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66-396: William Labov ( / l ə ˈ b oʊ v / lə- BOHV ; born December 4, 1927) is an American linguist widely regarded as the founder of the discipline of variationist sociolinguistics . He has been described as "an enormously original and influential figure who has created much of the methodology" of sociolinguistics. Labov is a professor emeritus in the linguistics department of

132-421: A speech community trigger a uniformly negative reaction. Communities differ in the extent to which they stigmatize the newer forms of language, but I have never yet met anyone who greeted them with applause. Some older citizens welcome the new music and dances, the new electronic devices and computers. But no one has ever been heard to say, "It's wonderful the way young people talk today. It's so much better than

198-594: A 1958 Education Council report, show a relative lack of success on verbal tasks in comparison to extraverbal in children from lower working classes (having been exposed solely to restricted code). The idea of these social language codes from Bernstein contrast with famous linguist Noam Chomsky's ideas. Chomsky , deemed the "father of modern linguistics", argues that there is a universal grammar , meaning that humans are born with an innate capacity for linguistic skills like sentence-building. This theory has been criticized by several scholars of linguistic backgrounds because of

264-517: A community. A network could be loose or tight depending on how members interact with each other. For instance, an office or factory may be considered a tight community because all members interact with each other. A large course with 100+ students would be a looser community because students may only interact with the instructor and maybe 1–2 other students. A multiplex community is one in which members have multiple relationships with each other. For instance, in some neighborhoods, members may live on

330-459: A desert, a river, etc.). Such studies also examine how such differences in usage and differences in beliefs about usage produce and reflect social or socioeconomic classes . As the usage of a language varies from place to place, language usage also varies among social classes, and it is these sociolects that sociolinguistics studies. Studies in the field of sociolinguistics typically collect data through conversational interviews with members of

396-615: A different social status and fit in better with either those around them, or how they wish to be perceived. Studies, such as those by William Labov in the 1960s, have shown that social aspirations influence speech patterns. This is also true of class aspirations. In the process of wishing to be associated with a certain class (usually the upper class and upper middle class) people who are moving in that direction socio-economically may adjust their speech patterns to sound like them. However, not being native upper-class speakers, they often hypercorrect , which involves overcorrecting their speech to

462-466: A falling away from the golden age, rather than a return to it. Every new sound will be heard as ugly, and every new expression will be heard as improper, inaccurate, and inappropriate. Given this principle it is obvious that language change must be interpreted as nonconformity to established norms, and that people will reject changes in the structure of language when they become aware of them. Labov's seminal work has been referenced and critically examined by

528-433: A field distinct from dialectology was pioneered through the study of language variation in urban areas. Whereas dialectology studies the geographic distribution of language variation, sociolinguistics focuses on other sources of variation, among them class. Class and occupation are among the most important linguistic markers found in society. One of the fundamental findings of sociolinguistics, which has been hard to disprove,

594-404: A greater role in this code than in the elaborated code. Restricted code also operates to unify speakers and foster solidarity. Basil Bernstein defined 'elaborated code' according to its emphasis on verbal communication over extraverbal. This code is typical in environments where a variety of social roles are available to the individual, to be chosen based upon disposition and temperament. Most of

660-437: A language is greatly influenced by family, but it is supported by the larger local surroundings, such as school, sports teams, or religion. Speech communities may exist within a larger community of practice. Crucial to sociolinguistic analysis is the concept of prestige ; certain speech habits are assigned a positive or a negative value, which is then applied to the speaker. This can operate on many levels. It can be realized on

726-622: A manner of speaking that is considered appropriate and widely comprehensible within the education environment. Additionally, Bernstein notes several studies in language development according to social class. In 1963, the Committee for Higher Education conducted a study on verbal IQ that showed a deterioration in individuals from lower working classes ages 8–11 and 11–15 years in comparison to those from middle classes (having been exposed to both restricted and elaborated codes). Additionally, studies by Bernstein, Venables, and Ravenette, as well as

