1. Variation and social networks
Michael Hall
LCS D57
w/b 25 Oct 2016

2. Social networks
Speech communities
Communities of practice
Social networks and language variation

3. 1 Social networks What is a social network?
What does it tell us about variation?
Draw a network for yourself based on the example on the next slide (Meyerhoff 196-7)
Write the names in a rough circle, then link up “best friends” by drawing arrows between them.

4. Child’s name
Answer to “Who are your best friends”?
Sam
Max, Leah, Leon, Corbin
Max
Sam, Corbin, Leon, Leah
Corbin
Leah, Sam, Max
Leah
Sam, Katie, Corbin
Katie
Leah, Max, Corbin
Leon
Corbin, Max

5. Exercise outcomes
Now do the network again, but only where there is reciprocal naming. How different do the two networks look?
Each has a single connection, except Katie
No-one is at the centre of the network
This network is looser than first appears

6. What is a (real) social network?
“groupings based on frequency and quality of members’ interaction”, not on language use
Grouped on factors that are more idiosyncratic (compare social class, age, gender):
who your friends are, who you live near, who you hang out with, who you work with
How often these groupings are the same, how often they are different

7. Density
Dense networks slow down or inhibit change (cf disease) -> less openness to innovations, less chance of systematic exposure
Loose networks make individuals more open to change -> normative pressure of any single network will be attenuated
Social class: middle class tend to have looser networks than those at the extremes of the social scale

8. Multiplexity
Network ties between individuals: one relationship = uniplex (-> looser networks)
People know each other in different roles = multiplex ties

9. 2 Speech communities
“a group of people who interact regularly” (W&F 2015: 68) -> flexible definition
Make a list of all the groups that you consider yourself a member of. Be as open-minded as possible.
Which of these memberships have the strongest influence on the way you speak?

10. 3 Communities of practice
Domain: a shared interest, and a shared competence that distinguishes members from other people
Community: members engage in joint activities and discussions, help each other, and share information. They build relationships that enable them to learn from each other
Practice: a shared repertoire of resources: experiences, stories, tools, ways of addressing recurring problems - this takes time and sustained interaction
Originally used to describe apprenticeship model of learning (Lave and Wenger)
Can be applied to: school cliques, family, sports team, work group, hiking group, drama club, church choir

11. 4 Social networks & language variation
Reading, UK
Are you the little bastards what hit my son over the head?
I just lets her beat me
I never went to school today
in LA: gang status
Belfast

12. Core, secondary & peripheral members

13. Tom lives in Ballymacarrett, a Protestant area east of the River Lagan in Belfast. He is 18 years old and works as an apprentice in the shipyard. He got the job through his uncle Bob who works at the shipyard, and he has a cousin Mike who works there too. He and Mike live in the same street and most nights they have a beer together after work. They also run a disco with two friends, Jo and Gerry, and that means that several nights a week they travel across town to perform at different venues.

14. Case study: Milroy & Milroy
Studies of social networks in Belfast (1970s)
Studied working-class speech in 3 inner-city communities (W&F p 185-6)
Correlation of patterns of language change with web of relationships

16. Belfast: three communities
Religion
Male employment
Male relationships
Gender differentiation
Ballymacarrett
Prot
High
Close
Sharp
Hammer
Low
Less close
Less sharp
Clonard
Cath
Researcher introduced as “friend of a friend”

17. Milroys’ Scale for measuring individual network strength
Membership in a high-density, territorially-based cluster
Kinship in the same immediate neighbourhood
Working with at least two people of the same sex from the same area
Voluntary leisure-time association with workmates

18. 3/8 significant variables in Belfast vernacular
Pronunciation
Correlation with network strength
Hat/man/grass = father
Strong
Mo(th)er/bro(th)er fricative deletion
Weaker
Pull/shove/foot = but

19. Findings and conclusions
Ballymacarrett = significant correlation between variables and network strength
Closeknit network “common in low-status communities”
Social mechanism of vernacular maintenance
Effective resistance to prestige norms: low status variety maintaining itself in the face of competition from above

20. Why social networks?
Women’s networks more open than the men’s in Ballymacarrett (p 198), but not in Clonard (p 199) -> social networks trump gender
Work live and socialise with different people (South Carolina p 199) -> more standard speech, whether black or white
Social networks trump gender and ethnicity as a linguistic influence

21. References Meyerhoff Ch 9 Holmes (2013) Ch 8 pp 196-202
Wardhaugh & Fuller Ch 3; Ch 7 pp 185-6
Milroy J & L Milroy, Network Structure and Linguistic Change.  In Coupland & Jaworski (2009) The New Sociolinguistics Reader
Etienne and Beverly Wenger-Trayner (2015) Introduction to communities of practice: A brief overview of the concept and its uses.