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Stylistic variation and underlying structure
| Content Provider | Semantic Scholar |
|---|---|
| Author | Henderson, Michael T. |
| Copyright Year | 1978 |
| Abstract | i. In recent years, considerable attention has been paid to stylistic variation in linguistic description. Variation which used to be described as 'free' has lately been described as fitting within identifiable linguistic and/or social parameters. I discern three trends. In the first, variation that was previously ignored is incorporated into description in a fairly systematic way. An example of this is Harris' (I969: 7) claim that variation among the Spanish forms [esbju6o], [ezbju6o] and [ezpfjuo] es viudo 'he is a widower' 'not only CAN but MUST be described in terms of stylistic levels. . . it will be shown that careful examination of the kinds of alternation under discussion leads to some interesting questions about the form and organization of phonological rules' (emphasis original). The second trend is exemplified by studies such as Kelley (I963), Bright (1970) and Henderson (I975). In these studies, various styles of speech are identified, and rules are given for deriving informal variants from formal or underlying forms. Some of the rules described are seen as 'recapitulating the processes of historical sound changes' (Bright: I40), or as differentiating between such recapitulation and recent borrowings (Henderson: 653-654). Other than these observations, few theoretical claims are made by such studies. The third trend, and perhaps the best known, is the sociolinguistic analysis of variation, in which individual speakers' stylistic variation (while it plays a much smaller role than variation among speakers) is measured and is considered to be a necessary part of linguistic analysis: 'A monolectal phonology can show only one of the vowels in single-style grammars; when both vowels appear in a single style, if they should do so, the most that can be shown is an equipollent. optionality between them' (Bailey, I973: I9). Bailey goes on to say (23): 'Indeed, the patterns of variation in language could well provide psycholinguists with interesting hypotheses concerning the structure of the brain for profitable future investigations.' From what I can gather of the work of sociolinguists like Labov and Bailey, they consider stylistic variation to be an inseparable component of linguistic competence, but they do not go beyond predictions like that quoted above. That is, they are interested in setting up a model for linguistic description that will systematically account for stylistic variation, but they have done little work in the other direction. I should like to see a fourth trend, one that will go in the other direction: the use of stylistic variation as evidence for particular analyses of underlying struc- |
| Starting Page | 179 |
| Ending Page | 182 |
| Page Count | 4 |
| File Format | PDF HTM / HTML |
| DOI | 10.1017/S0022226700005855 |
| Volume Number | 14 |
| Alternate Webpage(s) | http://people.ku.edu/~mmth/Stylistic_Variation_JL.pdf |
| Language | English |
| Access Restriction | Open |
| Content Type | Text |
| Resource Type | Article |
