16.2367, Review: Socioling/Historical Ling: Bergs (2005)

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LINGUIST List: Vol-16-2367. Thu Aug 11 2005. ISSN: 1068 - 4875.

Subject: 16.2367, Review: Socioling/Historical Ling: Bergs (2005)

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1)
Date: 10-Aug-2005
From: Margaret Sonmez < margaret at metu.edu.tr >
Subject: Social Networks and Historical Sociolinguistics 

	
-------------------------Message 1 ---------------------------------- 
Date: Thu, 11 Aug 2005 14:53:48
From: Margaret Sonmez < margaret at metu.edu.tr >
Subject: Social Networks and Historical Sociolinguistics 
 

AUTHOR: Bergs, Alexander
TITLE: Social Networks and Historical Sociolinguistics
SUBTITLE: Studies in Morphosyntactic Variation in the Paston Letters 
(1421-1503)
SERIES: Topics in English Linguistics, 51
PUBLISHER: Mouton de Gruyter 
YEAR: 2005
Announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/16/16-533.html 

Margaret J-M Sonmez, Department of Foreign Language Education, 
Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey

This book is intended for scholars of language variation and change and 
most particularly those who are interested in the growing field of 
historical sociolinguistics (or socio-historical linguistics). The study 
focuses on three late Middle English variables: personal pronouns, 
relativizers, and light verbs (complex predicates). At the same time, the 
methodological issues involved in the analysis of historical data are 
discussed at some length, and the discussions are not limited to a purely 
network-theory approach. Any researcher interested in these variables 
should read this book, because they are discussed from a wide variety of 
theoretical and analytical perspectives and, importantly, discrepancies 
between the results of this work and the results obtained from these 
earlier studies should now be taken into account. In addition, the 
methodological and theoretical contexts of the analyses are put together 
in what might almost be called a hidden agenda of the book, which seems 
to be an effort to question our techniques and refine our understanding of 
the processes involved in language change, as revealed by the emphasis 
in twice presenting a model of language change, illustrated on pages 42 
and 256. Those interested in the theory and techniques of historical 
sociolinguistic analysis can also, then, benefit from this work. It should 
be added that this is a very readable book, the author's deep interest in 
his subject is infectious and one enjoys accompanying his thoughts as they 
light on many different linguistic and theoretical issues.

A brief summary of the chapters follows, before comments and critical 
evaluation.

Bergs clearly sets out his aims and concerns in the short Introduction: 
the Paston letters were chosen for this study of language change because 
of the particularly interesting period in which they were written; 
personal pronouns, relativizers and light verb constructions were chosen 
as the linguistic variables because all were in transitional phases at 
that time and there are unresolved issues in our understanding of each of 
these changes; and network theory was chosen as a tool for analysis 
because the nature of the source materials (letters from family members) 
and the subjects of enquiry (which include how change spreads within a 
speech community, and the role of the individual in change) are amenable 
to this sort of analysis. 

Chapters 2 and 3 discuss Historical Sociolinguistics and Social Network 
Analysis, respectively. After a wide-ranging survey of issues concerning 
the relationships between linguistics, history and the other social 
sciences, some of the main issues underlying the study of historical 
sociolinguistics are discussed. These range from issues concerning the 
reconstruction of the language and meanings of long-dead speakers out of 
written records, to style, register and grammaticalisation. Bergs lays the 
foundations for a study that will ask more and different questions from 
those encountered in case-studies that confine themselves to a limited set 
of hypotheses related to narrowly selected correlation patterns and their 
quantitative interpretations. Rather, it seems that he wishes to use his 
own case studies (the analyses of the forthcoming chapters) to question 
and illuminate a large number of methodological (in the broadest sense) 
issues.  

The introduction to Chapter 3 (Social Network Analysis -- present and 
past) summarizes the contents of the chapter better than any paraphrase 
could do: "the ideas, principles, and methods underlying and constituting 
social network analysis [are] described and discussed [and] the 
implications of social network analysis for language variation and 
language change [are] addressed. This [is] followed by a historical sketch 
that [...] highlights on [sic] historical network analysis with regard to 
social and linguistic theory. In particular, problems inherent in data 
structure and acquisition [are] discussed. In the final sections, an 
attempt [is] made at developing some general principles and techniques for 
social network analysis in (late) Medieval England, and at analyzing the 
networks of the Paston family with such instruments. This chapter 
concludes with a detailed description of the linguistic material that was 
used." (22).

