Variables, variability and change -> dialect contact, levelling, death, dialect

paths, Mufwenes Feature Pool, Scenarios: Diglossia, ,Bilingualism,

Codeswitching
Dialectology
- sub-field of sociolinguistics
- is about language variation esp. the geographic distribution of linguistic
features which differ from Standard English
- central issues:
- dialect vs. accent vs. language
- treatment of language minorities
- social implications of using a certain variety in everyday speech
Standard variety
- most prestigious
- usually not spoken by the majority of the population (in the UK, only 2-3% speak
RP)
Language
- not a particular linguistic notion
- defined by political, geographical, historical, sociological and cultural conditions
A language is a dialect with an army and a navy (Max Weinreich)
- usually mutual intelligibility (cannot be the only definition though Trudgill)
Variety
- neutral term used to describe any kind of language that we consider a single
entity
Accent
- a variety that is defined by phonetics and phonology (--> pronunciation)
Dialect
- variety that is not only phonologically, but also grammatically (and lexically)
distinct
- all dialects (and languages) are equal
Speaking about varieties
dia lect = across talk
dia topic = across places/spaces (geographic variations)
dia stratic: refers to social variation/strata (social class) sociolects
dia phasic: styles, registers
dia chronic: throughout history
syn chronic: happens at the same time
dia mesic: medium of communication (whatsapp, letter, etc.)
Genderlects
- different use of language by men and women
Idiolect
- the language variant used by an individual
Why study dialects?
knowledge about individuals and society, because dialects reflect peoples
needs
Geographical dialect continuum Discrete geographical boundaries
- the more apart, the greater the - political and cultural boundaries (e.g.
differences borders)
- chain of mutual intelligibility

Social dialect continua

example: Jamaica
social elite English
- continuum -
lower end Jamaican creole

autonomy heteronomy
- language/ standard variety - dialect
- independent - dependent on standard variety
- discrete boundaries e.g.: German dialects are
heteronomous regarding standard
German
heteronomy and autonomy are result of political conditions (and therefore
subject to change)

NORM (main informants in traditional dialectology)

= Non-mobile
= Old
= Rural
= Males

Corpora
(= digitalized databases for linguistic research)
ICE = International Corpus of English
FRED = Freiburg Corpus of English Dialects; free speech
COCA = Corpus of Contemporary American English
BNC = British National Corpus
SBCSAE = Santa Barbara Corpus of Spoken American English
Brown Corpus (family) = Brown University Standard Corpus of Present-Day
American English
style of tagging depends on research objectives
why corpora? -> representative, machine-readable, analyzable
online Atlases: ewave, Wenker Atlas
software: WordSmith, Antconc,
Schneiders Dynamic Model of Postcolonial Englishes
considers two perspectives: colonizers and colonized; identity formation
development of a new varieties of English through colonization
- more elaborate than Kachrus model
5 Phases:
1. Foundation
2. Exonormative Stabilization
3. Nativization
4. Endonormative Stabilization
5. Differentiation
Effects: history/politics -> independence
STL=settlers, IDG=indigenous people

- history and politics:

development towards independence
- Identity construction:
STL + IDG come to identify as a new nation; then identities become group
specific
- Sociolinguistics of contact/use/attitudes:
first: STL vs. IDG (totally apart) then dense group internal interaction
- linguistic development/structural effects:
toponymic borrowing > (heavy) lexical borrowing > new variety > group
specific variety
Kachrus Model of World Englishes (= Three Circle Model)
speech community: wide-ranging 'association' of varieties which would be
conceded to be
different from one another in particulars, but which are subsumable as 'sub-
varieties' under a
broad label, e.g. the English-speaking speach community
speech fellowship: marked by local contextual features
Nativization: brings forth new variety
Englishization: changes native language
Three Circles: difference between ESL and EFL; EFL below ESL because of
limited purposes

