Language Variation

1. Language Variation Regional variation Social variation Mar. 24

2. Do you speak American? • http://www.pbs.org/speak LING 001 Introduction to Linguistics, Spring 2010

3. Dialect vs. language • When groups of speakers differ noticeably in their language, they are often said to speak different dialects of the language: • Regional dialects: the southern dialects, etc. • Social dialects: the working-class dialects, etc. • Ethnic dialects: the African American English, etc. • dialect in linguistics does not imply ‘substandard’ or ‘incorrect’. The so-called Standard English is also a dialect of English, which is no more ‘correct’ than any other form of English. • Mutual intelligibility is often used to determine dialects (note: one-way intelligibility, e.g., Danish vs. Swedish), however, it is considerably complicated by political, social, and religious factors. • Mandarin and Cantonese: no mutual intelligibility, but historical related, spoken in the same nation, using the same writing system. • Serbian and Croatian: mutually intelligible, different nations, different alphabets. • “a language is just a dialect with an army and a navy!” LING 001 Introduction to Linguistics, Spring 2010

4. Regional Dialects of American English • By the time of the American Revolution (1776-83), three major dialect areas had developed in the eastern United States: the north, the midland, and the south. • As waves of English-speaking settlers moved westward, they took their dialects with them. The three major American dialects spread west, blurring and merging as they went. • Dialect maps of North America show a “fanning out” from the east, and a general mixed dialect in the westmost areas of the United States. • At the same time, some newer dialect areas in the West are now becoming more distinctive from other varieties of American English. For example, The West Coast speech is increasingly characterized by the fronting of high back vowels (boot -> biwt; good -> gid) LING 001 Introduction to Linguistics, Spring 2010

5. Regional Dialects of American English • Easter dialects are numbered, arrows indicate direction of major migrations. LING 001 Introduction to Linguistics, Spring 2010

6. Regional Variation in Lexical Items • On the basis of lexical variation, it has been suggested that there are really only two main dialect areas: North and South, with the dividing line roughly along the Ohio River. • The North is further divided into the upper North and New England, the lower North (North Midland), and the West. The South is divided into lower South and upper South (South Midland). LING 001 Introduction to Linguistics, Spring 2010

7. Regional Variation in Lexical Items • http://popvssoda.com:2998/ “What generic word do you use to describe carbonated soft drinks? (Note that these could be of any brand or type, Coca-Cola, Pepsi, 7-Up, etc. We are concerned with the overall word, not a specific brand.) ” • Total responses: 311,969 • pop: 123,361 (39.54% of all responses) • soda: 124,278 (39.84% of all responses) • coke: 48,942 (15.69% of all responses) • other: 15,388 (4.93% of all responses): soft drink, tonic, soda pop, etc. LING 001 Introduction to Linguistics, Spring 2010

8. Regional Variation in Lexical Items • A carbonated soft drink is called: LING 001 Introduction to Linguistics, Spring 2010

9. Regional Variation in Phonology • The Atlas of North American English (Labov, Ash & Boberg 2006, available on line at Penn library): A total of 762 subjects were interviewed from the 297 communities. • The phonological dialects whose differences can be manifested on the basis of ongoing sound changes: • New England • New York City and the Mid-Atlantic States • The North: The Northern Cities Shift • The Midland • The South • The West: the fronting of /uw/ but not /ow/, the low back merger of /o/ and /oh/ • Canada LING 001 Introduction to Linguistics, Spring 2010

10. The Northern Cities Shift desk busses [ɪə] [ɔ] [ɛ] mat head boss [ɑ] [æ] block socks LING 001 Introduction to Linguistics, Spring 2010

11. Intonation variation in the British Isles LING 001 Introduction to Linguistics, Spring 2010

12. Social variation • Besides geographical region, language variation can be based on many other factors: • Gender • Age • Social class • Ethnicity • Speech context • A classic example of social categories marked by pronunciation is the status of [r] in English, when that sound is not followed by a vowel (i.e. when it's in the coda of a syllable): • r-ful (or "rhotic") pronunciation: New York • r-less (or "non-rhotic") pronunciation: New Yawk LING 001 Introduction to Linguistics, Spring 2010

