Sociolinguistics Symposium 19
Freie Universität Berlin | August 21-24, 2012
Programme: accepted abstracts
Abstract ID: 1321
Part of General Paper Session (Other abstracts in this session)
Social networks and real-time analysis. A case-study of South Estonian
Authors: Mets, Mari
Submitted by: Mets, Mari (University of Tartu, Estonia)
My paper describes the local language use of two Southestonian villages in two different time periods. The 1991 database contains 34 informants. In 2006, according to panel study principles (see Bailey 2004: 328-329), it was possible to record 15 informants. All these informants are the members of a local social network and can both speak the local variant of the Võro language and Estonian. Alltoghether, the databases contain 54 hours of recordings. The paper discusses possible language changes in the network during the 15-year period. Thus, it is a real-time study of a social network. For illustrating the changes different socially dependent linguistic variables have been chosen, e.g. the inessive ending, the passive past participle marker, the third person plural forms of the verb olema 'to be' (see also Mets 2010; Mets 2011: 257-272). Besides network, other sociolinguistic factors (age, gender, level of education, informant's origin and village) have been considered as well. The results of my study reveal some levelling and simplification tendencies during the 15-year period. Though, due to the network norms, the levelling and simplification occur within the local variety.
References:
Bailey, G. 2004. Real and Apparent Time. - The Handbook of Language Variation and Change. Ed. by J. K. Chambers, P. Trudgill and N. Schilling-Estes. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 312-332.
Mets, M. 2010. Suhtlusvõrgustikud reaalajas: võru kõnekeele varieerumine kahes Võrumaa külas. Dissertationes philologiae Estonicae Universitatis Tartuensis 25. Tartu: Tartu Ülikooli Kirjastus.
Mets, M. 2011. Spoken Võro in Real Time. Variation of the Inessive Ending. - Linguistica Uralica 47 (4), 257-272.