24.3127, Review: Applied Linguistics; Sociolinguistics; English: Hickey (2012)

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Subject: 24.3127, Review: Applied Linguistics; Sociolinguistics; English: Hickey (2012)

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Date: Fri, 02 Aug 2013 00:17:25
From: Amelia Tseng [at443 at georgetown.edu]
Subject: Areal Features of the Anglophone World

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Book announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/23/23-4867.html

EDITOR: Raymond  Hickey
TITLE: Areal Features of the Anglophone World
SERIES TITLE: Topics in English Linguistics [TiEL] 80
PUBLISHER: De Gruyter Mouton
YEAR: 2012

REVIEWER: Amelia Tseng, Georgetown University

SUMMARY

“Areal features of the Anglophone world” aims to provide a new perspective on
areal processes by bringing together scholars working on diverse but
complementary areas, both new and established, of the field. Its authors
employ diverse methodologies to identify the areal clustering of non-standard
linguistic features, ranging from a comprehensive review of traditional
dialect-map data (Britain, Chapter 1) to computational methods for
phylogenetic modeling (Brato & Huber, Chapter 6). ‘Areal features’ reviews a
wide range of previous research on non-standard English features in
vernaculars and basilects, and addresses under-researched topics such as
African and Asian Englishes and variational pragmatics. Its nineteen chapters
outline and compare multiple features and typologies, a necessarily complex
approach to areal concentrations (Thomason, 2000), in order to provide insight
into the overall structures of different varieties and to investigate
processes including substrate and founder effects, (dis)similarities in
acquisitional situations, the importance of sociolinguistic context, and
potential vernacular universals (Chambers, 2004).

Structurally, the book comprises two parts. The first presents case studies in
particular geographic areas. These chapters address specific areal features by
region and/or variety, beginning with non-standard features in the United
Kingdom and United States, and followed by Africa, Asia, emergent varieties
more broadly, and the Antipodes. The book’s second half addresses levels of
linguistic structure across the Anglophone world more broadly, providing a
broader context for case-study results.

Raymond Hickey’s introduction provides a clear overview of key themes and
goals. These include the different social and linguistic factors involved in
language contact and areality (e.g. input; language universals; types of
contact; levels of language; transportation of features; etc.). Hickey also
discusses the typological status of features and draws particular attention to
differences between phonetics/phonology and morphosyntax as diagnostics of
areality. Finally, he is careful to distinguish between processes of areality
and the controversial concept of “linguistic areas” (p. 2).

In Chapter 1, “English in England,” David Britain examines the evolution of
British English dialects via review and comparison of phonological maps,
noting that the stability of these dialect regions in spite of changing
methodologies indicating robust differences. Britain further notes that
relatively little research exists on the contemporary formation of new dialect
areas. He therefore calls for the examination of emerging “dialectological
city-regions” (p. 41, cf Trudgill, 1999) and supralocalization. These topics
are intimately related to the movement of peoples (e.g. internal and
international migration), as also noted by other authors in this volume.

Next, Warren Maguire (“English and Scots in Scotland”, Chapter 2) situates an
overview of Scots phonetics and phonological features in Scotland’s complex
historical sociolinguistic context. He particularly contrasts urban sound
changes with traditional dialects, concluding that these contemporary changes
appear to be part of the U.K.’s broader supralocalization patterns, but that
different outcomes may result in Scots due to the unique linguistic
constraints and social identity concerns involved.

In the next chapter (“English in Ireland”, Chapter 3), Raymond Hickey
examines areality in Irish English via contemporary linguistic features and
reconstructed “remnant” traits (p. 91). Hickey found concentrations of
phonological, morphological, syntactic, and intonational features which
indicate prolonged Irish-English language contact and shift and reflect
historic cultural and settlement patterns; he further notes the emergence of
supraregional forms incorporating urban (Dublin) vernacular features.

Relatedly, Matthew Gordon (“English in the United States”, Chapter 4)
discusses sociohistorical context and language-internal processes as factors
in the development of American English phonology. By contextualizing
koineization within nineteenth-century U.S. population shifts, Gordon proposes
an alternate timing and geographical origin for the well-documented Northern
Cities Vowel Shift (Labov, Yaeger, & Steiner, 1972). In contrast, he
characterizes the Southern Vowel Shift as the consequence of structural
mechanisms rather than social shifts.

