Unit 4

It is a fluctuation between variants by native speakers, which is conditioned not only by linguistic factors, but also by socio-demographic (external) factors.

Not, variation is constrained by:
- Linguistic factors: phonological environment, morphology, semantics, syntax
- Sociodemographic or external factors: age, class, gender, years of schooling, place of origin, place of residence (can be measured quantitatively)
- Style: casual, formal, reading, speaking (how much attention speakers pay to their own speech -- the more attention they pay to their speech, the more they tend to use the standard variant)

- Variation: a phenomenon of fluctuation that can be observed when speakers use the linguistic system
- Variable: a feature that varies
- Variants: the concrete realizations of a variable
- Variety: a linguistic system with its characteristic set of grammatical, phonological and lexical features. For example, varieties of Spanish are Argentine Spanish, Mexican Spanish; varieties of English are American English, African-American English, British English, Maori English

The use one variant or another in one speech community, for example the omission of the copula verb in AAVE, indexes social identity and belonging to a group. VARIATION INDEXES SOCIAL IDENTITY AND EVOKES ATTITUDES TOWARDS LANGUAGE USE.

MOTIVATIONS that explain why a group tend to use one variant more frequently than other social classes: 1. Desire to fit in a group and differentiate from others. Its is a desire for identification with a group, and this is how identity is constructed through language use.
2. To do things that have value within a community and to associate yourself with those values. E.G. by favoring standard forms, women can index desirable social attributes and accentuate positive social traits.
3. To avoid to do things that are looked down in a community and not to have others look down on you. For ex, a working-class woman who uses a high proportion of non-standard forms can be perceived as sexually loose, so to avoid that social risk, women tend to use more standard forms
4. a desire to work out how others are orienting themselves to the previous concerns; it focuses on the motivations of others. To manage uncertainty, speakers use their perceptions and accomodate their speech according to them

The evaluation of how certain social groups talk is related to attitudes towards the groups themselves rather than an intrinsic linguistic quality of their speech. Speech communities share different norms of use, some variants are considered "correct" and others as "incorrect". For example, AAVE speakers assign value to some features that are not valued by the community at large.

- Phonological level
- Morphological level
- Grammatical level

Yes:
- Audience design: how the perception of your interlocutor influences the decision of the speaker. Speaker accomodates his speech based on his perceptions of who the interlocutors are and which are their motivations (related to the 4th motivation)
- The linguistic marketplace: this has to do with the way of speaking (the standard variety) that is a highly esteemed coin, that has symbolic value, capital. The middle classes decide appropriate and inappropriate modes of discourse, and guard status of their social dialect, ensuring it retains overt prestige within the speech community, and in this way language acquires symbolic power. There are certain economic activities that in their perfomance require the frequent use of STANDARD forms, whereas other activities do no require them. Teachers (lower middle class) use higher proportions of standard forms than a lab technician (make more money) because its use has prestige/symbolic capital/valued in their profession.

We are interested in probabilistic variation (socio demographic factors) because variation conditioned by linguistic factors is completely predictable just by looking the phonetic environment. Nevertheless, linguistic factors are stronger and they have the greatest influence on variation.

Studies in Detroit demonstrated gender and class differences in the pattering of AAVE. Women tended to retain the copula with higher frequency than men did, exhibiting sensitivity to standard forms. Also, members of the higher middle classes tended to retain the copula verb as well.

Yes.
- symbolic meaning: social capital
- linguistic marketplace

It reveals that linguistic factors are stronger than sociodemographic factors. The phonetic environment is conditioning the retention of the velar variant, so when the following sound begins with /k/ or /g/, there is a high proportion of retention of the velar variant, as in "swimming class", irrespective of ethnicity, gender, social class.

- Attention to speech (Labov)
- Audience design (Giles and Bell)
- Speaker design

1. The social status explanation
2. Women´s role as guardians of society values
3. Subordinate groups must be polite
4. Vernacular forms carry macho connotations

Third person singular because the meaning indicated by word final -s in that case is also understood by paying attention to the noun in subject position, so the meaning is redundant or it is expressed not just by the subject of the clause. On the other hand, the s in word final position is less likely to be omitted when it indicates plurality because it would bring about differences in meaning

The people we interact with have a great influence on our speech. People who have dense networks will tend to use higher proportion of vernacular variants, and people with loose network will show higher proportions of standard variants

Social networks are responsible for the diffusion of language change

Dense social networks: vernacular, non standard variants
Loose social networks: standard variants

Dense social network: inhibit change because of lack of exposure to innovative variants, and there´s also social control so if you want to introduce a change you may be critized. Think about geographically isolated towns in Traslasierra
Loose social network: more likely to favor change due to exposure of innovative variants, think about "Carlos Paz"

Because we interact with different people on a daily basis; the social networks influence our speech = INFLUENCE OF INTERACTION

Yes, the standard can be spoken with any accent because accent implies purely phonetic variation, so you can speak the standard with a British accent, an American accent, Irish, etc, since the grammatical and lexical variation is minimal.

