LANGUAGE

VARIATION
PRESENTED BY:
AMAL LOURAD
AYA EL KHOURI
MAGHRAOUI
IHSSANE EL KOUFACHY
KAWTAR MRINI
OUTLINE:
• PURPOSE
• LINGUISTIC VARIABLES
• SOCIAL VARIABLES
• METHODS
PURPOSE
LINGUISTIC VARIABLES

• A linguistic variable (V) in sociolinguistics is a set of related dialects/forms all

of which mean the same thing and correlate with some social groups in speech
community.
 VARIANTS:

we can define also the linguistic variable as a linguistic item which has identifiable variants,
which are the different forms which can be used in an environment.

For example: words like singing and fishing are sometimes pronounced as "singin" and
"fishin".

The final sound in these words may be called the linguistic variable (ng) with its two variants
[ŋ] in "singing" and [n] in "singin"
• Another example of the linguistic variable (r) in words like far and farm, These words are
sometimes given r-less pronunciations. In this case the r has two variants [ r] and Ø the
previous words could be pronounced as fa and fam as well as far and farm.

• The other kind of variation is a matter of degree, such as the quantity of nasalization of a
vowel as in the first example if we pronounce the words as singing and fishing we will notice
a higher degree of nasalization rather than its presence or absence. on The other hand while
pronouncing the same words without the(g) it wouldn’t be nasalized
TYPES OF LINGUISTIC
VARIABLES:
The (ng) variable has been widely used, other useful variants has been also used:

• (h)V: in words like, house and hospital, that is,(h):Ø or [h].

• (t)V: in words like, bet and better, that is,(t):[t] or [ʔ]…

Vowel variable used have included the vowel (e) in word like pen and men, the (o) in word like
dog and caught ( further discussion on variation in vowel will be seen in chapter 8).
Studies of variation employing the linguistic variable are not confined solely to phonological
matters. Investigators have looked at the (s) of the third-person singular as in:

• He talks / he happy

The virtual nonoccurrence of the negative particle ne in french

Multiple negation in English:

• He don't mean no harm to nobody

the beginnings of English relative clauses:

• She is the girl who(m) I praised / She is the girl that I praised
Variation in new york city:

Labov chose 5 phonological variables:

• The (th) V : the initial consonant in thin/three.

• The (th) V : the initial consonant in there/then.

• The (r ) V : the pronunciation of farm/far.

• The (a) V: the pronunciation of dog/caught.

some of these have discrete variants, for example, (r): [r] or Ø, whereas others require the
investigator to quantify the variants because the variation is a continuous phenomenon.
VARIANTS IN NORWICH:

Trudgill focused on three consonant variables and thirteen vowel variable:

 The (h) variable in words like "happy" and "home"

 The (t) variable as in "bet" and "better"
 The (ng) variable in "singing" and "fishing"

In this first two cases only the presence or the absence of (h) and the (ŋ) versus (n) realization of
(ng) were of the concern to trudgill

The thirteen vowel variables were the vowels used in words such as bad, name, path , tell, here ,
hair, ride, bird, top, know, boat, boot and tune.
VARIANTS IN DETROIT:

the most common study is the variation in Detroit, it focused on the use of three variables:
• one phonological variable and two grammatical variables.

 The phonological variable was the realization of a vowel plus a following nasal consonant as a
nasalized vowel.
 The grammatical variables were multiple negation, which we have already mentioned, and
pronominal apposition, for example, That guy, he don’t care.

In another study of Detroit speech, Wolfram (1969) considered certain other linguistic variable
These included the pronunciation of final consonant clusters, that is, combinations of final
consonants in words like test, wasp, and left, (th)in words like tooth and nothing, final stops in
words like good and shed, and r-pronouncing in words like sister and pair.
So far as grammatical variables were concerned, Wolfram looked at matters such as he
talk/talks, two year/years, she nice/she’s nice, he’s ready/he ready/ he be ready, and
multiple negation as in He ain’t got none neither.
INDICATORS, MARKERS AND STEREOTYPES:

One of the important aspects that the article mentioned is the difference between markers.
indicators and stereotypes let'.

• Indicators is a linguistic variable to which little or no social import is attached. Only a

linguistically trained observer is aware of indicators.
• Markers can be noticeable by ordinary people.
• Stereotypes is a conscious characterization of the speech of a particular group, ex: the new
Yorkers say, boid for bird or Toitytoid Street for 33rd Street.
• What is social variable in linguistics?

The social factors such as religion, region, education, age, occupation, socioeconomic
levels/status etc. are responsible for variation in language and the resultant linguistic items are
called linguistic or sociolinguistic variables.

• What is social class membership?

Membership in a social class can for example be dependent on education, wealth, occupation,
income, and belonging to a particular subculture or social network. "Class" is a subject of
analysis for sociologists, political scientists, anthropologists and social historians.
"In Britain during the 1950s, working class living standards were undeniably improved by full
employment and comprehensive welfare provision. But this progress and prosperity may
have worn away the singularity and coherence of working class identity."
• How do sociologists classify people?

