LING001
Sociolinguistic Variation
4-6-2009
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Language in Space and Time
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Language change and variation
Language clearly changes
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Change vs. Variation
No change, no variation
No variation, no change
The material of biological change: variation in natural
selection
Darwin: “If we possessed a perfect pedigree of mankind, a
genealogical arrangement of the races of man would afford the
best classification of the various languages now spoken
throughout the world; and if all extinct languages, and all
intermediate and slowly changing dialects, were to be included,
such an arrangement would be the only possible one. Yet it might
be that some ancient languages had altered very little and had
given rise to few new languages, whilst others had altered much
owing to the spreading, isolation and state of civilisation of the
several co-descended races, and had thus given rise to many new
dialects and languages.” (Origins, p342)
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It happens to all of us...
The Queen no longer speakers the Queen’s English
5: 1950s
8: 1980s
S: “standard”
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What is this?
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Soda map: 52.97%
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Pop chart: 25.08%
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Coke?! (12.38%)
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Also
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soft drink 5.89%
tonic 0.67%
cocola 0.29%
fizzy drink 0.14%
dope 0.03%
lemonade 0.01% (Florida)
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Types of variations
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Language variation can be based on
geographical region
gender
age
social class
ethnicity
speech context
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Regional Variations
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e.g. Canadian vs US (“out and about”)
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wicket
window with clerk behind it
hydro
electricity, electric bill
skidoo
snow mobile
grade ones
first graders
head (of dept)
chair (of dept)
homo milk
whole milk
brown (bread)
whole wheat (bread)
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Regional Variations
1. I teach Ferdinand the calm cat to fetch
cold cups of coffee. Who knows more
about tasting things? He's used the
book
http://alt-usage-english.org/audio_archive.shtml
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Regional Variations
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Atlas of North American English (Labov, Ash & Boberg 2006)
Available on line at Penn Library
E.g., “cot”-”caught” merger (two distinct phonemes are merged
into one)
Johnson (2007)
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Boston: cot-caught merger (also, “Don”-”Dawn”)
Small towns in RI on Mass. border: no merger
But recent migrants from Boston introduced the merger into
the local community:
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younger siblings now have merger, but not old ones,
indicating that the merger system must be sufficiently
represented to be acquired (about 20%)
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beating vs. beatin’
Language Variation by Ф
ClassХ
LWC: Lower Working Class
UWC: Upper Working Class
LMC: Lower Middle Class
UMC: Upper Middle Class
The social and stylistic stratification of ( ing) in NYC
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(from Dr William
LabovХs 1966 study
of New York City)
Another axis on which language has often been
found to vary is that of (socio-economic) Ф
classХ
This type of variation often seems to be stable
across time and in different places:
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Variation in Society: Register
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Formal/polite vs. conversational/casual
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“I was quite enthusiastic about the prospect.”
“I was, like, totally psyched!”
E.g., Korean and Japanese use honorific suffixes
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Korean -si (added to verbs), -k’eso (added to nouns)
e.g. Korean register/politeness suffixes to show social
rank distance between speaker and listener
-yo (added to verbs)
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Variation by Gender
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Consensus: language change is often led by females
In English, differences are subtle, and also much debated;
Lakoff (1975)
hedges “sort of, kind of, I guess”
super polite forms “I would really appreciate it if”
tag questions “..., isn’t it?” (no: Cameron et al 1988)
hyper-correct grammar and pronunciation
empty adjectives, intensifiers “that’s so gorgeous”, “that’s nice”
more color terms (periwinkle, mustard, ...)
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Gender
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Koasati (Native American language, Louisiana)
male characterized by final “s”
female
male
lakawwil
lakawwis
molhil
molhis
lakaw
lakaws
ip
ips
“he is eating it”
iltolihn
iltolihns
“we are working”
otil
otils
“I am building a fire”
“I am lifting it”
“we are peeling it”
“he is lifting it”
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Social Class
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S.C. Ross, England ~50 years ago
Upper Class
Non-Upper Class
looking glass
mirror
have a bath
take a bath
sick
ill
rich
wealthy
wireless
radio
house
home
bike
cycle
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Many of these have
no social
connotations now,
or have opposite =
arbitrariness of
sociolinguistic
markers
Variation in Society
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A common misconception about non-standard varieties of
English is that they are unsystematic and “lazy” or
“illogical” forms of the language:
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this is directly related to the conception of language
change
Linguists have studied these dialects for over 50 years,
and have found that their non-standard features are
typically found in prestige varieties of other
languages/dialects
Three examples:
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Latin (recall the 2nd lecture of the semester)
double negation
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the use of /r/ in American
Progress
or
Decay
• What’s special about Latin?
• Latin is a Romance language, more directly related to
French, Italian, Spanish, etc.: English is a Germanic
language
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language contact did bring in lots of words of Latin
originsLatin: rich morphology sometimes
Spanish: poor morphology
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Progress or Decay
Latin: poor morphology
Spanish: rich morphology elsewhere
Latin: no articles (“a” vs “the”), definiteness is marked by word
order
“dog barks” means “the dog barks”, “barks dog” means “a dog barks”
Spanish: does have articles for definiteness (“un” vs. “al”)
Winnie THAT Pooh
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Double Negation
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I didn’t see anyone.
I didn’t see noone.
Often considered “illogical” -- “two negatives make a
positive”
However, this type of negative agreement is standard in a
wide range of languages
Romance, Slavic, Greek, Hungarian, Flemish, Afrikaans,
Lithuanian, Japanese, ...
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English-learning children make use of double negation,
regardless of the variety they are exposed to
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•Gianni non ha visto niente
•John not has seen nothing
•“John didn’t see anything”
•Dhen ipa tipota
•not I.said nothing
•“I didn’t say anything”
•Janek nie pomaga nikomu
•Janek not helps nobody
•“Janek doesn’t help anybody”
•Johnwa nanimo tabe-nak-atta
•John nothing eat-Not-Past
•“John didn’t eat anything”
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Italian
Greek
Polish
Japanese
rise and fall of r
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The history of the r-less speech (“Youth and Viga”-JFK)
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origin in England: a prestige dialect that did pronounce r
spread to US and carried inland
r-less became fashionable in England but only spread to
some coastal cities (Boston, New York, Savanna, GA,
etc.)
now “standard” American English is rhotic
• Rhotic dialects are more prestigious in NYC
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Department Store Study
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Sociolinguistic study by William Labov (now @Penn) in
1960’s
Ask sales people at department stores location of item that
he knew was on the fourth floor
fourth floor or fouhth flooh
Ask to repeat = careful pronunciation
fourth floor or fouhth flooh
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The Battleground
• High prestige: Sak’s Fifth Avenue
• Middle prestige: Macy’s
• Low prestige: S. Klein
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R-results
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more “r”s in careful pronunciation
social stratification:
Sak’s > Macy’s > S. Klein
floorwalkers > salesclerks > stockboys
gender: women > men
age: younger > older (Sak’s)
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Use of r
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Across the Atlantic: NY vs. Reading
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Summary
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Language is embedded in culture and society, and carries
the respective values:
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some variables are remarkably stable (e.g., R-less
speech)
people are quite sensitive to the sociocultural
implications of language variation
But the most interesting, and non-trivial, kind of variation
resides below consciousness
Serious analysis requires structural knowledge of
language (e.g., Labov’s article for reading this week on
African American English)
Wednesday: Language change
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