Dialect Levelling Research Articles

New towns and koineization: linguistic and social correlates

The establishment of new towns in the twentieth century in many parts of the world is a test bed of koineization, the type of language change that takes place when speakers of different, but mutually intelligible language varieties come together, and which may lead to new dialect or koine formation. This article presents the case of Milton Keynes, an English new town designated in 1967. Our study investigated the speech of a sample of 48 working-class children divided into three age groups: four, eight, and twelve years of age, along with one caregiver for each. We hypothesize that the formation of a new dialect is in the gift of older children. We also hypothesize that dialect leveling, which is part of koineization, will be more rapid in a new town than in an old-established town. Detailed quantitative results for four vowels strongly support these hypotheses. At the same time, we investigate the social network types contracted by new town residents. We found many to be socially isolated locally, but that they maintained contacts with their place of origin. We show that migrants violate what the Milroys argue to be the normal inverse relationship between socioeconomic class and social network density: migrants have uniplex networks, while still having a low socioeconomic status. The consequences for dialect change are considered.

Inanimate interrogatives and settlement patterns in Francophone Louisiana

In the light of the extensive dialect leveling found in Francophone Louisiana, the suggestion made in Byers (1988) is a particularly interesting one, that the geographical distribution of qui and quoi, both meaning ‘what’, reflects the differential settlement histories of early 18th century Creoles, and Acadians, respectively. In this article I document these two interrogative patterns as to form and locales of attestation, and I explore the evidence for Byer's claim, showing that a strong case can be made by considering not only settlement history but also the interrogatives of Louisiana Creole, the origins of which arguably predate the arrival of the Acadians in Louisiana.

Creolization and Contact (review)

Reviewed by: Creolization and contact ed. by Norval Smith, Tonjes Veenstra Don E. Walicek Creolization and contact. Ed. by Norval Smith and Tonjes Veenstra. (Creole language library 23.) Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2001. Pp. 323. ISBN 1588111113. $110 (Hb). The twelve papers in this volume were inspired by a 1995 workshop on language contact and creolization at the University of Amsterdam. They cover five general topics: relexification, second-language learning, koine-formation, contact linguistics, and sociolinguistics. The collection focuses on contact between social groups and individuals rather than merely on interactions of communities. Claire Lefebvre begins the first section by describing how relexification, dialect leveling, and re-analysis apply to the genesis and development of functional category lexical items in Haitian. She shows that both superstratum and substratum languages (specifically Fongbe) are reflected in creole lexical entries. In the next chapter, ‘Voodoo chile’, Norval Smith compares Haitian to Saramaccan. Asking why these two languages have different end-results despite shared Eastern Gbe influence, Smith examines work by Lefebvre. He suggests that both universalist and substrate approaches partially explain creole genesis. In Ch. 3, Anthony Grant provides an informative overview of research on language intertwining. He argues that this process is distinct from creolization and offers a detailed look at three languages: Berbice Dutch, Zamboangueño, and Cotabateño. In the next paper, Maarten Mous explains paralexification. He suggests that this process of adding word forms to lexical entries leads to language intertwining. In the first contribution on second-language learning, Ulla-Brit Kotsinas describes learner varieties of Swedish. She identifies several ‘deviant’ features of pidginized Swedish, characteristics she sees as [End Page 189] evidence of compensatory strategies rather than L1 interference. Kotsinas also presents evidence of creolization among first-generation immigrants. In the next chapter, responding to Kotsinas, Pieter Muysken looks at the grammatical properties of Negerhollands in terms of L2 acquisition of Dutch. Muysken recognizes features that can be attributed to the acquisition of Dutch as a second language as well as some that seem to reflect West African patterns. The section on koine-formation and convergence begins with Jeff Siegel’s article on creole genesis and Fiji Hindi. He describes a sociolinguistic model in which mixing, leveling, and simplification each play key roles. Frans Hinskens responds to Siegel in the next chapter by questioning how empirical the latter’s sketch is. He includes questions about Siegel’s methodology and suggestions for further development of the model. In Ch. 9, Silvia Kouwenberg points out that there is no coherent theory of convergence in historical linguistics. Criticizing analyses that identify convergence only retrospectively, she shows that it serves primarily as a descriptive concept. Sarah Thomason contributes the volume’s first chapter on contact linguistics. She compares pidgin/creole genesis with more typical contact-induced change. Relatedly, she holds that borrowing plays a significant role in mixing but not in genesis. In Ch. 11, Ellen Prince approaches Yiddish not as a creole but as a language in contact. She advances the theory that contact effects result from pragmatic and semantic intentions in which speakers target concepts as expressed in the contact scenario. The final chapter, ‘Social stratification and network relations in the formation of Sranan’, focuses on sociohistorical factors operating at the microlevel. Highlighting insightful sociolinguistic studies written in Dutch on this topic, Jacques Arends dispels myths about plantation life and lists examples of overlooked network relations. As in previous chapters, this exciting work reminds the reader that similar phenomena could be investigated for other creoles. This excellent and impressive volume approaches the problems it addresses at a variety of levels and will surely motivate provocative discussion and research. Don E. Walicek University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras Copyright © 2004 Linguistic Society of America