The following three chapters, 4, 5, and 6, deal separately with the 
descriptions and analyses of the selected linguistic variables. Each 
chapter provides a condensed history of the variable under investigation 
and a review of its literature. Not only this, however, but the 
discussions are extended into other areas of linguistic enquiry, with 
links drawn between, and questions asked about, what has already been 
found, what remains to be discovered, and how these existing and future 
findings may fit into theories of language from Generative Grammar to 
Cognitive Linguistics. Beyond this, however, generalizations cannot be 
made because, as a major tenet of the volume borne out in practice, each 
variable requires and is given attention to different developmental and 
usage factors. Thus, for instance, while all three analyses pay attention 
to the social variable gender, for the personal pronouns the roles of 
dialect and linguistic analogy are discussed, while these latter have no 
place in the analyses of the following two variables; and again, while the 
relationship between the author and the addressee is considered in 
analyses of personal pronouns and relativizers, it is not a part of the 
analysis of the LVCs.  

A few selected examples of findings, both positive and negative, from 
these chapters follow: in Chapter 4 it is, interestingly, discovered that 
the marking of thou/you alternants for social relations has not entered 
the written language of these people; at the same time no 'communal 
patterns in pronoun usage' are found (127). In Chapter 5 the postulated 
differential treatment of restrictive and non-restrictive relative clauses 
is supported by the material, and animacy of the antecedent is shown 
already to be important in non-restrictive clauses, but the relative 
frequencies of 'which' and 'the which' are contrary to those posited by 
Mustanoja (cited on page164) and found in the Helsinki Corpus (165). 
Finally, in Chapter 6 a hierarchy of (increasing) markedness for light 
verbs is identified as GIVE > HAVE > TAKE > DO > MAKE (232). Contrary 
to the expectations of earlier studies, no linear increase in the frequency 
of light verbs is found in the corpus, instead it is found that for one of 
the three generations studied (within the years 1451-1475) 'the more often 
speakers used light verb constructions, the fewer different types of light 
verb constructions (i.e. different nouns) they used, and vice versa' 
(237). 
 
With very many subjects broached in the individual analytic chapters, the 
Conclusion (Chapter 7) has many strands to tie up; it can not merely recap 
a previous hypothesis and point to satisfactory results, because the study 
asked many open questions and the results of many of the analyses were 
negative. That is, important questions concerning issues such as the role 
of marking and saliency in the spread of change, the extent to which 
choice of variable is conscious, and the extent to which the individual 
language users are involved in language change, with all their theoretical 
and methodological repercussions, run through the book and cannot be 
simply concluded. Further, in spite of Berg's optimistic expectations for 
this sort of analytic approach to late Modern English as expressed in the 
conclusion to his earlier work on such material (2000, 251), it was found 
that Social Network analysis of this corpus did not offer clear and 
illuminating answers to all of the questions, but presented, rather, a 
mixed bag of results that can not be presented simply and as a whole. 

This is not to say that the work is inconclusive, however. Many valuable 
results have come out of the study and most of them are mentioned in this 
last chapter. One, for instance, is the fact that different linguistic 
variables were shown (as predicted in the introduction) to require 
different methods of analysis and interpretation. Another is the fact that 
there is a qualitative difference between the usages of a first generation 
user of a certain form, that is in some way breaking new ground, and the 
following generations who, while they may show a statistically smooth 
incrementation of usage, are nevertheless involved in quite a different 
sort of choice of forms, there being by now an existing repertoire for 
them to pick from. (245). This, by the way, fits in with another 
preoccupation of Bergs, that of the roles of saliency and markedness in 
the individual's choice of variable form. There is also the role of age 
grading in language variation and change, and the concomitant question of 
how to account for this methodologically. Indeed, the whole issue of 
change on the individual level -- changing social and personal 
circumstances, changing network ties, changing language usage -- is 
shown to be a major obstacle to effective social network analysis of 
historical material that spans a 'movie shot' rather than a 'snap shot' of time 
(260).

