Explanations in Sociosyntactic Variation

2022 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Social Factors ◽  
Language Change ◽  
Language Variation ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
Human Language ◽  
Language Variation And Change ◽  
Conditioning Factors ◽  
Quantitative Analyses

What explains variation in human language? How are linguistic and social factors related? How do we examine possible semantic differences between variants? These questions and many more are explored in this volume, which examines syntactic variables in a range of languages. It brings together a team of internationally acclaimed authors to provide perspectives on how and why syntax varies between and within speakers, focusing on explaining theoretical backgrounds and methods. The analyses presented are based on a range of languages, making it possible to address the questions from a cross-linguistic perspective. All chapters demonstrate rigorous quantitative analyses, which expose the conditioning factors in language change as well as offering important insights into community and individual grammars. It is essential reading for researchers and students with an interest in language variation and change, and the theoretical framework and methods applied in the study of how and why syntax varies.

Looking Beyond Decreolization as an Explanatory Model of Language Change in Creole-Speaking Communities

1999 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 93-119 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Aceto
Keyword(s):  
Language Change ◽  
Language Variation ◽  
Explanatory Model ◽  
Related Concept ◽  
Language Variation And Change ◽  
Variation Data ◽  
Creole Languages

This paper discusses internally-motivated change as a largely ignored factor in understanding diachrony in creole languages: that is, externally-motivated models — and the most popular of these is certainly decreolization and the related concept of the creole continuum — have been nearly exclusively relied upon by creolists to explain phenomena associated with language variation and change in creole-speaking communities, particularly among the Atlantic English-derived creoles. This paper presents one alternative to viewing variation data derived from creole speakers as solely a function of decreolization. It raises issues associated with (and explores alternatives to) that singular view of diachrony.

When Language Fails

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles Yang
Keyword(s):  
Language Change ◽  
Language Variation ◽  
Language Variation And Change ◽  
Numerical Studies ◽  
Tolerance Principle

The theory predicts complete lexicalization when the number of exceptions to a rule exceeds the threshold, which leads to morphological gaps: without a productive rule, you only know the derived form if you hear it otherwise ineffability arises. Detailed numerical studies for gaps in Russian, English, Spanish, and Polish. The Tolerance Principle also directly bears on language variation and change, in that it provides/predicts the conditions under which language change is actuated. As a case study, the theory explains why—and when—the so-called dative sickness, and other instances of case substitution, took place in Icelandic in the 19th centuries.

Third Factors in Language Variation and Change

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elly Van Gelderen
Keyword(s):  
Language Change ◽  
Language Variation ◽  
Verb Second ◽  
Language Faculty ◽  
Language Variation And Change ◽  
Generative Syntax ◽  
Syntactic Theory ◽  
Academic Researchers ◽  
Cyclical Process ◽  
The Impact

In this pioneering study, a world-renowned generative syntactician explores the impact of phenomena known as 'third factors' on syntactic change. Generative syntax has in recent times incorporated third factors – factors not specific to the language faculty – into its framework, including minimal search, labelling, determinacy and economy. Van Gelderen's study applies these principles to language change, arguing that change is a cyclical process, and that third factor principles must combine with linguistic information to fully account for the cyclical development of 'optimal' language structures. Third Factor Principles also account for language variation around that-trace phenomena, CP-deletion, and the presence of expletives and Verb-second. By linking insights from recent theoretical advances in generative syntax to phenomena from language variation and change, this book provides a unique perspective, making it essential reading for academic researchers and students in syntactic theory and historical linguistics.

J. K. Chambers, Peter Trudgill and Natalie Schilling-Estes (eds.), The handbook of language variation and change. (Blackwell Handbooks in Linguistics.) Oxford and Malden, MA: Blackwell. 2002. xii + 807 pp.

2004 ◽  
Vol 33 (5) ◽  
pp. 769-772
Author(s):  
Rajend Mesthrie
Keyword(s):  
Social Factors ◽  
Language Variation ◽  
Variation Theory ◽  
Language Variation And Change ◽  
Linguistic Structure ◽  
Per Se

This is the eleventh volume in the Blackwell series “Handbooks in Linguistics.” Of the previous ten, one was devoted to general sociolinguistics (Coulmas 1997), making this the first in the series to deal with a specific branch of sociolinguistics. For many scholars, variation theory (including the study of change in progress) is the heartland of sociolinguistics, though not everyone would go as far as Chambers 2003 in equating sociolinguistic theory with variation theory alone. As the earlier Blackwell handbook suggests, the field of sociolinguistics is broader than variation theory per se. However, considering the richness of the handbook under review, one can understand why variation theory should hold the high ground in sociolinguistics. The handbook comprises 29 chapters, divided into five sections: methodologies, linguistic structure, social factors, contact, and language and societies.

