Week 5 - Language and Social Class

What does Social Class mean?

• Measure of status based on occupation, income, wealth etc.
• Language features can vary according to social factors
• Variable : Abstract representation of source of variation
• Variant: Actual realisation of the variable

Variation According to Social Class

• Trudgill consider 'g-dropping' like in 'walking' and 'Reading' (the place)

Social Class and Style

• Trudgil came up with 4 styles; Casual style, Formal style, reading passage style and world list style.
• Why do speakers change pronunciation according to style? 1. When there is…