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Variation is an essential component of language change. This is because language change is gradual; a language does not shift from one state to another instantaneously, but old and new linguistic features coexist for a period of time in variation with each other, as new variants gradually increase in frequency and old variants decline.
Language change is the process of alteration in the features of a single language, or of languages in general, over time. It is studied in several subfields of linguistics : historical linguistics , sociolinguistics , and evolutionary linguistics .
Real-time sociolinguistics is a sociolinguistic research method concerned with observing linguistic variation and change in progress via longitudinal studies.Real-time studies track linguistic variables over time by collecting data from a speech community at multiple points in a given period.
Also, the work of sociolinguists on linguistic variation has shown synchronic states are not uniform: the speech habits of older and younger speakers differ in ways that point to language change. Synchronic variation is linguistic change in progress. Synchronic and diachronic approaches can reach quite different conclusions.
This is commonly used among the African-American population in the United States. There are several different types of age-based variation one may see within a population as well such as age range, age-graded variation, and indications of linguistic change in progress. The use of slang can be a variation based on age.
The apparent-time hypothesis is a methodological construct in sociolinguistics whereby language change is studied by comparing the speech of individuals of different ages. If language change is taking place, the apparent-time hypothesis assumes that older generations will represent an earlier form of the language and that younger generations will represent a later form.
Therefore, in Saussure's view, language change (diachrony) does not form a system. By contrast, each synchronic stage is held together by a systemic equilibrium based on the interconnectedness of meaning and form. To understand why a language has the forms it has at a given stage, both the diachronic and the synchronic dimension must be considered.
In recent developments of stylistic variation analysis, scholars such as Allan Bell, Barbara Johnstone, and Natalie Schilling-Estes have been focusing on the initiative dimension of style-shifting, which occurs when speakers proactively choose between various linguistic resources (e.g. dialectal, archaic or vernacular forms) in order to present ...