Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-mzp66 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-10T09:37:20.020Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Social class differences and the identification of sex in children's speech*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 September 2008

John R. Edwards
John R. Edwards
Affiliation:
St Patrick's College, Dublin
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Judges were asked to identify the sex of prepubertal children by listening to their tape-recorded voices. More incorrect guesses were made of working class girls than of their male counterparts. For middle-class children, however, the pattern was reversed, with more boys being misidentified as girls than the opposite. These findings are related to work demonstrating an association between masculinity and working-class speech, and to the ‘covert prestige’ attaching to such speech as a result. Some practical implications of the results for researchers in the field of child language are also discussed.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Child Language , Volume 6 , Issue 1 , February 1979 , pp. 121 - 127
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1979

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

[*]

I should like to acknowledge the helpful comments made by Cheris Kramer and Howard Giles on an earlier draft of this paper. Address for correspondence: Educational Research Centre, St Patrick's College, Dublin 9, Ireland.

References

REFERENCES

Condry, J., & Condry, S. (1976). Sex differences: a study of the eye of the beholder. ChDev 47. 812–19.Google Scholar
Edwards, A. D. (1976). Social class and linguistic choice. Sociol 10. 101–10.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fischer, J. L. (1958). Social influences on the choice of a linguistic variant. Word 14. 47–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Giles, H. & Powesland, P. F. (1975). Speech style and social evaluation. London: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Kramer, C. (1977). Perceptions of female and male speech. Lg&Sp 20. 151–61.Google ScholarPubMed
Labov, W. (1966). The social stratification of English in New York City. Washington: Center for Applied Linguistics.Google Scholar
Mazanec, N. & McCall, G. J. (1976). Sex forms and allocation of attention in observing persons. JPsychol 93. 175–80.Google Scholar
Meditch, A. (1975). The development of sex-specific speech patterns in young children. AnL 17. 421–33.Google Scholar
Sachs, J. (1975). Cues to the identification of sex in children's speech. In Thorne, B. & Henley, N. (eds), Language and sex: difference and dominance. Rowley, Mass.: Newbury.Google Scholar
Sachs, J. & Erickson, D. (1973). Anatomical and cultural determinants of male and female speech. In Shuy, R. W. & Fasold, R. W. (eds), Language attitudes: current trends and prospects. Washington: Georgetown University Press.Google Scholar
Thorne, B., & Henley, N. (eds). (1975). Language and sex: difference and dominance. Rowley, Mass.: Newbury.Google Scholar
Trudgill, P. (1972). Sex, covert prestige and linguistic change in the urban British English of Norwich. LangSoc 1. 179–95.Google Scholar
Trudgill, P. (1974). Sociolinguistics: an introduction. Harmondsworth: Penguin.Google Scholar
Weinberg, B., & Bennett, S. (1971). Speaker sex recognition of 5- and 6-year-old children's voices. JAcS 50. 1210–13.Google ScholarPubMed
Williams, J. E., Giles, H. & Edwards, J. R. (1977). Comparative analyses of sex-trait stereotypes in the United States, England and Ireland. In Poortinga, Y. H. (ed.), Basic problems in cross-cultural psychology. Amsterdam: Swets & Zeitlinger.Google Scholar