The Linguage-Driven Stratification of Modern Britain

The present research is intended to cover the issue of language-grounded social stratification in contemporary Britain. Though the topic ranks among traditional studies, it seems to be always of relevance. Both the social structure and language are dynamic phenomena and undergo changes in time. It is therefore crucial to bring investigations up-to-date. This study attempts to become one of these investigations and aims at revealing linguistic units conveying additional information about the speaker’s background and thus determining their belonging to a particular stratum. This research reviews some of the classical approaches to lexical, phonological and grammatical distinctions pertaining to different classes. Following this, the practical part consists in selecting and examining the presupposed reliable social class indicators – upper- and non-upper-class (U and non-U) words – and establishing their real value in class positioning. The key research method employed to attain the aim is quantitative analysis through the British National Corpus (BNC). The results advance our understanding of the British society. In future it seems worthwhile to implement this knowledge in language teaching and cultural training.