Este trabalho analisa, de acordo com as premissas teórico-metodológicas da Sociolinguística Variacionista (Labov 1972:[2008]), como se dá a concordância nominal de número (CN) na fala de alagoanos estabelecidos na cidade de São Paulo, em comparação com a fala de paulistanos. A análise multivariada é feita com as ocorrências de sintagmas nominais simples (constituídos de dois elementos), como as pessoa-s/ø. O objetivo principal é verificar quais são os fatores linguísticos e sociais que concorrem para a realização da CN nesses dois subgrupos de falantes. Os dados foram extraídos de 24 entrevistas sociolinguísticas com paulistanos e 24 com alagoanos que vivem na capital paulista. Ambas subamostras são definidas pelas mesmas variáveis sociais: sexo/gênero, faixas etárias e escolaridade. Os resultados indicam que a taxa de não realização da concordância (CN-Ø) entre alagoanos e paulistanos é praticamente a mesma. Em ambas as subamostras, os fatores sociais mostraram-se mais significativos, uma vez que todos foram selecionados para os dois grupos de falantes, com os maiores ranges. As mulheres são as mais sensíveis à variante de prestígio; no entanto, as alagoanas apresentam percentual um pouco maior de CN-Ø (23%) do que as paulistanas (17%). Não há indicativo de mudança em progresso: em ambos os subgrupos, a segunda faixa etária é a que desfavorece CN-Ø. Já para escolaridade, trata-se de um grupo de fatores mais significativo para paulistanos do que para alagoanos. Quanto aos fatores linguísticos, Classe de palavra do elemento nuclear, Processo de formação de plural do elemento nuclear e Número de sílaba do elemento não-nuclear se mostraram mais significativos. Da perspectiva da concordância nominal de número, esta dissertação mostra que alagoanos e paulistanos se assemelham mais do que se diferenciam. Nesse sentido, pode ser que façam parte de uma mesma comunidade de fala (Labov 1972 [2008]), 1996 [2006], Guy 1981 mas isso só poderá ser confirmado por estudos futuros, que se dedicarem a outras variáveis na fala destes e de outros grupos de falantes migrantes para a cidade de São Paulo. / Within the framework of variationist Sociolinguistics (Labov, 1972 [2008]), this master thesis analyzes variable number agreement within the nominal phrase (NP), in the Portuguese spoken in the city of São Paulo by Alagoanos (migrants from the northeastern state of Alagoas) and by Paulistanos (those born and raised in the city). The multivariate analysis focuses on two-word plural NPs, such as as pessoas/ø the persons. The main goal is to verify what linguistic and social factors condition the variable in use, in a comparison between these two groups of speakers. The data was extracted from 24 sociolinguistic interviews with Alagoanos and 24 with Paulistanos. Both samples are stratified by the same social variables: sex/gender, age group and level of education. Results indicate that the frequency of CN-Ø (that is, lack of agreement) is approximately the same for both groups of speakers. In both, social factors are more significant than linguistic factors, since all of the social ones included in the analysis were selected as statistically significant. Women disfavor CN-Ø (a generally stigmatized form), although the agreement is more frequent among Alagoanas than among Paulistanas. Theres no indication of change in progress: for both groups of speakers, the intermediate age group disfavors CN-Ø. As for level of education, it is more significant for Paulistanos than for Alagoanos. Among the linguistic factors, the class of the nuclear word, the morphology of plural, and the number of syllables of the NP left element were the ones selected as statistically significant This thesis shows that, from the perspective of number agreement within the NP, Alagoanos and Paulistanos are more similar than different. Therefore, they could be part of a same speech community (Labov 1972 [2008], Guy 1981) in the city something that should be discussed by further research, including other linguistic variables and groups of speakers.

