Study Of Linguistic Variation Research Articles

Micro-sociolinguistic outcomes of language contact in different lects of Indian English

This paper explores language contact phenomena (substrate und superstrate influence, universal learning strategies) in the speech of English-dominant, Hindi-dominant and bilingual speakers of Indian English. In so doing, it describes the nature and extent of linguistic variation that spans a broad sociolinguistic spectrum. The empirical basis of the study targets two domains of language: morpho-syntax (the English present perfect) and discourse pragmatics (quotative marking). The stratification of the informants into English-dominant, Hindi-dominant and bilingual is diagnostic of the sociolinguistic settings in which varieties in contact have been acquired (predominantly English, predominantly Hindi or mixed). The results indicate that superstratal influence is most noticeable in the speech of English-dominant individuals. In contrast, Hindi-dominant and bilingual speakers demonstrate substrate-induced features in their speech. The universal learning strategies of simplification are limited to the linguistic repertoires of the individuals with predominantly Hindi background. Crucially, bilingual speakers appear to engage in the construction of creative coinages and lead an incipient language change in the domain of quotative marking. Against this backdrop, the study shows that bilingualism is a primary sociocognitive condition underpinning speakers’ linguistic creativity and its major prerequisite. The study also pinpoints the importance of sociolinguistic differentiation through meticulous ethnographic fieldwork in the study of linguistic variation.

Department Store Surveys as a Methodology in the Study of Linguistic Variation

This article provides an overall review on the methodology of Department Store Surveys (DSS), which refers to sociolinguistic surveys taking place in department stores in urban speech communities accompanied with unobtrusive observation techniques. DSS originated in Labov’s pioneering study on the social stratification of (r) in New York City department stores, and has been applied to various speech communities thereafter. One of the most recent studies, extending DSS by adding another interviewer with a different identity, is discussed in particular. It is proposed that DSS allows us to study linguistic variation in two equally effective ways. At the micro-level, it offers insights into the structuring of a speech community with reference to linguistic variables; also, it informs our understanding of macro-level language use in public settings in a multilingual society. Finally, the strengths and limitations of DSS are evaluated in terms of data collection in urban speech communities.

Editorial

In this first issue of 2022, Journal of Modern Languages (JML) is pleased to share six interesting articles which are of relevance to the field of languages and linguistics. The first article of Volume 32, Department Store Surveys as a Methodology in the Study of Linguistic Variation by Shangxin Zheng and Xiaomei Wang, evaluates the use of Department Store Surveys (DSS) as an effective sociolinguistic tool to study linguistic variation in a multilingual society. Then, the next article by Vivian Chiew and Cecilia Cheong talks about the socio-cognitive and professional practice perspectives on chairperson statements. The findings of their study do not only illuminate the importance of professional discourse but also highlight pedagogical implications for English for Professional Communication (EPC) programmes. In this issue, we have also included an article that concern minority languages, a major area of interest for many researchers. In the article Maimani Language and Lawati Language: Two Sides of the Same Coin?, Said Humaid Al Jahdhami shares with us the resemblance between two minority languages which are Maimani Language and Lawati language. The other two articles focus on translation. In the article Evaluating the Curriculum for M.A. English Translation in Iran: Is the Curriculum Effective for Students?, Aynaz Samir evaluates the effectiveness of the English translation programme in Iran by investigating 341 university students’ perspectives. Insights for curriculum reform in the area of English translation are provided. The following article The Art of Paper Cutting: Strategies and Challenges in Chinese to English Subtitle Translation of Cultural Items by William Chai, Hui Yi Ong, Mansour Amini and Latha Ravindran highlights the technical, cultural and linguistic challenges faced in translating culture-specific items. Some of the proposed strategies in dealing with the translation of culture-specific terms are omission, equivalence, adaptation and direct transfer. Last but not least, Abbas Pazireh, Nilofar Hessamodini and Zohre Jaferi reported the findings of their quantitative study in the article Iranian EFL Learners’ Perceptions towards Demotivation in Learning English. In their study, 300 Iranian high school students’ perceptions of demotivation in learning English were gathered and factors such as teachers, textbooks, classroom conditions were identified. We hope that these articles published by JML are insightful to you and that you would share them with your friends and colleagues. For your easy reference, a list of featured articles published in the last five years is attached in the Appendix.

