Language Variation and Change

WS 2014/15, Campus Essen

Raymond Hickey, English Linguistics
Language variation and change
The above term is used in present-day sociolinguistics to
refer to the small variations which occur in language and
which are determined by external, social factors. These
variations can and do lead in time to language change.
They contrast with variations in language which are
motivated by internal factors – structural features of a
language – which can also lead to change, especially
when this internal variation occurs during first language
acquisition.

Language variation and change is an important research

paradigm today and there many books on the subject as
well as a journal with this term as their name.
Introduction

The following presentation is intended to give students an

idea of what this lecture series will be about. Basic
principles and assumptions of language variation and
change / sociolinguistics are explained in the following
slides and typical concerns of the field can be
recognised.

To begin with several reasons for going to this lecture

series are given.
 Several good reasons for going to this lecture
series:
1) To find out about how language and society interacts, how social
attitudes, social ambition and social bonding affect the manner in
which people speak.

2) To learn about how the internal structure of language interacts with

external social factors (language variation and change).

3) To discover more about how languages change and how they don’t,
given the significance of social factors on this process.

4) To look as specific social situations and see how these general

principles are confirmed or refuted. Key sociolinguistic
investigations, largely in America and Britain are of interest here.
5) To examine closely how speakers use social networks to stregthen
their identificaion with the social group to which they feel they
belong.

6) To look at how men and women use language to express the

relationship of the sexes (gender-related language use).

7) To see how such socially relevant phenomena as politeness are

expressed in different languages.

8) To learn about the wider context in which societies are embedded

and how language relates to culture in general (linguistic
anthropology).

9) To throw new light on the relationship of the standard of a language

and the dialects which are also found. In the Anglophone context, to
consider how and why regional standards arose and how countries,
which are now independent, developed standards of their own.
 Sociolinguistics and sociology

n Sociolinguistics as a separate discipline develops in the early sixties,

first in the USA, later in Britain and then throughout the rest of the
western world. This is true although considerations of language in
relation to society go back a considerable way and although the
significance of society for language was stressed by the
structuralists at the beginning of the 20th century.

n Sociology is the study of social structures. This is a discipline which

was developed into its modern form in 19th century France and in
Germany in the early 20th century. In its analysis of social forces it
is of immediate relevance to sociolinguistics although sociology itself
is not concerned with language.
 Some basic assumptions

n The basic assumption of sociolinguistics is that the variation we can observe

in language is non-random, i.e. variation in language is socially significant.
The task of the sociolinguist has been to quantify this variation and to give
a principled account of its occurrence. In a nutshell the findings of
sociolinguistics have shown that language variation is largely determined by
social class and status. Variation furthermore correlates with the relative
security of a group´s position in society with a general tendency of lower-
status groups to imitate higher-status groups as long as this imitation has a
chance of leading to an improvement of social status as with the lower-
middle classes in the western world.

n There is often a discrepancy between what speakers say of their language

and what they practice. For instance in Peter Trudgill´s study of English in
Norwich it was shown that the working-class have a low opinion of their
own variety of language but continue to use it. This led to assuming that
varieties can have covert prestige for their speakers.
 Sociolinguistics and dialectology
n In a way it is true to say that sociolinguistics arose out of dialectology.
Those linguists involved in this area in the last century and the beginning of
the present century were interested in registering language use and as such
were half on the way to being sociolinguists. However, many aspects of
dialectological research are unacceptable to modern sociolinguists. The
chief deficiency of the dialectological approach is that older, male, rural
speakers were given preference as informants. This went against the basic
principle of all sociolinguists, namely that the choice of informants be
random and thus unbiased by the field worker. Characteristic of
sociolinguistic methods are the following features:

n 1) The prior definition of one's area of investigation

n 2) The impartial choice of informants
n 3) The choice of optimal methods of investigation (e.g. tape recording
rather than questionnaire)
Gathering information

n The procedure of interviewing informants has the disadvantage thatthat the field worker
very often has a negative (or standardising)
standardising) effect on the informants. This is called
the observer's paradox,
paradox , namely that the nature of the object of investigation changes
under observation (more on this below). A dialogue situation in which the informant
is not made aware of his status as informant is much more favourable and less likely
to distort the results.