The Inner Circle The Outer Circle The Expanding Circle

English as it originally English was spread further diffusion of
took through English due to political
shape and later was colonization (L2) and
spread institutionalization economic influence of
across the world (L1) of GB and the USA
language
bilinguals'
creativity: using
English in creative ways
(fiction, etc.)
sole language of - mostly 'additional - English plays a limited
education, etc. language of indigenous role in public life
residents

e.g. Australia and New e.g. India, Singapore, e.g. China, Indonesia,
Zealand Philippines Thailand, Germany

norm-providing norm-developing norm-accepting

(influenced
by Inner Circle)
range: functions of English in different contexts
(education, business, private, etc.)
depth: of societal penetration: uses of English that
are available
to people with varying degrees of education who
are at different
socio-economic levels with different jobs and
professions

Criticism: reflects historical development but is very static and limited

Dialect geography
History

1870s: Georg Wenker Deutscher Sprachatlas

45,000 postal questionnaires sent to head teachers (including the 42
Wenkerstze)
until today the only survey that includes all dialects of a language
research was triggered by Neogrammarians: search for general principles of
language change

1890s: Jules Gillieron Linguistic Survey of France

fieldwork; questionnaire-based interviews conducted by E. Edmont (no free
speech; lex., phon.)

1930s Hans Kurath Linguistic Atlas of the US and Canada

team of fieldworkers (expensive)
publications for each region (e.g. The Linguistic Atlas of New England)

1950s Eugen Dieth & Harold Orton Survey of English Dialects

4 regions (England)
aim: preserve the full range of varieties before local differences disappear;
team of fieldworkers, questionnaire and open questions
tape-recorded
rural isolated locations, stable population

2004/05 Nikolas Coupland & Hywel Bishop: The Voices Survey (BBC)
contemporary British language attitudes
results: prestige of speaking properly, accent pride
not representative (respondents self-selected online)
syntactic shift: in 20th century morphology and syntax are taken into account
as well!

Methodology
oral history: informants talk freely about their experiences (-> emotional, less
controlled) e.g. FRED
direct questions: list of items e.g. What do you call a cup; but: priming
effect
indirect questions: e.g. holding up a cup and asking What is this?, but:
takes a lot longer
formal questions: fieldworkers were given questions and their form
informal questions: fieldworkers interview freely if they elicit the response
desired from the people
naming questions: elicit a response by quizzing the informant (e.g. What do
you say to a caller at the door if you want him to enter? - come in)
talking questions: elicits more than one word (e.g. What can you make from
milk?)
reverse questions: elicit a particular word by getting the informant to talk
about it at some length (e.g. What's the barn for and, where is it?)
completing questions: supplying a blank for the informant to fill in (e.g. You
sweeten tea with ?)
converting questions: completing a sequence of sentences with blanks (e.g.
A tailor is a man who...suits (makes). You go to a tailor and ask him to as suit
(make))

linguistic maps: display maps and interpretive maps:

 display maps: transfer the tabulated responses for a particular item onto a
map, putting
the tabulation into a geographic perspective ( more common)
interpretive maps: more general, show the distribution of predominant
variants from
region to region

Boundaries
isoglosses: a line drawn separating areas with different language concerning a
specific feature
heteroglosses: a line around an area
patterns of isoglosses:
criss-cross
Fan (partly overlay, then spread)
Transitions (show relations over big distances due to historical
developments)
relic area: area separated by an isoglosse
isogloss bundles -> make identifying dialects possible (=correlation of several
isoglosses)

Data elicitation/interview extra info:

Depend on the ultimate research goal/question
Syntactic turn: from isolated features to bigger aspects (phonology, syntax)
Observers paradoy ( =tape recorder effect)
Inner Circle Varieties: UK and US
BrE (dialect) RP (accent)
AmE (dialect) GA (accent)
language contact
in GB: French, Scandinavian, Commonwealth languages
in US: West Africa, Spanish, also German, Irish and other immigrant languages
emergence of a printing press -> need for standardized language (15th
century)
famous urban varieties: London ('Cockney'), Liverpool ('Scouse') -> cities rather
than rural areas
dialect areas of the US: the West, Midland, North, South
e.g. pin-pen-merger -> pronounced the same by Southerners

