On Ek and Jak In Middle Norwegian: Mixed Methods In Historical Sociolinguistics

Abstract

Work in historical sociolinguistics can broadly be divided into quantitative work which examines population-level trends in past language use, and qualitative work which documents and explains the usage of individuals or within particular texts. In this paper, we argue for an approach which combines both of these. Using mixed methods we can achieve all the advantages of both qualitative and quantitative approaches, revealing the complexity of language use in real social contexts but situating it in a well-described view of the historical processes at play. We demonstrate our approach with an exploration of the rise of 'broken' forms of the first person singular nominative pronoun in the history of Norwegian. We chart the overall progression and social patterning of the change using kernel density estimation, regression and geographically weighted regression. We then explore the wealth of fascinating local and ephemeral patterns by examining usage of particular individuals and texts.

A philosophy, a methodology, and a gender identity

“…I have reiterated the call for more (socio)linguistic research with a conscious pragmatic approach with MMR framework as it can foster more collaborative and creative research (Angouri 2010;Hashemi and Babaii 2013;Riazi 2016;Blaxter and Kinn 2018;Mirhosseini 2018;Azul and Neuschaefer-Rube 2019;Bacon 2020). I have also demonstrated how English sociophonetic research with a focus on non-binary speakers or the perception of non-binary speakers, has benefited from this framework, in whole or in part.…”

“…Complex research questions, especially those with strong social variables (e.g., those elements that have the greatest effects on an outcome) or multiple social variables, are answered more fully when approached from a pragmatic research philosophy combined with a greater variety of research methods (Angouri 2010;Blaxter and Kinn 2018). Arguably, the most promising research method available is MMR.…”

“…Linguists across subdisciplines have called for mixed method research (MMR) in sociolinguistics (Angouri 2010;Blaxter and Kinn 2018), applied linguistics (Hashemi and Babaii 2013;Riazi 2016;Mirhosseini 2018;Bacon 2020) and voice therapy research (Azul and Neuschaefer-Rube 2019). Angouri (2010: 30) notes that "[i]t is still quite common however for the two paradigms [qualitative and quantitative] to be directly contrasted".…”

“…It is especially important to explore MMR because the phenomena of interest, the research questions, the data sets accessed/generated, and the analyses conducted in sociolinguistics are often complex. MMR is particularly well suited to deal with multiple levels of complexity (Hashemi and Babaii 2013;Riazi 2016;Blaxter and Kinn 2018), capture underlying ideologies (Bacon 2020), and to result in more robust research outcomes including increased ecological validity (Blaxter and Kinn 2018;Azul and Neuschaefer-Rube 2019;Bacon 2020). These are important aspects for language researchers focusing on non-binary populations and whose goals are to generate authentic and transformative research (detailed in Section 2) with positive real-world applications (e.g., Zimman 2020).…”

On case loss and svarabhakti vowels: the sociolinguistic typology and geolinguistics of simplification in North Germanic

“…3For more detail on the use of KDE in dialectology see Rumpf et al. (2009); for more detail on its use in historical dialectology and on the particular approach used here, see Blaxter (2017:101–121) and Blaxter & Kinn (2018). …”