Labov- New York Department Store Study

Labov's New York study was named 'The Social Stratification of English in New York City'. Simply put, Labov wanted to test whether the pronunciation of the (r) sound changed depending on social class. He decided to study the speech of employees from 3 different department stores in New York, ranging from a budget, more working-class store to a high-end, middle to upper-class store.

William Labov

William Labov (born 1927) is an American linguist known for his influential linguistic research and contributions to the field of sociolinguistics . He is mainly recognised for his studies of dialects and language change, including how certain social factors (social class, gender etc.) affect language.

Due to all of his great work, Labov is a big name in the field of linguistics! Let's learn more about his influential New York study...

Labov New York Study 1966: hypothesis

So what exactly did Labov expect?

Let's put this hypothesis into a more digestible statement; Labov wanted to see whether people of different social classes used the linguistic variable (r) in different ways (mainly whether they pronounced it or not).

Labov was interested i investigating linguistic social stratification.

Labov New York Study 1966: phonological variables

Labov wanted to see whether or not people pronounced the post-vocalic / r / (post-vocalic means immediately after a vowel) in the phrase 'fourth floor'. This pronunciation of the / r / sound is called rhoticity.

The social stratification of English in New York City

Labov wanted to study a wide range of people from different social classes, different economic backgrounds, and different ethnicities. He collected his data from the speech of people who worked as employees at different department stores on the Lower East Side of Manhattan in New York.

Macy's department store was the middle ground out of the three department stores.

The department stores Labov studied

The three department stores Labov studied were:

• Saks Fifth Avenue (a more expensive, middle to upper-class store in a high fashion shopping district)
• Macy’s (an averagely priced, middle-class store in an area of other mid-range stores)
• S. Klein (a budget, more working-class store near the Lower East Side, an area which was traditionally an immigrant, working-class neighborhood at the time)

The assumption was that the social stratification (social class) of employees at the store would be in line with the social stratification of the department stores that they worked at. Labov found that the wages and working conditions at Klein's tended to be worse in comparison to Saks which offered employees better wages and personal discounts. This information supports Labov's assumption that there is social stratification amongst the employees across the different stores.

The social stratification of (r) in New York City department stores

Labov aimed to collect casual and anonymous speech by posing as a customer in the department store. To elicit the response of 'fourth floor', Labov asked for directions to an item that he knew was on the fourth floor by asking questions like 'Where are the women's shoes?' The employee typically responded with 'fourth floor'. Labov then pretended not to hear the employee in order to elicit a more carefully spoken and emphasized response of 'fourth floor'.

The exchange would go something like this:

Once it was noticed that the same questions had already been asked multiple times, Labov used a new question: 'Excuse me, what floor is this?' This also led to the response: 'the fourth floor'.

This method of questioning prompted a natural response from the employee, as they believed it was a normal interaction with a customer. Labov could pose as a super-secret undercover customer while disguising his status as a researcher.

This method of questioning is seen to meet the standard of ethics as the data remains anonymous and it is not possible to personally identify the participant. It is also important to remember that, at the time of this study, ethical requirements in research were not so strict.

Variables in Labov's study

After an interaction, Labov made notes about the 'informant' (store worker) including their sex, estimated age, occupation (sales, cashier, etc.), and race. These were the independent variables of the study. Labov also made note of the use of (r) within the phrase 'fourth floor'. This use of (r) was the dependent variable of the study as this it was the variable that Labov was measuring.

Data from Labov's study

Overall, Labov managed to collect data from 264 people across the 3 department stores. The number of interviews in relation to department store looked like this:

Labov New York Study 1966: findings

The results of the study clearly showed that the linguistic variable (r) was an indicator of social stratification in New York across all three stores, therefore proving his hypothesis correct (woo!). Overall, the employees with higher socioeconomic status (working in higher class stores) pronounced the rhotic / r / more frequently than the employees with lower socioeconomic status.

Let's have a look at some of the key data that Labov gained from his study.

The overall percentage of employees that used the rhotic (r) in at least some positions in the phrase 'fourth floor' is as follows:

This table shows a clear trend across the department stores - 62% of Saks employees, 51% of Macy's employees, and only 20% of Klein's employees used the rhotic (r) in their speech. This shows clear social stratification of the (r) variable across the three department stores.

The following table shows the use of the rhotic (r) according to its position in the phrase 'fourth floor' (whether it's preconsonantal or in the final position), and according to whether the utterance was casual (1st utterance) or more carefully spoken (2nd utterance).

Graph showing the use of the (r) variable across the different depatment stores.

The blue line represents Saks, the red line represents Macy's, and the green represents S. Klein. By looking at the graph as a whole, we can see that there is a big difference between the use of the rhotic (r) in Klein's in comparison to the other stores in every position of the utterance.

Higher use of rhotic (r) in the second utterance of 'fourth floor'

Across all 3 department stores, we see a higher use of the rhotic (r) in the second, repeated utterance.

We see the greatest shift in rhoticity between the first utterance (casual speech) and the second utterance (more emphasized pronunciation) in Macy's.

According to Labov, the shift in language suggests that the majority of Macy's employees aim to use the rhotic (r) as the norm, even if this is not always part of their casual, everyday speech.

The shift between casual and emphatic speech is not as big for the Saks employees. Labov suggests that this is because the Saks employees have more linguistic security (i.e., they are confident in the way that they speak and in using the rhotic (r) as the norm).