Notes · English LanguageUK · A-Levels

Language diversity

This topic examines how English varies with the individual and the social group - idiolect, sociolect, dialect and accent - and how language is shaped by occupation, gender and power. It surveys the major theoretical models (especially the deficit, dominance and difference accounts of gender, and instrumental and influential power) and requires them to be evaluated critically against evidence in AQA Paper 2 Section A.

5 sections~21 min reading time3 competenciesLevel Foundation 1 · Standard 1 · Advanced 3

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Exam profile

AO1 · Apply methods and terminology to varied spoken and written dataAO2 · Demonstrate critical understanding of diversity concepts and the competing models of gender, power and occupationAO3 · Analyse how social context shapes language and evaluate the models against evidence, reaching a judgement

Operators:evaluate'…' Evaluate this ideaanalysediscussassess

basic level

AS-Level expects secure command of the varieties (idiolect, sociolect, dialect, accent) and the main gender and power concepts.

higher level

The full A-Level requires you to evaluate the competing models against evidence and later critiques, reaching a substantiated judgement.

Depth

Text

Contents · 5 sections

Language diversity

Idiolect, sociolect, dialect and accent#

FoundationAQA 7702/2 Section A language diversityDfE GCE English Language subject content

Kinds of language variation

Fig. 1The main kinds of language variation; accent (pronunciation) is a subset of dialect, which also covers lexis and grammar.

Language varies along several dimensions, and four terms name the main kinds of variation. An idiolect is the distinctive language of an individual - the particular combination of pronunciation, vocabulary, grammatical preferences and idioms that makes each person's usage recognisably their own, shaped by their whole biography of region, class, occupation, education and social networks. A sociolect is the language of a social group defined by class, age, ethnicity, occupation or other shared identity. A dialect is a variety associated with a region or group, differing from others in lexis and grammar. An accent is specifically the variety of PRONUNCIATION associated with a region or group - a subset of dialect, since accent concerns sound only.

The distinction between accent and dialect matters analytically and is often confused. Accent is about how words are pronounced (the vowel in 'bath', the presence or absence of post-vocalic /r/); dialect additionally includes vocabulary ('bairn', 'nesh', 'ginnel') and grammar (double negation, 'we was', 'I done it'). Everyone speaks with an accent and a dialect - there is no accentless or dialect-free English - a point that undercuts the popular idea that some people 'have an accent' and others do not. Received Pronunciation (RP) is simply the accent conventionally associated with prestige and, historically, with the broadcast media; Standard English is the dialect associated with prestige, education and writing.

These varieties intersect with social factors studied by sociolinguists. Age produces generational variation, visible in slang and in ongoing change; occupation produces specialist registers; ethnicity produces varieties such as Multicultural London English; and class has been shown by variationist studies to correlate with particular features. The concept of the speech community (a group sharing norms of language use) and the more recent community of practice (a group defined by shared activity and mutual engagement, such as a friendship group or a workplace team) provide frameworks for locating an individual's language within their social world.

Analysing diversity data means naming the level of variation precisely (is this an accent feature, a dialect grammar feature, an idiolectal preference?), relating features to the relevant social factor, and avoiding the value judgements that so often attach to variation. A central principle of the whole topic, established here, is the linguistic-descriptivist insight that non-standard varieties are systematic and rule-governed, not corrupt or lazy versions of the standard: 'we was' and 'I done it' follow consistent grammatical rules, and regional dialects preserve forms that are historically as legitimate as the standard. This principle underlies the evaluation of attitudes to gender, class and region that runs through the topic.

Worked example

Classifying variation features

A speaker says: 'I were proper made up when our lass come home'. Classify the non-standard features.

Identify dialect grammar
'I were' (was/were levelling), 'come' for 'came' (non-standard past tense) and 'our lass' (dialectal possessive/naming) are grammatical and lexical dialect features - part of dialect, not accent.
Identify dialect lexis
'proper' as an intensifier and 'made up' meaning 'delighted' are regional lexical items (Northern/North-West English).
Note what would be accent
How these words are pronounced (for example a short vowel in 'bath', or a glottal stop) would be accent - a separate dimension not shown by the transcription of words alone.
Apply the descriptivist principle
The features are systematic and consistent within the variety - 'I were' follows a regular levelling rule - so they are analysed as rule-governed dialect, not as errors.

