The Process of Language Variation
Language varies in three major ways which are interestingly interrelated – over time, in physical space
and socially. Within a monolingual community, the superficial impression may be that everyone speaks
the same. In a small town, it often seems that everyone uses the same language. But a little thought will
soon identify areas of variation, most obviously in vocabulary and pronunciation. Mob was once
condemned as a vulgar word, bus was once regarded as a vulgar shortening of omnibus, ’otel was once
considered the only acceptable way of pronouncing hotel, and the vowel sound in go has changed quite
radically in the speech of BBC newsreaders over the last thirty years.
All language change has its origins in variation. The possibility of a linguistic change exists as soon as a
new form develops and begins to be used alongside an existing form. If the new form spreads, the
change is in progress. One area of vocabulary where this is very easy to see is in the slang words used by
young people to mean ‘really good’: super, spiffing, bonzer, groovy, neat, fantastic, magic, excellent,
wicked, hot, rad, awesome, cool, sick. A particular word, such as wicked, may first develop this meaning
of ‘really good’ in the usage of a particular sub-group. If the users have some kind of status within the
speech community – in other words, if other groups
admire them – then they too will start to use the new word and it will begin to spread. It may eventually
spread through the whole community and become the new norm or standard for expressing the
concept ‘really good’.
Similarly, a sound change occurs when one sound is replaced in people’s speech by another over a
period of time, or when a sound disappears. In New Zealand, for example, words like new and nuclear
were once pronounced nyew [nju:] and nyuklear [nju:klia]. Right now, there is variation in the
community. A new norm has been introduced. Young people are increasingly using an American
pronunciation without the [j]: i.e. [nu:] and [nu:klia]. Over time, it seems likely that the pronunciation
without [j] will displace the [j] pronunciation in most people’s speech.
In many parts of England and Wales, standard English has lost the pronunciation of [r] following vowels
in words like star and start. Post-vocalic [r] does not occur in RP nor in the London Cockney dialect. Post-
vocalic [r] is still pronounced in Scotland and Ireland and South-west of England. Accents with post-
vocalic [r] are called ‘rhotic’. In large areas of England, rhotic English accents are regarded as rural and
uneducated. In large parts of the USA, on the other hand, post-vocalic [r] is alive and well and
extensively used. A survey in the 1960s found that rhoticism was increasing in New York, where it was
regarded as prestigious. Post-vocalic [r] was used by almost all New Yorkers in their most formal and
careful speech, and young people from the upper middle class pronounced it even in their most casual
speech – a sure signal that it was spreading. More recent research confirms that rhoticism is now well-
established as a feature of New York speech. So the pronunciation of [r] in English-speaking
communities provides a wealth of examples of the complexity of linguistic variation and language
change, as well as the arbitrariness of the forms which happen to be standard in any community. While
[r]-less speech is the prestigious form which is still spreading in England, in some parts of the USA it is
the rhotic variety which is increasing.
Changes from above:
These are changes where people are conscious of their social significance as desirable or prestige
features of speech. People evaluate the speech of those who use such features highly. It may also refer
to the source of the change. In this sense, ‘above’ refers to the fact that a feature is generally spreading
downwards through the social groups in a speech community.
Changes from below:
Changes in the pronunciation of vowels are often changes from below, in that they are changes below
people’s level of conscious awareness. Another meaning refers to a change which spreads from lower
social groups upwards through to higher social groups. It
seems likely that the spread of (th)-fronting in British English (i.e. the substitution of [f] for [k] and [v] for
[e]) is an example of a vernacular change which is spreading upwards through different social groups,
and which is above the level of conscious awareness for most speakers.
The spread of vernacular forms:
Not all linguistic changes involve adopting new forms from outside the speech community. Nor do they
always involve forms which people are conscious of as prestigious forms. Martha’s Vineyard is a little
island about three miles off the coast of Massachusets and is a popular holiday retreat. A 1960s linguistic
survey by Labov studied the way locals pronounced the (ay) and (aw) sounds in words like light and
house. Their pronunciation of the vowels in these words had gradually become more and more
centralised. (The position of the tongue at the start of the vowel had moved towards the centre of the
mouth.) So light was pronounced [lait] (it sounds a bit like layeet) and house was pronounced [haus] (a
bit like heyoose). This sound change, which seemed to be unconscious, was a change to a more
conservative pronunciation which used to be associated with the area in the past. It had been dying out,
but it was revitalised to express solidarity between those who identified with the island and felt loyalty
to its rural values and peaceful lifestyle. The spread of
centralised vowels illustrates how a vernacular feature can acquire social significance and spread
through a community.
