnell-Ginet 1992:464).
“The people at the Jones’s breakfast table, in Mrs. Constock’s Latin class, or in Ivan’s garage band get together fairly regularly to engage in an enterprise. Whether the enterprise is being a family, learning (or not learning) Latin, or playing music, by virtue of engaging over time in that endeavour, the participants in each of these groups develop ways of doing things together. They develop activities and ways of engaging in those activities, they develop common knowledge and beliefs, ways of relating to each other, ways of talking – in short, practices. Such a group is what Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger (1991) have termed a community of practice” (Eckert and McConnell-Ginet 2003: 57).

19. How is a CofP different to a social network?
Social networks: who is connected to who in a community
Communities of Practice: who shares social practice with who in a community
Not just about connectivity, but quality of connectivity
Studying CofPs require ethnography

20. Eckert’s (2000) study of Detroit
High school community in Detroit, US
Two years of ethnographic participant observation
Speakers classified by their CofP membership
Practices: territory, clothing, substance use, language

21. Eckert (2000): Jocks and Burnouts
Two oppositional CofPs:
Jocks: institutionally-orientated
Burnouts: rebellious, anti-school
Variables studied:
Six phonetic variables (vowels); one syntactic variable (Negative concord)

22. Variable distribution and CoPs
Distribution of linguistic variants best explained by the Jock-Burnout split
Social class relevant BUT not as strong an explanation as practice
…and especially interesting findings with gender

23. Burnout girls > Burnout boys > Jock boys > Jock girls
CofPs and gender
Raising of (ay): right /aɪ/ to /ɔɪ/
Burnout girls > Burnout boys > Jock boys > Jock girls

24. Significance of Eckert (2000)
The importance of LOCAL relationships to the use of language
CofP membership (i.e. local social practice) constrains linguistic behaviour more than abstract social categories
Building on earlier work:
Provides more information about the community being studied
Allows us to explain language behaviour better
Not just gender or class, but how local speakers LIVE gender & class

25. Summing up…
Early variationist studies provide a broad view of sociolinguistic variation
BUT to explain variation, we sometimes need closer analysis of communities
Prevents overgeneralisation
Allows us to explore competing norms
Gets us closer to the precise social correlates of variation
The social network & the CofP approach provide frameworks for more local analyses

26. Reading and selected references
Cheshire, Jenny (1982) Variation in an English Dialect: A Sociolinguistic Study. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Eckert, Penelope (2000) Linguistic Variation as Social Practice: The Linguistic Construction of Identity at Belten High. Oxford: Blackwell.
Milroy, Lesley (1980) Language and Social Networks. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Rickford, John (1986) “The need for new approaches to social class analysis in sociolinguistics”. Language and Communication 6:
Required reading: Meyerhoff (2006: Chapter 9)