This is in contrast to the typical case of standard varieties holding widespread and often consciously acknowledged high prestige—that is, overt prestige—within a speech community.
Labov proposed an explanation for the continued usage of the nonstandard dialect: to form a sense of group identity in informal speech situations.
From this, he was able to identify the reason for the continued usage of the non-standard dialects even with this awareness: that is, to create and/or maintain group identity within the speech community.
He also introduced a gendered aspect to covert prestige with his findings, where he found male speakers to be more favourably disposed towards non-standard, working class speech varieties, more concerned with achieving group solidarity rather than wanting to achieve or sound as of a high status, with the opposite case for the female speakers surveyed.
[4] A further example of the gendered aspect of covert prestige is shown in how fraternity men in an American college readily adopted the nonstandard "-in" ending over the prestigious "-ing" to be associated with the "working class behavioural traits of being hardworking and casual".
[7] For example, Caribbean newspaper columnists use the low-variety local creole language to make their opinions more convincing by implying that it is shared by the masses.
[8] In such a case, although newspaper editorials are considered a formal domain, the use of the low variety language which is commonly associated with locals suggests that the article written by the columnist is a representation of the public's opinions.
[10] In fact, presidents in Paraguay are able to speak Guarani and use it to gather political support, showing the positive local attitudes towards the low variety language.
Research thus far has yet to show any compelling evidence that either Anglo-SSE or Scots-SSE is perceived as Scotland's most prestigious speech variety – instead, they seem to compete with each other as Scottish standard languages.
Downward convergence occurs when speakers choose to adopt a lower-prestige variety in order to appear more co-operative, or to show affiliation to an alternative social group.
The general avoidance of anglicized variants in an informal context suggests that SSE speakers assigned a higher level of overt prestige to Anglo-SSE, and that it is viewed as an inappropriately formal speech style.
In turn, the adoption of Scots-SSE features by Anglo-SSE speakers in such context appears to indicate that the former enjoys the status of covert prestige, perhaps as a result of their strong connotations with Scottish national identity.
The local values, however, make nonstandard features of the Murcian dialect be maintained in colloquial speech as a covertly acknowledged prestige variety.
[17][18] The Spanish spoken in Murcia has traditionally and inevitably been associated with the vernacular world of farmers working in the fertile plains irrigated by the Segura River.
'The / Some / Other nice houses' But in verb forms, word-final [s] is heavily involved in person marking: Simple Present Tense Simple Past Tense The disambiguation of number and person marking in Murcian Spanish is typically addressed using changes in consonants or vowels, as listed below:[22] Despite Murcian speakers' negative value judgments of their own variety, they do not abandon it entirely.
In fact, the former President of the Local Government of Murcia in Southeastern Spain, María Antonia Martínez, shows unexpectedly high usage levels for non-standard Murcian Spanish features in her public speeches, despite it being a stigmatised dialect.
Analysis of her speeches have shown that she is purposefully using local Murcian features because they are very much associated with the working class world and with progressive ideas.
She capitalised on the covert prestige associated with the colloquial variety to highlight her Murcian identity and socialist ideals in the particular political context in which she is operating.
[27] In many aspects, it functions in AAVE like a perfect tense, referring to an action completed in the recent past, but it can also be used to highlight the change of state or to intensify an activity, as in the sentence "I done told you not to mess up".
[38] For women, expletives may also be used to combat gender roles by demonstrating their assertiveness in male-dominated workplaces or to earn respect from their male co-workers.
Hence, they can incorporate non-standard language, much like how people may use Spanish to appear more "cosmopolitan", to express their loyalty to, and affiliation with, the Southwest to gain regional 'authenticity', or to indicate that they have a sense of humour.
[6] Similarly, the use of African American Vernacular English allows speakers to present themselves with a public image that identifies with stereotypes of African-Americans, such as being hip, urban, tough, and ultra-contemporary.
[6] Hence, advertisers may make use of this covert prestige by portraying knowledge of African American Vernacular English to align themselves with these positive aspects of the stereotypes of African-Americans, as well as to identify themselves as being well-versed in ultra-hip trends that consumers have a desire to follow,[41] and to suggest that their own products are hip.
[43] When interacting with the public in light of upcoming elections, politicians tend to switch to colloquial speech in an effort to "fit in" with the local setting.
For example, former president Barack Obama was seen a week before his first inauguration in a restaurant asking for "cheddah" cheese, addressing staff with "y'all" and using phrases like "we straight" to indicate that he didn't need change from the cashier.
[44] More recently, after Donald Trump's victory in the 2016 United States presidential election, it has been noted that more and more politicians are beginning to curse in public, using expletives and language that, in the past, has been reserved for discourse away from voters and the media.
This is due to the covert prestige granted to this type of language, allowing politicians to come across more "authentic" despite conveying an angrier tone, helping them appeal to certain voters.