Презентация "Language and social class"

Language

and Social Class

Theory of Representation

Raymond Williams

• Representation has developed two meanings:

- a symbol or image;

- the process of presenting to the eye or the mind

• Representation stands for smth else and implies the idea of “accurate reproduction”

Language and class

Basil Bernstein, a British sociologist

• The class base of the British society is perpetuated and made visible through language.
• Language both represents and constitutes the class system in Britain.

B. Bernstein’s Research

Bernstein’s analysis of the educational policies in Britain and the USA in the 60s showed:

• the education failure of young people can be explained by special requirements to the language.
• each social class has their own language code, which can either help or handicap them in quest for social and economic betterment.

Language code and class

Two main language codes:

• Restricted or public speech code (lower-class members of the British society)
• Elaborated or formal speech code (middle-class members of the British society)

Restricted or public speech code

• Short, simple, often unfinished sentences (stress on the active voice)
• Simple and repetitive use of conjunctions
• Little use of subordinate clauses
• Inability to hold a formal subject through a speech sequence
• Rigid and limited use of adj. and adv.
• Infrequent use of impersonal pronouns as subjects to subordinate clauses
• Frequent use of categorical statements
• Frequent use of sympathetic circularity (You know? Wouldn’t it? etc.)
• Individual selection from a group of idioms
• A language of implicit meaning

Elaborated or formal speech code

• Accurate grammatical order and syntax
• Grammatically complex sentence constructions
• Frequent use of prepositions that indicate logical relationships, temporal or spatial contiguity
• Frequent use of the personal pronoun “I”
• A discriminative selection of adj. and adv.
• Expressive symbolism to discriminate between meanings within speech sequences
• A language of explicit meaning
• Language use which points to the conceptual hierarchy for the organizing of experience

Further suppositions

• Each social class occupies different “thought-worlds”
• Socialization establishes taken-for-granted ways of seeing the world that comes from the texture of thought for group members
• Ways of thinking are a response to socioeconomic environments

Class-based

language

Middle-class

Lower-class

Appreciates differences

Operates logic

and abstract thought

Encourages uniformity

Context bound

Not able to benefit

from education

Better at learning

Bernstein’s conclusions

• Classed-based language reflects the hierarchies of the English class system
• The main consequence is that some languages are socially and culturally dominant
• Success comes to those who speak the dominant language and use its skills

Changing views

• All languages are characterized by the capacity for logical argument and abstract thought
• The privileging of one thought over another is a political and not a linguistic act
• The reasons that children fail must be sought in the realms of social and political economy

If you ask the time, for example:

• the lower classes may tell you it is “ alf past ten ”
• but the upper class will say “ hpstn ”.

A handkerchief in working-class speech is “ ankercheef ”, but in upper-class pronunciation becomes “ hnkrchf ”.

• The higher classes do at least pronounce their consonants correctly.
• Whereas the lower classes often pronounce “th” as “f”:

“ teeth” becomes “teef”,

“ thing” becomes “fing”

Or sometimes as “v”:

“ that” becomes “vat”,

“ worthing” is “worving”.

Final “g’s” can become “k’s”, as in

“ somefink” and “nuffink”.

The Seven Deadly Sins:

• Pardon (but “Sorry”);
• Toilet (but “Lavatory”);
• Serviette (but “Napkin”);
• Dinner (but “Lunch” ) ;
• Settee (but “Sofa”);
• Lounge (but “Sitting room”);
• Sweet (but “Pudding”);

So, what do these linguistic class codes tell us about Englishness?

• The class in England has nothing to do with money;
• The class has very little to do with occupation;
• But speech is all-important.