This historical sociolinguistic study investigates the language of English seamen in the seventeenth century. Built on language data compiled from log books (Matthews 1935) and a survey of the maritime population from 1582, the author argues that the seafaring community had developed its own sociolect, which was based on the dialects of Southern England. Writers (e.g. Jonathan Swift, Daniel Defoe) and historians describe this “Ship English”: [S]ailors stood out from landsmen in a variety of ways. In the first place by their dress [...] Sailors were also recognisable by their speech, in which technical terms, slang and oaths had thickened to produce a private language. (Burke 1996:44-45) Following Ross and Bailey (1988), the author argues that this sociolect emerged from dialect contact (Trudgill 2004) aboard ship, with Southern dialects as the major input varieties: Several phonological features of Southern Early Modern English (e.g. diphthongization of Middle English /u:/ and /a:/, split of /u/ into /ʌ/ and /ʊ/, /w/-/v/ interchange) are pervasive in the data. Apart from being a interesting case study in itself, the results might be of importance for research on pidgins and creoles and colonial dialects: it has been argued (Hancock 1976) that nautical English has had a profound impact on the emergence of anglophone creoles because it – rather than some kind of Standard English – was the actual “superstrate” variety for most creoles. For the same reason, it might have influenced the emergence of the overseas varieties of English. / text

This qualitative study investigated Spanish language use and linguistic attitudes in Laredo, Texas and the surrounding area from 1860 to 1930. In the public domain, sources include the Spanish and English language newspapers and Webb County Court documents. These were analyzed for evidence of the impact of English language contact and prevailing attitudes towards the use of Spanish from both the Hispanic and Anglo perspective. In the private domain, three major collections of private correspondence as well as other miscellaneous correspondence and records were transcribed and analyzed for evidence of metalinguistic or other attitudes towards Spanish. A linguistic analysis of the orthographic, phonological, morphosyntactic, and pragmatic features of Spanish used in the correspondence was also conducted. The major collections of correspondence and other private papers include: 1) the John Z. Leyendecker collection, 2) letters from the Clemente and Federico Idar Family Papers, and 3) the Miguel San Miguel Jr. private collection. The multiple authors in these collections come from low to middle income families and from varied educational and linguistic backgrounds, thus providing a broad socio-economic linguistic sample. Findings include a strong support for Spanish language use and teaching/learning of the Spanish language as well as varied levels of language confidence among bilingual and aspiring second language learners. Negative attitudes regarding class and lack of education rather than ethnicity were clearly held by some writers. Additionally, mixed attitudes about the strong presence of the Mexican culture in Laredo were found. The linguistic analysis found little evidence of English impact during the 1860s, but growing evidence of its influence during the early 20th century. Most prevalent were the use of English loan words, nativized loan words, and nonce borrowings. Some evidence of language shift was noted in the younger writers of the twentieth century. A few of the more salient Spanish linguistic features found include the use of the synthetic future verb form, minimal confusion between ser and estar, metathesis, apocope, vowel raising and lowering, and archaic expressions.

From the campaign waged by Revolutionaries like Barère and the Abbé Grégoire against those regional languages they referred to pejoratively as 'patois', to the educational policies of Jules Ferry a century later, successive governments of France engaged in a broadly successful struggle to force the French to speak French. Inverting the logic of cultural nationalists like Herder, who claimed a shared language as the legitimate basis of national polities, French legislators sought to impose French as a common language on a linguistically diverse population that had already been constituted as a state. Recent historical work has shown the particular significance of such projects during the Napoleonic period. Historians have begun considering how far the Napoleonic regime was characterized by cultural imperialism. While the ideological nature of such projects- the 'view from the centre', so to speak- is now well understood by historians, this thesis is concerned with the practice of Napoleonic imperialism in one sphere of action: language. By focusing on the practice of linguistic imperialism under Napoleon this thesis makes an important contribution to understandings of the cultural politics of the period as well as Napoleonic state-building policies more generally.

