Prepared by: Alaa Kamal Othman Submitted to: Dr. Walid Amer Linguistic Variation Prepared by: Alaa Kamal Othman Acad. No. : 220161959 Submitted to: Dr. Walid Amer

Table content: The linguistic variable Types of linguistic variables Variation in New York, Norwich, Detroit Indicators, markers , and stereotypes.

Linguistic variable: A linguistic item which has identifiable variants, which are the different forms which can be used in an environment.

Types of linguistic variables: *Consonant variables/ Phonological variables: 1- (ng)>/ŋ/ or /n/ in “singing, playing, …” 2- (r)>/r/ or /Ø/ in “farm, far,…” 3- (h)>/h/ or /Ø/ in “house, hospital,..” 4-(t)>/t/ or /?/ in “better, bet,..” 5-(th)>/θ/ or /t/ in “thin, three,..” 6-(dh)>// or /d/ in “there, they,..” 7- The final (t,d) in in told/test

*Vowel variables/ 1- /e/ > pen, men,… 2- /o/ > dog, caught, coffee 3- /a/ > bag, bad, back 4- /u/ > pull Grammatical Variables/ 1- 3rd person sing. “S”. E.g.: he thinks/he think 2-copula be: he’s happy/he happy/he be happy 3-multiple negation: he don’t mean no harm. 4-the beginning of English clauses: *She’s the girl who(m) I met. *She’s the girl I met. *She’s the girl that I met

3 landmark studies carried in 3 urban areas by prominent sociolinguists in 1960s & 1970s. Variation in New York City by “Labov” Variation in Norwich by “Trudgill” Variation in Detroit by “Shuy”

New York/ Labov chose 5 phonological variables: 1- (th) variable, initial consonant in(thin , three) 2- (dh) variable, initial consonant in (there, then) 3- /r/ in “farm, far,…” 4- /a/ in bag, bad 5- /o/ in dog, caught

Norwich: Trudgill chose 3 consonants and 13 vowels. 1- (h) > happy, house 2- (ng) > walking, running 3- (t) > bet, butter. *(t) has 4 variants : -aspirated -non aspirated -glottalized -glottal stop The first two variants combined are least nonstandard. The 3rd is more standard. The glottal stop is non standard. +13 vowel variants in (bad, name, path, tell, here, hair, ride, bird, tip, know, boat, boot, tune)

Detroit: Shuy focused on 3 variables. 1 phono. & 2 gram. -phonological variant: *The realization of a vowel followed by a nasal consonant as a nasalized vowel. -Grammatical variant: 1- Multiple negation “he ain’t got none neither” 2- pronominal apposition “that guy, he don’t care”

Wolfram considered other linguistic variables: Phonological variable: * pronunciation of final consonant clusters in words like “test, wasp, left” * (th) in “tooth, nothing” * final stops like in “ good, shed” * pronunciation of (r) in “sister, pair” Grammatical variable: * he talk/he talks * two year/ two years *she’s nice/she nice/ she be nice

The social class to which each speaker belongs or the circumstances he/she goes through are related to the variants.

Indicators: -Linguistic variables where no important social information is attached and only linguistically trained observers can distinguish. e.g. North America distinguish between the vowels in “cot, caught” Marker: Quite noticeable and carries potent social information. e.g. the dropping of g in “singing”. The distribution of markers is related to social groupings and styles.

Stereotypes: Popular characterization of the speech of a particular group. E.g. *New York: -boid for bird -toitytoid street for “33rd street” *Northumbrian : (wot- cher ) for “what cheer?” when greeting.