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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 spe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sociolinguistics
Sociolinguistics is the descriptive, scientific study of how language is shaped by, and used differently within, any given society. The field largely looks at how a language changes between distinct social groups, as well as how it varies under the influence of assorted cultural norms, expectations, and contexts. Sociolinguistics combines the older field of dialectology with the social sciences in order to identify regional dialects, sociolects, ethnolects, and other sub-varieties and styles within a language, as well as the distinctions and variations inside each of these. A major branch of linguistics since the second half of the 20th century, sociolinguistics is closely related to and can partly overlap with pragmatics, linguistic anthropology, and sociology of language, the latter focusing on the effect of language back on society. Sociolinguistics' historical interrelation with anthropology can be observed in studies of how language varieties differ between groups ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Labov
William David Labov ( ; December4, 1927December17, 2024) was an American linguist widely regarded as the founder of the discipline of variationist sociolinguistics. He has been described as "an enormously original and influential figure who has created much of the methodology" of sociolinguistics, and "one of the most influential linguists of the 20th and 21st centuries". Labov was a professor in the linguistics department of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia and pursued research in sociolinguistics, language change, and dialectology. He retired in 2015 but continued to publish research until his death in 2024. Early life and education Labov was born in Passaic, New Jersey, and raised in Rutherford, New Jersey, Rutherford, moving to Fort Lee, New Jersey, Fort Lee at age 12. According to Labov, the physician who delivered him was William Carlos Williams. He attended Harvard University, where he majored in English and philosophy and studied chemistry. He graduated fr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Methods In Linguistics
Method (, methodos, from μετά/meta "in pursuit or quest of" + ὁδός/hodos "a method, system; a way or manner" of doing, saying, etc.), literally means a pursuit of knowledge, investigation, mode of prosecuting such inquiry, or system. In recent centuries it more often means a prescribed process for completing a task. It may refer to: *Scientific method, a series of steps, or collection of methods, taken to acquire knowledge *Method (computer programming), a piece of code associated with a class or object to perform a task *Method (patent), under patent law, a protected series of steps or acts *Methodism, a Christian religious movement *Methodology, comparison or study and critique of individual methods that are used in a given discipline or field of inquiry *''Discourse on the Method'', a philosophical and mathematical treatise by René Descartes * ''Methods'' (journal), a scientific journal covering research on techniques in the experimental biological and medical sciences ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sociolinguistics
Sociolinguistics is the descriptive, scientific study of how language is shaped by, and used differently within, any given society. The field largely looks at how a language changes between distinct social groups, as well as how it varies under the influence of assorted cultural norms, expectations, and contexts. Sociolinguistics combines the older field of dialectology with the social sciences in order to identify regional dialects, sociolects, ethnolects, and other sub-varieties and styles within a language, as well as the distinctions and variations inside each of these. A major branch of linguistics since the second half of the 20th century, sociolinguistics is closely related to and can partly overlap with pragmatics, linguistic anthropology, and sociology of language, the latter focusing on the effect of language back on society. Sociolinguistics' historical interrelation with anthropology can be observed in studies of how language varieties differ between groups ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Language Change
Language change is the process of alteration in the features of a single language, or of languages in general, over time. It is studied in several subfields of linguistics: historical linguistics, sociolinguistics, and evolutionary linguistics. Traditional theories of historical linguistics identify three main types of change: systematic change in the pronunciation of phonemes, or sound change; borrowing, in which features of a language or dialect are introduced or altered as a result of influence from another language or dialect; and analogical change, in which the shape or grammatical behavior of a word is altered to more closely resemble that of another word. Research on language change generally assumes the uniformitarian principle—the presumption that language changes in the past took place according to the same general principles as language changes visible in the present. Language change usually does not occur suddenly, but rather takes place via an extended per ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Diachronic Linguistics
