In recent years the label Language variation and change has come in linguistics to refer to research into variation and small changes in language use and how these can lead to major changes in societies over time. As such, the concerns are those of sociolinguistics but with a somewhat wider scope and including developments in language – in this case in the English language – over the past few centuries. This means that language variation and change tries to harmonise the two Saussurian opposites of synchrony and diachrony and arrive at a unified treatment of the dynamism inherent in every language.
The concern of this lecture series will be with changes in English in recent history and across the various parts of the world where English is spoken. In particular changes in vernacular language will be considered, i.e. not the development of the standard is the concern but the growth and spread of colloquial forms of English.
The following sources can be consulted for this course
Auer, Peter, Frans Hinskens and Paul Kerswill (eds) 2005. Dialect Change. Convergence and Divergence in European Languages. Cambridge: University Press.
Britain, David (ed.) Language in the British Isles. 2nd edition. Cambridge: University Press.
Chambers, J. K. and Natalie Schilling-Estes (eds) 2013. The Handbook of Language Variation and Change. Second edition. Malden, MA: Blackwell.
Eckert, Penelope and John R. Rickford (eds) 2002. Style and Sociolinguistic Variation. Cambridge: University Press.
Lippi-Green, Rosina 1997. English with an Accent. Language, Ideology and Discrimination in the United States. London: Routledge.
Mugglestone, Lynda 2003. ‘Talking Proper’. The Rise of Accent as Social Symbol. 2nd edition. Oxford: University Press.
Journal:
Language Variation and Change, Cambridge: University Press. |
