Language and Social Class

[Music] in this session we're going to take a look at how language use changes depending upon a person or language users social class so this means we're going to be exploring a concept called the sociolect and the sociolect is a dialect of a language or variation of a language that is very directly associated with a specific social class in order to look at language and social class we first have to understand what a social class is so we're gonna define the term social class then we'll take a look at what happens when language and social class interact so how do these two concepts or ideas mutually influence each other we'll compare and contrast regional variation with social class variation when it comes to language use so how are these the same how are they different we'll also take a look at how researchers research social class language variation so how do we determine what that language variation based on social class actually is and finally we'll look at language use and social class concepts so let's get started digging into language and social class [Music] as always we need to start by defining some terms and actually one term in particular the term social class social class means a layer of a society that is characterized by a specific amount of wealth prestige and power so every society is divided into social classes where societies vary however is first of all in the number of social classes and also in the distinct or the degree of difference among the different social classes but every social every society does stratify groups of people according to wealth prestige and power so this is social class there is one of their aspects of social class that's important and that is social class also defines an individual's or a group's standard of living and also life prospects so the idea is or or the concept is that the higher a person's social class the higher his or her standard of living and also the higher his or her overall life prospects and a standard of living or social class story is measured both objectively and subjectively the objective measure of social class is economics so you know income any any dollar figure that indicates very objectively here's where someone fits but then the subjective ones are actually the more powerful ones and this is where things like prestige and status and power and perception come into play so we do have this objective measure of social class and then a subjective measure of social class but it all relates to an individual or groups standard of living and overall life prospects now that we know what social class is we need to look at how we actually determine what the social classes are in a society and which social social class an individual belongs to you might think this is really simple you might think that we just strictly use an objective measure so people with the highest income are in the highest social classes and people with the lowest income we're in the lowest social classes but that's actually not the case because remember about the subjective element in there as well which kind of throws it off so someone may not have a lot of income but for some other subjective reasons power prestige that person is in a higher social class you might also think okay we can just make social classes depending on profession or occupation so we might have the professions at the very top so your doctors and lawyers and judges and all that stuff and then we might have managers and then skilled workers and semi skilled workers and unskilled workers once again that sounds pretty logical but that doesn't always match how income goes so your occupation doesn't always reflect your income so that one's problematic then we get into situations in some in some societies or cultures where a family name actually is the root of your social class so if you belong to a specific family that puts you at a certain level or a certain social class in a society so a lot of different things to contribute to each specific society's social classes or in cultures social classes so it is a combination of that objective measure of economics and income versus subjective things like power prestige the occupations come into there and a lot of other factors come into determining social class and it does vary by society so if you want to have a quick think about this and apply this take a look at the society in which you are in and see if you can figure out first of all what the social classes are in that society and then how those social classes are determined and as I said every society does this slightly differently so you may be surprised when you start to look at your own society about how that society determine social class the next thing we need to look at is how we actually judge someone's social class or or decide or proceed which social class someone belongs to so being human beings we see another person we've never met them before and we make a very quick first impression of that person now one of the things we do is we kind of sort them out in terms of which social class would think they belong to every human being does this it's just what we do to try and organize our experiences so how do we make this quick first impression about someone's social class well we do it a number of ways first of all we look at what kinds of clothes are they wearing so are their clothes neat and tidy and clean do they have the most fashionable trends or the you know the most expensive brands so clothing jewelry toys these things are a very strong indicator of social class we also look at how they behave okay so how confidently does a person hold himself or herself what's the pot what's the person's posture like how does he or she walk so these types of behaviors help us make judgments about social class as well we also look at language use so we listen to how a person speaks what type of pronunciation they have what type of socio like they use which we'll get into so language use really is an indicator that we use to judge someone's social class we also look at other things we look at what type of car they're driving what type of house they have where their house is located if we can we find out what level of education they have and these things all help us make this really quick judgment about which social class someone belongs to this system of this first impression that we make as human beings affects online social class it's not always right and you know we can really have some fun playing with people if we want to by