Articulation Based Social Stratification in Bangladesh

The present study investigated different facts on articulation based social stratification in Bangladesh. The use of trilled /r/ sound and flap // sound conducted the contrasting measures of articulation within different social classes of Bangladesh. The social indexes were urbanization and literacy based. The indexes were Literate Urbanized Class, Urbanized Non- Literate Class, Literate Non-urbanized Class, Non-Literate Non-urbanized Class. Then task based interviews with eligible participants were completed to get the data for the findings of analysis. From the analyzed data, we establish the proposed hypothesizes are accepted. This study revealed, Urbanization is the prime determiner over literacy for articulating specific sound to markup the alternation of articulation. The pronunciation of flap //and trilled /r/ in Bangla are differentiated with different social indexes, which are interrelated within urbanization and literacy. The pronunciation of flap // and trilled /r/ in Bangla are differentiated with different social indexes, which are interrelated within urbanization and literacy.