Trudgill’s Norwich Study, 1972
Peter Trudgill's 1970s research into language and social class showed some interesting differences between men and women. This research is described in various studies and often quoted in language teaching textbooks.
Trudgill made a detailed study in which subjects were grouped by social class and sex. He invited them to speak in a variety of situations, before asking them to read a passage that contained words where the speaker might use one or other of two speech sounds. An example would be verbs ending in -ing, where Trudgill wanted to see whether the speaker dropped the final g and pronounced this as -in'. In phonetic terms, Trudgill observed whether, in, for example, the final sound of "singing", the speaker used the alveolar consonant /n/ or the velar consonant /ŋ/.
Trudgill found that men were less likely and women more likely to use the prestige pronunciation of certain speech sounds. In aiming for higher prestige (above that of their observed social class) the women tended towards hypercorrectness. The men would often use a low prestige pronunciation - thereby seeking covert (hidden) prestige by appearing “tough” or “down to earth”.
Trudgill followed up the direct observation by asking his subjects about their speech. This supported the view of men as more secure or less socially aspirational. They claimed to use lower prestige forms even more than the observation showed. Women, too, claimed to use high prestige forms more than they were observed to do. This may be a case of objective evidence supporting a traditional view of women as being more likely to have social class aspirations than men. But it may also be that, as social roles change, this may become less common - as women can gain prestige through work or other activities.
Holding constant other variables such as age and social class (i.e., all things being equal), women generally appeared to use forms which closely resemble those of a standard or prestigious speech variety more frequently than men, or in preference to the vernacular, non-standard or stigmatised forms which men appeared to favour. A less theoretical way of putting this, which corresponds with many public attitudes, is that women tend to use forms which are generally considered ‘better’, ‘nicer’, or ‘correct’ more often than men use them.
prestige women
correct speech sounds
standard
prestigioushigher
more
aspirational
covert
social class
sex -ing
men
lower
Trudgill’s Norwich Study, 1972
Peter Trudgill's 1970s research into language and social class showed some interesting differences between and . This research is described in various studies and often quoted in language teaching textbooks.
Trudgill made a detailed study in which subjects were grouped by and
. He invited them to speak in a variety of situations, before asking them to read a passage that contained words where the speaker might use one or other of two speech sounds. An example would be verbs ending in , where Trudgill wanted to see whether the speaker dropped the final g and pronounced this as -in'. In phonetic terms, Trudgill observed whether, in, for example, the final sound of "singing", the speaker used the alveolar consonant /n/ or the velar consonant /ŋ/.
Trudgill found that men were less likely and women more likely to use the prestigepronunciation of certain speech sounds. In aiming for higher prestige (above that of their observed social class) the women tended towards hypercorrectness. The men would often use a low prestige pronunciation - thereby seeking covert (hidden) prestige by appearing “tough” or “down to earth”.
Trudgill followed up the direct observation by asking his subjects about their speech. This supported the view of men as more secure or less socially aspirational . They claimed to use lower prestige forms even more than the observation showed. Women, too, claimed to use high prestige forms more than they were observed to do. This may be a case of objective evidence supporting a traditional view of women as being more likely to have social class aspirations than men. But it may also be that, as social roles change, this may become less common - as women can gain prestige through work or other activities.
Holding constant other variables such as age and social class (i.e., all things being equal), women generally appeared to use forms which closely resemble those of a standard or prestigious speech variety more frequently than men, or in preference to the vernacular, non-standard or stigmatised forms which men appeared to favour. A less theoretical way of putting this, which corresponds with many public attitudes, is that women tend to use forms which are generally considered ‘better’, ‘nicer’, or ‘corre ct’ more often than men use them.
prestige women
correct speech sounds
standard
prestigioushigher
more
aspirational
covert
social class
sex -ing
men
lower