Social stratification of /n/ and /¿¿/ in Lahore

Stratification is a system by which society ranks its members in a hierarchy, is the norm throughout the world. Members of different social classes distinguish themselves from one another in a whole range of social behaviors including the type of language they use. The different layers of a society are ranked in to three major groups, the upper, the middle and the lower. According to Labov W (1966), Macaulay (1977) Trudgill P (1974), Wolfram (1974), there are strong correlations between patterns of social stratification and gender, locality, education, age and social class. These differences in language are tied to social class.Language is obviously a social phenomenon .A regular relationship between social and linguistic factors can be demonstrated by a reliable methodology by following many sociolinguists like William Labov.The fluctuation in language is not a random and unpredictable manner but rather conditioned by social factors such as social class, age, sex, and style in predictable ways.According to this work, the speech community as a whole behaved regularly. The general accepted sociological practice has been followed, phonological variants /n/an/¿¿/have been researched.