"Thanks, no problem, pleasure, don't mention it, thanks"

I once heard that how someone treats a waiter can say a lot about their character. What about the way a waiter responds? Researcher Larssyn Rüegg thinks that there may be differences in how waiters respond to their customers’ thanks, based on the kind of restaurant they are in.

While previous research has looked into how various languages may differ in this pragmatic function of the thanks response, none so far has looked into how thanks response might vary within a single language. Rüegg's research is based in part on a previous work by Klaus Schneider who typified different forms of thanks responses. An example is the welcome type which include a spoken phrase such as 'you're welcome', or even just 'welcome'. Other types include okay, anytime, no problem, pleasure, don't mention it, thanks, yeah, sure, and don't worry about it. Rüegg extends this study by asking what influences these types of response. She identifies two potential factors: socio-economic setting and the type of favor.

It is strongly supported by research that service staff tend to select a style of speech deemed appropriate to their clientele, so their speech would therefore reflect social stratification. Based on this, Rüegg decided to use a corpus of naturally occurring talk in restaurants of different price ranges to exemplify different socio-economic settings. This corpus, the Los Angeles Restaurant Corpus (LARC) contains three categories, LARC-up, LARC-mid, and LARC-low, each reflecting their price range.

The first finding from this study is as we would expect: thanks responses in LARC-up and LARC-mid were 50% more frequent than that of LARC-low. Yet, even the frequency of thanks responses in LARC-up and LARC-mid are quite low, with expressions of thanks being responded to less than 25% of the time.

The form of thanks responses also differs across the socio-economic categories. For example, the most common response types in LARC-up and LARC-mid, such as welcome and thank you, are not found in LARC-low. Furthermore, customers in the LARC-low restaurants use thanks responses that are not present in both LARC-up and LARC-mid, such as yeah, and absolutely. Interestingly, LARC-mid display the most variation in types of thanks responses.

The type of act which waiters are thanked for shows distinctive patterns as well. A non-verbal service act elicits the most thanks responses in LARC-up and LARC-mid. Such acts include clearing or setting the table, or perhaps bringing the bill. Interestingly, such acts never elicit a thanks response in LARC-low. Enquiries by the service staff about the guests' well-being do not elicit a thanks response in LARC-low either. Serving food or drinks is correlated with socio-economic setting, with customers in LARC-up giving the most thanks responses, and those in LARC-low the least. On the other hand, verbal offers of service such as Do you need more wine? Anything else? more consistently generate thanks responses across all categories.

Through this research, we can see that thanks responses in English are not very frequent on the whole. This is in contrast to some other languages. In addition, the sensitivity of thanks responses to socio-economic setting suggest that they are a subtle form of cultural encoding, with common responses in LARC-up and LARC-mid restaurants possibly signalling formality. Furthermore, thanks responses do not appear to be very standardized, with a wide range of forms being used, especially in LARC-mid and LARC-low. The fact that the type of service performed elicits differing thanks responses across the different socio-economic settings reinforces the sense that these small linguistic acts are actually a rich form of interactional management and cultural signalling.

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Rüegg, Larssyn. 2014. Thanks responses in three socio-economiuc settings: A variational pragmatics approach. Journal of Pragmatics 71: 17-30

doi. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2014.07.005

This summary was written by Darren Hum Chong Kai 

The Queen’s Speech

Picture this: it’s Christmas day, you’re overloaded with turkey, surrounded by the remnants of wrapping paper and you’ve just settled down to watch the Queen’s annual speech. It’s a tradition for many at Christmas. But, what if I told you that the Queen’s speech isn’t the same as it was in more recent decades than, say, in the 1950’s. Of course, here I’m not talking about the content of her speech (of course that changes year by year!), but rather her pronunciation of what is sometimes referred to as ‘the Queen’s English’. 

Jonathan Harrington along with colleagues set out to find out how changes in society have influenced the ‘Queen’s English’ by examining the Queen’s speech in her Annual Christmas broadcast over three time periods. This synopsis focusses on just one of these papers, Harrington, Palethorpe & Watson (2000).

The ‘Queen’s English’ or Received Pronunciation (RP) as linguists refer to it, is a variety of English spoken by some upper-class individuals and is often associated with power, money and privilege. It also happens to be the variety of English spoken by Queen Elizabeth II (hence the name!). Typically, RP is characterised by pronunciations such as ‘gep’ for ‘gap’ and ‘bottle’ where both of the t’s are still pronounced as t’s, as opposed to ‘bo’le’.

