The Philadelphia study was a study designed to test the

Curvilinear principle In sociolinguistics, the curvilinear principle states that there is a tendency for linguistic change from below to originate from members of the central classes in a speech community's socioeconomic hierarchy, rather than from the outermost or ext ...

as referred to by William Labov, through careful gathering and analysis of

research Research is "creativity, creative and systematic work undertaken to increase the stock of knowledge". It involves the collection, organization and analysis of evidence to increase understanding of a topic, characterized by a particular att ...

on language variants in five

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

neighborhoods. His research goal was to "discover the social location of the innovators of

linguistic 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 ...

and therefore focuses on the embedding of individuals in their

neighborhood A neighbourhood (British English, Irish English, Australian English and Canadian English) or neighborhood (American English; see spelling differences) is a geographically localised community within a larger city, town, suburb or rural area, ...

".Ash, Sharon. "Social Class."" ''The Handbook of Language Variation and Change,'' 402-422. Malden, Mass: Blackwell.Labov, William. Principles of Linguistic Change, vol iii: Social Factors. Malden and Oxford: Blackwell. 2001.

Methods

To test his hypothesis, Labov identified

socially Social organisms, including human(s), live collectively in interacting populations. This interaction is considered social whether they are aware of it or not, and whether the exchange is voluntary or not. Etymology The word "social" derives from ...

and ethnically central groups by gathering information on five Philadelphia neighborhoods through

census A census is the procedure of systematically acquiring, recording and calculating information about the members of a given population. This term is used mostly in connection with national population and housing censuses; other common censuses incl ...

data and initial surveys. He selected particular blocks in each neighborhood as an initial research point using a specific set of criteria including full

occupancy Within the context of building construction and building codes, "occupancy" refers to the use, or intended use, of a building, or portion of a building, for the shelter or support of persons, animals or property. A closely related meaning is th ...

of dwellings, high levels of

interaction Interaction is action that occurs between two or more objects, with broad use in philosophy and the sciences. It may refer to: Science * Interaction hypothesis, a theory of second language acquisition * Interaction (statistics) * Interactions o ...

between people, and

public spaces A public space is a place that is open and accessible to the general public. Roads (including the pavement), public squares, parks, and beaches are typically considered public space. To a limited extent, government buildings which are open to ...

where interaction can occur. The field workers presented their research goals to the residents broadly and "without singling out language for specific attention" in the sociolinguistic interviews. The goals of these interviews were to gather social data on the residents, their block, and the neighborhood and analyze linguistic variants without facing the problem of the observer's paradox. That is, the field workers attempted to create an environment where the speaker would speak informally. To gauge each speaker's social position within the community, Labov created a socioeconomic status index based on

education Education is a purposeful activity directed at achieving certain aims, such as transmitting knowledge or fostering skills and character traits. These aims may include the development of understanding, rationality, kindness, and honesty. Va ...

and occupation, each ranked on levels from 0 to 6, where 6 was the highest level of education or occupation. He studied a series of "new and vigorous"

vowel A vowel is a syllabic speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness and also in quantity (leng ...

changes, including the fronting and raising of (aw) and (ey) and the centralization of (ey). He also studied the nearly completed changes involving (ow) and (aeh) and incipient changes such as the lowering of (e) and (ae).Labov, William. 1984 "Field methods of the Project on Linguistic Change and Variation." Language in Use. 43-70. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall. 1984.

Results

Labov discovered that incipient changes did not provide a strong

correlation In statistics, correlation or dependence is any statistical relationship, whether causal or not, between two random variables or bivariate data. Although in the broadest sense, "correlation" may indicate any type of association, in statistics ...

with age or

social class A social class is a grouping of people into a set of Dominance hierarchy, hierarchical social categories, the most common being the Upper class, upper, Middle class, middle and Working class, lower classes. Membership in a social class can for ...

because these variants were too early in their stages of development to display any social significance. The nearly completed and most advanced changes displayed the most stability within the study and showed intermediate correlation with the middle classes. The new and vigorous changes—the focal point of the study—displayed the strongest curvilinearity and most clearly encompassed the linguistically innovative nature of the inner classes. Through these Results, Labov asserted the truth and significance of what he named the Curvilinear Principle. With the social information gathered from the interviews, he discovered that it is not the education or occupation factors that drove the

middle class The middle class refers to a class of people in the middle of a social hierarchy, often defined by occupation, income, education, or social status. The term has historically been associated with modernity, capitalism and political debate. Commo ...

to spur linguistic change. Rather, it was the central location within their

communities A community is a Level of analysis, social unit (a group of living things) with commonality such as place (geography), place, Norm (social), norms, religion, values, Convention (norm), customs, or Identity (social science), identity. Communiti ...

—both socially and literally. They were not only central in the social hierarchy, but also in their local environments and interactions.

Other factors

Labov considered age as a factor in his research along with social class, occupation, and education. He discovered in the majority of vowel variables, adolescents aged 13–16 had the highest values of use of innovative forms. To eliminate

bias Bias is a disproportionate weight ''in favor of'' or ''against'' an idea or thing, usually in a way that is closed-minded, prejudicial, or unfair. Biases can be innate or learned. People may develop biases for or against an individual, a group, ...

and errors due to other social factors such as age, Labov created the Philadelphia telephone study to corroborate the curvilinear hypothesis.

Philadelphia telephone study

The

telephone A telephone is a telecommunications device that permits two or more users to conduct a conversation when they are too far apart to be easily heard directly. A telephone converts sound, typically and most efficiently the human voice, into e ...

study was designed as a means to cancel out any possible errors that may have occurred in the neighborhood study, including but not limited to errors in selecting neighborhood representatives, errors in choosing neighborhoods to represent Philadelphia class distribution, and errors involving the physical research equipment. The telephone survey was done through random sampling of Philadelphia phone numbers, and therefore eliminated the biases that occur with selection of neighborhoods and interviewees. Due to the nature of telephone interviews, there was a possibility of error from the quality of sound, but this error was not present in the neighborhood study. The findings of the telephone study were closely related to the findings of the neighborhood study, strengthening the curvilinear hypothesis and leading Labov to the creation of the principle.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Philadelphia Study Comparative linguistics Historical linguistics Linguistic research institutes Sociolinguistics