Quick questions on Language, class and age: sociolect, idiolect and youth language - OCR A-Level English Language

The commonest weakness is the value judgement: treating non-standard or youth language as "lazy" or "wrong". This is descriptively false and analytically dead. Variation is systematic and meaningful; analyse what a feature does (its function, its identity work, its prestige), and weigh which variable best explains it, recognising that class, age, ethnicity and context interact.

"The speaker's shift from 'walkin'' in casual talk to 'walking' when addressing the interviewer mirrors Labov's and Trudgill's finding that speakers move towards prestigious standard forms in more careful contexts. The variation is stylistic and class-aware: the speaker commands both forms and selects by audience, which supports style-shifting rather than fixed class speech, and shows overt prestige operating in the formal frame." This applies the research to the data.

"The group's in-group lexis ('peng', 'bare', 'mandem'), several drawn from Multicultural London English, does identity work: it marks peer-group membership and carries covert prestige. Read through Eckert's communities of practice, the shared slang is a resource for constructing identity around common activity, not a failure of standard English." This reads the function and identity work.

What is the difference between a sociolect and an idiolect? [2 marks]

What is covert prestige, and what does it explain? [2 marks]

Evaluate the view that social class is the strongest influence on the way a person speaks, with reference to data and relevant research. [16 marks]