Linguistics 1028A/B Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Great Vowel Shift, Sociolinguistics, Sociolect

• School: Western University
• Department: Linguistics
• Course: Linguistics 1028A/B
• Professor: Stephanie Kelly

Document Summary

Variationists sociolinguistics examines structured variations: variable the thing with several possible realisations: th- for example. Each possible realisation: ([ ^], [d],[v],[?]) is considered a variant. Which of the variants depend on the conditioning of linguistic factor: variant linguistic feature produced in more than one way. How a particular segment or context is pronounced or produced. Variation may often depend on linguistic factors: placement of the word, where it is positioned that has an effect on how it is pronounced, analysis of rules or constraints are probabilistic (more or less likely to apply) Results using computer programs ro measure all possible factors might show: [d] word initially this and that ; [ ] > [v] > [?] when intervocalic. Each linguistic factor: segment, position, etc. explains only part of the variation. While phonological rules are categorical, sociolinguistic rules" or constraints" are probabilistic: sociolinguistic rules are modeled in a probabilistic way, some may occur more than others.