LANGUAGE CHANGEPart Three

Notes from

“Language Change: Progress or Decay?”

By Jean Aitchison

THE PROCESSES OFLANGUAGE CHANGE

Some British Studies

By Trudgill, Milroy, Cheshire

CHANGE IN ACTION: 1

Norwich Study

By Peter Trudgill

(1972 & 1974)

Norwich Study 1

Norwich is a city in a relatively isolated geographical position

It could be an interesting place to study language change, since the spread of standard British English is likely to encounter strong local speech forms

Trudgill was once a native of the city

Norwich Study 2

Trudgill interviewed a cross-section of population: samples of casual speech, formal speech, reading passages, reading word lists (like Labov)

His results were similar to Labov’s – social class variations in pronunciations

But one feature illustrated a fine balance of opposing forces – whether people did or did not sound the final g in words like walkin(g) and talkin(g)

Norwich Study 3

In Standard British English the final –ng sound in words like walking and talking is a ‘velar nasal’ [], but in Norwich Trudgill found that the local pronunciation was just [n] – walkin, talkin

This local pronunciation was a remnant of an older local speech style which up to at least the 1930s was considered acceptable among many local speakers of Standard British English – in fact it was widely used in many parts of Britain, but over time the –in ending has become non-standard

Norwich Study 4

Trudgill’s results: In all social classes, people were more likely to say walking in careful

speech; walkin was a feature of casual, not careful, speech Forms like walkin were more common among people from the lower

social groups: LWC people used forms like walkin 100% of the time in casual speech but they were used only 28% of the time by MC people

BUT the non-standard forms were used considerably more often by men in all social classes

ALSO, in interviews, women thought they were using the standard forms more often than they actually were, whereas men thought they were using the local, non-standard forms more than they actually were.

Norwich Study 5

Trudgill’s conclusions – in/ing as focus of conflicting forces: Women tend to pull towards overt prestige forms (i.e. the

Standard British English pronunciations) but men seem to pull away from them, preferring local speech forms

Women tend to be more status-conscious and more aware of the social significance of certain speech forms

Men tend to favour local working-class speech forms which are associated with masculine values like roughness and toughness

Women tend to lead conscious language change towards prestige forms – they want to ‘speak better’; men tend to lead subconscious change towards local WC speech

CHANGE IN ACTION: 2

Belfast Study

By Lesley Milroy

(1978)

Belfast Study 1

Lesley and Jim Milroy studied some examples of pronunciation changes going on in 3 inner city Belfast areas, particularly Ballymacarett (a Protestant district in east Belfast) and Clonard (a Catholic district in west Belfast)

These areas shared some things: high unemployment, poor health, juvenile crime BUT they were divided by the religious/political difference and the tension and violence it generated

Lesley Milroy joined the close social networks in these communities by claiming to be ‘a friend of a friend’ and collected a lot of data including sound recordings

Belfast Study 2

Lesley Milroy looked at changes taking place in some vowel sounds

The a in words like grass or bad was shifting towards grawss and bawd i.e. moving backward in the mouth

The e in words like wren and desk was shifting from the local pronunciation wran and dask towards wren and desk, i.e. moving forward in the mouth

Belfast Study 3

The shift in the a sound The most ‘backed’ forms were among the Ballymacarett

men These men were a kind of ‘labour aristocracy’ – most

were employed and better off than the Clonard men They were part of a highly integrated social network,

assured of their identity and status The change in pronouncing the a (e.g. from grass to grawss)

seemed to be radiating out from these inner-city, WC men

Belfast Study 4

The shift in the a sound (continued) There was a lower incidence of ‘backing’ this sound in

Clonard, suggesting that people here were following rather than leading this change

BUT the young women in Clonard showed a higher score than the young men which was odd since women are usually much less likely to follow the speech forms originating from WC men

So, how did the backed a initiated by east Belfast males move across to west Belfast females?

Belfast Study 5

The shift in the a sound (continued) The prominent role young Clonard females had in spreading the

backed a sound is explained by the fact that, unlike the Clonard young men, most of them were employed – in a city-centre store

This store is used by both Catholics and Protestants and it is likely that these Catholic women were picking up the backed a sound from customers – it is well known from research that shop assistants match their speech to aspects of their customers’ speech

These women had strong social networks at home and work but their job was a weak point, allowing contact with another group – change often seeps in at these contact points, crossing over from one social network to another

Belfast Study 6

The shift in the e sound The shift from an older ‘Irish’ [a] sound (wat) to a

more standard [e] pronunciation (wet) was being initiated by Ballymacarett women

The [e] sound is characteristic of most outer-city and middle class speakers, so the Ballymacarett WC women are leading a move towards standard speech, which has overt prestige

Belfast Study 7

So, the Belfast study appears to show the expected gender divide: WC women leading change towards more standard speech; WC men leading change towards a non-standard form

BUT the Clonard young women show that women do not always veer towards the standard, prestige forms, especially when they have strong, dense social networks

The Belfast study shows how changes move from one social network to another: temporary shifts in accent/speech to accommodate the other person in face-to-face exchanges (e.g. shop assistant & customer) then become incorporated in normal speech and used when chatting to friends, so the change has shifted across to become part of that group’s speech

CHANGE IN ACTION: 3

Reading Study

By Jenny Cheshire

(1978)

Reading Study 1

Jenny Cheshire’s study looked at word endings, not pronunciation

She focused on non-standard forms like: “I knows how to handle teddy

boys” “They calls me all the names

under the sun” She studied the language of

groups of teenagers hanging around playgrounds in Reading

Reading Study 2

In casual speech, the overall (i.e. boys and girls) average use of these non-standard forms was 55%

In formal settings (when the children were recorded with Headteacher present) the use fell to 25%

There was little difference between boys and girls in casual speech, but girls’ speech showed far fewer non-standard forms than boys in formal speech

However, gender was not the only factor; more crucial was the individual’s conformity to the local adolescent subculture which required ‘toughness’

Reading Study 3

Boys seen as ‘tough’ and rebellious, engaged in criminal or anti-social activities, were accorded high status and seen as ‘core’ members of their groups: they had high scores (up to 80% in casual speech) for non-standard forms

The girls did not display nor aspire to ‘toughness’ and their highest scores for non-standard forms in casual speech were only around 58%

So, the non-standard forms are preferred by males and have covert prestige; females are much more likely to use standard forms which have overt prestige

The particular non-standard verb forms they used – I knows, they calls, etc – are remnants from an old widespread dialect form which added –s to all present tense forms: these teenagers were in fact continuing an old tradition

SUMMARY

1. Most language changes spring from elements already existing in the language which get borrowed or exaggerated

2. A change occurs when one group consciously or subconsciously takes another as a model and copies features of its speech

3. Changes move from group to group possibly via people who casually come into contact; they accommodate their speech to each other and pick up features which they then use among their own social network

4. Conscious changes usually tend towards speech forms with overt prestige such as Standard English – these changes often originate among the LMC, especially women

5. Subconscious change often moves away from overt prestige forms towards local, non-standard forms which have covert prestige – these changes often led by WC men

6. Language change is essentially a social phenomenon.