SOCIOLINGUISTICS AND DIALECTOLOGY
Panel coordinator: Cristina Suárez Gómez (Universitat les Illes Ballears).
Departament de Filologia Espanyola, Moderna i Clàssica (Àrea de Filologia
Inglesa). Edifici Ramon Llull.
Cra. de Valldemossa, km. 7.5. 07122 Palma de Mallorca
cristina.suarez@uib.es
SESION 1

Lucía Loureiro Porto (Universitat de les Illes Balears): “Teaching sociolinguistics after
the Bologna Declaration or how to achieve basic skills using TV materials”
Abstract: The teaching of sociolinguistics has traditionally been approached by means
of combining specific research (articles, specialized books, etc.) with the use of
handbooks and accompanying materials, such as CDs, DVDs or interactive webpages
(cf. Freeborn et al. 1993, Hughes & Trudgill 2005, Labov et al. 2006, among many
others). These materials have typically been chosen and designed for teaching
purposes and therefore have, for decades, proved utterly useful for both teachers and
learners. The new academic scenario portrayed by the so-called Bologna A ccords,
however, introduces some changes in the teaching-learning process, the center of
which moves from the teacher's position to the students themselves, since the aim is
that they manage to develop techniques and strategies which will allow them to acquire
new knowledge as well as to foster their independent learning and their acquisition of
basic skills (Spanish competencias). In this paper I discuss several ways in which we
can meet the requirements of the new European teaching-learning environment without
jeopardizing the quality and quantity of our teaching, by renewing our materials and
replacing them by TV and film dialogues. More specifically, I propose resorting to this
sort of linguistic data so as to carry out case-studies, problem-solving activities and
project-based learning, with the aim of fostering the students' autonomous learning and
breaking the invisible wall between the academic world and society.
Keywords: teaching-learning process, basic skills, student's autonomy, variationist
studies, linguistic corpora.

José Francisco Martín del Pozo (Universidad de Málaga): “A corpus-based analysis of
some differences between American and British English”
Abstract: English is a polycentric language, with two main varieties (British English and
American English). The differences between these two varieties are usually taught
through a number of generalizations. The purpose of this paper is to test the veracity of
some of those generalizations, which will be confronted with the results obtained from
two of the largest English language corpora currently available, the Corpus of
Contemporary American English and the British National Corpus. Among the
differences that do not concern pronunciation, three aspects have been analyzed: the
use of haven't/hasn't versus don't have/doesn't have, spelling differences in words
ending in -our/-re, and the double forms of irregular verbs of class 1A (for example
burned/burnt). In this particular case, the analysis has also taken into account
diachronic variability in order to determine whether the preference in use of the regular
or irregular form has changed in the last 50 years.

Tamara Bouso Rivas (Universidade de Santiago de Compostela): “A preliminary study
of sexist language in Matthew Weiner’s Mad Men through the female characters of
Betty Draper, Joan Holloway and Peggy Olson”
Abstract: Taking as an object of study Matthew Weiner’s television drama Mad Men,
this paper examines instances of sexist language in relation to the three female
protagonists of the TV series: Betty Draper, Joan Holloway and Peggy Olson. It is
argued that the sexist practices present at home and at the advertising agency have a
strong effect on the configuration of the identity of these three female characters: the
Jackie, the Marilyn and the Career Woman. Since Mad Men is set in the 1960s, the
paper also devotes some thought to how sexist titles of address, such as Mrs a nd Miss,
have been affected by language reforms and how this TV series is perceived nowadays
by spectators.
SESION 2

Carmen Luján García (Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria): “English presence
in the name of Spanish toys”
Abstract: This paper intends to provide evidence of the impact of English on Spanish by
means of the analysis of the presence of English words in the names of toys and
games. Three different Spanish leaflets freely distributed to children will be examined
considering different variables such as age and gender. The function of these words will
also be studied.

Ignacio Miguel Palacios Martínez (Universidade de Santiago de Compostela) “Variation
and pragmatic uses of innit in present-day English”
Abstract: The so-called invariant tags such as eh, okay, right, yeah are extremely
frequent in speech and have been lately extensively studied (Algeo, 1990; Krug, 1998;
Andersen, 2001; Pichler, 2008; Pichler and Torgensen, 2009; Columbus, 2010). This
has been particularly so in the spoken language of teenagers since they are very
common in the language of this particular social group (Stenström, Andersen and
Hasund, 2002). In this paper I will focus in particular on innit as in She love her
chocolate innit?, it was good innit? For this purpose, I will analyse and discuss data
extracted from two different teenagers’ corpora: COLT (Corpus of London Teenage
Language), compiled in 1993, and LIC (Linguistic Innovators Corpus), created in 2004.
In the analysis I will deal with both syntactic and pragmatic features of this expression.
My main aims are to see whether innit has remained stable in use over time or whether
it has increased in frequency, and to study whether it has preserved its original
grammatical features or whether it has undergone any changes worth reporting. The
data confirm that innit has not gone out of use; on the contrary, its frequency has
increased in the last few years. At present, innit still conserves syntactic features of its
own: it does not follow the regular question tag formation rules and it may represent not
only the verb BE but also DO, HAVE and most of the modal verbs. Furthermore, it
keeps showing high flexibility in the sentence since it may occur not only in final but also
in initial and medial positions. Finally, innit should not be regarded as a simple invariant
tag since it tends to behave more and more as a discourse marker that serves to
express the speaker’s attitude to the content of the message, thus reflecting on many
occasions the relationship among the participants in the interaction.
SESION 3

Elena Seoane (Universidad de Vigo) & Cristina Suárez-Gómez (Universitat de les
Illes Balears):
“Factors determining language variation in New Englishes:
Vernacular universals versus contact-induced change”
The aim of this paper is to gauge the strength of two major factors shaping the
grammars of New Englishes: vernacular universals and contact-induced change, as
seen at work in the variation found in the expression of perfect meaning in Asian
Englishes (Hong Kong, India, Singapore and The Philippines). Findings from an
analysis of the International Corpus of English confirm the presence of a vernacular
universal: the levelling between the present perfect and simple past, as well as the
occurrence of other recurrent variants. In this paper, this universal is set against the
other major explanatory factor: contact-induced change, that is, influence of the
substrate languages, cognitive constraints characteristic of language-contact situations,
and, especially, diffusion from the input language, which is an earlier, not necessarily
standard form of English. Pragmatic contextual factors such as the scant use of
adverbial support are also examined, as well as relevant intravarietal differences.
Keywords: perfect meaning, New Englishes, contact-induced change, vernacular
universals, substrate languages

Teresa Marqués Aguado (Universidad de Murcia): “Mapping London, Wellcome Library,
MS Wellcome 404: A preliminary dialectal study”
Abstract: London, Wellcome Library, MS 404 is a Leechbook written in Middle English
containing a wide array of contents, all of which are linked to the field of science (such
as recipes on various topics or prognostications, among others). The variety of spelling
variants that it features, as well as the intervention of several hands in its rendering, turn
it into an interesting text to be analysed from the point of view of its dialectal adscription.
For the purpose, the fit-technique advocated in the Linguistic Atlas of Late Medieval
English will be used, as well as other phonological and morphological information. This
will provide hints to argue for or against the possible uniformity of the text.