positioning ourselves as perhaps belonging to one social class when in fact we belong to a different social class so we could for example if I'm very very wealthy but I don't wear the latest brands and yeah maybe my clothes are clean but they're not you know the most expensive clothing out there so I can be deliberately dressing so that people think I'm below the social class that I am actually in now we can do the reverse okay I might not have a lot of money but the money I have I spend on clothes so that I can project this image of belonging to a different social class other than the one to which I really do belong so first impressions are very useful because they help us categorize people when we meet them for the first time but you always have to bear in mind that each individual makes choices about how much he or she projects the social class to which he or she actually belongs so some people may be deliberately trying to mislead you with the first impression that they create either trying to say okay I'm in a higher social class than I am or I'm in a lower social class than I am so we can actually have a lot of fun with the first impressions that we make on people when it comes to social class [Music] what does social class have to do with language use research shows that there's a really really close connection between our social class and the language choices that we make when we use a language so that means that people of a specific social class actually develop a variation of their language that indicates that they belong to that social class this is called a socio let so a socio act is a distinct variation of a language that is used by people who want to project that they belong to a specific social class there's also another really interesting connection between social class and languages and that this happens in societies that are multilingual so in some societies where multiple languages are spoken what happens is that members of a specific social class may choose to speak one language and members of another social class will choose to speak a different language so your actual language choice reflects whichever social class you belong to here are a couple of examples of this at work French used to be the language of the aristocracy all over Europe and so if you spoke French very fluently and if you chose to use French that was an indication that you belong to the aristocracy and it didn't matter which country you were in okay you could be in England France with you wherever and but your use of French indicates indicator that you belonged to the aristocracy here's another example from today if we look in look at India the use of English in India is actually very closely related to social class so individuals in the higher social classes in India are much more tend to be not always that they tend to be more fluent in English because they've had their education completely in English and they speak an English that is very close to the Queen's English so received pronunciation whereas when you start to go down to the lower social classes the fluency or proficiency in English is less and also the dialect of English that is used he is quite different from the dialect that's used in the higher social classes so any is an example of length specific language use choices that are we that reflect social class just as a quick recap a sociolect is a specific variation of a language that is used by members of a specific social class so as sociolect identifies members of that social class this concept of socio act is really important in when we're looking at certain cultures and maybe not so important in other cultures so there we can categorize cultures in many different ways but one of the ways that we can distinguish one culture from another is in terms of how stratified it is so if a culture is very stratified or very hierarchical it has a lot of difference between people in the very high classes and people in the lower classes if a society is flatter then there's less of a difference in terms of power and prestige and everything between people in the higher social classes and people in the lower social classes this is a really important concept to remember because when it comes to socio X cultures that are very hierarchical and they've got a lot of distance between people in the higher social classes in the lower social classes that's where we really see the power that goes with different socio Lexx so people at the very top of a society or that culture will have a very distinct sociolect because they want to be differentiated but from the people below them you know flatter society socio X still exists but there's not a huge amount of difference among the different socio lacks so it's not really really clear that someone's either in the highest social class or the lowest social class so this is really important when it comes to socio lacks in some societies you'll see very very too stinked in very prestigious socio lacks in other societies that tend to be flatter less hierarchical your socio Lex won't be as distinct and there will there actually be fewer of them and the prestige difference among the socio lacks is almost irrelevant there's another feature of different cultural groups that also is closely tied to socio acts and this is how each cultural groups gives an individual status so we have this concept called ascribed status and this means that an individual gets status because of his or her family or some other quality or characteristics that that person really isn't responsible for they just kind of lucked into it or didn't have any luck depending on your perspective and then at the opposite end of this we have what's called achieved status and this means that I have prestige and I had power because I've earned it okay I've worked hard I've educated myself I've taken advantage of opportunities that have been presented to me and so on and what we see with on these different ways of giving an individual status and so Co act is that in societies are cultures where there is ascribed status we tend to see once again more distinct socio lacks and socio X with a lot more prestige associated with them in societies or cultures where it is that are based on achieved status we tend to see fewer socio Lexx and they're less distinct socio Lex so this is another really important characteristic of a culture or society that links with socio Lex the UK is a really good example of socio Lex in action so let's take a little bit of a deeper look at what goes on in the UK in