Routledge Dictionary of Language and Linguistics
In sociolinguistics, descriptive approaches that presume the systematically ordered heterogeneity of natural languages. Such linguistic variants result from (a) spatial differences (
dialect), (b) class-specific linguistic behavior, (c) situative factors (e.g. formal vs informal conversational contexts), (d) stages of language acquisition, (e) language contact, and (f) the origin and development of pidgin and creole languages. In all cases phonological, morphological, syntactic, lexical, and pragmatic traits of linguistic behavior vary with regard to extralinguistic factors. Concerning the empirical investigation and the theoretical description of linguistic variations, two recent methodological positions can be differentiated: first, the concept of quantitatively determinable variable rules (see Labov, Cedergren and Sankoff); and second, the approach of implicational analysis (see DeCamp, Bailey, Bickerton). Besides the description of linguistic variety, variational linguistics is concerned with the problems of the origin and quantification of linguistic varieties in relation to extralinguistic factors, above all with certain aspects of applied linguistics such as linguistic norms, language acquisition, and language contact.
References
Bailey, C.-J.N. 1973. Variation and linguistic theory. Arlington, VA.
Biber, D. 1991. Variation across speech and writing. Cambridge.
Bickerton, D. 1971. Inherent variability and variable rules. FL 7. 457–92.
Cedergren, N.J. and D.Sankoff. 1974. Variable rules: performance as a statistical reflection of competence. Lg 50. 333–55.
Decamp, D. 1971. Implicational scales and sociolinguistic linearity. Linguistics 73. 30–43.
Fasold, R.W. (ed.) 1983. Variation in the form and use of language. Washington, DC.
——1985. Perspectives on sociolinguistic variation. LSoc 14. 515–25.
——1990. The sociolinguistics of change. Oxford.
Fasold, R.W. and D.Schiffrin (eds) 1989.
Language change and variation. Amsterdam.
Fasold, R.W. and R.W.Shuy (eds) 1975. Analyzing variation in language: papers from the second colloquium on New Ways of Analyzing Variation, 1973. Washington, DC.
——1977. Studies in language variation: semantics, syntax, phonology, pragmatics, social situations, ethnographic approaches. Washington, DC.
Labov, W. 1969. Contraction, deletion and inherent variability of the English copula. Language 45. 715–62.
——1972. Sociolinguistic patterns. Philadelphia, PA.
Lieb, H.-H. 1993. Linguistic variables: towards a unified theory of linguistic variation. Amsterdam and Philadelphia, PA.
O’Donnell, W.R. and L.Todd. 1980. Variety in contemporary English. London.
Quirke, R. 1995. Grammatical and lexical variance in English. London.
Romaine, S. 1982. Socio-historical linguistics: its status and methodology. Cambridge.
Sankoff, D. (ed.) 1978. Linguistic variation: models and methods. New York.
——(ed.) 1986. Diversity and diachrony. Amsterdam.
——1988a. Variable rules. In U.Ammon et al. (eds), Sociolinguistics: an international handbook of the science of language and society. Berlin and New York. Vol. 2, 984–97.
——1988b. Sociolinguistics and syntactic variation. In F.Newmeyer (ed.), Linguistics: The Cambridge survey. Cambridge. 140–61.
Sankoff, D. and H.Cedergren (eds) 1981. Variation omnibus. Edmonton.
Journals
Language Variation and Change.
implicational analysis, variable rule
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