Comparison on the Study of Style between William Labov and Allan Bell

Abstract：Since William Labov， language style has been an interesting linguistic term. In his research， The Social Stratification of English in New York City，language style is considered as a result of the amount of attention that speakers pay to their speech. However， the study of style that Labov conducted was rather superficially. By contrast， Allan Bell， as an independent sociolinguistic researcher in New Zealand， has written extensively on language style and investigated it in detail. In this essay，the author aims to explore the differences between the two linguists’ study.

Key Words：Labov，Bell，Language style

Introduction

Since William Labov， language style has been an interesting term in discussing and studying linguistic problems. Language style，in his research， is treated as a result of the amount of attention that speakers pay to their speech. However， study of the style that Labov conducted in New York is rather superficially. By contrast， Allan Bell， as an independent sociolinguistic researcher in New Zealand， has written extensively on language style and investigated it in detail. My aim in this essay is to discuss the difference between Labov’s research on style and Allan Bell’s.

I. Labov’s Research

As I have mentioned above， Labov researched language style in his survey of The Social Stratification of English in New York City （1966）. He recorded over a hundred speakers and pioneered a means of eliciting different styles of speaking from a person within the bounds of a single interview. He had his respondents carry out a series of language tasks， each of them designed to focus increasing amounts of attention on their speech. Labov believed， that when speakers were talking to someone else rather than to the interviewer， or when they were particularly involved in the topic， they would be paying least attention to their speech，— he called this ‘casual’ speech. When speakers were answering interview questions， they would be paying more attention to how they were speaking， and so produce a ‘careful’ style.When they were reading aloud a short story he gave them， Labov believed they would give still more attention to their speech. Reading out a list of isolated words focused even more attention， and reading minimal pairs would draw the maximum amount of attention. （Liamas et al.， 2006） According to his finding， I make a small list for his catergory：

■Casual speech— The least attention

■Answering Interview questions — More attention

■Reading aloud a short story—Still more attention

■Reading out a list of isolated words—Even more attention

■Reading minimal pairs—The maximum amount of attention

II. Allan Bell’s Research

New Zealand sociolinguist Allan Bell （1984） was the first to attempt an explanatory account of stylistic variation， and his Audience Design framework has since become the most widely used approach to language style within scoiolinguistics. It proposes that the main reason speakers shift their language style is that they are responding to their listeners. His study about style is as flowing：

1 Style is what an individual speaker does with a language in relation to other people.

2 Style derives its meaning from the association of linguistic features with particular social groups.

3 Speakers design their style primarily for and in response to their audience.

4 Variation on the style dimension within the speech of a single speaker derives from and echoes the variation which exists between speakers on the ‘social’ dimension.

5 Speakers show a fine-grained ability to design their style for a range of differentaddressees， and to a lessening degree for other audience members such as auditors and overhearers.

6 style shifts according to topic or setting derive their meaning and direction of shiftfrom the underlying association of topics or settings with typical audiencemembers.

7 As well as the ‘Responsive’ dimension of style， there is the ‘Initiative’ dimensionwhere a style shift itself initiates a change in the situation rather than resulting fromsuch a change.

8 Initiative style shifts are in essence ‘Referee Design’， by which the linguisticfeatures associated with a group can be used to express affiliation with that group.

（Liamas et al.， 2006）

III. Comparison between Labov’s and Bell’s

From Allan’s research on style， I find that the following differences between his and Labov’s.

First of all， Labov paid his attention to people’s speech form while he was investigating English in New York. He distinguished five types of speech per degree of person’s attention. Allan Bell， however， took great consideration of differences in audiences while he was studying the language of radio news in New Zealand. He argued that of all the many factors sociolinguists have suggested as possible influences on style， only differences in the stations’ audiences could explain why the newsreaders shifted their style considerably and consistently as they moved back and forth between the two stations， the ‘National Programme’ and ‘Community Network’.

Through the comparison， I found that Labov concerned the difference within speech. Style is indeed the reflection of the inner differences of language. Bell stressed the difference of audiences. Style， in his research， reflects the relation between language and audiences. This is a kind of external factor on language use.

Labov denies his research belongs to sociolinguistics. He insists he is working in language study. This research of style may support his argumentation because he paid close attention to language itself. His micro linguistic study did not excess language. Bell， he indeed is a sociolinguist. His research shows the relation between language and people. It belongs to macro linguistics.

Secondly， according to Labov’s research， I am aware style is a kind of responsive shift. An individual speaker will shift his speech style based on his speech form. The shift shows a single way from the speech form to the choice of style. Conversely， Bell’s research unfolds a double-way view that a person shifts his speech responsively and initiatively. Not only outer situation， e.g. context， results the style shift， but language becomes an independent variable which itself shapes the situation.

The analysis above suggests that Labov tended to study the style shift from objective causes while Bell preferred to view the choice of style from subjective ones. So， I can say， Labov’s research implies a stable inclination. However Bell’s is dynamic.

Finally， as Bell said， the research on style Labov conducted is superficial. His main job is to explore the relation between the language use， such as the pronunciation of ‘r’， and the social class of a single speaker.By contrast， Allan Bell， has written extensively on language style and investigated it in detail.

IV. Conclusion

Through the comparison above， I found that Bell’s study on language style has made a great progress. As a sociolinguist， Allan Bell developed Labov’s research findings and put his limited academic fruit forward. His contribution to the study of style is profound and revolutionary and has made the variable， style， a real influential factor in sociolinguistics.

References：

［1］Carmen Liamas， Louise Mullany and Peter Stockwell， 2006 Sociolinguistics， Routledge， London and New York

［2］R.A.Hudson， 2000， 《社会语言学教程》，外语教学与研究出版社，剑桥大学出版社。

［3］祝婉瑾，1985，《社会语言学译文集》，北京：北京大学出版社。

（作者单位：天津商业大学，天津 300134）