SOCIETAL CHANGE AND THE CONSTRUCT OF SOCIAL CLASS: THE CASE OF THREE SOCIOPHONETIC VARIABLES IN CARACAS SPANISHManuel Díaz-Campos, Stephen Fafulas, Michael

Gradoville

Indiana University

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SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS NOVEMBER 6, 2010

NWAV 39

Motivation for this study 2

Several previous investigations (Díaz-Campos 2005, Díaz-Campos and Ruiz-Sánchez 2008) found similar patterns regarding age and socioeconomic class

Using these previous analyses, we decided to further look into the demographics of the corpus in terms of education, occupation, and social context of Venezuela

Overview

Traditionally, sociolinguists incorporate a combination of factors (e.g. occupation, education, income, property value) in their construction of a socioeconomic class index

Static definitions fail to account for societal change

Flores-Ferrán (2010) calls for a revision of traditional approaches to socioeconomic class, emphasizing the importance of considering speakers’ background and the dynamics of the speech community under observation

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Overview

For example, from 1989 to 1999, many countries saw an increase in college degrees awarded to college-aged people (Snyder & Hoffman 2002: 483)

Socioeconomic class, even when properly defined, may miss certain societal changes which could add to the explanation of the linguistic patterning of the speech community

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Overview

Examine the influence of increased access to education on the linguistic behavior of different generations of the same socioeconomic class

Context: Spanish of Caracas, Venezuela

Venezuela, like many other countries, saw an increase in rates of education during the latter half of the 20th century

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Overview6

According to Haggerty (1990): Overall, Venezuela is among the most literate of

Latin American countries Literacy rate among Venezuelans fifteen years of age

and older was 88.4 percent in 1985 Venezuela's education system, measured by

number of schools, teachers, and size of enrollment, expanded rapidly in the 1970s and 1980s

Enrollments at all levels increased substantially, as did the numbers of schools and teachers at each level

Primary enrollments rose by over 30 percent and secondary by over 50 percent, while university-level enrollments nearly doubled

Overview7

The improvement of human capital by way of education has been one of the greatest achievements of Venezuela (Velásquez 1979: 797)

Years Elementary High School University Total1950-51 503 91.9% 37 6.8% 7 1.3% 5471960-61 1.244 85.7% 181 12.4% 26 1.9% 1.4511970-71 1.824 75.8% 498 20.7% 84 3.5% 2.4061975-76 2.511 69.8% 831 23.1% 255 7.1% 3.597

Source: Ministry of Education Venezuela

Number (in thousands) of students enrolled by level of education in Venezuela

Phenomena

Syllable-final /ɾ/ deletion (i.e. [kantáɾ] vs [kantá] ‘to sing’)

Intervocalic /ɾ/ deletion in para ‘for’ (i.e. [páɾa] vs. [pá])

Intervocalic /d/ deletion (i.e. [kantáo] vs [kantáo] ‘sung’)

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Phenomena: syllable-final /ɾ/

(D’Introno, Rojas & Sosa 1979)

External constraints that favor deletion in Caracas:

Lower class speakers Male speakers

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Phenomena: Intervocalic /ɾ/ in para Mention of para reduction appears in many

dialectal studies, although little empirical investigation exists (Garcia 1979)

Bentivoglio et al (2005) GoldVarb analysis of1599 tokens of pa(ra)

alternation Both forms exist in all socioeconomic classes

while pa is mostly associated with informal speech Results: lower socioeconomic level and 60+ aged

speakers favor use of the reduced form pa

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Phenomena: intervocalic /d/

Descriptive literature: Henríquez Ureña (1921) , Navarro Tomás (1999),

Lapesa (1981), and Lipski (1994: 349)

Sociolinguistic studies of intervocalic /d/ Samper-Padilla 1996, Hernández-Campoy and

Jiménez-Cano 2003, and D’Introno and Sosa 1986

D’Introno and Sosa 1986: In formal styles upper and middle class

speakers favored retention more so than the lower socioeconomic group

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Background

Romaine (1984) emphasizes the differences between the language spoken at home and at school

This observation reveals that at school students are exposed to more formal registers and the normative linguistic variants of the speech community

In a study on the acquisition of sociolinguistic variables by children, Díaz-Campos (2006) shows that, as early as 4.5 years of age, children begin to adopt the normative variants they are exposed to after their first year of schooling

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Background

Although reference has been made to the effect of education on use of linguistic variables, little empirical evidence has been given (Bentivoglio & Sedano in press)

Sociolinguistic studies usually incorporate education in their definition of socioeconomic class (Chambers 1995: 43-45)

In this study we show empirically that changes in education across generations directly impact the use of normative forms

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Research questions

What are the effects of education on the use of non-reduced variants for intervocalic /ɾ/, syllable-final /ɾ/, and intervocalic /d/?

How does education interact with socioeconomic class?

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Corpus

Speech samples were analyzed from the corpus Estudio Sociolingüístico del Habla de Caracas (Bentivoglio & Sedano 1993) with equal representation of: socioeconomic level (upper class, middle

class, and working class) age (14-29, 30-45, and 61 and older) sex (male and female)

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Results

Syllable-final /ɾ/, rates of retention organized by socioeconomic class and age group

N = 7200

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Results

Intervocalic /ɾ/ in para, rates of retention organized by socioeconomic class and age group

N = 2891

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Results

Intervocalic /d/, rates of retention organized by socioeconomic class and age group

N = 7200

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Corpus demographics: Access to education

Education level by age and social class

Upper

Middle

Lower

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Corpus demographics: Occupational Consequences

Occupation by age and social class

Upper

Middle

Lower

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Discussion

Increased access to education among the lower socioeconomic class results in a higher use of the non-reduced (normative) variants

For all variables, the younger generation of the lower class uses less of the reduced variants than their older counterparts

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Discussion

In this way, increased access to education appears to be pulling back changes that existed in the speech community (final /ɾ/ deletion, intervocalic /ɾ/ deletion in para, intervocalic /d/ deletion)

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Conclusions

The findings of this investigation reveal that upper and middle class speakers are less likely to use reduced variants than the lower socioeconomic speakers in the community

The linguistic behavior of the lower socioeconomic class can in part be explained by observing the demographic shift of the Venezuelan speech community under observation Level of education & occupation

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Conclusions

Increased access to education has also led to a shift in occupations: the number of younger people holding jobs in office and professional settings where normative language is expected has risen

As access to education increases in younger generations, a sharp rise in the use of the normative variants is reflected in the lowest socioeconomic class

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Conclusions

Despite the increase in education levels there continues to be marked differences between the lower socioeconomic class and the other two

It is important to consider the individual contribution of each factor used in the socioeconomic index

This study reveals that in interpreting sociolinguistic data, researchers need to consider the impact of societal changes when addressing social class

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References 

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