Analyzing the relationship between the English impersonal appearance construction and framed clause deicticity: a quantitative study

This paper deals with the English impersonal appearance construction (it seems/appears) and its relationship with the propositions over which it scopes. Attention focuses on four aspects: the presence/absence of explicit personalization via circumstantial element to me; the use of conjunctive, comparative or elided binder; the modal/temporal deicticity of the framed proposition; and the instantiation of these features across written and spoken modes of communication. These features are considered on account of prior studies assigning semantic correlates to their occurrence on the basis of qualitative analysis. The study applies log-linear analysis, a statistical technique that allows exploration of associations between two or more categorical variables, to test the degree of association between the four aspects mentioned. Three significant effects are included in the final model: a three-way interaction between mode of communication, binder choice and personalization, and two two-way associations between personalization and framed clause deicticity, and between binder choice and framed clause deicticity. The identified associations are discussed in the light of relevant literature and qualitative findings. The paper ends with concluding remarks and critical reflections on the use of log-linear analysis for the study of linguistic variation.

Modelling stylistic variation in threatened and under-documented languages

AbstractThe centrality of style is uncontested in sociolinguistics: it is an essential construct in the study of linguistic variation and change in the speech community. This is not the case in the language-obsolescence literature, where stylistic variation among endangered-language speakers is described as an ephemeral, or “marginal” resource, and where speakers exhibiting “stylistic shrinkage” become “monostylistic”. This argument is invoked in variationist theory too, where “monostylism” is presented as support for the tenets of Audience Design (Bell 1984). This article reports on a study that adopts variationist methods in a context of severe language endangerment. Evidence from two linguistic variables in Francoprovençal demonstrates the presence of socially meaningful stylistic variation among the last generation of fluent speakers, offering counter-evidence to classic claims. This evidence is used to argue that accounts of stylistic variation in language obsolescence are not sufficiently nuanced and should be reconsidered in light of recent research.

Personae in sociolinguistic variation

While studies of sociolinguistic variation traditionally have focused on correlations between macro-social categories and the use of linguistic variants, sociolinguistic work examining social meaning-making at an interactional level views linguistic variation as a resource deployed by agentive speakers and listeners. The persona has become an important construct in understanding how on-the-ground interactional practice builds up to form larger-scale patterns of sociolinguistic variation and change. Rather than members of macro-social groups, personae are holistic, ideological social types that are recognizably linked with ways of being and speaking. This article reviews the theoretical foundations for the use of personae as a social construct in the study of linguistic variation. It then describes the ways in which the construct has enriched sociolinguistic theories of social categories, intra-speaker variation, stylistic practice, explicit performances, sociolinguistic perception, and sociolinguistic change. Taking up the study of personae helps sociolinguists better articulate how linguistic variation is contextualized socially, and how links between personae and linguistic styles are formed and disseminated through time and social space. Further, examining the nature of the social constructs linked with variation, including personae and other constructs aside from demographic categories, helps inform the growing body of work that has aimed to incorporate social information into theories of language processing, perception, production, and representation. This article is categorized under: Linguistics > Language in Mind and Brain Linguistics > Linguistic Theory Psychology > Language.

What is philology? Philology and its utilisation in the study of linguistic variation and change

In this paper, I study the essence of philology from the perspective of the study of linguistic variation and change in old texts by examining: What is philology? What are philological research methods? What makes a study philological – does it suffice that it focuses on an old text? Has philology been defined more based on the research subjects than based on the methods? I will showcase the status of philology and its significance as a research trend that combines several disciplines. This paper focuses on the traditions of Finnish philology, but it also offers some insight into the essence of philology from a general perspective of the study of languages as the background. The goal is to offer an idea of what the philological research approach has to offer modern research of old texts. Furthermore, I will present a method that I have developed and its benefits in the study of variation and change of old texts. I will also present an analysis of the Finnish noun varve ‘pasture’, which Mikael Agricola used in the first handbook for mass in Finnish. I consider philology to be a sub-discipline of linguistics. It studies and compares old texts with text-critical methods based on their cultural and historical background. *** Mis on filoloogia? Filoloogiast ja selle kasutamisest keele varieerumise ja muutumise uurimisel Vaatlen artiklis filoloogia olemust vanade tekstide keele varieerumise ja muutumise vaatenurgast. Uurimiskusimused on jargmised: mis on filoloogia, millised on filoloogilised uurimismeetodid, mis teeb uurimuse filoloogiliseks – kas piisab sellest, et see tegeleb vanade tekstidega; kas filoloogiat maaratletakse pigem uurimisteemade kui meetodite pohjal? Tutvustan filoloogia seisundit ja olulisust mitut eriala uhendava uurimusena. Artikkel keskendub Soome filoloogiale, kuid annab ulevaate ka filoloogia olemusest uldisemalt. Eesmargiks on naidata, mida on filoloogilisel lahenemisel pakkuda vanade tekstide tanapaevasele uurimisele. Tutvustan ka meetodit, mille olen valja tootanud vanade tekstide varieerumise ja muutumise uurimisel, selgitades Mikael Agricola kasutatud sona varve ‘(metsa) karjamaa’ tausta, esinemist ja tahendust. Pean filoloogiat keeleteaduse osaks. Selles uuritakse ja vorreldakse vanu tekste tekstikriitiliste meetoditega, lahtudes nende kultuurilisest ja ajaloolisest taustast.