Types of language variation

n Just as the methods of the dialectologists were unacceptable to sociolinguists so was
the terminology they used. For one thing the sociolinguists wanted
wanted to get away from
the use of the term dialect.
dialect. It carried with it the implication of a rural type of speech
which is particularly conservative. The more neutral term variety was chosen which
had the additional advantage that it did not imply implicit contrast
contrast with a standard
variety of language. The term variety simply refers to a variant of a language. It may
be the standard of this language or not, it may be a rural or an urban variant, a
social or peer group variant, etc.
Contact between speakers

n One of the aspects of contact between speakers of different varieties of a

language is accommodation. By this is meant that one of the speakers
attempts, in fact to face interaction, to approximate his speech to that of
his partner in conversation for a variety of reasons, to make him feel at
ease, in order to be accepted, etc. This accomodation can be long-term or
short-term and is most readily accomplished by children.

The linguistic variable

n This term refers to a specific feature of a language which shows particular

variation in a community and which is used as a tag for classifying a
speaker's speech. For example in New York the realisation of /r/ is just such
a variable. A common non-linguistic designation for a linguistic variable,
which derives from the Bible, is shibboleth, speakers of one community
pronouncing this word with an initial sh-sound and speakers of another
pronouncing it with an initial s-sound, i.e. /sh/ versus /s/. A linguistic
variable need not only be phonological. Examples of grammatical variables
are double negation, the use of ain't and the lack of marking with verbs in
the 3rd person singular among African Americans.
Indicators and markers
n It has been established in the case of the variable (ng
(ng)) (as in English walking
[w>:kin]) that the index scores for [n] — as in [w>:kin] — tend to decrease as the
formality of the speech situation increases, no matter which particular
particular social group is
involved. One explanation for this focusses on the fact that whenever there is class
differentiation with a linguistic variable, speakers of all classes
classes will direct their
attention towards the higher status variants and tend to increase
increase their use of those
variants. Stylistic variation is, going by this account, a direct
direct result of social class
variation.

Class and style

n However, not all variables which are subject to class differentiation
differentiation show stylistic
variation as well, i.e. variables correlate with social class variation
variation in terms of
different index scores, but do not alter even if the speech situation
situation changes.
Variables which are subject to stylistic variation as well as class,
class, sex or age variation
are referred to as markers.
markers. Variables which are not involved in systematic style
indicators, an example would be the fricative t [8] of southern
variation are called indicators,
Irish English, in a word like put [pu8], which is found in all styles of this variety of
English. Indicators do not contribute to the description of class
class differences as
markers do, since speakers appear to be less aware of the social implications of an
indicator than of a marker.
 Geographical variation and language contact

n Variation has not only social sources but also spatial ones. When
speakers disseminate into new locations, the language they take
with them changes with time, for instance, in Canada or South
Africa where there has been considerable language contact. These
changes very often are connected with the establishment of
different standard forms of languages at the new locations (as in
central Canada). Furthermore, at overseas locations, English has
been subject to language contact and this has in turn led to changes
in the forms of the language when this has taken place. South Africa
is a good example of a contact situation with Afrikaans (a colonial
form of early modern Dutch) the language with which English has
been in contact.
The work of William Labov

n The main sociolinguist is William Labov,

an American linguist who started by
investigating language use in Martha´s
Vineyard (an island off the north-east
coast of the United States) and in New
York city. His seminal investigations were
based on principles and methods which
have become standard in sociolinguistics
and which led to insights which are
generally accepted today.
Labov´s principles and assumptions

1) Basic assumption: Linguistic variation is socially determined.

2) Speakers are in a double bind: on the one hand they show an

identification with their locality through the use of a local variety of
language. On the other hand they aspire to social acceptability and
hence in their speech they move towards the standard of their
area.