The subject of this thesis is the French language in the Franco-Belgian borderland. More specifically, it investigates language, linguistic perceptions and language attitudes in the French-speaking part of Belgium which borders France. The study takes a variationist approach and is grounded in sociolinguistic theory, but it also draws on theories and methodologies from elsewhere in the social sciences. Two questions are at the heart of this study: how do people speak French in the Belgian borderland and why do they speak that way? To answer the research questions, speech and questionnaire data were gathered from 39 informants living in the borderland city of Tournai and its surrounding area. With this data, a variety of analyses were performed. Sociophonetic investigations were carried out on two phonological variables, namely the vocalic oppositions /e/-/ɛ/ and /o/-/ɔ/, draw-a-map task perceptual data were analysed through a ‘visual methods’ lens, and attitudinal data were also examined. Social variation in linguistic behaviour, perceptions and language attitudes was also analysed. The notions of ‘space’, ‘place’ and ‘spatiality’ were accorded considerable importance: the interactions between language and ‘space’ as the factors of ‘mobility’, ‘media consumption’, ‘sense of place’ and ‘regional belonging’ were also examined. The findings include that French in the Belgian borderland is more similar to that in France than to elsewhere in Francophone Belgium and that this is due to a number of factors. Moreover, the French in the borderland appears to be converging on that in France, although some differences persist. It was also found that spatial factors interact with both linguistic and social ones. Finally, it was concluded that whilst there is no longer a physical barrier at the national border, it persists to an extent as a psychological one, and this has ramifications for borderlanders’ behaviour: be it linguistic or otherwise.

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / This dissertation documents the emergence of a new language, Light Warlpiri, in the multilingual community of Lajamanu in northern Australia. It then examines the acquisition of Light Warlpiri language, and of the heritage language, Lajamanu Warlpiri, by children. Light Warlpiri has arisen from contact between Lajamanu Warlpiri (a Pama-Nyungan language), Kriol (an English-based creole), and varieties of English. It is a Mixed Language, meaning that none of its source languages can be considered to be the sole parent language. Most verbs and the verbal morphology are from Aboriginal English or Kriol, while most nouns and the nominal morphology are from Warlpiri. The language input to children is complex. Adults older than about thirty speak Lajamanu Warlpiri and code-switch into Aboriginal English or Kriol. Younger adults, the parents of the current cohort of children, speak Light Warlpiri and code-switch into Lajamanu Warlpiri and into Aboriginal English or Kriol. Lajamanu Warlpiri and Light Warlpiri, the two main input languages to children, both indicate A arguments with ergative case-marking (and they share one allomorph of the marker), but Lajamanu Warlpiri includes the marker much more consistently than Light Warlpiri. Word order is variable in both languages. Children learn both languages from birth, but they target Light Warlpiri as the language of their everyday interactions, and they speak it almost exclusively until four to six years of age. Adults and children show similar patterns of ergative marking and word order in Light Warlpiri. But differences between age groups are found in ergative marking in Lajamanu Warlpiri - for the oldest group of adults, ergative marking is obligatory, but for younger adults and children, it is not. Determining when children differentiate between two input languages has been a major goal in the study of bilingual acquisition. The two languages in this study share lexical and grammatical properties, making distinctions between them quite subtle. Both adults and children distribute ergative marking differently in the two languages, but show similar word order patterns in both. However the children show a stronger correlation between ergative marking and word order patterns than do the adults, suggesting that they are spearheading processes of language change. In their comprehension of sentences in both Lajamanu Warlpiri and Light Warlpiri, adults use a case-marking strategy to identify the A argument (i.e. N+erg = A argument, N-erg = O argument). The children are not adult-like in using this strategy at age 5, when they also used a word order strategy, but they gradually move towards being adult-like with increased age.

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / This dissertation documents the emergence of a new language, Light Warlpiri, in the multilingual community of Lajamanu in northern Australia. It then examines the acquisition of Light Warlpiri language, and of the heritage language, Lajamanu Warlpiri, by children. Light Warlpiri has arisen from contact between Lajamanu Warlpiri (a Pama-Nyungan language), Kriol (an English-based creole), and varieties of English. It is a Mixed Language, meaning that none of its source languages can be considered to be the sole parent language. Most verbs and the verbal morphology are from Aboriginal English or Kriol, while most nouns and the nominal morphology are from Warlpiri. The language input to children is complex. Adults older than about thirty speak Lajamanu Warlpiri and code-switch into Aboriginal English or Kriol. Younger adults, the parents of the current cohort of children, speak Light Warlpiri and code-switch into Lajamanu Warlpiri and into Aboriginal English or Kriol. Lajamanu Warlpiri and Light Warlpiri, the two main input languages to children, both indicate A arguments with ergative case-marking (and they share one allomorph of the marker), but Lajamanu Warlpiri includes the marker much more consistently than Light Warlpiri. Word order is variable in both languages. Children learn both languages from birth, but they target Light Warlpiri as the