6 ms·

historically, linguists have noted that language changes tend to arise among young women. They are more flexible due to age and more socialized than their male

historically, linguists have noted that language changes tend to arise among young women. They are more flexible due to age and more socialized than their male peers.

troad 4y ago
The studies show that women tend to copy high status features ("prestige"), and men tend to copy low status features ("covert prestige"). That is to say, women want to sound like they're class above where they really are (richer, fancier, etc), while men want to sound like they're a class below (rougher, manlier, etc). In fact, upper middle class women have in certain studies been measured to more consistently use prestige features than actual upper class people.
- satellite2 4y ago
  This sounds like a very categorical claim. It seems hard to measure, quantize and produce rigorous and replicable results.
  - crazygringo 4y ago
    What seems so hard? It sounds pretty trivial to me -- all you're doing is recording samples of people's speech and objectively identifying pronunciation patterns. And it's pretty easy to do before/after with the same people at differing ages (e.g. 15 vs 20) or life stages (e.g. pre-university, university, post-university) to watch change over time. Time-consuming for sure. But not even remotely difficult in terms of rigor or replicability. And if you're familiar with the International Phonetic Alphabet, you'll see that pronunciation is something that can be analyzed extremely objectively.
  - lvxferre 4y ago
    >This sounds like a very categorical claim. The claim is explicitly non-categorical, as the usage of the word "tend" shows. >It seems hard to measure, quantize and produce rigorous and replicable results. Not really. First you split your informers into groups, based on sex, social class and/or education level. Then you pick a linguistic variation that you know to be stigmatised, but still present in that group regardless. Then you analyse the frequency that that feature appears, in comparison with another variation for the same feature. If I recall correctly one of the first to notice those gender discrepancies in speech was Labov, so you might have some luck if you websearch "gender paradox Labov".
    - geoduck14 4y ago
      I took a linguistics class years ago that talked about this! The hypothesis was that upper class women pronounced the "r" as in "Fourth", but lower class women "rolled the r" so "Fourth" became "fowth". The researchers entered department stores with high and low end customers and asked for a product that was "on the Fourth floor", then they counted the number of times the "r" was pronounced or "rolled"
      - lvxferre 4y ago
        I know which study you're talking about. I don't recall if Labov addressed gender differences in that specific study but, if he did: in that situation, lower class men would be even less likely to use the rhotic (with /ɹ/) pronunciation than lower class women, and prefer the non-rhotic (without /ɹ/) one instead.
- secretsatan 4y ago
  Although I am British, I moved away to another country when young, and got some of my English lessons privately, plus my family is quite posh, or at least, likes to talk that way. I moved back to the UK and on joining primary school there, my received accent was the first thing to go, much to my parents dismay, as it invites teasing and bullying. I can still talk in a reasonably posh way, but almost never use it, and adopt all sorts of mannerisms from my travels, my accent is, at a guess, a little bit estuary english, with other things thrown in. I've never really felt the need to up my accent, it doesn't make you the most popular person professionally to act better than everyone else, especially if you don't have vastly superior skills or superior standing to back it up, in fact it annoys me if someone tries it on me. I wouldn't say I act lower class than my standing, rather, I tend to fit in with my peers.

historically, linguists have noted that language changes tend to arise among young women. They are more flexible due to age and more socialized than their male peers.

troad 4y ago

The studies show that women tend to copy high status features ("prestige"), and men tend to copy low status features ("covert prestige"). That is to say, women want to sound like they're class above where they really are (richer, fancier, etc), while men want to sound like they're a class below (rougher, manlier, etc). In fact, upper middle class women have in certain studies been measured to more consistently use prestige features than actual upper class people.

satellite2 4y ago
This sounds like a very categorical claim. It seems hard to measure, quantize and produce rigorous and replicable results.
- crazygringo 4y ago
  What seems so hard? It sounds pretty trivial to me -- all you're doing is recording samples of people's speech and objectively identifying pronunciation patterns. And it's pretty easy to do before/after with the same people at differing ages (e.g. 15 vs 20) or life stages (e.g. pre-university, university, post-university) to watch change over time. Time-consuming for sure. But not even remotely difficult in terms of rigor or replicability. And if you're familiar with the International Phonetic Alphabet, you'll see that pronunciation is something that can be analyzed extremely objectively.
- lvxferre 4y ago
  >This sounds like a very categorical claim. The claim is explicitly non-categorical, as the usage of the word "tend" shows. >It seems hard to measure, quantize and produce rigorous and replicable results. Not really. First you split your informers into groups, based on sex, social class and/or education level. Then you pick a linguistic variation that you know to be stigmatised, but still present in that group regardless. Then you analyse the frequency that that feature appears, in comparison with another variation for the same feature. If I recall correctly one of the first to notice those gender discrepancies in speech was Labov, so you might have some luck if you websearch "gender paradox Labov".
  - geoduck14 4y ago
    I took a linguistics class years ago that talked about this! The hypothesis was that upper class women pronounced the "r" as in "Fourth", but lower class women "rolled the r" so "Fourth" became "fowth". The researchers entered department stores with high and low end customers and asked for a product that was "on the Fourth floor", then they counted the number of times the "r" was pronounced or "rolled"
    - lvxferre 4y ago
      I know which study you're talking about. I don't recall if Labov addressed gender differences in that specific study but, if he did: in that situation, lower class men would be even less likely to use the rhotic (with /ɹ/) pronunciation than lower class women, and prefer the non-rhotic (without /ɹ/) one instead.
secretsatan 4y ago
Although I am British, I moved away to another country when young, and got some of my English lessons privately, plus my family is quite posh, or at least, likes to talk that way. I moved back to the UK and on joining primary school there, my received accent was the first thing to go, much to my parents dismay, as it invites teasing and bullying. I can still talk in a reasonably posh way, but almost never use it, and adopt all sorts of mannerisms from my travels, my accent is, at a guess, a little bit estuary english, with other things thrown in. I've never really felt the need to up my accent, it doesn't make you the most popular person professionally to act better than everyone else, especially if you don't have vastly superior skills or superior standing to back it up, in fact it annoys me if someone tries it on me. I wouldn't say I act lower class than my standing, rather, I tend to fit in with my peers.