Course materials for/by Peter L.
Patrick. Contains copyright material used for educational purposes. Please
respect copyright.
Some Basic things that Variationists do or assume
by Peter L.
Patrick
• Language is heterogeneous, both in its structure and its use.
• This variation is not generally random or free, but
patterned/highly regular.
• There are both internal (linguistic) & external
(social/extra-linguistic) causes for this.
• These patterns cannot be understood without looking outside langue
(the abstract, autonomous system of language) to parole (speech behavior) & to the social world at large--
systematically examining the vernacular speech of communities.
• Variation analysis must then be at least socially realistic
(add social context & categories to normal linguistic practice), if not
socially constituted (driven by social functions and placing language in
a broader communicative context of social action-- Hymes
1973), since language is inescapably a social phenomenon.
• The identification, definition & description of
linguistic elements (variables) is central; also,
• ...the environment they occur in must be tightly constrained
(envelope of variation).
• The consideration of linguistic context is thus always a
primary means of explaining variation,
• ...but linguistic elements may be extracted from context and
compared for analytical purposes.
• Linguistic variables are relatively autonomous instances
within a closed set of choices.
• Linguistic levels are permeable: elements at one level
constrain/affect variation at another.
• Such effects are not to be ruled out a priori due to
lack of an explanatory theory.
• Variation Analysis is to be empirical, explicit, replicable,
and objective.
• Descriptions are to be (initially) rich and full rather than
spare and idealized.
• For contemporary language, high-quality recorded natural data
should be the norm;
• ...elicited, introspective, experimental, and attitudinal
data are secondary;
• ...and these different data-types require different types of
analysis/interpretation.
• Only vernacular speech reveals full regularity/structure
underlying surface variation.
• Data from a range of styles iare
needed to establish limits & norms of speech behavior;
while
• ...data from a range of social positions (speakers) are
needed to map social distribution.
• Ideally, investigate several data-sets, which should have
complementary weaknesses.
• (This last principle derives from, and applies also to,
data-collection methodology.)
A typical sequence for variationist
analysis:
1) Establish which forms
alternate with one another - i.e., which are "the same".
2) Delimit the environments
in which this alternation-with-sameness occurs, and classify the factors within
those environments exhaustively.
3) Propose hypotheses for
contextual factors which might constrain the variation.
4) Compile a data set that
allows for investigation and (dis-)confirmation of
the alternations and
co-occurrences predicted by hypotheses in (3).
5) Compare the
frequencies/probabilities with which the different variants co-occur with the
different (environmental) factors.
6) Typically, place primary
emphasis on internal linguistic factors, and only secondary importance on
external social explanations.
7) Typically, consider
analysis primarily exploratory rather than confirmatory (due to lack of
precisely predictive sociolinguistic theories).
The text above
consists primarily of independent observations of my own, though informed by
the literature in language variation and change (esp. the work of Gillian Sankoff and William Labov).
Please feel free to quote and use this material for educational purposes but
respecting authors' intellectual rights and copyright laws.
LG554 Sociolinguistic Methods
page
Last updated 05 December 2007