Contemporary Linguistics: An Introduction, 5th edition, Chapter 15: Variation, 1

Variation

Methods of studying variation

One problem in determining the relationship between form, function, and social
identity in language is that it is highly variable. The claim that language is
variable is relatively uncontroversial. Any short discourse will reveal variability.
For example, in 1) there are five words ending in -ing. Two are pronounced [ɪŋ],
two are pronounced [ən], and one is pronounced [in].
1)
Stocks and investments and stuff like that in math but no, they don’t do
nothen’. Like, I don’t do anything. We were talken’ about school and I don’t do
anything that I’ve learned from school. Notheen. (Alberta English Corpus; Cass
26, Spkr 023, 22.08)
Where fields of linguistics differ is in how this variation is to be
interpreted and even if it is to be interpreted at all. Most studies of the rules
governing phonology, morphology, and syntax attempt to factor out
unexplained variation. The variationist approach to language is unique in that it
takes as its starting point the tenet that language is inherently variable. As
noted in the section on discourse, the central focus of interest to variationist
analysis is the sociolinguistic variable. This is a set of forms or variants that can
all be used to say the same thing. A phoneme, a morpheme, or a set of syntactic
structures can each be considered a variable if at least some of its
manifestations cannot be explained using categorical, or invariant, rules. By
counting each possible variant of a variable and finding out what percentage
occur in each possible conditioning environment, patterns in the variation can
be discovered. For example, variationist analyses of the example in 1)
comparing the percentage of -in’ versus -ing in casual registers to that found in
formal registers in a number of communities have usually found that formality is
a factor in determining which variant is used.
Data culled from speaker intuitions is prohibited in variationist study of
the sociolinguistics of society because the researcher can never be sure what
speaker intuitions about variable patterns represent. Some people have very
strong attitudes about language. The “Letters to the Editor” column in the
magazine Organic Gardening provides an excellent example. When the
magazine hired a new editor who adopted a more casual style, a controversy
began that ran for well over three years with many readers voicing strong
objections, as shown in 2).
 Contemporary Linguistics: An Introduction, 5th edition, Chapter 15: Variation, 2

2)
I suspect you view yourself as a breath of fresh air to this encrusted old
publication. I view your insistence on fracturing the written English language as
a blast of pollution. (January, 1992, p. 14)
Sociolinguistic studies have found that speakers who believe a particular
form to be “slang” or “incorrect” will often deny using it even though subsequent
examination of their recorded speech shows that they do. Thus, only corpora of
natural conversational speech are acceptable for examining variation.
Since the rarity of some variant may merely reflect the rarity of the structure
where it is most likely to occur, there is no infallible way of using conversational
data to determine when a form is completely prohibited. Instead, variation
studies compare overall rates of occurrence and co-occurrence of variants to
determine which linguistic or social contexts favor or disfavor any one form. To
obtain this information, a quantitative analysis is required.

Indexing analysis

When a variable is continuous, one method of quantifying the variation is by

indexing analysis—that is, assigning an index value to points along a
continuum. Each token, or instance, of the variable uttered by the speaker is
given a value based on where it falls along the continuum. For instance, in
William Labov’s investigation of speech in New York City, one of the variables
was production of θ and ð in contexts such as that in 3):
3)
There’s something strange about that—how I can remember everything he did:
this thing, that thing, and the other thing.

Labov noted that the θ and ð sounds could be produced as the standard
fricatives or as nonstandard stops (the stereotypical dese and dose instead of
these and those). Sometimes, however, they were produced as affricates—an
intermediate stage between fricative and stop. Each possible pronunciation was
assigned a numerical value reflecting how closely it approximated the standard.
These values are shown in Table 1.
 Contemporary Linguistics: An Introduction, 5th edition, Chapter 15: Variation, 3

Each speaker’s individual score was computed with the numerical values for the
possible pronunciations, using the formula in 4):

Thus, an individual who produced all stops and no fricatives or affricates would
have a score of 200, whereas an individual who produced all fricatives would
have a score of 0. Indexing scores for individuals and for groups can then be
compared. Table 2 shows the index scores for stopping of the interdental
fricative by two individual New Yorkers: Bennie N. was a truck driver who had
not finished high school, and Miriam L. was a practicing lawyer who had
completed college and law school.

As Table 2 indicates, Miriam L. always produced θ as an interdental fricative and

almost always produced ð as a fricative. In contrast, Bennie N. was much more
likely to produce a nonstandard stop or affricate instead of a fricative for θ and
ð. Index analysis of a random sample of New Yorkers revealed that use of a stop
or affricate instead of the standard interdental fricative was sharply stratified
according to socioeconomic class.
Indexing analysis was also used in a study of /aw/ fronting in Canada.
The initial portion of the diphthong is sometimes produced with a more forward
articulation than at other times. The /aw/ in such words as crowd, out, and now
can be produced as back [ɑw] or [ɔw]; as central [aw]; or as front [æw] or [ɛw].
When data from informants in Toronto and Vancouver were sorted according to
age, indexing analysis revealed that younger speakers were far more likely than
 Contemporary Linguistics: An Introduction, 5th edition, Chapter 15: Variation, 4

older speakers to front the /aw/.