Variation across Gender
Trudgill’s (1972) work in Norwich, England, also shows certain changes in progress. For example, Trudgill
found that the distribution of the variants of the (ng) variable showed that there were very marked
differences between the usage of working-class males and working-class females: males favored the [n]
variant (i.e., pronunciations such as singin’ rather than singing) much more than did females. He found
similar results with other variables, with women showing much stronger preferences for standard forms
than men. Trudgill offers (pp. 182–3) several possible explanations for women using forms associated
with the prestige standard more frequently than men. He suggests that women may be more status-
conscious because they are less secure and have less well-developed social networks than men. Their
social position is usually inferior to men and they are usually subordinate to them. Men are also judged
by what they do, whereas women are rated on how they appear, and an important part of that
appearance is their speech. Women have a much greater need to use language to signal their social
status than do men. Another important factor in this differential usage is that working-class speech has
connotations of ‘masculinity’ and women often want to dissociate themselves from it for that reason,
preferring types of speech which are regarded as more refined.
Labov (1981, p. 184) makes an interesting observation about the role that women play in linguistic
change. He points out that, whenever there is stratification by style and class in linguistic usage, you can
also expect differences between men and women, with women showing higher values for preferred
variants than men, that is, a preference for forms that have more prestige in society. He adds the
following corollary: ‘[it is] important to bear in mind that this shift of women toward higher prestige
forms . . . is limited to those societies where women play a role in public life.’ He adds that studies in
Teheran and India showed a reverse tendency. Apparently, then, if a woman’s status is fixed unalterably,
she has no motivation to change linguistically; only in a society in which status can be changed does the
necessary motivation exist.
Oberwart, Austria was once a bilingual peasant community (Hungarian & German). German has become
the language of social opportunity and social status, and it is the young women from the bilingual
community who have shown most willingness to participate in social change. Hungarian is symbolic of
peasant status, and most young people do not want to be peasants. Young peasant women also prefer
not to marry peasant men. They prefer non-peasant, German-speaking workers as spouses.
Koineisation
When people who speak different dialects come into contact in monolingual communities – a new
dialect or variety emerges. This language change process is called koineisation, and the result is a koine,
a variety which is the result of dialect contact. The koine will typically have some features from each of
the contributing dialects, with most features typically coming from the dialect of the largest group of
speakers. So, in Milton Keyes, an English town designated as a New Town in 1967, people moved into
the town from many different regions, but most came from the east end of nearby London.
Consequently, many of the features of the koine, or new dialect which developed in this town, such as
the tag innit, could be traced back to Cockney, the variety used by Eastenders, people from the east end
of London.
The linguistic processes involve different types of simplification. One of these is known as levelling, a
process which eliminates marked variants. Levelling results in the koine adopting fewer forms than the
range of forms in the source dialects. For example, if people who speak dialects with post-vocalic [r]
come into contact with people who do not, levelling generally leads to the disappearance of post-vocalic
[r] in the koine. Another linguistic process associated with koines is the simplification of different
features or categories. Where two groups of speakers from different dialect areas come together, the
simpler forms will usually win out. So when dialect speakers who makes the distinction between he was
swimming and they were swimming meet dialect speakers who don’t make this distinction (e.g. they say
both he was swimming and they was swimming), then the process of simplification suggests that the
simpler form will survive. Using only was is simpler than changing from was to were with different
pronouns. And this has been the result in many areas where English is spoken. Just the was form is used
with all pronouns in many English dialects. Pg 212
The ethnography of communication
The ethnography of communication is concerned with cultural differences in acts of communication, in
particular what additional features accompany speech. The cultural assumptions which we have
internalised in our childhood as part of the process of socialisation guide our social and linguistic
behaviour for the rest of our lives. The following are some features of non-verbal behaviour which differ
across cultures. The distance which speakers keep to their interlocutors (proxemics) is important.
