Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2plfb Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-27T20:12:13.800Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

14 - Changing Language, Changing Character Types

from Part III - Meaning and Linguistic Change

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 July 2021

By
Rebecca Lurie Starr
Edited by
Lauren Hall-Lew ,
Emma Moore  and
Robert J. Podesva
Lauren Hall-Lew
Affiliation:
University of Edinburgh
Emma Moore
Affiliation:
University of Sheffield
Robert J. Podesva
Affiliation:
Stanford University, California
Get access

Summary

Relative to the first- and second-wave traditions of variationist sociolinguistics, language change has not been a central concern of work in the third wave. Indeed, most research in the third wave has not mentioned language change at all, focusing instead on social meaning and on language’s role in the construction and performance of identities, styles, and stances. Nonetheless, research in this tradition that has addressed language change (e.g., Hall-Lew et al., this volume; Zhang, this volume) makes evident that the approach has a great deal to contribute, particularly in accounting for the social motivations underpinning change.

Keywords

language variation and changesociophoneticssound changecharacter typecharacterological figureworld Englishespostcolonial EnglishesSingaporeSoutheast Asia
Type
Chapter
Information
Social Meaning and Linguistic Variation
Theorizing the Third Wave
 , pp. 315 - 337
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Agha, Asif. 2003. The social life of cultural value. Language & Communication 23, 231–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Agha, Asif. 2005. Voice, footing, enregisterment. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 15, 38–59.Google Scholar
Agha, Asif. 2007. Language and Social Relations. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Ali, Nurul. 2012. Magnum Temptation event. May 21, 2012. http://blog.omy.sg/casio-sheen/2012/05/21/magnum-temptation-event/. Accessed August 11, 2017.Google Scholar
Alsagoff, Lubna. 2010. English in Singapore: Culture, capital, and identity in linguistic variation. World Englishes 29(3), 336–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bao, Zhiming. 1995. Already in Singapore English. World Englishes 14(2), 181–8.Google Scholar
Bao, Zhiming. 2005. The aspectual system of Singapore English and the systemic substratist explanation. Journal of Linguistics 41(2), 237–67.Google Scholar
Beal, Joan C. 2009. Enregisterment, commodification and historical context: ‘Geordie’ versus ‘Sheffieldish’. American Speech 84(2),138–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Becker, Kara. 2014. The social motivations of reversal: Raised bought in New York City English. Language in Society 43(4), 395–420.Google Scholar
Boersma, Paul and Weenink, David. 2016. Praat: Doing phonetics by computer [Computer program]. Version 6.0.13. http://www.fon.hum.uva.nl/praat/. Accessed January 31, 2016.Google Scholar
Bucholtz, Mary. 1999. ‘Why be normal?’ Language and identity practices in a community of nerd girls. Language in Society 28(2), 203–23.Google Scholar
Bucholtz, Mary. 2010. White Kids: Language and White Youth Identities. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chng, Huang Hoon. 2008. Beyond linguistic instrumentalism: The place of Singlish in Singapore. In Rubdy, R. and Tan, P. (eds.), Language as a Commodity: Global Structures, Local Marketplaces. London, UK: Bloomsbury, 57–69.Google Scholar
Chong, Terence. 2011. Manufacturing authenticity: The cultural production of national identities in Singapore. Modern Asian Studies 45(4), 877–97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
CIA. 2017. The World Factbook: Singapore. www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/sn.html. Accessed August 10, 2017.Google Scholar
Clammer, John R. 1979. The Ambiguity of Identity: Ethnicity Maintenance and Change among the Straits Chinese Community of Malaysia and Singapore. Singapore: The Institute of Southeast Asian Studies.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Coupland, Nikolas. 2001. Language, situation and the relational self: Theorizing dialect-style in sociolinguistics. In Eckert, P. and Rickford, J. R. (eds.), Stylistic Variation in Language. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 185–210.Google Scholar