Result: 'I were', 'come' and 'our lass' are grammatical/lexical dialect features and 'proper'/'made up' are dialect lexis; pronunciation would be the separate accent dimension. All are systematic regional forms, correctly analysed as rule-governed variation rather than error.

Typical mistakes

Confusing accent and dialect - treating a grammatical dialect feature ('we was') as an accent feature, or vice versa.
Importing value judgements, describing non-standard varieties as 'wrong', 'lazy' or 'incorrect' rather than analysing them as systematic.

Active revision

Analyse a transcript of regional speech, distinguishing accent, dialect and idiolectal features, and explain how they relate to the speaker's social and regional identity.

Active recall

Recall the key points — then reveal.

Sources: GCE AS and A level subject content for English language (Department for Education)

Language and occupation#

StandardAQA 7702/2 Section A language diversityDfE GCE English Language subject content

Features of a Swales discourse community

Fig. 2Swales's criteria for a discourse community: shared goals, communication mechanisms, genres, a specialist lexis and expert members.

Occupation shapes language strongly, producing specialist registers and marking group membership. Every occupation develops its own field-specific lexis - jargon (technical terminology such as medical or legal terms) and sometimes argot (in-group slang) - which serves genuine functions: precision (a specialist term is exact where an everyday word is vague), efficiency (a single term replaces a long explanation), and solidarity (shared terminology marks who belongs to the community and who does not). Occupational language is not merely decorative: it does real communicative and social work, though it can also exclude outsiders and, when used with lay audiences, become obfuscating or intimidating.

John Swales's concept of the discourse community provides the key framework. A discourse community, he argued, is a group with shared goals, its own mechanisms of communication (meetings, newsletters, forums), specific genres, a specialist lexis and a threshold level of expert members. This is more precise than 'speech community' because it defines the group by shared purposes and communicative practices rather than by geography, and it explains why professions have such distinctive language: the shared goals and genres of, say, air-traffic control or academic publishing generate and require a specialised code. Analysing occupational data through Swales's criteria shows how language both constitutes and reproduces a professional community.

The way people talk AT work - institutional or workplace talk - has its own patterns, studied by Paul Drew and John Heritage among others. Institutional talk is typically goal-oriented, shaped by the specific tasks of the setting, and marked by asymmetries of knowledge and turn-taking (a doctor asks the questions and controls the agenda; a courtroom allocates turns rigidly). Roles are enacted through language: an expert displays authority through specialist lexis and control of the interaction, while accommodating to lay participants by explaining terms. Koester and others have shown that workplace talk also does important relational work - phatic talk, humour and small talk build the collegial relationships that get the job done.

Analysing language and occupation means identifying the register (field-specific lexis, appropriate tenor), applying Swales's discourse-community criteria, and analysing how power and expertise are enacted in workplace interaction. Evaluatively, the topic weighs the benefits of occupational language (precision, efficiency, solidarity) against its costs (exclusion of outsiders, potential for intimidation), and asks how far occupational identity is constructed through language. It connects to power (workplace hierarchies are enacted linguistically), to register (occupation is largely a matter of field and tenor) and to identity (professional identity is signalled and performed through occupational language).

Worked example

Analysing occupational talk

In a hospital handover a nurse says: 'bed 4's a query PE, obs stable, on a heparin infusion, awaiting CTPA'. Analyse the occupational language.

Identify the register
Dense medical jargon and abbreviation ('query PE' = suspected pulmonary embolism, 'obs' = observations, 'CTPA' = a scan) mark a highly specialist field and an expert tenor addressed to a fellow professional.
Explain the functions
The terminology is precise (each term is exact), efficient (compressing complex information for a fast handover) and solidarity-building (assuming shared expert knowledge marks both speakers as community members).
Apply Swales
The handover is a genre of a medical discourse community with shared goals (patient care), specialist lexis and expert members - the language both serves and signals membership.
Evaluate
The same density that makes the talk efficient among experts would exclude a patient or layperson - the benefit (precision/efficiency) and the cost (exclusion) are two sides of the same feature.

Result: The handover's jargon and abbreviation realise a medical discourse community's genre, functioning for precision, efficiency and solidarity among experts while necessarily excluding outsiders - a balanced analysis of occupational language's functions and costs.

Typical mistakes

Treating jargon purely negatively as pretentious, rather than analysing its genuine functions of precision, efficiency and solidarity.
Describing occupational lexis without applying a framework (Swales) or analysing how power and identity are enacted in the interaction.

