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Variation (linguistics)
Variation is a characteristic of language: there is more than one way of saying the same thing. Speakers may vary pronunciation ( accent), word choice ( lexicon), or morphology and syntax (sometimes called "grammar"). But while the diversity of variation is great, there seem to be boundaries on variation – speakers do not generally make drastic alterations in sentence word order or use novel sounds that are completely foreign to the language being spoken. Linguistic variation does not equate with language ungrammaticality, but speakers are still (often unconsciously) sensitive to what is and is not possible in their native lect. Variationists study how a language changes by observing it. This is accomplished by looking at authentic data. For example, variation is studied by looking at linguistic and social environments, then the data is analyzed as the change occurs. Variation in research programs must be malleable due to the nature of language itself. This is because language ...
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Accent (sociolinguistics)
In sociolinguistics, an accent is a way of pronouncing a language that is distinctive to a country, area, social class, or individual. An accent may be identified with the locality in which its speakers reside (a regional or geographical accent), the socioeconomic status of its speakers, their ethnicity (an ethnolect), their caste or social class (a social accent), or influence from their first language (a foreign accent). Accents typically differ in quality of voice, pronunciation and distinction of vowels and consonants, stress, and prosody. Although grammar, semantics, vocabulary, and other language characteristics often vary concurrently with accent, the word "accent" may refer specifically to the differences in pronunciation, whereas the word "dialect" encompasses the broader set of linguistic differences. "Accent" is often a subset of "dialect". History As human beings spread out into isolated communities, stresses and peculiarities develop. Over time, they can devel ...
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Sali Tagliamonte
Sali A. Tagliamonte is a Canadian linguist. Her main area of research is the field of language variation and change. Education Tagliamonte received a Bachelor of Arts in Linguistics from York University in 1981, and a Master of Arts in 1983 and a Ph.D. in 1991 in Linguistics from University of Ottawa. Her graduate thesis, supervised by Shana Poplack, looked at past temporal reference structures in Samaná English. Career Tagliamonte has been a professor at the University of Toronto since 2001, where she currently serves as Chair of the Department of Linguistics. Tagliamonte is also an Honorary Visiting Professor in the Department of Language and Linguistic Science at the University of York. She currently holds the title of Canada Research Chair in Language Variation and Change. Tagliamonte held a number of professional positions before joining the faculty of the University of Toronto. From 1995 to 2002 she held the position of Adjunct Professor at the Linguistics Department ...
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Dialectology
Dialectology (from Greek , ''dialektos'', "talk, dialect"; and , '' -logia'') is the scientific study of linguistic dialect, a sub-field of sociolinguistics. It studies variations in language based primarily on geographic distribution and their associated features. Dialectology treats such topics as divergence of two local dialects from a common ancestor and synchronic variation. Dialectologists are ultimately concerned with grammatical, lexical and phonological features that correspond to regional areas. Thus they usually deal not only with populations that have lived in certain areas for generations, but also with migrant groups that bring their languages to new areas (see language contact). Commonly studied concepts in dialectology include the problem of mutual intelligibility in defining languages and dialects; situations of diglossia, where two dialects are used for different functions; dialect continua including a number of partially mutually intelligible dialects; and pl ...
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Dialect
The term dialect (from Latin , , from the Ancient Greek word , 'discourse', from , 'through' and , 'I speak') can refer to either of two distinctly different types of linguistic phenomena: One usage refers to a variety of a language that is a characteristic of a particular group of the language's speakers. Under this definition, the dialects or varieties of a particular language are closely related and, despite their differences, are most often largely mutually intelligible, especially if close to one another on the dialect continuum. The term is applied most often to regional speech patterns, but a dialect may also be defined by other factors, such as social class or ethnicity. A dialect that is associated with a particular social class can be termed a sociolect, a dialect that is associated with a particular ethnic group can be termed an ethnolect, and a geographical/regional dialect may be termed a regiolectWolfram, Walt and Schilling, Natalie. 2016. ''American Engli ...
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Apparent-time Hypothesis
The apparent-time hypothesis is a methodological construct in sociolinguistics whereby language change is studied by comparing the speech of individuals of different ages. If language change is taking place, the apparent-time hypothesis assumes that older generations will represent an earlier form of the language and that younger generations will represent a later form. Thus, by comparing younger and older speakers, the direction of language change can be detected. The apparent-time method allows change to be studied by synchronic analysis, which examines the state of the language at a particular point in time. That contrasts with real-time sociolinguistics, which compares data from two points in time to observe change directly. Apparent-time analysis assumes that most features of language are acquired during childhood and remain relatively unchanged throughout an individual's lifetime once that individual is past a certain age. Therefore, a speaker's speech is a reflection of speec ...
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William Bright
William O. Bright (August 13, 1928 – October 15, 2006) was an American linguist and toponymist who specialized in Native American and South Asian languages and descriptive linguistics. Biography Bright earned a bachelor's degree in linguistics in 1949 and a doctorate in the same field in 1955, both from the University of California, Berkeley. He was a professor of linguistics and anthropology at UCLA from 1959 to 1988. He then moved to the University of Colorado at Boulder, where he remained on the faculty until his death. Bright was an authority on the native languages and cultures of California, and was especially known for his work on Karuk, a Native American language from northwestern California. His study of the language was the first carried out under the auspices of the Survey of California and Other Indian Languages. He was made an honorary member of the Karuk tribe—the first outsider to be so honored—in recognition of his efforts to document and preserve t ...
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Standard Language
A standard language (also standard variety, standard dialect, and standard) is a language variety that has undergone substantial codification of grammar and usage, although occasionally the term refers to the entirety of a language that includes a standardized form as one of its varieties. Typically, the language varieties that undergo substantive standardization are the dialects associated with centers of commerce and government. By processes that linguistic anthropologists call "referential displacement" and that sociolinguists call "elaboration of function", these varieties acquire the social prestige associated with commerce and government. As a sociological effect of these processes, most users of this language come to believe that the standard language is inherently superior or consider it the linguistic baseline against which to judge other varieties of language. The standardization of a language is a continual process, because a language-in-use cannot be permanently sta ...
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Age-graded Variation
In linguistics, age-graded variation is differences in speech habits within a community that are associated with age. Age-grading occurs when individuals change their linguistic behavior throughout their lifetimes, but the community as a whole does not change. Definition The term “age-grading” was first introduced by anthropologist/linguist Charles F. Hockett, but has been defined as it is used today by sociolinguist William Labov, who identified it as an individual linguistic change against a backdrop of community stability. Age-grading is not limited to changes at any one particular stage in life, but can be studied in the way that babies, adolescents, young adults speak, and the elderly speak.Trudgill, Peter. ''Sociolinguistics: An Introduction to Language and Society''. London: Penguin, 2000. Print. Age-grading involves the use of stable sociolinguistic variables, or features that are not currently undergoing any linguistic change. Linguistic features that are age-graded t ...
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