Dialectology

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Dialectology

• Informant Selection Sampling Procedures
  Criteria
• TU-Chemnitz
• Isabell Schönherr
• isabell.schoenherr_at_s2007.tu-chemnitz.de

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Table of Content

• Brief introduction
• Criteria
• Sampling Procedures
• Conclusion

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1. Introduction

• Informant Selection
• Def. Procedure of choosing/finding suitable
  participants
• for scientific studies, according to certain
  aspects,
• prior to the actual research.
• Informants population selected for the study
  (individuals with different background)
• Location of research called sampling universe
• Importance of representativeness (Not any one is
  suitable)
• - Can be realized in different ways

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Criteria

• ? Main groups to distinguish human society
  social class, age and gender
• Social Class
• Beginns 150 years ago with Karl Marx
• Sociolinguistic relevance due to class
  consciousness and different world view
• Specifically in UK social classes identified by
  speech variation (i.e. dialect, accent)
• urban vernaculars (Manchester, Leeds)
  powerfull working-class
• Received Pronounciation spoken by the elete
  (aristocracy, senior managers, captitalists etc.)
• traditional BE split up into regional accents,
  dialects, sociolects

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Criteria

• Max Weber social classes based on economic
  situation BUT are also affected by different
  chances in life (skills, education etc.)
• Status expressed by life-style (occupation,
  manner of speech, cultural factors)
• 1960s Webers concept essential to
  sociolinguists focussing on social
  differentiation of language (i.p. grammar and
  pronounciation)
• functionalist theory Developed in 1950s out of
  E. Durkheims idea that occupation affects
  peoples social ties so that social experiences
  are moulded and restricted
• Later, emphasized interrelation of components of
  society and that they create a unity (i.e.
  subcomponents, like religion, are not considered
  separately but in the way they contribute to the
  social-sytem)
• Parson, main theorist behind functionalist
  structurism, considers class as being
  hierarchical structured, without depending on
  economical circumstances
• registers of social hierarchies of occupation
  were created and adapted in order of gaining a
  socially stratified sample

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Criteria

• Integrated Models
• Replaced the pure fuctionalist concept in the
  1970s
• Combine status hierarchies, individual
  relationships to means of production and cultural
  factors
• Adds the element of free choice of life-style
• Pierre Bourdieu idea of cultural capital and
  linguistic capital
• privileged people are able to invest in education
  and life-style choise form the dominant class
• Dominant class uses highly valued language (e.g.
  RP, Standard English)
• British society can be destinguished in three
  ways
• Class as hierarchie upper, middle lower class
  class as us and them

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Criteria

• British survey shows polarized view based on
  language of class
• 36 middle class
• 46 working class
• Class conciousness characterized by ambivalence,
  complexity and occasional contradiction.
• No reflection of a rigorously consistent
  understanding of the world

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Criteria

• Gender
• Ignored aspect until the puplication of the
  article Language and Womans Place by R. Lakoff
  (1975)2
• Early 1990s understanding gender as social or
  cultural construction
• View of gender modifies the aims in
  language-gender research
• While earlier focused on correlation with between
  gender and use of certain features speech now a
  days aims at showing how linguistic resources are
  used
• Mixed talk
• Focus on differences in pronounciation and
  grammar
• Quantitative method
• results depicted in histogramms and tables to
  visualize differences
• Ex. research found that females tend to be
  leading in the use of innovative forms

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Criteria

• 1980s focus of sociolinguistics on conversation
  strategies
• Proved many stereotypes false (e.g. women chat
  more than man) ? at work, at school or in
  electronic discussions men talk more ?
• single sex interaction (e.g. informal talks
  among friends)
• Enables analysis of, e.g womens talk on indivual
  terms instead of comparing speech patterns

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Criteria

• Approaches in language and gender research
• Deflict approach
• Used in early researches (e.g. Lakov Language
  and Womans Place), now out of date
• Claims establishment of womens language (WL)
• WL described as dificient compared to male speech
• Implied that women have to adapt mens language
• Dominance approach
• Speech differences as a result of mens dominance
• Dominance expressed in linguistic practice Doing
  power is Doing gender

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Criteria

• Difference approach
• Idea of men and women belonging to different
  subcultures, firstly discovered in the 1980s
• Ability to show actual strength of womens
  linguistic strategies
• Can be controversial when applied to mixed talks
• Social constructioninst approach
• Recently favoured approach
• Understands gender identity as social construct
• do gender in order to just being gender (West
  and Zimmerman 1987)
• ? No clear boundaries between all four (i.e.
  researcher can be influenced by more than one of
  these perspectives)

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Criteria

• Age
• Age mainly used for categorization of speakers
• Age influences course of live (voting, achieving
  drivers license etc.)
• Treatment of age in connection to language change
  and language variation
• Change in progress
• Variationist quantitative studies employed
• Chronoligical age used to group speakers and
  measure differences (e.g. accent)
• Qualitative researches age as process affecting
  norms and behavior ? investigates variation in
  life-stages

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Criteria

• Life-stages infancy,adolescence, adulthood, old
  age
• Children aquire Child-direct-speech according
  to the input given from adults and children
• Research variation found in children aged 3
• sociolinguistic significance of age as a
  differentiator2
• Interaction between age and life-stage and other
  criteria
• Adulthood least examined and mainly treated as
  homogenous mass
• Young adults regarded seperately as life stage in
  which standartization increases

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Criteria

• Old aged not easily defined, often in connection
  with clinical aspects
• Fluid life-stages
• Real-time-studies
• Comparability of observed samples
• Large-scale-studies rarely possible
• Apparent-time-studies
• More common
• Simultanous observation of speech
• Results depend on apparent-time hypothesis (i.e.
  linguistic usage remains the same)
• Often broader age groups
• Specific group effects often undiscoverd

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3. Sampling Procedures

• 3.1 Random Sampling
• Aim achieving TRUE REPRESENTATIVENESS
• Based on an equal chance to be chosen
• Seldom used for sociolinguistic studies
• Procedure
• Uses Sample Frame (e.g. electoral registers or
  telephone dictionanries)
• Every n-th person randomly selected

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• Random Sampling

Whole population Randomly selected
informants Group which is drawn out Group which
might not appear on the lists available
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• Disadvantages
• Rises huge amount of data unmanageable
• Sample Frame causes 1st bias lists do not
  include each person (e.g. under voting age etc.)
• no difference between native/non-native or
  local/non-local person
• Replacing once selected informants is difficult
• Actually no real random sampling in statistical
  sense (no REAL equal chance of being chosen)

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Judgment Sampling

• Also called Quota Sampling
• Based on defensible theoretical framework i.e.
  rational and well motivated judgment
• Creates basis of describing urban speech rather
  than focusing on particular groups of speakers
• Prefered Sampling Method
• Procedure
• Required type of speaker and social variables of
  interest known in advance
• Selection of a quota by judgment
• Only speakers who fulfill the object of relevance
  are selected

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Conclusion

• Linguistic researches can focus of different
  fields (e.g. language in progress, dialects of
  specific social classes etc.)
• Choice of adequate procedure
• Choosing criteria of interest
• The more criteria, the more data!

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References

• L. Milroy and M.Gordon Sociolinguistics Method
  and Interpretation Blackwell Publishing (2003)
• C. Llamas, L. Mullany and P. Stockwell The
  Routledge Companion to Sociolinguistics

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• Thank you very much for your attention.