Review of:

J.C. Conde-Silvestre & J.M. Hernández-Campoy (eds.), Sociolinguistics and the History of English: Perspectives and Problems. Special issue of International Journal of English Studies 5/1. Murcia: Servicio de publicaciones de la Universidad de Murcia.

(January 2006, HSL/SHL 6)

1. Introduction

The title of the volume gives a very good indication of what the reader will find in the contributions compiled in the collection: a recognition of the establishment of socio-historical linguistics as a discipline in its own right and, at the same time, a thoughtful consideration of the directions that it may take, the problems (both theoretical and methodological) that need addressing and possible ways of addressing them. The volume begins with a preface by James Milroy and an introduction by the editors. A common thread in these preliminary sections is an emphasis on the role of socio-historical linguistics as a channel of communication between synchronic and diachronic research, not only in terms of methodology but also in relation to a better understanding of the wider implications of present and prospective advances in either of the fields. The Preface and the Introduction are followed by nine contributions and two review articles. The organisation of the contributions is twofold: they are first sorted in terms of their more theoretical vs. more ‘applied’ or data-driven nature. The ‘applied’ papers are, in their turn, chronologically organised. In what follows, I will offer a brief summary of each of the nine contributions, after which I will provide a general evaluation of the volume.

2. Summary

The first paper of the volume, by James Milroy (“Variability, language change and the history of English”), is devoted to the analysis of the traditional view on (a) the importance of socio-linguistic factors and (b) the notion of variability in processes of language transmission and change. In relation to the first issue, Milroy observes that traditional accounts have, to a certain extent, downplayed the impact of external/social factors (as opposed to the internal factors) of change. Regarding the second issue, he notes inconsistencies in the way the concept of variability has been handled in previous diachronic studies, both at a micro-level (e.g. in the establishment of particular features in a language variety such as the variation between [hw] and [w] in the making of Standard English) and at a macro-level (e.g. in relation to the principle of ‘single parentage’ with regard to the origin of particular variants like RP English).

Trinidad Guzmán-González’s contribution (“Out of the past: a walk with labels and concepts, raiders of the lost evidence and a vindication of the role of writing”) deals with a number of issues affecting the nature of diachronic linguistic - and, in this case, socio-linguistic - research, among them, the proliferation of technical terms whose exact domain of application is not always made clear and the interconnections between biological and social approaches to the study of language and its origins. The final section of the article is devoted to a discussion about the role of written texts - which Guzmán-González considers “an essential component of the changes of particular languages” (2005:22).

In “Sociolinguistics and the history of English: a survey”, Terttu Nevalainen and Helena Raumolin-Brunberg provide an overview of the development of English historical studies in connection to the three major sociolinguistic paradigms, i.e. sociology of language, social dialectology and interactional sociolinguistics. The survey deals with each of the periods of the language (OE-LModE) in chronological order, evaluates the nature of the extant data and suggests areas for further diachronic sociolinguistic research.

Graeme Trousdale’s contribution (“The social context of Kentish raising: issues in Old English sociolinguistics”) constitutes a good example of Nevalainen and Raumolin-Bruberg’s observations on the difficulty of OE dialectological studies due to the limitations imposed by the data. His reconstruction of the linguistic and the social context in which the Kentish raising of low front vowels took place evidences the inadequacy of previous variationist explanations of this raising as the result of Mercian influence (which could be seen as a case of ‘change from above’) and points to migratory movements and recent genetic anthropology as issues that may help clarify the origin and diffusion of the phenomenon.

Daniel Schreier (“#CCV- > #CV- Corpus-based evidence of historical change in English phonotactics”) also concentrates on sound change. His corpus-based analysis of the reduction of word-initial consonant clusters in the history of English (i.e. #CCV- > #CV-) confirms previous non-corpus-based findings on the main trajectories of change, yet at the same time suggesting the need for revising the completion dates of some of the processes (e.g. <*wl-> > <l->). In addition, he argues for a ‘multiple origin’ of the change where external factors are, to a certain extent, subsidiary to internal ones.

Juan Manuel Hernández-Campoy and  Juan Camilo Conde-Silvestre’s contribution, “Sociolinguistics and Geolinguistics approaches to the historical diffusion of linguistic innovations: incipient standardisation in Late Middle English”, investigates the diffusion of incipient ‘standard’ spelling and phonological variants in Late Middle English across four main dimensions: interpersonal relations, time, space and society. The results of their corpus-based analyses confirm one of the main points put forward in the Introduction to the volume: the possibility of successfully applying contemporary sociolinguistic methodology (e.g. social network theory, geolinguistic models) to previous stages of the language.

The following two papers constitute case-studies of the social network analysis approach to historical change. In “Of social networks and linguistic influence: the language of Robert Lowth’s and his contemporaries”, Ingrid Tieken-Boon van Ostade investigates possible usage similarities in the language of Robert Lowth and his network of correspondents. The results of her investigation are threefold: (a) they confirm the completion of the main trends of change identified by Nevalainen and Raumolin-Brunberg (2003) for EModE, (b) they suggest that Lowth’s usage influenced, and was influenced by, that of his correspondents; (c) they evidence the need for a careful reassessment of the origin of Lowth’s grammatical strictures before attributing them to Lowth himself. 

The influence of Samuel Johnson’s linguistic usage on his social network is investigated by Randy Randy Bax in “Traces of Johnson in the language of Fanny Burney”. Through a corpus-based analysis of selected Johnsonian features (i.e. emphatic prepositional placement, use of abstract NPs and Latinate lexis) in the private and public writings of Frances Burney, Bax confirms previous scholars’ observations on Burney’s imitation of Johnson’s prose style, yet at the same time he indicates that her imitative practices cannot be considered as “slavish” as has been previously suggested (2005:175).

