• DOI:10.1017/S0047404500000488
• Corpus ID: 145531823

Sex, covert prestige and linguistic change in the urban British English of Norwich

@article{Trudgill1972SexCP,
  title={Sex, covert prestige and linguistic change in the urban British English of Norwich},
  author={Peter W. Trudgill},
  journal={Language in Society},
  year={1972},
  volume={1},
  pages={179 - 195}
}

• P. Trudgill
• Published 1 October 1972
• Linguistics
• Language in Society

ABSTRACT Women use linguistic forms associated with the prestige standard more frequently than men. One reason for this is that working-class speech has favourable connotations for male speakers. Favourable attitudes to non-standard speech are not normally expressed, however, and emerge only in inaccurate self-evaluation test responses. Patterns of sex differentiation deviating from the norm indicate that a linguistic change is taking place: standard forms are introduced by middle-class women, non-standard forms by working-class men. (Sociolinguistic variation; linguistic change; women's and men's speech; contextual styles; social class; British English.)