Writing a linguistic symphony: Analyzing variation while doing language documentation

Abstract

Typically, a study of variation starts from the known and works its way into the unknown. But what happens when you are analyzing variation at the same time as you are grappling with the fundamental structure of the language? Whereas variationist methods often involve doing strategic violence to the data, isolating single variables, documentation tends to encourage a broader perspective. This article shows how documentation of Nkep (Central Eastern Oceanic, Vanuatu) has progressed when guided by a focus on internal and social variation. Three variables are discussed (the near merger of two front vowels, lexical borrowing, and the expression of subject agreement) to highlight the rewards and challenges associated with drawing together two subdisciplines (variation and documentation) that have not traditionally had much to say to each other. Analyzing variation alongside documentation encourages us to write ‘symphonies of variation’, as opposed to ‘sonatas’ of individual variables.

Modelling stylistic variation in threatened and under-documented languages

“…The authors argue that language documentation can and should run in parallel to the variationist enterprise in order to shed light not simply on language structure in undocumented languages, but also to bolster the narrow empirical base on which variationist principles are set (also advocated for elsewhere, e.g. Stanford 2016, Meyerhoff 2017.…”

“…Instead, it will be argued here that the application of Labov (1971)'s classic research design to threatened and underdocumented language communities can offer a more nuanced view of stylistic variation in such contexts. In particular, it is argued that the attention-to-speech model can be applied as a heuristic tool not just in the documentation of variation in the more formal stylistic range (a view well-elaborated by Meyerhoff 2017), but also in understanding the social significance of variation across the formal ~ informal range. The article is structured as follows: first, an overview of the understanding of style as it is presented in the language-obsolescence literature is first elaborated, followed by more recent work at the interface of language obsolescence and variationist sociolinguistics.…”

Variationist sociolinguistics and corpus-based variationist linguistics: overlap and cross-pollination potential

“…Much work in the LVC literature takes, in the parlance of Nerbonne (2009: 176), a “single-feature-based” approach, in which the conditioning of individual (socio)linguistic variables is explored by looking at one variable at a time. This does not mean, of course, that multi-feature studies are completely absent from the LVC literature, or that their importance is not recognized: consider, for example, Rickford and McNair-Knox (1994), who study style-shifting based on a joint analysis of a comparatively large number of variables; Guy (2013), who investigates correlations among four sociolinguistic variables to show that individuals do not always use variables as coherently as one would think; or Meyerhoff (2017), who argues that conducting work at the intersection of language description and language variation necessitates looking at multiple variables (“symphonies of variation”). That being said, by and large it seems fair to say that the traditional way of doing things in variationist sociolinguistics is the single-feature way.…”

Synchronic variation in Sri Lanka Portuguese personal pronouns

“…This study of personal pronouns is a step towards systematizing the variation encountered in these documentary materials and ensuring that the description of SLP takes stock of it. Several authors have highlighted not just the mutual advantages but also the challenges of combining language documentation and sociolinguistic analysis (Meyerhoff 2017), and of making sure grammatical descriptions do not gloss over variation (Nagy 2009). Potential issues arise from traditional differences in the scope and methodologies of variationist research, on the one hand, and of language documentation and language description, on the other.…”

“…Potential issues arise from traditional differences in the scope and methodologies of variationist research, on the one hand, and of language documentation and language description, on the other. These challenges are amplified in the case of under-documented or under-described languagesas opposed to languages with a considerable history of research, for which large datasets may already be available and in which patterns of variation may already have been identified -, since the identification and interpretation of patterns of variation often has to proceed in tandem with the delineation of the language's basic grammatical properties (Meyerhoff 2017); and especially so if the language is endangered, in which case there may be the additional challenge of a small pool of speakers from whom to obtain linguistic data (Nagy 2017). Mansfield & Stanford (2017:119) point out that the practical difficulties faced by outsider researchers interested in making sense of how a language they are documenting interacts with sociolinguistic variables derive from three factors: a) the fact that they are "cultural outsiders" (which poses challenges to the very collection of reliable and representative data); b) the fact that they must identify "variables with limited prior knowledge" (since, when dealing with under-described languages, the incremental nature of knowledgebuilding is especially evident); and c) the fact that they must conduct "sociolinguistic analysis with limited data".…”