13. R in early American English • When the English colonies were founded in America, the prestige pattern in England was to pronounce all r's, and that's what the first colonists brought with them. • During the 18th century, however, the prestige form in England (based especially on London speech) developed the "r-less" pronunciation that is still standard there today. • As r-lessness was gaining prestige in England, colonies in Tidewater Virginia and Eastern New England became /r/-less because people in these areas maintained strong ties with the London area. • Other areas such as Western New England, New York State, Philadelphia, and upland Virginia remained /r/-ful. • The New York City was a /r/-ful speech area until at least the mid-nineteenth century, when /r/-lessness spread into the city from New England and firmly established there. LING 001 Introduction to Linguistics, Spring 2010

14. New York Department store study • After World War II, the prestige form of r in the New York area was shifting from this r-less pronunciation to the more general r-ful pattern found in most of the country. • In results published in 1962, Labov studied the speech of the clerks in three department stores in NYC that catered to different social classes. Macy’s (middle prestige) S. Klein (low prestige) Saks 5th Avenue (high prestige) LING 001 Introduction to Linguistics, Spring 2010

15. R-fulness and status • Labov asked a clerk for the location of some previously chosen item located on the fourth floor, and then asked "Excuse me?" to get a more emphatic, careful pronunciation as well. • The overall results show that the clerks pronounced [r] more often when they worked in a higher-prestige store. The category "some" refers to at least one r-ful syllable out of the four. LING 001 Introduction to Linguistics, Spring 2010

16. R-fulness and emphasis • The stressed word floor had more overall r-fulness. • In the careful pronunciation, especially of floor, the lower the prestige, the greater the increase in use of [r] when speaking more carefully. • The workers at Macy's and S. Klein were linguistically insecure and tended to adjust their pronunciation in the direction of the prestige form when speaking more carefully. LING 001 Introduction to Linguistics, Spring 2010

17. R-fulness and age at Saks • The older Saks workers reflect the fact that the r-less pronunciation was previously the prestige form in New York. They are linguistically secure, and have largely maintained their pronunciation in the face of change. • The younger Saks workers grew up as the r-ful prestige form was being established, and so have adopted it in greater numbers. LING 001 Introduction to Linguistics, Spring 2010

18. R-fulness and age at Macy’s • The older Macy's workers are upwardly mobile and linguistically insecure: they have adopted the newer prestige form, using it more than the same-aged workers at Saks. This is called hypercorrection. LING 001 Introduction to Linguistics, Spring 2010

19. Hypercorrection • Hypercorrection by the lower middle class, as a result of linguistic insecurity, was confirmed in a more detailed study by Labov. • Lower middle class speakers (6-8) are hypercorrecting in more formal styles, so that they use more [r] than the upper middle class (9). LING 001 Introduction to Linguistics, Spring 2010

20. Follow-up studies • Replications of the original 1962 study, conducted in 1986 and 1996, show very similar patterns persisting in New York, with increases in the use of [r] in all categories, although the same relative differences according to the prestige of the store. LING 001 Introduction to Linguistics, Spring 2010

21. Age and sex • People’s language can vary according to their age in two ways: • Individuals can change as they age (age-grading) • Individual can stay the same as they age, but the community can all change together from one generation to another (The view of language use by age gives us a snapshot of change in progress, apparent time interpretation) • Language change is often led by females. LING 001 Introduction to Linguistics, Spring 2010

22. Acoustic study of vowel change • Vowel height/frontness is closely related to the first/second formant frequency: low vowels -> higher F1, front vowels -> higher F2 LING 001 Introduction to Linguistics, Spring 2010

23. Fronting of /aw/ in Philadelphia LING 001 Introduction to Linguistics, Spring 2010

24. Summary • Language is embedded in culture and society, and carries the respective values. • People are quite sensitive to the sociocultural implications of language variation. • Analysis of language variation requires structural knowledge of language (e.g., Labov’s article for reading this week on African American English). LING 001 Introduction to Linguistics, Spring 2010