" Sociologists use a number of different scales for classifying people when they attempt to place
individuals somewhere within a social system. An occupational scale may divide people into a
number of categories as follows: major professionals , lesser professionals and semi-
professionals. An educational scale may employ the following categories: graduate or
professional education. Once again, however, some caution is necessary in making comparison
across time: graduating from college or university in the 1950s indicated something quite
different from what it does today.
"Wolfram and Fasold (1974, 44) point out that ‘there are other
objective approaches [to establishing social groupings] not exclusively dependent on socio-
economic ranking. . . . An investigator may look at such things as
church membership, leisuretime activities, or community organizations.’ They admit that such
alternative approaches are not at all simple to devise but argue that a classification so obtained is
probably more directly related to social class than the simple measurement of economic factors" .
In an early study of linguistic variation in Norwich, England, Trudgill (1974) distinguishes five
social classes: middle middle class (MMC), lower middle class (LMC), upper working class
(UWC), middle working class (MWC), and lower
working class (LWC). Trudgill interviewed ten speakers from each of five
electoral(…………….. )children from two schools. These sixty informants were then classified
on six factors, each of which was scored on a sixpoint scale (0–5): occupation, education,
income, type of housing, locality, and father’s occupation." *In his early work on linguistic
variation in New York City, Labov (1966) used the three criteria of education, occupation, and
income to set up ten social classes.

Milroy and Gordon (2008) discuss two problematic issues inherent in the study of social class.
First, as a concept it combines economic aspects with status ones; this creates particular
difficulty when we try to make comparison across communities, as a university professor may
have a very different type of status (as well as economic standing) in one community when
compared to another. Another issue has to do with mobility between social classes; again we see
variation in this across.
• SOCIAL NETWORK:

1. In the field of sociolinguistics, social network describes the structure of a particular speech
community.
2. Language use depends on how deeply a member is integrated into a particular social
network. Social networks are characterized by network-specific norms and values including
norms of language use.

 It was for reasons not unlike these that Milroy (1987) preferred to explore social network
relationships and the possible connection of these to linguistic variation, rather than to use the
concept of social class (see chapter 3 ). In her work, Milroy found that it was the network of
relationships that an individual belonged to that exerted the most powerful and interesting
influences on that individual’s linguistic behavior.
 When the group of Speakers being investigated show little variation in social class.
 Network relationships, however, tend to be unique in a way that social-class categories are
not.
DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS:

When an investigator sees which social variables must be taken into account. They
form a hypothesis that states a possible relationship between social and linguistic
variation. So, how do they make sure of the hypothesis?.

They test the hypothesis to either confirm it or refute it. They first make a plan of
collecting info and data and they collect those data from participants or a group of
representatives. However, nothing is easy.
OBSERVERS PARDOX

The first problem that we have is the observer's paradox. The observer might unwittingly
influence the phenomenon.

• How can the observer not affect the data?

• How can they be objective?

This is where the real problem involves. For example, we have two investigators. Their
observation of the same thing might be different Because language is not innocent. language is
not just words coming out; it is meaningful. Language use is always sensitive to the
social relations among participants in the speech event. However, sociolinguists are aware of the
issue. So, they attempt to deal with them.
 THE SOCIOLINGUISTIC INTERVIEW:

• The interviewer manipulates the context to try to have the interviewees focus more or less on
how they are speaking.

• The traditional sociolinguistic interview involves a casual interview, which ideally resembles
a conversation more than a formal question and answer session. In addition to trying to make
the interviewee feel comfortable enough to talk in a casual speech style

• Labov introduced the "danger of death " question, The idea behind this is that the
interviewees would become emotionally involved in the narrative and forget about how they
are talking in their involvement with what they are saying.
To get more formal styles of speech, investigators also ask research participants to do various
reading tasks: a story passage, lists of words, and minimal pairs,
The texts are designed to contain words which illustrate important distinctions in the regional
or social dialect being studied, like the pronunciation of the words (cot) and (caught) with the
same vowel.

While many researchers have followed this approach to sociolinguistic fieldwork,

sociolinguists continue to rethink and develop data collection methods.
SAMPLING:

Another critical aspect of sociolinguistic research is sampling.

• Sampling is a group of representative, choosing sampling should be completely unbiased,

everyone should be equally represented.

• We have three kinds of sampling:

1. Random sampling: everyone has the chance to be chosen

2. Quota sampling: set of criteria. It aims to have a quota sample in each category. For
example, we have a study that looks at sex and education. The goal is include X people from
both male and female from different levels of education.
3. Stratified sampling: Stratified sampling is a type of sampling method in which the total
population is divided into smaller groups to complete the sampling process. The groups are formed
based on some common characteristics in the population data. After dividing the population
into groups, the researcher randomly selects the sample proportionally:
Apparent time and real time:

Ø Apparent time study

Ø Real time study
Ø Panel study
Ø Trend study
Correlations: dependent and independent variables

variables are correlational in nature, which means that there is independent and dependent
variable, this study wants to investigate the relationship between the social and linguistic variable.
Throughout the study we noticed that the social variables impact the linguistic variable for
example age and social class impact the language .