Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
  1. Home
  2. Search

Refine search

Refine search

Access:
Content type:
Publication date:
Apply   From and To filters
Subject: Show more
Journals Show more
Publishers: Show more
Societies Show more
Series: Show more
Collections: Show more

Actions for selected content:

Select all | Deselect all
  • View selected items
  • Export citations
  • Download PDF (zip)
  • Save to Kindle
  • Save to Dropbox
  • Save to Google Drive

Save Search

You can save your searches here and later view and run them again in "My saved searches".

Please provide a title, maximum of 40 characters.
Cancel
×

3 results

  • 2 - The Analysis of Sociolinguistic Change over the Lifespan

  • Mary Kohn, Kansas State University, Walt Wolfram, North Carolina State University, Charlie Farrington, University of Oregon, Jennifer Renn, Purdue University, Indiana, Janneke Van Hofwegen
  • Book:
    African American Language
    Published online:
    24 November 2020
    Print publication:
    03 December 2020, pp 22-45

  • Summary

    The approach to language variation developed over the last half century has focused on systematic variation of variants for a single structural unit under the construct of the linguistic variable. While this approach may offer important detail for particular variables, it is essential to examine the overall configuration of a language variety as well. Composite linguistic measures facilitate the exploration of social factors and offer a profile of change for the entire linguistic system. We describe the methodological tools to provide a global description of language variation, “the composite index”, and to fully capture when and why individuals change their linguistic behavior over time. We emphasize the need to view language as a system by moving beyond individual variables to more fully characterize the ways in which individual linguistic features move in-tandem across the lifespan. The study demonstrates that a composite index score like the Dialect Density Measure (DDM) can be used as a means of tracking trajectories of language use across the lifespan on a unidimensional scale.

African American Language
  • Language development from Infancy to Adulthood
  • Mary Kohn, Walt Wolfram, Charlie Farrington, Jennifer Renn, Janneke Van Hofwegen
  • Published online:
    24 November 2020
    Print publication:
    03 December 2020
  • From birth to early adulthood, all aspects of a child's life undergo enormous development and change, and language is no exception. This book documents the results of a pioneering longitudinal linguistic survey, which followed a cohort of sixty-seven African American children over the first twenty years of life, to examine language development through childhood. It offers the first opportunity to hear what it sounds like to grow up linguistically for a cohort of African American speakers, and provides fascinating insights into key linguistics issues, such as how physical growth influences pronunciation, how social factors influence language change, and the extent to which individuals modify their language use over time. By providing a lens into some of the most foundational questions about coming of age in African American Language, this study has implications for a wide range of disciplines, from speech pathology and education, to research on language acquisition and sociolinguistics.

  • The Canadian Shift in Toronto

  • Rebecca Roeder, Lidia-Gabriela Jarmasz
  • Journal:
    Canadian Journal of Linguistics/Revue canadienne de linguistique / Volume 55 / Issue 3 / November 2010
    Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    27 June 2016, pp. 387-404

  • This study provides the first wide-scale, apparent time, instrumental description of the Canadian Shift in mainstream Toronto English. In contrast with some previous findings, the Toronto data suggest that for the last 70 years or more the shift has not affected the high front lax vowel (i). We observe that the movement of the nonhigh front lax vowels (ε) and (æ) involves both lowering and retraction in Toronto English, although retraction is the primary direction of more recent change and the shift appears to be slowing down. Our findings also suggest that continued retraction of the vowel resulting from the low back merger is involved in the final stage of the shift. We do not find evidence of a chain shift but instead propose that a parallel shift is occurring and make reference to Vowel Dispersion Theory in our discussion.