Hostname: page-component-5cf477f64f-zrtmk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-04-06T05:10:16.001Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Children, adolescents, and language change

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

Paul Kerswill
Paul Kerswill
Affiliation:
The University of Reading
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The article models the spread of linguistic change by taking precise account of the ages of the acquirers and transmitters of change. Several studies, some original, are reviewed in order to address the following questions: “What types of linguistic feature can an individual acquire at different ages?” “How much influence do people of different ages exert on the speech of other individuals?” The article is organized around three key interlocutor combinations: parent-infant/young child, peer group-preadolescent, and older adolescent/adult-adolescent. The studies suggest that borrowings are the easiest to acquire, while lexically unpredictable phonological changes are the most difficult. In between are Neogrammarian changes and morphologically conditioned features. The age of the speaker is critical; only the youngest children acquire the “hardest” features. However, adolescents may be the most influential transmitters of change. A difficulty hierarchy for the acquisition of second dialect features is then presented; it is suggested that this predicts the nature of linguistic change found under different sociolinguistic conditions. The approach presented here allows for a more detailed understanding of the spread of linguistic change.

Type
Research Article
Information
Language Variation and Change , Volume 8 , Issue 2 , July 1996 , pp. 177 - 202
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1996

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

Aitchison, Jean. (1981). Language change: Progress or decay? London: Fontana.Google Scholar
Aitchison, Jean. (1991). Language change: Progress or decay? (2nd ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Aitchison, Jean. (1992, 04). Kiddies rule, OK? Paper given at Sociolinguistics Symposium 9,University of Reading.Google Scholar
Aitchison, Jean, & Koppel, A. (1990). The lexicon in 11–14 year olds. (Overview of LSE-Longman project on children's vocabulary). Manuscript, Language Studies Centre, London School of Economics.Google Scholar
Chambers, Jack K. (1992). Dialect acquisition. Language 68:673–705.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chambers, Jack K. (1995). Sociolinguistic theory. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Chomsky, Noam. (1992). A minimalist program for linguistic theory. MIT Occasional Papers in Linguistics I.Google Scholar
Cook, Vivian. (1993). Linguistics and second language acquisition. Basingstoke: Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eckert, Penelope. (1988). Adolescent social structure and the spread of linguistic change. Language in Society 17:183–207.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Guy, Gregory, & Body, Sally. (1990). The development of a morphological class. Language Variation and Change 2:1–18.Google Scholar
Harris, John. (1990). Derived phonological contrasts. In Ramsaran, S. (Ed.), Studies in the pronunciation of English. A commemorative volume in honour of A.C. Gimson. London: Routledge, 87–105.Google Scholar
Henry, Alison. (1995). Belfast English and Standard English: Dialect variation and parameter setting. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Howe, C. (1981). Acquiring language in a conversational context. London: Academic.Google Scholar
Kerswill, Paul. (1993). Rural dialect speakers in an urban speech community: The role of dialect contact in defining a sociolinguistic concept. International Journal of Applied Linguistics 3:33–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kerswill, Paul. (1994a). Babel in Buckinghamshire? Pre-school children acquiring accent features in the New Town of Milton Keynes. In Melchers, G. & Jonannesson, N.-L. (Eds.) Nonstandard varieties of language. Acta Universitatis Stockholmiensis. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell. 64–83.Google Scholar
Kerswill, Paul. (1994b). Dialects converging: Rural speech in urban Norway. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kerswill, Paul. (1995a). Children, adolescents, and language change. In Kerswill, P., Ingham, R., Shockey, L., & Huang, Y. (Eds.), Working Papers in Linguistics 2. Department of Linguistics Science, University of Reading. 201–222.Google Scholar
Kerswill, Paul. (1995b). Phonological convergence in dialect contact: Evidence from citation forms. Language Variation and Change 7:95–207.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kerswill, Paul, & Williams, Ann. (1992). Some principles of dialect contact: Evidence from the New Town of Milton Keynes. In Philippaki-Warburton, I. & Ingham, R. (Eds.), Working Papers 1992. Department of Linguistic Science, University of Reading. 68–90.Google Scholar
Kerswill, Paul, & Williams, Ann. (1994). A new dialect in a new city: children's and adults' speech in Milton Keynes. Final report presented to the Economic and Social Research Council.Google Scholar