Chapters 5-8 highlight the importance of research on less-researched and
emergent language varieties. Jeffrey Williams (“English varieties in the
Caribbean”, Chapter 5) outlines the Caribbean region as a linguistic area,
noting that the area’s geography has given rise to an understudied
“multiplicity of insularities” (p. 133). He also compares phonological and
morphosyntactic patterns in the Euro-Caribbean Anglophone Linguistic Area
(ECALA) and Caribbean Anglophone Creole Linguistic Area (CACLA). Based on
this, he rejects prevalent theories of an Anglophone Creole continuum, arguing
that input varieties for present-day creoles were colonial koine predecessor
varieties rather than basilects. As such, he calls for a more nuanced view of
the sociohistorical setting.

In “English in Africa” (Chapter 6), Thorsten Brato and Magnus Huber argue that
traditional notions of “areality” which imply geographical contiguity are
inadequate for the African case; traditional language-tree modeling is also
inadequate since there is no prototypical “African English,” but rather
simultaneous independent input and co-existence in the context of a highly
complex African languages substrate. They applied phylogenetic modeling to
data from the electronic World Atlas of Varieties of English (EWAVE; Kortmann
& Lunkenheimer, 2011) to calculate the number of shared phonetic-phonological
and morphosyntactic features between varieties. Phonetic-phonological results
showed an ethnic divide between black and white varieties; however, no
hierarchical grouping of morpho-syntactic features was observed. These
different arealities illustrate the complexities of the relationships between
varieties, challenge the traditional division of African Englishes into
geographical regions, and indicate that “nativization” may proceed at
different speeds and directions on different linguistic levels (p. 182).

Umberto Ansaldo and Lisa Lim (“English in Asia”, Chapter 7) compare two
varieties of Asian Englishes, an understudied area which has much to offer
regarding our understanding of dialect formation and areal processes. As a
recent development, many of these restructured varieties are unstable, and
horizontal transfer is difficult to identify; further, input includes
non-native and pidgin English varieties as well as diverse substrate
languages. Ansaldo and Lim focus on tone (a Southeast Asia areal feature) in
Singaporean and Hong Kong English, finding that English stress patterns are
reinterpreted through Sinitic tonal assignment. However, Singapore English
shows word-level tonal patterns which are distinct from general-contact and
second language (L2) behavior, particularly regarding particles; phrasal-level
differences were also observed. These findings indicate an early time-depth of
tone transfer and, importantly, show that “complex” (p. 190) features which
are dominant in the linguistic ecology and/or susceptible to contact diffusion
may be selected for spread from early stages of language contact, especially
in cases of common substrates or typologies.

In Chapter 8, “Shared features in New Englishes”, Devyani Sharma establishes a
shared typology of New English morphosyntactic features, expanding on Chambers
(2004) and Szmrecsanyi and Kortmann (2009a) to identify possible “emergent
universals”, or language universals which arise as a consequence of the
language contact process (p. 220). Importantly, since New Englishes manifest a
“robust additional presence of shared traits arising out of substrate
commonalities or out of common adult L2 learner strategies” (p. 228), research
on these varieties must consider L2 acquisition theory and substrate languages
as well as superstrate influences and universals. Sharma also calls for
careful investigation and cross-linguistic comparison to distinguish genuine
shared features from structural similarities which may arise from different
grammatical conditionings.

Pam Peters and Kate Burridge (“English in Australia and New Zealand”, Chapter
9) conclude the case studies section with an overview of phonological,
lexico-morphological, and morphosyntactic features in Australian and New
Zealand English, classifying each as areal, angloversal, stylistic, inherited,
or vernacular universal (e.g. high-rising terminals). Peters and Burridge
distinguish between vernacular sociolects and colloquial “angloversals” (Mair,
2003), concluding that the recalibration of informal British English features
into standard Australian/New Zealand varieties may be grounded in
context-specific social valuation and a general Antipodean preference for
informality. Their chapter emphasizes the importance of culture and the
ecolinguistic habitat in areal studies, since the selection and concentration
of features can reflect the recalibration of “stylistic norms of a given
register… in the socio-cultural contexts of regional varieties of English” (p.
253).

