scholarly journals Aspects of linguistic ageing in literary authors across time

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 195-223
Author(s):  
Carmen Klaussner ◽  
Carl Vogel ◽  
Arnab Bhattacharya
Keyword(s):  
Language Change ◽  
Language Usage ◽  
Linguistic Variables

This work offers an investigation into linguistic changes in a corpus of literary authors hypothesised to be possibly attributable to the effects of ageing. In part, the analysis replicates an earlier study into these effects, but adds to it by explicitly analysing and modelling competing factors, specifically the influence of background language change. Our results suggest that it is likely that this underlying change in language usage is the primary force for the change observed in the linguistic variables that was previously attributed to linguistic ageing.

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.

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 Sociolinguistic Conditioning of Phonetic Category Realisation in Non-Native Speech

2009 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
pp. 149-166
Author(s):  
Ewa Waniek-Klimczak
Keyword(s):  
Language Proficiency ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Vowel Duration ◽  
Language Usage ◽  
Linguistic Variables ◽  
Phonetic Category ◽  
Closure Duration ◽  
Attitudinal Factors ◽  
Native Speech ◽  
The U.S

The realisation of phonetic categories reflects a complex relationship between individual phonetic parameters and both linguistic and extra-linguistic conditioning of language usage. The present paper investigates the effect of selected socio-linguistic variables, such as the age, the amount of language use and cultural/social distance in English used by Polish immigrants to the U.S. Individual parameters used in the realisation of the category ‘voice’ have been found to vary in their sensitivity to extra-linguistic factors: while the production of target-like values of all parameters is related to the age, it is the closure duration that is most stable in the correspondence to the age and level of language proficiency. The VOT and vowel duration, on the other hand, prove to be more sensitive to the amount of language use and attitudinal factors.

Croatian occupational terminology: The 2000s’ escape from “A Man’s World”

2018 ◽  
Vol 54 (3) ◽  
pp. 377-406
Author(s):  
Anđela Milinović Hrga
Keyword(s):  
Gender Equality ◽  
Turning Point ◽  
Language Change ◽  
Language Usage ◽  
Official Document ◽  
Public Language ◽  
Institutional Practice ◽  
First Time ◽  
Gender Specific

Abstract This paper is concerned with the forms of expression of occupational terms in contemporary Croatian institutional practice, typical of the changes in language policy and public language usage. Predominant in Croatian language was the androcentric practice of using masculine occupational terms as unmarked, gender-neutral. However, due to various reasons, it has changed in past years. The 2008 Amendments to the Croatian National Classification of Occupations marked the turning point in gender equality in terms of providing for gender-specific occupational nouns. For the first time, an official document codified both masculine and feminine occupational titles and stipulated their usage as a national classification standard, thus acknowledging a significant language change. However, the 2008 and 2010 Classifications both displayed certain asymmetries as well. The paper pinpoints these asymmetries, documents elements of linguistic sexism still remaining, as well as successful “escapes” from it, and tries to determine whether imbalances and barriers within the binary masculine-feminine concept are brought about by intralinguistic (lexical) or extralinguistic factors.

scholarly journals Kuatnya Jejak Ke-Austronesia-an pada Bahasa Bali Dialek Bali Aga

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 77
Author(s):  
Ni Made Dhanawaty
Keyword(s):  
Language Change ◽  
Data Sources ◽  
Linguistic Variables ◽  
Personal Pronouns ◽  
Austronesian Languages ◽  
Interview Methods

