30.847, Review: Sociolinguistics: Eckert (2018)

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LINGUIST List: Vol-30-847. Fri Feb 22 2019. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 30.847, Review: Sociolinguistics: Eckert (2018)

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Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2019 10:50:15
From: Mayowa Akinlotan [mayowa.akinlotan at utexas.edu]
Subject: Meaning and Linguistic Variation

 
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Book announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/29/29-2781.html

AUTHOR: Penelope  Eckert
TITLE: Meaning and Linguistic Variation
SUBTITLE: The Third Wave in Sociolinguistics
PUBLISHER: Cambridge University Press
YEAR: 2018

REVIEWER: Mayowa Akinlotan, University of Texas at Austin

SUMMARY 

“Meaning and Linguistic Variation: The Third Wave in Sociolinguistics” by
Penelope Eckert is a linguistic research memoir that traces the illustrious
career of a great and influential sociolinguist in the light of growth,
development, and evolution of variationist sociolinguistics that span many
decades. The book consists of several important works of the author that have
greatly contributed to central issues and concepts in the continued expanding
fields and subfields of sociolinguistics and linguistic styles. The book,
which has eleven chapters divided into three parts representing the
beginnings, the Second wave, and the Third Wave, documents the development of
sociolinguistic variation showing how theoretical and practical concerns
progress from the early focus on demographic and ethnographic issues to the
construction of social meaning via variable measurement and selection. In
other words, today’s approach to the studies of sociolinguistic variation is
not only supported by an architecture of a more elaborate social meaning, the
identification and meaning of the stylistic practices that characterize and
define societal language patterns of change have become more meaningful and
noticeable, such that the social meaning of relationships such as language and
gender, language and race, and language and politics are just examples of how
the discipline of sociolinguistics has become so central to the meaning of
linguistic variation. Although the book has a subplot, which is to tell a
‘story’ about how a rookie linguist became not only a professional but a
much-sought after linguist, the veracity of such personal tales did not impact
on the coherent messages that this collection of seminar works have to convey.
The profit from that story telling approach is that Eckert has been able to
kill two birds with a stone; (1) the development of theoretical and practical
thinking that defines sociolinguist practices from the early times to the
present, and (2) a thought-provoking challenge to us to push the boundaries of
the field further.

The first chapter titled ‘Gascon’ reviews the early work of the author on this
language as spoken in the then Southern France in years around 1970s. The
chapter, like every other chapter, is rich in discussion of the extent that
practical issues encountered during fieldwork in the Occitania region are
related with sociolinguistic concepts including but not limited to language
shift, language death, language revival, language revitalization, language and
politics, language and identity, language and ideology, language imperialism,
diglossia, and more related concepts. The chapter shows the process and social
implication of linguistic imperialism on the people. Eckert shows that the
process of language shift often begins in cruel but subtle ways ‘…whereby
French replaced Occitan in increasing numbers of domains progressing from the
periphery to the center of community and private life.’ Occitan, which is the
native language of the region, is not only pushed out of its eternal land by
the official introduction of French in 1789 as the administrative language,
but also that the people, whose culture, heritage, and sensibilities are
encapsulated in the language, become ashamed of the remnants of their language
such that new generation speakers feel stigmatized. Such a scenario clearly
exemplifies the current situation in postcolonial Africa, for example in
Nigeria, where local Nigerian languages are treated with stigma, and their
monolingual speakers also treated with the utmost disdain.  The author
correctly identifies politics of language as a leading factor responsible for
success of any such process of linguistic shift. Although significant or
large-scale success of any language movement, be it national or local, seeking
language revitalization and revival is doubtful, Eckert argues for one. The
author also provides a template for language revitalization through an account
of the success recorded so far by the national movement seeking the
revitalization of Occitania. Among many other things, rolling back the
stigmatization process of language shift, providing the new and next
generation of speakers with motivation and confidence to speak Occitania in
public with pride and prestige , and teaching Occitania in public schools are
the minimum for any language revival movement.

The second chapter “Stigma and Meaning in Language Shift” expatiates on the
miseries and social imbalance that characterize the lives of the people whose
language(s), together with their entire lives, past, present, and the future,
have had to take a U-turn courtesy of a language imposed on them by a more
powerful people. In this chapter, Eckert presents us with one of her early
papers entitled “Diglossia: Separate and Unequal” which grew out of her field
work in the patois Soulatan spoken in Soulan. In this paper, Eckerts presents
the social reality that constitutes diglossia, a term which itself is highly
contentious in terms of what it exactly intends and what it means in reality.
According to Charles Ferguson (1959), diglossia alludes to a speech community
in which two languages are used. Eckert argues that the nature of two such
languages is that one consciously emerges as the dominant, such that the other
is at the mercy of the dominant. The author doubts whether the linear
principle (separate but equal) of diglossia is truly obtainable. In her own
words, ‘the question must be raised, though, whether  a linguistic domain so
defined can be separate but equal. I will maintain that diglossia can be not
only the very means of elimination of vernacular languages, but also a serious
threat to the self-image and solidarity of the community.’ This seminal paper
arguably initiated today’s general view of the principle of diglossia, which
can mean that a co-existence of two or more languages will almost always
result in an imbalance in reality, where one is more likely to carry a stigma
except where there is ‘rigid social stratification’ such as in places like
Belgium and Canada some balance is found.