Active revision

Analyse a transcript of workplace interaction, using Swales's discourse-community criteria and the features of institutional talk to explain how occupational identity and expertise are constructed through language.

Active recall

Recall the key points — then reveal.

Sources: AQA AS and A-level English Language (7702) specification (AQA)

Language and gender: deficit, dominance, difference#

AdvancedAQA 7702/2 Section A language diversityDfE GCE English Language subject content

The gender-and-language models

Fig. 3The three classic models of language and gender; later critical work reframes 'gendered' features as indexing power and identity rather than sex.

The study of language and gender is organised around a sequence of models that later work has criticised, and evaluating them against one another is exactly what the exam rewards. The DEFICIT model, associated with Robin Lakoff's 'Language and Woman's Place' (1975), argued that women's language is marked by features - hedges, tag questions, 'empty' evaluative adjectives, intensifiers, super-polite forms, rising intonation on statements - that make it tentative and less authoritative than men's, reflecting and reinforcing women's subordinate social position. The model was influential in naming features to investigate, but is criticised for taking male language as the norm against which women's is found deficient, and for relying on introspection rather than systematic data.

The DOMINANCE model reframes gender differences as effects of male social power rather than female deficiency. Don Zimmerman and Candace West's study reported that in mixed-sex conversation men interrupted far more than women, treating interruption as an enactment of dominance; Dale Spender's 'Man Made Language' argued that language itself is structured to embody a male worldview and that men control talk. The model rightly connects language to power, but is criticised for small or dated data sets, for assuming interruptions are always dominant (some are supportive or collaborative), and for casting women only as victims.

The DIFFERENCE model, associated with Deborah Tannen, argues that men and women belong to different subcultures with different conversational styles, learned in childhood single-sex peer groups, so that miscommunication resembles cross-cultural miscommunication rather than domination. Tannen described contrasts such as status versus support, independence versus intimacy and report versus rapport talk. The model usefully avoids treating either sex as deficient or dominant, but is criticised for downplaying the power differences the dominance model foregrounds, and for risking a bland relativism that ignores real inequality.

Later and more critical work has moved beyond all three models. William O'Barr and Bo Atkins, studying courtroom speech, found that the features Lakoff labelled 'women's language' actually correlated with low STATUS, not gender - powerless people of either sex used them - so the features index power, not femininity. Deborah Cameron's 'The Myth of Mars and Venus' systematically challenges the popular difference narrative, arguing that within-group variation dwarfs between-group differences and that the 'different planets' idea is a cultural myth. Janet Holmes showed that tag questions are multifunctional (softening, checking, involving) rather than simply tentative, and Judith Butler's notion of gender as performative reframes gendered language as something people DO rather than a fixed property of the sexes. The mature position treats gender as one variable among many, interacting with power, context and individual identity, and evaluates any claim about 'men's' or 'women's' language against this more nuanced, evidence-led understanding.

Worked example

Re-reading a 'gendered' feature

A transcript shows a female speaker using several tag questions and hedges in a meeting. Evaluate how the different models would interpret this.

The deficit reading
Lakoff's deficit model would read the tags and hedges as markers of tentativeness and uncertainty, evidence of a less authoritative 'women's language'.
The dominance reading
The dominance model might read them as responses to a male-dominated setting in which the speaker's contributions are less secure - an effect of power relations, not innate style.
The critical re-reading
O'Barr & Atkins suggest the features index low STATUS in the interaction rather than gender; Holmes shows tag questions can be facilitative (inviting others in) or softening, not merely tentative - so the same features may show skilled interactional management.
Reach a judgement
Conclude that the features cannot be read off as 'women's language': their meaning depends on function and context, and they more plausibly index status and interactional role than gender as such.

Result: The same tags and hedges are tentativeness under deficit, power-effects under dominance, and status-indexing or facilitative under the critical view; the evidence-led judgement is that the features index power, function and context rather than gender itself - the position later research supports.

Typical mistakes

Describing the three models without evaluating them or bringing in the critiques - the highest marks require critical engagement, not narration.
Treating 'men's language' and 'women's language' as fixed and uniform, ignoring within-group variation, context and the performative view of gender.

Active revision

'Differences between men's and women's language are best explained as differences of power, not of gender.' Evaluate this idea, weighing the dominance model against the deficit and difference models and later critiques.

Active recall

Recall the key points — then reveal.