But, as sociolinguists know, language changes over time. This is particularly the case for RP, which has been influenced by the changing social class boundaries between upper-, middle- and working-class communities. These changes are likely to influence language use. As Harrington and colleagues observe, these changes have already influenced RP, such that the tendency to pronounce an ‘l’ in a word like milk as something like a ‘w’ – a feature that was once typical of working-class varieties, such as Cockney – is now regularly heard in the speech of many RP speakers. So, then, how do these changes relate to the ‘Queen’s English’?

By examining the Queen’s Christmas address across three different time periods (1950’s, late 1960/ early 70’s, 1980’s), Harrington and his colleagues examined how the changing social landscape related to the Queen’s English. They did this by looking at what linguists refer to as ‘acoustic properties’ of the Queen’s vowels. Vowels, like other sound forms (e.g., music) can be measured in Hz. These measurements are then plotted onto a graph and linguists are able to track changes in the way a particular vowel was pronounced over time or by speaker.

In Harrington and colleagues’ analysis, they measured the acoustic properties of 11 vowels, including those in the words: heed, hid, and hoard. They also compared the Queen’s pronunciation of these vowels with data from Standard Southern British English speaking females to see how the Queen’s speech related to more general patterns of speech.

What they find is that, over time, the Queen’s English appears to have moved towards the pronunciation typical of the Standard British English speaking females. Although she doesn’t mirror their speech, the English spoken by the Queen in the 1980’s appears to be dramatically different than the variety she spoke in the 50’s, sounding more like younger speakers who are lower on the social class hierarchy - in other words, the Queen has become less posh!

For instance, in the next two videos, compare how the Queen says ‘Happy Christmas’ in 1950 (0.31, in the first video), where happy is pronounced more like ‘heppy’ and in 1980, where it pronounced more like ‘happy’ (8.55, in the video below).

So, it seems that, whilst the Queen may have become less ‘posh’, it’s quite clear that she’s not part of the Royle family just yet.

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Harrington, J., Palethorpe, S., and Watson, C. (2000). Monophthongal vowel changes in Received Pronunciation: an acoustic analysis of the Queen’s Christmas Broadcasts. Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 63-78.

• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0025100300006666

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See also: 

Harrington, J., Palethorpe, S., and Watson, C. (2000). Does the Queen speak the Queen's English? Nature, 408, 927-928

Harrington, J. (2006). An acoustic analysis of ‘happy-tensing’ in the Queen’s Christmas broadcasts, Journal of Phonetics, 34 439–457. 


This summary was written by Christian Ilbury

"I'm so Fancy"

Remember Iggy Azalea? Well, if you were just about anywhere in 2014, you might recall her smash hit song 'Fancy' featuring Charli XCX. In fact, that song was so popular that it earnt Iggy Ig's a Billboard award for the 'biggest ever hit for a female rapper'. But whilst she might be one of the most recognisable Hip-Hop artists of the current period, you might also recall that she's faced quite a lot of criticism too with many referencing the difference between her ethnicity (as a White Australian) and her distinctive rapping-style which has been referred to as a 'Blaccent' (literally a 'black accent'). 

But, why does Iggy sound 'Black'? And why do people perceive Iggy to have a 'Blaccent'? These are two questions that Maeve Eberhardt  & Kara Freeman decided to investigate in their 2015 paper.

By transcribing Iggy's entire back catalogue of albums, EPs and mixtapes, Eberhardt & Freeman set about analysing her distinctive rapping style. With newspaper articles referring to Iggy's 'Blaccent', the authors examined her use of features typically found in African American English (AAE) in her rap music. As a speech variety, AAE is typically spoken by Black individuals (i.e., African American) speakers who live in parts of Northern America.

One feature that the authors decided to explore is 'copula absence' which describes the tendency for speakers to pronounce the sentence "he's in here" as "he in here" - in other words, the verb 'be' (is/are) is absent from the sentence.

Whilst this feature occurs in many varieties (including some varieties of British English), in AAE, researchers have found certain patterns that seem unique to the variety. In particular, they have found that speakers tend to use higher amounts of copula absence before certain types of words and that this feature is more likely when the verb occurs before gonna as in "she gonna go home" and least likely before noun-phrases "Marie's in there".