Deterding, David. 2007. The vowels of the different ethnic groups in Singapore. In Prescott, D., Kirkpatrick, A., Martin, I., and Hashim, A. (eds.), English in Southeast Asia: Literacies, literatures, and Varieties. Newcastle, UK: Cambridge Scholars Press, 2–29.Google Scholar
Eckert, Penelope. 2008. Variation and the indexical field. Journal of Sociolinguistics 12(4), 453–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eckert, Penelope. 2012. Three waves of variation study: The emergence of meaning in the study of sociolinguistic variation. Annual Review of Anthropology 41, 87–100.Google Scholar
Eckert, Penelope, and McConnell-Ginet, Sally. 1992. Think practically and look locally: Language and gender as community-based practice. Annual Review of Anthropology 21, 461–90.Google Scholar
Goh, Chok Tong. 1999. Prime Minister’s National Day Rally speech: First-world economy, world-class home. www.nas.gov.sg/archivesonline/speeches/view-html?filename=1999082202.htm. Accessed August 10, 2017.Google Scholar
Goh, Daniel. 2015. Facebook post, August 27, 2015. www.facebook.com/danpsgoh/photos/a.573814819347932.1073741827.460369130692502/964848156911261/. Accessed August 10, 2017.Google Scholar
Gonçalves, Bruno, Loureiro-Porto, Lucía, Ramasco, José J., and Sánchez, David. 2017. The fall of the empire: The Americanization of English. arXiv:1707.00781.Google Scholar
Hong, Xinyi. 2013. Singapore’s millennials are nostalgic, and it’s fueling trends in art and retail. South China Morning Post. July 5, 2013. www.scmp.com/magazines/style/article/1269357/good-old-days. Accessed August 10, 2017.Google Scholar
Janice, . 2010. Nestum Cereal goodness. April 15, 2010. http://jan-projectoflove.blogspot.jp/2010/04/nestum-cereal-goodness.html. Accessed August 11, 2017.Google Scholar
Jerilyn, M. 2013. Review of Hua Ting Restaurant. April 10, 2013. www.yelp.com.sg/biz/hua-ting-restaurant-singapore. Accessed August 11, 2017.Google Scholar
Johnson, Daniel Ezra. 2009. Getting off the GoldVarb standard: Introducing Rbrul for mixed-effects variable rule analysis. Language and Linguistic Compass 3(1), 359–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Johnstone, Barbara. 2009. Pittsburghese shirts: Commodification and the enregisterment of an urban dialect. American Speech 84(2), 157–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Johnstone, Barbara. 2016. Characterological figures and expressive style in the enregisterment of linguistic variety. In Montgomery, C. and Moore, E. (eds.), Language and a Sense of Place: Studies in Language and Region. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 283–300.Google Scholar
Kachru, Braj B. 2006. The English language in the outer circle. In Bolton, K. and Kacru, B. B. (eds.), World Englishes. New York, NY: Routledge, 241–55.Google Scholar
Labov, William. 1963. The social motivation of a sound change. Word 19(3), 273–309.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Labov, William, Ash, Sharon, and Boberg, Charles. 2006. The Atlas of North American English: Phonetics, Phonology, and Sound Change. Berlin, DE: Walter de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Leimgruber, Jakob. 2012. Singapore English: An indexical approach. World Englishes 31(1), 1–14.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lim, Lisa. 2004a. Singapore English: A Grammatical Description. Amsterdam, NL: John Benjamins Publishing Company.Google Scholar
Lim, Lisa. 2004b. Sounding Singaporean. In Lim, L. (ed.), Singapore English: A Grammatical Description. Amsterdam, NL: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 19–56.Google Scholar
Meyerhoff, Miriam, and Niedzielski, Nancy. 2003. The globalization of vernacular variation. Journal of Sociolinguistics 7(4), 534–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Modiano, Marko. 1996. The Americanization of Euro‐English. World Englishes 15(2), 207–15.Google Scholar
Moore, Emma, and Podesva, Robert J.. 2009. Style, indexicality, and the social meaning of tag questions. Language in Society 38(4), 447–85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Niedzielski, Nancy and Preston, Dennis. 2000. Folk Linguistics. Berlin, DE: Walter de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Pakir, Anne. 1991. The range and depth of English-knowing bilinguals in Singapore. World Englishes 10(2), 167–79.Google Scholar
Park, Joseph Sung-Yul, and Wee, Lionel. 2009. The three circles redux: A market-theoretic perspective on World Englishes. Applied Linguistics 30(3), 389–406.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Phang, Sock-Yong, and Helble, Matthias. 2016. Housing policies in Singapore. ADBI Working Paper 559. Tokyo: Asian Development Bank Institute.Google Scholar
