16.2187, Review: Sociolinguistics: Fought (2004)

[LINGUIST List]

LINGUIST List: Vol-16-2187. Sun Jul 17 2005. ISSN: 1068 - 4875.

Subject: 16.2187, Review: Sociolinguistics: Fought (2004)

Moderators: Anthony Aristar, Wayne State U <aristar at linguistlist.org>
            Helen Aristar-Dry, Eastern Michigan U <hdry at linguistlist.org>
 
Reviews (reviews at linguistlist.org) 
        Sheila Dooley, U of Arizona  
        Terry Langendoen, U of Arizona  

Homepage: http://linguistlist.org/

The LINGUIST List is funded by Eastern Michigan University, Wayne
State University, and donations from subscribers and publishers.

Editor for this issue: Naomi Ogasawara <naomi at linguistlist.org>
================================================================  

What follows is a review or discussion note contributed to our 
Book Discussion Forum. We expect discussions to be informal and 
interactive; and the author of the book discussed is cordially 
invited to join in. If you are interested in leading a book 
discussion, look for books announced on LINGUIST as "available 
for review." Then contact Sheila Dooley at collberg at linguistlist.org. 

===========================Directory==============================  

1)
Date: 15-Jul-2005
From: Susan Tamasi < stamasi at linguo.net >
Subject: Sociolinguistic Variation: Critical Reflections 

	
-------------------------Message 1 ---------------------------------- 
Date: Sun, 17 Jul 2005 15:30:33
From: Susan Tamasi < stamasi at linguo.net >
Subject: Sociolinguistic Variation: Critical Reflections 
 

EDITOR: Fought, Carmen 
TITLE: Sociolinguistic Variation
SUBTITLE: Critical Reflections
SERIES TITLE: Oxford Studies in Sociolinguistics
PUBLISHER: Oxford University Press
YEAR: 2004
Announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/15/15-2274.html


Susan Tamasi, Program in Linguistics, Emory University

SUMMARY

Sociolinguistic Variation: Critical Reflections is a thought-provoking 
work for researchers as well as advanced students of sociolinguistic 
methods and theory. Edited by Carmen Fought, this is a collection of 
papers first presented at the 1999 Claremont College sociolinguistic 
methods conference held in honor of sociolinguistic pioneer, Ronald 
Macaulay. 

Fought brings together a diverse body of work from several of the top 
contemporary sociolinguists. In her introduction, she states the book's 
common theme: "the critique of conventional wisdom in the sociolinguistic 
study of variation and the extension of important concepts in variationist 
research to new areas" (3). All of the authors pull from a variety of 
important sociolinguistic studies to introduce discussions that not only 
question traditional ideas, theories, and terminology, but also reanalyze 
older studies through new perspectives and promote underutilized methods 
of analysis. 

The book is organized into several sections. The front material includes a 
Series Editors' Preface by Nikolas Coupland and Adam Jaworski, an Editor's 
Preface, a list of contributors, and a table of contents. After an 
introductory chapter, there are ten chapters, divided into four 
parts: "Sociolinguistic Methods," "The Exploration of Place," "Influences 
on Adult Speech," and "Attitudes and Ideologies." Each chapter includes 
its own notes and reference sections.

SYNOPSIS

Part I: "Sociolinguistic Methods"
In Chapter 1, "Some Sources of Divergent Data in Sociolinguistics," Guy 
Bailey and Jan Tillery give an intriguing, well-organized critique of 
traditional analytical methods in sociolinguistics. The authors claim that 
the early focus on methodology in quantitative sociolinguistics has fallen 
off in the last 20 years and argue that divergent data in sociolinguistic 
studies can be traced back to methodological differences. Using a variety 
of well-documented studies, Bailey and Tillery give several specific 
examples of such methodological differences, focusing their discussion on 
interviewer effects (including interviewer characteristics such as race, 
as well as the "Rutledge Effect"), sampling effects (including both 
sampling procedures and populations), and the effects of analytical 
strategies (by comparing studies of habitual and invariant BE in African 
American English). The authors call for a more stringent, focused approach 
to data collection and analysis in order to conduct significant research 
that is reliable and generalizable. They conclude that "disentangling the 
effects of our methods from the effects of social and linguistic factors 
with some certainty is perhaps the most important thing we can do to build 
upon the solid foundation laid by first generation sociolinguists" (28). 

Chapter 2, "Ordinary Events" by William Labov, is an interesting reminder 
that there are more analytical methods available to sociolinguists than 
the usual, more traditional quantitative techniques. Using data from 
Macaulay (1987), Labov looks into the analysis of narratives, with a 
specific focus on quoted exchanges and reconstructed conversation. Labov 
seems especially interested in the reporting of "ordinary events," those 
events not reportable themselves and not required to explain key events. 
He also asks, "If a narrative is an account of what actually happened, why 
do we find clauses dealing with what did not happen?" (41). Labov 
concludes that the focus on ordinary events actually slows down the 
narrative, thus presenting the story more as a film than literature. In 
reading this chapter, one can easily see how such a technique would give a 
new perspective to the examination of a sociolinguistic interview. 