terms of socio x so a lot of people don't want to admit this but the UK is actually a very hierarchical Society and it's starting to flatten out a little bit but it's still quite hierarchical and it is also a society or a culture with a lot of ascribed status so your social status really comes from the family that you're born into as as opposed to what you achieve once again this is changing but it's still a fairly distinct feature of the UK so in the UK we have a lot of socio Lex and a lot of social classes and corresponding socio X and the socio Lex have quite distinct degrees of prestige and status associated with them so at the very high end the socio lect that has the most prestige and the most status is Rp or received pronunciation another way to describe this one is it's the Queen's English so this is the dialect of English that people at the very top of British society speak and then going down we've got a whole series of other socio X each with decreasing amounts of prestige and status in the UK is a really interesting example because not only does it have a lot of socio Lexx and not only does it have distinct prestige and power in - oh co X but you really see the effect of this on people's lives so even today a lot of hiring decisions are made based on how someone speaks because their particulars OC elect places them at a specific level of UK society so hiring decisions are very often made on how on someone speaks and so there is there are people who learn to speak differently in order to get hired into positions that they otherwise would not get hired into in in terms of relationships marriages things like that this also seelix also come into play nobody wants to admit it but it's still there quite interestingly so you know marrying from one social class - to a higher or lower one is not as common or it's not as easy to do as it might be in other cultures it is getting easier and more common but you still see relationship decisions also being made based on so so you're left in social class so social classes those you elect are really interesting to look at in the UK there's a great story about so she elected social class in the UK and that's the story of my fair lady based on George Bernard Shaw Shaw's play Pygmalion so if you get the chance have a look at this movie it's been turned into a musical and it's a great show it's a great storyline and it's about a woman from a lower socio social class who speaks a very low prestige associate being trained to speak a different socio lect so that she can be perceived as coming from a higher social class so this is a great example of socio ex at work and someone very deliberately learning a different socio lect in order to be perceived as belonging to a higher level social class so if you have time I really recommend that you take a look at this movie my fair lady another example that I've already mentioned about the really clear connection between social class and languages is India so India has a very stratified society so it's very hierarchical and there are very distinct layers to the society and the the layer or the class that you're born into your is the one that you stay in for life and your family name very often indicates which whichever layer of society you've been born into and there's social mobility and down this class system is very very difficult so India is another example of a very hierarchical Society with very clear social classes and very clear language use choices that go with those social classes and so I mentioned that in the English language use is one of the indicators of social class in India and then also dialects are an indicator and a different language choices so speaking one language versus another is also an indicator of social class in India so if you have some time it's another really interesting society to look at to really explore this connection between social class and language use Canada is another example that we can look at for social class language variation but it's a bit of a different one because Canada is a much flatter Society so we are not considered to be a hierarchical Society we only have three main social classes upper middle and lower we don't have multiple levels in our society and we also don't have distinct socio Lexx you can't really hear someone speak and say ok your upper class or your middle class or lower class there are some variations but they're not really drastic the way that you would find in other societies such as the UK so Canada is an example of a flatter Society with socionics that are not very distinct at all so it's been a bit of a contrast to the other two societies we've looked at language variation gets really interesting when we look at social class variations of socio acts alongside of regional variation so language differences depending upon the geographical area that the users live in and sometimes very difficult to see which one is the more powerful variation at work use it social class variation or regional variation so researchers have looked at this issue to try and cover some of the dynamics that are going on and the dynamics vary from one society to another let's start by taking a look at the UK in the UK researchers have found that regardless of where the person lives if they're in the higher social classes they will have the same language variation so for the upper classes in the UK so seola is the driving force with their language choice or their language use however when it comes to the lower classes in the UK that's where regional variation kicks in so lower classes lower class groups in different areas of the UK will actually speak different language barriers so with the upper classes it's all about socio left but at the lower classes regional variation is the more powerful force India is a contrast to that in India both at both levels of a society that we're sorry' at all levels of society so the upper classes and the lower classes it's all about sociolect so the higher classes speak of specific very distinct sociolect and the lower classes think speak a very distinct sociolect so India is a little bit different in that it's all about socio like there's very little regional variation going on amongst the different social classes so two very interesting examples of the social class language choices at work and the regional language choices at work [Music] research on language use in social class is quite interesting to look at some of the earliest research on this issue was done by lout Labov in night in the 1960s