European Journal of English Studies 1382-5577/00/0403-0217$15.

00
2000, Vol. 4, No. 3, pp. 217223 Swets & Zeitlinger
Social Network Analysis and Language Change:
Introduction
Lesley Milroy
University of Michigan
This special issue of EJES is devoted to seven sociohistorical accounts of
language variation and change. All these articles focus on applications of
social network analysis of the kind which originated in anthropological
research, mainly during the 1960s and 1970s, and which was first intro-
duced to sociolinguistics by a study of the Belfast vernacular which James
Milroy and I carried out in 1975. A full description of this work was
published in 1980.
1
Subsequently, our article Linguistic Change, Social
Network and Speaker Innovation and James Milroys Linguistic Varia-
tion and Change introduced an historical focus by examining the implica-
tions of social network analysis for theories of language change.
2
J.K.
Chambers, in his book Sociolinguistic Theory, provides a useful review of
a number of sociolinguistic studies which have applied the concept.
3
Of
particular value is his description of the ways in which different research-
ers have measured network strength in such a way as to reflect the every-
day social practices of communities. The goal of these studies of contem-
porary communities has generally been to explicate the informal social
mechanisms which allow speakers to maintain their nonstandard dialects
in the face of pressure from legitimized standard languages. Conversely,
change in the operation of these social mechanisms can, it has been sug-
gested, produce important social prerequisites for linguistic change.
An individuals social network is quite simply the sum of relationships
which he or she has contracted with others, and social network analysis
Correspondence: Lesley Milroy, Program in Linguistics, 1080 Frieze Building, Ann Arbor,
MI, 48109 USA. E-mail: amilroy@umich.edu
1
Lesley Milroy, Language and Social Networks, 2nd edn. (Oxford: Blackwell, 1987 [1st
ed. 1980]).
2
James Milroy and Lesley Milroy, Linguistic Change, Social Network and Speaker
Innovation, Journal of Linguistics 21 (1985), 33984; James Milroy, Linguistic Vari-
ation and Change (Oxford: Blackwell, 1992).
3
J.K. Chambers, Sociolinguistic Theory (Oxford: Blackwell, 1995).
LESLEY MILROY 218
examines the variable structures and properties of personal networks. A
fundamental postulate of such an analysis is that individuals create per-
sonal communities which provide them with a meaningful framework for
solving the problems of their day-to-day existence. Although a social net-
work may be seen as a boundless web of ties which reaches out through a
whole society, for practical reasons network studies generally anchor
networks to specific individuals, focusing on first-order network ties i.e.,
those persons with whom they directly interact.
Personal social networks are characterised by ties of different types and
strengths, and structural relationships between links can vary. In particu-
lar, if a network consists chiefly of strong ties, and those ties are multiplex
or many-stranded, and if the network is also relatively dense i.e. many of
the ties of ego are linked to each other then such a network has the
capacity to support its members in both practical and symbolic ways. That
is, in addition to providing assistance of a moral and practical kind, it can
also support the maintenance of symbolic value systems such as linguistic
or other cultural practices. The chief issue here for the linguist is that
strong ties both inhibit linguistic change and support linguistic norms.
The norm-enforcing capacities of groups built up mainly of strong ties
partly explains why innovators are likely to be persons weakly linked to
the group; indeed, using a measure of network strength, the Belfast com-
munity studies we carried out showed that susceptibility to outside influ-
ence increased in inverse proportion to strength of tie with the group.
Where groups are loose-knit that is, linked internally mainly by weak
ties they are therefore likely to be generally more susceptible to innova-
tion. For this reason, weak network ties are likely to play an important part
in the construction of a theory of linguistic diffusion and change. Follow-
ing M. Granovetters work,
4
we argued in our 1985 article that weak and
apparently insignificant interpersonal ties (of acquaintance as opposed
to friend, for example) are important channels through which innovation
and influence flow from one close-knit group to another, linking such
groups to a wider society. To support this argument, the article presents a
detailed quantitative analysis of the history and present-day distribution of
three Belfast phonological variables, suggesting that the spread of one of
them across hard sectarian lines of demarcation to penetrate the dialect of
young speakers is difficult to explain except in such terms. It was also
suggested that this weak tie model of change and diffusion could be ap-
plied at the macro level to account for the tendency of some languages to
4
M. Granovetter, The Strength of Weak Ties, American Journal of Sociology 78
(1973), 136080.