Finally, in “New dialect formation and contact-induced reallocation: three case studies from the English Ferns”, David Britain and Peter Trudgill focus on one of the perhaps less studied phenomena operating in situations of dialectal contact, i.e. that of reallocation (or refunctionalisation) of given linguistic features. Their study of the development of three morpho-phonological features in the English Ferns speech community shows that reallocation can apply to both intra-linguistic (structural reallocation) and extra-linguistic levels (socio-stylistic reallocation) and indirectly evidences that, although a “rarer” outcome, reallocation should be “fully considered” for a better understanding of processes of contact-induced change (2005:205).

3. General evaluation

The volume has been very carefully arranged in terms of layout and organisation. There are very few typos (exceptions being the capital in The in abstract on p. 1, the spelling of diaelcts or ssuggest on pages 71 and 140, respectively) and the theoretical vs. applied distinction imposed on the papers is a useful one. One may suggest, however, that the applied papers could perhaps have been in the first instance organised by (broad) topics instead of by chronology, with a tripartite division of the papers into contributions on phonological features (i.e. Trousdale/Schreier/Britain and Trudgill) on morpho-syntactic features (Tieken-Boon van Ostade/Bax) and on spelling issues (Hernández-Campoy and Conde-Silvestre). In this way the reader would more quickly gain an idea of the kinds of issues that historical socio-linguistics is currently concerned with in relation to different levels of the language.

As regards content, the contributions of the volume reflect without doubt the state-of-the-art in historical socio-linguistics. However, at some (minor) points one feels that some of the assertions put forward in the volume may benefit from some further qualification. For instance, in connection with the application of modern socio-linguistic methodology to historical data, it is stated by Hernández-Campoy and  Conde-Silvestre that “attention is hardly ever given to reconstructing the diffusion of changes in the past” (2005:102) and that this has a direct impact on the way in which the implementation of changes is discussed in standard diachronic handbooks. While this may be true at a very general level, one should not forget here the pioneering work by Nevalainen and Raumolin-Brunberg on both the reconstruction of social strata and the diffusion of selected features in Early Modern English (Nevalainen 2000a, 2000b, 2000c, Nevalainen and Raumolin-Brunberg 1996, 2003). In addition, one could also mention Smith (1996) as an example of a standard historical handbook where the importance of variation and the potential intricacy of language diffusion patterns is not underestimated (see, for instance, Smith’s discussion of the Great Vowel Shift).

Also, it was noted above that advance of historical socio-linguistics has gone hand-in-hand with the possibility of applying modern sociolinguistic methodology to diachronic data. Work on dialect contact has fruitfully used the notion of salience (“a property of a linguistic item or feature that makes in some way perceptually and cognitively prominent”, Kerswill and Williams 2002:63; cf. also Trudgill 1986, Thomason and Kaufmann 1988, Chapman 1995, Hollmann and Siewierska forthcoming, among others) as an explanatory factor in processes of change. Furthermore, recent research on the topic suggest that “while language-internal factors play a part, it is in the end socio-demographical and other language-external factors that account for the salience of a particular feature” (Kerswill and Williams 2002:63). Given the nature of the volume under consideration, one could perhaps suggest the mention of diachronic works along these lines as part of the future perspectives of socio-historical linguistic investigation.

On the whole, the editors must be credited for compiling a collection of high-quality studies which, as stated in the preface, results in “a comprehensive reader” on historical socio-linguistics (2005:viii). Furthermore, from a more general perspective, the volume constitutes a timely reference point for any diachronic linguist interested in an insightful combination of theoretical discussion and corpus research.

Victorina González-Díaz, School of English, University of Liverpool, United Kingdom (contact the reviewer).

References:

Chapman, Carol. 1995.  “Perceptual salience and analogical change: Evidence from vowel lengthening in modern Swiss German dialects”, Journal of Linguistics 32, 1-13.

Hollmann, Willem and Anna Siewierska. Forthcoming. “Corpora and (the need for) other methods in a study of Lancashire dialect”. In: Zeitschrift für Anglistik und Amerikanistik.

Kerswill, Paul and Ann Williams. 2002. “‘Salience’ as an explanatory factor in language change: evidence from dialect levelling in urban England.” In: Mari C. Jones and Edith Esch (eds.). Language Change. The Interplay of Internal, External and Extra-Linguistic Factors. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 81-110.

Nevalainen, Terttu. 2000a. “Gender differences in the evolution of Standard English: evidence from the Corpus of Early English Correspondence”, Journal of English Linguistics 28:1, 38-59.

Nevalainen, Terttu. 2000b. “Mobility, Social Networks, and Language Change in Early Modern England”, European Journal of English Studies 4:3, 253-64.

Nevalainen, Terttu. 2000c. “Processes of supralocalisation and the rise of Standard English in the Early Modern Period.” In: Bermúdez-Otero, Ricardo, David Denison, Richard M. Hogg, and Christopher B. McCully (eds.). Generative Theory and Corpus Studies: A Dialogue from 10 ICEHL. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 329-71. 

Nevalainen, Terttu and Helena Raumolin-Brunberg. 1996. Sociolinguistics and Language History. Studies Based on the Corpus of Early English Correspondence. Amsterdam and Atlanta: Rodopi.

Nevalainen, Terttu and Helena Raumolin-Brunberg. 2003. Historical Sociolinguistics. London: Longman.

Smith, Jeremy. 1996. An Historical Study of English: Function, Form and Change. London: Routledge.

Thomason, Sarah G. and Terrence Kaufman. 1988. Language Contact, Creolization and Genetic Linguistics. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.