Language and Social Class

Language and Social Class

Introduction

The development of a society depends on the communication between the members. Language is a symbol that all the members use to communicate. In fact, language itself has no class or nature, because the whole of society creates it.  Language and social classes tend to correlate and one pop up while the other is being expressed. (Holmes & Meyerhoff, 2008). Not only social class is an influence on language but also social networking, which is significantly applicable in the language spoken. The social network is a social structure that is made up of many nodes, which are always individually or organizationally related. It represents the social relationships through which various people or organizations are connected from casual acquaintances to close-knit family relationships. This attribute affects not only people’s language preferences but also people’s language patterns. The paper aims to discuss the role of the social network as far as the relationship between languages and social class are concerned.

Language and social class

Social class, as a factor in linguistic variations, can be divided into three parts: vocabulary, pronunciation, and grammar. People of different social classes use different words from those of other social types. (Woodfin, 1968). ). Firstly, people of different social classes are unique in the languages they use. For example, those in charge of cleaning bank halls do not speak like the managers. Similarly, lawyers and their clients tend to have some differences in the way they communicate. (Holmes, 1947, p. 140). The table below shows variations of languages between the two different social classes.

Table 1. Variations of languages between the two different social classes.

Secondly, the obstacles that exist in various social classes are challenging to overcome. There is always the ability of the people to go up, and this is clearly shown in the aspects of speech like how they pronounce words (Holmes, 1947, p.141). There are three examples in this aspect. The first example states that there is a universal language variation making a distinction of different social groups. This variation exists in all countries in the world that speak English. This aspect explains how the –in are pronounced in the ending of words such as walking and jumping. The act of practising one’s social class language articulates between the practice of social actors and the language structure that can be easily understood. This technique attempts to correlate between languages and various social classes. Different social linguists argue that the language that is spoken by the community depends on the different classes that exist within the community (Block, 2013). Those from higher-level speak certain types of vocabularies that are not spoken by the lower class groups. According to Degrando (1847), children from reach families usually understand more words but fewer actions, while those from low-income families understand more actions than words during their development stages.

Table 2. Vernacular percentage rates in pronunciation for different social groups in Britain, Australia and the United States of America.

An Introduction to Sociolinguistics, 4th edition. London: Pearson (Janet, 2013, p. 146)

Note that 1 is the highest group while four the lowest group.

Many differences exist between oral and written languages. This difference results because of the socio-economic disparities that exist within our communities. In recent times, the theory of sociolinguistic deficit of the individuals that belong to the lower class has been of great concern. For example, Woodfin (1968) research attempted to examine the correlation that exists between certain predictive factors (socioeconomic status, intelligence level, the level of reading and language ability) to the written expression of the children in the third grade. He concluded that teachers are not supposed to consider the intelligence of the students based on the written expression but to acknowledge practical aspects as well. Socio-Economic status and gender are also considered to be a predictor of the writing capability of the kids and the use of technological devices at their tender ages. (Woodfin, 1968, p.1239).

We can denote from the table that the frequency of vernacular languages increased as the social class declined as noted in the four countries. Therefore, the likeliness of people speaking in vernacular languages is more when the social level is lower. The next example is postvocalic, that is the pronunciation of letter r.  In some regions like Ireland, Boston, and New York, pronouncing letter r represents standard prestige dialect. By contrast, in other areas like in England, conventional dialect speakers do not pronounce letter r, after vowels. This includes words like car and card.

Table 3. Reading capability within the developed nations.

An Introduction to Sociolinguistics. (Janet, 2013, p.148)

Thirdly, the places that have the highest levels of social groups have the most significant number of letter h dropped, while the ones at the lowest have utmost omissions. The variations are also present in regions whereby in West Yorkshire the performance is systematic when compared to the Norwich, although the pattern does not change. The figure below shows the rate at which letter h  is mostly dropped in Norwich and West Yorkshire social groups.

Figure 1. H dropping in developed countries.

An Introduction to Sociolinguistics (Janet, 2013, p. 146).

Note 1: 1 is the highest group, and 5 is the lowest.

Additionally, social classes affect language attitude. Most of the highest-class students in developing countries like India and some Asian countries find it naïve speaking their ethnic or vernacular languages. This situation happens when their parents mostly communicate to them using English or French limiting them an opportunity of learning vernaculars. When they grow in their estates speaking English or French and find middle and lower class students speaking vernacular, they regard the vernacular as the “poor mans” language. Researchers have tempted to analyze attitudes of 836 secondary school students from varying socioeconomic backgrounds toward the three languages that were spoken in Hong Kong after the colonial period. These languages include Cantonese, English, and Putonghua. The sample survey of these languages is shown below.

Figure 2. Language attitude of different social classes.

  There are two emerging developments from the data; the higher the SES of the students, the higher their attitude would be inclined positively to Cantonese and English. Contrary to that, the students from the lower social class since their attitude would be inclined more to Putonghua.

