Covert prestige

In sociolinguistics, covert prestige is a type of scenario in which nonstandard languages or dialects are regarded to be of high linguistic prestige by members of a speech community. This is in contrast to the typical case of linguistic prestige, wherein only the standard varieties of a speech community are considered prestigious.

The concept of covert prestige was first introduced by linguist William Labov, when he observed speakers preferring to use a nonstandard dialect, even though the speakers considered that dialect to be inferior. Labov proposed an explanation for the continued usage of the nonstandard dialect: to form a sense of group identity in informal speech situations.