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Apparent-time Sociolinguistics
The apparent-time hypothesis is a methodological construct in sociolinguistics whereby language change is studied by comparing the speech of individuals of different ages. If language change is taking place, the apparent-time hypothesis assumes that older generations will represent an earlier form of the language and that younger generations will represent a later form. Thus, by comparing younger and older speakers, the direction of language change can be detected. The apparent-time method allows change to be studied by synchronic analysis, which examines the state of the language at a particular point in time. That contrasts with real-time sociolinguistics, which compares data from two points in time to observe change directly. Apparent-time analysis assumes that most features of language are acquired during childhood and remain relatively unchanged throughout an individual's lifetime once that individual is past a certain age. Therefore, a speaker's speech is a reflection of speec ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sociolinguistics
Sociolinguistics is the descriptive study of the effect of any or all aspects of society, including cultural norms, expectations, and context, on the way language is used, and society's effect on language. It can overlap with the sociology of language, which focuses on the effect of language on society. Sociolinguistics overlaps considerably with pragmatics and is closely related to linguistic anthropology. Sociolinguistics' historical interrelation with anthropology can be observed in studies of how language varieties differ between groups separated by social variables (e.g., ethnicity, religion, status, gender, level of education, age, etc.) and/or geographical barriers (a mountain range, a desert, a river, etc.). Such studies also examine how such differences in usage and differences in beliefs about usage produce and reflect social or socioeconomic classes. As the usage of a language varies from place to place, language usage also varies among social classes, and it is t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Logistic Function
A logistic function or logistic curve is a common S-shaped curve (sigmoid curve) with equation f(x) = \frac, where For values of x in the domain of real numbers from -\infty to +\infty, the S-curve shown on the right is obtained, with the graph of f approaching L as x approaches +\infty and approaching zero as x approaches -\infty. The logistic function finds applications in a range of fields, including biology (especially ecology), biomathematics, chemistry, demography, economics, geoscience, mathematical psychology, probability, sociology, political science, linguistics, statistics, and artificial neural networks. A generalization of the logistic function is the hyperbolastic function of type I. The standard logistic function, where L=1,k=1,x_0=0, is sometimes simply called ''the sigmoid''. It is also sometimes called the ''expit'', being the inverse of the logit. History The logistic function was introduced in a series of three papers by Pierre François Verhulst ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Diachronic Linguistics
Historical linguistics, also termed diachronic linguistics, is the scientific study of language change over time. Principal concerns of historical linguistics include: # to describe and account for observed changes in particular languages # to reconstruct the pre-history of languages and to determine their relatedness, grouping them into language families (comparative linguistics) # to develop general theories about how and why language changes # to describe the history of speech communities # to study the history of words, i.e. etymology Historical linguistics is founded on the Uniformitarian Principle, which is defined by linguist Donald Ringe as: History and development Western modern historical linguistics dates from the late-18th century. It grew out of the earlier discipline of philology, the study of ancient texts and documents dating back to antiquity. At first, historical linguistics served as the cornerstone of comparative linguistics, primarily as a tool f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cross-sectional Studies
In medical research, social science, and biology, a cross-sectional study (also known as a cross-sectional analysis, transverse study, prevalence study) is a type of observational study that analyzes data from a population, or a representative subset, ''at a specific point in time''—that is, cross-sectional data. In economics, cross-sectional studies typically involve the use of cross-sectional regression, in order to sort out the existence and magnitude of causal effects of one independent variable upon a dependent variable of interest at a given point in time. They differ from time series analysis, in which the behavior of one or more economic aggregates is traced through time. In medical research, cross-sectional studies differ from case-control studies in that they aim to provide data on the entire population under study, whereas case-control studies typically include only individuals who have developed a specific condition and compare them with a matched sample, ofte ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Age-graded Variation
In linguistics, age-graded variation is differences in speech habits within a community that are associated with age. Age-grading occurs when individuals change their linguistic behavior throughout their lifetimes, but the community as a whole does not change. Definition The term “age-grading” was first introduced by anthropologist/linguist Charles F. Hockett, but has been defined as it is used today by sociolinguist William Labov, who identified it as an individual linguistic change against a backdrop of community stability. Age-grading is not limited to changes at any one particular stage in life, but can be studied in the way that babies, adolescents, young adults speak, and the elderly speak.Trudgill, Peter. ''Sociolinguistics: An Introduction to Language and Society''. London: Penguin, 2000. Print. Age-grading involves the use of stable sociolinguistic variables, or features that are not currently undergoing any linguistic change. Linguistic features that are age-graded t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Variation (linguistics)