Figure 3. Significant differences between social classes

In the table above, it is clear to acknowledge the middle-class group, which have shown understanding of integrative English than the working class. The hypothesis set for the experiment states that for the higher social level, there is a possibility for the incline in English understanding, but the lower social class experience massive incline to Putonghua. The reason why those in the highest social class lack better English speaking skills is because of the lack of social and eco-friendly environment with their fellows. (Codó & Patiño-Santos, 2014).

According to the global communication standards, People interact with others mostly based on language. In the process of talking to others, one’s situation will be reflected by the words they use. English is termed as a practical subject that involves frequent communication to achieve perfection. The more a student speak in English, make mistakes that are being corrected, the higher the chances of the student to learn more vocabularies and structured sentences to speak fluently.  The postvocalic letter r was also found to be of much use in studying the British interaction mechanisms due to interactions and perfection. (Macaulay, 1976).

Variations in languages are common in social groups since it involves everyday interaction. For example, there is a distinct difference between the Russians pronunciation and the French pronunciation, although they sound to mean the same thing. Language is not necessarily accessed from the human gene during birth. Most of the languages depend on the environment a child was raised. And the friends the child was frequently communicating with daily. Lemke (2015) consider social networking as a factor that influences the type of language and the fluency of the languages a person can express. Additionally, some people have taken linguistic or literature as their career and can advance despite the few pronunciations that will stick in their pronunciation.

However, the people whom we surround significantly influence the way we speak. For example, the way children talk is similar to other kids at school rather than their families; this indicates that we generally speak in the same way as the rest in our groups. (Labov, 1966). When we consider generations, there is an added value or the deductions of words that have influenced our languages. When new vocabularies are being incorporated, some of the old dictionaries diminish. When we take an example of kids born in the mid-20^th century, their vocabularies at teenage levels lacked words like Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp. These media particularly hindered them from socializing and assimilating other people skills of communication and perfection of terms. Those kids born in 21^st-century talk much about social sites distinguish languages and can speak fluent English without incorporating vernaculars.

The music we listen to and the novel we read has a significant influence in our languages.

Language involves listening and speaking. When one listens to a particular type of songs for a long time, there is a possibility of their language or pronunciation to mimic the words they are saying. Songs and novels help the student to develop better communication skills and fluent English. Simpson (1996) discovered that most of the girls have a good practice of reading novels compared to men. This action makes them practice English languages and become better communicators since they have content and courage of speaking the languages. Similarly, they will be able to learn other people’s languages depending on the type of novel they have access although those can purchase most of the best novels from the highest social classes or the middle social class group.

Music plays a lot in language understanding, assimilation and practise. When a child sing alongside with the artist, there is an excellent possibility of the child to learn the language regardless of the type of communication or difficulty of learning it. Despite the penetration of technology to many parts of the world, the lower class group can now access radios, smartphones and televisions. The problem becomes the type of song the kid is allowed to listen to and the variety of shows they are allowed to watch. Some of the kids, especially the lower class group, can access fewer channels compared to the rich kids who additionally are capable of operating smart television to gain subtitles. Therefore, high technological homes have a higher capability of learning better English language compared to needy families.

In conclusion, social classes and levels affect an individual language and pronunciation at large. Most of the middle-class students speak fluently and quality English because they can access novels, televisions, and interact freely with fellow kids and grown-ups. Besides, rich kids can access all the materials and technology they want to learn languages. The problem will be their slow learning rate since their limit of interaction is limited and cannot encounter corrections and new vocabularies as a result of their interaction. The lower class level in the social class ranking is the disadvantageous lot. These groups have no access to technology, novels and can only interact with fellow kids who speak vernacular languages mostly. These factors hinder them from learning international languages like French and English. When they are unable to learn international languages quickly as their fellow rich kids, we conclude that social class affects language understanding and learning.

References

Block, D. (2013). Social class in applied linguistics. Routledge.

Codó, E., & Patiño-Santos, A. (2014). Beyond language: Class, social categorisation and academic achievement in a Catalan high school. Linguistics and Education, 25, 51-63.

Holmes, J., & Meyerhoff, M. (Eds.). (2008). The handbook of language and gender (Vol. 25). John Wiley & Sons.

Labov, W. (1990). The intersection of sex and social class in the course of linguistic change. Language variation and change, 2(2), 205-254.

Labov, W. (1966). The social stratification of English in New York city.

Lemke, J. L. (2005). Textual politics: Discourse and social dynamics. Taylor & Francis.

Macaulay, R. K. (1976). Social class and language in Glasgow. Language in Society, 5(2), 173-188.

Mallinson, C. (2007). Social class, social status and stratification: Revisiting familiar concepts in sociolinguistics. University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics, 13(2), 12.

Simpson, A. (1996). Fictions and facts: An investigation of the reading practices of girls and boys. English Education, 28(4), 268-279.

Woodfin, M. J. (1968). Correlations among certain factors and the written expression of third grade children. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 28(4), 1237-1242