Italians tolerate a smaller distance than do English people who may feel uncomfortable in situations
where what they regard as the minimum distance between speakers is not kept. Countries also differ is
the use of the hands when talking. The body movements used in communication (kinesics) can vary over
relatively small distances. Northern Europeans in general use their hands sparingly when talking, indeed
Irish men very often just keep them in their pockets. Hand movements and facial expressions can often
reinforce what is being said. Italians often press their elbows to their sides and hold both hands in front
of their chest with tips of the fingers and thumbs together when explaining something, touching the
chest when referring to themselves and opening the hands when making general statements or
referring to their interlocutor. A common facial gesture among Mediterraneans is to protude the chin
somewhat and draw the corners of the mouth downwards to express uncertainty or lack of knowledge.
In many countries raising the eyebrows with deliberate eye contact and a slight twist of the head is used
when seeking approval or asking a question. Touching the left corner of the forehead with the index
finger of the left hand usually signals incredulity. The angle one stands at and whether it is polite to seek
eye contact is another factor. In certain African cultures it is regarded as impertinent to look someone in
the eye who is perceived as socially superior. The lack of eye contact can be disconcerting for Europeans
who may regard it as a sign of deviousness. The question of touch is another sensitive issue. In most
European cultures, shaking the hand of someone you meet is normal at the beginning of an encounter.
Women may hug each other and men on occasions too, though it is by no means established behaviour.
This does not apply outside Europe to any like the same extent. In east and south-east Asia one might
make a slight bow instead or press one one’s hands together under one’s chin and nod as in Thailand.
There are strong taboos on touching others in various cultures. This question is related to gender as
well. It is not allowed for strangers to touch a woman they do not know in Arabic countries so one
should not attempt to shake the hand of another man’s wife. Every conversation has a beginning and an
end. The right to initiate a conversation may not apply to everyone, but only to an older person or a
social superior. The termination of a conversation is less strongly codified though this too may be done
by the person with relatively more social status. In all cultures the language used to open and close an
exchange is frequently formulaic. It is proverbial to say that the British and Irish can open an exchange
by a reference to the weather. In west European languages hello or a related form is almost universal as
an opener. The origin is French holà (from the exclamation ho! and là ‘there’) which entered English in
the sixteenth century. There are other instances of expressions from one language which spread across
countries, e.g. Italian ciao ‘goodbye’ (from a dialect word schiavo ‘(I am your) slave’). Greeting and
parting formulas may derive from religious usage. The word goodbye comes from ‘God be with you’,
though this is not obvious to all speakers of English. In Irish (Gaelic) one greets with Dia dhuit ‘God be
with you’ and replies with Dia is Muire dhuit ‘God and Mary be with you’. It is also common to thank the
deity in such formulas, as in Lá maith, buíochas le Dia ‘lovely day, thank God’.
Kinship terms
The kinship terms found in a given language will first have lexicalised terms for the members of the
nuclear family. Relations beyond this unit, either vertically backwards, i.e. grandparents and great
grandparents, or vertically forwards, i.e. grandchildren or grandchildren, may have lexicalised terms. But
these can also be constructed from elements of the nuclear family, e.g. something like ‘mother-mother’
for grandmother. Horizontal distinctions are a further plane on which relationships can be distinguished:
one has uncles and aunts on the level of parents, nephews and nieces on that of one’s children. From
the children’s point of view, i.e. within a generation, these individuals are cousins. Where languages
have cover terms, e.g. cousins for all children of parents’ siblings, gender distinctions may or not be
made, in English they are not but in French, with cousins ‘cousins’-MASC and cousines ‘cousins’-FEM,
they are. Languages furthermore distinguish between neutral and familiar terms for relatives. In
German, Großvater is ‘grandfather’ as is the familiar term Opa, Großmutter is ‘grandmother’ as is Oma.
Sometimes the familiar terms are restricted to parents, e.g. mum/mom/ma and dad/da/pa in English
and by extension are used for grandparents as well, e.g. grandma, grandpa. English is unusual in having
a scientific or academic level of usage where the term ‘sibling’ is used. This is not normally found in
colloquial usage, one says instead ‘my brothers and sisters’, except in some set expressions like sibling
rivalry.
