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Styles, Gender and

Social Class
Taller Focalizado I

Andrea Alejandra Egea Pato


I.S.F.D. N 1 | Prof. de Ingls

Style
The variations of speech that occurs
within individual speakers who
come from a single location.

Style and
Formality

writing.
The varying levels of attention
to variety forms a natural
continuum.
Explanation: the stylistic
variation is the result of the care
that speakers and writers take
with their expression.
The more formal de situation,
the more attention we pay to
our language.

Accommodation and
Normativism
Audience
design: a speaker who
can control more than one variety
chooses a level of speech
according to the audience he or
she is addressing.
Accommodation: we
automatically adjust our speech to
be more like that of our
interlocutor.
Normativism: the approach taken
by purists who claim that there is
one correct version and that all

Specialized
varieties
Register: the special variety especially

marked by a special set of vocabulary


associated with a profession, occupation
or social group and forming part of its
jargon.
A specialized jargon serves to label new
and needed concepts and also to establish
bonds between members and enforce
boundaries for outsiders
Cant: thieves and underworld jargon,
which goal is to make it hard for outsiders
to comprehend conversations.

Domains
These are the typical social situation
with three defining characteristics:
place, role-relationship and topic.
Domains are named usually for a
place or an activity in
it. common domain
A one
is home.
Role-relationships
include: family
members and visitors.
Topics (which depends
on the cultural
patterns) may be:

Slang and
Solidarity
Slang is one way of estabilishing social identity.
Its main characteristics are:
the special kinds of intimate or in-group speech.
The rejection of formal rules.
Its freshness and epheremerality.
Free usage of taboo expressions., e.g. fuck, shit.
Its the feature of speech of the young and the
powerless.
Solidarity is an important social force that has a

major impact on language, which underlies the


notion of accomodation.
By choosing the form of language associated with a

specific group, we are claiming to be counted as a


member of that group.

Language and
Gender
Traditionally, the word gender was restricted to the

grammatical distinctions between men and women.


Children pick up social stereotypes that underlies
women and men discrimination.
Womens talk is associated with the home and domestic

activities.
Mens talk is associated with the outside world and economic
activities.

Studies of gender have shown the power of

stereotyping:
Generic masculine: however well-meaning and neutral the

speakers intention may be, it reinforces the secondary status


of women.
Anthropocentic speech: it is the prejudicial use of language
which assumes that men are more important than women.

Social
Stratification
It is the study of class distinction.
Free variation: the notion that the

choice of variant was uncontrolled and


without significance.
Variations in speech provide clear evidence of

social status.
Each social level (determined on the basis of
income, occupation and education) had a
similar gradation according to style or degree of
formality.

Hypercorrection: there is a tendency to

over-use socially desirable features in


careful speech and reading.

Accomodation and Audience


Design
Audience design: in this view, the speaker,

consciously or not, chooses a stylistic level


appropriate for the audience he or she
wishes to address. The announcer is
identifying himself or herself with the
audience or caliming membership of the
group that it constitutes.
Accomodation: it is the tendency for the

intention of people talking together to move


slightly closer together by modifying their
speech in the direction of the new norm.
Some may choose to diverge instead of converging,

by moving their speech away from the other party.

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