A gay paper: why should sociolinguistics bother with semantics?

Semantic shifts have been explored via a range of methods (Allan & Robinson 2012). Typically, semantic shifts were usually noted or described with methods such as a literature review or dictionary checking (e.g. Blank & Koch, 1999; Stockwell & Minkova, 2001; Williams, 1976), which are very labour-intensive and time-consuming methods. Other more recently developed methods involve sociolinguistic interviews (Robinson, 2012; Sandow & Robinson, 2018). However, with the development of large-sized corpora and computational semantics, diachronic semantic shifts have started to be captured in a data-driven way (Kutuzov et al., 2018). Recently, the word embeddings technique (Mikolov et al., 2013) has been proven to be a promising tool for the tracking of semantic shifts (e.g. Hamilton, Leskovec & Jurafsky, 2016a, 2016b; Kulkarni et al., 2015; Kutuzov et al., 2017). For example, Hamilton et al. (2016b) exemplified how to use the technique to capture the subjectification process of the word ‘actually’ during the 20th century.

Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 88%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The evolution of LGBT labelling words

Shi¹,

Lei²

2019

“…However, lexical and some morphosyntactic variables often show less striking and statistically insignificant differences between the usage of variants than phonological variables do (cf. Beal & Burbano–Elizondo, 2012; Robinson, 2012). Therefore, in this paper we report on all these patterns of variation.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sussex by the sea

Jansen¹,

Robinson²,

Cahill³

et al. 2020

Self Cite

Dialects in the South East of England are very often perceived as one homogenous mass, without much regional variation. Rosewarne introduced the notion of Estuary English and defined it as ‘variety of modified regional speech [ . . . ] a mixture of non-regional and local south-eastern English pronunciation and intonation’ (Rosewarne, 1984). However, studies such as Przedlacka (2001) and Torgersen & Kerswill (2004) have shown that, at least on the phonetic level, distinct varieties exist. Nevertheless, very few studies have investigated language use in the South East and even fewer in the county of Sussex. It is often claimed that there is no distinct Sussex dialect (Coates, 2010: 29). Even in the earliest works describing the dialect of the area (Wright, 1903) there are suggestions that it cannot be distinguished from Hampshire in the west and Kent in the east.

“…While phonological and morphosyntactic change have been extensively studied through a sociolinguistic lens, this has not been the case so much for lexical change (Robinson, 2012), partly because specific terms do not occur as often in sociolinguistic interviews as phonemes and morphosyntactic constructions. To get around this issue, we used an online acceptability judgement questionnaire completed by 372 participants to study how cheeky was used.…”

Section: Tracking Language Changementioning

confidence: 99%

A cheeky investigation: Tracking the semantic change of cheeky from monkeys to wines

Bailey¹,

Durham²

2020

The present study focuses on the word cheeky which, in the past few decades, has taken on a new meaning of ‘mildly illicit’ in addition to, and partly overtaking, its original meaning of ‘impudent’. We examine how this semantic change is spreading in different age groups and in different parts of the English-speaking world. As we demonstrate, the newer meaning of cheeky is associated with younger speakers, so we examine whether this correlates with different age groups’ understanding of the new form. Furthermore, cheeky ‘impudent’ was used more frequently in the United Kingdom than in North America. If that earlier meaning was already marked for North America, how is the newer meaning cheeky ‘mildly illicit’ understood by speakers there?