SOCIAL NETWORK ANALYSIS AND LANGUAGE CHANGE 219
be more resistant to change than others (Icelandic versus English, for
example). The general argument is that a type of social organization which
is based on overlapping closeknit networks will inhibit change, while one
based on mobility (for whatever reason), with a concomitant weakening of
network ties, will facilitate it.
Although the idea that innovations are transmitted through weak net-
work links may at first sight seem counterintuitive, a little thought sug-
gests its plausibility. First, it is likely (in the networks of mobile individu-
als at least) that weak ties are more numerous than strong ties. Second,
many more individuals can be reached through weak ties than through
strong ties; consider, for example, the relatively tenuous links set up by
participants at academic or business conferences, which link cohesive
groups associated with each institution and through which new ideas and
information pass. Conversely, information relayed through strong ties
tends not to be innovatory, since those linked by strong ties tend to share
contacts (that is, to belong to overlapping networks). Thus, mobile indi-
viduals who have contracted many weak ties, but as a consequence of their
mobility occupy a position marginal to any given cohesive group, are in a
favourable position to diffuse innovation. Interestingly for the issues con-
sidered in this volume, this conclusion is in line with the traditional as-
sumption of historians of language that the emergent, mobile merchant
class were largely responsible for the appearance of Northern (and other)
dialectal innovations in Early Modern (Standard) English.
5
The articles which follow all attempt to extend to speech communities
of earlier periods the insights of social network analysis which have been
developed in ethnographically oriented studies of contemporary commu-
nities. Some concentrate on issues arising from the norm enforcement
capacities of closeknit networks, while others are more concerned with the
twin corollaries that language change is rapid to the extent that such net-
works are looseknit, and that individuals who are loosely connected to
localized networks are likely to be linguistic innovators. While some au-
thors (particularly Fitzmaurice and Bax) are primarily concerned with
methodological issues, all in effect deal with the problems besetting the
extension of social network analysis from contemporary sociolinguistics
to historical research.
Most obviously, the historical record leaves gaps, and scholars must
make do with whatever relevant social and linguistic information has been
preserved. While historians gain in having access to hindsight, it is not
5
See, for example, A.C. Baugh and Thomas Cable, A History of the English Language,
3rd edn. (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1978), p. 194.
LESLEY MILROY 220
always clear exactly what kind of potentially crucial information has been
lost. Equally difficult is the impossibility of obtaining the kind of ethno-
graphic information which enables contemporary sociolinguists to assess
which ties are meaningful to particular communities and to assess the
degree of connectedness of an individual to a local community. For exam-
ple, in an article called Social Network Change and Language Change in
Progress in a Rural Alpine Village, R. Lippi-Green showed that ties to
particular clans were extremely important in rural Austria,
6
while V. Ed-
wards demonstrated that church membership was a crucial factor in as-
sessing strength of tie of British Black speakers.
7
Neither of these factors
were, however, of relevance to working-class Belfast speakers, whose ties
of kin, work and leisure contracted within a limited territory were particu-
larly relevant to an individuals integration into the local community. The
challenge for the historical sociolinguist is to show which ties are mean-
ingful to the groups and the individuals who are being studied.
