Analysing Variation in English

347 Pages·2011·2.13 MB·English

by  Warren Maguire

Analysing Variation in English

Analysing Variation in English brings together a range of perspectives on the
collection, analysis, and broader relevance of variable language data. In the
first half of the book, the focus is firmly on the description and comparison
of methods for collecting and analysing examples of variation in language.
Novel quantitative and computational methods are introduced and exempli-
fied alongside more traditional approaches. The innovative second half of the
book establishes and tests the relevance of language variation to other aspects
of linguistics such as language change, and to other disciplines such as law
and education. Each chapter concludes with a ‘Where next?’ section, provid-
ing guidance on further reading, but also pointers to under-researched areas,
designed to help identify good topics for projects and dissertations. Designed
to be used by students as well as researchers, the book will be welcomed by
those working in English language and linguistics, sociolinguistics or lan-
guage change.
warren maguire is a lecturer in English Language in the Department of
Linguistics and English Language at the University of Edinburgh.
april mcmahon is Forbes Professor of English Language in the Department
of Linguistics and English Language at the University of Edinburgh.

Analysing Variation in English
Edited by
Warren Maguire
and
April McMahon
cambridge university press
Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore,
São Paulo, Delhi, Dubai, Tokyo, Mexico City
Cambridge University Press
The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB2 8RU, UK
Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York
www.cambridge.org
Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521898669
© Cambridge University Press 2011
This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception
and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements,
no reproduction of any part may take place without the written
permission of Cambridge University Press.
First published 2011
Printed in the United Kingdom at the University Press, Cambridge
A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication data
Analysing Variation in English / [edited by] Warren Maguire, April McMahon.
p. cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-521-89866-9
1. English language–Variation. 2. Linguistic change. I. Maguire, Warren
II. McMahon, April (April M. S.) III. Title.
PE1074.7.A53 2011
427.0072–dc22
2010045719
ISBN 978-0-521-89866-9 Hardback
Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or
accuracy of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in
this publication, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is,
or will remain, accurate or appropriate.
Contents

List of figures page vii
List of tables x
List of contributors xi
List of abbreviations xii
Introduction. Analysing variation in English: what we know,
what we don’t, and why it matters 1
april mcmahon and warren maguire
Part I Investigating variation in English: how do we know
what we know?
1 Collecting data on phonology 7
erik r. thomas
2 How to make intuitions succeed: testing methods for analysing
syntactic microvariation 30
isabelle buchstaller and karen corrigan
3 Corpora: capturing language in use 49
alexandra d’arcy
4 Hypothesis generation 72
hermann moisl
5 Quantifying relations between dialects 93
warren maguire and april mcmahon
6 Perceptual dialectology 121
chris montgomery and joan beal
Part II Why does it matter? Variation and other fields
7 Variation and linguistic theory 151
patrick honeybone
v
vi Contents
8 Variation and change 178
gregory r. guy
9 Variation and forensic linguistics 199
frances rock
10 Variation and identity 219
emma moore
11 Variation and populations 237
rob mcmahon
12 Variation and education 261
graeme trousdale
Notes 280
References 284
Index 323
Figures