Internal and external motivation in phonetic change: Dialect levelling outcomes for an English vowel shift

This article is a contribution to the debate about the primacy of internal versus external factors in language change (Farrar and Jones 2002; Thomason and Kaufman 1988). Taking Labov's Principles of Vowel Shifting (Labov 1994) as representing internal factors, we examine a vowel shift in Ashford, south‐east of London. F1 and F2 measurements of the short vowels suggest a classic chain shift, largely following Labov's Principles II and III (though Labov's assumption that London short front vowels are rising is shown to be wrong). However, corresponding data from Reading, west of London, evidence no signs of a chain shift. The two datasets show identical targets for the changes in each town. Thus, there has been convergence between the two short vowel systems – from different starting points. We argue that a dialect contact model is more explanatory than internal factors in this case of regional dialect levelling in the south‐east of England.

‘We all speak the same round here’: Dialect levelling in a Scottish‐English community

In this paper the formation of a new dialect in Corby, Northamptonshire, a former steel town in the English Midlands, is traced across three generations. The study focuses on whether dialect levelling processes can account for the features of the new dialect formed by contact between the displaced Scottish and indigenous English inhabitants in the town. The results of a variationist analysis of the reflexes of two phonological variables are interpreted within a language ideology framework, with reference to commentary from the speakers themselves. Such a combination of perspectives offers a means of socially embedding the interpretation of the data with reference to the identity issues arising from this contact situation.

Dialect leveling and /ai/ monophthongization among African American Detroiters

In this paper I present evidence that Detroit African Americans are participating in a recent sound change which is typically associated with some White, but not African American, varieties in the American South. Although both Southern White and African American speakers monophthongize /ai/ in pre‐voiced phonetic contexts (tide), the spread of the monophthongal or glide‐reduced variant to pre‐voiceless environments (tight) is a salient characteristic of some subregions of the Southern U.S. I report a leveling pattern in which /ai/ monophthongization has expanded to the salient pre‐voiceless context in Detroit African American English (AAE). I explain this is in terms of a change in the group with whom African American speakers perceive themselves as saliently contrastive.

Changement linguistique en ville: l’exemple de Bâle

Dialect levelling in German speaking Switzerland is different from Dialect levelling in Germany: in contrast to lexical changes, phonological and morphological changes do not follow an evolutionary direction. Our research in Basel shows different varieties of the urban repertoire, which are all considered as Baseldeutsch by their speakers. Recent language changes are induced by contact with other Swiss German varieties. However, these changes show considerable individual differences. There is no unity in development. This leads to local dialects with more variation than can be observed in traditional varieties.

The interplay of relexification and levelling in creole genesis and development

This paper bears on the relationship between relexification and levelling, two processes that play a role in Creole genesis and development. It is a well-documented fact that situations where creoles develop involve several substratum languages and one (or at least one major) superstratum language. Relexification of several substratum languages on the basis of a single/major superstratum language provides the creole community with a common lexicon, hence a common language. As a mental/cognitive process, relexification is an individual process. Consequently through relexification, the specificities of the various substratum languages are reproduced in the incipient creole, thus creating what might be referred to as different dialects of the new language. Relexification of several substratum languages, on the basis of a single superstratum language, can be viewed as the major source of variation in an incipient creole. This provides a sound explanation for the fact that different substratum languages may contribute different features to a particular creole. Dialect levelling, as discussed in the literature on dialects in contact, refers to the reduction of variation between dialects of the same language, in situations where these dialects are brought together. On the basis of three sets of data from Haitian creole, it is shown that, in creole development, dialect levelling operates on the output of relexification. The role of levelling in creole genesis and development accounts for the fact that the properties of some specific lexical entries of the creole may depart from those of the corresponding lexical entries in the individual substratum languages.

Phonetic parallels between the close-mid vowels of Tyneside English: Are they internally or externally motivated?