Sources: GCE AS and A level subject content for English language (Department for Education)

Language and power#

AdvancedAQA 7702/2 Section A language diversityDfE GCE English Language subject content

How power operates in and behind discourse

Fig. 4Fairclough distinguishes power exercised directly IN an interaction from the structural power BEHIND the conventions and access to discourse.

Power is enacted, negotiated and resisted through language, and Shan Wareing's widely used classification is a helpful starting point. She distinguishes political power (held by those with legal or institutional authority - governments, police, the law), personal power (derived from an individual's role or occupation - a teacher over pupils, a manager over staff) and social group power (held by a group because of social factors such as class, gender or ethnicity). Different kinds of power are exercised through different linguistic means, so identifying the TYPE of power in a text is the first analytical step, followed by analysing HOW it is realised in the language.

Norman Fairclough distinguishes power IN discourse from power BEHIND discourse. Power in discourse is exercised directly in an interaction - through control of the agenda, interruption, the allocation of turns, the use of imperatives and face-threatening acts, and the constraint of others' contributions (the powerful participant asks the questions, sets the topic and evaluates the answers). Power behind discourse is the hidden power embedded in the conventions and access to language - who gets to speak in which genres, whose variety counts as 'standard', how institutions shape what can be said. Analysing both dimensions distinguishes the visible enactment of power in a conversation from the structural power that frames it.

A further key concept is the distinction between instrumental and influential power. Instrumental power is authority imposed by institutions and enforced by sanction - the imperatives of a legal notice, the conditional threats of a contract, the obligation-laden modality ('you must', 'failure to comply will result in...') of official texts. Influential power seeks to persuade rather than compel - the domain of advertising, politics and the media, working through rhetorical technique, positive politeness and Fairclough's synthetic personalisation, in which a text addresses a mass audience as though each reader were an individual ('you'). Recognising whether a text compels or persuades sharpens the analysis of its strategies.

The linguistic tools for analysing power draw together the whole framework: modality (obligation and certainty), sentence function (who issues imperatives and interrogatives), pronouns ('we' and 'you' constructing solidarity or authority), face and politeness (mitigating or intensifying face-threatening acts), turn-taking and interruption in spoken data, and lexis and presupposition that take contested claims for granted. The evaluative dimension asks how power is not only exercised but resisted and negotiated - subordinates hedge, deflect and use implicature to decline compliance while saving face. Power connects to every other part of the topic: gender and occupation are largely about power relations, and the analysis of power underpins the study of political and media discourse.

Worked example

Analysing instrumental power

A parking notice reads: 'Vehicles must display a valid permit at all times. Failure to comply will result in a Penalty Charge Notice.' Analyse the power.

Identify the type of power
This is political/institutional and instrumental power: authority imposed by an institution and backed by sanction, not persuasion.
Analyse the modality
The deontic modal 'must' imposes obligation categorically; 'will result' uses high epistemic modality to present the consequence as certain, functioning as a conditional threat.
Analyse other features
The agentless nominalisation 'Failure to comply' depersonalises and generalises the rule; formal Latinate lexis ('valid permit', 'Penalty Charge Notice') and the impersonal third person construct institutional authority and distance.
State the effect
The reader is positioned as a subject who must obey; the language compels rather than persuades, characteristic of instrumental power enforced by sanction.

Result: The notice enacts instrumental institutional power through deontic 'must', a high-modality conditional threat, agentless nominalisation and formal impersonal lexis - compelling compliance by authority and sanction rather than persuading, the hallmark of instrumental power.

Typical mistakes

Asserting that a text 'shows power' without analysing the specific linguistic means (imperatives, modality, agenda control) through which it is enacted.
Treating power as purely top-down and missing how less powerful participants resist, deflect or negotiate through hedging, implicature and politeness.

Active revision

Analyse how power is constructed and enacted in a text of your choice (for example a political speech, a legal notice or an interview), identifying the type of power and the linguistic strategies that realise it.

Active recall

Recall the key points — then reveal.

Sources: AQA AS and A-level English Language (7702) specification (AQA)

Prestige, standardness and attitudes to diversity#

AdvancedAQA 7702/2 Section A language diversityDfE GCE English Language subject content

Standard and non-standard varieties

Fig. 5Standard and non-standard varieties share the vast majority of the language and differ in some systematic forms; each carries its own kind of prestige.