language of their everyday interactions, and they speak it almost exclusively until four to six years of age. Adults and children show similar patterns of ergative marking and word order in Light Warlpiri. But differences between age groups are found in ergative marking in Lajamanu Warlpiri - for the oldest group of adults, ergative marking is obligatory, but for younger adults and children, it is not. Determining when children differentiate between two input languages has been a major goal in the study of bilingual acquisition. The two languages in this study share lexical and grammatical properties, making distinctions between them quite subtle. Both adults and children distribute ergative marking differently in the two languages, but show similar word order patterns in both. However the children show a stronger correlation between ergative marking and word order patterns than do the adults, suggesting that they are spearheading processes of language change. In their comprehension of sentences in both Lajamanu Warlpiri and Light Warlpiri, adults use a case-marking strategy to identify the A argument (i.e. N+erg = A argument, N-erg = O argument). The children are not adult-like in using this strategy at age 5, when they also used a word order strategy, but they gradually move towards being adult-like with increased age.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between selected demographic variables and the attitudes of teachers toward the oral English of their Indigenous students in Saskatchewan and Queensland.<p>Data were collected by administration of the Indigenous Students Oral English Questionnaire to a total of 217 teachers from schools throughout northern and central Saskatchewan, Canada and Queensland, Australia. The independent variables in the study were: culture, language teaching experience, education, age and sex. The dependent variable was the attitudes of the teachers toward the validity and acceptability of the Indigenous students' oral English.<p>Results of a factor analysis produced four attitudinal factors: Dialect Description, Difference/Deficit, Acceptability/Unacceptability, and Adequacy/Inadequacy. Seven hypotheses were analyzed by one-way analyses of variance to determine if any significant differences existed among the attitudinal factors on the basis of the demographic characteristics of the respondents. <p>The findings of this study must be considered in relation to the following limitations: the size and nature of the sample, the difficulty of measuring attitudes, and the existence of cultural bias. *<p> The study concluded with the following findings;<p>1. The cultural background of the teachers did not relate to differences in attitudinal judgements toward the oral English of Indigenous students.<p>2. The language background related to differences in attitudes toward language variation. Teachers who either spoke or understood an Indigenous language or Indigenous English were more positive toward the speech of their Indigenous students.<p>3. The language and culture of the teachers in combination was found to relate to differing attitudes toward language variation. Those teachers who were both of Indigenous ancestry and either spoke or understood an Indigenous language or Indigenous English were more positive toward the speech of their Indigenous students.<p>4. The years of teaching experience of the teachers was related to attitudinal differences toward language variation. There was a general trend for teachers with less experience to be more positive toward the speech of their Indigenous students.<p>5. The-post-secondary education of the teachers was related to their attitudes toward language variation. The teachers with three to four years of post-secondary education and more specialty courses in linguistics, Indigenous education/studies, ESL/ESD, sociology of education, cross-cultural education, cultural anthropology, and language teaching methodologies were more positive and accepting of the speech of their Indigenous students. Length of training was not related to differing attitudes among Canadian teachers.<p>6. The demographic characteristic of age was found to be related to differences in attitudes toward language variation. The younger teachers tended to have more positive attitudes toward the speech of Indigenous children. The variable of sex was important only for the Canandian group.<p>Further findings indicated that the attitudinal factors most likely to be related to demographic characteristics were Difference/Deficit and Adequate/Inadequate. The respondents who tended to be more positive toward the students language generally described it as Different but also Adequate for classroom use. It was concluded that the variables of language, teaching experience, education, age and sex related significantly to teacher attitudes towards the oral English of Indigenous students. It was also found that culture and language in combination related to differences in attitudinal judgments. It was further concluded that since these characteristics were found to be important, teacher education programs need to examine assess, and design preservice, and inservice programs for the teachers of Indigenous children.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between selected demographic variables and the attitudes of teachers toward the oral English of their Indigenous students in Saskatchewan and Queensland.<p>Data were collected by administration of the Indigenous Students Oral English Questionnaire to a total of 217 teachers from schools throughout northern and central Saskatchewan, Canada and Queensland, Australia. The independent variables in the study were: culture, language teaching experience, education, age and sex. The dependent variable was the attitudes of the teachers toward the validity and acceptability of the Indigenous students' oral English.