Variationist Analysis Research Articles

A computational approach to detecting the envelope of variation

Abstract Variationist sociolinguistic methodology is grounded in the principle of accountability, which requires researchers to identify all of the contexts in which a given variable occurs or fails to occur. For morphosyntactic, lexical, and discourse variables, this process is notoriously time- and labor-intensive, as researchers manually sift through raw data in search of tokens to analyze. In this article, we demonstrate the usability of pretrained computational language models to automatically identify tokens of sociolinguistic variables in raw text. We focus on two English-language variables from different linguistic domains: intensifier choice (lexical; e.g., she is {very, really, so} smart) and complementizer selection (morphosyntactic; e.g., they thought {that, Ø} I understood). Text classifiers built with Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers (BERT) achieve high precision and recall metrics for both variables, even with relatively little hand-annotated training data. Our findings suggest that computational language models can dramatically reduce the burden of preparing data for variationist analysis. Furthermore, by inspecting the classifiers’ scores for individual sentences, researchers can observe patterns that should be written into the description of the variable context for further study.

A Variationist Analysis of Progressive Aspect Alternatives in Jordanian Arabic

A Variationist Analysis of Progressive Aspect Alternatives in Jordanian Arabic

We /r/ Tongan, not American: Variation and the social meaning of rhoticity in Tongan English

AbstractThe current paper argues that speakers of Tongan English, an emergent variety spoken in the Kingdom of Tonga, may use rhoticity to construct a cosmopolitan and globally oriented local social identity. A variationist analysis of non‐prevocalic /r/ in a corpus of 56 speakers reveals a change in progress towards rhoticity led by young females, whereas an affiliation with Liahona High School, a Mormon secondary school, predicts advanced adoption of the feature. I argue that rhoticity carries a positive ideological load for younger speakers as an index of globalness, modernity and Western cultural values, whereas for Liahona‐affiliated speakers, an additional indexicality of rhoticity is Mormonism. Linguistic constraints on variation mirror patterns found in previous studies on L1/L2 varieties and are thus more universal, whereas social constraints on variation are best examined through a local lens.

Does the linguistic market explain sociolinguistic variation in spoken Swiss Standard German?

Abstract This paper shows (a) how the concept of the linguistic market can be operationalized as an index to enable its inclusion as a factor in variationist analysis and (b) how this index helps to explain sociolinguistic variation in a diglossic situation. To do this, sociolinguistic interviews were conducted in Swiss Standard German among 16 L1-dialect-speakers aged between 19 and 40 from Biel/Bienne in western Switzerland. Drawing from participants’ self-assessments of the importance of Standard German in their professional life, a linguistic market index (LMI) was created and cross-validated with external assessments. Our variationist analysis considered four phonetic-phonological variables—/k/, /ç/, /aː/, /ɛ-ɛː/—for which typical Swiss variants (i.e., sociolinguistic stereotypes) exist. Findings show that the LMI is crucial for explaining variation in all the variables tested. Other social (i.e., gender and formality of the language production task) and linguistic factors (e.g., phonetic environment) show partial effects as well.

Variant Choices of Future Time Reference in Galician: The Grammaticalization of [haber (de) + infinitive] as a Window to Diachronic Change

Compared to neighboring Romance languages, Galician currently maintains a more ubiquitous usage of the construction [haber (present) + (de) + infinitive] as a future marker in variation with the periphrastic construction with ir ‘go’ and the morphological future. We examine this under-studied construction to gain a better understanding of Galician grammar and also contribute new data with which to consider diachronic change regarding the grammaticalization of the future from obligation markers. We conduct a variationist analysis of 1589 tokens of future forms in recorded conversations (CORILGA) in order to determine the frequency of usage, patterns of variation, linguistic conditioning and degree of grammaticalization of the periphrastic forms with haber and ir in contrast to the morphological variant. We find evidence to suggest that the periphrastic construction with haber is highly grammaticalized as a future marker and we identify factors of the production context that modulate the grammaticalization process.

Rhythm in the Kingdom: a variationist analysis of speech rhythm in Tongan English

This article presents an analysis of speech rhythm in Tongan English, an emergent variety spoken in the Kingdom of Tonga. The normalised Pairwise Variability Index (nPVI-V) is used to classify the variety and determine the social and stylistic constraints on variation in a corpus of conversational and reading passage data with 48 speakers. Findings reveal a greater tendency towards stress-timing in speakers of the emergent local elite, characterised by white-collar professions and high levels of education, and those with a high index of English use. Variation is discussed as a consequence of proficiency, language contact and L1 transfer. An acoustic analysis of vowels in unstressed syllables of eight speakers confirms that lack of vowel centralisation (higher F1) is an underlying linguistic mechanism leading to more syllable-timed speech. Stark interspeaker variation was identified, highlighting the need to proceed with caution when classifying L2 Englishes based on speech rhythm.

