LIN251H1 Chapter Notes - Chapter 7: New Zealand English, Italian Australians, Masculinity
Document Summary
Variation is wider than change in the sense that a feature may vary without changing, but by changing, it varies. Dr. labov conducted these studies in the lower east side of manhattan in 1962 which was an economically & ethnically mixed area that well represented the whole of nyc. Required to analyse the many speech samples. A variable offers the speaker a choice between 2 or more alternative ling forms with the same meaning (free variation) Labov studied 3 consonants, 2 vowels, & velar [ ] & alveolar [n] in ing" suffix. Findings for ing": between all classes, [i g] is pronounced more often compared to [in] as the formality of speech increases from casual to careful to reading for white adults. Higher classes say [i g] less than lower classes. Note that the stratification between the 4 classes remains constant; umc always uses the most standard variants [i g], lwc always uses the non standard [in].
