Welcome to Attitudes to Language Diversity

Welcome! In this section of your AS English Language course (Paper 2 Section A: Language Diversity), you will explore how and why people react differently to regional accents, social dialects, gendered speech, and workplace language. Don't worry if these linguistic debates seem complex at first—by breaking down the key theories, researchers, and common attitudes, you will quickly see that language debates happen all around us every single day!

Exam Snapshot:
Paper 2 (Language Varieties, Component Code: 7701/2) lasts 1 hour 30 minutes and is worth 70 marks total (50% of your AS Level). In Section A, you choose one essay question from a choice of two. It is worth 30 marks: 10 marks for AO1 (linguistic terminology, clear academic structure) and 20 marks for AO2 (evaluating concepts, theories, and analyzing the provided stimulus data).

1. Prescriptivism vs. Descriptivism: The Big Debate

Whenever people express opinions about how others speak or write, they are usually taking one of two fundamental stances:

1. Prescriptivism: The belief that there is one "correct," pure, and superior standard of English (typically Standard English with Received Pronunciation (RP)). Prescriptivists view language variation or change as "lazy," "sloppy," or incorrect grammar that needs fixing.
2. Descriptivism: The scientific, objective linguistic approach that observes, records, and describes how people actually use language in the real world without making moral or quality judgments.

Jean Aitchison’s Metaphors of Prescriptivist Decay (1996)

Linguist Jean Aitchison delivered the famous BBC Reith Lectures where she described three common prescriptivist myths about language:

• The Damp Spoon Syndrome: The view that language variation stems from laziness or sloppiness, like putting a damp, dirty spoon back into a clean sugar bowl.
• The Crumbling Castle View: The idea that English was once a magnificent, perfectly completed castle in the past that is now decaying and falling into ruin unless carefully preserved.
• The Infectious Disease View: The belief that non-standard language and slang act like a contagious virus caught from others, which must be avoided or quarantined.

Memory Trick: Remember D-C-I (Damp spoon = laziness, Crumbling castle = golden age ruin, Infectious disease = catching bad habits).

Key Takeaway: As a linguistics student, you must always maintain a descriptivist stance. Never write in your exam that non-standard forms are "bad" or "lazy"; instead, analyze why people use them and how society perceives them.

2. Prestige and Social Evaluation

Why do some accents sound "posh" or "clever" while others sound "friendly" or "rough"? Sociolinguists have developed frameworks to explain these social judgments.

Overt vs. Covert Prestige (William Labov)

• Overt Prestige: Status and social approval gained by using standard, high-status forms (e.g., Standard English and Received Pronunciation). This prestige is openly recognized by mainstream institutions like schools, the law, and formal workplaces.
• Covert Prestige: Status gained within a specific peer group or subculture by using non-standard, regional, or working-class vernacular varieties. It signals street credibility, toughness, local loyalty, and in-group solidarity.

Status vs. Solidarity: Howard Giles and the Matched-Guise Technique

Linguist Howard Giles used an experiment called the Matched-Guise Technique, where listeners evaluated the exact same speaker reading identical passages using different accents. Listeners consistently judged accents across two core dimensions:

1. Status and Competence: Accents closer to RP / Standard English consistently receive higher ratings for intelligence, authority, ambition, and professional competence.
2. Solidarity and Social Attractiveness: Regional and non-standard accents (such as Yorkshire or Geordie) consistently score higher for warmth, friendliness, honesty, and trustworthiness.
3. Urban Working-Class Stigma: Research shows that accents from major post-industrial urban areas (such as Birmingham / Brummie and Liverpool / Scouse) historically receive the lowest evaluations on both status and social attractiveness in UK surveys (e.g., Giles 1970; BBC Voices survey 2005).

Key Takeaway: Standard English holds high status (overt prestige), but regional accents often hold high solidarity (covert prestige).

3. Communication Accommodation Theory (CAT)

Developed by Howard Giles, this theory explains how people adjust their speech depending on who they are talking to and what social goals they want to achieve:

• Convergence: Moving your language closer to your listener’s style to reduce social distance, build rapport, or gain approval.
- Upward Convergence: Shifting toward standard or prestigious forms (e.g., adopting a more standard accent during a formal job interview).
- Downward Convergence: Shifting toward non-standard, regional, or colloquial forms to show solidarity or blend in with a casual group.
• Divergence: Exaggerating linguistic differences to emphasize social distance, assert a distinct identity, or show disapproval.

Key Takeaway: Speakers change how they talk depending on context, using convergence to fit in and divergence to stand out.

4. Regional Variation and Dialect Levelling

Before diving into regional variation, make sure you know the exact difference between these two terms:

• Accent: Phonological pronunciation only (how words sound).
• Dialect: Distinct vocabulary (lexis) and grammar used in a specific region.

Dialect Levelling (Paul Kerswill and Ann Williams)

Dialect levelling is the process where regional dialect differences and distinct local features gradually decrease and become more uniform across the British Isles. This is driven by increased social mobility, commuting, and urbanisation.

Features spreading rapidly across the country include:
• Glottal stopping: Using the glottal stop [ʔ] instead of the /t/ sound (e.g., saying wa[ʔ]er instead of water).
• Th-fronting: Pronouncing the dental fricative /θ/ as [f] (e.g., fink instead of think) and /ð/ as [v] (e.g., brover instead of brother).
• L-vocalisation: Pronouncing the /l/ sound as a vowel sound (e.g., miwk for milk).