<p>Results of a factor analysis produced four attitudinal factors: Dialect Description, Difference/Deficit, Acceptability/Unacceptability, and Adequacy/Inadequacy. Seven hypotheses were analyzed by one-way analyses of variance to determine if any significant differences existed among the attitudinal factors on the basis of the demographic characteristics of the respondents. <p>The findings of this study must be considered in relation to the following limitations: the size and nature of the sample, the difficulty of measuring attitudes, and the existence of cultural bias. *<p> The study concluded with the following findings;<p>1. The cultural background of the teachers did not relate to differences in attitudinal judgements toward the oral English of Indigenous students.<p>2. The language background related to differences in attitudes toward language variation. Teachers who either spoke or understood an Indigenous language or Indigenous English were more positive toward the speech of their Indigenous students.<p>3. The language and culture of the teachers in combination was found to relate to differing attitudes toward language variation. Those teachers who were both of Indigenous ancestry and either spoke or understood an Indigenous language or Indigenous English were more positive toward the speech of their Indigenous students.<p>4. The years of teaching experience of the teachers was related to attitudinal differences toward language variation. There was a general trend for teachers with less experience to be more positive toward the speech of their Indigenous students.<p>5. The-post-secondary education of the teachers was related to their attitudes toward language variation. The teachers with three to four years of post-secondary education and more specialty courses in linguistics, Indigenous education/studies, ESL/ESD, sociology of education, cross-cultural education, cultural anthropology, and language teaching methodologies were more positive and accepting of the speech of their Indigenous students. Length of training was not related to differing attitudes among Canadian teachers.<p>6. The demographic characteristic of age was found to be related to differences in attitudes toward language variation. The younger teachers tended to have more positive attitudes toward the speech of Indigenous children. The variable of sex was important only for the Canandian group.<p>Further findings indicated that the attitudinal factors most likely to be related to demographic characteristics were Difference/Deficit and Adequate/Inadequate. The respondents who tended to be more positive toward the students language generally described it as Different but also Adequate for classroom use. It was concluded that the variables of language, teaching experience, education, age and sex related significantly to teacher attitudes towards the oral English of Indigenous students. It was also found that culture and language in combination related to differences in attitudinal judgments. It was further concluded that since these characteristics were found to be important, teacher education programs need to examine assess, and design preservice, and inservice programs for the teachers of Indigenous children.

<p>Debate about the development of African American English (AAE) dominated sociolinguistic inquiry for the second half of the 20th century and continues to be a subject of investigation. All hypotheses about the development of AAE integrate ideas of shared linguistic features coupled with strong regional influences or founding effects. Most Southern evidence used in the development of these hypotheses, however, is from rural communities or somehow unique enclave communities. The early urban centers of African American life in the South that followed the abolition of slavery and disintegration of plantation life have seldom been investigated with respect to the development of AAE. This study examines precisely those sites looking at AAE in three Southern urban centers during the time of Jim Crow or institutionalized segregation: Birmingham, Memphis, and New Orleans.</p><p>This analysis is based on a series of tape-recorded oral history interviews that were conducted as part of the Behind the Veil project at Duke University. The Behind the Veil project was launched in 1990 at Duke and the majority of the interviews were conducted between 1994 and 1997. Each speaker completed a survey regarding her/his life history, education, professional history, and family background. The speakers used for this study were chosen based on age (all born before 1942) and residency status in their respective communities - all speakers are lifelong residents of Birmingham, Memphis, or New Orleans. These criteria and others shape an inclusive corpus of 100 total tape-recorded interviews with 33 from Birmingham, 35 from Memphis, and 32 from New Orleans. </p><p>Quantitative analysis of five core diagnostic structures of AAE (i.e. copula absence, plural -s, pre-vocalic consonant cluster reduction, rhoticity, and 3rd person singular verbal -s) was performed to provide a window for determining the shared and distinct patterns of early, urban AAE development. These data are used for inter-generational analyses, cross-gender analyses, analyses of socioeconomic factors and overall interpretation for each individual site and between different sites. </p><p>These data contribute to the continuing study and scholarship on the historical development of African American English, providing the first multi-community overview of core African American English linguistic variables from the early urban South. The trans-regional similarities of linguistic variables in AAE speakers are often attributed to the influence of early Southern English varieties. These data confirm the early presence of these variables in African American urban centers in the South, but also suggest how language ideologies relate to dialect development.</p> / Dissertation