Examining the maintenance of dialect features in colloquial urban Armenian speech via variationist analysis of vowels in Gavaṛ, Armenia

This study examines the maintenance of previously described local dialect vowels in the regional city of Gavaṛ, Armenia. The dialect vowel system contains additional phonemic and allophonic distinctions not found in supralocal Armenian varieties. As such, adherence to this system was conceptualized through the presence or absence of various vowel mergers. F1 and F2 were measured from picture and word list data collected from sociolinguistic interviews with 31 participants. Mergers were assessed for each participant via Pillai scores and Euclidean distances between clusters of words where different vowels were predicted to appear based on previous descriptions of the dialect. Countering previous claims about dialect leveling in regional cities, some participants were found to maintain some aspects of the dialect vowel system. Fixed effects linear models assessed the effect of demographic predictors (self-reported gender, birth year, education level) on maintenance of dialect vowels. There was an effect of gender, such that men were found to maintain some dialect vowels to a greater degree than women. Participants’ commentary suggested that the most salient aspects of the dialect vowel system are the same ones in relation to which this demographic variation was uncovered, indicating a relationship between salience and maintenance of dialect vowels.

Expanding the scope of grammatical variation: towards a comprehensive account of genitive variation across registers

Most studies of genitive variation in English have considered only the choice of two variants ('s versus of), based on analysis of only tokens that are judged to be interchangeable. We argue in the present article that research on genitive variation can be usefully extended in both respects: including premodifying nouns as a third variant; and attempting to account for all tokens of the genitive. In addition, we extend the scope of analysis to explore the possibility of contextual constraints having different importance in different registers.First, we carry out a text-linguistic analysis comparing the rates of genitive variants in texts from three registers (conversation, newspaper reports, academic articles), showing that genitives overall are much more frequent in written registers, with the premodifying noun variant being especially frequent. Then, a variationist analysis is undertaken to account for the choice of genitive variant in particular contexts and registers. A total of 3,425 genitive tokens were coded for ten contextual characteristics (e.g. length of the Modifying NP, semantic category of the Modifying noun and the Head noun, final sibilancy of the Modifying noun). Statistical analyses with random forests and conditional inference trees are triangulated, showing how contextual factors interact in predicting the use of each genitive variant – and how patterns of variation differ across registers.

Eh Across Englishes: A Corpus-Pragmatic Analysis of the Corpus of Global Web-Based English

This paper presents an analysis of the pragmatic marker eh, which is typical of spoken discourse, in written online discourse from nine varieties of English using the Corpus of Global Web-based English. The analysis focuses on sentence-final eh and considers variation in terms of variety, punctuation, text type, and function. This paper also includes a variationist analysis of eh in contrast to huh. Although there are cross-variety differences, eh is used across all nine varieties in similar ways. Eh is mostly combined with a question mark, it is more frequent in blogs than in general websites, and emphatic functions dominate over narrative and interrogative uses. A qualitative analysis of the indexicalities demonstrates that eh mainly signals orality and informality in online writing but also has specific local meanings. The variationist analysis shows that eh is preferred over huh in the Canadian and New Zealand components. This preference is even more pronounced for the British and Philippine components. In contrast, huh dominates in the US component. These results show that eh is well integrated into online writing and can be characterized as a translocal pragmatic marker as it is used globally but has developed local characteristics.

Accommodation Patterns in the Speech of Arabic-Speaking Children and Adolescents: A Variationist Analysis

This paper presents a variationist analysis of patterns of speech accommodation by 40 Arabic-speaking children and adolescents (aged 3–17) experiencing dialect contact in a Bedouin speech community near Damascus, Syria. It examines participants’ use of the phonological variables (θ), (ð), and (q), and the morphophonological feminine suffix (-a) in recorded sociolinguistic interviews and play sessions with two female fieldworkers, a local and an urban speaker, in order to investigate accommodation patterns across different interlocutors. Accommodation patterns were influenced by age, gender, and the linguistic variable under examination. Convergence to the urban interviewer was most evident in the realization of (q), whereas little convergence, and indeed variation, occurred in the realization of (-a), and more convergence occurred in the speech of girls and speakers younger than 15. Divergence and maintenance emerged in the speech of 15–17-year-old male speakers. These patterns are analysed in light of Accommodation Communication Theory and issues of identity and linguistic prestige in Arabic. Accommodative behaviour in the speech of participants exhibits their awareness of the social value of the phonological variables under investigation and demonstrates a high level of sociolinguistic awareness and competence.

