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Sociolinguistics
Tutor: Andrei Avram

Perceptual sociolinguistics

1 Perceptual sociolinguistics
Perceptual sociolinguistics / Folk dialectology / Perceptual dialectology / Perceptual
sociolinguistic dialectology: The study of people’s subjective beliefs about different
dialects or linguistic varieties (Preston 1989, Meyerhoff 2006).

Perceptual sociolinguistics uses quantitative and qualitative methods related to those of

social psychology.
Perceptual sociolinguistics complements the sociolinguists’ objective focus on the way
people are recorded as speaking: people’s perceptions about language, whether
descriptively accurate or not, are as important as objective facts about how speakers talk.

2 Great Britain
Inoue (1996)
Informants: students
Method: questionnaires.
The informants rated their own dialect on a scale of accentedness vs. standardness. The
results were plotted onto the map of England. [Map 1]
Discrepancy between the geographical distribution of the students’ own dialect images
and the dialectologists’ geographical distribution of English dialects. [Map 2]

3 United States of America

3.1 United States of America
Preston (1996), Wolfram and Schilling-Estes (2006)
Evaluative judgements were elicited through instructions.
Rank the states on a scale from 1 to 10 showing where the most correct and the most
incorrect English are spoken.
Rank the states showing where the most pleasant and unpleasant English are spoken.
Rank the states where English is most and least like your variety.

New York City and the South tend to be ranked as “most incorrect” by respondents from
Michigan and Indiana.
New York City and the South tend to be ranked as “most different” by respondents from
Michigan and Indiana.
Southern American English is rated high on the scale of “pleasantness” by some Southern
respondents.
“Correctness” and “pleasantness” do not necessarily coincide: people may have
somewhat contradictory reactions to speech varieties.
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3.2 California
Bucholtz et al. (2007)
Informants:
a. number: 703;
b. gender: M (323), F (378), Decline to state (2);
c. ethnicity: European American (414), Latino (89), Asian American (79), Mixed
heritage (45), African American (29), Native American (2), Other (25), Decline to
state (14), Not classifiable (6);
d. birthplace / residence Los Angeles (193), Northern California (79), Bay
Area (48), Central Coast (40), San Diego (33), Inland (17), General
California (57), Out of state (144), Other country (89), No response (3)
Methods: questionnaires, mental maps.

The informants identified slang and other lexical labels by region.

(1) Slang and other lexical labels by region
Label Northern Bay Area Central Coast Inland Los Angeles San Diego
California
hella 78.4% 76.0% 29.4% 31.7% 0.7% 0.0%
dude 0.8% 2.5% 10.6% 7.0% 16.8% 17.2%
like 0.2% 0.8% 5.6% 8.3% 13.4% 11.1%
bro/bra 0.4% 0.4% 6.3% 7.0% 9.4% 16.2%
grip 0.4% 0.0% 4.4% 7.0% 10.1% 9.1%

The informants identified social group and attribute labels by region.

(2) Social group and attribute labels by region
Label Northern Bay Area Central Coast Inland Los Angeles San Diego
California
Hicks 26.2% 7.9% 8.8% 23.7% 8.4% 7.1%
Surfers 2.0% 5.3% 28.7% 13.5% 30.4% 30.1%
Mexicans 1.3% 2.6% 7.2% 9.6% 12.0% 20.5%
Laid-back 7.0% 6.6% 8.8% 5.8% 3.7% 3.8%
Valley girls 0.7% 1.3% 3.9% 8.5% 11.0% 5.8%
White 5.2% 3.9% 7.2% 3.6% 3.1% 3.2%
Hippies 9.6% 5.3% 2.2% 1.7% 0.5% 1.3%
Latinos 1.1% 1.3% 5.0% 5.0% 5.2% 9.0%
Upper-class 4.5% 9.2% 5.0% 1.7% 3.1% 0.0%
Gangsters 2.5% 3.9% 2.2% 2.5% 6.3% 3.2%
Asians 2.7% 10.5% 2.8% 3.3% 1.6% 1.9%
Gays 3.1% 9.2% 1.1% 0.8% 0.5% 0.0%
Blacks 2.0% 5.3% 0.6% 2.5% 1.0% 0.6%
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3.3 California
Bucholtz et al. (2008)
Informants:
a. number: 703;
b. gender: M (323), F (378), Decline to state (2);
c. ethnicity: European American (414), Latino (89), Asian American (79), Mixed
heritage (45), African American (29), Native American (2),
Other (25), Decline to state (14), Not classifiable (6);
d. birthplace / residence Los Angeles (193), Northern California (79), Bay
Area (48), Central Coast (40), San Diego (33), Inland (17), General
California (57), Out of state (144), Other country (89), No response (3)
Methods: questionnaires.