I suspect that a comment Bergs makes (54-55) concerning the differing 
roles of networks in changes where there is an accepted standard variety 
and in changes where there is no such a thing may be a more powerful 
explanation than he credits for his material's lack of overall correlation 
between network strength scores and form frequencies. For although 
network analyses are not reliant on the fairly rigid class models that 
stratificational studies use, it is possible that the nature of many of 
the ties selected for scoring is in fact geared towards correlations 
between individuals' social positions and (linguistic) behaviour that can 
be placed on some sort of normative or even prestige scale. For while 
power relations and education, to choose but two, may relate in a 
particular society and time to a greater diversification of social ties, 
they are also directly related to position vis-à-vis the standard or 
prestige usage where such a thing exists. But not all language variables 
have this sort of social meaning or indeed this sort of hierarchical 
relationship between their different forms. This does not mean one has to 
reintroduce that questionable concept-of-convenience the 'free variable', 
it means only that what a variable correlates with does not have to be a 
crudely socially evaluative factor.  As Bergs may be lightly touching upon 
(20) and Singh (1996a, 8) certainly insists upon more firmly, it could be 
a matter of any sort of meaning in the broader sense. The failure of the 
particular coordinates chosen in Bergs's Network Strength Scale to show a 
meaningful pattern may indicate that, contrary to what he reported early 
on in the book, it is not a case of 'for the sociolinguist ... any kind of 
variation will do' (18). Not only the social situation but also the 
linguistic situation (lack of a recognised standard in this case) must be 
matched by adjustments to the analytic toolbox (here the selection of 
scored elements). 

An outstanding feature of this volume is the many parameters of 
investigation (individual, group, network strength scales, 3 groups of 
linguistic variables, three generations of writers, intra- and extra-
linguistic factors) that it accepts. This leads to a very dense piece of 
research. Bergs' admirably lucid and at times conversational style and his 
frequent summaries are therefore necessary and particularly welcome. The 
decisions he has had to make concerning descriptive background and 
analytic technique are clearly set out and well justified, although more 
dialectal information about relativizers and light verb constructions 
would be welcomed by this reader, and I could not understand how a stay 
of more than (just) one week can be considered long enough to be a 
criterion for a 'place of living' that in its turn effects the potential number of 
ties a person has (73); I wonder if this is a misprint.

The writer has looked at his materials in an unusual amount of detail, and 
the relating of his readings and his own findings to a variety of 
different linguistic theories is a great strength. While no work can 
provide a definitive list of elements needed for another person's 
research, the total of linguistic factors considered in these chapters 
would certainly make a useful check-list for anyone wishing to 
contextualise their interpretation of similar language variables. To give 
an example, when investigating the possible reasons and mechanisms of 
change from h- to th- plural personal pronouns, Bergs considers (among 
other things) both therapeutic and prophylactic reasons for change (92-
93), Pike's 'formatives' (98) and thence the cognitive abstractions of the 
Wickelphone and its descendent the Wickelfeature (98-100). It is a 
pleasure to see all these different perspectives being made to work 
together towards a deeper understanding of the mechanisms of language 
change. 

Undoubtedly Bergs is concerned with, indeed at times almost haunted by, 
the seemingly unresolvable gap between the individual and the social or 
communal as it effects studies of language variation and change and, 
indeed, all social sciences. In each chapter there is a reasoned movement 
between community and individual, with correlations between language 
usage and generation, or network strength scale being only a part of the 
analyses used, and then only for particular subsections of the analyses. 
Some individuals showed very clear patterns of linguistic behaviour that 
could convincingly be explained in terms of their own biographies or 
positions within the network (notably Margaret Paston [traditional usage] 
Elizabeth innovative [social climber] and the elder John of the third 
generation of Pastons), but this was not usually the case for the Paston 
family network as a whole, even within the analyses of single variables. 
When the results of the three variables were viewed together with the 
individuals' network strength scales, 'no uniform correlation pattern' 
could be found (254). 

Romaine has analysed the individualist vs. collectivist problem succinctly 
as one of two distinct levels of abstraction (1996, 100), and in practical 
terms, methodological decisions respecting this distinction, especially 
concerning the technique of analysis in accordance with aims of the 
investigation, have provided a way out of the dilemma. The cost is, 
naturally enough, that any set of results is only illuminating relative to 
its theoretical and methodological origins. It is argued in this book that 
large-scale corpus studies 'often lead to misconstrued images of actual 
language use in individual speakers' (6), and although anyone who has 
read Labov's Philadelphia work will agree that not all huge projects ignore 
the individual speaker and his or her importance in language change, it is 
generally true that a widely based corpus accounts for neither the full 
effects of the change upon the individual user nor the individual's full 
effects upon the change; and while a network study of a small group or 
coterie, such as Fitzmaurice's or Tieken's work on 18th century groups, 
can show the sociolinguistic relationships between individuals in that 
group it can not account for those groups' and individuals' full effects 
upon the wider language community or even for the wider language 
community's effects upon them (and the individual's role in language 
change has not been studied on its own because unless some level of 
society is affected, language change, by definition, cannot occur). There 
is a sense that something is lost in the gap between the two focusses, 
something that relates to that methodologically inadmissible and largely 
undefinable factor 'what happens in real life'. Maybe this is because 
descriptions and correlations are not explanations (Nevalainen and 
Raumolin-Brunberg 19), and we so thirst for explanations that we wish to 
read our correlations as causal. As Nevalainen and Raumolin-Brunberg put 
it, 'it is the general quest for a sociolinguistic theory that is at issue 
here' (ibid). 