Multicultural London English (MLE)

Researched by linguists such as Sue Fox, Paul Kerswill, and Devyani Sharma, Multicultural London English (MLE) is an innovative multiethnolect. It emerged in multi-ethnic urban communities from contact between various world languages, dialects, and British regional English.

Public & Media Attitudes: MLE has often been the subject of prescriptivist moral panic in the mainstream media, where it has been pejoratively labelled "Jafaican." Linguists emphasize that MLE is a rule-governed, vibrant linguistic variety used by young people of diverse backgrounds to express urban identity.

Key Takeaway: While traditional dialects are undergoing dialect levelling, new varieties like MLE prove that language diversity is constantly innovating and evolving.

5. Gender Diversity and Public Attitudes

Public debates often claim men and women "speak different languages." Over time, sociolinguists have developed four main frameworks to analyze gendered language:

1. Deficit Model (Robin Lakoff, 1975)

Lakoff argued that women’s language exhibits features such as hedges, superstandard grammar, polite forms, empty adjectives, and tag questions. Lakoff framed this language style as "deficient" and powerless compared to an assumed male standard.

2. Dominance Model (Zimmerman and West, Pamela Fishman, Dale Spender)

This model focuses on male power and conversational control. Zimmerman and West reported that men performed the vast majority of interruptions in mixed-sex conversations. Pamela Fishman argued that women perform conversational "shitwork" to keep interactions going, while men exercise dominance by controlling topics or giving delayed minimal responses.

3. Difference Model (Deborah Tannen, 1990)

Tannen argued that men and women belong to different gender subcultures with distinct conversational goals, such as Status vs. Support, Independence vs. Intimacy, and Orders vs. Proposals. Under this model, miscommunication arises from cultural differences rather than deliberate dominance.

4. Diversity and Social Constructionist Approach (Deborah Cameron, Judith Butler, Janet Hyde)

Modern sociolinguistics challenges the older binary models:
• Deborah Cameron and Judith Butler: Language and gender are dynamic and "performed"; speakers adapt their language style depending on context, role, and identity rather than fixed biological gender.
• Janet Hyde’s Gender Similarities Hypothesis (2005): Large-scale meta-analyses show that psychological and linguistic differences between men and women are negligible or non-existent. Hyde argues that perceived differences are fueled by public confirmation bias and cultural stereotypes.

Examiner Warning: Do not quote early studies (like Lakoff or Zimmerman and West) as absolute, universal facts! AQA examiners reward students who evaluate their small sample sizes and contrast them with modern diversity approaches (Hyde, Cameron).

Key Takeaway: Modern research shows men and women speak far more similarly than popular culture assumes; language use depends on social context and identity performance.

6. Occupational Language and Discourse Communities

How we speak is also shaped by our workplace, professional groups, and shared goals.

Discourse Communities (John Swales, 1990)

Swales defined a discourse community as a group of people who share:
1. Common public goals.
2. Mechanisms of communication among members.
3. Participatory information exchange.
4. Community-specific genres/text types.
5. Highly specialised lexis and jargon.
6. A threshold level of members with suitable expertise.

Institutional Talk (Drew and Heritage, 1992)

Drew and Heritage identified key characteristics of workplace talk:
• Goal orientation: Conversations focus on specific workplace tasks.
• Turn-taking rules and allowable contributions: Restrictions on what can be said and who can speak.
• Asymmetric power relationships: One speaker often holds institutional power (e.g., doctor and patient, manager and employee).

Corpus Research (Michael Nelson, 2000)

Nelson compared a business English corpus with a general English corpus and found a distinct "semantic field of business" focused on time, money, and operations, alongside a distinct absence of words expressing deep personal feelings or emotional states.

Key Takeaway: Occupational jargon and discourse conventions are not "snobbery"; they are functional tools designed for precision and efficiency within professional discourse communities.

7. Exam Strategy & Common Pitfalls (Paper 2 Section A)

To secure top marks in Section A, keep these essential tips in mind:

• Integrate the Stimulus Data: Do not write a pre-prepared essay that ignores the exam paper's data! Section A provides stimulus material (such as tables, survey results, or transcripts). Quote and analyze the data directly, weaving it together with relevant sociolinguistic concepts.
• Balance AO1 and AO2: You are marked out of 10 for AO1 (accurate terminology, clear academic register, well-structured arguments) and 20 for AO2 (evaluation of concepts, theories, and language debates).
• Never Confuse Accent and Dialect: Keep your terminology precise: accent = sound/phonology; dialect = words/lexis and grammar.
• Avoid Moral Value Judgments: Always evaluate attitudes from an objective, academic viewpoint. Instead of saying "slang is lazy," write: "Prescriptivist commentators often evaluate slang through what Aitchison terms the 'damp spoon syndrome,' whereas descriptivists view it as an innovative marker of covert prestige and social identity."

Quick Review Box:
• Prescriptivism vs Descriptivism: Rule-based judgment vs objective observation (Aitchison's metaphors).
• Prestige: Overt (Standard/RP status) vs Covert (Vernacular/regional solidarity).
• Accommodation: Convergence (matching styles) vs Divergence (emphasising differences).
• Dialect Levelling vs MLE: Loss of local features (Kerswill) alongside new multiethnolects (Fox, Sharma).
• Gender Debate: Shift from Deficit/Dominance/Difference to the Diversity & Gender Similarities Hypothesis (Hyde, Cameron).
• Workplace Talk: Discourse communities (Swales) and institutional asymmetries (Drew & Heritage).