The Balinese language is spatially divided into the Balinese dialect of Bali Aga (DBA) and the dialect of Bali Dataran (DBD). As a sub-family of Austronesian languages, the Balinese language has many features of being Austronesian. This study at analyzes the trace of the Bali Aga dialect, through four linguistic variables: the realization of the phoneme /a/, the distribution of phonemes /h/, bimonosilabel words, and personal pronouns. Data sources of this research are Balinese in the DBA area, general Balinese language, and Balinese inscriptions and dictionaries which were collected using the scrutinize and interview methods and analyzed by using comparative and distributional approaches. The results showed that the Austronesian traces in the Bali Aga dialect are still strong, indicated by (1) the persistence of [a] as a realization of the phoneme /a/ in the ultima position; (2) the persistence of /h/ in the initial and medial positions; (3) the persistence of penultima syllable coda on bimonosilabis words; (4) the persistence of Proto Austronesian pronouns. These indicate that the archaic data are very important in tracking language change.

scholarly journals Quantifying the Uncertainty of Parameters Measured in Spontaneous Speech of Speakers With Dementia

2020 ◽  
Vol 63 (7) ◽  
pp. 2255-2270
Author(s):  
Roelant Ossewaarde ◽  
Roel Jonkers ◽  
Fedor Jalvingh ◽  
Roelien Bastiaanse
Keyword(s):  
Brain Damage ◽  
Language Change ◽  
Experimental Parameter ◽  
Sample Length ◽  
Learning Approaches ◽  
Linguistic Variables ◽  
Spontaneous Language ◽  
Statistic Model ◽  
Text Length ◽  
Individual Variables

Purpose Corpus analyses of spontaneous language fragments of varying length provide useful insights in the language change caused by brain damage, such as caused by some forms of dementia. Sample size is an important experimental parameter to consider when designing spontaneous language analyses studies. Sample length influences the confidence levels of analyses. Machine learning approaches often favor to use as much language as available, whereas language evaluation in a clinical setting is often based on truncated samples to minimize annotation labor and to limit any discomfort for participants. This article investigates, using Bayesian estimation of machine learned models, what the ideal text length should be to minimize model uncertainty. Method We use the Stanford parser to extract linguistic variables and train a statistic model to distinguish samples by speakers with no brain damage from samples by speakers with probable Alzheimer's disease. We compare the results to previously published models that used CLAN for linguistic analysis. Results The uncertainty around six individual variables and its relation to sample length are reported. The same model with linguistic variables that is used in all three experiments can predict group membership better than a model without them. One variable (concept density) is more informative when measured using the Stanford tools than when measured using CLAN. Conclusion For our corpus of German speech, the optimal sample length is found to be around 700 words long. Longer samples do not provide more information.

scholarly journals A comparison of three discourse elicitation methods in aphasia and age-matched adults: implications for language assessment and outcome

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brielle C Stark
Keyword(s):  
Repeated Measures ◽  
Language Change ◽  
Matched Control ◽  
Narrative Discourse ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Linguistic Variables ◽  
Language Abilities ◽  
Matched Control Group ◽  
Language System ◽  
Discourse Type

Purpose: Discourse analysis is commonly used to assess language ability and to evaluate language change following intervention in aphasia. The purpose of this study was to identify differences in language produced during different discourse tasks in a large aphasia group and age- and education-matched control group. Methods: Four structured discourse tasks across three discourse types (expositional, narrative and procedural) were evaluated in a group of adults with aphasia (N=90) and an age-matched control group (N=84) drawn from AphasiaBank. CLAN software was used to extract primary linguistic variables (mean length of utterance, propositional density, type-token ratio, words per minute, open-closed class word ratio, noun-verb ratio and tokens), which served as proxies for various language abilities. Using a series of repeated measures ANCOVAs, with significantly correlated demographic and descriptive variables as covariates, main effects of discourse type were evaluated. Results: Despite an impoverished output from the aphasia group (i.e. the control group produced significantly more overall output), there was a main effect of discourse type on most primary linguistic variables in both groups, suggesting that, in adults with and without language impairments, each discourse type taxed components of the spoken language system to varying extents. Post hoc tests fleshed out these results, demonstrating that, for example, narrative discourse produced speech highest in propositional density. Conclusion: Each discourse type taxes the language system in different ways, verifying the importance of using several discourse tasks, and selecting the most sensitive discourse tasks, when evaluating specific language abilities and outcomes.

