What would be the collective consequences of the contrasting individual
outcomes portrayed above and in Fig. 1? These would depend partly on the
relative proportions of "A" and "B" subgroup members in the class or
ethnic group. However, both subgroups would, if large enough, feed back
information to themselves, to each other and to the standard dialect
outgroup. The maintenance of non-standard dialect features by subgroup
"A" would probably be interpreted by its members as successful retention of
class or ethnic language distinctiveness in the face of cultural or subcultural
threat. Subgroup "B" members, on the other hand, would more likely see
this as a set of individual failures, due perhaps to socioeconomic or educational inadequacies.