and this was a really interesting a set of research so what this researcher did was to look at the language that sales staff in three different department stores chose to use with customers and the assumption was that the sales staff would adjust their language use to the languages of the customers to make the customers feel at home and through this they thought the researchers thought that they would be able to identify the socio X that were at work and this actually did work so the salient they chose three department stores and each department store was determined to be catering to a different social class and then the sales department the sales staff adjusted their speaking according to the type of clients that they had coming in and so they were able to identify very clear socio lacks through this type of research another set of research done on language and social class was done by trundle in the 1960's and 1970's and this research was very similar to the research that went before it in this case the researchers identified five social classes and they did this first of all by creating a social index and then by how many participants self-identify as being part of a particular social class and then they made the assumption that these these participants would try to get their speaking to most closely associated with the prestige dialect of the prestige variation of the language the higher they were in terms of social class and this did actually happen and through this they were able to distinguish five different social classes looking at very very just one or two very distinct language features of the different socio acts both lavon's and treadmills research show this something else that's very interesting when it comes to language use of social class and that is that speakers can actually very strategically choose to use one sociolect versus another socio elect hence we get the salespeople in the department stores adjusting their language use depending upon the customers that are coming in and how those customers speak so socio actors not as it's much more fluid than we might think and people are can be very conscious about which socio like they're using and we can also very strategically choose okay I'm going to use this sociolect versus this sociolect so the research was really interesting because it did uncover very conscious strategies that people were using in order to associate themselves with a particular social class those are something that's really interesting about socio X we can strategically choose to use one sociolect or another depending upon how we want to be perceived current research on socio Lexx really does focus on this last area it focuses on individual choices that we make in very specific situations depending upon how we want to be perceived so we may make a very clear choice to use a socio lector that says okay we're part of this group or we may may make an equally clear choice to use a sociolect that says we're not a part of this this social group or this social class so that's where research is at right now when it comes to social class so Co X and languages really looking at the individual choices that people make with respect to their socio-economic social class on languages and that is matched guys testing match guys testing is a very specific type of research in which they will have participants rate a speaker on his or her social class wealth and intelligence and a very variety of other factors based only upon hearing this person's speak and so what they find is that they can take the same person it's exactly the same individual but if that individual changes the way he or she speaks then the participants in the study rate his or her wealth and social class and intelligence very differently so match guys testing really helps us understand that so much of our language use results in different perceptions and we can make individual choices depending on how we want to be perceived we can take the same person and have that person speak differently and then be perceived differently based on that language use [Music] there are a few other concepts that we can explore when we're looking at language use and social class so the first of these concepts is style style is our choice of language on a scale of formal to informal based upon a situation that we find ourselves in or how we want to be perceived so formal language very closely approximates the standard of the language so formal language is perceived as being the standard then informal language involves choices we make in terms of our pronunciation our vocabulary or grammar to indicate that we are speaking in a much more informal situation and the relationships are less about power and more about equality so style is all about this choice we make from formal to informal style is very closely related to socio lacks and social class on language use choices because the higher class so Co X tend to be more formal so they tend to be closer to the standard and they tend to be used in very formal situations the lower class Toshio X tend to use more informal patterns of language use in terms of pronunciation vocabulary and grammar so that's the connection between style and social class so the more formal styles connect fairly closely with higher level socio Lex or higher class socio X and the informal styles connect with the lower lower class those yieldex another concept that's really important when it comes to social class and language use is the concept of register when a group of people regularly communicates together about the same topic all of the users in all of the language users in that situation kind of develop a secret code they develop communication cuts so that their communication and language use can be as efficient as possible this is called register so register depends upon the topic that you're talking about who you're talking to what where you're talking and why you're talking so these four things help us create different registers depending on the situations we're in so there researchers have identified five main categories of register so let's take a look at these the first category or layer of register is called static register and static register is a set of language use that never changes or changes just a very very tiny amount so static register is almost frozen in time and it's really interesting because static register gives us a bit of a look back at the old form of the language so where the language we currently use came from years and years ago often hundreds