Developing Discussion of Language Change Into a Three‐Dimensional Model of Linguistic Phenomena

Hawkey, James

doi:10.1111/lnc3.12180

Cited by 4 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 16 publications

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“…accent difference) due to determinable attributes such as 'niceness'; and (ii) 'covert prestige', in which there is speaker movement toward linguistic variants that do not broadly have positive connotations (Meyerhoff, 2011). In this way, all accents (including non-standard, and foreign accents) can theoretically be afforded prestigious status (Hawkey, 2016).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evaluations of accents can be used as a measure of prestige

Samarasinghe¹,

Berl

Gavin

et al. 2019

Preprint

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Sociolinguistic studies have established that people make judgements about speakers based on accent. Standard and non-standard accents have differing levels of prestige and demonstrate variation across other attitudinal terms. Because prestige can increase the likelihood of information transmission, we explore variation in accent prestige to determine whether accent can be used as a measure of prestige in social transmission experiments. Participants (n=152 US; 142 UK) were presented with standardised recordings of a standard passage, containing lexical terms that highlight phonological differences between accents of English. Passages were spoken by middle-aged white male speakers representing a range of eight accents from the listener’s country of residence and two from the alternative country. Participants rated the speakers on 24 different personal qualities including traits associated with prestige and friendliness. As predicted, participants rated the standard accents favourably for prestige across both locations. Participants perceived location-specific non-standard accents as having lower prestige, and accents deemed as having lower prestige as being friendlier. Accent indexes differential qualities for listeners, regardless of whether the concept is operationalised by the term “prestigious” or multiple terms related to ‘prestige’. We assert that accent can be used as an indicator of prestige in the absence of other prestige information and demonstrate the importance of locally calibrating the accents used in prestige-based social transmission experiments.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evaluations of accents can be used as a measure of prestige

Samarasinghe¹,

Berl

Gavin

et al. 2019

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…The questionnaire also permitted a quantitative evaluation of the popularity of these features, but added a significant qualitative dimension by soliciting pupils’ evaluative comments and exploring their perceptions of, and attitudes towards, the type of speakers likely to use them. As Hawkey (2016) pointed out, metacommentary by speakers (or the lack of it) provides an essential element to understand whether change is occurring ‘from above’ (i.e. whether it is conscious) or from below (unconscious).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In recent work, linguistic prestige continues to be a productive concept, which has now been shown to be multi-dimensional (Hawkey, 2016). The perception of prestige is contingent on the type of linguistic situation, the type of speaker and the context in which the linguistic material is presented.…”

Section: Attitudes Within Sociolinguistic Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

‘Il parle normal, il parle comme nous’: self-reported usage and attitudes in a banlieue

Secova

Gardner‐Chloros

Atangana

2018

French Language Studies

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We report on a survey of language attitudes carried out as part of a project comparing youth language in Paris and London.1As in similar studies carried out in London (Cheshire et al., 2008), Berlin (Wiese, 2009) and elsewhere (Boyd et al., 2015), the focus was on features considered typical of ‘contemporary urban vernaculars’ (Rampton, 2015).The respondents were pupils aged 15–18 in two secondary schools in a working-class northern suburb of Paris. The survey included (1) a written questionnaire containing examples of features potentially undergoing change in contemporary French; (2) an analysis of reactions to extracts from the project data: participants were asked to comment on the speakers and the features identified.Quantitative analysis had shown that some of these features are more widespread than others and are used by certain categories of speaker more than others (Gardner-Chloros and Secova, this volume). This study provides a qualitative dimension, showing that different features have different degrees of perceptual salience and acceptability. It demonstrates that youth varieties do not involve characteristic features being used as a ‘package’, and that such changes interact in a complex manner with attitudinal factors. The study also provides material for reflection on the role of attitude studies within sociolinguistic surveys.

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“…Changes from above are therefore externally motivated, whereas changes from below are, at least initially, internally motivated. The processes are not entirely independent (see Hawkey, 2016 for discussion). For example, /ɔ/-fronting to [oe] originated as a change from below in français populaire, or the speech of the urban proletariat in Paris (Martinet, 1958).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The role of speaker sex and sexuality in an ongoing sound change: Nasal vowels in Parisian French

Mooney

2023

J. Fr. Lang. Stud.

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This article examines the progression of the counter-clockwise nasal vowel chain shift in Parisian French, investigating in particular the influence of biological sex and of sexuality on the propagation of this change from below. The research presented forms part of a study on the participation of sexual minorities in ongoing sound change; this study aims to address the continued exclusion of sexual minorities from sociolinguistic studies, which not only invisibilizes queer people, but underlines their behaviour, linguistic or otherwise, as gender-deviant. Using a sociophonetic methodology, an analysis of nasal vowel quality provides evidence for sex- and sexuality-differential linguistic behaviour in the advancement of the nasal vowel chain shift. The results confirm the progressive but non-conformative linguistic behaviour of women, both straight and queer, as outlined by Labov (1990) and numerous other sociolinguistic studies, but also indicate that queer men are centre-stage in driving the change forward. This research is a first step in formalizing data-driven principles about the linguistic behaviour of sexual minorities and their role in language change, akin to the principles advanced to account for the behaviour of women.

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Developing Discussion of Language Change Into a Three‐Dimensional Model of Linguistic Phenomena

Cited by 4 publications

References 16 publications

Evaluations of accents can be used as a measure of prestige

Evaluations of accents can be used as a measure of prestige

‘Il parle normal, il parle comme nous’: self-reported usage and attitudes in a banlieue

The role of speaker sex and sexuality in an ongoing sound change: Nasal vowels in Parisian French

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