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792-499: A method for categorizing language codes according to variable emphases on verbal and extraverbal communication. He claimed that factors like family orientation, social control, verbal feedback, and possibly social class contributed to the development of the two codes: elaborated and restricted. According to Basil Bernstein, the restricted code exemplified the predominance of extraverbal communication, with an emphasis on interpersonal connection over individual expression. His theory places

858-481: A number of scholars, mainly for its structural rigidity. Kristin Langellier explains that "the purpose of Labovian analysis is to relate the formal properties of the narrative to their functions": clause-level analysis of how text affects transmission of message. This model has several flaws, which Langellier points out: it examines textual structure to the exclusion of context and audience, which often act to shape

924-467: A particular speaking style more than men do is akin to saying that men are taller than women (i.e., men are on average taller than women, but some women are taller than some men). Other variations in speech patterns of men and women include differences in pitch, tone, speech fillers, interruptions, use of euphemisms, etc. Variation in language can also come from ethnicity, economic status, level of education, etc. Charles Boberg Charles Boberg

990-439: A population of interest; researchers then assess the realization of linguistic variables in the resulting speech corpus . Other research methods in sociolinguistics include matched-guise tests (in which listeners share their evaluations of linguistic features they hear), dialect surveys, and analysis of preexisting corpora. The social aspects of language were in the modern sense first studied by Indian and Japanese linguists in

1056-628: A region from Madison, Wisconsin , east to Utica, New York ; and a Canadian Shift affecting most of Canada, in addition to several minor chain shifts in smaller regions. Among Labov's well-known students are Charles Boberg , Anne H. Charity Hudley , Penelope Eckert , Gregory Guy , Robert A. Leonard , Geoffrey Nunberg , Shana Poplack , and John R. Rickford . His methods were adopted in England by Peter Trudgill for Norwich speech and K. M. Petyt for West Yorkshire speech. Labov's works include The Study of Nonstandard English (1969), Language in

1122-594: A speaker to be communicatively competent in more than one language. Demographic characteristics such as areas or locations have helped to create speech community boundaries in speech community concept. Those characteristics can assist exact descriptions of specific groups' communication patterns. Speech communities can be members of a profession with a specialized jargon , distinct social groups like high school students or hip hop fans, or even tight-knit groups like families and friends. Members of speech communities will often develop slang or specialized jargon to serve

1188-614: A story down into its basic parts. He defines narrative clause as the "basic unit of narrative" around which everything else is built. Clauses can be distinguished from one another by temporal junctures , which indicate a shift in time and separate narrative clauses. Temporal junctures mark temporal sequencing because clauses cannot be rearranged without disrupting their meaning. Labov and Waletzky's findings are important because they derived them from actual data rather than abstract theorization. Labov, Waletzky, &c., set up interviews and documented speech patterns in storytelling, keeping with

1254-544: A study of change in the dialect of Martha's Vineyard , which he presented before the Linguistic Society of America . Labov took his PhD (1964) at Columbia University , studying under Uriel Weinreich . He was an assistant professor of linguistics at Columbia (1964–70) before becoming an associate professor at the University of Pennsylvania in 1971, then a full professor , and in 1976 becoming director of

1320-439: A tool to analyze speech events in their cultural context. A sociolinguist might study how social attitudes determine what is considered appropriate language use or inappropriate language use in a particular setting. Sociolinguists might also study the grammar , phonetics , vocabulary , and other aspects of various sociolects . Sociolinguists also study language on a national level among large populations to find out how language

1386-465: A variety of English with its own grammatical rules. He has also pursued research in referential indeterminacy and is noted for his studies of the way ordinary people structure narrative stories of their own lives. Several of his classes are service-based, with students going to West Philadelphia to help tutor young children while simultaneously learning linguistics from different dialects such as AAVE. More recently, Labov has studied ongoing changes in

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1452-413: Is a concept in sociolinguistics that describes a distinct group of people who use language in a unique and mutually accepted way among themselves. This is sometimes referred to as a Sprechbund . To be considered part of a speech community, one must have a communicative competence . That is, the speaker has the ability to use language in a way that is appropriate in the given situation. It is possible for

