William Lebov - New York study (1966)

William Labov – 1966 New York Study – individual speech patterns are “part of a highly systematic structure of social and stylistic stratification”

–       Labov studied how often the final or preconsonantal (r) was sounded in words like guard, bare and beer. Use of this variable has considerable prestige in New York City.
–       The speech of sales assistants in three Manhattan stores, drawn from the top (Saks), middle (Macy’s) and bottom (Klein’s) of the price and fashion scale. Each unwitting informant was approached with a factual enquiry designed to elicit the answer – “Fourth floor” – which may or may not contain the variable final or preconsonantal (r). A pretence not to have heard it obtained a repeat performance in careful, emphatic style.
–       Frequency of use of the prestige variable final or preconsonantal “r” varied with level of formality and social class – the sales assistants from Saks used it most, those from Klein’s used it least and those from Macy’s showed the greatest upward shift when they were asked to repeat.
–       Of the four classes tested – Lower Class, Working Class, Lower Middle Class & Upper Middle Class – it was the lower middle class that were most susceptible to the overt prestige of the preconsonantal “r” – as they differed the most between the incidence in casual speech style (4%) to most careful speech style (77%).
–       That the Upper Middle Class cohort differed least between the casual and careful speech styles – (19% in casual and 60% in careful), showed that they were least susceptible to the prestige form, changing the way they spoke less than any other social class when thinking carefully about how they spoke.
–       All of the 3 lower classes: Lower Class, Working Class & Lower Middle Class are more aware of the prestige of the preconsonantal “r” , and when they think about it are more likely to change the way they speak to reflect “how they should sound” or how “post people sound”