Sociolinguistics

Social Dialect
By:
Sella Safitri
13-530-0149
B Class

In earlier centuries, you could tell

where an English lord or lady
came from by their regional form
of English. But by the early
twentieth century, a person who
spoke with a regional accent in
England was most unlikely to
belong to the upper class. Upperclass people had an upper-class
education, and that generally
meant a public (i.e. private!)

Social Dialect
A dialect that varies according to the speakers social class.
Dialects are linguistic varieties which are distinguishable
by their vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation

Standard English
Standard English = RP (Received Pronunciation)
the Queens English
BBC English

Social Classifying
An occupational:
major professionals and executives of
large businesses;
lesser professionals and executives
of medium sized businesses;
semi-professionals;
technicians and owners of small
businesses;
skilled workers;
semi-skilled workers;

An educational:
graduate or professional education;
college or university degree;
attendance at college or university
but no degree;
high school graduation;
some high school education;
and less than seven years of formal
education.

Income level and source of income

are
important
factors
in
any
classification system that focuses on
how much money people have.

So,

the speakers socio-economic

level will affect the way they speak.
The lower the socio-economic level
is, the more regional variation there
is.
The higher the level is, the less
regional variation we have because
upper class people mostly use RP.

Vocabulary

In the 1950s in England, many pairs of words

were identified which, it was claimed,

distinguished the speech of upper-class
English people (U speakers) from the rest
(non-U speakers).
U = Upper Class
U Speakers

Non-U speakers

Sitting room

Longue

Lavatory

Toilet

Sofa

Settee

Pronunciation
U Speakers

Non-U Speakers

[h]

[ng]

[i]

[in]

[r]

The highest social group drop the least number of

[h]s and the lowest group omits the most.
People from lower social groups use more of the
vernacular [in] variant than those from higher groups.
The higher your social class the more you pronounce
post-vocalic [r]. The higher your social class the fewer
you pronounce.

Grammatical Pattern
It was found that children from lower-class

families used more vernacular verb forms

than children from middle-class families.
Form
Past Tense
Present
Tense
Negative
Form
Aint Form

Higher-Class
I
finished
yesterday

that

Lower-Class
book

I finish that book yesterday

Rose walks to school every Rose walk to school every

day.
day.
Nobody wants any chips.

Nobody
chips.

dont

Jim isnt stupid.

Jim aint stupid

want

no

Thank You