Cover not available
Part of
Language Development: The lifespan perspective
Edited by Annette Gerstenberg and Anja Voeste
[IMPACT: Studies in Language, Culture and Society 37] 2015
► pp. 129–146

Age-related variation and language change in Early Modern English

ORCID logo

Focusing on the age variable in real-time language change, my paper traces age-related variation among people taking part in several ongoing changes. More specifically, I examine the age-related patterns characteristic of linguistically progressive and conservative individuals in the English language community in the 15th and 16th century. The data come from the database created for the Quantifying Change project, based on the Corpus of Early English Correspondence. It is shown that we may need to reconsider any sharp distinction between generational and communal change, and pay more attention to the kind, phase and duration of the change in progress, on the one hand, and its social evaluation, on the other.

Published online: 22 July 2015
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/impact.37.07nev
References
CEEC = Corpus of Early English Correspondence
1998 Compiled by T. Nevalainen, H. Raumolin-Brunberg, J. Keränen, M. Nevala, A. Nurmi & M. Palander-Collin. Helsinki: Department of English, University of Helsinki. [URL]Google Scholar
Chambers, J.K
2004 Dynamic typology and vernacular universals. In Dialectology Meets Typology: Dialect Grammar from a Cross-linguistic Perspective, B. Kortmann (ed.), 128–145. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton.Google Scholar
Efron, B. & Tibshirani, R
1993 An Introduction to the Bootstrap. New York NY: Chapman & Hall. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Georgakopoulou, A. & Charalambidou, A
2011 Doing age and ageing: language, discourse and social interaction. In Pragmatics of Society. Handbooks of Pragmatics 5, G. Andersen & K. Aijmer (eds), 31–52. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton.Google Scholar
HC = Helsinki Corpus of English Texts
1991 Compiled by M. Rissanen (Project leader), M. Kytö (Project secretary); L. Kahlas-Tarkka, M. Kilpiö (Old English); S. Nevanlinna, I. Taavitsainen (Middle English); T. Nevalainen, H. Raumolin-Brunberg (Early Modern English). Helsinki: Department of English, University of Helsinki. [URL]Google Scholar
Hockett, C.F
1950 Age-grading and linguistic continuity. Language 26(4): 449–457. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kerswill, P
 1996 Children, adolescents, and language change. Language Variation and Change 8: 177–202. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Labov, W
1994 Principles of Linguistic Change, Vol. 1: Internal Factors. Malden MA: Blackwell.Google Scholar
2001 Principles of Linguistic Change, Vol. 2: Social Factors. Malden MA: Blackwell.Google Scholar
2007 Transmission and diffusion. Language 83(2): 344–387. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Leithead, H
2009 Cromwell, Thomas, Earl of Essex (b. in or before 1485, d. 1540). Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Online edition, May 2009 Oxford: OUP. [URL] (12 Feb 2014).Google Scholar
Nahkola, K. & Saanilahti, M
2004 Mapping language changes in real time: A panel study on Finnish. Language Variation and Change 16(2): 75–91. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Nevalainen, T
1998 Social mobility and the decline of multiple negation in Early Modern English. In Advances in English Historical Linguistics (1996), J. Fisiak & M. Krygier (eds), 263–291. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2006 Negative concord as an English “vernacular universal”: Social history and linguistic typology. Journal of English Linguistics 34(3): 257–278. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2013 Words of kings and counsellors: register variation and language change in early English courtly correspondence. In Scribes as Agents of Language Change, E.‑M. Wagner, B. Outhwaite & B. Beinhoff (eds), 99–120. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Nevalainen, T. & Raumolin-Brunberg, H
2003 Historical Sociolinguistics: Language Change in Tudor and Stuart England. London: Pearson Education.Google Scholar
Nevalainen, T., Raumolin-Brunberg, H. & Mannila, H
2011 The diffusion of language change in real time. Language Variation and Change 23(1): 1–43. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Raumolin-Brunberg, H
2005a Language change in adulthood: Historical letters as evidence. European Journal of English Studies 9(1): 37–51. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2005b The diffusion of subject YOU: A case study in historical sociolinguistics. Language Variation and Change 17(1): 55–73. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2009 Lifespan changes in the language of three early modern gentlemen. In The Language of Daily Life in England (1450–1800), A. Nurmi, M. Nevala & M. Palander-Collin (eds), 165–196. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Raumolin-Brunberg, H. & Nevalainen, T
2007a From mine to my and thine to thy: the loss of the nasal in the first and second person possessives. In Tracing English through Time: Explorations in Language Variation, U. Smit, S. Dollinger, J. Hüttner, G. Kaltenböck & U. Lutzky (eds), 303–314. Vienna: Braumüller.Google Scholar
2007b Historical sociolinguistics: The corpus of early English correspondence. In Creating and Digitizing Language Corpora, Vol. 2: Diachronic Databases, J.C. Beal, K.P. Corrigan & H.L. Moisl (eds), 148–171. Houndsmills: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Rissanen, M
2000 Standardisation and the language of early statutes. In The Development of Standard English: Theories, Descriptions, Conflicts, L. Wright (ed.), 117–130. Cambridge: CUP. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Sankoff, G
2005 Cross-sectional and longitudinal studies in sociolinguistics. In Sociolinguistics. An International Handbook of the Science of Language and Society [Handbooks of Linguistics and Communication Science; HSK 3.2], U. Ammon, N. Dittmar, K.J. Mattheier & P. Trudgill (eds), 1003–1013. 2nd edn. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton.Google Scholar
Sankoff, G. & Blondeau, H
2007 Language change across the lifespan: ⁄ r ⁄ in Montreal French. Language 83(3): 560–588. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Tristram, A. & Ayres-Bennett, W
2012 From negation to agreement: Revisiting the problem of sources for socio-historical linguistics. Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 113(3): 365–393.Google Scholar
Wagner, S.E
2012 Age grading in sociolinguistic theory. Language and Linguistics Compass 6(6): 371–382,
https://doi.org/
 (4 May 2014). DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Warner, A
2005 Why do dove: Evidence for register variation in Early Modern English negatives. Language Variation and Change 17: 257–280. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cited by

Cited by 2 other publications

Sankoff, Gillian
2018. Language Change Across the Lifespan. Annual Review of Linguistics 4:1 ► pp. 297 ff. DOI logo
Siebers, Lucia
2019. Chapter 8. African American English in nineteenth-century Liberia. In Processes of Change [Studies in Language Variation, 21], ► pp. 139 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 19 march 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.