Attitudes to diversity turn on the concept of prestige, and sociolinguistics distinguishes two kinds. Overt prestige is the openly recognised status attached to standard, 'correct' forms and to Received Pronunciation - the varieties associated with education, wealth and the establishment, which speakers adopt to sound authoritative or upwardly mobile. Covert prestige is the hidden status attached to non-standard forms within a group - the value of local, vernacular speech as a marker of solidarity, toughness, authenticity and group belonging. The two pull in opposite directions, which is why speakers do not simply converge on the standard: non-standard forms persist because they carry covert prestige.

The classic variationist studies demonstrate this empirically. William Labov's New York department-store study showed that pronunciation of post-vocalic /r/ (an overtly prestigious feature there) increased with the social status of the store and when speakers paid more attention to their speech; his Martha's Vineyard study showed islanders covertly using a local vowel to signal belonging against outsiders. Peter Trudgill's Norwich study found that lower-status speakers used more non-standard forms but that men in particular under-reported their standard usage and women over-reported theirs, which Trudgill linked to covert prestige (working-class speech connoting masculinity) and overt prestige respectively. Jenny Cheshire's Reading study linked the use of non-standard grammatical features among adolescents to their adherence to vernacular peer-group culture.

These studies establish the descriptivist principle at the heart of the topic: non-standard varieties are systematic, rule-governed and socially meaningful, not corrupt. Standard English is best understood as simply one dialect that acquired prestige through historical and social accident (its association with the powerful south-east, print and education), not through any inherent superiority. The distinction between 'correct' and 'appropriate' is crucial: no variety is inherently correct, but varieties are more or less APPROPRIATE to particular contexts, and skilled speakers command a repertoire and shift between varieties as the situation requires (a form of accommodation and code-switching).

The evaluative heart of the topic is the analysis of ATTITUDES to variation - the fact that judgements about accents and dialects are really judgements about their speakers. Research using matched-guise techniques has repeatedly shown that listeners rate the same speaker differently depending only on accent, attributing greater competence to prestige accents and greater warmth or trustworthiness to some regional ones. Such attitudes have real social consequences (in employment, education and the courts), which is why the linguistic insight that all varieties are systematic matters beyond the classroom. This section connects directly to language discourses and to the critical evaluation of attitudes to language, where these judgements are analysed as ideology - the encoding of social prejudice as linguistic 'standards'.

Worked example

Explaining the persistence of non-standard forms

Despite decades of standard-promoting education, non-standard forms like 'ain't' and dropped /h/ persist. Explain why, using prestige concepts.

Rule out the 'ignorance' explanation
Speakers who use non-standard forms in casual speech typically command standard forms too and use them in formal contexts, so persistence is not simple ignorance of the standard.
Invoke covert prestige
Non-standard forms carry covert prestige - they signal local identity, solidarity and authenticity within the group, so abandoning them would mean sacrificing that social value.
Cite the evidence
Trudgill's Norwich findings (men favouring non-standard forms linked to covert prestige) and Cheshire's Reading study (non-standard grammar tied to vernacular peer culture) support this.
Draw the conclusion
Speakers maintain a repertoire, shifting between overtly prestigious standard forms and covertly prestigious non-standard ones as context and identity require - so non-standard forms persist because they do valuable social work.

Result: Non-standard forms persist because they carry covert prestige - marking identity and solidarity - so speakers maintain them alongside standard forms and shift according to context, as Trudgill's and Cheshire's studies show; persistence reflects social meaning, not ignorance of the standard.

Typical mistakes

Treating Standard English or RP as inherently 'correct' or superior rather than as prestige varieties that acquired their status socially and historically.
Ignoring covert prestige and so being unable to explain why non-standard forms persist despite the pressure of the standard.

Active revision

'Standard English is simply the most correct form of the language.' Evaluate this idea, using the concepts of overt and covert prestige and the findings of variationist research.

Active recall

Recall the key points — then reveal.

Sources: GCE AS and A level subject content for English language (Department for Education)

References & sources

Sources

Department for Education

GCE AS and A level subject content for English language

AQA

AQA AS and A-level English Language (7702) specification

Language diversity

5 sections~21 min reading time3 competenciesLevel Foundation 1 · Standard 1 · Advanced 3

Language diversity

Key points

Classifying variation features

Key points

Analysing occupational talk

Key points

Re-reading a 'gendered' feature

Key points

Analysing instrumental power

Key points

Explaining the persistence of non-standard forms

Sources

Language diversity

Key points

Classifying variation features

Key points

Analysing occupational talk

Key points

Re-reading a 'gendered' feature

Key points

Analysing instrumental power

Key points

Explaining the persistence of non-standard forms

Sources