Usualization

2020 ◽  
pp. 124-177
Author(s):  
Hans-Jörg Schmid
Keyword(s):  
Individual Variation ◽  
Language Change ◽  
Sociology Of Knowledge ◽  
Linguistic Variation ◽  
Unified Approach ◽  
Constructivist Model

The chapter discusses the nature of the process of usualization and explains its contribution to the conventionalization of innovations, to linguistic variation, change, and persistence. The process is explained with reference to Berger and Luckmann’s (1966) constructivist model of the sociology of knowledge. Usualization is responsible for the conventionalization of innovative form-meaning pairings as well as innovative forms and meanings. It is argued that linguistic variation on all dimensions, from form, structure, and meaning to situational, social, and individual variation can be handled by the unified approach suggested by the EC-Model. Usualization is a major factor in types of language change labelled by such terms as grammaticalization, lexicalization, pragmaticalization, idiomatization, and context-induced change. A case study of the development of the going-to future illustrates this potential. Not only variation and change, but also the persistence of structure are dynamic in the sense that it must be refreshed by continual usualization.

scholarly journals That’s Cool. Computational Sociolinguistic Methods for Investigating Individual Lexico-grammatical Variation

2021 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hans-Jörg Schmid ◽  
Quirin Würschinger ◽  
Sebastian Fischer ◽  
Helmut Küchenhoff
Keyword(s):  
Individual Variation ◽  
Regression Models ◽  
Semantic Information ◽  
Language Change ◽  
Data Driven ◽  
Social Variables ◽  
Ideal Position ◽  
Social Variation ◽  
Grammatical Variation

The present study deals with variation in the use of lexico-grammatical patterns and emphasizes the need to embrace individual variation. Targeting the pattern that’s adj (as in that’s right, that’s nice or that’s okay) as a case study, we use a tailor-made Python script to systematically retrieve grammatical and semantic information about all instances of this construction in BNC2014 as well as sociolinguistic information enabling us to study social and individual lexico-grammatical variation among speakers who have used this pattern. The dataset amounts to 4,394 tokens produced by 445 speakers using 159 adjective types in 931 conversations. Using detailed descriptive statistics and mixed-effects regression models, we show that while the choice of some adjectives is partly determined by social variables, situational and especially individual variation is rampant overall. Adopting a cognitive-linguistic perspective and relying on the notion of entrenchment, we interpret these findings as reflecting individual speakers' routines. We argue that computational sociolinguistics is in an ideal position to contribute to the data-driven investigation of individual lexico-grammatical variation and encourage computational sociolinguists to grab this opportunity. For the routines of individual speakers ultimately both underlie and compromise systematic social variation and trigger and steer well-known types of language change including grammaticalization, pragmaticalization and change by invited inference.

Scales and Units

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kathryn M. de Luna
Keyword(s):  
Language Change ◽  
Historical Linguistics ◽  
Bantu Languages ◽  
The North ◽  
First Case ◽  
Linguistic Evidence ◽  
River Region ◽  
History Of ◽  
Alternative Approaches

This chapter uses two case studies to explore how historians study language movement and change through comparative historical linguistics. The first case study stands as a short chapter in the larger history of the expansion of Bantu languages across eastern, central, and southern Africa. It focuses on the expansion of proto-Kafue, ca. 950–1250, from a linguistic homeland in the middle Kafue River region to lands beyond the Lukanga swamps to the north and the Zambezi River to the south. This expansion was made possible by a dramatic reconfiguration of ties of kinship. The second case study explores linguistic evidence for ridicule along the Lozi-Botatwe frontier in the mid- to late 19th century. Significantly, the units and scales of language movement and change in precolonial periods rendered visible through comparative historical linguistics bring to our attention alternative approaches to language change and movement in contemporary Africa.

scholarly journals Variation in Faroese and the development of a spoken standard: In search of corpus evidence

2014 ◽  
Vol 37 (1) ◽  
pp. 87-105 ◽  
Author(s):  
Remco Knooihuizen
Keyword(s):  
Social Change ◽  
Morphological Variation ◽  
Language Change ◽  
Linguistic Variation ◽  
Social Changes ◽  
Linguistic Variables ◽  
Phonological Variation ◽  
Rapid Social Change ◽  
Variationist Sociolinguistics ◽  
Constrained Variation

Although Faroese exhibits extensive linguistic variation and rapid social change, the language is near-uncharted territory in variationist sociolinguistics. This article discusses some recent social changes in Faroese society in connection with language change, focusing in particular on the development of a de facto spoken standard, Central Faroese. Demographic mobility, media and education may be contributing to this development in different ways. Two linguistic variables are analysed as a first step towards uncovering the respective roles of standardisation, dialect levelling and dialect spread as contributing processes in the formation of Central Faroese: morphological variation in -st endings and phonological variation in -ir and -ur endings. The analysis confirms previously described patterns of geographically constrained variation, but no generational or stylistic differences indicative of language change are found, nor are there clear signs that informants use Central Faroese. The results may in part be due to the structure of the corpus used.

scholarly journals From Co-Actionality to Extended Intersubjectivity: Drawing on Language Change and Ontogenetic Development

