InterestingFellowor Tough OldBird?

Abstract

English has many words to refer to an adult man, e.g. man, guy, dude, and these are undergoing change in Ontario dialects. This paper analyzes the distribution of these and related forms using data collected in Ontario, Canada. In total, N = 6788 tokens for 17 communities were extracted and analyzed with a comparative sociolinguistics methodology for social and geographic factors. The results demonstrate a substantive language change in progress with two striking patterns. First, male speakers in Ontario were the leaders of this change in the past. However, as guy gained prominence across the 20th century, women started using it as frequently as men. Second, these developments are complicated by the complexity of the sociolinguistic landscape. There is a clear urban vs. peripheral division across Ontario communities that also involves both population size and distance from the large urban centre, Toronto. Further, social network type and other local influences are also important. In sum, variation in 3rd person singular male referents in Ontario dialects provides new insight into the co-occurrence and evolution of sociolinguistic factors in the process of language change.

Where didwergo? Lexical variation and change in third-person male adult noun referents in Old and Middle English

“…Based on the premise that lexical choices are influenced by similar conditioning factors that operate on grammatical and phonological variation, Tagliamonte and colleagues probed the sociolinguistic underpinnings of the system of third-person male adult noun referents in Ontario English (Franco & Tagliamonte, 2021; Tagliamonte, 2022). The authors found that guy was making traction over competing variants such as man , a change led predominantly by young men.…”

“…Given that the semantic field of third-person male adult noun referents is rife with variation, examining how this system has evolved holds promise for insights into the factors governing lexical variation and change in real time. Recent work on Ontario English shows that this lexical domain is in flux, with factors such as gender and age influencing speakers’ choices (Franco & Tagliamonte, 2021; Tagliamonte, 2022). Against the backdrop of this work, the present study examines the system of third-person male adult noun referents in earlier stages of the English language, specifically in Old and Middle English.…”

“…[BNC2014, S0369] e. there was a big man eating [BNC2014, S0654] f. he's a lovely fella, ain't he? [BNC2014, S0278] While this semantic field has been explored in Present Day English (Franco & Tagliamonte, 2021;Tagliamonte, 2022) and a list of variants pertaining to this semantic field has been compiled for Old and Middle English (Elsweiler, 2011;Grygiel, 2006;Kleparski, 2003Kleparski, , 2005Stenroos, 2002), how this domain has evolved over time, especially in the earlier stages of the English language, remains unclear.…”