In sociolinguistics, the curvilinear principle states that there is a tendency for linguistic change from below to originate from members of the central classes in a speech community's socioeconomic hierarchy, rather than from the outermost or exterior classes. [1]
First proposed by William Labov, [2] the curvilinear principle departs from traditional nineteenth century notions that language change generally originates in the highest or lowest classes of society. Instead, it states that variant forms leading to language change are typically introduced and motivated by the intermediate groups—the upper-working class and lower-middle class. [1]
The principle can be seen as one response to an important question in sociolinguistics known as the embedding problem, a problem "concerned with determining regular patterns in both the linguistic and the extra-linguistic context of change." [3] In other words, the embedding problem seeks to identify other changes or factors that have a non-coincidental relationship with the actual linguistic change. [4] The curvilinear principle identifies such a non-trivial factor by proposing that a speaker's class can indicate the degree to which he or she motivates linguistic change.
The principle's name refers to the curvilinear correlation that results from plotting the variation of a linguistic variable with respect to the class of the speakers. Because the lowest and highest classes generally tend to use newly emerging forms less frequently than central classes, data points representing variable usage resemble a concave curve when connected on a graph.
In the Philadelphia study, William Labov examined a series of linguistic variables in various stages of speech integration in order to evaluate whether the interior classes were, in fact, the innovators of linguistic change. [1] In order to determine each speaker's social position within the community, Labov created a socioeconomic status index based on education and occupation, each ranked on levels from 0 to 6, where 6 was the highest level of education or occupation. He studied a series of "new and vigorous" vowel changes, including the fronting and raising of (aw) and (ey) and the centralization of (ay). [5] The research found that members of the upper working class and lower middle class used these variables more frequently than members of either the lower or upper class. This corroborated his curvilinear hypothesis because the middle classes were leading the use of these "new and vigorous" linguistic changes. [1]
In his study of Norwich, England, Peter Trudgill examined different cases of linguistic variation and whether or not class could be related to realizations of certain linguistic variables. One of the observed variables was the (RP) quality of vowels in words like top, hot, and dog. [6] To determine a subject's class, Trudgill calculated a score for each subject based on six parameters: subject's occupation, father's occupation, income, education, locality, and housing. [7] Trudgill found that middle-class women were introducing the RP vowels in Norwich; working-class men were also introducing variation by borrowing a similar vowel associated with working-class speech from a nearby area. [6] The distribution of linguistic variation in Trudgill's study thus abides by the curvilinear principle because members of the central classes led the change.
In 1966, Labov published a study on linguistic variation on the Lower East Side neighborhood of New York City. [8] In the study, he approximated each subject's class with score that factored in his or her occupation, income, and education. [7] Using these scores, Labov then grouped the subjects into 5 categories defined by sociologist Joseph Kahl: lower class, working class, lower middle class, upper middle class, and upper class (though Labov noted no subjects were considered upper class and that the presence of any upper-class people living on the Lower East Side would be unexpected). [8]
One variable considered was (oh), the mid-back rounded vowel present in caught, talk, and dog. Labov found that members of the working class and lower middle class—the central socioeconomic classes of the Lower East Side—used higher vowels for (oh) than did either the lower class or the middle class subjects. Labov recognized this as a linguistic change in progress, driven by the central class in accordance with the curvilinear principle. [8]
Sociolinguistics is the descriptive study of the effect of any or all aspects of society, including cultural norms, expectations, and context, on language and the ways it is used. It can overlap with the sociology of language, which focuses on the effect of language on society. Sociolinguistics overlaps considerably with pragmatics and is closely related to linguistic anthropology.
William Labov is an American linguist widely regarded as the founder of the discipline of variationist sociolinguistics. He has been described as "an enormously original and influential figure who has created much of the methodology" of sociolinguistics.
In sociolinguistics, a sociolect is a form of language or a set of lexical items used by a socioeconomic class, profession, age group, or other social group.
In the field of dialectology, a diasystem or polylectal grammar is a linguistic analysis set up to encode or represent a range of related varieties in a way that displays their structural differences.