This methodology is most valuable where the variation operates along a
continuum to evaluate degree and direction of vowel movement. However, in
cases where the variation involves a discrete choice such as the one between the
active or passive sentences in 5a) or between the presence and absence of the
final [t] in 5b), indexing is not appropriate.
5)
a. The cat bit the dog.
The dog was bitten by the cat.
b. The time is half past one.
The time is half pasØ one.

In these situations, other types of analysis can be employed as discussed below.

Marginal analysis

In marginal analysis, the most straightforward type of analysis is reporting the

overall percentages of occurrence for each variant in relevant linguistic and
social contexts as shown in Table 3 for /aw/ fronting in southern Alberta.

In fact, this is probably the best way to determine rates and occurrences
of variants by context. However, since this variation may be subject to so many
possibly interconnected factors, more sophisticated statistical methodology
serves as a valuable tool for determining (1) if distinctions are significant and (2)
if cross-cutting factors are falsely inflating or obscuring variation. Variable rule
analysis is ideal for this purpose.

Variable rule analysis

Variable rule analysis (VRA) is an important and frequently employed tool in the
modern study of variation. Using statistical procedures specifically adapted for
linguistic data, it indicates not only the probability that one variant or another
will occur in any context but also whether there is a statistically significant
difference between those contexts. More importantly, we can also find out which
 Contemporary Linguistics: An Introduction, 5th edition, Chapter 15: Variation, 5

of a number of (possibly conflicting) explanations is most likely in accounting

for any variation.
VRA is based on the idea that any grammatical rule can be stated in
probabilistic terms, where a probability of Ø means that a rule never occurs and
a probability of 1 means that it always occurs. Any rule that occurs sometimes,
such as the deletion of t/d shown above, has a probability between Ø and 1,
depending on the social and linguistic environment in which it is uttered.
As in the case of marginal analyses, the VRA researcher first makes hypotheses
about what factors might be conditioning the variation and then studies all
instances of the variable in question (e.g. for a study of t/d deletion, both
deleted and nondeleted instances are included). Each token is coded for
possible influencing factors. Figure 1 shows a partial example of a coding chart
for t/d deletion.

Since VRA is only applicable to variable cases, environments in which the

rule never applies (Ø) or always applies (1) are not included. The rest of the
tokens are subjected to a statistical analysis that takes all the factors into
account at the same time, thus eliminating any factors that may appear to be
important but are in fact, confounded with other, more influential factors.
This method has been used to study numerous varieties of many
languages and dialects. Notable Canadian studies have investigated French in
Acadian regions, Montreal, Ottawa-Hull, and Ontario, and English in Alberta,
Newfoundland, Toronto, Ottawa, and African-Canadian communities in Nova
Scotia. VRA analysis allows researchers to find out if age groups differ in their
use of particular variants within the community and to make predictions about
language change in progress. The fact that socially and linguistically
conditioned variation has been identified in all languages that have been studied
shows that it is an inherent characteristic of human language.
 Contemporary Linguistics: An Introduction, 5th edition, Chapter 15: Variation, 6

Principal components analysis

Principal components analysis is markedly different from other methods of

studying variation in that, instead of correlating particular variants of individual
variables with predefined categories, a number of variables are examined
simultaneously to see if they are shared by any groups of speakers. A principal
component is a set of variables that gives the best fit for the data with respect
to how test items group together. In the Puerto-Rican Spanish speech
community in New York City, principal components analysis was used to
determine if factors like gender assignment, widespread usage, or phonological
and/or morphological integration were all relevant in loan word assimilation.
Studies of speech communities in Sydney, Australia, and St. John’s,
Newfoundland, have studied the grouping of speakers with respect to their use
of designated variables. Thus, which features are important and the social
divisions which they mark fall out from the data rather than any specified social
category. This has the advantage of revealing social distinctions that might not
have been isolated if only correlations were examined. You can see the results
of principal components analysis in the Telsur project (the Phonological Atlas of
North America). Go to http://ling.upenn.edu/phonoatlas/.
In St. John’s, six variables were found to make up one principal
component. These are shown in Table 4.

The speakers with the highest rate of nonstandard variants for the
variables in this component were found to be the older men in the community.
 Contemporary Linguistics: An Introduction, 5th edition, Chapter 15: Variation, 7

No other social factors were discovered. A second principal component included

the variables in Table 5.

In the second component, it was speakers with high rates of standard

features who formed a cluster, and these were predominantly women and
speakers from higher socioeconomic classes. The differing groups of speakers
isolated for each component show the conflict between standard and local
nonstandard language varieties and the importance of social identity in
accounting for variation.
You are now ready to do the exercise on methods of studying variation.