This thesis examines fragmentary Finnish in Late Old Swedish charters (c. 1350–1526) issued in the Finnish part of the Swedish realm, the diocese of Åbo. Consisting mostly of proper names, albeit occasionally displaying Finnish inflectional and derivational morphology, these fragments have previously not generally been regarded as representing actual written Finnish, but rather as onomastic loans or transcriptions of oral language by more or less monolingual Swedish scribes. This thesis attempts a description and analysis of the Swedish–Finnish language mixture, to see to what extent the embedding of Finnish segments in these Swedish-language charters can be said to reflect scribal proficiency in Finnish or a lack thereof. The thesis relies on theoretical and empirical findings in the fields of code-switching and historical sociolinguistics. To provide a socio-historical context for the linguistic analysis, sociolinguistic conditions in medieval Finland and the textual genre of medieval charters are outlined. The bilingual segments in the data are then described and compared with models of code-switching from modern studies, to see whether their form corresponds to patterns that could be expected of more or less balanced bilinguals. The choice between Swedish and Finnish linguistic variants is also considered in the light of textual and sociolinguistic factors, and a study is made of Finnish grammatical transfer in the scribal Swedish of medieval Finland. Although the scarcity of the medieval data does not allow definite conclusions, the tentative results reveal a language mixture that is mainly well formed, though limited in scope and with some instances of scribal errors that could be due to a lack of proficiency in Finnish. On the other hand, the insertion of Finnish segments shows a stylistic patterning that suggests a linguistic awareness on the part of the scribes, and the choice of Swedish prepositions in certain constructions differs quantitatively from the norm in non-Finnish parts of medieval Sweden, in a way that can partly be attributed to the influence of Finnish locative case semantics. While it is apparent that proficiency levels in Finnish must have varied somewhat among medieval scribes in Finland, the results point to a more or less bilingual proficiency, or at least extensive passive knowledge of Finnish.

This paper performs a corpus-based critical discourse analysis on the terms“vamp”, “slut”, “prude” and “spinster” and how they are used in context fromthe 1920s to the 2000s. They were categorized according to what attitudeswere connected to them, positive, neutral and negative. An interest was alsotaken in what attributive adjectives were used in context with each term. Theresults showed consistent negative attitudes towards “prude” and “spinster”,while the attitudes towards “Vamp” and “slut” were mixed with negative andpositive.

This thesis examines evidence for language contact between Oscan and Greek in the corpus of Oscan inscriptions from Lucania, Bruttium and Messana. These inscriptions were written in an adapted form of the Greek alphabet from around the fourth to first century BC, with a few of the latest texts written in the Latin alphabet; as a group, these texts are referred to as ‘South Oscan’. The work draws on modern sociolinguistic theory of bilingualism and language contact alongside previous scholarship on ancient linguistics, epigraphy and archaeology. It also suggests a series of general principles for dealing with small epigraphic corpora from a sociolinguistic viewpoint. After laying out these frameworks, this work gives an introduction to the sites of the region and past scholarship on language contact in this corpus. The main body of the thesis deals with the corpus of texts from a number of complementary angles. Firstly, the adaptation of the South Oscan alphabet from the Greek alphabet is explored in detail. In particular, the development of various signs for /f/ and the use of ‘extra’ Greek characters like chi, theta and phi are investigated as evidence of ongoing contact between the languages. The rest of the thesis deals with the corpus by genre or inscription type: this includes dedications, curse tablets, legal texts, official texts (including coin legends) and funerary texts. While some types of text, such as curse tablets, show pronounced influence and borrowing from Greek, other genres such as legal or official texts show far fewer contact phenomena, even within the same community. In other instances, language contact appears to have resulted in regional linguistic developments: for example, some of the formulae used in South Oscan dedicatory and funerary texts appear to be creative adaptations arising from a combination of influences from both Oscan and Greek, without fully adopting existing models from either language. This thesis therefore stresses that communities developed norms about the appropriateness of borrowing from Greek in various kinds of texts. In many instances, linguistic and epigraphic borrowing from Greek in written texts seems to be determined by individual choice and variation within these community norms, rather than the result of incompetence.

This doctoral thesis investigates dialect contact, identity and change in the ancient Greek colonies of Magna Graecia in the fourth and third centuries BC, as evidenced in the surviving epigraphic sources. South Italy is an area of the ancient Greek-speaking world in which a comprehensive investigation of the linguistic evidence has not previously been attempted. By considering linguistic questions within their broader socio-historical environment, I propose a radical redrawing of the dialect map of this area. I first present the historical context, the linguistic evidence and the methodological framework of my research in the introduction. In the first chapter I reject previous hypotheses about dialect contact in South Italy around 300 BC on the basis of both historical and linguistic arguments. I then propose a new and empirically better supported explanation for the development of the ‘severior’ long-vowel system in the dialect of the southern city of Locri, which previous studies have generally attributed to influence from the dialect of the important northern city of Taras and taken as evidence for Taras’ linguistic influence over the rest of Magna Graecia, and possibly also for the existence of a local Doric koina (i.e. a common dialect). In the second chapter I offer a new analysis of the inscriptional record from Locri and show that, in the absence of compelling evidence for influence from the dialect of Taras, a high level of prestige remained attributed to the traditional local dialect until at least the mid-third century. At the same time, the southern colonies in general, including Locri, can be shown to have been exposed to the koine before the northern ones, such as Taras, as a result of frequent contact with the Greeks of near Sicily in the fourth and early third centuries. In the third chapter I complete my investigation by assessing the use of dialectal features in literary texts produced in South Italy around the same period (both metrical inscriptions and literary works transmitted in manuscripts). The evidence of these texts, combined with that of documentary inscriptions, provides a deeper insight into matters of dialect identity and prestige in this area. After summarising the results of my research, I conclude my investigation with a brief discussion of the socio-historical reasons why a Doric koina did not develop in South Italy as in other areas.

