The evaluative component in linguistic change and variation

University Of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia PA

Investigators

Abstract

Studies of language learning have shown that children reproduce their parents' language with great accuracy, including the frequency of such variable pronunciations as working vs.workin'. Once past adolescence, people lose much of their ability to learn rapidly and accurately, but gain in an understanding of the social significance of variation. With National Science Foundation support, Dr. William Labov will direct a research project designed to study experimentally the ability of speakers of different age, gender and ethnicity to recognize and respond to the natural variation that native speakers produce. The research team, including Dr. Sharon Ash (University of Pennsylvania), Dr. Naomi Nagy (University of New Hampshire) , and Dr. Tracy Weldon (University of South Carolina), will conduct experiments in three cities: Boston, Philadelphia, and Columbia, South Carolina, using both local and national linguistic variables. In the second year, the project will gather data from students in middle school, high school and college, African-American and Euro-American, in all three cities. Earlier research has shown that language change is continuing in almost all American cities despite the standardizing effect of the mass media, and that divergence is increasing, in both regional and racial dialects. The project will explore the social motivation of this continued change. It will also throw light on the "critical period" for language learning, and the ability of adults to change their use of language or learn new ones