The second half of the book focuses on variation and areal concentrations of
features by structural domain. In Chapter 10, “Global features of English
vernaculars”, J.K. Chambers examines a range of non-standard phonological and
morphosyntactic features to support his well-known argument for “vernacular
universals” (Chambers, 2004). Chambers further describes a sociolectal
continuum which categorizes native and learner varieties based on complexity,
understood as the relative presence or absence of constraints for “primitive”
feature suppression and replacement (p. 264). The continuum also relates to
social context via an antagonistic prestige relationship between varieties.

Daniel Schreier (“Phonological inventories”, Chapter 11) addresses diffusion,
inheritance, and universal features in areally-concentrated phonological
inventories, finding that consonant-cluster reduction, while a universal
feature, increases in language-contact situations, while rhoticity seems to
reflect the diffusion and legacy of input varieties at different points in
English’s colonial history and linguistic development. Schreir concludes that
“the dividing line between shared, diffused and universal features is
necessarily blurred” (p. 279), encompassing local language ecologies,
sociohistorical context, input varieties, and universals.

Lieselotte Anderwald (“Negation in varieties of English”, Chapter 12) examines
non-standard negation in adjunct data from the ‘Handbook of Varieties of
English’ to expand on Szmrecsanyi and Kortmann (2009b). Anderwald defines
geography broadly as ‘world regions’ and addresses pidgins, creoles, and first
language (L1) and non-L1 varieties. While she identifies one potential
universal (punctual ‘never’), she attributes geographic patterning overall to
historical input-variety distributions; pervasive morphosyntactic asymmetries
may be a function of the difficulty of L2 acquisition of marked Standard
English features.

Kerstin Lunkenheimer (“Tense and aspect”, Chapter 13) uses a similarly broad
understanding of areality to analyze non-standard tense and aspect marking in
EWAVE data. She finds an overall connection between area and dominant variety
type, particularly in the Caribbean, Asia, and the British Isles; “individual”
features may be attributable to substrate influences or input varieties. While
these large-scale quantitative results generally support previous research,
they challenge previous research on compound structures using
completive/perfect ‘done’ in pidgins and creoles (p. 346).

In Chapter 14, “Verbal concord”, Lukas Pietsch reviews historical and
sociolinguistic research on the Northern Subject Rule (NSR) using Survey of
English Dialects maps (Orton & Dieth, 1969, 1971; Orton & Wakelin, 1968). He
challenges the prevalent wave-model assertion (Godfrey & Tagliamonte 1999;
Wright 2002), arguing instead for separate, parallel innovation of
type-of-subject constraints in England; NSR in newer Irish dialects is
attributed to a general convergence and diffusion of northern features to
southern Irish English varieties. Pietsch also identifies ‘was’ leveling as a
possible vernacular universal, in contrast to ‘was/were’ realignment, which
differs between Britain and the rest of the Anglophone world (p. 357).

Suzanne Wagner (“Pronominal systems”, Chapter 15) investigates non-standard
pronominal subject usage in forty-six varieties of English from the ‘Handbook
of Varieties of English’ (Kortmann & Schneider, 2004) and other corpora.
Findings generally indicate a binary pattern, where tendencies group by
regional distribution or formal characteristics. True areal features were
rare, consisting of traditional dialect features, special forms (‘youse’), and
tri-contrastive Australasia/Pacific number systems; ‘them’-demonstratives,
previously considered non-areal, were found to be a diffusing (possibly
globally) New World feature (p. 399). Other non-standard usage likely reflects
contact-reinforced universal tendencies; overlap between these processes and
restricted systems remains to be explored.

Similarly, Pieter Siemund, Georg Maier, and Martin Schweinberger (“Reflexive
and intensive ‘self’-forms”, Chapter 16) examine pronominal form and function
in the ‘International Corpus of English’, finding little L1 regularization of
reflexive paradigms and low frequencies of non-standard use (compared to
Kortmann & Szmrecsanyi, 2004). Indian English and Irish English were notable
in terms of self-intensifiers and untriggered ‘self’-forms, respectively.
Their results imply that varietal differences in non-standard syntactic forms
are gradual, not categorical, and require quantitative assessment rather than
reliance on binary distribution.

