William Lebov - Martha's Vineyard study (1972)

William Labov –Martha’s Vineyard Study – individual speech patterns are “part of a highly systematic structure of social and stylistic stratification”

–       Martha’s Vineyard is an island lying about 3 miles off New England on the East Coast of the United States of America, with a permanent population of about 6000. However over 40,000 visitors, known somewhat disparagingly as the ‘summer people’, flood in every summer.
–       In his study, Labov focused on realisations of the diphthongs [aw] and [ay] (as in mouse and mice). He interviewed a number of speakers drawn from different ages and ethnic groups on the island, and noted that among the younger (31-45 years) speakers a movement seemed to be taking place away from the pronunciations associated with the standard New England norms, and towards a pronunciation associated with conservative and characteristically Vineyard speakers – the Chilmark fishermen.
–       The heaviest users of this type of pronunciation were young men who actively sought to identify themselves as Vineyarders, rejected the values of the mainland, and resented the encroachment of wealthy summer visitors on the traditional island way of life. Thus, these speakers seem to be exploiting the resources of the non-standard accent. The pattern emerged despite extensive exposure of speakers to the educational system; some college educated boys from Martha’s Vineyard were extremely heavy users of the vernacular vowels.
–       A small group of fishermen began to exaggerate a tendency already existing in their speech. They did this seemingly subconsciously, in order to establish themselves as an independent social group with superior status to the despised summer visitors. A number of other islanders regarded this group as one which epitomised old virtues and desirable values, and subconsciously imitated the way its members talked. For these people, the new pronunciation was an innovation. As more and more people came to speak in the same way, the innovation gradually became the norm for those living on the island.
–       Rather than the increased exposure to the standard New-England accent leading to dialect / accent levelling, the islanders exaggerated the pronunciation of vernacular vowels leading to a more pronounced difference and thus a greater level of variation
–       This tendency noted by Labov – how covert prestige pronunciations can take hold and further entrench themselves – can be noted with many current variants in England. For example, the scouse accent is becoming more entrenched. Also, as young people are seeking to define themselves more and more as a group, outside of their gender or class types, the use of MLE can be seen to be getting more exaggerated, which happens either consciously or subconsciously.