of years ago so some examples of static register are the Lord's Prayer so that has not changed in its purest form for many many years constitutional documents are examples of static registered legal documents are examples of static register so any set of language that really hasn't changed over time is static register and it tends to be very formal so it has a very formal style so that's the first layer of register the second layer of register is called formal register and just as the name sense says it is a very formal style of communication and it's a one way form of communication so it's not a dialogue or conversation it is communication that is just from me to you or to a greater audience so a formal register is found in things like speeches and lectures and pronouncements where the focus is really on that single speaker and as the name implies the language used in formal register is very formal the next layer of register is called consultative register and this is a style of communication or a form of communication in which there are two or more people but one of those people is kind of the know where so this person has more knowledge or more expertise than the other person or the other people and the knower is getting information or providing advice to the other people so examples in which we would see a consultative register at work include a consultation between a doctor and a patient and a lawyer and a client for example so it's very much about there's a knower and someone who needs to know and that's the flow of communication and like formal register consultative register is quite formal the fourth layer of register is called casual register and as this implies it's a very informal style of communication and it's used amongst very close friends and peers and people who are basically socially equal so in casual register there are lots of inside jokes vocabulary has been changed so only the people who are part of this group know that particular vocabulary there might be specific phrases that people like to use anything that indicates okay we're close friends yeah we're part of this nice secret very secure group of people and we trust each other so that's the casual register the fifth and final layer of register or category of register is called the intimate register as the name implies this is a style of language use that we use with people with whom we're very close so family members boyfriends girlfriends spouses and so on an intimate register or the intimate register sorry is characterized by a lot of emotional communication so that emotion is communicated by an intonation with pet phrases and nicknames and things like that and nonverbal communication is also very important in this type of in this register because we do communicate a lot of emotion non-verbally so that's the final layer of register called the intimate register how is register associated with social class and languages this one's really interesting what researchers have found is that the more more formal registers so for example the formal register or the consultative register those tend to be more the stand with the higher social classes so they more closely equate with the higher social class socio vex now with the lower class socio lacks there's more of a correspondence with the other layers of register so the casual register in the intimate register you know also it's really interesting because depending upon the social class that a language user belongs to he or she may think that their the communication belongs at a particular register but it actually doesn't so determining which piece of language or languages patterns belong to a register actually varies according to social class as well so kind of muddies the picture a little bit but it makes it very interesting so register has a bit of a complicated relationship with social class and socio lect but it's a very important relationship the next concept we need to take a look at when it comes to social class and language use is the concept of politeness so politeness is all about language choices that we make them are speaking with someone to make him or her feel comfortable so we don't want the person we're speaking to to feel awkward or embarrassed or uncomfortable so we use politeness in order to make that person feel the opposite feel comfortable and politeness is all about not imposing on someone and not directly asking him or her for something so politeness involves a lot of phrases like I'm really sorry to bother you but or I hate to bother you but can I ask you a question I know I'm imposing on you but could I trouble you to so there's these very lengthy phrases that we use so as not to push on some or push our needs on to someone or to trouble them or to make them feel uncomfortable so this is what politeness is all about another term that comes into play when we're talking about politeness use the term face threatening act then we abbreviate this to FTA a face threatening act is is something that a person does or says that makes the other person feel uncomfortable feel embarrassed or feel threatened and the whole idea of a face threatening act is that we use it when we're trying to not be polite so lateness is the opposite politeness is all about not using face threatening axes when we're communicating with someone so that they do feel comfortable so with politeness we want to avoid face threatening acts in other situations when we don't want to be polite when we don't care whether we make someone feel uncomfortable or not we will actually very deliberately use face threatening X but politeness is all about not using these threatening acts there are two types of politeness the first type of politeness is called positive politeness and the other one very surprisingly or about surprisingly is called negative politeness positive politeness is a strategy I use when I want to communicate to you I respect you and I want you to respect me so I'm very complimentary but I'm very professional I don't overdo things I'm not overly flattering or anything but I'm just giving this very clear message I respect you and I like you to respect me the opposite of this is negative politeness when I use negative plainness as a strategy I actually want something from you with positive politeness I don't want anything from you I'm just saying I respect you I don't want you to respect me with negative politeness I want something from you so I'm going to be slightly ingratiating and sort of put you a little bit above me because you have something