What Was Labov's Hypothesis?
Labov believed that the higher the social class of a speaker, the more frequent the occurrence of rhotic /rrhotic /rIn non-rhotic varieties, speakers no longer pronounce /r/ in postvocalic environments—that is, when it is immediately after a vowel and not followed by another vowel. ... The non-rhotic varieties include most of the dialects of modern England, Wales, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and the Falkland Islands.https://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Rhoticity_in_EnglishRhoticity in Engl
What did William Labov believe?
Labov said he looked forward to receiving the Talcott Parsons Prize and making it an opportunity to share his fundamental belief that “The study of language as it is used in everyday life shows that all languages and dialects have the capacity to describe the world as it is.”
Pioneering Sociolinguist William Labov Receiving Social Science Prize
William Labov (b. 1927) is an American linguist who pioneered the study of variationist sociolinguistics. ... Labov's early research was greatly influential and inspired many scholars to carry out similar projects in other communities. The paradigm came to be known as variationist sociolinguistics.
William Labov | Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Linguistics
The central ideas of variationist sociolinguistics are that an understanding of language requires an understanding of variable as well as categorical processes, and that the variation witnessed at all levels of language is not random.
Variationist Sociolinguistics - Oxford Handbooks Online
When was Labov's New York study?
In 1962, Labov ([1966] 2006) completed the “New York department store study,” which examined overt prestige involving class, ethnicity, and gender. He investigated the pronunciation of postvocalic /r/ in New York City speech, in the words fourth and floor.
in New York City: Labov's Department Store Study Revisited