Principles of Linguistic Change, Volume 3 Vol. III: Cognitive and Cultural Factors

Written by the world-renowned pioneer in the field of modern sociolinguistics, this volume examines the cognitive and cultural factors responsible for linguistic change, tracing the life history of these developments, from triggering events to driving forces and endpoints.Explores the major insights obtained by combining sociolinguistics with the results of dialect geography on a large scaleExamines the cognitive and cultural influences responsible for linguistic changeDemonstrates under what conditions dialects diverge from one anotherEstablishes an essential distinction between transmission within the community and diffusion across communitiesCompletes Labovs seminal Principles of Linguistic Change trilogy Principles of Linguistic Change 5 Contents 9 List of Figures 14 List of Tables 23 Foreword 26 Preface 28 Abbreviations 29 1 Introduction to Cognitive and Cultural Factors in Linguistic Change 31 1.1 Cognitive Factors 31 1.2 Cultural Factors in Linguistic Change 32 1.3 Convergence and Divergence 34 1.4 The Darwinian Paradox Revisited 36 1.5 Divergence and the Central Dogma 37 1.6 The Community Orientation of Language Learning 38 1.7 The Argument of this Volume 40 1.8 The English Vowel System and the Major Chain Shifts of North American English 41 Part A Cross-Dialectal Comprehension 49 2 Natural Misunderstandings 51 2.1 The Collection of Natural Misunderstandings 52 2.2 Modes of Correction 53 2.3 How Common Are Misunderstandings? 56 2.4 What Is the Role of Sound Change in Misunderstanding? 57 2.5 The Linguistic Focus of the Misunderstandings 58 2.6 The Effect of Mergers 63 2.7 Chain Shifts 67 2.8 Philadelphia Sound Changes 70 2.9 r-less vs r-ful Dialects 74 2.10 Sound Changes General to North America 75 2.11 An Overview of Natural Misunderstandings 76 3 A Controlled Experiment on Vowel Identification 78 3.1 The Peterson–Barney Experiment 79 3.2 Replicating the Peterson–Barney Experiment 79 3.3 Overall Success in Identification 82 3.4 Responses to the Chicago Speakers 82 3.5 Responses to the Birmingham Speakers 84 3.6 Responses to the Philadelphia Speakers 86 3.7 Overview 87 4 The Gating Experiments 89 4.1 Construction of the Gating Experiments 89 4.2 Overall Responses to the Gating Experiments 90 4.3 Comprehension of the Northern Cities Shift in Chicago 94 4.4 Recognition of Chicago Sound Changes in the Word Context 99 4.5 The Effect of Lexical Equivalence 101 4.6 Comprehension of Southern Sound Changes in Birmingham 102 4.7 Comprehension of Philadelphia Sound Changes 107 4.8 Overview of the Gating Experiments 113 Part B The Life History of Linguistic Change 117 5 Triggering Events 119 5.1 Bends in the Chain of Causality 120 5.2 Causes of the Canadian Shift 123 5.3 Causes of the Pittsburgh Shift 126 5.4 Causes of the Low Back Merger 129 5.5 The Fronting of /uw/ 133 5.6 The Northern Cities Shift 141 5.7 An Overview of Triggering Events 148 6 Governing Principles 150 6.1 The Constraints Problem 150 6.2 The (Ir)Reversibility of Mergers 151 6.3 The Geographic Expansion of Mergers in North America 160 6.4 Principles Governing Chain Shifts 170 6.5 Principles Governing Chain Shifting within Subsystems 175 6.6 How Well Do Governing Principles Govern? 182 7 Forks in the Road 185 7.1 The Concept of Forks in the Road 185 7.2 The Two-Stage Model of Dialect Divergence 186 7.3 The Fronting and Backing of Short a 187 7.4 Divergent Development of the /o/ ~ /oh/ Opposition 191 8 Divergence 195 8.1 Continuous and Discrete Boundaries 195 8.2 The North/Midland Boundary 196 8.3 Communication across the North/Midland Boundary 200 8.4 The Two-Step Mechanism of Divergence 202 8.5 Unidirectional Change: The Low Back Merger 203 8.6 Consequences of the Low Back Merger for the English Vowel System 204 8.7 Resistance to the Low Back Merger 205 8.8 Further Differentiation by Chain Shifts 210 8.9 A General View of Linguistic Divergence in North America 212 9 Driving Forces 214 9.1 The Importation of Norms 215 9.2 Locality 215 9.3 Social Networks and Communities of Practice 216 9.4 Socioeconomic Classes 220 9.5 Acts of Identity 223 9.6 The Relation of Social Classes in Apparent Time 225 9.7 Gender as a Social Force 227 9.8 The Regional Dialect 232 9.9 Accounting for the Uniform Progress of the Northern Cities Shift 234 10 Yankee Cultural Imperialism