Research. Peter Trudgill

Peter Trudgill.

Norwich speech was studied by Peter Trudgill in the 1970s to find out how and why people's ways of speaking varied.

One of the variables Trudgill studied was the final consonant in words like walking, running.

The gerund 'ing' being replaced with the just the 'n' like walkin and talkin

he then realised it was not unique to just Norwich and that i could also establish social class.

Findings.

1. In all social classes, the more careful the speech, the more likely people were to say walking rather than walkin'.
2. The proportion of walkin' type forms was higher in lower social classes.
3. The nonstandard -in' forms occurred much more often in men's speech than in women's, and this was true for all social classes.
4. When women were questioned about what they thought they were saying, they tended to say they used the standard -ing forms more often than they really did.
5. When men were questioned about what they thought they were saying, they tended to say they used the nonstandard -in' forms more often than they really did.

this showing that females care more about their language, whereas males don't. They would rather say they were informal and spoke with non-standard English. This could mean women try to increase their power and social class through their language whereas men don't as they already have a higher status through their gender and don't need to worry.