books
investigating variation the effects of social organization and social setting
linguistic variation has been studied primarily in communities with the dominant social organization of our time ethnic diversity socioeconomic stratification and a population size that precludes community wide face to face interaction . in such communities variation correlates with ethnicity and class . investigating variation explores a different kind of social structure small size dense kinship ties common occupation and absence of social stratification . in the community investigated here social homogeneity and constant face to face interaction made accommodation unnecessary and extremely weak extra community norming for the local minority language permitted a very high level of individual variation . br nancy c. dorians examination of the fisherfolk gaelic spoken in a highland scottish village offers a number of explanations for delayed recognition of a linguistic variation unrelated to social class or other social sub groupings . reports of similar variation phenomena in locations with similar features contemporary minority language pockets in ireland russia norway canada and cameroon make it possible to identify a particular set of factors that contribute to the emergence and persistence of socially neutral inter speaker and intra speaker variation . facets of language use related to social structure remain to be investigated in communities with still other forms of social organization before the few communities that represent them disappear altogether .
paperback oxford university press usa 2009 isbn13 9780195385922 isbn10 0195385926
abridged n isbn 13 9780195385922 number in series 1 number of pages 350 publisher oxford univ pr release date 62135769600000 series title oxford studies in sociolinguistics