and the Northern Cities Shift 238 10.1 The North/Midland Boundary 238 10.2 The History of the North/Midland Boundary 241 10.3 The Material Basis of the North/Midland Opposition 244 10.4 The Cultural Opposition of Yankees and Upland Southerners 246 10.5 Coincidence with Geographic Boundaries of Political Cultures 248 10.6 Red States, Blue States, and the Northern Dialect Region 251 10.7 Relation of Dialects to County Voting Patterns 252 10.8 The History of the Death Penalty 255 10.9 Ideological Oppositions in the North 257 10.10 The Geographic Transformation 261 11 Social Evaluation of the Northern Cities Shift 266 11.1 The North/Midland Experiment 1 267 11.2 Conclusion 274 12 Endpoints 275 12.1 Skewness as an Index of Approach to Endpoint 276 12.2 Social Characteristics of Endpoints 279 12.3 The Eckert Progression as the Product of Re-Analysis by Language Learners 284 Part C The Unit of Linguistic Change 287 13 Words Floating on the Surface of Sound Change 289 13.1 The Issues Reviewed 290 13.2 The Fronting of /uw/ 291 13.3 The Fronting of /ow/ 298 13.4 Homonyms 303 13.5 The Raising and Fronting of /æ/ in the Inland North 304 13.6 Overview 307 13.7 Participation in Sound Change 307 13.8 The Modular Separation of Phonological and Social Factors 312 13.9 Conclusion 315 14 The Binding Force in Segmental Phonology 317 14.1 Is There Allophonic Chain Shifting before Nasals? 322 14.2 Allophonic Chain Shifting in the Southern Shift? 325 14.3 The Binding Force 331 Part D Transmission and Diffusion 333 15 The Diffusion of Language from Place to Place 335 15.1 Family-Tree and Wave Models of Change 335 15.2 Defining Transmission and Diffusion 337 15.3 Structural Diffusion 340 15.4 Accounting for the Difference between Transmission and Diffusion 341 15.5 Diffusion in Dialect Geography 341 15.6 The Diffusion of the NYC Short-a System 346 15.7 The Transmission and Diffusion of Mergers and Splits 364 15.8 Diffusion of the Northern Cities Shift 366 15.9 The Social Context of Transmission and Diffusion 374 15.10 Prospectus 377 16 The Diffusion of Language from Group to Group 378 16.1 Diffusion to the AAVE Community 378 16.2 Influence of Surrounding Dialects on AAVE Pronunciation 379 16.3 The Diffusion of Constraints on -t, d Deletion to Children in Minority Communities 383 16.4 The Diffusion of Grammatical Variables to Adult Members of the African–American Community 390 16.5 Directions of Diffusion in the Latino Community 393 16.6 The Nature of Diffusion across Communal Boundaries 395 17 Conclusion 397 17.1 Summary of the Argument 397 17.2 The Relation of Linguistic Change to Animal Systems of Communication 399 17.3 More on the Functions of Language 401 17.4 Social Intelligence and Object-Oriented Intelligence 403 Notes 406 References 424 Index 443 1405112158,9781405112154 Wiley-Blackwell

This third and final volume of the Principles of Linguistic Change set examines the cognitive and cultural causes responsible for linguistic change, and traces the history of these developments, from triggering events to driving forces and endpoints.

Labov draws upon the newly completed Atlas of North American English to look more deeply into questions of linguistic change, focusing on the cognitive factors that determine the capacity of the linguistic system to transmit information, and exploring social influences in the development of large-scale cultural patterns. The third volume also deals with the diffusion of change across dialect boundaries, and across racial and ethnic groups.

It establishes an essential distinction between transmission within the community, which is dependent on child language acquisition, and diffusion across communities, which is dependent on adult learning.

This final installment in the Principles of Linguistic Change series builds upon the foundations established by the groundbreaking first two volumes. Volume 1 investigates the internal factors that control change, examining the regularity of sound change and reviewing the evidence for functional explanations of linguistic change. Volume 2 follows by presenting the social factors governing linguistic change and proposed models for the transmission and incrementation of change. Written by the pioneering researcher of sociolinguistic inquiry, Principles of Linguistic Change is an essential resource for researchers, scholars and students in the field.