scholarly journals MINORITY GROUPS AND LANGUAGE DIVERSITY IN GERMANY AND BRAZIL: AN INTERVIEW WITH GÖZ KAUFMANN (UNIVERSITY OF FREIBURG, GERMANY)

2020 ◽  
pp. 279
Author(s):  
Göz Kaufmann ◽  
Rafael Vetromille-Castro ◽  
Bernardo Kolling Limberger ◽  
Helena Dos Santos Kieling
Keyword(s):  
Language Contact ◽  
Language Change ◽  
Minority Groups ◽  
Language Variation ◽  
Language Diversity ◽  
Language Variation And Change ◽  
Senior Lecturer ◽  
Main Research ◽  
Research Areas ◽  
The University

Göz Kaufmann, who obtained his Ph.D. from the University of Heidelberg, Germany, in 1997, completed his habilitation treatise in 2016 and received the venia legendi (livre docência) in German Linguistics from the University of Freiburg, Germany. He holds a permanent position as a senior lecturer (Akademischer Oberrat) for linguistics in the German Department of the University of Freiburg. Kaufmann’s main research areas are sociolinguistics, language contact, language variation, and language change. In the area of language variation and change, his focus is on German minority varieties spoken in South America, particularly Mennonite Low German and Pomerano. Aside from lexical and morphological variation, he analyzes syntactic variation in these varieties combining variationist and generative approaches. Göz Kaufmann worked in Brazil as a guest professor and representative of the DAAD (German Academic Exchange Service) at the UFRGS and the USP. At the University of Pelotas (UFPel), he has already taught several courses and presented numerous talks. For more information, see http://paul.igl.uni-freiburg.de/kaufmann/?Home

Language change across a lifetime: A historical micro-perspective

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (s2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander Bergs
Keyword(s):  
Communities Of Practice ◽  
Social Factors ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Language Change ◽  
Historical Data ◽  
Data Sets ◽  
The Social ◽  
Challenges And Opportunities ◽  
Linguistic Behavior ◽  
Micro Analysis

Abstract This paper focuses on the micro-analysis of historical data, which allows us to investigate language use across the lifetime of individual speakers. Certain concepts, such as social network analysis or communities of practice, put individual speakers and their social embeddedness and dynamicity at the center of attention. This means that intra-speaker variation can be described and analyzed in quite some detail in certain historical data sets. The paper presents some exemplary empirical analyses of the diachronic linguistic behavior of individual speakers/writers in fifteenth to seventeenth century England. It discusses the social factors that influence this behavior, with an emphasis on the methodological and theoretical challenges and opportunities when investigating intra-speaker variation and change.

Hands off the metadata!: Comparing the use of explicit and background metadata in crowdsourced dialectology

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (s1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Tamsin Blaxter ◽  
David Britain
Keyword(s):  
Language Variation ◽  
Social Background ◽  
Smartphone Application ◽  
Background Information ◽  
British Isles ◽  
Language Variation And Change ◽  
Digital Era ◽  
The Social ◽  
Dialect Variation ◽  
Regional Dialect

Abstract In this article we assess the extent to which we can collect plausible data about regional dialect variation using crowdsourcing techniques – the BBC Future Survey – without explicitly gathering any user metadata, but relying instead on background information collected by Google Analytics. In order to do this, we compare this approach with another crowdsourced survey, operated from a smartphone application, which examines the same site – the British Isles – but which explicitly asks users to submit detailed social background information – the English Dialects App (EDA) (Leemann et al. 2018). The EDA has the disadvantage that there is a considerable user drop-off between completing the dialect survey and completing the social metadata questionnaire. The BBC Future Survey, however, only collects information on where users are physically located when they complete the survey – not where they are from or even where they live. Results show that the BBC Future Survey produces a plausible snapshot of regional dialect variability that can complement other more sophisticated (expensive, time-consuming) approaches to investigating language variation and change. We suggest the approach constitutes a digital-era rapid anonymous survey along the lines of Labov (1972), serving similar aims, with similar success, but on a much much larger scale.

“Dragon fly”: Lexical change, local scatter, and the national norm

1982 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 413-417
Author(s):  
Frank Anshen ◽  
Mark Aronoff
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Language Change ◽  
Language Variation ◽  
National Norm ◽  
Lexical Change

ABSTRACTIn the New York area, there are three local terms for “dragon fly”: darning needle, dining needle, and diamond needle. We analyze the distribution of these terms and their relation to the national norm, dragon fly. (Language variation, dialectology, language change.)

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