Connecting Structure and Variation in Sound Change

“Structured heterogeneity”, a founding concept of variationist sociolinguistics, puts focus on the ordered social differentiation in language. We extend the notion of structured heterogeneity to formal phonological structure, i.e., representations based on contrasts, with implications for phonetic implementation. Phonology establishes parameters for what varies and how. Patterns of stability and variability with respect to a given feature’s relationship to representations allow us to ground variationist analysis in a framework that makes predictions about potential sound changes: more structure correlates to more stability; less structure corresponds to more variability. However, even though all change requires variability, not all variability leads to change. Two case studies illustrate this asymmetry, keeping a focus on phonetic change with phonological stability. First, Germanic rhotics (r-sounds) from prehistory to the present day are minimally specified. They show tremendous phonetic variability and change but phonological stability. Second, laryngeal contrasts (voicing or aspiration) vary and change in language contact. We track the accumulation of phonetic change in unspecified members of pairs of the type spelled <s> ≠ <z>, etc. This analysis makes predictions about the regularity of sound change, situating regularity in phonology and irregularity in phonetics and the lexicon. Structured heterogeneity involves the variation inherent within the system for various levels of phonetic and phonological representation. Phonological change, then, is about acquiring or learning different abstract representations based on heterogeneous and variable input.

Introduction: Reconciling approaches to intra-individual variation in psycholinguistics and variationist sociolinguistics

The overall theme of this special issue is intra-individual variation, that is, the observable variation within individuals’ behaviour, which plays an important role in the humanities area as well as in the social sciences. While various fields have recognised the complexity and dynamism of human thought and behaviour, intra-individual variation has received less attention in regard to language acquisition, use and change. Linguistic research so far lacks both empirical and theoretical work that provides detailed information on the occurrence of intra-individual variation, the reasons for its occurrence and its consequences for language development as well as for language variation and change. The current issue brings together two subdisciplines – psycholinguistics and variationist sociolinguistics – in juxtaposing systematic and non-systematic intra-individual variation, thereby attempting to build a cross-fertilisation relationship between two disciplines that have had surprisingly little connection so far. In so doing, we address critical stock-taking, meaningful theorizing and methodological innovation.

Intra-individual variation across the lifespan: Results from an Austrian panel study

This article explores intra-individual variation and language change across the lifespan of eight speakers from a small Austrian village. Four phonological variables in two settings (informal conversation vs. formal interview) are traced across longitudinal panel data that span 43 years. The analysis reveals an increase of dialect features (retrograde change), even though apparent-time as well as real-time trend studies indicate dialect loss in the Bavarian speaking parts of Austria. The panel data also indicate that neither the group means at one moment in time nor their averaged changes are representative of the intra-individual variation of any of the eight speakers. Regarding this non-representativity, the article introduces the classical ergodic theorem to variationist sociolinguistics. Evidence will be provided that change across the lifespan of an individual is a non-ergodic process. Thus, it is argued that variationists have to be more cautious when they generalise from group-derived estimates to individual developments and vice versa.

Cape Town Gujarati and its relation to Gujarati dialectology: A study of retroflex boosting

This paper has two purposes. Firstly, it provides a bird’s eye view of the characteristics of a variety of Gujarati in diaspora, viz. that spoken in Cape Town, South Africa for almost 150 years. Secondly it focusses on one notable feature, viz. the prominence of retroflexes over dentals, and connects this with other dialects of Gujarati in India and with Western Indo-Aryan. We analyse the speech of 32 speakers born or brought up in South Africa, and resident in Cape Town. We show that Cape Town Gujarati retains the dialect variation of late nineteenth century Gujarati as identified by Grierson, Sir George A. 1908. Linguistic survey of India. Vol IX, part II: Indo-Aryan family, Central Group – Rajasthani and Gujarati. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass. In particular, it resembles the Surti dialect, in keeping with the fact that the area around Surat district provided the bulk of migrants to Cape Town in the nineteenth and twentieth century. We then focus in detail on a prominent, but little-studied, phenomenon of Gujarati dialects: the variable occurrence of retroflex stops where Standard Gujarati has dentals [t̪ t̪h d̪ d̪h]. We demonstrate the considerable amount of such “retroflex boosting” in the Cape Town variety. We provide a detailed and replicable methodology from variationist sociolinguistics for studying this boosting that we believe illuminates the study of its occurrence in modern dialects in Gujarat.

Styles, standards and meaning

Style, in the study of variation and change, is intimately linked with broader questions about linguistic innovation and change, standards, social norms, and individual speakers’ stances. This article examines style when applied to lesser-studied languages. Style is both (i) the product of speakers’ choices among variants, and (ii) something reflexively produced through the association of variants and the social position of the users of those variants. In the context of the languages considered here, we ask “What questions do we have about variation in this language and what notion(s) of style will answer them?” We highlight methodological, conceptual and analytical challenges for the notion of style as it is usually operationalised in variationist sociolinguistics. We demonstrate that style is a useful research heuristic which – when marshalled alongside locally-oriented accounts of, or proxies for “standard” and “prestige”, in apparent time – allows us to describe language and explore change. It is also a means for exploring social meaning, which speakers may have more or less conscious control over.

