le speech across social-class groups in a high school that are defined locally as 'jocks' and 'burnouts.' I
Labov, William (1990). The intersection of sex and social class in the course of linguistic change. Language Variation and Change 2:205-254.
Labov rejects Eckert's hypothesis that power, not prestige, accounts for gender differences in language use, and maintains instead that gender differences indicate the increased socioeconomic mobility of women of the lower middle class. Labov's explanation does not account for his own observation that lower-middle-class women do not merely lead in use of prestigious forms, but may lead in the use of stigmatized forms as well. This pattern can be accounted for by Eckert's theory, because stigmatized forms may have covert prestige for women as well as men. Masseuse : masseur : male masseuse: Masseuse : masseur : male masseuse