A speech community is a group of people who share a set of linguistic norms and expectations regarding the use of language. It is a concept mostly associated with sociolinguistics and anthropological linguistics.
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A diaphoneme is an abstract phonological unit that identifies a correspondence between related sounds of two or more varieties of a language or language cluster. For example, some English varieties contrast the vowel of late with that of wait or eight. Other English varieties contrast the vowel of late or wait with that of eight. This non-overlapping pair of phonemes from two different varieties can be reconciled by positing three different diaphonemes: A first diaphoneme for words like late, a second diaphoneme for words like wait, and a third diaphoneme for words like eight.
Linguistic insecurity comprises feelings of anxiety, self-consciousness, or lack of confidence in the mind of a speaker surrounding their use of language. Often, this anxiety comes from speakers' belief that their speech does not conform to the perceived standard and/or the style of language expected by the speakers' interlocutor(s). Linguistic insecurity is situationally induced and is often based on a feeling of inadequacy regarding personal performance in certain contexts, rather than a fixed attribute of an individual. This insecurity can lead to stylistic, and phonetic shifts away from an affected speaker's default speech variety; these shifts may be performed consciously on the part of the speaker, or may be reflective of an unconscious effort to conform to a more prestigious or context-appropriate variety or style of speech. Linguistic insecurity is linked to the perception of speech varieties in any community, and so may vary based on socioeconomic class and gender. It is also especially pertinent in multilingual societies.
Variation is a characteristic of language: there is more than one way of saying the same thing in a given language. Variation can exist in domains such as pronunciation, lexicon, grammar, and other features. Different communities or individuals speaking the same language may differ from each other in their choices of which of the available linguistic features to use, and the same speaker may make different choices on different occasions.
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. Thus, by comparing younger and older speakers, the direction of language change can be detected.
In sociolinguistics, a style is a set of linguistic variants with specific social meanings. In this context, social meanings can include group membership, personal attributes, or beliefs. Linguistic variation is at the heart of the concept of linguistic style—without variation, there is no basis for distinguishing social meanings. Variation can occur syntactically, lexically, and phonologically.
Penelope "Penny" Eckert is Albert Ray Lang Professor Emerita of Linguistics at Stanford University. She specializes in variationist sociolinguistics and is the author of several scholarly works on language and gender. She served as the president of the Linguistic Society of America in 2018.
Gillian Elizabeth Sankoff is a Canadian-American sociolinguist, and professor emerita of linguistics at the University of Pennsylvania. Sankoff's notable former students include Miriam Meyerhoff.
In linguistics, age-graded variation is differences in speech habits within a community that are associated with age. Age-grading occurs when individuals change their linguistic behavior throughout their lifetimes, but the community as a whole does not change.
Change from below is linguistic change that occurs from below the level of consciousness. It is language change that occurs from social, cognitive, or physiological pressures from within the system. This is in opposition to change from above, wherein language change is a result of elements imported from other systems.
In linguistics, change from above refers to conscious change to a language. That is, speakers are generally aware of the linguistic change and use it to sound more dominant, as a result of social pressure. It stands in contrast to change from below.
In the field of sociolinguistics, social network describes the structure of a particular speech community. Social networks are composed of a "web of ties" between individuals, and the structure of a network will vary depending on the types of connections it is composed of. Social network theory posits that social networks, and the interactions between members within the networks, are a driving force behind language change.
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. As a result, it provides empirical evidence for either stability or linguistic change.
The Philadelphia study was a study designed to test the Curvilinear principle as referred to by William Labov, through careful gathering and analysis of research on language variants in five Philadelphia neighborhoods. His research goal was to "discover the social location of the innovators of linguistic change and therefore focuses on the embedding of individuals in their neighborhood".
The gender paradox is a sociolinguistic phenomenon first observed by William Labov, who noted, "Women conform more closely than men to sociolinguistic norms that are overtly prescribed, but conform less than men when they are not." Specifically, the "paradox" arises from sociolinguistic data showing that women are more likely to use prestige forms and avoid stigmatized variants than men for a majority of linguistic variables, but that they are also more likely to lead language change by using innovative forms of variables.