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Notes for LG232
Sociolinguistics
by Prof. Peter L. Patrick, U.
Essex
§
Conscious
change (‘from above’) vs. unconscious (‘from below’)
§
Above/below
the level of social awareness
§ Change from above:
§ Introduced by the dominant
social class (not necessarily =the highest one!)
§ Usually borrowings from
higher-prestige Speech Communities
§ First appears in careful
speech style
§ Inconsistent with the
vernacular
§ Correlated with changes in
other features
§ Thus may refuse integration
into the vernacular system, and achieve the status of a ‘coexistent system’
§
Example: (R)-fulness (=R-insertion)
in NYC; sph- words in English
§
Change from below:
§
Not
driven by extra-linguistic (=social) factors:
§
“Systematic
changes that appear first in the vernacular, & represent the operation of
internal, linguistic factors…
§
May
be introduced by any social class” (Labov 1994:79)
§
Local
identity and status are primary motivations for this type of change
§
Ex: (aw), (ay) centralization
in Martha’s Vineyard (Labov 1963, described in Downes chap. 7)
Generalizations about social location of Sound
Change from below:
(Largely based on urban research into vowel shifts in US cities)
1.
Most
advanced changes are found among younger speakers: adolescents, young adults.
2.
Most
advanced speakers belong to the ‘interior groups’, centrally located in
class/status hierarchy. (LMC, UWC; skilled workers, clerks, teachers,
merchants, local activists)
3.
They
are speakers with highest local prestige: upwardly-mobile individuals, e.g.
from ethnic groups who entered the community recently (3-4 generations ago).
4.
Women are generally more advanced than men in
new and vigorous changes.
(Labov 1994
p78, 300)
1.
Linguistic
change begins: a local pattern, associated with an interior social group.
2.
Symbolic claim to local rights – defense vs.
new groups – accelerates its use.
3.
It generalizes throughout the group –
associated by others with group’s values.
4.
It spreads to neighbor groups, taking
innovators as reference point for values. It gets reinterpreted &
accelerated by new groups, on their admission to the social structure.
5.
Opposed linguistic forms come to symbolize
overtly opposed social values. It may now remain below consciousness, as a marker;
or rise to become a stereotype.
6.
One form wins out. The other is seen as
archaic, is stereotyped for humor, & vanishes.
7.
The old form persists in placenames or fixed
forms, but as a meaningless irregularity.
(Labov 1994:
300-301)
Principal reference: William Labov. 1994. Principles of
linguistic change, vol. 1: Internal factors. Oxford: Blackwell.
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Last updated 21 November 2003