The distribution of variants of the face and goat vowels in Tyneside English (TE) is assessed with reference to the age, sex, and social class of 32 adult TE speakers. The effects of phonological context and speaking style are also examined. Patterns in the data are suggestive of dialect leveling, whereby localized speech variants become recessive and pronunciations typical of a wider geographical area are adopted. Within this broad pattern, however, there is evidence of parallelism between the vowels in terms of the relative proportions of their variants across speaker groups. It is suggested that pressure to maintain the symmetrical structure of the underlying phonological system is guiding this process. Labov's (1991, 1994) principles of chain shift are discussed in this connection. However, it is argued that the patterns in the data are more plausibly explained by considering the social significance of each variant instead of making reference to variants as socially neutral expressions of abstract phonological categories.

Gender Differences in the Evolution of Standard English

This article focuses on a sociolinguistic issue that is for the first time evidenced on a nationwide scale in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. It is the supralocaliza - tion of a number of regional features that in the course of time became part of the morphology of Standard English. I will argue that the social variable of gender had an important role to play in the diffusion of these supralocal features. This is of con - siderable interest, especially as overt prescriptivism and normative grammar had little or no influence on these processes before the late seventeenth century. In present-day British English, processes of supralocalization are typically wit- nessed in phonology. These ongoing processes of dialect leveling include such well-known cases as the diffusion to Norwich and the rest of East Anglia of a number of London features. A case in point is the initial fricative merger in words such as thing and thought. The merger diffused rapidly: in Trudgill's (1986, 54) Norwich surveys, adolescents born in 1957 did not have it at all, whereas those born in 1967 used it extensively. Other processes of supralocalization may be slower. The loss of /h/, for instance, has been diffusing outward from London into East An- glia over the past 150 years and is now well established (Trudgill 1986, 44).

Dialect Levelling in Limburg: Structural and Sociolinguistic Aspects

Dialect Levelling in Limburg: Structural and Sociolinguistic Aspects

Virtual Convergence and Dialect Levelling in Luxembourgish

This paper focuses on the structural modification in a cluster of dialects in Luxembourg by analysing effects of societal modernisation on the sociolinguistic status and the linguistic form of a primarily spoken language. It addresses questions of 'dialect loss', 'dialect levelling', and 'standardisation' (cf. Mattheier 1986, Hinskens 1996). Ongoing changes concerning the regional variation of Letzebuergesch show two partly distinct processes. A general process of 'dialect levelling' leads to a reduction of regional variation. At the same time, dialect differences persist since Luxembourgish dialect features other than the speaker's own are generally accepted; this phenomenon I call 'virtual convergence'

Dialect Levelling: A Two-dimensional Process

Processes of dialect levelling reduce the linguistic 'autonomy' of individual dialects by leading to their structural convergence with related varieties. This contribution presents research into processes of dialect levelling in a Limburg dialect of Dutch. After a concise overview of both the goal of this paper and the definitions of some of the key notions, the questions and related hypotheses guiding the research are presented. A brief sketch of some of the most relevant historical, socio-geographical and dialect-geographical aspects of the research area) is followed by an account of the considerations underlying the design of the study and an overview of the main methodological steps. Some of the most important findings for each of the hypotheses are then illustrated and discussed. By far most attention is paid to the hypothesis central in the present contribution, the one that says that dialect levelling does not necessarily lead to structural convergence towards the standard language. The findings and conclusions are compared to those of related - older as well as contemporary - studies. Finally, a follow-up study is briefly sketched. This follow-up study was designed to deepen some of the insights and to provide an answer to a question that emerged from the main finding relevant to the hypothesis central in the present contribution

Levelling Phenomena in the Flemish Dialects: Some Observations on Their Teleology

When in today's industrialized Western language communities dialects change, this change usually amounts to loss of variation, because it results in levelling(s) under the influence of and in the direction of the standard language. This is also the general tendency in the dialects of the Flemish part of Belgium. Yet, in my own and other people's research into recent developments in the Flemish-Belgian dialects, there is also prove for other tendencies: processes of change with divergence at its effect, but also cases of consolidation and even reinforcement of a dialect phenomenon. I will report on the following three situations, all of which have become more or less unconventional: (I) dialect levelling towards another variety than the standard language; (2) dialect changes through internal restructuring; (3) some peculiar examples of dialect consolidation

Dialect Levelling and the Standard Varieties in Europe

Dialect Levelling and the Standard Varieties in Europe

Morphological Structure of Isthmus Nahuat

spoken compose a speech community contrasting on the dialect level with other Nahua or Nahuatl speaking communities in Mexico. The village of Mecayapan, Ver., is one of a dozen or so where this dialect is spoken, and is the municipio of the area where the forms described in this paper are heard. Other Nahuat speaking municipios in the southern part of the state of Veracruz are: San Andr6s Tuxtla, Cosoleacaque, Oteapan, Jaltipan. The 19401 census figures place the number of Nahuat speaking residents in the state of Veracruz at 76,765. No figures are available for the speakers of the Isthmus dialect alone. There is a high degree of bilingualism