Linguistic change in El Pont de Suert: The study of variation of /3/

1990 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 19-30 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nuria Alturo ◽  
Ma. Teresa Turell
Keyword(s):  
Social Factors ◽  
Speech Community ◽  
Linguistic Variables ◽  
Linguistic Change ◽  
Geographic Factors

ABSTRACTCatalan sociolinguistics has investigated in depth the uses of Catalan and the attitudes toward it but has only analyzed very sporadically the mechanisms of linguistic change in this language. The study presented in this article is an attempt to describe an ongoing linguistic change that has been observed in a speech community (E1 Pont de Suert) of the Alta Ribagorça, a region in Catalonia (Spain) where the borderline between Catalan and Aragonese, a variety of Spanish, can be delimited. The purpose of this article is twofold. First, the article seeks to demonstrate that a gradual substitution of the autochthonous variant [t∫] by the normative [3] of the phoneme /3/ appears to be taking place in El Pont de Suert, and to determine, at the same time, the linguistic and social factors that favor this substitution. Second, its purpose is to analyze the variation of this phoneme in relation to not only geographic but also social and linguistic variables; this is because a study that considers only geographic factors would describe the characteristics that differentiate the Ribagorca speech from other Catalan speech varieties but would not account for the existing variation in the use of both the voiceless affricate and the voiced fricative.

The intersection of sex and social class in the course of linguistic change

1990 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 205-254 ◽  
Author(s):  
William Labov
Keyword(s):  
Social Class ◽  
Language Learning ◽  
Social Factors ◽  
Sexual Differentiation ◽  
Lower Class ◽  
Social Classes ◽  
Social Awareness ◽  
Speech Community ◽  
Linguistic Change ◽  
Initial Acceleration

ABSTRACTTwo general principles of sexual differentiation emerge from previous sociolinguistic studies: that men use a higher frequency of nonstandard forms than women in stable situations, and that women are generally the innovators in linguistic change. It is not clear whether these two tendencies can be unified, or how differences between the sexes can account for the observed patterns of linguistic change. The extensive interaction between sex and other social factors raises the issue as to whether the curvilinear social class pattern associated with linguistic change is the product of a rejection of female-dominated changes by lower-class males. Multivariate analysis of data from the Philadelphia Project on Linguistic Change and Variation indicates that sexual differentiation is independent of social class at the beginning of a change, but that interaction develops gradually as social awareness of the change increases. It is proposed that sexual differentiation of language is generated by two distinct processes: (1) for all social classes, the asymmetric context of language learning leads to an initial acceleration of female-dominated changes and retardation of male-dominated changes; (2) women lead men in the rejection of linguistic changes as they are recognized by the speech community, a differentiation that is maximal for the second highest status group.

Variation and third age: A sociolinguistic perspective

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (s2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Schreier
Keyword(s):  
Language Learning ◽  
Language Change ◽  
National Council ◽  
Speech Community ◽  
Linguistic Change ◽  
Third Age ◽  
Quantitative Evidence ◽  
Style Shifting ◽  
Age Grading ◽  
Ethnic Group Membership

Abstract The correlation between external factors such as age, gender, ethnic group membership and language variation is one of the stalwarts of sociolinguistic theory. The repertoire of individual members of speaker groups, vis-à-vis community-wide variation, represents a somewhat slippery ground for developing and testing models of variation and change and has been researched with reference to accommodation (Bell 1984), style shifting (Rickford, John R. & MacKenzie Price. 2013. Girlz II women: Age-grading, language change and stylistic variation. Journal of Sociolinguistics 17. 143–179) and language change generally (Labov, William. 2001. Principles of linguistic change, vol. 2: Social factors. Oxford: Blackwell). This paper presents and assesses some first quantitative evidence that non-mobile older speakers from Tristan da Cunha, an island in the South Atlantic Ocean, who grew up in an utterly isolated speech community, vary and shift according to external interview parameters (interviewer, topic, place of interview). However, while they respond to the formality of the context, they display variation (both regarding speakers and variables) that is not in line with the constraints attested elsewhere. These findings are assessed with focus on the acquisition of sociolinguistic competence in third-age speakers (particularly style-shifting, Labov, William. 1964. Stages in the acquisition of Standard English. In Roger Shuy, Alva Davis & Robert Hogan (eds.), Social Dialects and Language Learning, 77–104. Champaign: National Council of Teachers of English) and across the life-span generally.

