Paul Kerswill

Creating a new town koine : children and language change in Milton Keynes.

Koineization ‐ the development of a new, mixed variety following dialect contact ‐ has well-documented outcomes. However, there have been few studies of the phenomenon actually in progress. This article describes the development of a new variety in the English New Town of Milton Keynes, designated in 1967. The article is structured around eight “principles” that relate the process of koineization to its outcomes. Recordings were made of 48 Milton Keynes-born children in three age groups (4, 8, and 12), the principal caregiver of each child, and several elderly locally born residents. Quantitative analysis of ten phonetic variables suggests that substantial but not complete focusing occurs in the child generation. The lack of linguistic continuity in the New Town is demonstrated, and the time scale of koineization there is discussed. Finally, it is shown that demography and the socialnetwork characteristics of individuals are crucial to the outcomes of koineization. (Language change, language variation, dialect contact, koineization, English dialects, child language, New Towns.)* It has long been recognized that many types of change affecting the language of a community diffuse gradually across geographical space and through human populations. However, they do not do so automatically and mechanically; there is a social and geographical orderliness about the spread that suggests the presence of what Labov (1972:162) calls “social embedding.” In other words, the spread of a change mirrors certain aspects of social structure. However, as many sociolinguists now realize, we need to go to the individual to understand the behavior that leads to the adoption or rejection of potential changes. As J. Milroy 1992 points out, it is speakers who both innovate and adopt. If this is true, the propagation of change must be a direct consequence of the interaction between individuals ‐ mediated, of course, by numerous social, social-psychological, and psycholinguistic factors that affect those individuals in a particular encounter. Viewed from this standpoint, the vast majority of interactions involve language contact ‐ or, within a single language community, dialect contact, where the latter is defined as the contact Language in Society29, 65‐115. Printed in the United States of America

Children, adolescents, and language change

The article models the spread of linguistic change by taking precise account of the ages of the acquirers and transmitters of change. Several studies, some original, are reviewed in order to address the following questions: “What types of linguistic feature can an individual acquire at different ages?” “How much influence do people of different ages exert on the speech of other individuals?” The article is organized around three key interlocutor combinations: parent-infant/young child, peer group-preadolescent, and older adolescent/adult-adolescent. The studies suggest that borrowings are the easiest to acquire, while lexically unpredictable phonological changes are the most difficult. In between are Neogrammarian changes and morphologically conditioned features. The age of the speaker is critical; only the youngest children acquire the “hardest” features. However, adolescents may be the most influential transmitters of change. A difficulty hierarchy for the acquisition of second dialect features is then presented; it is suggested that this predicts the nature of linguistic change found under different sociolinguistic conditions. The approach presented here allows for a more detailed understanding of the spread of linguistic change.

New towns and koineization: linguistic and social correlates*

Abstract The establishment of new towns in the twentieth century in many parts of the world is a test bed of koineization, the type of language change that takes place when speakers of different, but mutually intelligible language varieties come together, and which may lead to new dialect or koine formation. This article presents the case of Milton Keynes, an English new town designated in 1967. Our study investigated the speech of a sample of 48 working-class children divided into three age groups: four, eight, and twelve years of age, along with one caregiver for each. We hypothesize that the formation of a new dialect is in the gift of older children. We also hypothesize that dialect leveling, which is part of koineization, will be more rapid in a new town than in an old-established town. Detailed quantitative results for four vowels strongly support these hypotheses. At the same time, we investigate the social network types contracted by new town residents. We found many to be socially isolated locally, but that they maintained contacts with their place of origin. We show that migrants violate what the Milroys argue to be the normal inverse relationship between socioeconomic class and social network density: migrants have uniplex networks, while still having a low socioeconomic status. The consequences for dialect change are considered.

Reversing “drift” : Innovation and diffusion in the London diphthong system.

This study contributes to innovation and diffusion models by examining phonetic changes in London English. It evaluates Sapir’s notion of “drift,” which involves “natural,” unconscious change, in relation to these changes. Investigating parallel developments in two related varieties of English enables drift to be tested in terms of the effect of extralinguistic factors. The diphthongs of PRICE, MOUTH, FACE, and GOAT in both London and New Zealand English are characterized by “Diphthong Shift,” a process that continued unabated in New Zealand. A new, large data set of London speech shows Diphthong Shift reversal, providing counterevidence for drift. We discuss Diphthong Shift and its “reversal” in relation to innovation, diffusion, leveling, and supralocalization, arguing that sociolinguistic factors and dialect contact override natural Diphthong Shift. Studying dialect change in a metropolis, with its large and linguistically innovative minority ethnic population, is of the utmost importance in understanding the dynamics of change.

Dialect change : convergence and divergence in European languages

List of maps List of figures List of contributors Preface Map 1. The study of dialect convergence and divergence: conceptual and methodological considerations F. Hinskens, P. Auer and P. Kerswill Part I. Convergence, Divergence and Linguistic Structure: 2. Internal and external factors in phonological convergence: the case of English /t/ lenition J. Kallen 3. Dialect/standard convergence, mixing and models of language contact: the case of Italy G. Berruto 4. Convergence and divergence in grammar L. Cornips and K. Corrigan 5. Phonology, grammar and discourse in dialect convergence J. Cheshire, P. Kerswill and A. Williams Part II. Macrosociolinguistic Motivations of Convergence and Divergence: 6. Processes of standardisation in Scandinavia I. L. Pedersen 7. The birth of new dialects P. Kerswill and P. Trudgill 8. Dialect convergence in the German language islands P. Rosenberg 9. Political borders and dialect divergence/convergence in Europe C. Woolhiser 10. The influence of urban centres on the spatial diffusion of dialect phenomena J. Taeldeman Part III. Microsociolinguistic Motivations: 11. Subjective factors in dialect convergence and divergence T. Kristiansen and J. Jorgensen 12. How similar are people who speak alike? An interpretive way of using social networks in social dialectology research J. A. Villena-Ponsoda 13. The role of interpersonal accommodation in a theory of language change P. Auer and F. Hinskens References Index.

