Language change and Language variation: Flashcards
Different type of real-time study:
- 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.
What is diachronic study?
Study over a period of time.
What are the issues of real life studies?
- People change, relocate or die
- Places change and evolve
Ways to get around the issues of real life studies?
Legacy data: Archived data from previous recordings can be used as a comparison for current studies.
An example of a real-time study;
Wolfram: Ocracoke Island
- Looked at speech used by villagers over several years
- Found that identity was a significant factor in island vocabulary
Apparent time study:
- A sociolinguistic construct which believes language is acquired during childhood and remains unchanged once past a certain age.
What is age-grading?
The use of speech within a certain age group, features that will not be used in adulthood.
Apparent-time study negatives:
- Age grading
Apparent time study positives
- It’s cheaper
- It takes less time to construct
European feudal system
– Land owners became the dominant social group.
Hypercorrection
- When people use a prestigious form (such as i instead of me), based on the false analogy that it is correct.
What happens with change from above?
Generally, the language change becomes a more standard form.
What is change from above and change from below?
- 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.
Salience
A change which is most prominent and popular
Urbanisation:
The movement of rural families and individuals to city centres under the premise of the more opportunity.
What happened in regards to urbanisation?
Working class language became salient, as they all moved to city centre for more opportunity.
Overt prestige and covert prestige:
Overt prestige: Socially correct (RP)
Covert Prestige: Non-standard varieties.
Chens S-curv theory
Where language starts of at a slow pace, then picks up pace as it spreads and becomes more common, creating the S-Curve diagram.
What does Labov believe in regards to the S-curv theory?
He disagrees:
- Thinks there’s transmission, in which a child learns from caregivers
- And diffusion, which is developed through adults interacting and talking.
Wolfram case study:
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.