Remarkably, by analysing Iggy's rapping style, Eberhardt & Freeman found good evidence to suggest that she wasn't just using copula deletion randomly but, rather, her use of this feature mirrored the same patterns that native AAE speakers exhibit! However, when they analysed Iggy's interviews, they found that she rarely uses copula deletion.

Iggy in an interview - sounds Australian, huh? 

So, why does Iggy use a variety that's typically spoken by Black African Americans in her rap but not in interviews? One such explanation has to do with the music industry and genre that she's working in: Hip-Hop. As an art-form that originated in Black communities in the U.S., many of these artists come from this community and typically those who speak AAE - think of Jay Z or Lil Wayne. As such, the language associated with this genre of music - the 'Hip-Hop Nation Language' (HHNL; Alim, 2004) - is largely based in AAE and shares many features of this variety.

In order to get by and sell records, it seems then that you need to use the 'code' that's typical of the genre and rap in HHNL. But, as a White Australian, Iggy doesn't really look or sound like a Hip-Hop artist... Hip-Hop in an Australian accent doesn't seem to work! Herein lies the explanation for her performance of AAE.

Eberhardt & Freeman argue that she uses AAE to sound like a 'real' Hip-Hop artist in order to sell records. And she does this quite well- as we've seen she uses the same features in the right 'slots' as a native speaker. But, whilst she might be able to speak AAE like a native speaker, it seems that her performance is still pretty problematic. In fact, there are virtually hundreds of articles on Iggy's 'cultural appropriation' of AAE, with many referencing her use of this variety and her lack of authenticity as a White Australian.

So whilst Iggy may be claiming to be a "a white girl with a flow ain't been seen before" it seems that she's not the "realest" after all...

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Eberhardt, Maeve & Kara Freeman (2015) ‘First things first, I'm the realest’: Linguistic appropriation, white privilege, and the hip‐hop persona of Iggy Azalea. Journal of Sociolinguistics. 19(3):303-327.

This summary was written by Christian Ilbury

https://doi.org/10.1111/josl.12128

Address terms in Grime

No British genre better highlights the effects of globalisation than Grime music: an amalgam of Garage, Jungle, Hip Hop and Dancehall which emerged from pirate radio stations in East London in the early 2000s. Through Grime, the artists (known as MCs), who are often youths from marginalised, multi-ethnic areas, discuss the hardships of their upbringing. 

I set out to analyse how Grime MCs addressed and referred to other people in their lyrics, in the hope of understanding what defined their interpersonal relationships: familiarity (mutual knowledge of personal information), solidarity (mutual rights and obligations) or affect (mutual like or dislike).

I extracted and coded 589 nominal address and reference terms from 27 Youtube videos by six MCs: 2 from London, 2 from North England and 2 from Cardiff, with approximately 100 terms per MC. All terms were coded for three categories: (1) the addressee or referent  (peer, police, rival, friend, family, artist, female, or other; (2) the emotional context: negative, positive, derogatory or neutral; (3) kinship (kinship, non-kinship or voluntary kinship, meaning using a kinship term for someone who is not a blood relative, such as using bro (‘brother’) to refer to a friend.

106 different terms emerged, with the most frequent showing that all six MCs draw on the same cultural influences. The first group of frequent terms is man, don, mandem, blud and brudda, which all have Jamaican Creole roots. The second group are British or American English terms: fam, mum, and guys, while the third group of terms are affiliated with Hip-Hop: dawg, cuz, nigga.

Delving deeper, I found that negativity was common in the MCs’ lyrics, as in “Blud, I’ll get physical for you”. In fact, of 130 address terms, only seven were non-negative. This is partly explained by the tradition of boasting in Hip-Hop, where MCs use insults to win lyrical battles against opponents. This negativity indicates that affect is not central to their relationships, but what about familiarity and solidarity?

Voluntary kinship terms were also frequent and, interestingly, were often used in negative contexts, such as “Bury your spleen fam”. Sociologists argue that when we face instability, we create fictive ties with others to create a safer world. MCs may therefore use kinship terms to address and refer to non-family members to show that they belong to the Grime community. However, these terms are simultaneously placed in a negative context so that the MCs can engage in lyrical competitions of honour. Given that they use these terms for people they do not know, familiarity doesn’t seem to be the most defining feature of their relationships.