1518-457: Is associated with lower classes) since the abundance of available resources allows persons to choose their social roles. Her warns, however, that studies associating the codes with separate social classes used small samples and were subject to significant variation. He also asserts that elaborated code originates from differences in social context, rather than intellectual advantages. As such, elaborated code differs from restricted code according to

1584-542: Is expected to match the original events as they occurred", which differs from more contemporary notions of storytelling, in which a naturally time-conscious flow includes jumping forward and back in time as mandated by, for example, anxieties felt about futures and their interplay with subsequent decisions. De Fina and Langellier both note that, though wonderfully descriptive, Labov's model is nevertheless difficult to code, thus potentially limited in application/practice. De Fina also agrees with Langellier that Labov's model ignores

1650-495: Is no inherent lack of value to restricted code, a child without exposure to elaborated code may encounter difficulties upon entering formal education, in which standard, clear verbal communication and comprehension is necessary for learning and effective interaction both with instructors and other students from differing backgrounds. As such, it may be beneficial for children who have been exposed solely to restricted code to enter pre-school training in elaborated code in order to acquire

1716-443: Is not a sign of a lack of intelligence or complexity within the code; rather, communication is performed more through extraverbal means (facial expression, touch, etc.) in order to affirm the speakers' bond. Bernstein notes the example of a young man asking a stranger to dance since there is an established manner of asking, yet communication is performed through physical graces and the exchange of glances. As such, implied meaning plays

1782-462: Is regional dialects. Dialectology studies variations in language based primarily on geographic distribution and their associated features. Sociolinguists concerned with grammatical and phonological features that correspond to regional areas are often called dialectologists. The sociolinguistic interview is the foundational method of collecting data for sociolinguistic studies, allowing the researcher to collect large amounts of speech from speakers of

1848-498: Is significant because it contextualizes the study of structure and form, connecting purpose to method. His stated purpose is to "isolate the elements of narrative". This work focuses exclusively on oral narratives. Labov describes narrative as having two functions: referential and evaluative, with its referential functions orienting and grounding a story in its contextual world by referencing events in sequential order as they originally occurred, and its evaluative functions describing

1914-497: Is that class and language variety are related. Members of the working class tend to speak less of what is deemed standard language , while the lower, middle, and upper middle class will, in turn, speak closer to the standard. However, the upper class, even members of the upper middle class, may often speak 'less' standard than the middle class. This is because not only class but class aspirations, are important. One may speak differently or cover up an undesirable accent to appear to have

1980-474: Is that speakers 'choose' a variety when making a speech act, whether consciously or subconsciously. The terms acrolectal (high) and basilectal (low) are also used to distinguish between a more standard dialect and a dialect of less prestige. It is generally assumed that non-standard language is low-prestige language. However, in certain groups, such as traditional working-class neighborhoods, standard language may be considered undesirable in many contexts because

2046-937: Is the term given to the use of different varieties of language depending on the social situation. This is commonly used among the African-American population in the United States. There are several different types of age-based variation one may see within a population as well such as age range, age-graded variation, and indications of linguistic change in progress. The use of slang can be a variation based on age. Younger people are more likely to recognize and use today's slang while older generations may not recognize new slang, but might use slang from when they were younger. Variation may also be associated with gender. Men and women, on average, tend to use slightly different language styles. These differences tend to be quantitative rather than qualitative. That is, to say that women use

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2112-459: Is used as a social institution. William Labov, a Harvard and Columbia University graduate, is often regarded as one of the founders of the study of sociolinguistics. He focuses on the quantitative analysis of variation and change within languages, making sociolinguistics a scientific discipline. For example, a sociolinguistics-based translation framework states that a linguistically appropriate translation cannot be wholly sufficient to achieve

