Golly, Gosh, and Oh My God! What North American Dialects can Tell Us about Swear Words

Tagliamonte, Sali A.; Jankowski, Bridget L.

doi:10.1215/00031283-7251241

Cited by 8 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 11 publications

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“…The second factor to consider is the written transmission. Given that lexical choices are known to shift from generation to generation (Tagliamonte & Brooke, 2014; Tagliamonte & Jankowski, 2019; Tagliamonte & Pabst, 2020), and the locus of linguistic change is generally acknowledged to be in spoken as opposed to written language (Milroy, 1992:32), the Old and Middle English extant manuscripts may leave the impression that this replacement was gradual even though the change may have been accelerated in spoken language but remained in the language in formal written contexts, as is attested in the extant manuscripts 18 . After all, there are well documented register effects that condition and constrain language variation and change (Biber, 2012), which may have contributed to the longevity of this lexical replacement.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Although geography is often reported as the predominant explanatory factor for lexical variation, lexis is highly structured along the axes of social and stylistic variation. In recent work, several lexical sets have been explored, such as dinner versus tea (Jankowski & Tagliamonte, 2019), words of profanity (Tagliamonte & Jankowski, 2019), adjectives of strangeness (Tagliamonte & Brooke, 2014), and adjectives of positive evaluation (Stratton, 2022b; Tagliamonte & Pabst, 2020).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Where didwergo? Lexical variation and change in third-person male adult noun referents in Old and Middle English

Stratton

2023

Lang Var Change

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The present study uses variationist quantitative methods to examine the evolution of the semantic field of third-person male adult noun referents from Old English to Middle English, covering a time depth of approximately six hundred years. Results show a shift from the favored variant wer in Old English to man in Middle English, with the diachronic change in frequency following a prototypical s-shaped distribution. Although the replacement seems to take centuries to be complete, lexical frequency and written transmission are proposed as influential explanatory factors, and a homonymic clash is suggested to have accelerated the process of replacement in Middle English. Text type and text origin contribute to variation, with alliteration significantly influencing lexical choices in Old English verse texts. When combined with findings from recent synchronic work, this study highlights a heterogeneously structured semantic domain, which has undergone lexical replacement and change over time, providing some evidence for the applicability of s-shaped patterns for lexical change.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Where didwergo? Lexical variation and change in third-person male adult noun referents in Old and Middle English

Stratton

2023

Lang Var Change

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“…In contrast, in Ontario, the change is moving comparatively slower, and outlying regions lag behind. This geographic pattern is consistent with other current changes in progress in the Canadian context (Franco & Tagliamonte, 2020;2021;Jankowski & Tagliamonte, 2019;Tagliamonte & Jankowski, 2018).…”

Section: Statistical Modelingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Obviously undergoing change: Adverbs of evidentiality across time and space

Tagliamonte¹,

Smith²

2021

Lang Var Change

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Increasingly globalized communication networks in the modern world may influence traditional patterns of linguistic change: in contrast to an orderly sequential pathway of change, more recently a number of “mega trends” have been identified, which accelerate simultaneously in time and space. The rise of obviously within the cohort of adverbs of evidentiality—naturally, evidently, clearly, and of course—may be one such trend. To examine this possibility, we conduct a large-scale sociolinguistic analysis of c12,000 adverbs of evidentiality across over thirty communities in the UK and Canada. The results reveal parallel development across time and space: obviously advances rapidly among individuals born in the 1960s in both countries. The rise of obviously illustrates key attributes that are beginning to emerge from other rapidly innovating features: “off the shelf” changes that (1) are easily borrowed, (2) receptive to global trends, but (3) exhibit parallel patterns as the change progresses.

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“…Most of this research has focused on determining how alignment or distancing from place as part of a speaker's identity is achieved through phonological variation, though some (e.g., Hazen 2002) have focused on morphosyntactic variation. In Ontario, Canada, a growing body of research is demonstrating variation in regional varieties of English (e.g., Tagliamonte 2014, Tagliamonte and Denis 2014, Tagliamonte and Jankowski 2018). Recently, Schlegl (2019) and Bigelow (2019) have suggested that speakers in Northern Ontario who align their identities with ideological aspects of Northernness (e.g., outdoorsiness, toughness, and rural masculinity) use specific linguistic variants (e.g., negative concord, or monophthongal /o/) to signal their Northern identity.…”

Section: Direction-givingmentioning

confidence: 99%

‘How do you get to Tim Hortons?’ Direction-giving in Ontario dialects

Schlegl

Tagliamonte

2021

Can. J. Linguist.

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In this study, we target the speech act of direction-giving using variationist sociolinguistic methods within a corpus of vernacular speech from six Ontario communities. Not only do we find social and geographical correlates to linguistic choices in direction-giving, but we also establish the influence of the physical layout of the community/place in question. Direction-giving in the urban center of Toronto (Southern Ontario) contrasts with five Northern Ontario communities. Northerners use more relative directions, while Torontonians use more cardinal directions, landmarks, and proper street names – for example, Go east on Bloor to the Manulife Centre. We also find that specific lexical choices (e.g., Take a right vs. Make a right) distinguish direction-givers in Northern Ontario from those in Toronto. These differences identify direction-giving as an ideal site for sociolinguistic and dialectological investigation and corroborate previous findings documenting regional variation in Canadian English.

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Golly, Gosh, and Oh My God! What North American Dialects can Tell Us about Swear Words

Cited by 8 publications

References 11 publications

Where didwergo? Lexical variation and change in third-person male adult noun referents in Old and Middle English

Where didwergo? Lexical variation and change in third-person male adult noun referents in Old and Middle English

Obviously undergoing change: Adverbs of evidentiality across time and space

‘How do you get to Tim Hortons?’ Direction-giving in Ontario dialects

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