Part II has five chapters of which Chapters 3 and 4 deal with same issues. In
other words, Chapters 3 and 4 could be merged, except for the datasets on
sound change provided in Chapter 4. In Chapter 3 the author argues ‘that sound
changes carried social meaning’ and there are motivations for such process
that underlie change. Through her seminal works (see Eckert 1989a, 1989b)
surrounding “Jocks and Burnouts”, the author shows the importance of an
ethnography in the studies of sociolinguistic variation. According to the
author, linguistic analysis of sociolinguistic variables and all that they
might mean would benefit greatly from a development of ethnography which
allows us to understand the social meaning of social categories and how/why
speakers are assigned to them. While ‘Jocks and Burnouts’ are a metaphor for
social polarization that decimates every society, such social categorizations
are easily identifiable and recognizable by their linguistic patterns in high
school adolescents and can serve as veritable medium of language change. The
chapter presents some datasets on the process of sound change. Age, peer
pressure, and importance of local identity are some of the factors motivating
adolescents’ use of linguistic innovation.  On the basis of statistical
analysis of the use of backed and lowered variants of (uh) by three social
categories representing ‘Jocks’, ‘In-Between’, and ‘Burnouts’, the author
argues that social identity outweighs commonly known variables representing
age, sex, and socioeconomic class. The author further argues that although
linguistic and non-linguistic variables can clearly help our understanding of
linguistic variation, their explanatory powers are never inexhaustive, and as
such ‘the need for sociolinguists to explore more deeply the rich texture of
ethnography, to find the intervening variables between broad demographic
categories and the daily realities of social and linguistic life’.

Chapters 5, 6, and 7 complete Part II of the book. These three chapters are
linked because they deal with different questions of same kind. Chapter 5,
which is titled “The Local and the Extra-Local”, borders on issue of
methodology; especially our theoretical conceptualization of what constitutes
local and extra-local networks and how they relate with change. In this
chapter 5 Eckert presents us with a paper titled “Variation and A Sense of
Place” arguing for ‘the embedding of the study of variation within its
socio-geographic context, most particularly, for the examination of the
borders of communities in search of the articulation of social meaning between
the local and the extra-local’. The author further argues that our
understanding of the ‘geographic and the social spread of linguistic change’
can be richer if we reconsider how we approach and operationalize social
categories. In other words, we should, for example, see social polarization as
an harmonic social category rather than as an ‘opposition within the community
(e.g. Jocks-Burnouts) or in opposition among communities (e.g.
urban-suburban).’ 

Chapter 6 shows that the shift in focus in sociolinguistic variation studies
begins to move to ‘macro-social categories and the development of statistics
models’, which allow newer studies to track ‘broad societal patterns of
variation and the path of linguistic change.’ The change in perspective in
newer studies means that social categories such as ‘Jocks’ and ‘Burnouts’ are
now conceived as ‘communities of practices’. According to the author, ‘...if
you can assign people to places in social networks, you can assign them to
communities of practice’. In this chapter, the author presents a seminal paper
“The Whole Woman: Sex and Gender Differences in Variation”, which presents
empirical evidence on how gender (i.e. sex differences) impacts stylistic
choices and contributes to the process of language change. Among many
findings, the paper questions the general tendency that ‘women lead in sound
change or that sex differences are indicative of sound change.’ Chapter 7,
with the paper “Vowels and NailPolish: The Emergence of Linguistic Style in
the Preadolescent Heterosexual Marketplace” catalogues the development of
linguistic style in preadolescent heterosexual school boys and girls, showing
how children grow hand in hand with gender as a social construction into
teenagers and how linguistic style is itself transformative and performative.

