Language Variation and Change: Exam Revision Sheet

1. 📌 Essentials

• Language is perpetually evolving; change is inevitable (Blevins, 2004).
• Variation exists across lexical, grammatical, phonetic, and stylistic levels.
• Saussure's synchrony: language at a specific time; diachrony: language over time.
• Isoglosses mark dialect boundaries; dialects are mutually intelligible.
• Standard English (RP, GA): prestigious but not superior linguistically.
• Sociolinguistic factors include social class, gender, ethnicity, identity.
• Labov’s NYC study (1963): post-vocalic /r/ use correlates with social status.
• Women typically adopt more standard forms; men sometimes prefer non-standard.
• Language change driven by internal factors (economy, analogy) and external influences (contact, borrowings).
• Innovations spread via social prestige, social networks, and convergence (Giles).
• External influences: Vikings, Normans, borrowing, pidgins, creoles.
• Post-WWII social reforms decreased the dominance of prestige dialects like RP.
• Contemporary phonetic changes include palatalization (e.g., /tʃ/) spreading among youth.
• Future trends: globalization, more L2 speakers, regularization of patterns.

2. 🧩 Key Structures & Components