METHODOLOGICAL PRINCIPLES OF DIACHRONIC STUDY OF LINGUISTIC VARIATION IN THE UKRAINIAN LANGUAGE

The article analyses the system of methodological principles employed in the comprehensive study of linguistic variation in diachrony. In particular, the author defines the essence of the scientific principle as a means of linguistic study as well as thoroughly describes the system of methodological principles of a diachronic study of any linguistic variations. The described methodological foundations of a diachronic study are substantiated through the prism of Ukrainian written monuments of the late Middle Ages. The paper also outlines the prospects of further theoretical and methodological scientific studies for historical linguistics. The study material comprises more than nine thousand variable language elements, recorded in the texts of business and religious writing of the late Middle Ages. The sources for the study are represented by handwritten and printed monuments of the official style of the Old Ukrainian language and the religious style of the Church Slavonic language of the Ukrainian edition. As a result of the carried out research, it has been defined that the methodology of diachronic study of variable language phenomena is based on the principles of a scientific and objective approach to the variation of the literary language in historical conditions on the basis of a complex unity of historical, systemic, anthropocentric, and synergetic directions of linguistic studies. The described methodological aspects of the study of linguistic variations can be used in training courses of general linguistics, historical grammar of the Ukrainian language, the history of the Ukrainian literary language and historical dialectology as well as in the following optional courses: “Language Variation in Diachrony”, “Principles and Methods of Linguistic Analysis of Linguistic Variation”, “Formation of the Ukrainian Language Standards” for students of philological departments.

Some parallels, accidental and expected

The articles in this issue were developed from presentations in the Intersections workshop held concurrently with NWAV44. The goals of that workshop were to widen and deepen the study of linguistic variation by creating intersections with other approaches to linguistic analysis.

Labov's contributions to the study of African American Vernacular English: Pursuing linguistic and social equity

Even before Labov's celebrated study of the Lower East Side (The Social Stratification of English in New York City) was published in 1966, he had begun research on African American Vernacular English (AAVE) in Harlem. His work there initiated a life‐long study of the structural features, verbal artistry and language use of the African American speech community. It took him to other cities (e.g. Philadelphia) and states (e.g. California, Georgia, South Carolina), and led him to grapple with questions about how linguistics could be used to improve the teaching of reading to speakers of vernacular Englishes and to enhance the life chances of people of color. In this article, I review Labov's contributions to each of these issues, and to diachronic issues about the development of AAVE. Overall, this research considerably enriched his overall contribution to theoretical, methodological and applied aspects of sociolinguistics and the study of linguistic variation and change.

Pedagogia da variação linguística: por uma abordagem heterogênea da língua a fim de minimizar o preconceito linguístico

The linguistic prejudice occurs in differents environments and its dissemination will result more and more in the repetition of the idea that the Brazilian does not know his own language, and he does not use it correctly. This prejudice may be also related to the approach of non standard and the standard norms together in the classroom. Thus, we justify this paper, for it is role of educational institutions to provide the teaching of the Portuguese language free of linguistic prejudice. This present work aims (i) to observe the positive attitudes and the negative one, regarding to the use of linguistic variations and (ii) to demonstrate the necessity of approach the linguistic variation in the educational institutions in order to minimize the incidence of linguistic prejudice among the speakers of the heterogeneous Portuguese language. This research has found that the study of linguistic variation is already actual in the school but it is not enough, considering that students are not always possible to really identify the varieties of fact. Therefore it is necessary a greater care to treat the linguistic peculiarities in order to avoid negative attitudes with this approach, and consequently minimize linguistic prejudice.

‘All the Lads and Lasses’: lexical variation in Tyne and Wear

Taking as our starting-point the results of an investigation conducted on data collected in the 1950s for the Survey of English Dialects (SED) (Glauser, 1985), in this paper we look at data collected between forty and fifty years after the SED to examine variation in the semantic fields BOYS/GIRLS; SONS/DAUGHTERS. Glauser's SED data consisted of single-word responses mainly from older male informants to questions such as: ‘Children may be of either sex: they're either….boys, or …. girls.’1 (Orton, 1962: 89), but we have examined data from two more recent sources – the Diachronic Electronic Corpus of Tyneside English (DECTE) and Burbano-Elizondo's (2008) study of linguistic variation in Sunderland – in order to ascertain which words occur in these semantic fields. Whilst Glauser's observation that lad is elicited more frequently than lass is borne out, we find that, in the sense of ‘sexual partner’, where these words do not appear in the SED data, lass is used more frequently than lad in the more recent data from Tyneside and Sunderland. We also find that, whilst there is no clear correlation between use of the words lad and lass and the social class of speakers, males use both these words more than females.