Platt, John, and Weber, Heidi. 1980. English in Singapore and Malaysia: Status, Features, Functions. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Podesva, Robert J. 2011. The California vowel shift and gay identity. American Speech 86(1), 32–51.Google Scholar
Poedjosoedarmo, Gloria. 2000. The media as a model and source of innovation in the development of Singapore Standard English. In Brown, Adam, Deterding, David, and Ee Ling, Low (eds.), The English Language in Singapore: Research on Pronunciation. Singapore: Singapore Association for Applied Linguistics, 112–20.Google Scholar
Roach, Peter. 2004. British English: Received pronunciation. Journal of the International Phonetic Association 34(2), 239–45.Google Scholar
Schneider, Edgar. 2007. Postcolonial English: Varieties Around the World. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Singapore Department of Statistics. 2015. General Household Survey 2015. www.singstat.gov.sg/publications/publications-and-papers/GHS/ghs2015. Accessed August 14, 2017.Google Scholar
Starr, Rebecca Lurie. 2016. English variation and standard language ideology on a Singaporean game show. Paper presented at New Ways of Analyzing Variation Asia-Pacific 4. National Chung Cheng University: Chiayi, Taiwan.Google Scholar
Starr, Rebecca Lurie. 2017. Cross-dialectal awareness and use of the BATH-TRAP distinction in Singapore: Investigating the effects of overseas travel and media consumption. Unpublished manuscript.Google Scholar
Starr, Rebecca, and Wang, Tianxiao. 2018. Singapore, Singapura, Xinjiapo: Trilingual lifespan change in the National Day messages of Lee Kuan Yew. Paper presented at the 92nd Annual Meeting of the Linguistic Society of America. Salt Lake City, UT.Google Scholar
Starr, Rebecca, Wong, Kevin Martens, Ibrahim, Nurul Afiqah Bte, Theng, Andre Joseph, Mei Yin, Alicia Chua, and Tong Jing Yi, Natalie. 2016. Flip-flops, slippers, thongs and jandals: Cross-dialectal lexical awareness among children in Singapore. Paper presented at the 90th Annual Meeting of the Linguistic Society of America. Washington, DC.Google Scholar
Tan, Chor Hiang, and Gupta, Anthea Fraser. 1992. Post-vocalic /r/ in Singapore English. York Papers in Linguistics 16, 139–52.Google Scholar
Tan, Kenneth Paul. 2007. Renaissance Singapore? Economy, Culture, and Politics. Singapore: National University of Singapore Press.Google Scholar
Tan, Yingying. 2012. To r or not to r: Social correlates of /ɹ/ in Singapore English. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 218, 1–24.Google Scholar
Thomas, Erik R., and Kendall, Tyler. 2007. Vowels: Vowel Manipulation, Normalization, and Plotting in R. R package, version 1.1. Software Resource: http://ncslaap.lib.ncsu.edu/tools/norm/Google Scholar
Trudgill, Peter. 2003. Linguistic changes in pan-world English. In Tschichold, C. (ed.), English Core Linguistics: Essays in Honour of David Allerton. Berne, CH: Peter Lang, 55–68.Google Scholar
Trudgill, Peter. 2014. Diffusion, drift, and the irrelevance of media influence. Journal of Sociolinguistics 18(2), 214–22.Google Scholar
Yeoh, Brenda, and Lin, Weiqiang. 2012. Rapid Growth in Singapore’s Immigrant Population Brings Policy Challenges. Migration Information Source. www.migrationpolicy.org/article/rapid-growth-singapores-immigrant-population-brings-policy-challenges. Accessed August 8, 2017.Google Scholar
Wee, Lionel. 2002. Lor in colloquial Singapore English. Journal of Pragmatics 34(6), 711–25.Google Scholar
Wee, Lionel. 2008. Singapore English: Phonology. In Mesthrie, R. (ed.), Varieties of English, Volume 4. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 259–77.Google Scholar
Wells, John C. 1982. Accents of English I: An Introduction. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Yang, Peidong. 2014. ‘Authenticity’ and ‘foreign talent’ in Singapore: The relative and negative logic of national identity. Sojourn: Journal of Social Issues in Southeast Asia 29(2), 408–37.Google Scholar
Zhang, Qing. 2005. A Chinese yuppie in Beijing: Phonological variation and the construction of a new professional identity. Language in Society 34(3), 431–66.Google Scholar
Zhang, Qing. 2008. Rhotacization and the ‘Beijing Smooth Operator’: The social meaning of a linguistic variable. Journal of Sociolinguistics 12(2), 201–22.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×