so. This is the first linguistic trait they've discovered to kick in
at so late an age, and they don't have an explanation; but they
haven't yet investigated non-college people of that age (it's harder
to recruit them!).

Surprising, indeed, since I can hardly listen to my children and their
friends without noticing how they're aware of sosiolinguistic variation.

On Mar 20, 6:19 pm, "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote:

so. This is the first linguistic trait they've discovered to kick in
at so late an age, and they don't have an explanation; but they
haven't yet investigated non-college people of that age (it's harder
to recruit them!).

Might this have to do with the "scientific" notion that the human
brain doesn't fully develop until ... <drumroll> 25 years of age?

(The scare quotes are there because I've heard this about the brain
several times in the past few months from the popular media - a
virtual guarantee that the source idea has gotten skewed in some way.)

So this afternoon I went to a talk by Bill Labov, where he described
his recent investigations of the SLM, the sociolinguistic monitor,
the thing we have that enables us to identify social status from
dialect.

It turns out that this ability is remarkably uniform across all the
populations investigated, with one exception: most of the subjects
were the readily available college students, and it turns out there's
a divide between the 18-20-year-olds and the 25-and-ups: the former
are not sensitive to sociolinguistic variation, the latter are fully
so. This is the first linguistic trait they've discovered to kick in
at so late an age, and they don't have an explanation; but they
haven't yet investigated non-college people of that age (it's harder
to recruit them!).

The experiments, as Labov's always are, were cleverly constructed:
they had the subjects listen to "audition tapes" for a newscaster
job, or for an actor job, in which the occurrences of -ing vs. -in'
were carefully controlled in frequency (from 0% -in' to 100% -in'),
and asked whether the candidate sounded "Totally Professional" or
"Should Look in Another Line of Work" (on a 7-point scale). (The ING
variable was chosen because it's very well understood.) Different
readers, different audiences, etc., yielded remarkably similar and
robust results.

Might this have to do with the "scientific" notion that the human
brain doesn't fully develop until ... <drumroll> 25 years of age?

(The scare quotes are there because I've heard this about the brain
several times in the past few months from the popular media - a
virtual guarantee that the source idea has gotten skewed in some way.)

Peter T. Daniels skreiv:

So this afternoon I went to a talk by Bill Labov, where he described
his recent investigations of the SLM, the sociolinguistic monitor, the
thing we have that enables us to identify social status from dialect.

It turns out that this ability is remarkably uniform across all the
populations investigated, with one exception: most of the subjects
were the readily available college students, and it turns out there's
a divide between the 18-20-year-olds and the 25-and-ups: [...]

The experiments, as Labov's always are, were cleverly constructed:
they had the subjects listen to "audition tapes" for a newscaster job,
or for an actor job, in which the occurrences of -ing vs. -in' were
carefully controlled in frequency (from 0% -in' to 100% -in'), and
asked whether the candidate sounded "Totally Professional" or "Should
Look in Another Line of Work" [...]

Surprising, indeed, since I can hardly listen to my children and their
friends without noticing how they're aware of sosiolinguistic variation.

One immediate reaction: Could the chosen setting explain the results?
"Sounding professional" in a "job interview" is a rather specific
requirement, perhaps calling for a special sort of awareness that may be
developed, or learned, when college candidates are in the process of
finding jobs. For the younger age group that's simply not a relevant
measure. And for the older and more relaxed (although they weren't
tested here) it may be forgotten or worn down by experience. I'd be more
convinced if the audience were tested in different situations with
different questions, related to social markers in different ways, some
requiring a deep analysis and some utterly shallow, and they all gave
similar results. Who's the most interesting date? Who's honest? Who
keeps the cleanest ice cream bar? Who gives the best advise on pension
funds? Who's dressed for the occasion? Who would you want to be the
father of your children? What football coach has the best training
scheme? In whose neighbourhood would you rather live? Which school would
you choose? And so on.

Trond Engen wrote:
Peter T. Daniels skreiv:

So this afternoon I went to a talk by Bill Labov, where he
described his recent investigations of the SLM, the sociolinguistic
monitor, the thing we have that enables us to identify social
status from dialect.

It turns out that this ability is remarkably uniform across all the
populations investigated, with one exception: most of the subjects
were the readily available college students, and it turns out
there's a divide between the 18-20-year-olds and the 25-and-ups:
[...]