Probing linguistic change in Arabic vernaculars: A sociohistorical perspective

It is received wisdom in variationist sociolinguistics that linguistic and social factors go hand in hand in structuring variability in language and any consequent instances of language change. We address the complexity of such factors by exploring data from several Arabic dialects in the eastern Arab world. We demonstrate that language change does not always follow expected phonological trajectories, even in cases where older changes are reconstructed to have operated along so-called universal patterns. In our explanation of recent changes in these dialects, we emphasise the role of social motivations for language change and the interactions between these social constraints and purely linguistic ones. Our analysis of change is supported by historical accounts of variation and change in Arabic. We illustrate how general principles of sociolinguistic theory apply to the Arabic data and provide additional layers of sociolinguistic information that highlight the importance of diverse data for evaluating cross-linguistic generalisations. (Arabic, language change, historical sociolinguistics)

The Linguistics of Humor

This book is the first comprehensive systematic introduction to the linguistics of humor. Assuming no background in humor studies at all, and an elementary knowledge of linguistics, all the terminology and conceptual apparatus of humor studies are introduced, as well as all the linguistic concepts necessary to understand the most up-to-date formulations in the linguistics and applied linguistics of humor. The book is not limited to the theoretical linguistic analyses of humor (for example the General Theory of Verbal humor or the Isotopy Disjunction Model), but has a broad approach encompassing pragmatics, conversation and discourse analysis, ethnomethodology, interactionist and variationist sociolinguistics. Chapters on puns, on the main theories of humor, the semiotics of humor, and on the incongruity-resolution model elucidate the foundations of humor studies, while chapters on the performance of humor, on humor in conversation and discourse, provide the first-ever in-depth discussion and synthesis of the field of the applied linguistics of humor. Chapters on the translation of humor, and on humor in the classroom and in literature broaden the discussion to applications in fields other than linguistics. For the first time ever in a discussion of the linguistics of humor all the fields of linguistics, theoretical and applied alike are given equal treatment and theoretical importance. Thus this book is both a summary of the acquired knowledge about humor and linguistics and a proposal to unify most of the strands of research in a coherent vision.

Introduction

The introduction to the volume lays out its conceptual, theoretical and empirical background. It highlights how grammatical change has been a major area of interest within French linguistics, but that standard French is too often the exclusive empirical focus, while insights from comparative Gallo-Romance data tend to be lacking. Sociolinguistic theory has traditionally formed a modest part of linguistic research on both historical and contemporary French, but the introduction highlights a renewed interest in variationist sociolinguistics, issues of language contact, and the status of minority languages with France. The introduction concludes with an overview of Smith’s contribution to linguistics and summaries of the chapters that together form the volume.

Survey area selection in Variationist Linguistic Landscape Study (VaLLS)

This article addresses the unresolved issue of systematic survey area selection for large-scale quantitative Linguistic Landscape (LL) studies. It presents a strategy of ‘hypothesis-driven stratified sampling’ whereby survey areas are picked out in a nested, multi-step process on the basis of the configuration of local LL audiences (regarding age, multilingualism, and tourism) and ambient activity types (commercial vs. residential). The rationale for this strategy is drawn from variationist sociolinguistics; and the undertaking is accordingly cast as ‘Variationist Linguistic Landscape Study (VaLLS)’. The details of the design are showcased and implications discussed in the context of the large-scale project ‘ELLViA – English in the Linguistic Landscape of Vienna, Austria’. More generally, it is shown how the application of state-of-the-art variationist principles and methodology to quantitative LL research significantly enhances the latter’s scientific rigor, which has been a major point of criticism.

The role of sociocognitive salience in the acquisition of structured variation and linguistic diffusion: Evidence from quotative be like

Quotative be like is a much discussed variable linguistic feature recruited in this investigation in order to revisit the hypothesis of linguistic diffusion (Labov 2007) predicting re-ordering of original patterns by L2 populations. As a sociocognitively salient variant spreading above the level of conscious awareness, be like has been appropriated by adult speakers from two distinctive L2 English ecologies with a high degree of precision, a finding previously not reported in studies exploring the acquisition of structured variation. In this article, I explain how, supported by frequency and constraint complexity, sociocognitive salience may have contributed to the generally accurate replication of the variable grammar for be like and, by this token, how it can inform existing models of language change. (Sociocognitive salience, linguistic diffusion, L2 acquisition of structured variation, variationist sociolinguistics, World Englishes, be like)