Terttu Nevalainen avoids the worst of these methodological problems
by concentrating on the macro level implications of social network-related
processes for diachronic language change. Noting that the sixteenth centu-
ry is a period characterised by rapid linguistic change, she is able to make
use of the rich demographic information available (particularly with
respect to the changing population of sixteenth-century London) to infer
something of the character of contemporary social networks. Thus, dis-
ease ensured that Londons birth rate often exceeded its death rate, and
massive internal migration to the capital caused an even more radical
turnover of population. Many other individuals contracted ties with Lon-
don in their capacity as suppliers of food and fuel, allowing us to recon-
struct an overall scenario of extreme mobility and to associate pervasive
looseknit network structures with individuals resident in or connected
with London. This situation leads to a prediction that linguistic changes
will be more rapid in London than in other regions where networks are
more stable and closeknit, and Nevalainens article sets out to examine
and confirm the validity of such a prediction with reference to specific
changes.
Ursula Lenker similarly investigates the applications of network analy-
sis in a situation where a reasonable amount of both social and linguistic
information is available. Her focus, very different from Nevalainens, is
on the distinctive Winchester School language variety of the tenth centu-
ry, and she uses the insights of network analysis chiefly to examine the
6
Language in Society 18 (1989), 21334.
7
Language in a Black Community (Clevedon, Avon: Multilingual Matters, 1986).
SOCIAL NETWORK ANALYSIS AND LANGUAGE CHANGE 221
strong ties which allow the variety to emerge as a focused norm. A good
deal is known about the social organisation of tenth-century monasticism,
and of lfric and thelwold, two powerful figures around whom the
Winchester School monasteries are centred. This information allows Lenk-
er to examine the social conditions which gave rise to a focused Winches-
ter norm, and also to examine the loose ties between monasteries through
which she proposes that the norms of the group are diffused. Although she
takes care to spell out the hazards of projecting a sociolinguistic network
analysis so far back in history, the early mediaeval monastic system pro-
vides something close to a sociolinguistic laboratory for this kind of anal-
ysis.
Similar comments may be made of Alexander Bergss analysis of the
distinctive Wycliffite language of the tightknit Lollard communities of the
fifteenth century. This group, concerning which a considerable amount of
social information is available, developed a recognizable style which is
evident in thirty surviving manuscripts. Bergs quantitatively examines the
characteristics of this style with respect to two grammatical variables.
Networks such as those of the Winchester group and the Lollards might be
described as coalitions i.e. alliances which have been contracted for
specific purposes (religious and political in these cases). Bergs also exam-
ines a very different kind of network structure the family network of the
fifteenth-century Pastons which can be studied with reference both to the
exceptional corpus of letters which survives and to the social characteris-
tics of family members. He analyses the language use of persons whose
ties to the family network are of differing strengths and concludes, in line
with the predictions of network analysis, that those with looser ties can be
characterized as linguistic innovators. Bergss article includes a third case
study of the language of the tenth-century Peterborough Chronicle to dem-
onstrate the limits of this kind of sociohistorical linguistic analysis: suffi-
cient data is simply not available for even a tentative account of the social
networks of twelfth-century scribal innovators. Bergs also provides an
extensive methodological discussion of the issues which need to be faced
in applying network analysis historically in terms of Labovs principle of
uniformity. This principle holds that the forces which drive linguistic
change are the same throughout history, thus allowing researchers to
project backwards into history principles derived from research into con-
temporary communities.
Ingrid Tieken-Boon van Ostade deals with a family network in a man-
ner comparable to Bergs treatment of the Pastons. Her focal actor is Sarah
Fielding, sister of the eighteenth-century novelist Henry, and the database
is provided by the collection of the letters of these two authors. An impor-
LESLEY MILROY 222
tant member of this family-based network is the novelist Samuel Richard-
son, whose role as a linguistic innovator Tieken had already considered
elsewhere.
8
There, she was particularly interested in Richardsons influ-
ence on Samuel Johnson. She notes that Henry Fielding mentored Sarah, a
letter-writer and novelist, to the extent of suppressing individual charac-
teristics of her language. However, after his death her language, like John-
sons, showed evidence of the influence of Richardson, confirming
Tiekens earlier view of him as a linguistic innovator.
