An Introduction to Applied Linguistics

3.3 Social class markers
When parents say of their teenage children that they don’t understand their language,
what they probably mean is that young people use somewhat different vocabulary;
also perhaps that the topics they talk about are not those current among their parents’
generation. This difference is an example of the general case that different groups
mark their speech in ways that distinguish it from that of others, sometimes in
grammar, more often in vocabulary and most of all in pronunciation. At the same
time these different groups share the same common language, which allows them to
communicate readily with one another, but in subtly different ways, recognised by
everyone, salient socially not linguistically.
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One of these group distinctions is that of the linguistic markers of social class,
which in English has been satirised as marking the U(pper)–non-U(pper) dis -
tinction. Examples from Ross (1978) include:
bicycle or bike
(U):
cycle
(non-U)
present
(U):
gift
(non-U)
expensive
(U):
costly
(non-U)
what?
(U):
pardon
(non-U)
money
(U):
lolly
(non-U)
sofa
(U):
settee
(non-U)
writing-paper
(U):
note-paper
(non-U)
Does it makes any sense to regard the U usages as more correct than the non-U? This
is indeed what Ross suggests. He uses the terms ‘upper class (abbreviated U), correct,
proper, legitimate, appropriate … to designate usages of the upper class; their anto -
nyms (non-U, not proper, not legitimate etc.) to designate usages which are not
upper class’ (ibid: 91).
Surely these examples are so unimportant that the argument must be fatuous. But
that of course is Ross’s point, that these variants are linguistically trivial and therefore
do not hinder communication across the class divide but at the same time mark the
social distinction very clearly. Ross calls them ‘philologically trivial and, apparently,
almost all of a very ephemeral nature’ (ibid: 104). Socially, however, they are not at
all trivial because, if Ross’s argument is to be accepted, the non-U speaker can never
convincingly become a U speaker. The non-U speaker may learn to use U usages but
always too late since new ones emerge to maintain the social difference.
This is not, however, the case with the use of non-discriminatory language, since
the campaigns in its favour take for granted that it is possible to become non-
discriminatory language users. In so doing, we are also choosing what may be
regarded as more ‘correct’.