that I want so that's what negative politeness is versus other plans negative politeness is actually quite interesting from a language use perspective so there's different techniques of language use that we use when we're using negative politeness as a strategy and this language use gives the message I know I'm imposing on you but I need something from you so the first language use strategy is hedging so I might do something I might say something like this could you could you open the window for me please so I'm hesitating and I'm not showing any degree of confidence when I'm asking you to do something for me another strategy or language use strategy for negative politeness is pessimism so I'm sort of putting it in a negative framework from the get-go so I might say something like well I don't suppose you could open the window for me so I'm being a little bit negative with my language choice so that's pessimism another language used strategy for negative politeness is indicating deference so I'm putting someone above me in terms of power in this situation so I might say to get the window open I might say excuse me sir would you mind opening the window so or would you mind if I open the window so I'm putting the person I'm speaking to higher so that's indicating deference another negative plaintiff strategy for language use is apologizing I'm really sorry but could you open the window so I apologize that I'm imposing on you while I studied the window opening and then finally another language use strategy for negative politeness is in personalization so I take myself right out of the picture and very formally say the management requires that the window be open so I'm taking myself out of the picture but I'm still getting done what I want done so these are all different really interesting languages strategies for negative politeness to researchers Brown and Levinson came up with another way to look at politeness they came up with for politeness strategies so these are appalled on records strategy a positive politeness strategy a negative play this strategy and an off record indirect plainness strategy so let's take a look at each of these four strategies in turn the first of brown and Levinson's play the strategies really is not played at all this is the ball on record strategy and with this strategy I don't care if I commit any face threatening acts I don't care if you're uncomfortable I don't care if I embarrass you so I'm really not at all concerned for the person receiving the message so there's four situations in which this strategies is usually used the first is in an urgent situation so if the building is burning I'm not going to come up to you and say I really sort of impose upon you but would you mind exiting the building I'm just going to yell get out of the building okay so in an urgent situation we use this strategy another situation in which use this strategy is when we're in a very task-oriented situation so I've got deadlines I need to get things done and I've got the power to kind of order you around so I'll just say you know give me the phone and get this done do this do that another situation in which we use this strategy is when we want to put forward a very strong request so for example if I'm the teacher and you're the student and you're sitting in class talking on your cell phone or texting or whatever I might say very clearly very directly put yourself under way the final situation in which we use this strategy is when I need to give you a warning so for example if you're standing daydreaming in the middle of the street you know the car is coming towards you I'm not once again gonna say I'm sorry to pose upon you would you mind moving because the car is going to hit you I'm just going to Yelp get out of the way so a warning is another situation in which we use this strategy and it's a strategy that really isn't polite at all because it's very direct very to the point here's what here's what you need to do the second strategy from Braun and Levinson is the positive politeness strategy in this strategy I'm assuming that I'm equal to you if I'm talking to if it's you that I'm talking to so I'm equal we've got this two-way friendly relationship and it's quite professional in very respectful and we both want to maintain this relationship so there are different strategies that we can use in order to maintain or use positive politeness the first one is called attend to the here so I'm very aware of what you need so for example I might say to you oh you must be hungry let me get you a sandwich so I'm very aware of how you're feeling or what you've been through another strategy I might use here language use strategy is I might avoid disagreement so I'm not gonna directly say ok I disagree with you or something but I'll sort of avoid it so for example if you ask me well how does this dress look on on me I might say well it sort of looks okay on you so I'm not directly saying hey it doesn't look okay but I'm not saying enthusiastically yes it looks really good on you another another strategy is that I'm going to assume agreement so I'm not even going to ask you do you agree I'm going to assume it so instead of saying do you agree that we should leave at 3 o'clock I'm just gonna say so let's leave at 3 o'clock so I'm just going to assume that you're in agreement with me here I forgot one of their languages strategy that goes with the overall strategy of positive politeness and this is hedging an opinion so rather than saying very directly what my opinion is I sort of use other words to hedge it or hide my opinion so instead of saying look you need you need to study harder ok I'm just getting you flat-out look you're not studying hard enough I might say well you know you really should think about studying harder so I've kind of buried my opinion by these other words and so I'm diluting the strength of my opinion a little bit not you need to study harder get your act together but you really should think about studying harder so I've kind of softened my opinion there so that's another strategy for language use that goes with positive politeness brandon xi 'sons next strategy is negative a negative politeness strategy this is very similar to the negative plate is definition that we've already looked at so with a negative politeness strategy the speaker knows he or she is imposing on the other person and the other person has a little bit of power over him or her because of that and so through the languages choices the speaker acknowledges you know what