2178-496: The Franklin Institute with the citation for "establishing the cognitive basis of language variation and change through rigorous analysis of linguistic data, and for the study of non-standard dialects with significant social and cultural implications." In "Narrative Analysis: Oral Versions of Personal Experience", Labov and Joshua Waletzky take a sociolinguistic approach to examine how language works between people. This

2244-853: The Neil and Saras Smith Medal for Linguistics by the British Academy "for lifetime achievement in the scholarly study of linguistics" and "his significant contribution to linguistics and the language sciences". In 2020, Labov was awarded the American Academy of Arts and Sciences ' Talcott Parsons Prize, recognizing "distinguished and original contributions to the social sciences". Labov has five children from his first marriage to Teresa Gnasso Labov: Susannah Page, Sarah Labov, Simon Labov, Joanna Labov, and Jessie Labov. In 1993, he married fellow sociolinguist Gillian Sankoff , and they have two children: Rebecca Labov and sociologist Alice Goffman ,

2310-918: The University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia and pursues research in sociolinguistics, language change, and dialectology . He retired in 2015 but continues to publish research. Labov was born in Passaic, New Jersey and raised in Rutherford , moving to Fort Lee at age 12. According to Labov, at his birth the physician who delivered him was William Carlos Williams . He attended Harvard University , where he majored in English and philosophy and studied chemistry. He graduated from Harvard in 1948. After graduating from Harvard, Labov worked as an industrial chemist in his family's business (1949–61) before turning to linguistics. For his MA thesis (1963) he completed

2376-699: The 1930s, and also by Louis Gauchat in Switzerland in the early 1900s, but none received much attention in the West until much later. The study of the social motivation of language change , on the other hand, has its foundation in the wave model of the late 19th century. The first attested use of the term sociolinguistics was by Thomas Callan Hodson in the title of his 1939 article "Sociolinguistics in India" published in Man in India . The study of sociolinguistics in

2442-630: The Award again in 2008 as a coauthor of the Atlas of North American English . In 2013, Labov received a Franklin Institute Award in Computer and Cognitive Science for "establishing the cognitive basis of language variation and change through rigorous analysis of linguistic data, and for the study of non-standard dialects with significant social and cultural implications." In 2015, he was awarded

2508-700: The David H. Russell Award for Distinguished Research in Teaching English. He was a Guggenheim Fellow in 1970–71 and 1987–88. Labov has received honorary doctorates from, among others, the Faculty of Humanities at Uppsala University (1985) and University of Edinburgh (2005). In 1996, he won the Leonard Bloomfield Book Award from the Linguistic Society of America (LSA) for Principles of Linguistic Change, Vol. 1 .; he won

2574-631: The Inner City: Studies in Black English Vernacular (1972), Sociolinguistic Patterns (1972), Principles of Linguistic Change (vol.I Internal Factors, 1994; vol.II Social Factors, 2001, vol.III Cognitive and Cultural factors, 2010), and, with Sharon Ash and Charles Boberg , The Atlas of North American English (2006). Labov was awarded the 2013 Benjamin Franklin Medal in Computer and Cognitive Science by

2640-662: The West was pioneered by linguists such as William Labov in the US and Basil Bernstein in the UK. In the 1960s, William Stewart and Heinz Kloss introduced the basic concepts for the sociolinguistic theory of pluricentric languages , which describes how standard language varieties differ between nations, e.g. regional varieties of English versus pluricentric "English" ; regional standards of German versus pluricentric "German" ; Bosnian , Croatian , Montenegrin , and Serbian versus pluricentric " Serbo-Croatian ". Dell Hymes , one of

2706-633: The code within environments that operate according to established social structures that predetermine the roles of their members in which the commonality of interests and intents from a shared local identity creates a predictability of discrete intent and therefore a simplification of verbal utterances. Such environments may include military, religious, and legal atmospheres; criminal and prison subcultures; long-term married relationships; and friendships between children. The strong bonds between speakers often renders explicit verbal communication unnecessary and individual expression irrelevant. However, simplification