Sociolinguistic patterns in grammaticalization: He, they, and those in human indefinite reference

2008 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 155-185 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mikko Laitinen
Keyword(s):  
Language Change ◽  
Statistical Analyses ◽  
The Other ◽  
Linguistic Variables ◽  
Internal Factors ◽  
External Variables ◽  
Early English ◽  
Late Modern ◽  
Indefinite Pronouns

AbstractSociolinguistic patterns in language change are largely based on generalizations from linguistic variables consisting of lexemes or morphemes. This article takes a diachronic, corpus-based approach to the diffusion of a change in a more extensive morphosemantic function consisting of several linguistic subsystems. It focuses on the pronoun variants he, they, and those used for human indefiniteness in two contexts: (a) epicene anaphoric uses with indefinite pronouns and (b) cataphoric personal references. The quantitative corpus analyses show that the pronoun selection in Early and Late Modern English developed a greater tendency to use one pronoun type over the other in both contexts. The main data come from the Corpus of Early English Correspondence and its Extension. Statistical analyses compare the observed correlations of the pronouns with a set of social, external variables and language-internal factors. This article concludes that it is possible to establish sociolinguistic patterns in larger shifts if we account for the closely related internal developments in the language.

scholarly journals Driving Forces behind Language Change. Does Danish Theory Hold up in Lithuania?

2019 ◽  
pp. 241-272
Author(s):  
Loreta Vaicekauskienė
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Language Change ◽  
Driving Forces ◽  
Experimental Studies ◽  
Capital City ◽  
Language Usage ◽  
Language Awareness ◽  
Comparable Data ◽  
Speech Variation

The paper presents a large-scale investigation of attitudes towards standard and dialectal speech varieties in Lithuania. It aimed at, firstly, obtaining comparable data on assessments of speech variation under two methodologically different conditions: ‘unaware condition’ (the participants being unaware of the linguistic goals of the research) and ‘aware condition’. Secondly, it aimed at testing whether the two layers of consciousness yield two different systems of social values and how the evaluations accord with changes in language usage. The theory was developed by Danish scholars whose numerous experimental studies proved the driving force role of subconscious attitudes. The investigation closely followed the Danish methodology and was carried out in 23 secondary schools in 7 regions and the capital city of Lithuania, covering almost 1.5 thousand pupils in total. The regularity of the findings, i.e. the overall tendency to overtly valorise local dialects but subconsciously to downgrade dialect accented voices, confirmed that language awareness affects assignment of values to language and must be regarded as an important explanatory factor for the scenarios of language change.

Copula choice in the Spanish of Galicia

2006 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 63-83 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pedro Guijarro-Fuentes ◽  
Kimberly L. Geeslin
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Statistical Analysis ◽  
Language Change ◽  
Language Variation ◽  
The United States ◽  
Frame Of Reference ◽  
Linguistic Variables ◽  
Spanish Speaking ◽  
New Knowledge ◽  
Contact Situation

Although ser and estar have been studied extensively (Luján 1981; Clements 1988; Leonetti 1994; Fernández Leborans 1999; Geeslin 2005), less is known about how the use of these copulas varies from one Spanish-speaking region to another. To date, sociolinguistic research has been conducted on Spanish in the United States (Kirschner and Stephens 1988; Silva-Corvalán 1994), in Mexico (Gutiérrez 1992), and in Venezuela (de Jonge 1993), showing that some features (i.e. adjective class, frame of reference and susceptibility to change) can affect copula choice in Spanish. The current study extends this body of research to the Spanish spoken in Galicia, where both Spanish and Galician co-exist. Our statistical analysis of a group of 56 intergenerational participants examines both social and linguistic variables as indicators of trends in language variation in relation to copula choice. Our findings support previous studies and contribute new knowledge of copula use in Galicia and of language change in a contact situation.

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