labov

The standard introduction to this is the work of Labov et al.

;) ) There is scholarly work to back me up, but I can't think of any names to start with except Labov and Goffman -- they are completely brilliant mind f s if you bother to read them.

I don't recall if Labov addressed gender differences in that specific study but, if he did: in that situation, lower class men would be even less likely to use the rhotic (with /ɹ/) pronunciation than lower class women, and prefer the non-rhotic (without /ɹ/) one instead.

If I recall correctly one of the first to notice those gender discrepancies in speech was Labov, so you might have some luck if you websearch "gender paradox Labov".

Labov at UPenn has been studying American dialect formation for the past ~50 years, and has found several ongoing changes.

Labov's Atlas of North American Atlas says that changes among dialects in the US are more pronounced now than they were 50 years ago.

I recommend reading the research of William Labov, who has ton of work in studying the various dialects of American English.

> The entire concept of an elocution class is wildly offensive to most of the modern linguists I know; following the rise of super-linguist Bill Labov in the 1960s, the concept that one way of speaking is “better” or “worse” than another is basically anathema.

If I recall correctly one of the first to notice those gender discrepancies in speech was Labov, so you might have some luck if you websearch "gender paradox Labov".

> The entire concept of an elocution class is wildly offensive to most of the modern linguists I know; following the rise of super-linguist Bill Labov in the 1960s, the concept that one way of speaking is “better” or “worse” than another is basically anathema.

Labov at UPenn has been studying American dialect formation for the past ~50 years, and has found several ongoing changes.

Labov's Atlas of North American Atlas says that changes among dialects in the US are more pronounced now than they were 50 years ago.

I recommend reading the research of William Labov, who has ton of work in studying the various dialects of American English.