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The varying influence of social and linguistic factors on language stability and change: The case of Eskilstuna

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 April 2009

Eva Sundgren
Eva Sundgren
Affiliation:
Mälardalen University
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Abstract

Continuity and Change in Present-Day Swedish: Eskilstuna Revisited is a large-scale study of language change in real time. In this article, the focus is on the results of a trend study and the analysis of how extralinguistic and linguistic factors influence how language varies and changes.

The empirical material consists of informal conversationlike interviews, in which seven morphological and morphophonological variables have been analyzed in terms of the traditional extralinguistic factors of social group, gender, and age, as well as in terms of social networks. These morpho(phono)logical variables are sociolinguistically marked and have been hypothesized to show a process of more or less rapid change from regional dialect toward spoken standard. The rate of change at the level of the community has been slow, however. Comparisons between the influence of extralinguistic and linguistic factors indicate that social forces are more influential than linguistic ones.

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Type
Research Article
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Language Variation and Change , Volume 21 , Issue 1 , March 2009 , pp. 97 - 133
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2009

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