In sociolinguistics, covert prestige is the high social prestige with which certain nonstandard languages or dialects are regarded within a speech community, though usually only by their own speakers. This is in contrast to the typical case of standard varieties holding widespread and often consciously acknowledged high prestige—that is, overt prestige—within a speech community.
The concept of covert prestige was first introduced by linguist William Labov, when he observed speakers preferring to use a nonstandard dialect, even though the speakers considered that dialect to be inferior. Labov proposed an explanation for the continued usage of the nonstandard dialect: to form a sense of group identity in informal speech situations.
Background
The concept of covert prestige was pioneered by the linguist William Labov, in his study of New York City English speakers. While high linguistic prestige is usually associated with standard forms of language, Labov proposed that a similar concept could apply to informal, working-class speech. He observed that speakers of non-standard dialects were aware that their dialect was considered 'inferior' relative to the standard. He attempted to identify the reason for the continued usage of the non-standard dialects even with this awareness: that is, to create and/or maintain group identity within the speech community.
Fellow linguist Peter Trudgill elaborated on Labov's findings in his study of English speakers in Norwich, stating that "covert prestige reflects the value system of our society, and of the different sub-cultures within this society". He also introduced a gendered aspect to covert prestige with his findings, where he found male speakers to be more favourably disposed towards non-standard, working class speech varieties, more concerned with achieving group solidarity rather than wanting to achieve or sound as of a high status, with the opposite case for the female speakers surveyed.
A further example of the gendered aspect of covert prestige is shown in how fraternity men in an American college readily adopted the nonstandard "-in" ending over the prestigious "-ing" to be associated with the "working class behavioural traits of being hardworking and casual".
Sociolinguist Annette Boudreau's analyses of Acadian French similarly posit a language ideology which embraces elements of stigmatized vernacular French (), in response to an ideology valuing Standard French ().
Causes Covert prestige is caused by the social traits associated with non-standard languages or dialects, such as lightheartedness, honesty, etc. Through their association with socially valued aspects of essentialized and hyperbolic notions of minority dialect speakers, minority languages can gain a special type of limited cultural currency. The non-standard variety of language may not carry the institutionally endorsed prestige of the standard variety, but for many speakers it carries important social connotations of identity and community.
For example, Caribbean newspaper columnists use the low-variety local creole language to make their opinions more convincing by implying that it is shared by the masses. In such a case, although newspaper editorials are considered a formal domain, the use of the low variety language, which is commonly associated with locals, suggests that the article written by the columnist is a representation of the public's opinions.
In some instances, the low variety language is seen as a symbol of regional identity as it is the indigenous language, giving it a form of covert prestige. Thus, the choice to use the low variety language as opposed to the high variety language can be seen as an indicator of community membership and pride of association with local culture. Research conducted in Paraguay showed that although Spanish is the high-variety "official" language and is dominant in administrative and educational settings, the use of Guarani, the low-variety language, has actually increased from the 1960s to the early 2000s. The surveys conducted show that the low-variety language is valued among both rural and urban speakers. This indicates that people felt that Paraguayans should be able to speak Guarani as it is an authenticating factor. In fact, presidents in Paraguay are able to speak Guarani and use it to gather political support, showing the positive local attitudes towards the low-variety language.
Features
Phonetics
Scottish Standard English varieties
Scottish Standard English (SSE) itself encompasses wide linguistic variation and is often described as an accent continuum: at one end are the typically "Scottish-sounding" speakers, hereby referred to as "Scots-SSE" speakers, who use a high proportion of traditional Scottish phonological features, and at the other end of the spectrum are those who more closely emulate Southern Standard British English, through the use of more anglicised features than Scottish, and who are hereby referred to as speakers of "Anglo-SSE".
Research thus far has yet to show any compelling evidence that either Anglo-SSE or Scots-SSE is perceived as Scotland's most prestigious speech variety – instead, they seem to compete with each other as Scottish standard languages. However, some studies show that the two varieties can be differentiated at a more fine-grained level. Overt and covert prestige has been clearly evidenced in their association with Anglo-SSE and Scots-SSE, where Anglo-SSE speakers are typically negatively evaluated in terms of likeability and national identity. Scottish-sounding varieties therefore appear to hold covert prestige in comparison, even though their speakers are commonly ranked low in social status but hold higher positions in most of the other social attributes.
It has been realised that the vowels and are typically monophthongal in quality for Scots-SSE speakers, and diphthongal for Anglo-SSE speakers. By analysing the distribution of and variants in the speech of SSE speakers, salient patterns are observed between Anglo-SSE and Scots- SSE speakers, suggesting that they are socially stratified within the given context.
Using the examples of FACE and GOAT which corresponds to the [e] and [o] vowels, evidence of covert prestige in SSE varieties can be observed. At the "Scottish" end of the SSE continuum, [e] and [o] are usually realised as monophthongs but are diphthonised to [ei] and [ou] (or [əu]) by some middle-class speakers who tend to be on the "Anglicised" end of the spectrum.
