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.
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://JoFrhwld.github.io/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.