Modeling Socioeconomic Class in Variationist Sociolinguistics

Modeling socioeconomic class has been a persistent challenge in the analysis of sociolinguistic variation. While early stratificational models formulated on the basis of socioeconomic indicators such as income, occupation, and area of residence revealed compelling patterns of linguistic variation, they were critiqued for their lack of explanatory power at the interactional level and for their marginalization of those without paid employment. Subsequent models have employed cross-disciplinary concepts such as the linguistic market, social networks, and communities of practice, prioritizing local social distinctions that are understood to reflect or even constitute abstract structural categories such as ‘working class’ or ‘middle class’. It is argued that a full socioeconomic class paradigm for sociolinguistics would also theorize class at the aggregate level, and to this end, sociological class models may prove useful. Contemporary sociological class analysis at the level of social practice offers additional avenues for interfacing with sociology.

[1]  W. Labov The intersection of sex and social class in the course of linguistic change , 1990, Language Variation and Change.

[2]  J. Milroy,et al.  Social network and social class: Toward an integrated sociolinguistic model , 1992, Language in Society.

[3]  K. Woolard language variation and cultural hegemony: toward an integration of sociolinguistic and social theory , 1985 .

[4]  R. Dodsworth,et al.  Revisiting the Need for New Approaches to Social Class in Variationist Sociolinguistics , 2010 .

[5]  Christine Mallinson,et al.  Communities of Practice in Sociolinguistic Description: Analyzing Language and Identity Practices among Black Women in Appalachia , 2007 .

[6]  J. Goldthorpe,et al.  Affluence and the British Class Structure , 1963 .

[7]  P. Kerswill,et al.  New towns and koineization: linguistic and social correlates , 2005 .

[8]  John R. Rickford,et al.  The need for new approaches to social class analysis in sociolinguistics , 1986 .

[9]  Nancy Niedzielski,et al.  The globalisation of vernacular variation , 2003 .

[10]  Luc Boltanski,et al.  Le fétichisme de la langue , 1975 .

[11]  Penelope Eckert,et al.  New generalizations and explanations in language and gender research , 1999, Language in Society.

[12]  Christine Mallinson University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics Social Class, Social Status and Stratification: Revisiting Familiar Concepts in Sociolinguistics Social Class, Social Status and Stratification: Revisiting Familiar Concepts in Sociolinguistics Social Class, Social Status, and Stratification: , 2022 .

[13]  Emergence and transformation of a dialect : Thyborønsk (Danish) , 1998 .

[14]  R. Macdonald,et al.  Employment, Unemployment and Social Polarization: Young People and Cyclical Transitions , 1999 .

[15]  Henrietta J. Cedergren The interplay of social and linguistic factors in Panama , 1973 .

[16]  Christine Mallinson The Dynamic Construction of Race, Class, and Gender through Linguistic Practice among Women in a Black Appalachian Community , 2006 .

[17]  John Scott,et al.  Introduction: The State of Class Analysis , 1999 .

[18]  The role of social factors in the dynamics of sound change: A case study of a Russian dialect , 2006, Language Variation and Change.

[19]  Patricia Hill Collins,et al.  Learning from the Outsider Within: The Sociological Significance of Black Feminist Thought , 1986 .

[20]  C. Mills,et al.  The Social Life of a Modern Community. , 1942 .

[21]  P. Eckert The whole woman: Sex and gender differences in variation , 1989, Language Variation and Change.

[22]  Sherry B. Ortner Identities: The Hidden Life of Class , 1998, Journal of Anthropological Research.

[23]  Loïc Wacquant Territorial Stigmatization in the Age of Advanced Marginality , 2007 .

[24]  Chris Warhurst,et al.  A new labour aristocracy? Aesthetic labour and routine interactive service , 2007 .

[25]  E. Wenger Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning, and Identity , 1998 .

[26]  Henrietta J. Cedergren,et al.  Montreal French: Language, class and ideology , 1989 .