The code of the streets in Beijing: Style-shifting and changing personae in the performance of Beijing male rappers

Abstract This study explores the link between stylized forms of language and the construction of social identities in performance in the Beijing hip hop community. It focuses on the indexical process by which rappers rely on existing characterological figures and local linguistic variables in Beijing Mandarin (i.e. rhotacized syllable finals, lenited retroflexes, interdentalized dental sibilants, and fronted palatals) to construct hip hop affiliated identities. A variationist analysis provides evidence of style-shifting between two generations of Beijing male rappers, who employ these socially salient linguistic features to different degrees, but always in a semiotically coherent package, in their performance. The analysis further demonstrates how the rappers maintain street credibility through a cultural alignment between hip hop and local social types. By examining the indexicality of these variables, the study highlights the interplay of hip hop ideology, local linguistic features, and local social types in stylistic practices and personae construction. (Hip hop, indexicality, iconicity, performance, Mandarin Chinese)*

Beyond dynasties and binary alternations: a diachronic corpus study of four-way variability in Chinese theme-recipient constructions

AbstractDespite the vast body of literature on the historical development of the theme-recipient alternation (also known as the “dative” alternation) in Chinese, most studies that have been conducted so far are limited to philological recounts of the binary choice between the prepositional dative and the ditransitive dative across dynasties, which usually spanned centuries. Against this backdrop, we conduct a state-of-the-art variationist analysis of the four variants, utilizing a large and richly annotated diachronic dataset based on a corpus of Chinese texts (1300s–1900s). Using conditional inference trees and conditional random forest analysis, we demonstrate that end-weight effects are the most stable linguistic constraint on variation, while definiteness and animacy of the theme constituent tend to be more fluid. Supplementary distinctive collexeme analysis reveals a strong collostructional interplay between verbs and the variants, including changes involving the prototypical verb of GIVING 给gĕi.

Quotation in earlier and contemporary Australian Aboriginal English

AbstractWe examine constructed dialogue in a longitudinal corpus of Australian Aboriginal English (AE) spoken in Perth, Australia. We conduct a variationist analysis of naturalistic data from forty-six L1 speakers of AE born 1907–2005. We ask, regarding the use of quotative frames, whether AE has changed in line with settler colonial Englishes. We examine whether a division of labor exists in the use of quotative frames, and whether the rise of first-person-marked internal thought reporting attested in settler colonial Englishes is present in AE.Our statistical modeling shows functional partitioning in how quotative frames are used, with AE speakers strongly encoding direct speech across time. We find that the rise of first-person-marked internal thought reporting has not been systemic in AE. Despite be like's incursion after 1983, the underlying system of AE has not changed. The cultural prerogative to encode speech remains strong despite sustained contact with non-First Nations Australia.

A Variationist Analysis of /ð/ in Ammani Arabic

A Variationist Analysis of /ð/ in Ammani Arabic

A Historical-Variationist Analysis of Subject Pronoun Expression in 19th and Early 20th Century Arizonan Spanish

This diachronic study is a variationist analysis of subject pronoun expression (SPE) in two key Spanish-language Arizonan newspapers, El Fronterizo (1878–1914) and El Tucsonense (1915–1957), following Tucson’s annexation to the United States through the Gadsden Purchase, a period of great social change during which the Spanish-speaking population in the city underwent a gradual process of anglicization. Since some research on SPE in Spanish in the United States suggests that English-Spanish bilingualism increases the use of overt subject personal pronouns (SPPs) because of their almost categorical use in English, this study’s main aim is to track the initial stages of such progression in a period when social bilingualism was steadily extending in Tucson. In this respect, our results show that the presence of overt SPPs does increase over time in the data analyzed; however, lower rates of overt SPPs in contemporary Tucson and Phoenix spoken Spanish raise the possibility that the percentage surge in the aforementioned period is rather due to the offline written nature of the newspapers, which, for instance, weakens the effect of online constraints, such as switch reference, ambiguous TAM endings, and non-reflexive verbs. Even so, regression analyses with the mixed-effects statistical software Rbrul reveal that the linguistic factor groups shaping SPE in the diachronic data are essentially the same ones found operating in contemporary varieties of Spanish.

Ukrainian standard variants in the 20th century: stylometry to the rescue

AbstractIn this study, we use the General Regionally Annotated Corpus of Ukrainian (GRAC, www.uacorpus.org) as an experimental field for testing stylometric approaches for variationist analysis. While, in the last years, quantitative methods such as binomial mixed-effects regression models as well as machine-learning methods such as random forests have gained considerable popularity in corpus linguistics, methods from stylometry have not been used for variation-linguistic analysis very often. Using data from GRAC, we show that a stylometric approach can be useful to analyze the diachronic development of Standard Ukrainian in the 20th century. We take departure from the two main variants of Standard Ukrainian used in the interwar period in Soviet Ukraine, on the one hand, and Western Ukraine as it was part of the Polish republic, on the other. We ask: what can stylometry tell us about how these standards differed and about their subsequent fate in enlarged Soviet Ukraine after WWII?Our analysis shows that certain specifically Western Ukrainian features common during the first decades of the 20th century did not find their way into the post-WWII standard, while others were retained. Moreover, we show that, by and large, stylometry shows a stronger continuity of the Eastern than the Western standard.Methodologically, we demonstrate that stylometry can be used as a tool to start corpus-linguistic research from a bird’s-eye view and in an inductive manner, without formulating any hypotheses regarding particular variables, and later zoom in on hitherto unknown variables representing regional or diachronic differences.