The study of dialect convergence and divergence: conceptual and methodological considerations.

Introduction Dialect change can have several different manifestations. Among these, dialect convergence (dc) and dialect divergence (dd) noticeably affect the relationships between related dialects. Dc and dd have probably been present for as long as dialects have existed. Various historical developments, including the ‘modernisation’ of society, have left their mark on the very nature of dialects and have partly changed the dynamics of dc and dd; moreover, they have broadened them to dialect – standard language convergence. This chapter sets the stage for the various aspects of the study of dc and dd presented in this book, in that it both provides a general introduction and constitutes a springboard for the discussion of the themes and approaches which play a role in the individual chapters. As an introduction, the chapter presents the central terminology (section 2), provides the background information necessary for the interested non-specialist (section 3), sketches what we see as the main research methods (section 4), and binds together the issues featured in the various chapters (section 5). Definitions of the Key Concepts We will use the notion of ‘dialect’ to refer to a language variety which is used in a geographically limited part of a language area in which it is ‘roofed’ by a structurally related standard variety; a dialect typically displays structural peculiarities in several language components (cf. Chambers and Trudgill 1998: 5), though some of the authors in this book deal mainly with phonetic (or ‘accent’) features.

The validity of phonetic transcription: Limitations of a sociolinguistic research tool

Auditory phonetic transcription is a stock-in-trade of sociolinguists; it is transcriptions, not actual speech, that form the raw data of much of sociolinguistics. Given its importance, it is surprising that phonetic transcription has rarely been examined by sociolinguists from the point of view of its validity and its reliability — despite the existence of a certain amount of discussion in the phonetic literature. Rather, it has been treated as a pretheoretical notion. In this article, we report an experiment that compares the auditory transcriptions of trained phoneticians with physiological data on the same utterances, using the technique of electropalatography . The experiment shows that (a) there are intervening factors of a psycho-acoustic nature that impinge on a phoneticians transcription, thus affecting validity; and (b) there is considerable inconsistency, both between phoneticians and between a single phoneticians different attempts at transcribing the same token. Both of these latter factors show that a high degree of reliability cannot be assumed.

Electropalatography in the analysis of connected speech processes

The paper reports an articulatory and perceptual study of a connected speech process, the assimilation of a final alveolar to a following velar or bilabial. Our EPG investigations show that this assimilatory process is gradual in articulatory terms, not discrete, as assumed in most phonological theories. The main question considered is that of the perceptual correlates of this articulatory gradualness. An experiment was devised in which phonetically trained listeners were asked (a) to identify a word followed in a carrier phrase by a velar or a bilabial as having an (underlying) final alveolar or a final velar or bilabial, and (b) to characterize the degree to which words identified as having an alveolar are assimilated to the following velar or bilabial. Results suggest (I) that there is no discrete perceptual boundary between the various types of articulation (including the underlying velars/bilabials) presented on the tape; and (2) there is some evidence that assimilations may never be ‘complete’, but ...

The birth of new dialects.

New Dialects as Heightened Dialect Convergence: Research Issues Introduction New-dialect formation, as conceptualised by Trudgill and others (e.g. Britain and Trudgill 1999; Trudgill 2004), refers to the emergence of distinctive, new language varieties following the migration of people speaking mutually intelligible dialects to what, to all intents and purposes, is linguistically ‘virgin’ territory. As such, it is an extreme, and often very rapid, form of dialect convergence. Examples probably abound in world history, but only a few have been described in detail. There seem to be two main scenarios in which new-dialect formation takes place: the settlement of a relatively large territory, either previously uninhabited or in which a previous population is ousted or assimilated; and the formation of a new town in a geographically delimited area in which relatively intense interpersonal communication can take place. Examples of the former are the settlement of New Zealand largely by English speakers in the nineteenth century, and the transport of indentured labourers from the Hindi-speaking areas of the Indian subcontinent to Fiji, Mauritius, Trinidad, and South Africa, also in the nineteenth century. Examples of the latter are the establishment of the Norwegian towns of Hoyanger, Odda, and Tyssedal, and the English town of Milton Keynes. In this chapter, we start by outlining the processes and stages found in new-dialect formation. Then we review the sociolinguistic histories of a number of new dialects – or immigrant koines (Siegel 1985: 364; Kerswill 2002a) as they are also known.

Contact is not enough: A response to Trudgill

There is much that any sociolinguist would agree with in Peter Trudgills essay. It is written in his usual lucid style, and supported by a wealth of detail, reflecting his extensive knowledge, research, and scholarly expertise. However, it is stimulatingly provocative on the issue of why particular variants win out in dialect contact situations. Our response falls into two sections: (i) the identity issue, and (ii) the New Zealand situation.