LABOV DEPARTMENT STORE STUDY

2009 1986

1966

Dr. William Labov

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Labov's New York Department Store study:

What is the big deal?

Societal factors ignored

Focus of study in rural areas

Urban accents too heterogenous

Ultimately, social factors most critical in variation

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MethodRapid Anonymous Speech SurveysExtensive interviews in Martha's study not applicable

/r/ variable, elicited quickly, in first spontaneous, then careful speech

Task achieved by:

Three NYC department stores chosen

Asking for departments already known to be on fourth floor

Seeking clarification enabled each word said twice

Once carefully, once spontaneously

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Which three department stores and why?

Saks Macy's

S. Klein

Representation of three socioeconomic classes

UpperMiddle

Working class

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Results Use of [r]

%

0

25

50

75

100

store

Saks Macy's S Klein

alwayssometimesnever

first and second utterances

%

0

25

50

75

100

store

Saks Macy's S Klein

fourth Ifourth 2

floor Ifloor 2

Use of [r] corresponded to higher class of store

use of [r] increases in careful speech

Management & Salespeople

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Prestige

• Positive vs negative – positive: seeking prestige by adopting some feature – negative: seeking prestige by avoiding some

feature

• Overt vs covert – overt prestige: seeking prestige by assimilating to the

standard – covert prestige: choosing to differ from the standard

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Another Factors

• Labov had expected results to reflect prestige, but difference between careful and casual pronunciation suggests other factors at work

• Follow-up study looked at use of [r] in different styles of speech by different social classes

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Pronunciation and style• Adoption of

prestige form increases with formality of style, in each case with a higher baseline for higher classes

• EXCEPT in one case

[r] pronunciation by class and style

%

0

25

50

75

100

style

casual careful reading word listminimal pairs

012,34,56,89

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Hypercorrection• middle class

outperform upper middle class on word lists and minimal pairs

• this cross-over due to hypercorrection (according to Labov)

• not sure whether results are statistically significant though

• Labov reported group means, but did not indicate how much variance there was

[r] pronunciation by class and style

%

0

25

50

75

100

style

casual careful reading word listminimal pairs

6,89

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Other studies

• Labov studied other phonetic indicators such as pronunciation of th, ng, and h-dropping

• Similar resultsPronunciation of th by class

th in

dex

0

23

45

68

90

style

casual careful reading word list

0,12,45,67,89

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Conclusion• Labov established that a number of factors were

involved, not just locale (sociolinguistic factors) not just socio-class but also style of speech from casual to more careful

• Component of prestige complicates picture further

Sources: W Labov (1963) The social motivation of a sound change. Word 19:273-309. W Labov (1966) The social stratification of English in New York City. Washington DC: Center for Applied Linguistics W Labov (1970) The study of language in its social context. Studium Generale 23: 66-84 R Wardhaugh (1986) An introduction to sociolinguistics. Oxford: Basil Blackwell J Holmes (1992) An introduction to sociolinguistics. London: Longman http://www.hamline.edu/personal/aschramm/linguistics2001/4casestd.html http://coral.lili.uni-bielefeld.de/~ttrippel/labov/node4.html

WHAT DOES ALL THIS MEAN?

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New York City study (1966)

• Labov wanted to test his theory with a bigger population New York City

• Incidence of final and post-vocalic /r/ – While most American accents are rhotic, New York

(and Boston) have distinctive non-rhotic accent – Post-Depression, such urban accents lost prestige,

and rhotic midwest accent emerged as standard • Labov showed that rhotic use of /r/ reflected

social class and aspiration, and was more widespread in younger speakers