Inquiry # 3 The Hypocrisy of Sociolinguistic Stereotypes

Michael Stubbs’s “Some Basic Sociolinguistic Concepts” takes a look at stereotypical connotations associated with speech. Particularly, the author focuses on British speech patterns. Interestingly enough, Stubbs uses quotes that show interviewees are at conflicting odds with how they perceive the speech of others and their own speech. These interviewees say things that make no sense. For example, to demonstrate a “[typical] London accent,” a teacher uses the sentence “We ain’t go no money,” drawing particular attention to the “tendency to drop the aitch off…words” (66). The thing about this selection that makes no sense is that there are no aitches to drop in the sentence she read. What is more, she also refers to this tendency as a “lazy way of speaking” even though she uses the contraction “d’you” which could be considered a lazier way of speaking (silent aitches do occur in standard English and other languages, however, the contraction “d’you” is something that only appears in speech). I have to wonder if I am misreading what this teacher meant when she said lazy. That word seems to carry a bit of negative connotation with it; in that the people who are too lazy to pronounce a letter that may or may not be silent are probably lazy and ineffective at other things in life. Is this the sort of stereotype she places on all people from London or just people who speak this way?

Similarly, a student heard a recording and said that the speaker “sort of [sounded] as if they weren’t very well brought up theirselves” citing “pretty awful” grammar in the sentence “It only sort of went in a little bit.” (67-8) Of all the problems she may have found with the grammar or any other aspect of the recording, the thing she obsesses over is the phrase “sort of,” claiming “you’re not meant to say sort of,” and that it makes one sound almost primitive. However, she acknowledges that she says it. She also admits that she “associate[s] that sort of thing with people who haven’t really been taught to say it better.” So what does this say about the girl herself? She says that the phrase is primitive and transfers that idea onto the speaker. However, I do not get the feeling that she feels she acts primitively, and only as it is brought out in the interview does she seem to notice that she uses the phrase herself. And thus lays the hypocrisy of language related stereotypes. No one speaks perfect standard English, so how can anyone judge some else as having not been “well brought up” based on speech, when the same could probably be said for that judge?