Natalie Schilling-Estes

Alternative Models of Dialect Death: Dissipation vs. Concentration.

The comparison of the moribund dialects of Ocracoke Island, North Carolina, and Smith Island, Maryland, demonstrates that valuable insight into the patterning of variation and change in language death can be obtained by investigating moribund varieties of healthy languages. In addition, it is crucial to investigate not only cases of death by linguistic decay (DISSIPATION), but also cases of death by population attrition in which linguistic distinctiveness is maintained or heightened among fewer speakers (CONCENTRATION). The comparative investigation of both types of language death lends insight into the macrolevel socioeconomic and microlevel sociopsychological factors that lead to the maintenance or demise of moribund languages and language varieties, as well as the nature of change in language death. It is demonstrated that change in both concentrating and dissipating varieties is rapid but otherwise indistinct from change in healthy varieties and that unusual patterns of variation and change can be explained by appealing to the social significance of language features.

On the nature of isolated and post-isolated dialects: Innovation, variation and differentiation

The investigation of two historically isolated communities in the United States, Smith Island, Maryland, and the Lumbee Native American community in Robeson County, North Carolina, demonstrates that, contrary to assumption, isolated communities may be linguistically innovative and heterogeneous. Explanations are both cognitive and social. Speakers in isolated communities are not subject to the leveling pressure that comes with exposure to heterogeneous usage norms and so are free to retain intra-dialectal variation and carry through internal innovations. In addition, the close-knit networks that characterize isolated communities allow for the transmission of intricate patterns of intra-community variation, while the inward focus of such communities heightens the social semiotic importance of this variation. The present study also shows that as communities emerge from historic isolation, they do not necessarily succumb to leveling pressure. Instead, speakers’ desire to retain cultural distinctiveness may enable them to retain and even enhance their linguistic distinctiveness.

LANGUAGE CHANGE IN "CONSERVATIVE" DIALECTS: THE CASE OF PAST TENSE BE IN SOUTHERN ENCLAVE COMMUNITIES

�� edge the potential for independent, internal linguistic change in such language varieties, the role of innovation tends to be overlooked in favor of the relic assumption, namely, that dialect forms in peripheral dialects will remain relatively static and resistant to language innovation. Indeed, Andersen (1988) maintains that this assumption has led researchers to slight the role of system-internal innovations in language in peripheral communities in favor of explanations grounded in hypothetical (and often unlikely or even impossible) contact situations resulting in the diffusion of change from outside areas. Andersen notes, there are internally motivated innovations which arise independently of any external stimulus. These too have an areal dimension and may appear to spread merely because they arise in different places at different times. [54] Andersen not only admits the potential of internally motivated change but asserts that peripheral varieties existing in closed, concentrated communities actually may show more dramatic changes than those occurring in more mainstream varieties, including “exorbitant phonetic developments” (70). In this study, we compare the trajectory of language change for a single morphosyntactic feature—past tense be leveling—in a set of representative enclave communities in the mid-Atlantic South to examine its path of change over the past century and the general role of innovation in peripheral dialect communities. Though enclave dialect situations have always

Investigating intra-ethnic differentiation: /ay/ in Lumbee Native American English

This article demonstrates the importance of investigating language variation and change both within and across ethnic groups, especially those that have been relatively insular historically. The focus is on the variable patterning of /ay/ in the variety of English spoken by the Lumbee Indians in tri-ethnic Robeson County, North Carolina. (The Lumbee refer to themselves as “Indians” rather than “Native Americans”; I use their term when referring to their tribe.) The analysis reveals that the Lumbee have been surprisingly innovative and heterogeneous. Explanations are both linguistic and extralinguistic. Insular groups do not face linguistic pressure to level intra- and inter-community differences or to curb internal innovations. In addition, insular groups are often more concerned with intra- than inter-group relations and hence with intra-group social and linguistic distinctions. The study also shows a lessening of inter- and intra-group dialect differences with increased inter-group contact. However, the Lumbee still preserve a degree of dialectal distinctiveness, indicating that the need to preserve cultural uniqueness may outweigh linguistic pressure to level out differences.

American English Social Dialect Variation and Gender

Research on gender and social dialect variation in American English has seen enormous changes since the formative years of quantitative sociolinguistics, in the early 1960s. These changes have not occurred in isolation, of course, but have influenced and been influenced by developments in gender-based language variation across the globe, as well as developments in the broader research areas of language and gender (which encompasses discourse analysis as well as variation study) and gender studies. In what follows, I trace the development of the study of gender and social dialect variation in the United States, beginning with early survey studies in which gender was seen as biological given and as secondary to social class in its effects on language variation and change. I then discuss later studies based on more localized groups - in particular, social networks (as outlined, for example, in Milroy 1980). These studies led to the realization that gender could no longer be treated as a dichotomous variable, equivalent to biological sex, but had to be reconceptualized as a complex social construct, one every bit as important as social class