In Chapter 3, Natalie Schilling-Estes argues for "Exploring 
Intertextuality in the Sociolinguistic Interview." She 
defines "intertextuality" as "the interweaving of remembered utterances" 
and gives a quick, yet detailed background into its use in linguistic 
analysis (44). Shilling-Estes then shows that it is a natural progression 
to incorporate an exploration of intertextuality within the analysis of a 
sociolinguistic interview, as it has been used effectively in discourse 
analysis for some time. She also discusses that an examination of 
intertextuality in language variation studies actually forces one to 
question even the most basic assumptions of sociolinguistic research. For 
example, she points out that intertextuality is most likely to occur at 
the times in an interview when the focus is on the most vernacular forms; 
therefore, making the researcher question whether or not the speaker's 
voice is actually his own. Like Labov's chapter, I find Shilling-Estes' 
work motivating in that it promotes the adoption of techniques utilized by 
other disciplines into variationist research.


Part II: "The Exploration of 'Place'" 
In Chapter 4, "Place, Globalization, and Linguistic Variation," Barbara 
Johnstone argues that "sociolinguists may have not always been 
sufficiently attuned to the social theory implicit in our uses of terms 
such as 'region', 'rurality,' 'local,' and 'place'" (78). She begins by 
discussing place as location as well as place as meaning, and argues that 
place can (and should) be viewed as a socially constructed category in 
sociolinguistic research. She also asserts that "individuals ground their 
identities in socially constructed regions" (70). Therefore, according to 
Johnstone, sociolinguists must study place and region from the local point 
of view in order to discover how an area is culturally defined, as well as 
to elicit what linguistic features are meaningful within that particular 
locale. As place "is one of the most frequently adduced correlates of 
linguistic variation," including a study of these self-
defined, "vernacular" dialects is therefore a necessary component to any 
complete sociolinguistic study (70).  

A "remnant dialect" is defined as "a variety of language that retains 
vestiges of earlier language varieties that have receded among speakers in 
the more widespread population" (84). In Chapter 5, "The Sociolinguistic 
Construction of Remnant Dialects," Walt Wolfram discusses the history, 
development, and significance of remnant dialects and historically 
isolated speech communities. He points out that even so-called relic 
dialects go through change and warns that "the real methodological and 
descriptive challenge for the study of remnant dialects is, in fact, 
sorting out the layers of founder effects and distinguishing instances of 
conservatism from innovation" (94). He ends the chapter by delineating the 
sociolinguistic principles present in the configuration of isolated 
dialects: dialect exclusion, selective change, regionalization, social 
marginalization, vernacular congruity, peripheral community heterogeneity, 
and localized identity. Overall, Wolfram presents some very compelling 
ideas which ask the reader to rethink and reconsider several questions 
about dialects and communities which have often been disregarded or taken 
for granted. 

The discussion of place is continued through Chapter 6, "Variation and a 
Sense of Place," by Penelope Eckert. In this chapter, Eckert argues 
that "linguists should be focusing not on centers but on borders - that we 
should move from a linguistics of community to a linguistics of contact" 
(108). She reminds the reader that boundaries are artificial, and she 
states that "more things are happening that are inseparable from what 
happens on either side" of an area's borders (108). I find this chapter 
(along with Johnstone's piece) to be a much-needed discussion on the 
nature of place, as it is often assumed in sociolinguistic studies that 
places (especially regions) and their boundaries are concrete entities 
that can be defined by those on the outside. Eckert ends the chapter on a 
general methodological note (after all, this was first presented at a 
methods conference), calling for a continued discussion and critique of 
sociolinguistic methodology. 

Part III: "Influences on Adult Speech"
In Chapter 7, "Adolescents, Young Adults, and the Critical Period: Two 
Case Studies from 'Seven Up,'" Gillian Sankoff presents a discussion of 
apparent time versus age grading. Using Macaulay's 1977 study as an 
example, she argues that apparent time does not always work as a valid 
analysis. She then turns to present a detailed look at a real-time study 
of two phonological variables (broad A and short U) using data from two 
speakers (Neil and Nicholas) from the film series "Seven Up." Sankoff 
presents an unique dataset in that the films show interviews of the boys 
every seven years between ages 7 and 35. She gives a detailed discussion 
of the use and disuse of the two variables between the two speakers, as 
well as the social factors that influence their linguistic decisions. 
However, her conclusion focuses on the study's methodological 
implications, stating that apparent time research, while not always 
reliable on its own, is able to guide longitudinal studies. 