1.1 Idiolect synopsis for LAMSAS participant NC 11B; format
follows Kurath and McDavid (1961) page 11
1.2 Pitch track superimposed on narrowband spectrogram for
the phrase ‘I don’t want to be in’, uttered by a European American
female from Warren County, North Carolina 16
1.3a Formant plot of the mean values of the vowels of a European
American female, born 1902, from Hyde County, North Carolina 19
1.3b Formant plot of the mean values of the vowels of a male
speaker, born 1943, from County Tyrone, Northern Ireland 19
1.4 Spectrogram of the word ‘better’ spoken by a white male from
Newcastle upon Tyne, England 20
2.1 An example of the reformulation task investigating
relative-clause making preferences 33
2.2 An example of the direct grammaticality judgement task
investigating relative strategies 34
2.3 An example of the indirect grammaticality judgement
task investigating negation 35
2.4 An example of the pictorial elicitation task investigating
judgements on multiple negation 36
2.5 An example of an informant’s response to a magnitude
estimation task investigating a sentence containing vernacular
negation (sentence 3) 37
2.6 An example of a question in the visual version of the magnitude
estimation task 38
2.7 Map of the fieldwork locations 41
3.1 Excerpt from the ONZE informed consent form
(Canterbury Corpus) 57
3.2 Sample of Excel spreadsheet generated by ONZEminer, layered
search for verbs with the suffix -ing in the Mobile Unit Archive
(3,499 results, 446,446 ms) 67
4.1 The NECTE dialect area 75
4.2 Extract from the TLS transcription scheme 77
vii
viii List of figures
4.3 A numerical vector 78
4.4 A NECTE data vector 78
4.5 A fragment of the NECTE data matrix M 79
4.6 Univariate data 80
4.7 Bivariate data 81
4.8 Multivariate data 81
4.9 Multivariate NECTE data 82
4.10 A vector in two-dimensional space 83
4.11 A vector in three-dimensional space 83
4.12 Multiple vectors in two- and three-dimensional spaces 83
4.13 Distance between vectors in two-dimensional space 84
4.14 Euclidean distance calculation 85
4.15 Hierarchical cluster analysis of two-dimensional data 86
4.16 Hierarchical cluster analysis of the NECTE data matrix M 88
4.17 Co-plot of centroids for NG1 and NG2 89
5.1 Distribution of the response ‘burn’ to SED Question IV.1.1 95
5.2 Delaunay Triangulation and Voronoi Tessellation of the
SED locations in Northumberland 100
5.3 Voronoi Tessellation of northern SED locations and the
isogloss for burn 100
5.4 An example matrix 104
5.5 Comparison of pronunciations of daughter in two varieties
of English 110
5.6 Constructing a tree 114
5.7 Wrong trees for A, B, C, and D 115
5.8 A correct ‘tree’ for A, B, C, and D 116
6.1 Provenance of voice samples 132
6.2 Carlisle informant’s hand-drawn map (Female, 24) 133
6.3 Hull informants’ ‘Cockney’ dialect area (n = 21)
(from Montgomery, 2006: 211) 134
6.4 Overall composite map, indicating thirteen most recognised
dialect areas by informants from all survey locations 135
6.5 Starburst chart of Carlisle informants’ placements of voice
sample taken from Preston 136
6.6 Carlisle informants’ placement of Warrington voice sample
at ≥21% agreement level (n = 27, mean error = 40.9 miles) 139
6.7 Crewe informants’ placement of Warrington voice sample
at ≥21% agreement level (n = 33, mean error = 39 miles) 140
6.8 Hull informants’ placement of Warrington voice sample
at ≥21% agreement level (n = 29, mean error = 49.1 miles) 141
6.9 Carlisle informants’ placement of Carlisle voice sample
at ≥21% agreement level (n = 26, mean error = 170 miles) 143
List of figures ix
6.10 Crewe informants’ placement of Carlisle voice sample
at ≥21% agreement level (n = 26, mean error = 110.6 miles) 144
6.11 Hull informants’ placement of Carlisle voice sample
at ≥21% agreement level (n = 22, mean error = 109.6 miles) 145
8.1 Percentage of speakers with [w] not [hw] in words like which
and whine in four Canadian regions (from Chambers 2002: 63) 182
8.2 Curvilinear socioeconomic class distribution of vowel
changes in Philadelphia English (from Labov 1980) 184
8.3 Apparent-time and real-time data: denasalisation of the velar
nasal in Tokyo Japanese (from Hibiya 1996) 189
8.4 Real-time panel study of Montreal French speakers’ use
of [R] for /r/ (from Sankoff and Blondeau 2007) 190
8.5 The rise of periphrastic do in Middle and Early Modern
English (from Kroch 2000) 191
10.1 Indexical field for tag questions at Midlan High (from Moore and
Podesva 2009) 231
10.2 An example of the indexical layering of tag-question meaning 232
11.1 A few types of variable genetic markers discussed in this section
and in 11.2.4 below 246
11.2 An example of phylogenetic reconstruction in molecular genetics 250
11.3 Genetic distance map of selected Western European sites 258