Article published In:
Interactional LinguisticsVol. 2:2 (2022) ► pp.137–164
Variation and change in the sociophonetic variable ing in format ties
Format ties, “partial repetitions of prior talk” (Goodwin & Goodwin 1987, p. 207), are interesting from an interactional perspective with respect to their functions relating to, for example, (dis-) agreement/alignment or humour, and for scholars of Language Variation and Change because they offer uniquely comparable phonological contexts in naturalistic speech. The present paper investigates the distribution of the sociolinguistic variable ing in format ties in a set of dyadic interviews of six speakers from the North-East of England who were recorded two or three times throughout their twenties – those career-building years during which we often see a change from the predominant use of the alveolar variant (“in’”) to the velar (“ing”).
The analysis offers possible interactional and stylistic explanations for the community-level stability and the speaker-level variation and change of ing by focusing on contexts in which speakers format tie. It shows that the use of the highly frequent and thus less marked alveolar variant tends to occur in aligning contexts, while the few velar cases occur in moments where speakers disalign on some level. This argument contributes to work combining interactional and variationist endeavours, in particular with respect to the variable ing.
Keywords: format tying, language variation, interaction, lifespan change, panel study, variable ing
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 1.1Format ties
- 1.2The variable ing
- 2.Data and methods
- 2.1Data preparation and coding
- 3.Results
- 3.1 ing variation overall
- 3.2
ing in format ties
- 3.2.1Alveolar-alveolar format ties
- 3.2.2Alveolar-velar format ties
- 4.Discussion and conclusion
- Notes
-
References
Available under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) 4.0 license.
For any use beyond this license, please contact the publisher at [email protected].
References
Angouri, J., & Locher, M. A.
(2012) Theorising
disagreement. Journal of
Pragmatics,
44
(12), 1549–1553. 
Bailey, G.
(2019) Emerging
from below the social radar: Incipient evaluation in the North West of England. Journal of
Sociolinguistics,
23
(1), 3–28.
Barth-Weingarten, D., Reber, E., & Selting, M.
Bolander, B.
(2012) Disagreements
and agreements in personal/diary blogs: A closer look at responsiveness. Journal of
Pragmatics,
44
(12), 1607–1622.
Campbell-Kibler, K.
(2007) Accent,
(ING), and the Social Logic of Listener Perceptions. American
Speech,
82
(1), 32–64.
Coates, J.
(1996) Women
talk: Conversation between women friends. Blackwell Publishers.
Couper-Kuhlen, E.
(1996) The
prosody of repetition: On quoting and mimicry. In E. Couper-Kuhlen & M. Selting (Eds.), Prosody
in Conversation (1st
ed., pp. 366–405). Cambridge University Press.
Couper-Kuhlen, E., & Selting, M.
(Eds.) (1996) Prosody
in Conversation: Interactional Studies. Cambridge University Press.
Deppermann, A., & Pekarek Doehler, S.
(2021) Longitudinal
Conversation Analysis – Introduction to the Special Issue. Research on Language and Social
Interaction,
54
(2), 127–141.
Eckert, P.
(2005) Variation,
convention, and social meaning. Annual Meeting of the Linguistic Society of America, Oakland, CA.
(2018) Meaning
and Linguistic Variation: The Third Wave in Sociolinguistics (1st
ed.). Cambridge University Press.
Ferrara, K.
(1991) Accommodation
in therapy. In H. Giles, N. Coupland, & J. Coupland (Eds.), Contexts
of
Accommodation (pp. 187–222). Cambridge University Press.
Forrest, J.
(2017) The
dynamic interaction between lexical and contextual frequency: A case study of (ING). Language
Variation and
Change,
29
(2), 129–156.
Giles, H.
(2016) Communication
Accommodation Theory: Negotiating Personal Relationships and Social Identities across
Contexts. Cambridge University Press.
Goodwin, M. H.
(1983) Aggravated
correction and disagreement in children’s conversations. Journal of
Pragmatics,
7
(6), 657–677.
Goodwin, M. H., & Goodwin, C.
(1987) Children’s
arguing. In S. U. Philips, S. Steele, & C. Tanz (Eds.), Language,
gender, and sex in comparative
perspective (pp. 200–248). Cambridge University Press.
Gorisch, J., Wells, B., & Brown, G. J.
(2012) Pitch
Contour Matching and Interactional Alignment across Turns: An Acoustic Investigation. Language
and
Speech,
55
(1), 57–76.
Hazen, K.
(2006) IN/ING
Variable. In E. Brown (Ed.), Encyclopedia
of Language and Linguistics (2nd
ed., Vol. 51, pp. 581–584). Elsevier.
Jefferson, G.
(1987) On
exposed and embedded correction in conversation. In G. Button & J. R. E. Lee (Eds.), Talk
and Social
Organisation (pp. 86–100). Multilingual Matters.
Labov, W.
Lee, S. H., & Tanaka, H.
(2016) Affiliation
and alignment in responding actions. Journal of
Pragmatics,
100
1, 1–7.
Lerner, G. H.
(2004) Collaborative
turn sequences. Conversation Analysis: Studies from the First
Generation, 225–256.
Local, J., Kelly, J., & Wells, W. H. G.
(1986) Towards
a phonology of conversation: Turn-taking in Tyneside English. Journal of
Linguistics,
22
(02), 411.
