1. Language Variation and Change

• Language variation
• monolithic concept, 'proper' English, 'Standard English'
• erroneus approach, differences in the way we speak
• depending on the context, we all manipulate and adjust
• languages vary - according to sociolinguistic parameters (regional origin, gender, age, status)
• neutral term 'variety'
• closely related ➝ 'dialect' (regional variety)
• register (stylistic variety)

➝ e.g. Standard British English, mostly used by educated speakers in formal or official situations

• as a variety not superior to any other variety or dialect, just more prestigious
• non-standard varieties often have covert prestige ➝ situational appropriateness more important than correctness

• Two language systems dialects of the same language or different languages?
• mutual intelligibility - not always a straight-forward matter
• Do all dialect speakers understand each other?
• political dimension: "a language is a dialect with a navy and an army" (Weinreich); e.g. Scandinavian languages and Chinese 'dialects'
• language not monolithic but has dialects and varieties, fully efficient and grammatical 

• Language is rule-governed, speech habits of a community, mostly subconscious knowledge
• different ways of saying the same thing ➝ language variation
• language variability is normally analysed in smaller units, so-called features of a variety
• main levels: sounds (phonetics & phonology), words (lexis, vocabulary) and structures/ patterns (grammar & syntax) + more recently communicative patterns (pragmatics, discourse analysis)

• Different pronounciation of the same phoneme
  • /t/ flapping in American English
• differences in the underlying phoneme inventory
  • reduced vowel phoneme inventory in many African ENglishes (5 vowel system), e.g. no distinction between bit and beat

• Glottal stops in London ENglish or Malaysian English
• glottaling is the pronounciation of voiceless plosives (mostly /t/ rather than /p/ or /k/), as glottal stops: [bʌʔə] and [kʌʔ] rather than [bʌtə] and [kʌp]
• Glottaling in London in the second half of the 19th century, glottaling continues to spread in the 20th century & is found in other varieties as well (e.g. American English)

• Complex sound change reported for the Inland North of the US
• started with the vowel in CAT, which was raised to a continuum between [ɛ - eː]
• as a consequence CAUGHT was lowered and COT was fronted
• one change triggers another → CHAIN SHIFT, vowel shifts are found elsewhere: Californa, Camadia, New Zealand, British English, SOuth Afircan English
• chain shifts also occurred in the history of English (affecting both vowels and consonants)

• Inflection
  • adding of -s to non-count nouns informations (many African/ Asian ENglishes)
  • some varieties show absence of inflectional -s in 3rd person singular
  • originated in East Anglia and the south of England, now also found in African American English, Alabama and Reading
  • seems to be a simplification but also introduces complexities:
    • -s in narrative clauses
    • no -s in present reference contexts
• make-up of complex words
• word formation: 
  • hybrid compounds, botak head 'bold head' (Singapore), talanoa session 'chat' (Fiji)
  • calques, word-by-word translations of indigenious phrases, lucky money (Hong Kong), What is your good name? (Polite enquiry for one's name, Hindi)
  • innovations - new meanings for old words, diary 'corner stop' (New Zealand), atsronaut 'long-distance commuter' (Hong Kong)
  • new compounds, motor park 'bus and taxi station' (Nigeria)
  • derivation, destool (Nigeria)
• Hypocoristics (widespread but very typical of Australian English)
  • connie/conductor (shortening plus suffixation), blockie 'person who what's a farm/orchard on a block' (suffixation)

Lexical items too varied to be compared, but underlying processes can be identified:

• Word-formation pattterns (siehe morphological variation ⇒ word formation)
• Most typcalmly numerous borrowings from indigenious languages

• Least conspicuous, much more subtle
• some of the variation is only quantitive
• Knowledge is generator (article submission)
• I asked where did he go (inverted word order in indirect questions)
• Verb complementation patterns, e.g. innovative ditransitive constructions in Indian English
  • Type I: (S) GIVE  [Oi:NP] [Od:NP]
    On Tuesday members of Parliament gave the government their
    overwhelming support <ICE-GB:S2B-030 #54>
  • Type III (S) GIVE [Od:NP] Oi
    he wanted physical love and I couldn’t give that <ICE-GB:S1A-050 #184>
    Type I is the dominant pattern in British English, Type III is the most frequent in Indian English, also extended to other ditransitive constructions
• collective nouns (more than an individual), such as staff, jury, government and team are variable in concord 
  • Our team wins often. (American English): grammatical concord
  • Our team win/wins often. (British English): notional concord (semantics)
• British English is older, American English is leading the change in 20th century
• concord is variable with varieties of English, but trend towards grammatical concord
• PASSIVE VOICE
  • The hungry bumblebee was taken to the honeysuckle. All my money has been eaten!
• BE is substituted with GET in the GET-passive
  • if nothing else, the fans will want to go and see which resident of Springfield gets killed in the last few frames.
• first used in 19th century, became more frequently on late 19th century, widespread in many Present-Day-Englishes

• Quotatives are verbs that introduce reported speech: ultimately, they all cried out: "long live bumblebees"
• new quotatives have been noticed: be like: she's sitting there and she's like 'Oh my god!'
• typically associated with young female speakers, originates in California but is spreading around the globe rapidly

• Expression of politeness across varieties (asking for permission, expressing gratitude, paying compliments)
• honorifics
• first-name-address