Stylistic Variation in Panel Studies of Language Change

Monipuolinen kokoomateos sosiolingvistisistä paneelitutkimuksista

Virittäjä ◽

10.23982/vir.77386 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 123 (2) ◽

Author(s):

Hanna Lappalainen ◽

Liisa Mustanoja

Keyword(s):

Language Change ◽

Panel Studies

Arvioitu teos: Suzanne Evans Wagner & Isabelle Buchstaller (toim.): Panel studies of variation and change. Routledge Studies in Language Change 1. London: Routledge 2018. 294 s. isbn 978-1-138-90390-6.

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Stylistic variation in read Arabic

Language Ecology ◽

10.1075/le.00009.hor ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 4 (1) ◽

pp. 55-72

Author(s):

Uri Horesh

Keyword(s):

Pilot Study ◽

Language Change ◽

Contextual Analysis ◽

Read Aloud ◽

Modern Standard Arabic ◽

Stylistic Variation ◽

Standard Arabic ◽

Local Variety ◽

Long Period ◽

Modern Standard

Abstract The study of variation in Arabic vernaculars has come a long way since its beginnings as a misguided endeavor to compare features in these contemporary dialects to cognate features in Standard Arabic (Classical or Modern) and view any differences as results of language change. We now recognize that the dialects and Standard Arabic have had different trajectories in different places and over a long period of time. The current study attempts to assess variation in a local variety of Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) and explore the methodological and theoretical advantages to consider what we already know about variation in the vernacular spoken by the same community whose reading in the Standard we are investigating. The paper draws a distinction between Prescribed MSA and a local variety thereof, as attested in recordings of a text read aloud by speakers of a Palestinian dialect, which were collected as part of a broader battery of sociolinguistic interviews in the speakers’ two dominant languages, Arabic and Hebrew. This is a pilot study, in which variationist methods of quantification and contextual analysis were employed, with the hope for setting the stage for more elaborate studies on the various stylistic repertoires available to speakers of Arabic.

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Parallel corpora. A real-time approach to the study of language change in progress

Diacronia ◽

10.17684/i1a6en ◽

2015 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Christian Mair

Keyword(s):

Structural Change ◽

Real Time ◽

Language Change ◽

Standard English ◽

Short Term ◽

Stylistic Variation ◽

Linguistic Development ◽

Parallel Corpora ◽

Diachronic Change

The paper draws data from four matching one-million word corpora, namely Brown (US, 1961), LOB (GB, 1961), Frown (US, 1992) and FLOB (GB, 1991), in order to provide an integrated description of synchronic (regional and stylistic) variation and short-term diachronic change in written Standard English. The analysis of a fairly large number of morphosyntactic variables shows that instances of direct structural change are rather rare in the period under review. Nevertheless there are numerous statistically significant diachronic developments which, taken together, provide evidence for a coherent discourse-pragmatic trend, the ‘colloquialisation’ of the norms of written English. This linguistic development is argued to be driven by a more general sociocultural trend, the shift of public taste towards greater informality.

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