Matakuliah
Tahun
: G0362/Sociolingustics
: 2007
Language Variation and Change
Pertemuan 9
Learning Outcomes
Pada akhir pertemuan ini, diharapkan mahasiswa
akan mampu :
• Menghubungkan antara konsep bahasa dan identitas diri
• Membuat bagan jejaring sosial mereka sendiri
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Learning Outcomes
Pada akhir pertemuan ini, diharapkan mahasiswa
akan mampu :
• Memberikan contoh adanya perubahan kosakata dan
bunyi yang ada dlm bahasa mereka masing-masing.
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Outline Materi
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Variasi bahasa
Bagaimana perubahan menyebar
Bagaimana mengamati perubahan bahasa
Sebab-sebab perubahan
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Language Changes
English is not consistent in the sound of its words
e.g. knight  /nait/
tough/t^f/
Some words also have changed meanings over the
centuries
e.g. ‘nice’ used to mean ‘precise’, now it means
anything but.
‘queer’ used to mean ‘strange’, now it means
homosexuals.
(And when did ‘cool’ start to mean ‘great’?)
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Variation and Change
• Language changes in 3 major ways:
– Over time
– Physical space
– Socially
• Language change (variation over time) has its origin in
spatial (or regional) and social variation.
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Some examples of changes
• Sound change: In NZ, ‘new’ used to be pronounced [nju]
and ’nuclear’ [njukli∂]. Now, more and more pronounce
it [nu:] and [nukli∂]
• many words have been used for ‘very good’, such as
‘radical’, ‘wicked’, ‘super’, ‘groovy’, etc.
• Post-vocalic [r]– recall Labov’s NY city experiment. This
feature ties in with social status.
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Post-Vocalic [r]
• In the 60’s Post-vocalic [r] in NY city was spreading
because it was considered to be prestigious
• In RP and in London Cockney dialect post-vocalic [r]
doesn’t occur, though was present in all parts of England
in 17th C. The disappearing is still in progress
• In Ireland and Scotland this feature still exists.
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The spread of vernacular
• What motivates it?
– Some varieties are considered more prestigious than
others
– On the other hand, a new variety can be much
resented by a group and the reverse happens (i.e.
people deliberately use the old form more)
• Who starts the change?
– Young people usually start the change
– Lower class are more influential, e.g. HRT in Sydney.
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How do changes spread?
• From group to group
• From style to style
• From word to word
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How do we study language change?
There are two ways:
1. Apparent-time studies
– A steady increase or decrease of a form by different
age groups suggest that a change may be in
progress.
– Comparing the speech of these age groups can be a
useful clue to language change.
– The youngest group usually leads the change. That
means at a certain point of time of observation the
younger people will show more new forms. But the
older generation will use more standard forms.
– E.g. In a dialect survey in Sydney, HRTs were used
more by teenagers than by adults. This suggests that
over time HRTs will be stabilized a a feature of
Sydney speech.
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2. Real-time studies
– This method will take many years
– The researcher will take data once, say in 2005, then
he will come back and take another set of data in
2015.
– The changes over this period of time will indicate realtime changes
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Reasons for change
• Social Status
– People tend to change their speech to be accepted
into a group
– Different types of change are introduced by different
groups of people
– More affluent or higher class people will introduce
more prestigious forms (e.g. the post vocalic [r] in NY
city by Labov)
– Lower class will spread more vernacular (e.g. HRTs in
Sydney)
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Reasons for change
• Gender
– Women tend to be linked with both more prestigious
and vernacular forms, while men more with
vernacular
• Interaction
– Language change progresses most slowly in a tightly
knit community where contacts with outsiders are
limited.
– Media plays a role in introducing new forms
– However, there is still a debate on whether face-toface interaction is necessary to speed the change.
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Conclusions
• Linguistic change occurs over time, space and across
social borders
• The spread can be from group to group, style to style or
word by word.
• Young people usually starts the change
• We can study language change by apparent-time and
real-time studies
• Changes are motivated by social status, gender, and
interaction types
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