The philosophical significance of Universal Grammar

Throughout its long history, the project of a science of grammar has always been an inherently philosophical one, in which the study of grammar was taken to have special epistemological significance. I ask why 20th and 21st century inquiry into Universal Grammar (UG) has largely lost this dimension, a fact that I argue is partially responsible for the prevailing controversy around UG, relating to its formulation, scope, and biological basis. This paper argues for a re-conceptualization of this program along ways that answer these criticisms and are more in line with a pre-modern conception of a science of grammar, bringing out its philosophical significance. Central to the new conception is the role of grammar in giving human thought a species-specific and uniquely linguistic structural format, consistent with the recent claim that UG primarily constrains the Language of Thought, yet different from it in other ways, such as in stressing the role of grammar in establishing a system of deictic reference, which depends on the externalization of grammar in some physical medium. Although UG on the new conception is not the study of linguistic variation but the study of sapiens-specific mode of thought, it cannot be dissolved into the study of thought (or semantics) as such: for the mode of thought in question uniquely takes a grammatical format and grammatical meaning is unavailable either pre-linguistically or lexically.

Sociolinguistics and Perception

AbstractThe social perception and evaluation of language are key elements in sociolinguistic phenomena. While perceptual studies have long played a role in the study of linguistic variation, they have not enjoyed central status, in contrast to their widespread use in the field of language attitudes. Recently, however, interest in the perceptual study of variation has grown. Three threads of research on sociolinguistic perception are discussed: the social and affective evaluation of language, the identification of social information from speech and the influence of social information on linguistic comprehension. Finally, methodological and theoretical developments within the field of variation are explored that place perceptual studies at the heart of the variationist enterprise.

Revisiting the Need for New Approaches to Social Class in Variationist Sociolinguistics

To better account for patterns in language variation by social class and to conceptualise and analyse social class in new and refined ways, many sociolinguists have recommended looking to theoretical and methodological advancements in sociology and anthropology. We review a contemporary sociological approach to social class, formulated by Joan Acker (2000, 2006), and apply it to the study of linguistic variation in two U.S. communities. While Acker’s framework may advance sociolinguists’ understanding of the complexities of social class, the advantages of Acker’s model do not, as yet, clearly and readily translate to variationist sociolinguistics. We conclude that social class frameworks from sociology or other fields may require some calibrating to the goal of variationist sociolinguistics, which is not the study of social class itself, but rather the dynamics of language variation and change, of which social class plays an integral part.

Computerisation of a corpus of personal correspondence spanning the 19th and 20th centuries: the study of linguistic variation

The article presents the contents and the technical resources of the CD-ROM “Epistolari d’Antoni M. Alcover (1880–1931)” [Antoni M. Alcover’s correspondence], published in 2008, which contains the complete transcription of the Majorcan dialectologist’s personal correspondence between 1880 and 1931. It shows how the computer program can help to study the linguistic variation throughout the 3,529,159 words of the corpus of correspondence. Among many other features, we pay special attention to the presence of dialect features and to the linguistic interference between Catalan and Castilian at the beginning of the 20th century.

Terttu nevalainen. An Introduction to Early Modern English. Pp. x + 176. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2006, Pb £12.00, Hb £40.00.

This is an exceptional textbook from one of the leading scholars of Early Modern English. Well-structured, clearly written, using an outstanding range of carefully chosen literary and non-literary examples, the book's 10 chapters would perfectly fit a 10-week undergraduate or taught MA course given to students with some prior linguistic training. More literary-minded students, such as those who are likely to be encountered in an Anglophone context, would probably need more time, and some informed teaching, to get the most out of the riches on offer here. Terttu Nevalainen is a professor at Helsinki University, which for the past two decades has been one of the places for the historical study of the English language. Helsinki's particular specialism has been the study of linguistic variation via the use of computer corpuses. The resources of the main Helsinki Corpus of English Texts, subsidiary corpuses on early American and Older Scots and Nevalainen and Helena Raumolin-Brunberg's recent Corpus of Early English Correspondence, lie behind this work, giving it a depth and authority rare in teaching texts.

