Sociolect Theorists

William Labov - 1966 New York Study

• Speech of sales assistants in three Manhattan stores- Saks(1), Macy's(2) and Klein's(3) in order of price and fashion scale.
• Each unaware assistant approached with an enquiry designed to elicit the answer 'Fourth floor' then asked to repeat
• In order to study the variable (r)
• Sales assistants from Sak's used it most and Kleins least
• Macys showed the greatest upward shift when they were asked to repeat
• Upper middle class changed the way they spoke less than any other social class when asked to repeat

William Labov- Martha's Vineyard study

• Island on the east coast of the USA with permanent population of about 6000
• Summer people(tourists)- over 40000 every summer
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Michael Rosen: Like, Totally Awesome: The Americanisation of English (LC)

• 'Can i get?'
• 'Awesome'
• 'black friday'
• Technology
• Journalism-Political terminology
• America dominating world through language
• larger population and economy
• 'vetting' - 'extreme vetting' in the states
• British english/american english
• 'nappy' used in uk not in america( baby topic)
• 'hike' broadening
• informality in spoken language
• preposition with verbs and nouns as verbs especially in american English 'meet up'
• telegraph article complain about Americanisms on the BBC, only four were Americanisms some were Australian
• cultural relationship- power of american film and television
• historical-1930's many recorded material and movies- huge influx of Americanisms
• speed of communication
• euphemisms change anyway
• british are not making words
• slangs and jargons making new words
• harvard buisness school - 'going forward'
• critisize management speak- 1/4 are British in origin 'outside the box'
• popular music-rap-younger generation-phase
• slow excresion of american words and uses
• research- use of 'fortnight'- university of lancester -use it less and use two weeks more- suggests the cultural influences from america, younger generations arent using as films arent
• general process-less opaque phrases
• america fought for linguistic independence
• britain used to be culturally dominant
• we now have to fight to preserve our language
• nation building
• specific terminology
• american english - come from immigrants e.g italian
• loss of biodiversity