Linguistic Performance as a Socioeconomic Indicator

Summary Ability to speak linguistic varieties is not always evaluated in the same way. Hypotheses on linkage by listeners of different linguistic performances with different occupations were tested in Kampala, Uganda. The hypotheses state that listeners there differentiate among speakers' performances in Swahili and English as “good” or something less and that those who can do this also can differentiate speakers according to occupation, predicting different occupations from different linguistic performances. Also, the more standard English a speaker is perceived as using, the more likely these listeners will think he has a high status job. In separate tests, Ss were played tape recordings of four different Africans speaking Swahili or English in four different ways. For the Swahili test, a random sample of 90 percent men and 10 percent women between 19 and 60 years of age was tested (N = 223). A subsample of all men (N = 41) was tested for English. While Ss differentiated among speakers according to linguistic performances for both Swahili and English, Ss tended to use only English performance as a predictor of occupational status.