there's a bit of an imposition going on here there are some language use strategies that go with brown and Levinson's negative like the strategy so the first one is to be indirect so let's say I don't have enough money and I need to borrow some money from you so instead of directly saying look can I borrow some money from you I'm gonna say I'm really stressed out about money right now so I'm sort of indirectly hinting you know what I could really use a loan right now another language use strategy for negative politeness is to apologize so instead of directly saying I kind of borrowed ten dollars from you I'm gonna put an apology in front of it I I'm really really sorry but I have to ask you if I can borrow ten dollars from you so I apologize first another strategy is to minimize the imposition and we do this using the word just I just want to take a few minutes of your time to ask if I could borrow your car so we minimize the imposition by putting the word just in there I just need a few minutes I just need a few dollars I just need a little bit of your time a final language is strategy that goes with negative politeness is pluralizing the responsibility so let's say you and I work at the same office yeah we both get home and then I realized we've I forgot or you forgot to lock the office door and one of us needs to go back and lock that door so rather than phoning you up and saying you know what you need to go back and lock the door because I don't want to do it I'm going to phone you up and say you know what we forgot to lock the office door when we left this afternoon then I'm hoping that you're gonna pick up on I want you to go and lock the office door because I don't want to do it so we PluralEyes responsibility so that the other person we're talking to you feels included in the spirit responsibility and then that person will then volunteer and say okay I'll do it so it's another indirect strategy and it falls under negative plainness ramen Levinson's final strategy for politeness is an off record indirect strategy so this is a complete avoidance of any face threatening Act so it is very very indirect so we've got some language use strategies that go along with this the first of these is that instead of directly saying something I'm gonna give you a hint so I'm really cold yeah and I want you to close the window this time so instead of saying can you please close the window or just close the window I might say but it's really cold in here and then I expect you to pick up on the hint and get up and close the window another off-record indirect strategy is to be vague so instead of saying you know what you need to be more responsible with your phone because you've just come and told me you've lost your cellphone again I might make the vague general statement you know people should be more careful with their phones now once again you should take the hint that you personally need to be more careful with your phone a final languages strategy is to be sarcastic or joking so instead of so let's say you're dating someone and I really don't think much of this person and so instead of saying you know what you probably could find someone better to date or I don't like this person I might say in a joking way or sarcastic way Wow he's a real winner isn't he or she's a real winner isn't she and so I'm not directly saying look I don't think much of this person I'm putting a sarcastic or joking twist on it so it's once again very very indirect now that we've looked at different definitions of politeness and negative a positive point as some Brown and Levinson's for strategies for politeness we need to answer the question what's the relationship between politeness and language and social class and the answer is a very simple one as people move up in higher socioeconomic class so the higher classes for example people get more polite with their language use so they're they're very less direct usually and they use a lot more very strategic politeness strategies with their communication so it's not always true but generally in most situations when you go higher in social class the standard language that people in that social class does actually become more polite and more formal as we've already seen in this look at the relationship between language use and social class we've looked at a lot of different concepts so we started off by defining what social class is and then we defined and looked at this this concept called a sociolect which is language variation that we see based upon social class and we see this within one specific language group or another specific language group we have variation within that language based on social class so this is a sociolect we've also looked at a few other concepts we've looked at this concept of style the concept of register and the concept of politeness and then how each of these relate to this language use and social class relationship the final point to to discuss here before we conclude this session is how all of this room to language teaching and language and learning well the answer is that we need to make our students aware of any language variation that does exist in the language they're learning when it comes to language use in social class so as our students get higher in their language proficiency level we actually need to introduce them to concepts such as socio Lex we definitely need to introduce them to style and register and politeness so that our students can become aware of how the language they're learning varies depending upon social class then our students can very strategically learn the different socio Lex that do go along with the language they're learning so language use in social class is a really really interesting area of both for research and also for language teachers because it opens up a lot of language variation that we want to make our students aware of [Music] [Applause] [Music]

Channel: Advance Consulting for Education

Views: 23,167

Rating: 4.9320593 out of 5

Keywords: Advance Consulting for Education, ACE, Teaching English, English as a Second Language, Teaching ESL, ESL, EFL, TEFL, TESL, TESOL, Teaching Tips, Teaching Techniques, Teaching Strategies, Teacher Professional Development, Teacher PD, Professional Development, The PD Exchange, The Professional Development Exchange, www.thepdexchange.ca, language and social class, Dianne Tyers, www.aceducation.ca, sociolinguistics, language dialects

Id: dsIgQW0Jqtc

Length: 49min 28sec (2968 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 09 2019