2 Sociosyntax and the weight of the linguistic within sociolinguistics
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Claire Childs
Abstract
Generative syntax and sociolinguistics have often been depicted as opposing subfields of linguistics in terms of their views of language as an internal versus external object. However, through discussion of how these subfields have developed from their inception to the present-day, this chapter demonstrates how their theoretical positions and approaches to grammatical variation have come to share more commonalities than one might have expected. The chapter also examines the value and limitations of acceptability judgement and corpus data for the analysis of grammatical variation and considers whether grammatical variation is less likely to vary on social dimensions or to receive social evaluation.
Abstract
Generative syntax and sociolinguistics have often been depicted as opposing subfields of linguistics in terms of their views of language as an internal versus external object. However, through discussion of how these subfields have developed from their inception to the present-day, this chapter demonstrates how their theoretical positions and approaches to grammatical variation have come to share more commonalities than one might have expected. The chapter also examines the value and limitations of acceptability judgement and corpus data for the analysis of grammatical variation and considers whether grammatical variation is less likely to vary on social dimensions or to receive social evaluation.
Chapters in this book
- Frontmatter I
- Contents V
-
Part 1: Sociosyntactic theory
- 1 Introduction 1
- 2 Sociosyntax and the weight of the linguistic within sociolinguistics 25
- 3 Spelling out grammatical variation 59
-
Part 2: Sociosyntactic evidence
- 4 Comparative relativizers in American English: A puzzle from the margins of like 97
- 5 Variation and the English participle/preterite relation 125
- 6 Constructing syntactic dialect maps of American English 163
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Part 3: Sociosyntactic approaches
- 7 “People widnae understand that, wint they no?”: Negative anchor tag questions in northern British Englishes 193
- 8 A snapshot of the emerging because-X construction 227
- 9 Polish newcomers acquiring questions and questioning in a local dialect 257
- Index
Chapters in this book
- Frontmatter I
- Contents V
-
Part 1: Sociosyntactic theory
- 1 Introduction 1
- 2 Sociosyntax and the weight of the linguistic within sociolinguistics 25
- 3 Spelling out grammatical variation 59
-
Part 2: Sociosyntactic evidence
- 4 Comparative relativizers in American English: A puzzle from the margins of like 97
- 5 Variation and the English participle/preterite relation 125
- 6 Constructing syntactic dialect maps of American English 163
-
Part 3: Sociosyntactic approaches
- 7 “People widnae understand that, wint they no?”: Negative anchor tag questions in northern British Englishes 193
- 8 A snapshot of the emerging because-X construction 227
- 9 Polish newcomers acquiring questions and questioning in a local dialect 257
- Index
