In the last part, we briefly discussed the details of linguistic insecurity's implications on a society. Today, we will continue that discussion.

Linguist William Labov noticed that cities had great -- and fairly distinct -- social stratification. He wanted to see if this affected people's language, so he conducted a study called "The Social Stratification of (r) in New York City Department Stores." Labov designed this study to be cleverly subtle in gauging what he wanted to measure: whether there was a correlation between New York City's social classes and their use of the letter "r" in pronouncing words like "fourth" and "floor."

There is a line between "stigma" and "prestige" in a speaker's status. At the prestige end, people are usually of high socioeconomic classes; at the stigma end, lower socioeconomic status (or SES for short). Between the two areas is a place called "covert prestige," which is demonstrated by a person who embraces their stigmatized speech as a way to "belong" to a lower SES group.

Take, for example, African American Vernacular English; it is a stigmatized dialect that belongs to a group of people who generally have lower economic status, but speakers of AAVE usually use this speech with pride. If they were to be called "articulate," or good at speaking Standard American English, they may be offended because they can be just as articulate in AAVE, but society wouldn't recognize it as "correct" speech. Even so, speakers of AAVE use their language as a way to identify with their social groups. Mary Bucholtz's study on "The Whiteness of Nerds" showed that African Americans who adopted SAE speech were alienated by their AAVE speaking families and called "brainiacs." AAVE speakers demonstrate covert prestige if they speak it just to fit in with other AAVE speakers.

If they deviate from the norm and speak SAE instead, they are demonstrating "borrowed" prestige, which results in overcompensation (linguistically) due to insecurity of one's own language. Social hyper-correction, or the cross-over effect, occurs when a speaker of a lower SES group overkills his or her efforts to speak with a more prestigious tongue; they might say things in a way that even speakers of the higher class wouldn't say.

Anyway, back to Labov's study. He studied three department stores in NYC: Saks Fifth Avenue, Macy's, and S. Klein. Each one represented a different socioeconomic class, with Saks being the highest class, Macy's at a middle-class range, and S. Klein at the lowest class (this was based on prices of goods, quality of goods, geographical location within NYC, and status of neighboring stores). Labov went to each of these three stores and asked an employee a question that would result in a reply of "Fourth floor." For example, Labov might ask "What floor are the women's shoes on?" to which an employee would answer "Fourth floor." Labov would then say "Excuse me?" and the employee would repeat his or her answer, this time emphasizing each word more carefully (as one does when they have to repeat themselves).

If you haven't caught on to where Labov was going with this, here it is: he wanted to see if lower SES store employees left out the pronunciation of "r" in their replies. In Saks Fifth Avenue, Labov found that employees pronounced "Fourth floor" in the SAE way, saying "FouRth" and "FlooR." In S. Klein, employees said "fouth floo (flouh)" instead. The lack of "r" seemed to suggest a lower SES.

It's extremely interesting to note that the employees working at all of these stores -- Saks, Macy's, and S. Klein -- are all paid about the same wage. Many even come from the same SES group. Why, then, do the Saks employees adopt a way of speaking that higher SES people use? Furthermore, why do S. Klein employees speak in a way that suggests lower SES?

Labov believed that Saks employees demonstrated borrowed prestige, where they strived to fit into the high SES environment of their workplace. The customers who frequented Saks Fifth Avenue were all of higher SES (generally speaking), so employees of this store wanted to come off as an in-group member to customers. Thus, they tried to fit in by speaking with "r" sounds. On the other hand, employees at S. Klein were used to the lower SES customers who came to their store everyday, so they used the lack of "r" to fit in. Had S. Klein employees used higher SES speech, they could have been seen as out-group members. S. Klein employees are actually demonstrating covert prestige by choosing to use a lower prestige form of speech to fit in with their environment.

Language does wonders to explain trends found in the socioeconomic world, and Labov's study is just one example. Stay tuned for Part 8 to read the next chapter of this series!