In this dissertation, I analyze classroom interactions between a White, nonlocal high school English teacher and American Indian students on the Blackfeet Nation in Montana. I focus on the participants' strategic use of humor and distinctive linguistic features in these interactions, particularly teasing as a cultural activity among the students, the teacher's immersion and adaptation to that culture, and the affective and sociocultural importance of the ethnolinguistic repertoire to the students. I argue that the main functions of the humor and teasing are threefold: (a) to build rapport, (b) to accomplish interactional goals in the classroom, and (c) to negotiate teacher-student power struggles in a socioculturally acceptable way. I show that the students' humor and discourse is constitutive of local culture and often counterhegemonic, implicitly and at times explicitly critiquing mainstream educational practices and the marginalized status of the students. My analysis considers the data from a discourse level as well as examines the indexical and patterned use of microlevel linguistic resources from the student's ethnolinguistic repertoire--specifically, distinctive interjections and scooped-accent intonation. The primary data is naturally occurring classroom discussions, complemented by individual and group interviews and ethnographic observations. This study points to the importance of sociocultural factors in language variation and change in communities undergoing or having undergone radical language shift. It thus adds to the literature that considers how cultural practices are disrupted and may be restructured as the linguistic code changes. This research also contributes to the research that details the difficulties nonmainstream students face in public schools when their home culture and language practices are at odds with those of the school, and it examines humor and teasing as student strategies to navigate these differences. This study aims to help paint a more complete picture of the contemporary social and linguistic contexts in which American Indian speakers live, with a mind toward how this understanding can be applied to the real-world circumstances of these youth. / text

This dissertation investigates nominal arguments in classifier languages (ClLs). There are two main goals. The first is to explore what is constant and what varies in the way ClLs form nominal arguments. The second goal is to understand the relationship between argument formation in classifier languages and argument formation more generally. Three classifier languages are the center of the discussion: Mandarin, a ClL without overt evidence of determiners, Yi, a head-final ClL which will be shown to have overt determiners, and Bengali, a ClL that has already been argued to have overt evidence of determiners. In addition to paying particular attention to these three ClLs, the discussion of nominal arguments also covers a wider range of ClLs and number marking languages (NMLs) from Romance, Germanic, and Slavic, as well as Hindi. In this dissertation we will argue for the following three points. First, numeral constructions (NCs) have identical syntax and semantics in ClLs and NMLs (possibly universally); specifically, we argue that NCs have a predicative interpretation and an argumental interpretation that arises via a choice function in the lexical entry of numerals. Secondly, we argue that language variation in the nominal domain is due primarily to two interrelated factors: what nouns denote (kinds or properties) and what low functional heads (i.e. number morphology (#) and classifiers) denote; we show how this variation in the nominal domain can be related to a more general macroparameter. Thirdly, we argue that determiners in ClLs are in fact expected, contrary to the standard view, but while they can combine with numeral-classifier phrases (ClPs) and numeral-less ClPs, they can never combine with bare nouns. The proposal is that bare nouns in ClLs are always argumental regardless of whether or not there are determiners. In the last chapter of this dissertation, we show that the developed analysis of nominal arguments and language variation yields an updated language typology of argument formation. With this proposed analysis of nominal arguments, we may be a few steps closer to a general theory of argument formation of wide cross-linguistic applicability. / Linguistics

The purpose of this project is to investigate factors that can be used to explain orthographic variation in City of Heroes (CoH), a virtual community based in an online role-playing game. While a number of models of variation exist for speech, to date, no statistical models of orthographic variation in virtual communities exist. By combining traditional variationist methods with computational text processing, this project documents socially meaningful alternations in the linguistic code regarding two types of sociolinguistic variables, namely spelling and use of abbreviations. For each of the two variable types, two dependent variables are posited, i.e. the alternation between: 1) –ing and –in in durative verbal aspect marking in forms such as coming and comin, 2) –s and –z markers of plurality in words such as cats and catz, 3) abbreviated and full forms for referential abbreviation in terms such as Atlas Park and AP, and 4) abbreviated and full forms for conative abbreviations in terms such as looking for team and lft. The study investigates the role that the following factors play in explaining orthographic variation in CoH: 1) message length, 2) standardness of the immediate linguistic environment, 3) cognitive load, 4) relative proximity in the virtual space, 5) degree of message publicness, 6) experience in the community, 7) avatar gender, and 8) social group affiliation. Through mixed-effects, multivariate models, the study demonstrates that each of the predictors has some role in explaining the orthographic variability observed in the textual record of the community. Moreover, interactions between some of the predictors prove to be significant contributors to the models, which highlight the importance of addressing interaction terms in models of language variation. The findings from the study suggest that the socio-contextual meaning of particular structures in the CoH community lead authors to make linguistic choices, which are realized as alternations in the linguistic code. Finally, implications for the study of language variation in general are discussed. / text