The Third Wave, which consists of four chapters (8, 9, 10 & 11), moves the
discussion to a theoretical conceptualization. Chapter 8 chronicles how the
author’s research life took a turn from a predominantly field work to that of
a theory-building life. The chapter presents a paper “Demystifying Sexuality
and Desire” which challenges us to attend the call to move  the study of
language and sexuality away from a narrow focus on identity categories such as
‘gay’ and ‘lesbian’ to that of language and desire (for more arguments, see
Kulick 2000) where (sexual) desire is seen as a motivation (and perhaps a
precursor) for explaining why/how people use language differently. Eckert
argues that sexuality or sexual desire is inadequate for capturing all that
constitutes why a male or a female would use language differently. In the
second paper in the same chapter “Elephants in the Room”, Eckert asks us to
‘view language and the social world -including the social locations that
provide our ideological map of that world – as a continuous human production.’
In Chapter 9 the author presents a paper titled “Variation and the Indexical
Field” in which Eckert proposes that variables be viewed as indexes that are
not only pointers beyond linguistic style to social categories and
construction but also as a meaning-making machine that should be carefully
operationalized in any sociolinguistic variation studies. In Chapter 10, the
author establishes an infinite relationship among linguistic patterns
viz-a-viz variation, meaning and operationalization of a variable as an
indefinite pointer to social meaning, and the construction of ethnicity
identity. A statistical analyses of vowel shift in the northern California
between Anglo and Chicano speech in California shows a differentiation between
nasal and non-nasal choices. This comparative study supports the argument that
in order for sociolinguists to deeply understand linguistic patterns (or
linguistic styles that identify and differentiate one speaker from the other),
we must always consider all the seemingly less important aspects of any
variable associated with the speakers being studied. According to the author,
one example of such subtle variables is ethnicity, whose subtleties of
indexicality can become powerful determinants in our quest to understand
‘linguistic competence in practices.’ Chapter 11, which completes the book,
does not present a research paper but recounts all the issues discussed in all
the previous chapters and projects the entire book into the future. Titled as
“The Semiotic Landscape”, the chapter recounts how linguistic variation can
find social meaning in their local and global landscapes. For every variable,
irrespective of how they are socially constructed or how we have
methodologically operationalized them in any studies, they carry a catalogue
of symbolic meaning that clearly interact with whatever linguistic patterns or
styles we might find.  

EVALUATION 

Although it is not clearly stated, the book sets out to achieve two objectives
which are clearly met. The first is to write an intellectual autobiography of
what I consider a great linguist in the third wave, and the second being to
chart the development of sociolinguistic variation from the days of William
Labov to the present-day, the third wave during which the works of the author
have become influential. The book can thus serve as a good read for
introduction to the history of sociolinguistic variation. While early
sociolinguistic works focus on urban survey studies, the second wave
emphasizes ‘ethnographic studies of local dynamics’, and the third wave
focuses on the social meaning of variation. Throughout the eleven chapters of
the book, the author clearly shows how linguistic variation and variables
carry social meaning. 

Although all the empirical studies presented in the book are phonological
studies, the new wave of studies focusing on morphosyntactic variation (e.g.
Akinlotan 2018, Akinlotan 2017, Akinlotan and Housen 2017) can still find
meaning in them. As an experienced author, Eckert ensures that the themes of
the book are spread throughout discussions in the eleven chapters, which could
make some readers argue for a collapse of Chapters 3 and 4 into one chapter.
The book is well written so that experienced and not-so experienced
sociolinguists would find it interesting as crucial sociolinguistic concepts
ranging from language shift, language death, variability, style, personae,
linguistic motivation, language change, social identity, social categories,
social construction of variables, language revitalization, language revival,
language ideology, language politics, and language and gender are clearly
discussed and juxtaposed with empirical evidence.

The author’s decision to provide background information leading up to each
research paper is very helpful for readers to not only understand the
arguments in the paper but also to relate these arguments to the present
concerns in sociolinguistic studies. The book is intended for advanced
sociolinguist researchers who are familiar with central concerns in
sociolinguistic variation studies. A significant amount of prior knowledge in
sociolinguistics is not necessary for comprehension, though additional
readings such as works showing the significant contributions of statistical
concepts and frameworks to understanding the social meaning that underlies the
linguistic patterns and variation may be needed. For sociolinguists that are
trained in the third wave, the book remains a must read for them all.

REFERENCES

Akinlotan, Mayowa. (2018). A Corpus-Based Study of the Structure of the Noun
Phrase in Nigerian English. PhD thesis, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium.

Akinlotan, Mayowa. and Housen, Alex  (2017). Noun phrase complexity in
Nigerian English: Syntactic function and length outweigh genre in predicting
noun phrase complexity. English Today, 33 (3): 1–8. doi:
10.1017/S0266078416000626.

Akinlotan, Mayowa (2017). Predicting Definite Article Usages in New Englishes:
Variety Outweighs Genre and Syntactic Function in Nigerian English. Anglica:
an international Journal of English Studies, 26 (2): 101–121

Ferguson, Charles (1959). Diglossia. Word. 15:325-40.

Eckert, Penelope (1989a) Jocks and Burnouts: Social Categories and Identity in
the High School. New York: Teachers College Press.

Eckert, Penelope (1989b). Social membership and linguistic variation. Paper
presented at the eighteen annual conference on New Ways of Analyzing Variation
in English. Duke University.

Kulick, Don (2000). Gay and lesbian language. In Annual Review of
Anthropology. Mountain View: Annual Reviews: 243-85


ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Mayowa Akinlotan is currently with the Linguistics Research Center at the
University of Texas at Austin where he conducts research around issues
pertaining to sociolinguistics, linguistic variation, corpus linguistics,
World Englishes, syntactic variation, and syntactic alternation. His works
have appeared in many journals such as English Today, Glottotheory, Anglica.





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