3) Surreptitious interview methods mean that the observers paradox is

minimised. (N.B.: The observer´s paradox maintains that the
linguistic behaviour of informants changes under observation,
usually because people then talk the way they think the linguist
wants them to).
 Labov´s data collection methods

n Labov further stressed the need to collect data reliably. The linguist
must be aware that an informant will show the following features in
his speech: 1) style shifting (during an interview), 2) varying degree
of attention, i.e. some speakers pay great attention to their own
speech (so-called 'audio-monitoring'); in excited speech and casual
speech the attention paid by the speaker is correspondingly
diminished, 3) degree of formality, determined by the nature of the
interview; it can vary depending on how the informant reacts to the
interviewer and the situation he/she is placed in.
 How does language change?

With regard to language change William Labov proposed three phases

which can be summarised as follows: 1) origin, a period in which many
variants exist for one and the same phenomenon, 2) propagation, the
period in which one of the variants established itself and 3) the conclusion
in which the remaining variants are done away with. Various external
factors can accelerate the process of language change, above all social
pressure from above or below. Additional factors are the degree of literacy
in a community, the restraining influence of a standard of a language, etc.
Schematically these three phases correspond to the beginning, middle and
end of an S-curve which is frequently used as a visualisation of language
change (see next slide).

n Labov proved his theories on language variation and language change by

investigating (in an anonymous manner) the English of various employees
in New York department stores. Here he chose stores with differing social
status. The linguistic variables he was particularly interested in are: (1) the
presence or absence of syllable-final /r/, (2) the pronounciation of the
ambi-dental fricatives (/θ/ and /ð/ respectively) and (3) the quality of
various vowels.
 Insights of sociolinguistics

Language change can be observed

n The reasons for it are ultimately social, deriving from such factors as
forms used by prestigious groups. Any item of change starts as a
series of minute variations which spread through the lexicon of the
language (lexical diffusion). The difference between varying forms
increases with time, due to a process known as phonologisation
whereby small differences are exaggerated to make them distinct
from other phonemic items in a language. Only a subset of any
existing variations in a language at any point in time lead to actual
later change. Just what variations result in change depends on their
status for the speakers of a language. This status may be conscious
in the case of identification markers or subconscious, the latter not
being any less important than the former for language change.
Which class is most active?

n Lower middle class speakers figure prominently in language change as they

aspire upwards on the social scale.

The behaviour of women

n Women tend to use a more standard type of language than their male
counterparts (due to their uncertain position in western-style societies?). On
the other hand, however, women tend to represent the vanguard in a
situation of socially motivated language change.

The reversal of change

n Language change can in some cases be reversed, i.e. more conservative

(older) forms can be re-established if enough speakers use them for
purposes of conscious or unconscious identification.
 Further issues in sociolinguistics
1) Social networks (smaller and more powerful in their bonds than social classes)

2) Dissociation as a form of language change (changing your language to become more

different from others, usually speakers of low prestige.)

3) Sociolinguistics and gender differences (to what extent does the social role of the
genders determine their linguistic usage?)

4) Solidarity and politeness are further issues in individual sociolinguistic interaction and
and
have to do with maintaining one´
one´s status and respect in interpersonal
communication (technically called face).
face).

5) Sociolinguistics and second language acquisition (how do social factors improve or

inhibit the quality of second language acquisition?).

6) Sociolinguistics and education (how are children socialised into their environment
through the schools they go to? To what extent do governments try try to impose
linguistic standards in their countries via the educational system?)
system?)
Types of speech communities: Bilingualism

A type of linguistic situation in which two languages co-exist in a

country or language community without there being a notable
distribution according to function or social class. Within Europe
Belgium, in those parts where French and Flemish are spoken
side by side, provides an example of bilingualism. Do not confuse
this with diglossia. A bilingual is an individual who speaks two
languages almost equally and does not show a functional
distribution of the languages. One must stress 'almost equally' as
one language nearly always predominates with any given
individual. True bilingualism can be seen as an ideal state which
one can approach but never entirely reach.
 Types of speech communities: Diglossia

A type of linguistic situation in which there is a division between two

languages or two varieties of a language such that one variety, the so-
called 'high' or H variety, is used in public life — in addresses, in the
media, in schools and universities, etc. — and another variety, the so-
called 'low' variety or L variety, is used in domestic life — with family
and friends. Examples of diglossic situations are to be found in
Switzerland (Hochdeutsch and Schwizerdütsch), in various Arabian
countries (Classical Arabic and the local dialect of Arabic), Paraguay
(Spanish and Guaraní).
 Types of speech communities: Language Split