Variation is a characteristic of language: there is more than one way of saying the same thing. Speakers may vary pronunciation ( accent), word choice (lexicon), or morphology and syntax (sometimes called "grammar"). But while the diversity of variation is great, there seem to be boundaries on variation – speakers do not generally make drastic alterations in sentence word order or use novel sounds that are completely foreign to the language being spoken. Linguistic variation does not equate with language ungrammaticality, but speakers are still (often unconsciously) sensitive to what is and is not possible in their native lect. Variationists study how a language changes by observing it. This is accomplished by looking at authentic data. For example, variation is studied by looking at linguistic and social environments, then the data is analyzed as the change occurs. Variation in research programs must be malleable due to the nature of language itself. This is because language i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Labov
William Labov ( ; born December 4, 1927) is an American linguist widely regarded as the founder of the discipline of variationist sociolinguistics. He has been described as "an enormously original and influential figure who has created much of the methodology" of sociolinguistics. He is a professor emeritus in the linguistics department of the University of Pennsylvania and pursues research in sociolinguistics, language change, and dialectology. He retired in 2015 but continues to publish research. Biography Born in Rutherford, New Jersey, Labov majored in English and philosophy and studied chemistry at Harvard (1948). He worked as an industrial chemist in his family’s business (1949–61) before turning to linguistics. For his MA thesis (1963) he completed a study of change in the dialect of Martha's Vineyard, which he presented before the Linguistic Society of America. Labov took his PhD (1964) at Columbia University studying under Uriel Weinreich. He was an assistant profes ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Martha's Vineyard
Martha's Vineyard, often simply called the Vineyard, is an island in the Northeastern United States, located south of Cape Cod in Dukes County, Massachusetts, known for being a popular, affluent summer colony. Martha's Vineyard includes the smaller adjacent Chappaquiddick Island, which is usually connected to the Vineyard. The two islands have sometimes been separated by storms and hurricanes, which last occurred from 2007 to 2015. It is the 58th largest island in the U.S., with a land area of about , and the third-largest on the East Coast, after Long Island and Mount Desert Island. Martha's Vineyard constitutes the bulk of Dukes County, which also includes the Elizabeth Islands and the island of Nomans Land (Massachusetts), Nomans Land. The Vineyard was home to one of the earliest known deaf communities in the United States; consequently, a sign language, the Martha's Vineyard Sign Language, emerged on the island among both deaf and hearing islanders. The 2010 census report ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jack Chambers (linguist)
J. K. "Jack" Chambers (born 12 July 1938 in Grimsby, Ontario) is a Canadian linguist, and a well-known expert on language variation and change, who has played an important role in research on Canadian English since the 1980s; he has coined the terms "Canadian Raising" and "Canadian Dainty", the latter used for Canadian speech that mimics the British, popular till the mid-20th century. He has been a professor of linguistics at the University of Toronto since receiving his a Ph.D. from the University of Alberta in 1970. He has also been a visiting professor at many universities worldwide, including Hong Kong University, University of Szeged, Hungary, University of Kiel in Germany, Canterbury University in New Zealand, the University of Reading and the University of York in the UK. He is the author of the website Dialect Topography, which compiles information about dialectal variation in the Golden Horseshoe region of Ontario, Canada. Chambers has also written extensively on jazz ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Language Change
Language change is variation over time in a language's features. It is studied in several subfields of linguistics: historical linguistics, sociolinguistics, and evolutionary linguistics. Traditional theories of historical linguistics identify three main types of change: systematic change in the pronunciation of phonemes, or sound change; borrowing, in which features of a language or dialect are altered as a result of influence from another language or dialect; and analogical change, in which the shape or grammatical behavior of a word is altered to more closely resemble that of another word. All living languages are continually undergoing change. Some commentators use derogatory labels such as "corruption" to suggest that language change constitutes a degradation in the quality of a language, especially when the change originates from human error or is a prescriptively discouraged usage. Modern linguistics rejects this concept, since from a scientific point of view such inn ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Age-graded Variation
In linguistics, age-graded variation is differences in speech habits within a community that are associated with age. Age-grading occurs when individuals change their linguistic behavior throughout their lifetimes, but the community as a whole does not change. Definition The term “age-grading” was first introduced by anthropologist/linguist Charles F. Hockett, but has been defined as it is used today by sociolinguist William Labov, who identified it as an individual linguistic change against a backdrop of community stability. Age-grading is not limited to changes at any one particular stage in life, but can be studied in the way that babies, adolescents, young adults speak, and the elderly speak.Trudgill, Peter. ''Sociolinguistics: An Introduction to Language and Society''. London: Penguin, 2000. Print. Age-grading involves the use of stable sociolinguistic variables, or features that are not currently undergoing any linguistic change. Linguistic features that are age-graded t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Diachronic
Synchrony and diachrony are two complementary viewpoints in linguistic analysis. A ''synchronic'' approach (from grc, συν- "together" and "time") considers a language at a moment in time without taking its history into account. Synchronic linguistics aims at describing a language at a specific point of time, often the present. In contrast, a ''diachronic'' (from "through" and "time") approach, as in historical linguistics, considers the development and evolution of a language through history. For example, the study of Middle English—when the subject is temporally limited to a sufficiently homogenous form—is synchronic focusing on understanding how a given stage in the history of English functions as a whole. The diachronic approach, by contrast, studies language change by comparing the different stages. The terms synchrony and diachrony are often associated with historical linguist Ferdinand de Saussure, who considered the synchronic perspective as systematic but arg ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
