Outline Unit 1:
James Milroy: Some new
perspectives on sound change: sociolinguistics and the Neogrammarians (1993)
This is a paper about Milroy’s view of sound change that was uploaded in
the resources folder by the teacher Barry Pennock Speck.
At the class of Tuesday 17th, we discussed the main topic dealt in this
paper. Milroy basically said that the old Neogrammarians where ´the bad guys`
compared to the new sociolinguistics. I made an outline of this paper, see
below, which it was difficult to understand due to unknown vocabulary that I
had to look up at Merriam Webster like ´dichotomous`(divided
into two parts) or ´inter alia` (among other things), etc.
Returning to what the paper is about, in general the Neogrammarians said
that the language change itself throught time by itself due to an arbitrary
causes. By contrast, the sociolinguistics will say that is the speaker the one
that innovates the language, then once that irregular innovation is accepted
by the social community the language changes.
1-Intro:
19TH
Neogrammarians’ axioms: Sound change is arbitrary and slow so that speakers
don’t notice it.
In
a regular way is phonetically slow but abruptly with the lexicon.
Due
to only looking at written sources of ancient languages the phonological
gradualness is a hypothesis. No
social causes.
Present
day sociolinguistics: Study of cross language pattern. Study about
varieties/dialects. How to define and locate the sound change in progress.
2-Towards
a sociolinguistic modeling of language change
Language
maintenance, how language change is accepted in a community.
3-Sound
change in historical linguistics:
Sound
change means substitution of one used sound from another sound (diachronic
correspondence) It is a speaker based event in time.
4-Social
aspects of sound change:
Sociolinguistics
defends social gradualness where speakers change the language, which the new
speakers will inherit.
Labov
points out two binary divisions of social gradualness:
Phonetic
change is unperceived while the lexical change can easily be detected. Both
changes are united to cause the social gradualness in the language.
-Varying
patterns of change:
Simplification
of grammar and lexicon therefore makes simpler the sound change possibilities
and go into language standardization.
-Changing
norms of language:
Standard
norms are set by the society’s institution and are invariant. By contrast
the dialects/varieties of the communities have their own norms, which, as
there are not normative, are variable.
Linguistic
change can be seen but normally more in progress than in uniform state.
-Speaker-innovation
and linguistic change:
Speaker
innovation appears by social gradualness and is usually consider at the
beginning a mistaken use of the language. This innovation from the Speaker’s
part is what makes a linguistic change possible only once the speaker’s
community accepts that innovation.
-Innovation,
change and ‘borrowing’:
Innovations
only change the language when other speakers borrow them.
-Some
broader perspectives:
Historical
linguistic tradition follows the standard language tradition.
Sociolinguistics believes by contrast that the
standard language is just a system made up from the diverse dialects/varieties
by political power.
Academic year
2008/2009
© a.r.e.a./Dr.Vicente Forés López
Barry Pennock Speck
© Carolina Cody Aldaz
cacodyal@alumni.uv.es
Universitat de València Press