Language change and Language variation:

Question 1

Different type of real-time study:

Answer 1

• Trend study: researchers return to the place of study to collect speech samples from those who may not have participated in original study.
• Panel study: Researchers continue to interview the original participants over a period of time.

Question 2

What is diachronic study?

Answer 2

Study over a period of time.

Question 3

What are the issues of real life studies?

Answer 3

• People change, relocate or die

- Places change and evolve

Question 4

Ways to get around the issues of real life studies?

Answer 4

Legacy data: Archived data from previous recordings can be used as a comparison for current studies.

Question 5

An example of a real-time study;

Answer 5

Wolfram: Ocracoke Island

• Looked at speech used by villagers over several years
• Found that identity was a significant factor in island vocabulary

Question 6

Apparent time study:

Answer 6

• A sociolinguistic construct which believes language is acquired during childhood and remains unchanged once past a certain age.

Question 7

What is age-grading?

Answer 7

The use of speech within a certain age group, features that will not be used in adulthood.

Question 8

Apparent-time study negatives:

Answer 8

• Age grading

Question 9

Apparent time study positives

Answer 9

• It’s cheaper

- It takes less time to construct

Question 10

European feudal system

Answer 10

– Land owners became the dominant social group.

Question 11

Hypercorrection

Answer 11

• When people use a prestigious form (such as i instead of me), based on the false analogy that it is correct.

Question 12

What happens with change from above?

Answer 12

Generally, the language change becomes a more standard form.

Question 13

What is change from above and change from below?

Answer 13

• Change from above is conscious change originating from higher up the social scale,
• Change from below is low conscious awareness, originating from the lower end of the scale.

Question 14

Salience

Answer 14

A change which is most prominent and popular

Question 15

Urbanisation:

Answer 15

The movement of rural families and individuals to city centres under the premise of the more opportunity.

Question 16

What happened in regards to urbanisation?

Answer 16

Working class language became salient, as they all moved to city centre for more opportunity.

Question 17

Overt prestige and covert prestige:

Answer 17

Overt prestige: Socially correct (RP)

Covert Prestige: Non-standard varieties.

Question 18

Chens S-curv theory

Answer 18

Where language starts of at a slow pace, then picks up pace as it spreads and becomes more common, creating the S-Curve diagram.

Question 19

What does Labov believe in regards to the S-curv theory?

Answer 19

He disagrees:

• Thinks there’s transmission, in which a child learns from caregivers
• And diffusion, which is developed through adults interacting and talking.

Question 20

Wolfram case study:

Answer 20

Real-time study example:
Ocracoke:
- Looked at speech used by villagers over several years.
- Found that identity was a factor for the way vocabulary was used.