Kroch, Anthony S. (1978). Toward a theory of social dialect variation. Language in Society 7:17–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kroch, Anthony S. (1989). Language learning and language change. Commentary on Lightfoot. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 12:348–349.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Labov, William. (1963). The social motivation of a sound change. Word 19:273–309.Google Scholar
Labov, William. (1966). The social stratification of English in New York City. Washington, DC: Center for Applied Linguistics.Google Scholar
Labov, William. (1970). Stages in the acquisition of Standard English. In Hungerford, H., Robinson, J., & Sledd, J. (Eds.) English linguistics. Glenview, IL: Scott Foreman. 275–302.Google Scholar
Labov, William. (1981). Resolving the Neogrammarian controversy. Language 57:267–309.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Labov, William. (1989a). Exact description of the speech community: Short a in Philadelphia. In Fasold, R. W. & Schiffrin, D. (Eds.), Language change and variation. Amesterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. 1–57.Google Scholar
Labov, William. (1989b). The child as linguistic historian. Language Variation and Change 1:85–97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Labov, William. (1992, 04). Transmission. Paper given at Sociolinguistics Symposium 9,University of Reading.Google Scholar
Labov, William. (1994). Principles of linguistic change Vol. 1: Internal factors. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Le Page, Robert B. (1980). Projection, focusing, diffusion, or, steps towards a sociolinguistic theory of language, illustrated from the Sociolinguistic Survey of Multilingual Communities. York Papers in Linguistics 9. Department of Language and Linguistic Science, Universtiy of York. 9–32.Google Scholar
Lightfoot, David. (1989). The child's trigger experience: Degree-0 learnability. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 12:321–334.Google Scholar
Local, John. (1982). Modelling intonational variability in children's speech. In Romaine, S. (Ed.), Sociolinguistic variation in speech communities. London: Edward Arnold. 85–103.Google Scholar
Local, John. (1983). How many vowels in a vowel? Journal of Child Language 10:449–453.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mæhlum, Brit. (1992). Dialektal sosialisering. En studie av barn og ungdoms språklige strategier i Longyearbyen på Svalbard [Dialectal socialization. A study of children's and adolescents' linguistic strategies in Longyearabyen, Spitsbergen]. Oslo: Novus.Google Scholar
McMahon, April. (1994). Understanding language change. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Milory, James. (1992). Linguistic variation and change. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Milory, Lesley. (1980). Language and social networks. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Newport, E.L., Gleitmann, H., & Gleitman, L.R. (1977). Mother, I'd rather do it myself: Some effects and non-effects of maternal speech style. In Snow, C.E. & Ferguson, C.A. (Eds.), Talking to children: Language input and acquisition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 109–149.Google Scholar
Payne, Arvilla. (1976). The acquisition of the phonological system of a second dialect. Doctoral thesis, University of Pennsylvania.Google Scholar
Payne, Arvilla. (1980). Factors controlling the acquisition of the Philadelphia dialect by out-of-state children. In Labov, W. (Ed.), Locating language in time and space. New York: Academic. 143–178.Google Scholar
Romaine, Suzanne. (1984). The language of children and adolescents. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Romaine, Suzanne. (1989). The role of children in linguistic change. In Breivik, L.E. & Jahr, E.H. (Eds.), Language change: Contributions to the study of its causes. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. 199–225.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shockey, Linda. (1984). All in a flap: long-term accommodation in phonology. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 46:87–95.Google Scholar
Stampe, David. (1979). A dissertation on natural phonology. New York: Garland.Google Scholar
Trudgill, Peter. (1974). The social differentiation of English in Norwich. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Trudgill, Peter. (1986). Dialects in contact. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Trudgill, Peter. (1988). Norwich revisited. English World Wide 9:33–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
White, L. (1986). Implications of parametric variation for adult second language acquisition: an investigation of the pro-drop parameter. In Cook, V.J. (Ed.), Experimental approaches to second language acquisition. Oxford: Pergamon.Google Scholar
Yaeger-Dror, Malcah. (1989). Realtime vs. apparent time change in Montreal French. York Papers in Linguistics 13. Department of Language and Linguistic Science, University of York. 141–151.Google Scholar
Yaeger-Dror, Malcah. (1994). Phonetic evidence for sound change in Quebec French. In Keating, Patricia A. (Ed.), Phonological structure and phonetic form: Papers in laboratory phonology III. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 267–292.CrossRefGoogle Scholar