The study of variation

The Oxford History of Phonology

Abstract

The study and formalization of intra-speaker variation within variationist sociolinguistics has followed a largely parallel history with generative phonology, always borrowing heavily from the generative theories of the day. More recently, structured probabilistic variation has become enshrined as a fact-to-be-explained by any theory of human sound systems in more mainstream phonology. This chapter outlines this parallel history of variation study from its origins in dialectology, the evolution of modern variationist sociolinguistics, and the development of more contemporary variation focused phonological theory, as well as critiques that have been posed over this history. The chapter reviews in considerable detail how the original notion of ‘variable rule’ was elaborated and complexified, and how variation is treated in constraint-based approaches. It concludes with a look towards the future of variation study that is incorporating more insights from psycholinguistics.

Preprint version

Citation

BibTeX citation:

@incollection{fruehwald2022,
  author = {Fruehwald, Josef},
  editor = {Dresher, B Elan and Van der Hulst, Harry},
  title = {The Study of Variation},
  booktitle = {The Oxford History of Phonology},
  pages = {569-590},
  date = {2022-03-24},
  url = {https://github.com/JoFrhwld/jofrhwld.github.io/research/papers/Fruehwald_2022_H347UNLS.html},
  doi = {10.1093/oso/9780198796800.003.0027},
  langid = {en},
  abstract = {The study and formalization of intra-speaker variation
    within variationist sociolinguistics has followed a largely parallel
    history with generative phonology, always borrowing heavily from the
    generative theories of the day. More recently, structured
    probabilistic variation has become enshrined as a
    fact-to-be-explained by any theory of human sound systems in more
    mainstream phonology. This chapter outlines this parallel history of
    variation study from its origins in dialectology, the evolution of
    modern variationist sociolinguistics, and the development of more
    contemporary variation focused phonological theory, as well as
    critiques that have been posed over this history. The chapter
    reviews in considerable detail how the original notion of “variable
    rule” was elaborated and complexified, and how variation is treated
    in constraint-based approaches. It concludes with a look towards the
    future of variation study that is incorporating more insights from
    psycholinguistics.}
}

For attribution, please cite this work as:

Fruehwald, Josef. 2022. “The Study of Variation.” In The Oxford History of Phonology, edited by B Elan Dresher and Harry Van der Hulst, 569–90. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198796800.003.0027.