Sex, covert prestige and linguistic change in the urban British English of Norwich

TLDR

Women tend to use prestige‑standard forms more than men, partly because working‑class speech carries favorable connotations for male speakers. The study finds that favorable attitudes toward non‑standard speech surface only in inaccurate self‑evaluation tests, and that sex‑based patterns—middle‑class women adopting standard forms and working‑class men adopting non‑standard forms—signal an ongoing linguistic change. Keywords: sociolinguistic variation, linguistic change, women's and men's speech, contextual styles, social class, British English.

Abstract

ABSTRACT Women use linguistic forms associated with the prestige standard more frequently than men. One reason for this is that working-class speech has favourable connotations for male speakers. Favourable attitudes to non-standard speech are not normally expressed, however, and emerge only in inaccurate self-evaluation test responses. Patterns of sex differentiation deviating from the norm indicate that a linguistic change is taking place: standard forms are introduced by middle-class women, non-standard forms by working-class men. (Sociolinguistic variation; linguistic change; women's and men's speech; contextual styles; social class; British English.)