Stephan Gramley (“Vocabulary”, Chapter 17) engages with areality in terms of
English lexicon, reviewing lexical and semantic approaches (Wierzbicka, 1997),
while acknowledging the difficulty of operationalizing this topic. Gramley
argues that slang and tabooed words constitute vernacular universals and are
productive areas of investigation since they operate independently of
“middle-class” norms. He concludes that shared rather than variety-exclusive
forms are the norm: English reflects much present and historical language
contact and borrowing, and “Americanisms” and subculture-specific terms, in
particular, are widely distributed globally. However, areal vocabulary can be
restricted by ethnic contact (South Africa). Gramley also identifies
euphemisms and euphemistic strategies as possible universals.

Finally, Klaus Schneider (“Pragmatics”, Chapter 18) surveys pragmatic
variation in national English varieties. In brief, he finds most pragmatic
structures to be variety-preferential, though some are shared by
“inner-circle” L1 varieties (Kachru, 1985). Local forms of discourse markers
and related phenomena, for example, differ across varieties and can serve as
local identity markers. Conventions of form and speaker strategies (e.g.
required degree of indirectness; “appropriate” forms in different social
situations) are also culture-dependent; however, some structures have
variety-exclusive features (e.g. imperative-structure offers in Irish
English). Finally, interactional-level sequences and speech acts are
informative and presumably reflect culture-specific values and behavioral
expectations. While unsurprising that sociocultural explanations, as well as
structure and frequency, are key to understanding pragmatic behavior,
Schneider’s call for increased study of variational pragmatics is timely,
particularly in terms of comparative research and less-studied emergent and
“outer circle” Englishes, which are likely to manifest L2 and substrate
influences.

EVALUATION

‘Areal features of the Anglophone world’ engages productively with processes
of areality, providing a nuanced perspective on language contact and processes
of change via research by top scholars of sociolinguistics, variation,
dialectology, pidgins and creoles, historical linguistics, and theories of
language universals. Its contributions include: evidence that linguistic
levels may vary in rate or direction of change in contact situations; detailed
research of less-studied varieties, leading to the expansion and challenging
of preexisting theories; succinct overviews of key research on inner-circle
varieties, giving a basis of comparison only possible with diachronic data;
new methodological directions; and an emphasis on the importance of social
context and language ecology when distinguishing “true” from “apparent” areal
features and identifying internal language processes and possible universals.

Importantly, the book indicates the need for more research on less-researched
and emergent Englishes in order to understand the relationship between
sociohistorical context, contact-induced change, and more universal
tendencies. Sharma (Chapter 8) explicitly calls for the integration of
substrate language and L2 acquisition theory into New English paradigms;
future directions in this regard might have implications for theoretical
models such as Exemplar Theory (Johnson, 1997). Other directions include new
foci in well-studied dialect regions, such as urbanization in Britain, in
which Britain (Chapter 1) notes the importance of iconization and
international immigration. Finally, Gramly (Chapter 16) notes the need for
more principled methodologies addressing lexical areality, and Schneider
(Chapter 17) argues strongly for increased research on variationist
pragmatics.

This edited volume’s diversity constitutes both its strength and its primary
drawback. The range of approaches to areality can be difficult to follow,
especially given the space constraints which make methodological reporting
uneven. While the material speaks for itself, a clear and accessible
discussion of terms would help orient the reader and make the book more
accessible to scholars from related subfields and disciplines and broaden its
impressive potential for impact. For example, understanding of vernacularity
(e.g. Wolfram & Schilling-Estes, 2005) and definitions of language dominance
vary between and within subfields. More discussion of how the chapters
complement each other and of the benefits of integrating different research
perspectives into the overall framework would also increase the book’s
coherence.

In sum, ‘Areal features of the Anglophone world’ achieves its goal of applying
“areal considerations in the analysis of change in varieties of English …
(for) a better understanding of the configurations found throughout the
Anglophone world” (p. 13). It is recommended for linguists and linguistic
anthropologists working in the fields of dialectology, variation, language
contact and change, and sociolinguistic research on “non-traditional” or
less-studied varieties. While less suitable for non-specialist readers, it
will be extremely useful to scholars seeking an informative and
thought-provoking resource on the distributional and structural aspects of
English dialects, and to those engaging with a range of theoretical and
methodological approaches to areal processes.

REFERENCES

Chambers. J.K. 2004. “Dynamic typology and vernacular universals”. In Bernd
Kortmann (ed.), Dialectology meets typology, 127-145. Berlin: Mouton de
Gruyter.

