Marisa Brook (faculty), Bridget L. Jankowski (staff; Ph.D. 2013), Lex Konnelly (Ph.D.), and Sali A. Tagliamonte (faculty) have a paper out in the Journal of Sociolinguistics, 22(4): "'I don't come off as timid anymore': Real‐time change in early adulthood against the backdrop of the community."
The period from ages 18 to 25 is sometimes called ‘emerging adulthood’ (Arnett 2000, 2004) since it has come to be characterized by major life transitions. Linguistically, this means that lifespan change in the individual (Sankoff 2004, 2018) might be particularly likely during these years (Labov 2001: 447; Bigham 2012: 533; Kohn 2014: 20). Addressing a need for more real‐time sociolinguistic research on early adulthood, we employ data from a panel study of a single speaker, ‘Clara’ (b. 1986), interviewed every 12 to 18 months between the ages of 16 and 30 (Tagliamonte 2005, 2012: 274–276). We examine four linguistic variables that differ according to level of the grammar and social salience in Clara's community (Toronto, Canada). For each variable, Clara's rates of the variants shift to match those of subsequent age cohorts in the community around her as she gets older and joins the workforce. These findings attest to emerging adulthood as a sociolinguistically formative period. More generally, they emphasize the inseparability of individuals and their linguistic surroundings.
No comments:
Post a Comment