Examples GB vs. US
pronunciation: rhotic vs. non-rhotic (car)
lexical: guess can mean suppose in AmE but not in BrE
Morphosyntax: gotten only in the US

William Labov : The social motivation of a sound change (1963)

founder of variationist linguistics

one cannot understand the development of a language change apart from the
social life of
the community in which it occurs

Dependent variables:
Labov investigates shift in the phonetic position of the first elements of the
diphtons /ai/ (life) and /au/ (mouse) centralization /I/ //
- data elicitation:
interviewed 40 up-islanders and 29 down-islanders on Martha's Vineyard,
Massachusetts
quite isolated and enough variety between 3 towns and rural areas
Only 10% of the population is permanent (90% summer visitors)
4 ethnic groups:
1. descendants of the old families of English stock
2. large group of Portuguese descent
3. Indian remnant
4. various origins: English, French, Canadian, Irish, German, Polish

Results:
in-group identity has been established
expressions of strong resistance to the incursions of the summer visitors
fishermen in the rural up-island most specific variations
young people: centralization with those who consciously decided to come back to
the island

Social and linguistic motivations of a sound change:

contrasting another standard dialect
exaggerating to show connection to other dialects
- social identity under pressure from outside forces
hypercorrection
.. new norms are established and spread
Outer Circle Varieties

creole:
stable, full-fledged language derived from a pidgin
mother tongue of new generations
problematic socio-political status
linguistic features partly derive from the base language
usually no codified written standard

pidgin:
limited role in communication and social life
mix between base language and new languge
simple in every way
creole continuum (different levels of complexity)

John Rickford (1998): African-American Vernacular English (AAVE)

Which conditions favoured the emergence of pidgins/creoles?

many slaves arrived in the US and the Carribean (18 th/19th century)
very few native speakers -> overruled by those learning it as a second
language
need for communication

Why are both, historical and present-day recordings, not reliable?

historical:
written: creoles used to stigmatize slaves
Recordings: very few everyday free speech from former slaves and their

Which two observations support the classification of AAVE as a creole?

AAVE is similar to other creoles and to West African languages in key aspects of
its grammar
copula absence
What is a copula?
copula: links subject and predicate (e.g. He tall)
What is meant by 'decreolization'?
creole variety is leveled -> a new standard emerges

Variation and Change

speakers conform to rules
Mufwenes Feature Pool:
language as a construct extrapolated from idiolects
spoken by individuals who acknowledge using the same verbal code
no perfect replication of language 'acquistion'
each learner gradually and selectively reintegrates into new (and changing)
system features
more dynamic idea than Atlases

Models
indicators: variables which are not involved in systematic stylistic variation
relatively stable to ongoing linguistic change; low level of awareness
markers: variables which are subject to stylistic variation as well as class, sex,
age
overt stigmatization within a community high level of awareness
stereotypes: extremely high awareness of certain variants
social and regional connotations
linguistic variables can move from one category to another
change from below: indicators become markers (conscious)
change from above: stigmatized forms disappear (unconscious)

Typical distribution
apparent time: comparing the speech of older people with that of younger
people, and
assume that any differences are the result of linguistic change more practical
real time: track linguistic variables over time by collecting data from a speech
community at
multiple points in a certain period

Influential speaker variables

Age Social class Gender
- young speakers drive upper working class and - women use more
change lower middle class drive standard
- middle-aged people change than men and drive
speak wish to be part of the change
standard because it is upper class this is changing
expected from them in hypercorrection in the social pressure (boys-
their jobs upper working class girls)
- older people: less social (Labov) linguistic self-
pressures, narrow social presentation
networks -> no change covert prestige (men)

Diffusion (= a feature starts spreading)

socio-linguistic diffusion: from social group to social group
lexical diffusion: from word to word
 linguistic diffusion: linguistic changes spread from one linguistic environment
to another
(e.g. it is more common to lose /j/ before /u:/ after some consonants)
geographical diffusion: as skipping a stone across a pond (discontinuous;
first city to city, then areas in between
the Neighbourhood effect: change happens in one variety and then in those
that are close