Emotion in multivarietal family language policy in Flanders

Aims: This study on Belgian Dutch caregivers aims to complement research on multilingual family language planning with a multivarietal perspective. As transitions between varieties are often more gradual, it is revealing to study which emotions surface in caregivers’ reflection on these varieties. The Belgian Dutch case is selected given its historically highly emotional macro-level language debate, its exoglossic norm and its transition from diglossia to diaglossia. Methodology: The aim is pursued through mixed methodology, combining variationist analysis with a bottom-up discourse analytic approach. Data and analysis: We juxtapose data from two Belgian Dutch families. For each family, a qualitative analysis identifies the expressions of (the lack of) emotions found in metalinguistic interviews on varieties of Dutch with the caregivers (80’). This information is triangulated with a quantitative analysis of the caregivers’ use of standard and nonstandard pronouns of address in self-recorded dinner table conversations (260’; N = 1004). Findings: Results reveal caregivers’ attempts to manage conflicting emotions related to the Flemish language situation, and how they lead to (dis)harmony in the family. Originality: This paper contributes to our understanding of emotions in family language policy (FLP) in its focus on a multivarietal context and in its mixed methodology. Implications: Our findings resonate with research on multilingual FLP’s, which we tie to caregivers’ diglossic description of the diaglossic Flemish context. The shifting relationship between emotions expressed in the interviews and the language choices made in practice, overall support the value of mixed methods FLP research.

A variationist analysis of the subjunctive mood in a sociolinguistic corpus of spoken Francoprovençal

Variationist studies on the subjunctive in Romance remain focused on dominant nation-state languages. Conversely, very little research focuses on the minoritised varieties (often labelled ‘regional’ languages) with which these dominant languages are in contact. The framework deployed for elucidating on change in the subjunctive has not yet been adequately tested in language endangerment. Using a novel sociolinguistic corpus of spoken Francoprovençal, the variationist analysis presented in this paper offers a preliminary investigation of the synchronic shape of the subjunctive in one variety, and assesses the extent to which social and linguistic factors influence variant selection. The results indicate a progressive weakening of a subjunctive mood that is increasingly lexically motivated. The available evidence suggests that a combination of tense-aspect-mood variation and morphophonological regularisation are contributing to the decline in subjunctive selection, with no social factors playing a role in the variation.

Acquiring verb-argument structure in Tagalog: a multivariate corpus analysis of caregiver and child speech

Abstract Western Austronesian languages have typologically rare but theoretically important voice systems that raise many questions about their learnability. While these languages have been featured prominently in the descriptive and typological literature, data on acquisition is sparse. In the current paper, we report on a variationist analysis of Tagalog child-directed speech using a newly collected corpus of caregiver-child interaction. We determined the constraints that condition voice use, voice selection, argument position, and thematic role assignment, thus providing the first quantitative analysis of verb argument structure variation in the language. We also examined whether children are sensitive to the constraints on variability. Our analyses showed that, despite the diversity of structures that children have to learn under Tagalog’s voice system, there are unique factors that strongly predict the speakers’ choice between the voice and word order alternations, with children’s choices related to structure alternations being similar to what is available in their input. The results thus suggest that input distributions provide many cues to the acquisition of the Tagalog voice system, making it eminently learnable despite its apparent complexity.

Using VADIS to weigh competing epicentral influence

AbstractThe present study sets out to explore the mandative subjunctive in Canadian English (CanE), vs. its potential epicentre American English (AmE), and its historical input variety British English (BrE) based on a quantitative variationist analysis of the Strathy Corpus of Canadian English (Strathy), the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA), and the British National Corpus (BNC). The relevance of this contribution primarily stems from the fact that no previous research has yet focused on a contrastive comparison between CanE and its alleged epicentres, namely ‘a model of English for (neighbouring?) countries’ (Hundt, 2013, p. 185), and that the new method of Variation‐Based Distance and Similarity Modeling (VADIS) has so far never been applied to research in this field. Key findings show that VADIS is indeed a valuable method in detecting epicentral constellations, and pinpoint fruitful suggestions regarding AmE's alleged transnational influence on its neighbor, as well as cross‐border and transoceanic dis/similarities concerning the subject under analysis.