scholarly journals Language Contact and Morphosyntactic Complexity: Evidence from German

2014 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-29 ◽  
Author(s):  
Péter Maitz ◽  
Attila Németh
Keyword(s):  
Statistical Analysis ◽  
Second Language Acquisition ◽  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Social Factors ◽  
Language Contact ◽  
Structural Complexity ◽  
Speech Community ◽  
Linguistic Complexity ◽  
Language Varieties ◽  
Corpus Data

The article focuses on the hypothesis that the structural complexity of languages is variable and historically changeable. By means of a quantitative statistical analysis of naturalistic corpus data, the question is raised as to what role language contact and adult second language acquisition play in the simplification and complexification of language varieties. The results confirm that there is a significant correlation between intensity of contact and linguistic complexity, while at the same time showing that there is a need to consider other social factors, and, in particular, the attitude of a speech community toward linguistic norms.*

Social influence in the use of the present perfect in Bilbao

2012 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 88-108 ◽  
Author(s):  
Clara Burgo
Keyword(s):  
Social Influence ◽  
Social Factors ◽  
Romance Languages ◽  
Social Variables ◽  
Present Perfect ◽  
Linguistic Change ◽  
The Social ◽  
Linguistic Constraints ◽  
Peninsular Spanish ◽  
Semantic Domains

The Present Perfect (PP) in some Peninsular Spanish dialects is following the same path as other Romance languages; it is going through a grammaticalization process where the PP is usurping the semantic domains of the Preterite. This is the case of many Peninsular dialects such as Alicante (Schwenter, 1994) and Madrid (Serrano, 1994) among others as well as Bilbao (Kempas, 2005). He found that the frequencies of PPs in hodiernal contexts were higher than in other Spanish cities so these findings point out to a more advanced path of grammaticalization in this city. Previous studies have paid more attention to the linguistic constraints that favor the use of the PP instead of the Preterite rather than the social factors that influence this linguistic change. In this article, I focus on the study of three social variables (age, gender and class) to account for evidence of a change in progress in Bilbao Spanish.

Subject expression in Spanish

2016 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-79 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kimberly L. Geeslin ◽  
Aarnes Gudmestad
Keyword(s):  
Multivariate Analyses ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Current Paper ◽  
Speech Community ◽  
Linguistic Variables ◽  
Second Person ◽  
Patterns Of Use ◽  
Single Category ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Subject Expression

Research on variation demonstrates that analyses of frequency and predictors of use contribute to our understanding of languages. Investigations of subject expression in Spanish in particular have identified differences across person and number of the verb that suggest that linguists should focus their analyses exclusively on a single category of that variable (e.g., Torres-Cacoullos and Travis 2010). The current paper examines the subject-expression forms produced in first- and second-person contexts in separate analyses, exploring the degree to which patterns of use generalize across verbal person categories. Data from 32 sociolinguistic interviews with native and non-native speakers of Spanish in the same speech community were coded for independent linguistic variables, such as switch reference, perseveration, tense, mood and aspect of the verb form, verbal negation, presence of object pronouns, specificity and reference cohesiveness. Separate multivariate analyses for first- and second-person referents show subtle differences between NSs and NNSs.

The fate of linguistic innovations

2016 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 302-322 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Rosen
Keyword(s):  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Foreign Language ◽  
Social Factors ◽  
Speech Community ◽  
Foreign Language Acquisition ◽  
The Social ◽  
French Speaking ◽  
Linguistic Level ◽  
Corpus Data ◽  
Norman French

Drawing on spoken corpus data, this study traces the emergence and development of Norman French-influenced innovations in the nativised L2 variety of Jersey English and compares them to features in the speech of French-speaking learners of English. The comparison shows that such innovations do not differ from errors in a learner variety on a formal linguistic level and that they arguably result from the same processes as are present in foreign language acquisition, such as transfer or simplification. The paper therefore argues that innovations can only be identified reliably in retrospect, once they are more widely accepted in the speech community. It also points to the social factors that are crucial in shaping the use and probable fates of former innovations in Jersey English and suggests a typology of innovations according to their developments.