This dissertation has, as its general objective, a search for linguistic and socio-historical information on Muquém, a community which is regarded as reminiscent of Quilombo dos Palmares, located in União dos Palmares, Alagoas. As regards to the historical search, this work aims at verifying the African role in its linguistic and socio-cultural formation, having, as our basis, the national project proposal for Brazilian Portuguese History (PHPB) and the Linguistics Socio-Historical perspective (MATTOS e SILVA, 2004). As for the linguistic matter, this research has, as its objective, the checking on variation on agreement between subject and its predicative in the current discourse of that community, trying to offer, then, a better understanding on the characteristics of this linguistic phenomenon and their possible changes, using, for such work, the apparatus of the Quantitative Sociolinguistics (Labov, 1994, 2008 [1972]). Before the collected information, it is conjectured that a) the African culture had influence both in the language and in the culture of the Muquém community, b) the use of the non-formal variant will entail a percentage bigger than the one presented in the studies of the urban speech (SCHERRE, 1991; DIAS, 1996; SALGADO, 2008) and c) a change in progress could be occurring toward a greater use of the standard variant. The corpus taken for analysis consists of recorded interviews developed with 12 habitants of the community just mentioned above. As possible conditioning extralinguistic factors, male and female gender and age, subdivided as follows: group I from 10 until 30 years old; group II from 31 until 50 years old; and group III over 50 years old, were chosen. The chosen linguistic factors were: kinds of subject, kinds of predicative, verbal agreement, intervening material between verb and predicative, number nominal agreement in SN subject, reference to the speaker in the discourse and semantic characterization of the subject. The results of the VARBRUL program only showed the following extralinguistic factors verbal agreement, kinds of subject and reference to the speaker in the discourse as statistically active in the variation of agreement between subject and predicative. Based on socio-historical facts related to the origin of the community and to the level of variation in the agreement of that linguistic structure, the importance of the African presence, to the language and culture of that community, was acknowledged. / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / Esta dissertação apresenta como objetivo geral buscar informações sócio-histórica e linguística sobre Muquém, uma comunidade considerada remanescente do Quilombo dos Palmares, localizada no município de União dos Palmares, Alagoas. Sobre a busca histórica, este trabalho verifica a participação africana na sua formação sociocultural e linguística, apresentando como base a proposta do projeto nacional Para a História do Português Brasileiro (PHPB) e a perspectiva da Sócio-História Linguística (MATTOS e SILVA, 2004). Sobre a questão linguística, esta pesquisa analisa a variação de concordância entre sujeito e predicativo do sujeito na fala atual dessa comunidade, tentando oferecer um melhor entendimento sobre as características desse fenômeno linguístico e sobre suas possíveis mudanças, utilizando, para isso, o aparato da Sociolinguística Quantitativa (LABOV, 1994, 2008 [1972]). Diante das informações coletadas, hipotetiza-se que a) a cultura africana exerceu influência na cultura e na língua da comunidade Muquém, b) o uso da variante não padrão apresentará uma porcentagem maior do que foi apresentada nos estudos de fala urbana (SCHERRE, 1991; DIAS, 1996; SALGADO, 2008) e c) poderia estar ocorrendo uma mudança em progresso em direção ao maior uso da variante padrão. O corpus tomado para análise consiste em gravações de entrevistas feitas com 12 moradores da comunidade enfocada. Como possíveis fatores extralinguísticos condicionantes, foram escolhidos sexo, masculino e feminino, e idade, subdividido em: Faixa I - de 10 a 30 anos, Faixa II - de 31 a 50 anos e Faixa III mais de 50 anos. Os fatores linguísticos escolhidos foram: tipos de sujeito, tipos de predicativo do sujeito, concordância verbal, material interveniente entre o verbo e o predicativo, concordância nominal de número no SN sujeito, referência ao falante no discurso e caracterização semântica do sujeito. Os resultados do programa VARBRUL apontaram como estatisticamente atuantes na variação de concordância entre sujeito e predicativo apenas os fatores linguísticos concordância verbal, tipos de sujeito e referência ao falante no discurso. Com base em fatos sócio-históricos relacionados à origem da comunidade e ao grau de variação na concordância dessa estrutura linguística, foi reconhecida a importância da presença africana para a cultura e a língua dessa comunidade.

