Description
Linguistic insecurity refers to the negative self-image a speaker has regarding his or her own speech variety or language as a whole, especially in the perceived difference between phonetic and syntactic characteristics of one’s own speech and those characteristics of what is perceived to be the “correct” form of the spoken language. It is important to note that linguistic insecurity arises based on the perception of a lack of correctness regarding one’s own speech, rather than any objective deficiencies in a particular speech variety.
In one of its earliest usages, the term linguistic insecurity was employed by linguist William Labov in his 1972 paper on the social stratification of the pronunciation of /r/ to describe the attitude that employees, at three different retail stores in New York, have towards their own speech patterns, in comparison to the Standard English form. Labov theorized that those employees who had the most extreme shift in style from their own speech variety (a casual style) to the standard form (a more emphatic style) were more insecure in a linguistic sense. The term has since been used to describe any situation in which a speaker is led to hypercorrect, or shift one's patterns of speech, due to a negative attitude or lack of confidence regarding one’s normal speech. This lack of confidence need not be consciously acknowledged by a speaker in order for him/her to be affected by linguistic insecurity, and the changes in pronunciation and stylistic shifts indicative of linguistic insecurity can emerge absent of speaker intent. Linguistic insecurity may also be a characteristic of an entire speech community, especially in how it relates to other speech communities of the same language that employ a more standardized form.
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