The experiments, as Labov's always are, were cleverly constructed:
they had the subjects listen to "audition tapes" for a newscaster
job, or for an actor job, in which the occurrences of -ing vs. -in'
were carefully controlled in frequency (from 0% -in' to 100% -in'),
and asked whether the candidate sounded "Totally Professional" or
"Should Look in Another Line of Work" [...]

Surprising, indeed, since I can hardly listen to my children and
their friends without noticing how they're aware of sosiolinguistic
variation.

One immediate reaction: Could the chosen setting explain the
results? "Sounding professional" in a "job interview" is a rather
specific requirement, perhaps calling for a special sort of
awareness that may be developed, or learned, when college candidates
are in the process of finding jobs. For the younger age group that's
simply not a relevant measure. And for the older and more relaxed
(although they weren't tested here) it may be forgotten or worn down
by experience. I'd be more convinced if the audience were tested in
different situations with different questions, related to social
markers in different ways, some requiring a deep analysis and some
utterly shallow, and they all gave similar results. Who's the most
interesting date? Who's honest? Who keeps the cleanest ice cream
bar? Who gives the best advise on pension funds? Who's dressed for
the occasion? Who would you want to be the father of your children?
What football coach has the best training scheme? In whose
neighbourhood would you rather live? Which school would you choose?
And so on.

I can't imagine myself forming an opinion of whether someone would
keep a clean "ice cream bar" on the basis of how he/she talks. Or
more likely to tell the truth. Etc.

How about some examples?

On Mar 20, 6:19 pm, "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote:

so. This is the first linguistic trait they've discovered to kick in
at so late an age, and they don't have an explanation; but they
haven't yet investigated non-college people of that age (it's harder
to recruit them!).

Might this have to do with the "scientific" notion that the human
brain doesn't fully develop until ... <drumroll> 25 years of age?

(The scare quotes are there because I've heard this about the brain
several times in the past few months from the popular media - a
virtual guarantee that the source idea has gotten skewed in some way.)

Marc

"Marc" <marc.ad...@gmail.com> wrote in message

news:8e591e80-571e-4cbf-96dd-fbb357b89146@e60g2000hsh.googlegroups.com...

On Mar 20, 6:19 pm, "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote:

so. This is the first linguistic trait they've discovered to kick in
at so late an age, and they don't have an explanation; but they
haven't yet investigated non-college people of that age (it's harder
to recruit them!).

Might this have to do with the "scientific" notion that the human
brain doesn't fully develop until ... <drumroll> 25 years of age?

My bet is that the younger Americans (and not just Americans
of course) are more likely to parrot PC attitudes of their
teachers. They are more likely to think about and say what
they think they are expected to say.

Young people in the older age bracket are likely to be more
openly discerning, more self-assured and care less about
pleasing the organising interviewer.

As I say, I am betting on that, it's just my hunch.

In my childhood, by the age of six or seven I was absolutely
required to reliably and quickly identify social status of any
stranger participating in the conversation. I wouldn't be
surprised if the similar Labov tests performed in different
societies did not produce significantly different results.

On Mar 20, 11:25 pm, Marc <marc.ad...@gmail.com> wrote:

On Mar 20, 6:19 pm, "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote:

so. This is the first linguistic trait they've discovered to kick
in at so late an age, and they don't have an explanation; but they
haven't yet investigated non-college people of that age (it's
harder to recruit them!).

Might this have to do with the "scientific" notion that the human
brain doesn't fully develop until ... <drumroll> 25 years of age?

[...]

And Trond, not a job interview; an audition tape. Supposedly a
newsreader speaking as carefully and prestigiously as possible.

On Mar 20, 7:21 pm, Trond Engen <trond...@engen.priv.no> wrote:

Surprising, indeed, since I can hardly listen to my children and
their friends without noticing how they're aware of sosiolinguistic
variation.

http://www.theonion.com/content/node/41697

In my childhood, by the age of six or seven I was absolutely
required to reliably and quickly identify social status of any
stranger participating in the conversation. I wouldn't be
surprised if the similar Labov tests performed in different
societies did not produce significantly different results.

Peter T. Daniels wrote:
Do children need to be explicitly taught to use tu/vous
appropriately?

Yes.

"Joachim Pense" <s...@pense-mainz.eu> wrote in messagenews:fs0f8r$uhq$01$1@news.t-online.com...
Peter T. Daniels wrote:

Do children need to be explicitly taught to use tu/vous
appropriately?

Yes.
Joachim

Good grief, of course they do, Peter.

Do children in English speaking countries need to be explicitly
taught to politely say please and thank you and to answer
questions with a full sentence rather than a simple yes or no?
They usually do too, don't they?