Teenagers’ acquisition of variation

Abstract

Variation conferences have provided helpful formative feedback. We alone are responsible for any failings in this paper. The high schools we worked in remain anonymous, but we owe a debt of great magnitude to the staff and students in Edinburgh and London who worked with us on this project. We admire and respect the individuals in these schools for the work they are doing. In particular, our thanks go to the migrant teenagers, for some of whom the interview and reading tasks were a major effort. Wielkie dzieki! 2In recent years, the UK has experienced unparalleled numbers of migrants from Eastern Europe, particularly Poland. Many migrants came with their families. We examined variation in the English spoken by adolescent Polish migrants in Edinburgh and London. We asked: To what extent are teenage Polish migrants acquiring the patterns of variation typical of their local peer group? We compare the results for the well-known variable (ing) in the speech of both Polish migrants and their same age British peers. Our results indicate that the Polish teenagers seem to be sensitive to the overall rates of the non-standard variant in the city they have moved to. Moreover, Polish teenagers also replicate some of the linguistic and social constraints found in the speech of the locally-born teens. In some cases, they partially replicate the constraint patterns found in the locally-born teenagers, and in other cases they introduce novel constraints unattested in the speech of their locally-born peers. The results of our study raise several questions regarding local shared constraints and universal learning tools, potential supra-local constraints and the status of (ing) as a sociolinguistic variable for learners of English. We discuss these in the final section of this paper.

Regional diversity in social perceptions of (ing)

“…It seems that social class interacts with regional area and the baseline frequency of [ɪn] in a particular area (e.g., Labov, 2001:90). A number of studies exemplify this point for locations in Britain such as London (Schleef et al, 2011), Sandwell, West Midlands (Mathisen, 1999, Wilmslow, Cheshire (Watts, 2005), Manchester (Schleef, Flynn, & Ramsammy, 2015), Cardiff (Mees, 1977), Norwich (Trudgill, 1974), York (Tagliamonte, 2004), and Edinburgh (Romaine, 1984;Schleef et al, 2011). Data from some of these studies suggest that the lower middle classes in northern cities stand out as relatively low users of [ɪŋ], with numbers often as low as for working class speakers in southern cities.…”

“…The presence of [ɪn] decreases in more formal speech styles (Hazen, 2006;Labov, 2001;Reid, 1978;Romaine, 1984;Schleef et al, 2011;Trudgill, 1974). In varieties where [ɪŋɡ] occurs as a third variant of (ing), as is the case for Manchester English, [ɪŋɡ] too is more plentiful in formal styles (Mathisen, 1999;Watts, 2005).…”

Disentangling the effects of long-term language contact and individual bilingualism: The case of monophthongs in Welsh and English

“…For example, Schleef, Meyerhoff & Clark (2011) examined Polish teenagers" acquisition of variation in Edinburgh and London by comparing groups of students from the same schools (see also Clark & Schleef 2010;Meyerhoff & Schleef 2012). Although there were differences between the two groups, they found that the Polish teenagers were acquiring native speakers" productions of (ing), especially those who had a mixture of Polish and British friends.…”

“…Indeed, as reviewed in the introduction section, there is extensive evidence from sociolinguistic research which shows that the speech patterns of adolescents are crucially affected by the peer group to which they belong (Eckert, 1989(Eckert, , 2000Morris, 2013;Nance, 2013Nance, , 2014Nance, , 2015Schleef et al, 2011), with peer group identity being marked by specific speech patterns.…”

Language shift and apparent standardisation in Early Modern English

“…Similarly, Polish immigrant adolescents in the UK showed lower rates of the non-standard [ɪn] variant of the (ing) variable than their locally-born peers in London and Edinburgh (Schleef et al 2011), and higher rates of standard [ɪŋ]. 5 Again, the non-native learners failed to acquire the appropriate linguistic and sociolinguistic constraints on the variation from naturalistic input, but overall produced less non-standard-like speech than the native speakers.…”