This document discusses linguistic variation and style. It defines key terms like variety, which refers to languages and dialects, and style, which is variation based on social context. Accents are variations in pronunciation, while dialects are sub-varieties that can differ in pronunciation, vocabulary, and grammar. The document then summarizes Martha's Vineyard study from 1963, which found pronunciation differences based on age, origin, occupation, and location of island residents. It was significant for considering social factors in dialects rather than just focusing on rural speakers.

1. Variation and
Style
Muhammadiyah University of
Tangerang

2. Variety
 A relatively neutral term that is used to refer to
languages and dialects.
 It is used for general terms, for example
language variety, dialect variety.

3. Style
 Variation in the level of individual speech.
 This variation occurs in correlation with
differences in addresse, social context,
personal goals, or externally imposed tasks.

4. Accent
 Language variety at the level of
pronounciation (the same language and
grammar).

5. Dialect
 Sub-varieties of a single language.
 Language varieties at the level of
pronounciation, vocabulary, morphosyntactic
relation, and semantics relation.

6. Martha Vineyard’s (1963)

7.  Martha's Vineyard is an island about 3 miles off New England on the US East
Coast
 Permanent population ~ 6000.
 Big influx of visitors in summer ~40,000
 Eastern part of island “Down Island” more densely populated, and favoured by
visitors from Western end “Up Island” has more original inhabitants and is strictly
rural esp around Chilmark, centre of once important fishing industry: 2.5% of
population still involved in fishing
 Chilmark fishermen very close-knit and most antipathetic to the “summer
people”
 Regarded by other islanders as independent, skilful, physically strong,
courageous

8. Martha’s Vineyard study
 Focused on pronunciation of /au/ (as in out, house trout) and /ai/ (as in
while, pie, might)
 Noticed that locals had a tendency to pronounce these diphthongs with
a more central start point [əu, əi]
 Collected data by interviewing 69 informants, talking generally about
topics which would involve words with the desired vowels!
 When we speak of the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, what does right mean?
... Is it in writing? ... If a man is successful at a job he doesn't like, would you still say he was a
successful man?'‘
 Also got some recordings of school pupils reading texts
 Judgement of “degree of centralization” was fairly subjective
 Data from 1930s Linguistic Atlas of New England available

9. Conclusion of the study
 Centralization most prevalent in
 (age) 31-45 age group
 (origin) Yankees, but only by a little
 (occupation) Fishermen … less in people
working in tourist industry
 (location) Up Island residents, esp around
Chilmark

10.  Centralizing tendency was actually
diminishing at time of 1930s survey
 But it remained in dialect of middle-aged rural
fishermen
 With advent of tourists, there was an
unconscious change in accent among those
who most closely identified with the island

11. Why was this study significant?
 Until then, dialect studies had focussed on rural
speakers and had ignored social factors
 Urban accents were thought to be too diverse and
too heterogeneous to study
 Labov’s conclusion was that social factors were in
fact the most significant and important

12.  Speech community
 Attention to speech
 Style shifting
 Audience design

13. The New York City Social Dialect
Survey

14.  Triangulation
 Sociolinguitics interview

15. Prestige of Variable
 Prestige : complex value that speakers orient
in different way.
 Prestige is not always as a variant that has
high status.
 Language speaker dont consciously aware
about prestige

16. • Overt prestige: variant that people are highly
aware of and which is associated more with
speech of higher speakers.
• Eg: /r/ vs /r/ less in NYC

17.  Covert prestige: speaker positive evaluation
of a variant that is genuinely covert or hidden.
 Eg: case of local variety of German and
Standard German (hochdeutsch)