L INGUISTIC AND SOCIAL INEQUALITY

Linguistic inequality One of the most solid achievements of linguistics in 20 TH century has been to eliminate the idea that some languages or dialects are inherently ‘better’ than others. Linguistic inequality => different people in different social situations transmit the same message by using different linguistic items; Linguistic inequality may be a cause and consequence of social inequality Social and educational status of a speaker provides the bases for the social inequality (different people - different level of linguistic competence and linguistic performance)

1.Concerns what people think about each other’s speech (linguistic prejudice) 2.Relates to the linguistic items that a person knows – reflects the different experiences people had 3.Knowledge of how to use linguistic items to communicate successfully (differences at the level of conceptualization and culture)

Subjective inequality: Language-based prejudice -Prejudices about particular ways of speaking – drawing conclusions about another person’s character and abilities based on speech -Why? We need information and we have no better source -The way we speak or write conveys socially important information – speakers use their linguistic choices to locate themselves in a multidimensional social space (a speaker uses the speech as a sign of social distinction) - Linguistic prejudice is the major cause of linguistic and social inequality; Any individual may be a victim of linguistic prejudice regardless of their social & ethnical status, however marginalized groups are often the victims, due to the speech varieties they are using.

Subjective inequality: Language-based prejudice  Bridge a gap between social classification (e.g. middle-class, female) and prejudice (e.g. friendly, intelligent)  Notion of Prototype: collection of characteristics (e.g. kind of person based on features)  Social stereotype: a social prototype shared by many people in society (opinion of a certain social group e.g. of Hispanics, Italian, British etc.) -African–Americans usually speak a particular non-standard variety, often seen as sub-standard. The members are also perceived as people with low intelligence and limited education. - Hispanic Americans - people that have strong Mexican accent, and use simple vocabulary. They are often considered as poorly educated or illegal immigrants.

Types of linguistic prejudice 1)Cognitive uncertainty The basic need for information about other person (reaction, value, moral, behavior) is known as cognitive uncertainty e.g. When someone delivers a speech, depending on intonation, and choice of vocabulary - can be seen both positively and negatively. 2) Linguistic insecurity The anxiety or lack of confidence experienced by speakers and writers who believe that their use of language does not conform to the principles and practices of the standard language e.g. A great deal of evidence shows that lower-middle-class speakers have the greatest tendency towards linguistic insecurity, and therefore tend to adopt the prestige forms. 3) Prestige The respect and admiration that someone gets for being successful - prestigious language is the language of successful and important people E.g. A child that adopts a language of the upper class, can lose respect for his friends. So, in order not to give up all the forms of his local group, he would use mixture of both. However, he would prefer the upper class forms (overt prestige), and keep only selected local forms.

Stereotypes and how to study them Speech of others is a clue to non-linguistic information about them - their social background and even personality traits (intelligence). Subjective Reaction Test developed by social psychologists and Labov: people talking and respondents asked to answer a questionnaire about them: Where do you think the speaker comes from?; locate the speaker on a scale of toughness, intelligence, friendliness; what job do you think the person holds? etc. – Different voices and accents evoke different stereotypes in the mind of the same person and the same voice suggested different stereotypes to different people. Labov: controlling the speech used to identify the particular linguistic features to which hearers were reacting (reaction to pronunciation) A researcher – used RP to one group of students and Birmingham accent to another – gave a short talk about psychology: Students were asked whether he would be suitable to give speeches in the future…prejudiced against the accent Prejudice based on racial types: the speech of black and Mexican- American children rated less standard than that of white children

Linguistic incompetence: strictly linguistic inequality What is linguistic competence? What would be incompetence? In Britain children from different social-class backgrounds have very different success-rates in learning to read – DEFICIT THEORY Is it the same in Macedonia? No two speakers have the same range of vocabulary and syntactic constructions - some such differences are relevant to success at school Bernstein: restricted vs. elaborated code Parental speech style affects the child’s linguistic development Inequality can also be due to experience: to nurture rather than nature

Communicative incompetence: inequality in communication What is communicative competence? What would be communicative incompetence? Knowledge of speech acts Silence (when should people stay silent) Native vs. non-native speakers