Godfrey, Elisabeth, & Sally Tagliamonte. 1999. “Another piece for the verbal
–s story: evidence from Devon in southwest England”. Language Variation and
Change 11, 87-121.

Johnson, Keith. 1997. “Speech perception without speaker normalization: an
exemplar model”. In Johnson, Keith & John Mullenix (eds.), Talker variability
in speech processing, 145-166. San Diego: Academic Press.

Kachru, Braj. 1985. “Standards, codification and sociolinguistic realism: the
English language in the outer circle”. In Quirk, Randolph & Henry Widdowson
(eds.), English in the world: Teaching and learning the language and
literatures, 11-30. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Kortmann, Bernd & Kerstin Lunkenheimer (eds.). 2011. The electronic world
atlas of varieties of English [eWAVE]. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for
Evolutionary Anthropology. http://www.ewave-atlas.org/, accessed on
2013-07-02.

Kortmann, Bernd & Edgar Schneider (eds.). 2004. A handbook of varieties of
English: A multimedia reference tool, Vol. 2: Morphology and syntax.
Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter.

Kortmann, Bernd & Benedikt Szmrecsanyi. 2004. “Global synopsis: morphological
and syntactic variation in English”. In Kortmann, Bernd, Kate Burridge, Rajend
Mesthrie & Edgar Schneider (eds.), A Handbook of Varieties of English, Vol. 2:
Morphology and Syntax, 1142-1202. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter.

Labov, William, Malcah Yaeger & Richard Steiner. 1972. A quantitative study of
sound change in progress: report on National Science Foundation contract
NSF-GS-3287. U.S. Regional Survey, Philadelphia.

Mair, Christian. 2003. “Kreolisation und verbales Identitaetsmanagement im
geschriebenenen jamaikanischen Englisch”. In Vogel, Elisabeth, Antonia Knapp &
Wolfram Lutterer (eds.), Zwischen Ausgrenzung und Hybridiseirung, 79-96.
Wurzburg: Ergon.

Orton, Harold & Eugene Dieth. 1969. Survey of English dialects: The basic
material, Vol. 2: The West Midland counties. 3 sub-volumes. Leeds: E.J.
Arnold.

Orton, Harold & Martin Wakelin. 1968. Survey of English dialects: The basic
material, Vol. 4: The southern counties. 3 sub-volumes. Leeds: E.J. Arnold.

Orton, Harold & Eugene Dieth.1971. Survey of English dialects: The basic
material, Vol. 3: The East Midland counties and East Anglia. 3 sub-volumes.
Leeds: E.J. Arnold.

Szmrecsanyi, Benedikt, & Bernd Kortmann. 2009a. “Vernacular universals and
angloversals in a typological perspective”. In Filppula, Markku, Juhani
Klemola & Heli Paulasto (eds.), Vernacular universals and language contacts:
evidence from varieties of English and beyond, 33-53. London/New York:
Routledge.

Szmrecsanyi, Benedikt, & Bernd Kortmann. 2009b. “The morphosyntax of varieties
of English worldwide: a quantitative perspective”. Lingua 119. 1643-1663.

Thomason. Sally. 2000. “Linguistic areas and language history”. In Gilbers,
Dicky, John Nerbonne & Jos Schaeken (eds.), Languages in contact, 311-327.
Amsterdam: Rodopi.

Trudgill, Peter. 1999. The dialects of England. 2nd edn. Oxford, UK & Malden,
US: Blackwell.

Wierzbicka, Anna. 1997. Understanding cultures through their key words:
English, Russian, Polish, German, and Japanese. New York: Oxford University
Press.

Wolfram, Walt, & Natalie Schilling-Estes. 2005. American English (Language and
Society 25). 2nd edn. Malden: Blackwell.

Wright, Laura. 2002. “Third person plural present tense marker in London
prisoners’ depositions, 1562-1623”. American Speech 77. 242-263.

International Corpus of English (ICE). http://ice-corpora.net/ice/


ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Amelia Tseng is a Ph.D Candidate in the Department of Linguistics at
Georgetown University. Her primary research interests are the sociolinguistics
of language contact and (im)migration, with focus on multilingualism,
identity, and emergent dialects; her current research examines these topics in
U.S. Latino communities using variationist, sociophonetic, and discourse
analytic methodology. Her dissertation project addresses style, emergent
dialect development, and Latino identity in Washington, D.C.








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