Standardization is the process of bringing about a standard language variety; it is a social behavior towards language. Standardization has very important practical dimensions:
- Utilitarian value in the sense that the standard allows people to communicate across the state without the impediment of divergent dialects, facilitating activities as trade, administration, dissemination of ideas.
- Symbolic value of unifying the nation composed of many diverse groups, it important in the nation-building process. Also the vitality of the standard allows its use in the maximum of situations, which doesn´t happen with non-standard varieties.

Codification is an attempt to create a uniform norm of usage so as to identify the standard variety as the "real" language (RAE does this). Language management has to do with the people who assit in creating and spreading the standard through their professional work, such as teachers and journalists.

A gatekeeping encounter is an asymmetrical encounter where there are differences in power, in which the interviewer is the powerful participant or the gatekeeper. LADO is a gatekeeping encounter that consists in interviews to concede asylum to people escaping from wars in their home countries. If they do not do well, they may face death as they cannot escape their countries. Basically, the assumption in this practice is that they can assess a person´s origin through their use of language, but it is mistaken since people tend to use standard and accomodate their speech in formal interviews (audience-design). The interviewer should never ask verbal tasks, but instead ask the interviewee to recount past events, to retell personal stories because it is there where vernacular forms occur the most and provide insights of their place of origin

Phonology is a closed system with a finite number of elements and very precise distinctions, therefore, a change in one sound can affect the distinction of words and impact other sounds. In contrast, a change at the level of lexis will not afect all units of that level.

a) apply apparent time study, which consists in measuring different generations at the same time, and if there is a steady increase in the use of an innovative variant by the younger groups, we can infer that a change is in progress. B) No, young people are crucial in the process of language change as they are the ones who introduce innovative forms.

No - ing is stable and exhibits age-grading pattern

Stable variables are those variants that have existed for so long and there is no evidence that one of them is pushing the other variant out of the system. Stable variants may exhibit age-grading, meaning that particular variants are prefered by certain generational groups, such as (ing) variable.
- Unstable variable refer to one variant that is being adoped more strongly by younger groups of speakers and is pushing the other variant out of the system. Unstable variables are necessary for language change.
We are interested in generational change, which refers to the fact that each generation in a community shows progressively more and more frequent use of a variant. Generational change can be inferred by carrying out apparent time studies.

Lower and higher social classes introduce changes. When language changes originate in the groups with high socioeconomic status, they are said to be changes from above. In this case, changes spread downwards through the social groups in a speech community. These changes are related to the speech of prestigious groups. In contrast, when changes start spreading from groups with socioeconomic status, they are said to be changes from below. Here, changes climb up the different social groups in a speech community towards the ones with highest status. These changes tend to originate as slang or vernacular forms
Consider also phonological changes

- Real time studies
- Apparent time studies

Change from above:
- meaning 1: above the level of consciousness, meaning people are aware, for example, of the prestige of a variant, such as post-vocalic r in New Yorkers
- meaning 2: above referring to the source of change. Post-vocalic r originated in the speech of the higher middle class and spread downwards to different social groups until it reached the lower social classes.
Changes from BELOW:
- meaning 1: below the level of consciousness, meaning speakers are NOT aware, such as centralisation of vowels in Martha´s Vineyard
- meaning 2: below the source of change: it originated in the lower social classes, the fishermen, and then it spread upwards

1. Social: the speech of relevant social groups may have prestige, and may be considered cool or anti-establishment, therefore it is adopted by other groups
2. Linguistic factor: /f/ and /v/ may be easier to pronounce than /k/ and /g/

1. From group to group: linguistic changes infiltrate groups from the speech of people on the margins between social or regional groups: via the ´middle´ people who have contacts in more than one group (more than 1 social network), also known as linguistic entrepreneurs/stockbrokers.
2. From style to style: change spreads from one style to another (from formal speech to casual speech), while at the same time it spreads from one individual to another within a social group, and subsequently from one social group to another. Post-vocalic r
3. From word to word/Lexical diffusion: sound changes typically spread from word to word. The sound occurs first in one word, and then later in another (NOT simultaneously), and of course, sound change often does not spread to all the possible words which could be affected. For example, through and tough got left behind with final /f/ compared to though and bough which lost their final fricative consonants as a result of sound change.

1. Social status and language change: If the speech of one social group is prestigious for the eyes of another group, the latter may adopt those prestigious forms
2. Gender and language change: women are said to introduce both standard and vernacular forms (Ucieda, Spain, and Clonard women in Belfast communities), and men are said to introduce vernacular forms (Martha´s Vineyard)
3. Interaction and language change (SOCIAL NETWORKS). Interaction is crucial for language change because linguistic changes spread through the social networks of individuals, and linguistic entrepreneurs are important as they serve as a link-person for the spread of an innovative form from one group to another