地点：信息楼530 时间：下午1点 主讲人：Stephen Levey, University of Ottawa Lecture Abstract: Much previous work onthe acquisition of variation has privileged the analysis of stable,phonological variables (Roberts & Labov 1995; Smith et al. 2007, 2009). As a result, there is correspondingly lessinformation available on the acquisition of morpho-syntactic and discoursevariation, and even less still on the acquisition of linguistic change inprogress. In this talk, I lookat the acquisition of a non-phonological change by investigating the dramaticrise in the use of the be like quotative. This is an innovation that hasdiffused aggressively throughout varieties of English over the last threedecades (Tagliamonte & Hudson 1999; Tagliamonte & D’Arcy 2004, 2007).Focusing on Canadian English, I draw on the framework of comparativesociolinguistics (Poplack & Tagliamonte 2001) to track children’sacquisition of the be like variant as it infiltrates their quotativesystem. The investigationdraws on a number of complementary data sources, including over 860 tokens ofquotative markers from 19 adults recorded in Ottawa between 2008 and 2010, andmore than 800 tokens from 46 children recorded in the same location between2011 and 2012. Supplementary datasets representing quotative usage in OttawaEnglish in 1995 and 1982 enables the incrementation of quotative be like to be tracked in real-time. The main objectives ofthe investigation are to: (i) characterize the rise of be like and thereconfiguration of the quotative system as it adjusts to this innovation; (ii)determine which extra-linguistic (age, sex) and linguistic factors (content of the quote, grammatical person, tense)contribute to variant choice in the quotative system used by the adults and children; (iii) compare adultand child usage to determine the extent to which children have acquiredadult-like constraints on the be like variant and the quotative systemin general. The results indicatethat be like accounts for the bulk of quotatives used by young adults(18-30-years-old) and children (8-12-years old). Inspection of thesociolinguistic conditioning of variant choice reveals that the older children(11-12-year-olds) behave more in line with the adults, whereas the youngerchildren (8-9-year-olds) exhibit a number of differences with respect to11-12-year-olds and adults. Taken together, thefindings furnish novel insights into the acquisition of discourse-pragmaticchange; illustrate how change in progress percolates down the age spectrum; andelucidate the role of children in maintaining and propagating linguisticchange. The analytical approach alsodemonstrates the capacity of variationist sociolinguistics to conductfine-grained analyses of the acquisition of variation, affording a nuancedperspective on how children attain adult-like sociolinguistic competence intheir primary language. References Poplack, Shana &Tagliamonte, Sali. (2001). African American English in the Diaspora. Oxford:Blackwell. Roberts,Julie & Labov, William. (1995). Learning to talk Philadelphian: Acquisition of short a by preschool children. LanguageVariation and Change 7: 101-112. Smith, Jennifer, Durham, Mercedes,& Fortune, Liane. (2007). Mam, my trousers is fain doon!: Community, caregiver and child inthe acquisition of variation in a Scottish dialect. Language Variation and Change 19: 63-99. Smith, Jennifer, Durham, Mercedes,& Fortune, Liane. (2009). Universaland dialect- specific pathways of acquisition: Caregivers, children and t/d deletion. Language Variation and Change 21: 69-95. Tagliamonte, Sali &Hudson, Rachel. (1999). Be like et al. beyond America: The quotative system in British and Canadian youth. Journal ofSociolinguistics 3:147-172. Tagliamonte, Sali &D’Arcy, Alexandra. (2004). He’s like, she’s like: The quotative system in Canadian youth. Journal of Sociolinguistics 8: 493-514. Tagliamonte, Sali &D’Arcy, Alexandra. (2007). Frequency and variation in the community grammar: Tracking a new changethrough the generations. Language Variation andChange 19: 199-217 BIOGRAPHICALSKETCH Stephen Levey isAssociate Professor in the Department of Linguistics, University of Ottawa. Hecompleted his Ph.D. at Queen Mary, University of London, U.K., under the supervision of Professor Jenny Cheshire. His doctoral researchfocused on the language of children in east London, U.K. His field ofspecialization is variationist sociolinguistics. His longstanding researchinterests concern children’s acquisition of variation and change, as well aspidgin and creole languages spoken in Melanesia. More recently, his interestshave broadened to include the investigation of variation and change in CanadianEnglish, as well as contact between French and English in the Canadian NationalCapital Region.
日期：2016-03-29