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[6] [7] There are thus the concepts of overt and covert prestige. Overt prestige is related to standard and "formal" language features, and expresses power and status; covert prestige is related more to vernacular and often patois, and expresses solidarity, community and group identity more than authority. [8]
Covert prestige refers to the relatively high value placed towards a non-standard form of a variety in a speech community. This concept was pioneered by the linguist William Labov, in his study of New York City English speakers that while high linguistic prestige is usually more associated with standard forms of language, this pattern also implies that a similar one should exist for working ...
Empty categories exist in contrast to overt categories which are pronounced. [1] When representing empty categories in tree structures, linguists use a null symbol (∅) to depict the idea that there is a mental category at the level being represented, even if the word(s) are being left out of overt speech.
Historically, humans tend to favor those who look and sound like them, and the use of nonstandard varieties (even exaggeratedly so) expresses neighborhood pride and group and class solidarity. The desirable social value associated with the use of non-standard language is known as covert prestige. There will thus be a considerable difference in ...
However, forms that have overt prestige are more prized by these groups, so when changes from below rise to the level of awareness, they are frequently stigmatized and rejected by the very people using them. [3] Change from below typically begins in informal speech.
In linguistics, a feature of a word or phrase is said to be covert if there is no surface evidence of its existence within that word or phrase. For example, many languages have covert grammatical gender in nouns, in that there is no way to tell from the form of a noun which gender it is; gender only becomes apparent in, for example, articles and adjectival agreement, which depend on gender.
Another example of a covert category given by Whorf was the Navajo language's system of noun classification by which all nouns were marked for a combination of animacy and shape. [8] Whorf himself used the term "cryptotype" as separate from "covert category" to refer to "a special, highly concealed subdivision of covertness, amounting sometimes ...
On the standard linguistic market, standard languages usually enjoy more value due to the high overt prestige associated with them while on linguistic markets that value non-standard varieties, vernaculars can also enjoy a higher value.