The starting point of the anglicised FACE vowel is centralised in the vowel space and the target of its trajectory is near [ɪ], while the corresponding Scots-SSE monophthong is produced with a higher, fronter quality. The anglicised GOAT vowel begins on an open, centralised quality and its off-glide remains as centralised but noticeably lower. In Scots-SSE, the production of [o] is monophthongal, low, and further back in articulation compared to the Anglo-SSE variant.
It has been observed that between the two varieties, Anglo-SSE speakers display the strongest evidence of convergence to the other group. Language convergence reflects a speaker's intention to gain social approval by reducing the social distance between themselves and their interlocutor. However, this does not always entail upward social convergence. Downward convergence occurs when speakers choose to adopt a lower-prestige variety in order to appear more co-operative, or to show affiliation to an alternative social group. This case of downward convergence by Anglo-SSE speakers suggests that Scots-SSE variants are considered as covertly prestigious, and convergence towards it is to appear empathetic, co-operative and mitigate their higher-status position.
The general avoidance of anglicized variants in an informal context suggests that SSE speakers assigned a higher level of overt prestige to Anglo-SSE, and that it is viewed as an inappropriately formal speech style. In turn, the adoption of Scots-SSE features by Anglo-SSE speakers in such context appears to indicate that the former enjoys the status of covert prestige, perhaps as a result of their strong connotations with Scottish national identity.
The linguistic relationship between the dialects is complicated by the fact that most speakers of Anglo-SSE are of ethnic English background, either being born in the country, being born in Scotland to English parents, or some other strong personal relationship to England. Conversely, most speakers of Scots-SSE tend to be autochthonous Scots. This dynamic is far from universal, and many exceptions exist, however this model can be followed as a broad rule. This ethnic dimension often means that speakers of Scots-SSE and other Scottish dialects often have difficulty distinguishing Anglo-SSE to Southern Standard British, and the Scottish linguistic features in Anglo-SSE are reduced to the extent that in many cases only those from outside Scotland may readily identify the accent as being Scottish. For speakers of Anglo-SSE, this can create confusion about their sense of national identity and can create mutual uncertainty or unease in their interactions with speakers of other Scottish accents and dialects.
Murcian Spanish
From a sociolinguistic perspective, the Murcian speech community shows a competing balance between overt and covert prestige. On one end, the Standard Castilian Spanish dialect is an overtly acknowledged prestige variety. The local values, however, make nonstandard features of the Murcian dialect be maintained in colloquial speech as a covertly acknowledged prestige variety.
The Spanish spoken in Murcia has traditionally and inevitably been associated with the vernacular world of farmers working in the fertile plains irrigated by the Segura River. Likewise, there is a sense of stigmatization of this variety among local speakers themselves, who consider it as an unaesthetic, incorrect, and inadequate substandard.
With the exception of [m] and [n], Murcian varieties can be distinguished by the loss of postvocalic consonants in final position. The regressive assimilation of consonant clusters in word-internal position except for [m], [n], and [l] is also another distinguishing feature. Two consequences of the consonant deletions are the changes in the synthetic morpho-syntactic structure of Spanish, which apparently entails a loss of grammatical information, and an increase in the ambiguity of Murcian Spanish.
Post-vocalic [s] dropping in word-final position also affects noun number and verb person marking. In the example that follows, [s] in sentence (2) is the plural marker on articles, adjectives, and nouns: 1.LaUnaOtraCasa bonita2. LasUnasOtrasCasas bonitas 1. 'The / A / Another nice house'
2. 'The / Some / Other nice houses'
But in verb forms, word-final [s] is heavily involved in person marking:
Present Tense Simple 2nd person SGtúcom-es'you (fam.) eat'ustedcom-e'you (pol.) eat'3rd person SGél / ellacom-e'he/she eats' Past Tense Simple 1st person SGyocom-ía'I ate'2nd person SGtúcom-ías'you (fam.) ate'ustedcom-ía'you (pol.) ate'3rd person SGél / ellacom-ía'he/she ate' The disambiguation of number and person marking in Murcian Spanish is typically addressed using changes in consonants or vowels, as listed below: ChangesStandard Castilian Spanish vs. Murcian Spanishi)intervocalic [d] deletioncomido: [koˈmiðo] vs. [koˈmi.o]ii)intervocalic [r] deletionpara: [ˈpaɾa] vs. [pa]iii)word-final postvocalic [r] deletioncomer: [koˈmer] vs. [kɔˈmɛ]iv)word-final postvocalic [l] deletioncanal: [kaˈnal] vs. [kæˈnæ]v)consonant permutation, which means that liquid consonants, i.e. [l] and [r] exchange in pronunciation[algo] vs. [argo]vi)word-final postvocalic [s] deletioncasas: ['kasas] vs. ['kæsæ]vii)word-internal postvocalic [s] assimilationcanasta: [kaˈnasta] vs. [kaˈnatta]viii)other word-internal consonant regressive assimilations of consonant clusterstacto: [ˈtakto] vs. [ˈtatto]