L’abandon progressif du fonctionnalisme dans les travaux de William Labov

2006 ◽  
Vol 33 (3) ◽  
pp. 335-355 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stijn Verleyen
Keyword(s):  
Language Variation ◽  
Language Variation And Change ◽  
The Core ◽  
In The Beginning ◽  
Linguistic Structures

Summary This paper traces the gradual abandonment of a functionalist perspective in labovian sociolinguistics. In an introductory point, the influence of French functionalism on William Labov, via Uriel Weinreich, is discussed. In the central part of the paper, Labov’s changing attitude towards functionalism is analysed, by distinguishing between different meanings of ‘functionalism’ and ‘functional’. It is shown how Labov gradually rejects the functionalist inspiration that was important in the beginning of his career. The reasons for this change in perspective, and its consequences, are examined. It is concluded that the rejection of the functionalist hypothesis does not affect the core of Labov’s work, which focuses on the correlation of social and linguistic structures. However, it leads to a very different conception of the nature of language 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.

scholarly journals In the Beginning was the Commons: Transformative Learning as Praxis for Regenerating the Cultural Commons

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 6
Author(s):  
Aftab Omer ◽  
Melissa Schwartz
Keyword(s):  
Transformative Learning ◽  
Educational Institutions ◽  
Truth Telling ◽  
Human Capabilities ◽  
Shared Meanings ◽  
The Core ◽  
State Education ◽  
The Commons ◽  
Cultural Commons ◽  
In The Beginning

Culture is the medium through which human capabilities are transmitted. In this respect, culture may be understood as a commons that is consequential to the future of other forms of commons. Regenerating the commons is inherently and intrinsically associated with democratizing and partnering. The commons of shared meanings that enable truth telling are exploitable by the market when education is dominated by the market. If educational institutions are at the behest of the market and the state, education can neither be a commons nor be in the service of the commons. We can frame this circumstance as an enclosure of learning. Transformative learning facilitates a shifting from the mindset of exploiting the commons to a mindset of regenerating the commons. In fact, the core transformation that occurs in transformative learning is the liberation of awareness from identity enclosure. Such a liberation prepares the ground for growing partnership capabilities from the intimate to the global, essential for preserving and regenerating the commons. An education that transforms seeks to re-sacralize and regenerate culture as a commons, which can then enable partnership-based care towards all other forms of commons.

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