Historical linguistics, also known as diachronic linguistics, is the scientific study of how languages change over time. It seeks to understand the nature and causes of linguistic change and to trace the evolution of languages. Historical linguistics involves several key areas of study, including the reconstruction of ancestral languages, the classification of languages into families, ( comparative linguistics) and the analysis of the cultural and social influences on language development. This field is grounded in the uniformitarian principle, which posits that the processes of language change observed today were also at work in the past, unless there is clear evidence to suggest otherwise. Historical linguists aim to describe and explain changes in individual languages, explore the history of speech communities, and study the origins and meanings of words (etymology). Development Modern historical linguistics dates to the late 18th century, having originally grown ou ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cross-sectional Studies
In statistics and econometrics, cross-sectional data is a type of data collected by observing many subjects (such as individuals, firms, countries, or regions) at a single point or period of time. Analysis of cross-sectional data usually consists of comparing the differences among selected subjects, typically with no regard to differences in time. For example, if we want to measure current obesity levels in a population, we could draw a sample of 1,000 people randomly from that population (also known as a cross section of that population), measure their weight and height, and calculate what percentage of that sample is categorized as obese. This cross-sectional sample provides us with a snapshot of that population, at that one point in time. Note that we do not know based on one cross-sectional sample if obesity is increasing or decreasing; we can only describe the current proportion. Cross-sectional data differs from ''time series'' data, in which the same small-scale or aggreg ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Variation (linguistics)
Variation is a characteristic of language: there is more than one way of saying the same thing in a given language. Variation can exist in domains such as pronunciation (e.g., more than one way of pronouncing the same phoneme or the same word), lexicon (e.g., multiple words with the same meaning), grammar (e.g., different syntactic constructions expressing the same grammatical function), and other features. Different communities or individuals speaking the same language may differ from each other in their choices of which of the available linguistic features to use, and how often (inter-speaker variation), and the same speaker may make different choices on different occasions (intra-speaker variation). While diversity of variation exists, there are also some general boundaries on variation. For instance, speakers across distinct dialects of a language tend to preserve the same word order or fit new sounds into the language's established inventory of phonemes (the study of such res ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Martha's Vineyard
Martha's Vineyard, often simply called the Vineyard, is an island in the U.S. state of Massachusetts, lying just south of Cape Cod. It is known for being a popular, affluent summer colony, and includes the smaller peninsula Chappaquiddick Island. It is the List of islands of the United States by area, 58th largest island in the U.S., with a land area of about , and the third-largest on the East Coast of the United States, East Coast, after Long Island and Mount Desert Island. Martha's Vineyard constitutes the bulk of Dukes County, Massachusetts, which also includes the Elizabeth Islands and the island of Nomans Land (Massachusetts), Nomans Land. The island's year-round population has considerably increased since the 1960s. In the 2023 Martha's Vineyard Commission report, the year-round population was 20,530, an increase from 16,460 in 2010. The summer population swells to more than 200,000 people. About 56 percent of the Vineyard's 14,621 homes are seasonally occupied. A stud ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Language Change
Language change is the process of alteration in the features of a single language, or of languages in general, over time. It is studied in several subfields of linguistics: historical linguistics, sociolinguistics, and evolutionary linguistics. Traditional theories of historical linguistics identify three main types of change: systematic change in the pronunciation of phonemes, or sound change; borrowing, in which features of a language or dialect are introduced or altered as a result of influence from another language or dialect; and analogical change, in which the shape or grammatical behavior of a word is altered to more closely resemble that of another word. Research on language change generally assumes the uniformitarian principle—the presumption that language changes in the past took place according to the same general principles as language changes visible in the present. Language change usually does not occur suddenly, but rather takes place via an extended per ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Logistic Function
A logistic function or logistic curve is a common S-shaped curve ( sigmoid curve) with the equation f(x) = \frac where The logistic function has domain the real numbers, the limit as x \to -\infty is 0, and the limit as x \to +\infty is L. The exponential function with negated argument (e^ ) is used to define the standard logistic function, depicted at right, where L=1, k=1, x_0=0, which has the equation f(x) = \frac and is sometimes simply called the sigmoid. It is also sometimes called the expit, being the inverse function of the logit. The logistic function finds applications in a range of fields, including biology (especially ecology), biomathematics, chemistry, demography, economics, geoscience, mathematical psychology, probability, sociology, political science, linguistics, statistics, and artificial neural networks. There are various generalizations, depending on the field. History The logistic function was introduced in a series of three papers by Pier ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