Tracking Swedish-American English: A Longitudinal Study of Linguistic Variation and Identity (review)

Tracking Swedish-American English: A Longitudinal Study of Linguistic Variation and Identity (review)

Sociolinguistic research on Thailand languages

A review of thirty-one pieces of work on language problems in Thailand with reference to social factors shows that in Thailand itself interest in dealing with language in its social context started about 40 years before the first sociolinguistic study of Thai was done at the beginning of the 1970s. The studies in the last two decades (from 1970 to the present time) follow two major trends in sociolinguistics: study of linguistic variation by relating it to social factors and study of language problems from a macrosociolinguistic point of view. However, sociolinguistic studies of languages in Thailand in the 1980s, when compared to those in the 1970s, seem to be more specific in purpose, more limited in scope, cover more varied topics and deal with more languages other than Bangkok Thai or Standard Thai.

Strategies of discourse comprehension By Teun A. van Dijk and Walter Kintsch (review)

REVIEW ARTICLE Strategies of discourse comprehension. By Teun A. van Dijk and Walter Kintsch. New York: Academic Press, 1983. Pp. xi, 418. $38.50. Reviewed by Douglas Biber, University of Southern California* A discourse perspective has become increasingly important in linguistics. Within descriptive linguistics, grammatical processes like definitization, pronominalization , ellipsis, and focus are regularly studied in discourse contexts; and functional analyses of syntactic features in discourse (e.g. passives, clefts, subordinate constructions) have become common. Studies of linguistic variation , whether among social groups or situations, are normally based on naturally occurring discourse. Sociological studies ofconversational interaction and anthropological studies of speech events both require a discourse perspective. Given this widespread interest, it is no surprise that the cognitive processing of discourse has become a central issue in psycholinguistics. Highly informative and thought-provoking, SDC represents one of the most fully articulated models of discourse comprehension to date; it should provide a research framework for some years to come. It is useful reading for researchers working in the broad areas of psycholinguistics, discourse analysis, and educational linguistics, as well as those working on comprehension itself. SDC presents a detailed model of discourse comprehension, with primary emphasis on the processes of comprehension, rather than static representations . Van Dijk & Kintsch bring complementary backgrounds to the writing of the book: Van Dijk's earlier work (1972, 1977, 1981) deals with text grammar and discourse pragmatics in relatively broad and abstract terms, while Kintsch has a more experimental orientation, with primary interests in semantic memory and cognitive processes (1974, 1977). In SDC, they combine their interests and orientations to develop a model of text comprehension and production. The SDC model extends an earlier one (Kintsch & van Dijk 1978) in several respects. The major structure in that version is the 'textbase', a hierarchical semantic representation defined in terms of propositions, and relations among propositions. SDC proposes a second major structure: the 'situation model', which represents the events, participants, and general situation of a text. Thus simultaneous, interacting representations of the text (the textbase) and the social context (the situational model) are constructed during discourse comprehension . More importantly, SDC is process-oriented, whereas the earlier model was developed in static terms. That is, the primary focus of 5DC is the on-line construction of meaning—an account of how the processing and interpretation of text can occur simultaneously. V&K's central claim is that online discourse comprehension requires 'strategies' which use different kinds of information in different orders, to construct a (tentative) representation of a text efficiently and rapidly. * I want to thank Edward Finegan and William Grabe for comments on an earlier version ofthis review. 664 REVIEW ARTICLE665 In several respects, 5DC represents a major advance in the study ofdiscourse comprehension. It attempts to model the entire process, providing an over-all framework for more detailed studies. The book proceeds from micro to macro levels of representation, describing the functions of strategies at each. Despite its comprehensive nature, SDC is relatively detailed, raising important issues and proposing possible answers at several levels of comprehension. V&K also attempt to provide an integrated model, showing how the structures and strategies at each level relate to those at others. Finally, the hypothesized use of strategies is frequently illustrated through consideration of naturally occurring texts (primarily a news article from Newsweek, but also samples from literary discourse and conversation), and certain aspects of the model are tested experimentally . The analyses of the text samples and the experiments do not prove the validity of SDC; but they provide empirical support, and indicate how experimental tests might proceed. Thus SDC develops a general model which identifies important issues requiring further research, rather than presenting a fully-specified theory of discourse comprehension. Chap. 1 introduces the notions of strategy, textbase, and situational model. In addition, it provides an overview of the types of strategies within the model, including certain ones not treated elsewhere in SDC. These include stylistic strategies (attention to alternative ways of expressing similar meanings, depending on situation, participants, and over-all goals); rhetorical strategies (e.g. for figures of speech); and conversational strategies (e.g. for turn-taking). As research studies are extended to a variety of discourse types, all these should receive more...