LING 115gw Lecture Notes - Lecture 12: American Speech, Evry, Valley Girl
Document Summary
All languages undergo continual change, generation by generation. Many people have strongly negative feelings towards changes in language. 18th century: a lot of variation in english. Leading writers establish rules for a standard form of english. Any way of speaking different from standard english is/was considered "ungrammatical" english. Historical linguistics - looks at major changes that occur across centuries. Studying languages as they begin to occur requires good research techniques. William labov: pioneer of the study of variation in language. Two key studies: (1) new york city department stores - spread of prestige "r" (2) martha"s vineyard - spread of new vowel sounds. Variation in the pronunciation of /-r/ in word- nal position: car / farm / bar / more. Labov: not random variation but related to social status. Sociological studies discovered that female sales assistants in department stores subconsciously mimic their customers, particularly when their customers have high social status.