Putting aside as a tempting diversion the different arguments in this 
area, what seems relevant to the book under consideration seems to be 
Singh's call for a sociolinguistic theory where 'language structure and 
language use will be a differentiated unity and not merely the two 
autonomies of the orderliness of competence and the anarchy of 
performance, and the theory of discourse a rational reconstruction of the 
actualization of discourse potentials' (2). Bergs's underlying if loose 
affinity with Singh is signalled by his use of the word 'free', when he 
wonders 'whether speakers are essentially free to choose and may do 
what they want' (ibid). Singh has asked for a theory that allows the 
reconstruction of language as a social activity involving 'joy, truth and 
freedom' (Singh 1996a, 2), and desires an outlook that can 'reintegrate, 
at the level of analysis and theory, what was deliberately or 
inadvertently left out in [the] initial search for special frameworks' 
(4). What Bergs is implying when he asks 'How much are speakers 
constrained by their linguistic system, how much do they actually shape 
this system?' (263), although ostensibly expressing a desire for more 
attention to be paid in interpretations of data to the level of individual 
speaker, may in this context be seen as an unconscious plea for just such 
a sociolinguistics. Indeed, the whole of Singh's argument is an 
appropriate background to the themes underlying many of Berg's 
questions in this volume.

Having asked these questions, however, and shown some shortcomings of 
even a very carefully-prepared network analysis in sociolinguistics, what 
practical solutions does Berg present? First of all it should be noted 
that Bergs is not attempting to constitute a new criticial 
sociolinguistics as posited by Singh, but rather to show that 'any claim 
about cognitive, universal, or typological determinants of linguistic 
change need not only hold for the level of the speech community or its 
subgroups, but also for a substantial number of speakers in isolation, if 
it wants to reflect reality [. And that] variation on the level of 
individual speaker [...] is also guided by a number of both intra- and 
extralinguistic factors' (5). In fact, as his group correlations break 
down, the emphasis on interpretation of each individual's results becomes 
increasingly important. Then we may see the analyses in this volume as a 
brave attempt to try something new while at the same time clinging to the 
wreckage of a favourite methodology. The Social Network analysis of 
language does indeed provide a certain amount of freedom for the 
researcher to develop his or her own parameters of investigation 
(specifically in the definition of what constitutes a network tie and what 
score to give to each tie), although such adaptations are not widely 
discussed in the present work. What Berg seems to be promoting in terms 
of analytic technique, as a way to allow that freedom a chance to show 
itself, is to treat each variable and each informant (both individual and 
community) separately and then together, both in contrast and 
cumulatively. It is a huge and complicated undertaking, even with a 
relatively small number of writers in the core group. One of the findings 
from here is that the task is perhaps too massive, especially when 
different periods of time need to be taken into consideration as well. 

REFERENCES

Bergs, Alexander T (2000) 'Social Networks in Pre-1500 Britain: Problems, 
Prospects, Examples'. European Journal of English Studies, Vol 4, No. 3: 
239-251. 

Labov, William (2001) Principles of Linguistic Change. Volume 2: Social 
Factors. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.

Mustanoja, Tauno F (1960) A Middle English Syntax. Helsinki: Societe 
Neophilologique.

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

Romaine, Suzanne (1996) 'The Status of Sociological Models and 
Categories in Explaining Language Variation'. In Singh 1996b: 99-114.

Singh, Rajendra (1996a) 'Introduction'. In Singh 1996b: 1-15.

Singh, Rajendra, ed. (1996b) 'Towards a Critical Sociolinguistics'. 
Philadelphia: John Benjamins. 

ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Margaret J-M Sonmez teaches linguistics and English Literature at the 
Middle East Technical University, Ankara. Her research interests include 
variation in Early Modern English and the perception of written language.





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