Abstract
This paper investigates the salience of vernacular Tyneside forms on the basis of theories of enregisterment and exemplar processing. On one level, exemplar theory provides a psycholinguistic account of how the link between social value and linguistic features is possible. Conversely, integrating the notion of social value into exemplar theory extends the value of this originally cognitive theory to social domains. It is suggested that the association of social value and particular local, linguistic forms may contribute to the salience of these forms among local speakers. The empirical work reported here takes the form of a questionnaire study, which aims to uncover Tyneside inhabitants' awareness of forms as well as their affiliation with the local community. Results showed differences in frequency perceptions between participants themselves and others which indicate that speakers can identify local forms as such, but that the variety is stigmatized. The strength of local affiliation correlated with participants' own language use and it is suggested that this can be accounted for by employing a social personae explanation, where speakers use certain salient forms to index local belonging despite overt stigma.
Highlights
Within sociolinguistics, studies of the meaning of place to speakers’ language use and identity are many
Place is seen as a natural external variable in sociolinguistic studies, mainly because research in this field has always been engaged in the study of language variation across different localities
While these two terms, which account for processes at play on the social level, work well in underpinning sociolinguistic patterns of variation and change, especially when these are concerned with matters of identity, as such they do not present ideas which have not already been posited by earlier sociolinguists
Summary
Studies of the meaning of place (often in local or regional terms) to speakers’ language use and identity are many. Linked to the role of social meaning of local forms in speakers’ identity constructions and often invoked in sociolinguistic studies as explanations of language variation and change are Silverstein’s social indexicality (2003) and Agha’s process of enregisterment (2003).
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