The four papers considered so far have all discussed language mainte-
nance or language change in specific personal or institutional communi-
ties, attending also to the major methodological hazards which beset at-
tempts to apply social network analysis to networks which are no longer
amenable to ethnographic observation. The contributions of Fitzmaurice
and Bax are somewhat differently oriented in that they concentrate on
these methodological issues. Fitzmaurices article reflects both broadly
and deeply on the applications of network analysis to historical language
situations. With attention to the example of the group of influential lan-
guage users who cluster round Joseph Addison, the key figure behind the
influential magazine The Spectator, her paper constitutes a careful discus-
sion of the nature of social influence, which she sees as a precondition for
linguistic influence. She is also concerned with the more general validity
of applying the social network construct historically. Fitzmaurice is inter-
ested in understanding the influence of individual writers, as opposed to
the more general influence of publications such as The Spectator. In par-
ticular, she argues that the understanding of coalition formation is crucial
in assisting such an understanding. As noted above, coalitions differ from
friendship and family networks in that they are alliances which are consti-
tuted for specific purposes. The Spectator group is a clear example of such
a coalition. Fitzmaurice refers to the substantial contemporary literature
on coalition formation, arguing that, given the patchy nature of surviving
social information, coalitions are easier to handle than friendship ties; the
social construction of friendship is less readily understood. Her article as a
whole is a careful consideration of the range of issues which need to be
considered by the historian of language wishing to apply social network
analysis to material from earlier periods.
8
Samuel Richardsons Role as Linguistic Innovator: A Sociolinguistic Analysis, in
Language, Usage and Description. Studies Presented to Noel Osselton on the Occa-
sion of his Retirement, eds. Ingrid Tieken-Boon van Ostade and John Frankis (Amster-
dam/Atlanta, GA: Rodopi, 1991), 4757.
SOCIAL NETWORK ANALYSIS AND LANGUAGE CHANGE 223
While his contribution is also methodological, Baxs focus is very
much narrower. He begins by identifying a specifiable and influential
eighteenth-century network which he describes as the Streatham Group.
This network centres on the figure of the wealthy brewer Henry Thrale,
who commissioned Sir Joshua Reynolds to paint a collection of portraits
of family and friends to be displayed in the library of his house at
Streatham Park, Surrey. While Baxs ultimate interest, like that of Fitz-
maurice, is in linguistic influence specifically the influence of members
of the Streatham Group upon one another his focus in this article is on
the mechanics of constructing an appropriate and valid network strength
scale against which variable linguistic data can be assessed.
Hickeys contribution is different from those addressed hitherto in that
he investigates ongoing linguistic change in a contemporary community
the prosperous Dublin elite of Irelands twentieth-century tiger economy.
A coordinated set of vowel changes are evident in the language of this
diffuse but selfconsciously cosmopolitan group which Hickey describes as
dissociative. By this, he means that they display a reaction against the
focused norms of traditional Dublin English which have been maintained
by the closeknit networks characteristic of the working-class communities
of the city. Hickey identifies innovatory vowel variants which are charac-
terised by maximal linguistic distance from their corresponding elements
in the traditional system. His paper serves as a foil to those preceding it in
demonstrating the richness of linguistic, ethnographic and other social
data available to the sociolinguist investigating change in progress. Such a
demonstration highlights the methodological constraints inherent in the
sociohistorical enterprise which have formed a substantial part of the dis-
cussion of the other six authors.
Taken together, the seven articles in this volume discuss specific speech
communities which span an entire millennium. Each addresses issues as-
sociated with the transmission of linguistic influence through ties con-
tracted in personal communities. Some concentrate more on methodologi-
cal and some on more substantive linguistic issues, but together they con-
stitute a remarkably focused attempt to reconstruct the everyday social
lives of the men and women of the past, with a view to examining how the
ties contracted in these lives are influential in producing changes which
are evident in their own writings, and which have also turned out to be
important elements in the macro level history of the English language.