2018 ◽  
Vol 41 (2) ◽  
pp. 185-214 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vittorio TANTUCCI
Keyword(s):  
Applied Research ◽  
Ad Hoc ◽  
Language Change ◽  
Developmental Psychology ◽  
Profile Analysis ◽  
First Language ◽  
Hybrid Approach ◽  
Specific Context ◽  
Behavioural Profile

Abstract This article combines research results centred on theory of mind (ToM) from cognitive and developmental psychology (Goldman 2006; Apperly 2010; Wilkinson and Ball 2012) with the notion of intersubjectivity in usage-based linguistics (i.a. Verhagen 2005; Nuyts 2012; Traugott 2012). It identifies some of the controversies in the literature from both domains and suggests the desiderata for a hybrid approach to intersubjectivity, which is distinctively designed to tackle applied research in social and cognitive sciences. This model is based on a mismatch between interaction as mere ‘co-action’ vs. interaction as spontaneously communicated awareness of an(other) mind(s). It provides a case study centred on the first language acquisition of pre-nominal usage of this/that and such. From, respectively, a distinctive collexeme (Gries and Stefanowitsch 2004) and behavioural profile analysis (Gries 2010) will emerge that beyond expressions of joint attention, children’s ToM ability progressively underpins ‘ad-hoc’ generalized instantiations based on extended intersubjectivity, viz. the socio-cognitive skill to problematize what a general persona would act, feel, or think in a specific context.

scholarly journals Inferencing, Reanalysis, and the History of the French est-ce que Question

2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 56-69 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Waltereit
Keyword(s):  
Language Change ◽  
Traditional View ◽  
Theoretical Level ◽  
History Of ◽  
Practical Level

Abstract In this paper, I discuss critically the traditional view of reanalysis, taking into account recent debates about the concept. In particular, I argue that the debate about reanalysis tends to conflate two interpretations of reanalysis: reanalysis as a type of language change among other ones, and reanalysis as the recognition or “ratification” of any kind of change. I offer a possible explanation of that potential confusion. I then illustrate this distinction using the history of the French est-ce que question as a case study. I report original diachronic research on the history of that construction. Further, I discuss implications both at a conceptual-theoretical level and at a practical level for further diachronic research. The paper concludes with a summary and discussion of the findings.

Building and Interpreting HAVE Sentences

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Neil Myler
Keyword(s):  
Linguistic Variation

This chapter extends the analysis to HAVE sentences, arguing that HAVE is the form that BE takes when it is combined with a transitive Voice head. This approach correctly predicts the various readings exhibited by have in English and by HAVE verbs in other languages, including non-possessive uses such as causer HAVE, experiencer HAVE, and engineer HAVE. Cross-linguistic variation in the availability of such readings is discussed in terms of variation in how BE is spelled out. The analysis successfully extends to languages with more than one transitive HAVE verb, as is shown by a case study from Icelandic (based on Myler, Sigurðsson, and Wood 2014).

Change

2020 ◽  
pp. 310-338
Author(s):  
Hans-Jörg Schmid
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Language Change ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Systematic Description ◽  
Change Direction ◽  
History Of

This chapter discusses how the Entrenchment-and-Conventionalization Model explains language change. First, it is emphasized that not only innovation and variation, but also the frequency of repetition can serve as important triggers of change. Conventionalization and entrenchment processes can interact and be influenced by numerous forces in many ways, resulting in various small-scale processes of language change, which can stop, change direction, or even become reversed. This insight serves as a basis for the systematic description of nine basic modules of change which differ in the ways in which they are triggered and controlled by processes and forces. Large-scale pathways of change such as grammaticalization, lexicalization, pragmaticalization, context-induced change, or colloquialization and standardization are all explained by reference to these modules. The system is applied in a case study on the history of do-periphrasis.

Individual entrenchment vs. community-wide conventionalization of contact features in L2 Basque speakers’ individual styles

2019 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Hanna Lantto
Keyword(s):  
Individual Variation ◽  
High Frequency ◽  
Personal Experience ◽  
Language Contact ◽  
Language Attitudes ◽  
Linguistic Variation ◽  
Speech Styles ◽  
Speech Patterns ◽  
Base Language ◽  
The Individual

AbstractThis article examines individual variation of contact features in the speech patterns of four L2 Basque speakers. The individual styles are examined through the concepts of individual entrenchment and community-wide conventionalization to bridge the gap between linguistic variation and change at the individual and social levels. All the informants speak Spanish as their L1. They have acquired Basque in classroom contexts, and they belong to the same macrosociolinguistic categories. Yet their patterns of using the language contact between standard Basque, vernacular Basque dialects and Spanish as a resource in creating individual speech styles differ considerably, reflecting their language attitudes and their personal experience. Nevertheless, there are conventionalized patterns that emerge out of this diversity: All speakers use the standard Basque as the base language, and none of them adopts of vernacular variety as a whole. The Spanish resources seem to be used mainly for pragmatic and stylistic functions, whereas the features of vernacular Basque that the speakers have adopted as part of their individual styles are high frequency elements of core grammar.

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