chapter: 9 language change and variation, Exams of Sociolinguistics

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Language

Change

Presented by Aya Alkilani

Table of

Contents!

Variation and

change

• Post-vocalic [r] – its spread and its status
• The spread of vernacular forms
• Koines and koineisation

How do we study

language change?

• (^) Apparent-time studies of language change
• (^) Language change in real time

How do changes

spread?

• (^) From group to group
• (^) From style to style
• From word to word – lexical diffusion

Reasons for language

change

• (^) Social status and language change.
• (^) Gender and language change
• (^) Interaction and language change

What is Language Variation and change?

Variation and change

Language variation and change is an integrated subfield of linguistics that includes dialectology (the study of regional variation in language), historical linguistics (the study of how languages change over time) and sociolinguistics (the study of social variation in language). This grouping reflects the view that all three phenomena are related through the central concept of variation: change occurs via regional and social variation and much variation therefore reflects on-going change.

Post-vocalic “r” – its spread and its status:

* Post-Vocalic [r]- words that are

pronounced with [r] sound on its end as it

is included in the spelling. Accents or

words with Post-Vocalic [r] are called

RHOTIC

• So the pronunciation of “r” in English speaking communities provides a wealth of examples of the complexity of linguistic variation and language change, as well as the arbitrariness of the forms which happen to be standard in any community. While “r”-less speech is the prestigious form which is still spreading in England, in some parts of America it is the rhotic variety which is interesting. Change from above: the spread of a prestige form of a language

* It is easy to understand that a pronunciation which is considered

prestigious will be imitated and will spread through a community.

● sociolinguists have identified a new type of koine, an immigrant koine which results from the mixing of linguistic features among multi- ethnic groups in big cities. The speech of young migrants or the children of migrants provides the crucible for varieties that have been labelled multi-ethnolects. ● (^) In these varieties, the majority language may serve initially as a lingua franca, but the new multi-ethnolect soon develops very distinctive features as a result of the many different languages and dialects which different speakers bring to its construction. ● (^) For instance, in multi-ethnic areas of London, a variety which has been labelled Multicultural London English can be heard. This new dialect has features such as the use of ‘a’ rather than ‘an’ before a noun beginning with a vowel: e.g. a orange , a apple ,

Changes spread like waves in different directions, and social factors such as age, gender, status and social group affects the rate and directions of change. This view of language change is that changes in a language move from one group to the other. What happens is that a person picks up language in one group and shares this style of communication in another.

HOW DO

CHANGES

SPREAD?

HOW DO

CHANGES

SPREAD?

A. From GROUP to GROUP

C. From WORD to WORD- Lexical

Diffusion

It seems to be the case that sound changes not only spread from one person to another and from one style to another style, they also spread from one word to another. Sound changes typically spread through different words one by one. This is called lexical diffusion. Lexical diffusion is the change of how a word is pronounced. This is often exceedingly slow process and can take centuries.

1- Apparent-time studies of language change:

How do we study language change? A great deal of linguistic variation is stable but some is an indication of linguistic change in progress. A steady increase or steady decline in the frequency of a form by age group suggests to a sociolinguist that a change may be in progress in the speech community, whereas a bell-shaped pattern is more typical of stable variation. It is the study of comparing the speech of people from different age groups, to find out any differences that could indicate change.

1- Social status and language change

Reasons for language change

• Which social group starts language change?

• Speakers with the highest social status tend to introduce change from neighbouring communities of greater status; For example, middle–class people from Norwich adopt prestige London pronunciations.
• Lower-class people are responsible for unconscious changes. For example, they adopt pronunciations by nearby workers: solidarity!

Do you think women or men are most likely to lead a linguistic change? The answer depends on what kind of linguistic change is being discussed. As a broad generalisation, women more often than men lead changes in the direction of the standard or prestige norms; when men lead changes, they generally involve vernacular variants. But things are generally not so simple, as we will see.

3- Interaction and language change

• Interaction and contact between people is crucial in providing the channels for linguistic Change.
• Linguistic change generally progresses most slowly in tightly knit communities which have little contact with the outside world. There are plenty of examples of places where isolation has contributed to linguistic conservatism
• One of the best-known examples of linguistic conservatism is Iceland. Icelandic has altered relatively little since the thirteenth century, and it has developed very little dialectal variation. By contrast, during the same period English has changed radically and has been characterized by gross dialectal variation.
• Is face-to-face interaction crucial for linguistic change? Or is exposure to new forms on the media sufficient?