We use and evaluate speech in the context of extralinguistic forces—social, political, and economic.
Mainstream Americans evaluate the speech of low-status groups negatively, calling it “uneducated.” This is not because these ways of speaking are bad in themselves but because they have come to symbolize low status. Consider variation in the pronunciation of r. In some parts of the United States r is regularly pronounced(less status), and in other (rless) areas it is not(higher status). In Labov’s study, r pronunciation was clearly associated with prestige. Certainly the job interviewers who had hired the salespeople never counted r’s before offering employment. However, they did use speech evaluations to make judgments about how effective certain people would be in selling particular kinds of merchandise. In other
words, they practiced sociolinguistic discrimination, using linguistic features in deciding who got certain jobs.
Our speech habits help determine our access to employment and other material resources. Because of this, “proper language” itself becomes a strategic resource—and a path to wealth, prestige, and power . Illustrating this, many ethnographers have described the importance of verbal skill and oratory in politics. Ronald Reagan, known as a “great communicator,” dominated American society in the 1980s as a two-term president. Another twice-elected president, Bill Clinton, despite his southern accent, was known for his verbal skills in certain contexts (e.g., televised debates and town-hall meetings). Communications flaws may have helped doom the presidencies of Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, and George Bush the elder.
The French anthropologist Pierre Bourdieu views linguistic practices as symbolic capital that properly trained people may convert into economic and social capital. The value of a dialect—its standing in a “linguistic market”—depends on the extent to which it provides access to desired positions in the labor market. In turn, this reflects its legitimation by formal institutions—educational institutions, state, church, and prestige media. Even people who don’t use the prestige dialect accept its authority and correctness, its “symbolic domination” (Bourdieu 1982, 1984).
Thus, linguistic forms, which lack power in themselves, take on the power of the groups they symbolize. The education system, however (defending its own worth), denies linguistic relativity. It misrepresents prestige speech as being inherently better. The linguistic insecurity often felt by lower-class and minority speakers is a result of this symbolic domination.