This term is used to refer to the type of situation which obtains when for
political reasons two varieties which are scarcely distinguishable are
forcibly differentiated to maximalise differences between two countries.
This applies to the Moldavian dialect of Rumanian, which is now written
in Cyrillic and is the language of the Republic of Moldavia within the
former Soviet Union, and the remaining dialects of Rumanian. It also
applies to Hindi, the official language of India, alongside English, and
Urdu, the official language of Pakistan. Note that in these situations
much use is made of different writing systems. Thus Hindi is written
from left to right in the Devanagari script while Urdu is written right to left
in the Persian variant of Arabic. Once language split has been
introduced the differences may become real with time, e.g. with Hindi
and Urdu the different religions make for different vocabulary which
helps the originally artificial distinction between the languages to
become real. Historically in Europe Dutch and the Lower Rhenish
dialects represent a case of language split.
 Types of speech communities: Language
Maintenance

The extent to which immigrant speakers of a certain language retain

knowledge of the original language in the host country into the following
generations. Here language communities vary. The Irish, for example,
gave up their native language immediately in the United States whereas
the Estonians have shown a remarkable degree of language
maintenance. The reasons for this have to do with the attitude of the
respective groups to their original language. For the Irish their native
language was associated with a background of poverty and deprivation
and so they switched gladly to English in America.
 Types of speech communities: Language
Preservation

This is the extent to which a country has official institutions to preserve

the language in an ostensibly pure form. For example, in France an
academy has existed since 1634 which acts as a watchdog over the
purity of French. There is no corresponding institution in England or
Germany (though South Africa, as the only Anglophone country, does
have a language academy). In the latter two countries, major
publishing houses play the role of language academies, the Oxford
University Press in England and the Bibliographisches Institut
(Mannheim) in Germany, the publishers of the Duden series of
reference books. One should add that the value of prescriptive organs
is very much disputed as they cannot stop language change in the
form of borrowing (cf. the influence of English on French despite the
efforts of the academy).
 Types of speech communities: Language Death

This highly emotive term is sometimes applied to those social situations

in which a language ceases to exist. The fact itself is of little concern, it
is rather the stages which the language goes through which arouse the
interest of the linguist. A well-studied instance of language death is
Scottish Gaelic in East Sutherland in the north-east of Scotland. The
language was progressively abandoned from one generation to the next
and during this process the grammar of the language showed clear
signs of disintegration, for example in its morphological system. In such
a scenario the attention of the linguist is directed at the question
whether significant generalisations can be made concerning this
grammatical decay.
Recommended literature
Auer, Peter, Frans Hinskens and Paul Kerswill (eds)
eds) 2005. Dialect Change. Convergence
and Divergence in European Languages. Cambridge: University Press.
Britain, David (ed.) Language in the British Isles. 2nd edition. Cambridge: University Press.

Chambers, Jack 2003. Sociolinguistic theory. Linguistic variation and its social significance
significance..
2nd edition. Oxford: Blackwell.

Chambers, J. K. and Natalie Schilling-

Schilling-Estes (eds
(eds)) 2013. The Handbook of Language
Variation and Change,
Change, Malden / Malden, MA: Wiley-
Wiley-Blackwell.

Eckert, Penelope and John R. Rickford (eds)

eds) 2002. Style and Sociolinguistic Variation.
Variation.
Cambridge: University Press.

Holmes, Janet 1992. An introduction to sociolinguistics. London: Longman.

Lippi-
Lippi-Green, Rosina 1997. English with an Accent. Language, Ideology and Discrimination
in the United States. London: Routledge.
Routledge.

Mesthrie, Rajend et al. (eds) 2000. Introducing sociolinguistics.

sociolinguistics. Edinburgh: University
Press.

Mugglestone,
Mugglestone, Lynda 2003. ‘Talking Proper’
Proper’. The Rise of Accent as Social Symbol.
Symbol. 2nd
edition. Oxford: University Press.

Romaine, Suzanne 2000. Language in society. An introduction to sociolinguistics. 2nd

edition. Oxford: University Press.