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2772-410: The communicative effect of the source language; the translation must also incorporate the social practices and cultural norms of the target language. To reveal social practices and cultural norms beyond lexical and syntactic levels, the framework includes empirical testing of the translation using methods such as cognitive interviewing with a sample population. A commonly studied source of variation

2838-456: The community), and less likely if their networks were looser (i.e. fewer local ties). A social network may apply to the macro level of a country or a city, but also to the interpersonal level of neighborhoods or a single family. Recently, social networks have been formed by the Internet through online chat rooms, Facebook groups, organizations, and online dating services. Sociolinguistics as

2904-507: The complex and often quite relevant subject of intertextuality in narrative. To an extent, Labov evinces awareness of these concerns, saying "it is clear that these conclusions are restricted to the speech communities that we have examined", and "the overall structure of the narratives we've examined is not uniform". In "Rethinking Ventriloquism", Diane Goldstein uses Labovian notions of tellability —internal coherence in narrative—to inform her concept of untellability . In 1968, Labov received

2970-427: The context-based emphasis on individual advancement over assertion of social/community ties. Bernstein explains language development according to the two codes in light of their fundamentally different values. For instance, a child exposed solely to restricted code learns extraverbal communication over verbal, and therefore may have a less extensive vocabulary than a child raised with exposure to both codes. While there

3036-399: The ethnographic tradition of tape-recording oral text so it can be referenced exactly. This inductive method creates a new system through which to understand story text. One of Labov's most quoted contributions to theories of language change is his Golden Age Principle (or Golden Age Theory ). It claims that any changes in the sounds or the grammar that have come to conscious awareness in

3102-404: The formality of the context. Some researchers interview multiple subjects together to allow them to converse more casually with one other than they would with the interviewer alone. The researcher may then study the effects of style-shifting on language by comparing a subject's speech style in more vernacular contexts, such as narratives of personal experience or conversation between subjects, with

3168-518: The founders of linguistic anthropology, is credited with developing an ethnography-based sociolinguistics and is the founder of the journal Language in Society . His focus on ethnography and communicative competence contributed to his development of the SPEAKING method: an acronym for setting, participants, ends, act sequence, keys, instrumentalities, norms, and genres that is widely recognized as

3234-423: The group's special purposes and priorities. This is evident in the use of lingo within sports teams. Community of Practice allows for sociolinguistics to examine the relationship between socialization, competence, and identity. Since identity is a very complex structure, studying language socialization is a means to examine the micro-interactional level of practical activity (everyday activities). The learning of

3300-428: The interviewer were not present. To that end, a variety of techniques may be used to reduce the subject's attention to the formality and artificiality of the interview setting. For example, the researcher may attempt to elicit narratives of memorable events from the subject's life, such as fights or near-death experiences; the subject's emotional involvement in telling the story is thought to distract their attention from

3366-408: The lack of proven evolutionary feasibility and the fact that different languages do not have universal characteristics. The study of language variation is concerned with social constraints determining language in its contextual environment . The variations will determine some of the aspects of language like the sound, grammar, and tone in which people speak, and even non-verbal cues. Code-switching

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3432-431: The language or dialect being studied. The interview takes the form of a long, loosely-structured conversation between the researcher and the interview subject; the researcher's primary goal is to elicit the vernacular style of speech: the register associated with everyday casual conversation. This goal is complicated by the observer's paradox : the researcher is trying to elicit the style of speech that would be used if

3498-432: The latter of whom Labov adopted after the death of Sankoff's previous husband, Erving Goffman . Sociolinguistics Sociolinguistics' historical interrelation with anthropology can be observed in studies of how language varieties differ between groups separated by social variables (e.g., ethnicity , religion , status , gender , level of education , age , etc.) and/or geographical barriers (a mountain range,

3564-485: The level of the individual sound/phoneme, as Labov discovered in investigating pronunciation of the post-vocalic /r/ in the Northeastern United States, or on the macro scale of language choice, as is realized in the various diglossia that exist throughout the world, with the one between Swiss German and High German being perhaps most well known. An important implication of the sociolinguistic theory