Cette thèse de doctorat étudie l'utilisation discursive des régionalismes, ou diatopismes, du français en alliant les perspectives de la linguistique variationniste et de l'analyse du discours. L'étude fournit un développement conceptuel, terminologique et méthodologique détaillé en matière de diatopie et des contraintes qui pèsent sur l'usage de diatopismes dans le discours. Elle explicite en particulier la méthode d'analyse appliquée en termes différentiels, pour la description des diatopismes et l'interprétation des sources et des enquêtes de terrain menée par l'auteure, ainsi que pour l'analyse du discours. À partir de l'analyse des procédés discursifs qui présentent les diatopismes en autonymie (les mises en relief) et de leur distribution discursive, un nouveau paradigme sociopragmatique permet d'interpréter les caractéristiques pragmatiques et sociolinguistiques des diatopismes dans le discours. Le corps de l'analyse est présenté sous la forme d'articles dictionnairiques, complétant un modèle lexicographique différentiel de rubriques qui sont consacrées aux aspects discursifs et sociopragmatiques des diatopismes étudiés. L'analyse philologique porte sur tous les diatopismes qui sont mis en relief dans l'ensemble des vingt-six romans grand public du Vendéen Yves Viollier, publiés de 1972 à 2009, et qui appartiennent à la communauté sociolinguistique de ce dernier. L'étude montre que les mises en relief, tributaires de l'orientation réaliste des romans étudiés, sont relativement rares, et que la création de l'ethos du 'régional' passe dans ceux-ci par un choix original de diatopismes, et non par des clichés largement partagés. / This doctoral dissertation studying the use of French regionalisms, or diatopicisms, in literature, is situated in the fields of variationist linguistics and of discourse analysis. The study offers a detailed description of the concepts and current terminology in the recent discipline of Francophone differential linguistics as well as in the related branches of French discourse analysis. It pays particular attention to the methods applied in the identification of diatopic elements and the interpretation of existing sources – completed by field studies conducted by the author – as well as for an appropriate discourse analysis of diatopicisms in literature. Developing a new sociopragmatic paradigm, the author analyses the strategies that present meta-linguistically highlighted diatopicisms and their textual distribution in order to interpret what these procedures say obliquely about the diatopicisms in terms of their pragmatic and sociolinguistic characteristics. The large corpus analysis is presented in the form of dictionary articles, based on a model developed in French differential lexicography, and enriched by sociopragmatic sections. The author analyses all highlighted diatopicisms in the twenty-six popular novels of Yves Viollier which belong to the latter's sociolinguistic community (Vendée). The study shows that the strategies highlighting diatopicisms in the analysed novels – published from 1972 to 2009, realist and partly regionalist – are relatively rare. The ethos of the novelist's home region is partly created by the use of diatopicisms – but this is achieved through original choices, rather than largely shared stereotypes.

<p>This dissertation focuses on gender-related terms as well as adjectives and demonstratives in connection with these terms used in texts from the period 1670–1720. The material in the study has been drawn from both English and American sources and comes from three text categories: depositions, examinations and journals. Two of these text categories represent authentic and speech-related language use (depositions and examinations), whereas the third (journals) is representative of a non-speech-related, non-fictional text category. While previous studies of gender-related terms have primarily investigated fictional material, this study focuses on text categories which have received little attention so far. </p><p>The overarching research question addressed in this study concerns the use and distribution of gender-related terms, especially with regard to referent gender. Data analyses are both quantitative and qualitative, and several linguistic and extra-linguistic factors are taken into account, such as the semantic domain to which the individual gender-related term belongs, region of origin and referent gender. Adjectives and demonstratives collocating with the gender-related terms are also investigated, as previous research has shown that referent gender has an impact on the use of adjectives as well.</p><p>The results show that the use of gender-related terms is influenced by both region of origin and referent gender. It is suggested that this is due in part to the difference in nature between Early Modern English society and the early American colonies, and in part due to the social roles which men and women had. Referent gender also has an impact on the type of adjectives used in connection with gender-related terms: adjectives collocating with gender-related terms denoting men have positive connotations to a larger extent than do adjectives collocating with their female counterparts; meanwhile, gender-related terms denoting women tend to collocate with negative adjectives. </p>