Dennis Preston, in "Three Kinds of Sociolinguistics: A Psycholinguistic 
Perspective" (Chapter 8), presents to the reader his interpretation of the 
three levels of variationist sociolinguistics. He defines Level I as that 
research which only correlates linguistic and social factors, and he 
claims that this type of sociolinguistic study is very rare. Level II 
studies, which he states are quite common, seek "influencing factors among 
(not outside) the components of a grammar" (147). Finally, Level III 
studies "relate patterns of linguistic change to both the sociocultural 
forces studied in Level I and the linguistic forces of Level II" (151). I 
especially like Preston's presentation of the term "postvernacular" in 
reference to the language or linguistic features one learns after his or 
her initially-acquired linguistic form. Preston goes on to argue that no 
one will be as fluent in their postvernacular, a thought that, as he 
states, brings up interesting implications for the Chomskian view of an 
ideal speaker-hearer. 

Part IV: "Attitudes and Ideologies"
Chapter 9, "Language Ideologies and Linguistic Change" by Lesley Milroy, 
is an intriguing chapter that presents "a framework for incorporating into 
mainstream variationist work an account of language attitudes" (161).  
Milroy argues that sociolinguists should be concerned with how ideologies 
interact with internal linguistic constraints, and she focuses her 
discussions specifically on the ideology of a Standard English. She points 
out that most variationist work uses a standard as a default reference 
point, which she problematizes by saying, "scholars imbue their 
sociolinguistic analyses with unintended ideological significance when 
they focus on the characteristics of some variety by comparing it with a 
supposedly neutral standard" (165). Furthermore, Milroy claims that "an 
ideologically oriented account of language variation and change treats 
members of speech communities as agents, rather than as automatons caught 
up ineluctably in an abstract sociolinguistic system" (167). 

In Chapter 10, "The Radical Conservatism of Scots," Ronald Macaulay 
asserts that "the differences between Scottish English and English English 
are great enough to play a key role in the sense of Scottish identity, " a 
claim contrary to the findings of other researchers (178). Working with 
data from approximately 200 interviews, Macaulay argues that "Scots 
speakers are more or less unanimous in the belief that what distinguishes 
the Scots from the English is the way they speak" (179). He concludes that 
the Scots, through their speech and stories (i.e. in message as well as 
form) show themselves to be independent and secure and therefore do not 
see a need to switch to a more dominant form of speech. 

Chapter 11, "Spoken Soul: The Beloved, Belittled Language of Black 
America" by John R. Rickford is an adapted version of the first chapter of 
his co-authored book Spoken Soul (Rickford and Rickford 2000). Rickford 
claims that this is the way he really wanted the first chapter to read and 
has included here passages the editor took out as well as new insights 
(198). Having read Spoken Soul, I found it interesting to read the 
numerous quotations that this version includes and to be able to compare 
both versions. For those who have not read the other version, this chapter 
works as a good introduction to Rickford's views on a variety of issues 
surrounding African American English. While I find the chapter quite 
interesting and useful, it does stand out from the rest of the book as 
something altogether different. Simply, it appears to be added as an 
afterthought to a series of papers that are more theoretically and 
methodologically driven. 

EVALUATION

Overall, I found Sociolinguistic Variation: Critical Reflections to be an 
intelligent discussion of many of the overlooked issues and questions that 
have developed in contemporary sociolinguistics. As Fought states in the 
introduction, this is a book that "engages the reader in dialogue, 
challenges assumptions, and unveils new perspectives" (3). While some of 
the chapters are stronger than others, each author does a good job 
reaching this objective. The book covers a wide variety of specific 
topics, and each reader will take from it something different, depending 
on his or her own research interests. 

This book allows (or at times even forces) one to question many of the 
assumptions and traditions of variationist sociolinguistics. As such, it 
would be especially useful for initiating conversation and debate among 
graduate students and colleagues. 

The main critique I have of this book is with its organization. While the 
variety of topics is intriguing, in many ways the considerable differences 
in focus of the individual chapters made the book as a whole seem less 
cohesive and somewhat disorganized. Some of the four internal sections 
were more unified than others, and the titles of the sections were not 
always the best fit for categorizing the chapters within. I think one 
valuable addition would have been a concluding chapter to wrap up the core 
issues and end on a more cohesive note. However, this does not take away 
from the usefulness of the book, which I know I will refer back to often. 

REFERENCES

Macaulay, Ronald K. (1977). Language, Social Class, and Education. 
Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. 

Macaulay, Ronald K. (1987). "Polyphonic Monologues: Quoted Direct Speech 
in Oral Narratives." IPRA Papers in Pragmatics. 1:1-34. 

Rickford, John R. and Russell J. Rickford. (2000). Spoken Soul: the story 
of black English. New York: Wiley. 

ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Susan Tamasi is a Visiting Assistant Professor of Linguistics at Emory 
University. Her primary research is in language variation, investigating 
issues of linguistic security and non-expert perceptions of American 
English.





-----------------------------------------------------------
LINGUIST List: Vol-16-2187