3630-426: The more careful style produced when the subject is more attentive to the formal interview setting. The correlations of demographic features such as age, gender, and ethnicity with speech behavior may be studied by comparing the speech of different interview subjects. While the study of sociolinguistics is very broad, there are a few fundamental concepts on which many sociolinguistic inquiries depend. Speech community

3696-490: The phonology of English as spoken in the United States, as well as the origins and patterns of chain shifts of vowels (one sound replacing a second, replacing a third, in a complete chain). In the Atlas of North American English (2006), he and his co-authors find three major divergent chain shifts taking place today: a Southern Shift (in Appalachia and southern coastal regions); a Northern Cities Vowel Shift affecting

3762-456: The point of introducing new errors. The same is true for individuals moving down in socio-economic status. In any contact situation, there is a power dynamic, be it a teacher-student or employee-customer situation. This power dynamic results in a hierarchical differentiation between languages. Basil Bernstein , a well-known British socio-linguist, devised in his book, 'Elaborated and restricted codes: their social origins and some consequences,'

3828-478: The pub or having a neighborhood barbecue compared to going to the bank. One is a relaxed setting, likely with familiar people, and the other has a business aspect to it in which one feels the need to be more professional. Understanding language in society means that one also has to understand the social networks in which language is embedded. A social network is another way of describing a particular speech community in terms of relations between individual members in

3894-420: The purpose of this subdivision is to show that narratives have inherent structural order. Labov argues that narrative units must retell events in the order they were experienced because narrative is temporally sequenced . In other words, events do not occur at random but are connected to one another; thus "the original semantic interpretation" depends on their original order. To demonstrate this sequence, he breaks

3960-462: The same street, work for the same employer and even intermarry. The looseness or tightness of a social network may affect speech patterns adopted by a speaker. For instance, Sylvie Dubois and Barbara Horvath found that speakers in one Cajun Louisiana community were more likely to pronounce English "th" [θ] as [t] (or [ð] as [d]) if they participated in a relatively dense social network (i.e. had strong local ties and interacted with many other speakers in

4026-413: The storyteller's purpose in telling the story. Formally analyzing data from orally generated texts obtained via observed group interaction and interview (600 interviews were taken from several studies whose participants included ethnically diverse groups of children and adults from various backgrounds), Labov divides narrative into five or six sections: While not every narrative includes all these elements,

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4092-455: The text; it is relevant to a specific demographic (may be difficult to extrapolate); and, by categorizing the text at a clausal level, it burdens analysis with theoretical distinctions that may not be illuminating in practice. Anna De Fina remarks that [within Labov's model] "the defining property of narrative is temporal sequence, since the order in which the events are presented in the narrative

4158-417: The time, speakers of elaborated code ise a broader lexicon and demonstrate less syntactic predictability than speakers of restricted code. The lack of predetermined structure and solidarity requires explicit verbal communication of discrete intent by the individual to achieve educational and career success. Bernstein notes with caution that the association of the code with upper classes (while restricted code

4224-631: The university's Linguistics Laboratory. The methods Labov used to collect data for his study of the varieties of English spoken in New York City , published as The Social Stratification of English in New York City (1966), have been influential in social dialectology. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, his studies of the linguistic features of African American Vernacular English (AAVE) were also influential: he argued that AAVE should not be stigmatized as substandard, but rather respected as

4290-520: The way we talked when I was a kid." ... The most general and most deeply held belief about language is the Golden Age Principle : At some time in the past, language was in a state of perfection. It is understood that in such a state, every sound was correct and beautiful, and every word and expression was proper, accurate, and appropriate. Furthermore, the decline from that state has been regular and persistent, so that every change represents

4356-469: The working-class dialect is generally considered a powerful in-group marker. Historically, humans tend to favor those who look and sound like them, and the use of nonstandard varieties (even exaggeratedly so) expresses neighborhood pride and group and class solidarity. The desirable social value associated with the use of non-standard language is known as covert prestige . There will thus be a considerable difference in use of non-standard varieties when going to

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