Setting New Standards

1997 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 107-142 ◽  
Author(s):  
Janet Holmes
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Final Section ◽  
Language Change ◽  
Linguistic Variables ◽  
Linguistic Change ◽  
Potential Sources ◽  
Sound Changes ◽  
Controversial Area ◽  
Women's Role

Social dialect data demonstrates that women tend to lead linguistic change in New Zealand English over a range of linguistic variables. This paper describes some current sound changes in New Zealand English, discusses their potential sources, and suggests possible mechanisms by which they percolate through the system. Women's role in language change is a controversial area. The final section examines a range of explanations which have been proposed to account for the patterns identified by researchers and assesses their relevance to the New Zealand data.

scholarly journals O locus da língua: reflexões metateóricas acerca da noção de língua como um fato social em William Labov (The locus of language: metatheoretical reflections on the notion of language as a social fact in William Labov)

2014 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 51
Author(s):  
Daniel Marra ◽  
Sebastião Elias Milani
Keyword(s):  
Speech Community ◽  
Linguistic Change ◽  
Social Fact

Este artigo trata da noção de língua como um fato social e de sua reelaboração empreendida por William Labov. Adotando uma postura antirreducionista, Labov considera desnecessário recorrer às bases psiquicoindividuais ao explicar o fenômeno da mudança linguística. Recorre, para tanto, à noção de comunidade de fala como o legítimo locus da língua. Tal postura deixa emergir certas incongruências teórico-metodológicas.PALAVRAS-CHAVE: William Labov. Língua. Fato Social. Comunidade de Fala. Indivíduo. ABSTRACT This article deals with the notion of language as a social fact and its reworking undertaken by William Labov. Adopting an antireductionist posture, Labov considers it unnecessary to rely on the psychoindividual bases to explain the phenomenon of linguistic change. He resorts, thus, to the concept of speech community as the legitimate locus of language. Such attitude allows the emergence of certain theoretical and methodological inconsistencies.KEYWORDS: William Labov. Language. Social Fact. Speech Community. Individual.

scholarly journals A INTER-RELAÇÃO DA CONCORDÂNCIA NOMINAL E DA CONCORDÂNCIA NOS PREDICATIVOS/PARTICÍPIOS PASSIVOS, SOB O ENFOQUE DA TEORIA DA VARIAÇÃO E MUDANÇA LINGÜÍSTICA

Organon ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 14 (28-29) ◽  
Author(s):  
Juçá Fialho Dias ◽  
Marisa Fernandes
Keyword(s):  
Data Processing ◽  
Quantitative Data ◽  
Linguistic Variation ◽  
Linguistic Variables ◽  
Social Variables ◽  
Linguistic Change ◽  
Number Agreement ◽  
Level Of Education ◽  
The Relationship

This paper intends to examine the relationship between nominalagreement and number agreement in predicative/participle passive, according toFernandes (1996) and Vazzata-Dias (1996), respectively. In this study, we analysethe speech of residents of Florianópolis, investigating two linguistic variables,Formal Paralelism and Phonic Salience, in order to verify, respectively, thehipothesis that plural markers promote plural markers and zero plural markerspromote zero plural markers and that regular plural, because are least distinctive,have lowest probability of agreement. We also investigate three social variables(Sex, age and level of education) in order to verify mainly some indication of stablevariation or linguistic change in progress. The research is conducted throughoutusing the theorical principle of the theory of linguistic variation (Weinreich, Labov& Herzog, 1968, Labov, 1972 and 1994). For quantitative data processing, weused the VARBRUL programs, version 1988/1992.

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