Transcript The University of Sheffield: PowerPoint template

Language and identity
Aims
• To think about communities and how they
use language
• To think about the connection between
identity and language
16/07/2015 © The University of Sheffield / Department of Marketing and Communications
What we’ll achieve by the end of
today’s class
• You’ll have an idea of how people can use
language to identify themselves
• You’ll start to think about the connection
between language and communities
16/07/2015 © The University of Sheffield / Department of Marketing and Communications
Who makes up your
community?
• The SED picked speakers who were
‘representative’ of their community…
• But does everyone in the same community speak the
same?
• Make a list of all of the ‘types’ of people you can
think of in your local community
• Which of these groups represent your community to
you?
16/07/2015 © The University of Sheffield / Department of Marketing and Communications
Studying communities
• In 1963, William Labov did a study of the island
of Martha’s Vineyard
16/07/2015 © The University of Sheffield / Department of Marketing and Communications
Where’s Martha’s Vineyard
(MV)?
• Why was William Labov interested in MV?
16/07/2015 © The University of Sheffield / Department of Marketing and Communications
Language change
• There was a historical record of language
use on Martha’s Vineyard
• 1941 ‘SED-like’ study
• Allowed comparisons between past and the
present-day pronunciations (Labov was
interested in accents)
16/07/2015 © The University of Sheffield / Department of Marketing and Communications
Language and social groups
• Region is not the only factor which affects
the language that we use
• Different groups in the same region can use
language in different ways
• Labov wanted to explore the extent of these
differences
16/07/2015 © The University of Sheffield / Department of Marketing and Communications
Groups on Martha’s
Vineyard
English descent (farmers)
America
n Indian
descent
English descent
(fisherfolk)
16/07/2015 © The University of Sheffield / Department of Marketing and Communications
Portuguese descent
What is life on MV like?
• MV traditionally depended upon farming
and fishing
• But now depends upon tourism
16/07/2015 © The University of Sheffield / Department of Marketing and Communications
What language changes had
occurred on Martha’s Vineyard?
• Change in how people pronounced the
vowels in words like price and mouth
• Traditional island pronunciations sounded
more like…‘proyce’ and ‘mowth’
16/07/2015 © The University of Sheffield / Department of Marketing and Communications
MV pronunciations
• Using the sheet of data you have been
given, for each graph, write down which of
the social groups uses the traditional
pronunciation of ‘price’ the most
• Is there anything surprising or interesting
about these results?
16/07/2015 © The University of Sheffield / Department of Marketing and Communications
What Labov found…
• The most traditional pronunciations were
from:
• The up-islanders
• The fishermen
• The families of English descent
• The 31-45 year olds
16/07/2015 © The University of Sheffield / Department of Marketing and Communications
Why? Looking for evidence…
“There is no industry on
Martha’s Vineyard… for
a time commercial
fishing in the local
waters buoyed up the
economy, but the run of
fish is no longer what
it used to be” (1972:
296)
“Increasing
dependence on the
summer trade acts as a
threat to [the
Vineyarders] personal
independence” (1972:
297)
“Summer people,
who have earned
big money in big
cities, are buying
up the island”
(1972: 297)
16/07/2015 © The University of Sheffield / Department of Marketing and Communications
“Farming and
dairying have
declined sharply
because of the
ferry rate, which
raises the cost of
fertilizer but lowers
the profit of milk”
(1972: 296)
Language as a “badge of
identity”
• Which part of the island is most likely to resist incomers?
• Up-island
• What is the main occupation of those who resist
incomers?
• Fishing
• Who might have been most affected by the loss of
fishing and farming (which started 40 years before the
MV study)?
• The 31-45 year olds
16/07/2015 © The University of Sheffield / Department of Marketing and Communications
The link between traditional
pronunciation and positive orientation
to MV
Pronunciation of 'price' according to
orientation to Martha's Vineyard
1
0.9
0.8
0.7
0.6
Positive
Neutral
Negative
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
0
price
16/07/2015 © The University of Sheffield / Department of Marketing and Communications
Using the
pronunciatio
n of ‘price’
as a way to
identify as a
‘Vineyarder’
What the MV study showed us
• Language can play a very important role in how
we are identified
• We can tell who someone is from the language they
use
• We can show our loyalties by the language we use
• Changes that take place in dialects over time
can be linked to regions, communities AND
identities
16/07/2015 © The University of Sheffield / Department of Marketing and Communications
100
Years
Of
Excellence.