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Variationist approaches to
linguistic style compared on 10 dimensions
(Table by Peter L. Patrick; from Patrick 1995)
|
|
Labov |
Labov |
Chambers |
Preston |
Bell |
CSC |
Sys-Func |
|
|
1972 |
1984 |
1995 |
1991 |
1984 |
1993 |
1994 |
|
Is Style... |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
1) ...explicitly defined at all? |
no1 |
Y |
no |
no |
no |
Y |
Y2 |
|
2) ...conceived as an independent variable? |
Y |
Y |
Y |
Y |
no |
no |
Y3 |
|
3) ...causally linked to attention? |
Y |
Y |
Y |
maybe |
no |
no |
no |
|
4) ...defined on a formality continuum? |
Y |
Y |
Y |
Y |
no |
no |
no4 |
|
5) ...defined by elicitation techniques? |
Y |
no |
Y |
Y |
no |
no |
no |
|
6) ...described as single micro-variables? |
Y |
no |
Y |
Y |
no |
no |
no |
|
7) ...partly defined w.r.t. topic/meaning? |
Y |
Y |
Y |
? |
no |
no? |
Y |
|
8) ...focused on individual speaker variation? |
Y |
Y |
Y |
Y |
Y |
no |
no |
|
9) ...identified in purely linguistic terms? |
Y |
Y |
Y |
? |
Y |
no |
no |
|
10) ...crucially defined by social practice? |
no |
no |
no |
no |
no |
Y |
Y |
Notes:
"CSC 1993" is the California
Style Coalition, a Stanford-based group, from NWAV-22; "Syst.-Func."
is a version of the Systemic Functionalist position, based on Eggins 1994.
1. Labov operationalizes contextual style
for his study, but gives no general definition.
2. Style
is not used by systemic-functionalists; the comparable term is register.
3. In variationist terms, register can be described as a composite independent
variable.
4. Register is related in a principled way to formality, which
is not a primary dimension.
References
Bell, Allan. 1984.
"Language style as audience design." Language in Society
13(2): 145-204.
Chambers, J. K. 1995. Sociolinguistic
theory: Linguistic variation and its social significance. Oxford:
Blackwell.
California Style Coalition
(Jennifer Arnold, Renee Blake, Penelope Eckert, Melissa Iwai, Norma
Mendoza-Denton, Carol Morgan, Livia Polanyi, Julie Solomon. Tom Veatch). 1993.
"Variation and personal/group style." Paper presented at NWAVE-22:
22nd annual conference on New Ways of Analyzing Variation in English. Ottawa:
University of Ottawa, October 1993.
Eckert,
Penelope & John R. Rickford. 2001. Style and sociolinguistic variation. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press. [P 126.S7]
Eggins, Suzanne. 1994. An
introduction to Systemic Functional Linguistics, Chap. 3, "Context of
situation: register". (London: Pinter Publishers)
Labov, William. 1972. Sociolinguistic
patterns. Chap. 3, "The isolation of contextual styles" (70-100).
Labov, William. 1984.
"Field Methods of the Project in Linguistic Change and Variation." In
John Baugh and Joel Sherzer, eds., Language in Use, Prentice-Hall:
28-53.
Patrick. Peter L. 1995.
"Dimensions of Style and Register in Jamaican Creole." Paper
presented at NWAVE-24: 24th annual conference on New Ways of
Analyzing Variation in English. Univ. of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA.
Preston, Dennis R. 1991.
"Sorting out the variables in sociolinguistic theory." American
Speech 66(1) Spring: 33-56.
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Last updated 11 October 2002