Emergent sociolinguistic variation in severe language endangerment

Abstract

Contrary to Labov's principle of style shifting, studies in language obsolescence portray speakers of dying languages as ‘monostylistic’, a characterization questioned here. Variationist methodology is adopted in a context of gradual language death. By combining quantitative and interactional analyses of data from older, younger, and new speakers of Francoprovençal in France and Switzerland, the article considers (a) to what extent variability in language obsolescence differs from that found in ‘healthy’ languages, and (b) how innovations might spread through communities speaking threatened languages characterized as ‘monostylistic’ and lacking overt normative infrastructure. It is argued that style variation (not monostylism) emerges from linguistic decay: among more fluent speakers, a categorical rule of /l/-palatalization before obstruents becomes underspecified, rendering palatalization available for strategic use. Among new speakers, novel palatal variants form part of an emergent sociolinguistic norm. The study offers fresh insights on the origins of sociolinguistic variation with implications for variationist theory. (Language obsolescence, language death, language variation and change, style variation, new speakers)*

Beyond obsolescence: a twenty-first century research agenda for thelangues régionales

“…While stylistic variation was not rigorously tested here, there are kernels of evidence to suggest that some instances of variable impersonal forms can be linked with social constructivism. This would constitute further tantalizing evidence that new speakers can emerge as important agents of change in endangered-language contexts, playing a more central role than has so far been appreciated in the development and survival of LRs (see Kasstan, 2019 on Francoprovençal).…”

“…In the case of LRs, of course, the absence of such an elite deprives the dominated language of a model of ‘good’ speech around which the speech community can cohere. But, as Kasstan (2019) demonstrates, in the modern, interconnected, digital world, néolocuteurs are able to communicate regularly and rapidly with like-minded individuals across the LR region in question. This contrasts sharply with the usual LR communication habits of many traditional speakers, which are at the level of the village or small town (speakers typically switch to French outside the home domain).…”

The Nativeness of Breton Speakers and Their Erasure

“…His criticism rejects an unexamined emphasis on biological bounds between speakers, which does not say anything about the biological or innate dimension of early exposure to a given language, nor on its consequences for later linguistic competences during life. In the same vein, Kasstan (2019) rejects "the study of native speakersseen as the most traditional or authentic (and thus legitimate) representatives of a speech communityat the expense of more recent arrivals, whose language production has been viewed in terms of deficit (these speakers are typically labelled L2 or learner, etc.)." He adds that "such essentialist perspectives on depending on their personal choice on the matter.…”

“…The expression native language competence denotes the linguistic competence that humans develop when they have been provided with consistent linguistic input since birth, or by extension, at a very early age, typically before three to five years old. Kasstan (2019) rejects the term L2 because of its association with a negative value, a "deficit". In the fields of cognitive, formal and descriptive linguistics, L2 learners do have to be associated with a deficit.…”

“…Davies-Deacon 2017, Moal & al. 2018, Kasstan 2019. The figure of the new speaker is explicitly constructed around second-language learners, and is used in opposition to the figure of the native speaker.…”