Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-t5tsf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-15T11:28:53.418Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Adolescent social structure and the spread of linguistic change

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 December 2008

Penelope Eckert
Penelope Eckert
Affiliation:
Department of Linguistics, University of Illinois, Chicago
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Detailed participant observation among Detroit area adolescents provides explanations for the mechanisms of the spread of sound change outward from urban areas and upward through the socioeconomic hierarchy. The use of local phonological variables in adolescence is determined by a social structure within the age cohort, dominated by two opposed, and frequently polarized, school-based social categories. These categories, called “Jocks” and “Burnouts” in the school under study, embody middle-class and working-class cultures respectively, and articulate adolescent social structure with adult socioeconomic class. Differences between Jock and Burnout cultures entail differences in social network structure and in orientation to the urban area, and hence to urban sound changes. Parents' socioeconomic class is related to, but does not determine, category affiliation, and while category affiliation is a significant predictor in phonological variation, parents' socioeconomic class is not. (Variation, sound change, adolescents, urban dialects, suburban dialects, schools)

Type
Articles
Information
Language in Society , Volume 17 , Issue 2 , June 1988 , pp. 183 - 207
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1988

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.)

References

REFERENCES

Callary, R. E. (1975). Phonological change and the development of an urban dialect in Illinois. Language in Society 4: 155–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chambers, J., & Trudgill, P. (1980). Dialectology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Cicourel, A. V., & Kitsuse, J. I. (1963). The educational decision-makers. New York: Bobbs Merrill.Google Scholar
Coleman, J. S. (1961). The adolescent society. New York: The Free Press of Glencoe.Google Scholar
Coleman, J. S. (1966). Equality of educational opportunity. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office.Google Scholar
Eckert, Penelope (1982). Clothing and geography in a suburban school. In Kotlak, C. P. (ed.), Researching American Culture. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 139–144.Google Scholar
Eckert, Penelope (1983). Beyond the statistics of adolescent smoking. American Journal of Public Health 73, 4, 439–441.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eckert, Penelope (1986). The development of social meaning in sound change. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting, Linguistic Society of America, New York.Google Scholar
Eckert, Penelope (forthcoming). Jocks and Jells: Social identity in the high school.Google Scholar
Eckert, P., Edwards, A., & Robins, L. (1985). Biological categories in linguistic variation. Paper presented at the fourteenth annual conference on New Ways of Analyzing Variation in English. University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia.Google Scholar
Eisenstadt, S. N. (1956). From generation to generation. New York: The Free Press of Glencoe.Google Scholar
Hollingshead, A. B. (1949). Elmtown's youth. New York: John Wiley & Sons.Google Scholar
Kanter, R. M. (1977). Men and women of the corporation. New York: Basic.Google Scholar
Labov, W. (1966). The social stratification of English in New York City. Washington, D.C.: Center for Applied Linguistics.Google Scholar
Labov, W., Yaeger, M., & Steiner, R. (1972). A quantitative study of sound change in progress. Report on NSF Project No. 65–3287.Google Scholar
Larkin, R. W. (1979). Suburban youth in cultural crisis. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Macaulay, R. K. S. (1977). Language, social class, and education. Edinburgh: University Press.Google Scholar
Milroy, L. (1980). Language and social networks. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.Google Scholar
Milroy, L. (1982). Social network and linguistic focusing. In Romaine, S. (ed.), Sociolinguistic variation in speech communities. London: Edward Arnold, 141–52.Google Scholar
Romaine, S. (1984). The language of children and adolescents. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.Google Scholar
Stinchcombe, A. (1964). Rebellion in a high school. Chicago: Quadrangle.Google Scholar
Trudgill, P. (1972). Sex, covert prestige and linguistic change in the urban British English of Norwich. Language in Society 1: 179–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Trudgill, P. (1974a). Linguistic change and diffusion: Description and explanation in sociolinguistic dialect geography. Language in Society 3: 215–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Trudgill, P. (1974b). The social differentiation of English in Norwich. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Wolfram, W. A. (1969). A sociolinguistic description of Detroit Negro speech. Washington, D.C.: Center for Applied Linguistics.Google Scholar