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Late Modern English: Novel encounters
Edited by Merja Kytö and Erik Smitterberg
[Studies in Language Companion Series 214] 2020
► pp. 43–64

The interplay of internal and external factors in varieties of English

| University of Duisburg and Essen

The validity of a division of factors for language change into internal and external forms the focus of the present study. A distinction is made between speaker-internal and speaker-external on the one hand and community-internal and community-external on the other. A central concern is whether such distinctions are merely artefacts of linguistic analysis or whether they reflect the reality of speakers’ linguistic behaviour. Data is considered from varieties of English to show that instances of change are frequently combinations of factors and that the disruption caused by socially-triggered change can be minimised by speakers applying considerations of system symmetry and regularity to a change and thus provide a clear trajectory which can be transmitted across generations.

Article outline
  • 1.Introduction: Terminology
    • 1.1The purported reality of the internal – external division
    • 1.2A closer look at internally-motivated and externally-motivated change
    • 1.3Lifespan and the internal – external division
    • 1.4The course of internal and external change
    • 1.5Further differentiation of the internal – external division
  • 2.The speaker-internal and speaker-external distinction
    • 2.1Primarily speaker-internal motivation
      • 2.1.1Grammaticalisation
      • 2.1.2Regularisation
    • 2.2Primarily speaker-external motivation
      • 2.2.1The special case of mergers
        • Merger of which and witch
        • Pre-rhotic mergers
        • Merger of horse and hoarse
        • Merger of merry, Mary, marry
        • The cot – caught merger
    • 2.3The role of prescriptivism
  • 3.Discussion and conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 18 March 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/slcs.214.02hic
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