C H A N G E

Chapter 8
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Contents :

The Process of Change

THE TRADITIONAL VIEW

In what I will call the traditional view of language change, the only changes that are important in a language are those that can be demonstrated to have structural consequences.

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Consequently, over a period of time a distinction between two sounds may be lost in a language, as occurred historically in most varieties of English in the vowels of meet and meat or horse and hoarse.

THE TRADITIONAL VIEW

The traditional view of language change also favors a family tree account of change and of the relationships among languages.

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It is in the last view of change, through use of the concepts of wave and diffusion, that we see the possibilities that the study of variation opens up to us for understanding the process of change. The family tree view focuses on the consequences of change and, particularly, on internal change. But if we believe that languages are changing all the time.

CHANGES IN PROGRESS

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Labov (2001, p. 85) calls long-term stable variation, e.g., the distribution of the (ng), (th), and (dh) variables previously discussed and such alternatives as the askaks alternation, the latter as old as the language. In contrast, change has a direction, being both progressive and linear. This last change is a vowel change found in cities settled in a westward movement of people from New York State, and centered in places such as Buffalo, Detroit, Chicago, and spreading to smaller urban centers.

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We can actually see what happens when traditions change in a society and women begin to take a more assertive role in what goes on. The linguistic marketplace refers to how language is used in the give-and-take of social interaction. Language is not just a neutral medium of exchange; its uses take on symbolic value. Some uses are highly valued and others are lowly valued. These values are assigned through the various power relationships that exist.

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