Local, J., & Walker, G.
(2005) Methodological
imperatives for investigating the phonetic organization and phonological structures of spontaneous
speech. Phonetica,
62
(2–4), 120–130.
Mechler, J., & Buchstaller, I.
(2019) [In]stability in the use of a stable variable. Linguistics Vanguard, 51.
Mechler, J., Grama, J., Bauernfeind, L., Eiswirth, M., & Buchstaller, I.
(2022) Towards an Empirically-based Model of Age-graded Behaviour: Trac(ing) linguistic malleability across the entire adult life-span. University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics, 28(2). [URL]
Meyerhoff, M., & Schleef, E.
(2012) Variation,
contact and social indexicality in the acquisition of (ing) by teenage migrants. Journal of
Sociolinguistics,
16
(3), 398–416.
Muntigl, P., & Turnbull, W.
(1998) Conversational
structure and facework in arguing. Journal of
Pragmatics,
29
(3), 225–256.
Mushin, I., & Pekarek Doehler, S. P.
Nilsson, J.
(2015) Dialect
accommodation in interaction: Explaining dialect change and stability. Language &
Communication,
41
1, 6–16.
Ogden, R.
(2006) Phonetics
and social action in agreements and disagreements. Journal of
Pragmatics,
38
(10), 1752–1775.
(2012) The
Phonetics of Talk in Interaction – Introduction to the Special Issue. Language and
Speech,
55
(1), 3–11.
Pekarek Doehler, S., & Balaman, U.
(2021) The
Routinization of Grammar as a Social Action Format: A Longitudinal Study of Video-Mediated
Interactions. Research on Language and Social
Interaction,
54
(2), 183–202.
Pomerantz, A.
(1984) Agreeing
and disagreeing with assessments: Some features of preferred/dispreferred turn
shapes. In J. M. Atkinson & J. Heritage (Eds.), Structures
of Social Action – Studies in Conversation
Analysis (pp. 57–101). Cambridge University Press.
RStudio, T.
Schegloff, E. A.
(1996) Turn
organization: One intersection of grammar and interaction. In E. Ochs, E. A. Schegloff, & S. A. Thompson (Eds.), Interaction
and
grammar (pp. 52–133). Cambridge University Press.
Schegloff, E. A., Jefferson, G., & Sacks, H.
(1977) The
Preference for Self-Correction in the Organization of Repair in
Conversation. Language,
53
(2), 361.
Schegloff, E. A.
(2010) Some
Other “Uh(m)”s. Discourse
Processes,
47
(2), 130–174.
Schleef, E., Meyerhoff, M., & Clark, L.
(2011) Teenagers’
acquisition of variation: A comparison of locally-born and migrant teens’ realisation of English (ing) in Edinburgh and
London. English World-Wide. A Journal of Varieties of
English,
32
(2), 206–236.
Schleef, E., Flynn, N., & Barras, W.
(2017) Regional
diversity in social perceptions of (ing). Language Variation and
Change,
29
(1), 29–56.
Schleef, E., Flynn, N., & Ramsammy, M.
(2015) Production
and perception of (ing) in Manchester English. Language Variation – European
Perspectives
V
1, 197–210.
Selting, M., Auer, P., Barth-Weingarten, D.
(2011) A system for transcribing talk-in-interaction: GAT 2. Gesprächsforschung – Online-Zeitschrift Zur Verbalen Interaktion, 121, 1–51.
Sidnell, J.
(2008) Alternate
and complementary perspectives on language and social life: The organization of repair in two Caribbean
communities1. Journal of
Sociolinguistics,
12
(4), 477–503.
Sifianou, M.
(2012) Disagreements,
face and politeness. Journal of
Pragmatics,
44
(12), 1554–1564.
Steensig, J.
(2019) Conversation
Analysis and Affiliation and Alignment. In The Encyclopedia of
Applied
Linguistics (pp. 1–6). John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Stivers, T.
(2008) Stance,
Alignment, and Affiliation During Storytelling: When Nodding Is a Token of
Affiliation. Research on Language and Social
Interaction,
41
(1), 31–57.
Szczepek Reed, B.
(2009) Prosodic
orientation: A practice for sequence organization in broadcast telephone openings. Journal of
Pragmatics,
41
(6), 1223–1247.
(2010) Speech
rhythm across turn transitions in cross-cultural talk-in-interaction. Journal of
Pragmatics,
42
(4), 1037–1059.
Tamminga, M.
(2014) Persistence
in the production of linguistic variation [ProQuest Dissertations Publishing]. [URL]
(2019) Sources
of Microtemporal Clustering in Sociolinguistic Sequences. Frontiers in Artificial
Intelligence,
2
1, 1–17.
Tamminga, M., MacKenzie, L., & Embick, D.
Tannen, D.
(2007) Talking
Voices: Repetition, Dialogue and Imagery in Conversational Discourse. Cambridge University Press.
Tempest, A., Wells, B.
(2012) Alliances
and Argument: A case study of a child with persisting speech difficulties in peer play. Child
Language Teaching and
Therapy,
28
(1), 57–72.
Trudgill, P.
(1974) The
social differentiation of English in Norwich. Cambridge University Press.
Wagner, S. E.
(2012) Real-time
evidence for age grad(ing) in late adolescence. Language Variation and
Change,
24
(2), 179–202.