Every MC had a slightly different style, with some drawing more on Jamaican Creole terms whilst others focused on terms from Multicultural London English. MCs in Cardiff were more likely to use British or American English terms, whereas those from London included more Hip-Hop terms. However, there were also nationwide patterns: for example, all six MCs used MLE terms like man and fam, and they addressed and referred to the same people, such as rivals and the police. Even though MCs in the Grime community do not know one another, or necessarily like one another, these patterns in their address and reference system suggest that solidarity is crucial for their interpersonal relationships. It signals that they are part of a wider cultural in-group which unites adolescents from marginalised multi-ethnic areas. I conceptualise this as an imagined community, in the sense of Benedict Anderson (2006, Imagined communities: Reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism. London: Verso Books). The system certainly reflects hostility, hypermasculinity and individual expression, but it is ultimately based on shared grievances that come from their social neglect. The comradeship expressed in their lyrics allows them to turn their negative experiences into a positive celebration of their existence.

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Adams, Zoe (2018) "I don’t know why man’s calling me family all of a sudden”: Address and reference terms in grime music. Language and Communication 60: 11-27.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.langcom.2018.01.004


This summary was written by Zoe Adams

OMG! Is texting wrecking our language?

How many times have you heard someone say that texting is ruining your spelling? Or, perhaps even more dramatically, the whole English language? It’s a point of debate that has only intensified with the advent of smartphones and permanent connection to the Internet wherever you go, but – as you may not be surprised to hear – linguists find that the situation is actually more complicated than that.

- See you l8er?
- LOL

Sali Tagliamonte, along with various colleagues and students at the University of Toronto, did a study between 2009 and 2010, where they collected almost 200,000 words of data. These were conversations from emails, texts and instant messenger conversations, which mostly came from Facebook – all forms of computer mediated communication, or CMC for short. The students, along with these samples, were also asked to show a piece of formal written work, as a point of comparison. Tagliamonte chose to analyse three different linguistic features across the corpus: acronyms and other short forms, such as lol; intensifiers, such as really or literally; and future temporal reference, or more specifically, the use of go in the future tense. After checking their frequency across the four formats, Tagliamonte found some interesting results.

Unsurprisingly, the formal written work had no acronyms, and very few intensifiers; only very, out of all of them, showed up. As for the future tense, the only attested form was will – bog-standard formal English. So far, so boring. Where the interesting divisions lie is when looking at the different types of CMC.

Emails were found to consistently be the most formal, with writing coming in much larger chunks than their texted or messaged counterparts, and very few acronyms or intensifiers. Then there was a tie between SMS (texts) and IM (instant messages), with more rapid exchange of turns, and far more acronyms and intensifiers. In particular, the intensifier so was very common in the SMS corpus, probably because this was back in the dark ages of character limits on text messages. On the other hand, going to as a temporal marker was actually less common than its other future tense counterparts. This suggests that, contrary to Tagliamonte’s original prediction, the use of going to is actually more conservative than other shortened forms such as i’ll and ima. The upshot of these observations, though, is that the students had stable registers across each form of writing, with the grammar remaining stable in each medium.

Another interesting observation was the trajectory of the acronym lol. Evidence in this corpus shows it is still the most popular of all CMC acronyms, but it has been found to have decreased in use, before increasing again. By examining its placement in the sentence (whether it was used in the middle of a phrase or at the ends), Tagliamonte found that it was usually used at the end of sentences and standing alone, suggesting it is now being used as filler.

Of course, the study still has some drawbacks. For one, as Tagliamonte notes, there was still a strong distinction between texts and instant messages back in 2010, as not everyone had smartphones with full access to the Internet. Now that everyone uses Whatsapp, iMessage, or whatever other messenger app you care to use, the distinction between texting and instant messaging has been blurred. If the study were to be repeated now, therefore, there would almost be no point in separating the two as different categories. There is also the issue of emojis; is it possible that the popular lol has now been overthrown by😃? Regardless, however, it is fairly certain to say you won’t be writing “omg Macbeth was so crazy lol” in an English essay any time soon!

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Tagliamonte, S. A.  in collaboration with Dylan Uscher, Lawrence Kwok, and students from HUM199Y 2009 and 2010 (2016). So sick or so cool? The language of youth on the internet. Language in Society 45: 1-32.

doi: 10.1017/S0047404515000780

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This summary was written by MarinaMerryweather