The respondents answered questions regarding the “best” and the “worst” English spoken
in California.
(3) Answers to ‘Where in California do you think people speak the best?’
Northern California 18.1%
Southern California 10.0%
Los Angeles 7.8%
Bay Area 5.9%
Sacramento 5.1%
Problematizing of question 4.9%
San Francisco 4.7%
I don’t like the question 4.6%
Other answers 38.8%
(4) Reasons for answer to ‘Where in California do you think people speak the best?’
Education / educational access 17.1%
It’s where I’m from 7.9%
Fewer immigrants, minorities / less diverse 6.4%
Wealthy 5.8%
Diverse 5.2%
Familiar 5.0%
Professional population, economic center 4.4%
Other reasons 48.0%
(5) Answers to ‘Where in California do you think people speak the worst?’
Southern California 13.8%
Los Angeles 9.8%
Northern California 9.0%
Central Valley 6.8%
Problematizing of question 5.5%
Poor, lower class 5.5%
San Diego 5.2%
Near border 5.1%
Rural / agricultural 4.3%
No best / worst 4.3%
Other answers 30.6%
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(6) Reasons given for answer to ‘Where in California do you think people speak the
worst?’
Less education / educational access 13.1%
Use annoying slang / too much slang 12.1%
Poor English 8.0%
Minorities / immigrants 6.2%
I don’t like hella / hecka 6.0%
Hard to understand / unfamiliar 4.1%
Ethnically / linguistically diverse 4.1%
Speak Spanish 3.4%
Other reasons 43.0%
(7) Reported region where people speak best by birthplace/residence of respondent
Birthplace/residence Northern California Best Southern California Best
Northern California 54 5
Southern California 36 37
(8) Reported region where people speak worst by birthplace/residence of respondent
Birthplace/residence Northern California Worst Southern California Worst
Northern California 10 55
Southern California 43 40

4 Native varieties of English

Inoue (1998)
Informants: students.
Method: questionnaires.
The respondents rated natively spoken varieties of English in terms of accentedness vs.
standardness and pastoral (rural) vs. urbanness. [Figure 4]

5 Turkey
Demirci and Kleiner (1998)
Informants: native speakers of Turkish; M and F; three age groups: 17-25, 35-45, 50+.
Method: questionnaires.

The respondents evaluated the “correctness” of the Turkish dialects spoken in 73 cities in
Turkey. [Figure 5]
The respondents evaluated the “pleasantness” of the Turkish dialects spoken in 73 cities
in Turkey. [Figure 6]
“Correctness” and “pleasantness” ratings do not coincide.
Age of respondents: “Correctness” and “pleasantness” scores are lowest in the 35-45 age
group.
Gender and age of respondents: “Correctness” scores are lowest in the 35-45 age group in
both genders. “Correctness” scores of F respondents are consistently lower than those of
M respondents. Gender and age of respondents: “Pleasantness” scores are lowest in the
35-45 age group in both genders. In the 17-25 and 50+ age groups “pleasantness” scores
of F respondents are lower than those of M evaluators. The scores of M and F
respondents coincide in the 35-45 age group.
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References
Bucholtz, M., Bermudez, N., Fung, V. Edwards, L. and Vargas, R. 2007. Hella Nor Cal or totally So Cal?:
The perceptual dialectology of California. Journal of English Linguistics 35 (4): 325-352.
Bucholtz, M., Bermudez, N., Fung, V., Vargas, R. and Edwards, L. 2008. The normative North and the
stigmatized South: Ideology and methodology in the perceptual dialectology of California. Journal
of English Linguistics 36 (1): 62-87.
Demirci, M. and Kleiner, B. 1998. Gender and age-based variation in the perception of Turkish dialects.
Language Awareness 7 (4): 206-222.
Inoue, F. 1996. Subjective dialect division in Great Britain. American Speech 71 (2): 142-161.
Meyerhoff, M. 2006. Introducing Sociolinguistics. London and New York: Routledge.
Preston, D. R. 1989. Perceptual Dialectology: Nonlinguists’ Views of Areal Linguistics. Dordrecht: Foris.
Preston, D. R. 1996. Where the worst English is spoken. In E. W. Schneider (ed.), Focus on the USA, 297-
360. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Wolfram, W., Schilling-Estes, N. 2006. American English. Dialects and Variation. Oxford: Blackwell
Publishing.