Cesko C. Voeten replies to Anne-France Pinget's commentary on Voeten's original article "Individuele verschillen in de fonologisering van taalverandering" (same journal issue).
This research discusses language change as a result of the influence of social media. In an increasingly advanced digital era, social media has become one of the primary communication tools for ...individuals worldwide. This study utilizes descriptive and comparative analysis methods to explore the influence of social media on language change. Firstly, the research identifies grammar, syntax, and vocabulary changes due to social media usage. Then, the study compares the language used in traditional communication with that used in social media communication. The findings of this research indicate significant language changes due to the use of social media. There is an increase in the use of abbreviations, emoticons, and distinctive terms specific to social media that affect the way humans communicate in a digital context. Additionally, casual writing styles, non-formal language use, and the adaptation of foreign words have become characteristics of social media communication. These language changes can have both positive and negative impacts. On the positive side, social media has enabled faster and more efficient communication between individuals across the globe. Using a more casual and non-formal language can also strengthen social bonds among social media users. However, on the other hand, these language changes can also pose challenges to understanding and communication between different generations or in formal contexts.
Les variations de la fréquence textuelle au cours du temps constituent l'observable privilégié d'une linguistique diachronique quantitative. Pour saisir ce que nous apprennent d'un changement ...linguistique les différents observables de fréquence (d'occurrence, des types, prévalence), nous étudions ici la construction en plein N et montrons, d'abord, que le motif empirique de la courbe en S permet d'identifier automatiquement deux phases dans l'établissement de la construction, ensuite, que l'une d'elles coïncide plutôt avec une diffusion sociale, l'autre à une expansion sémantique.
De wervelkolom van taalverandering Van de Velde, Freek; Piersoul, Jozefien; De Smet, Isabeau
Nederlandse taalkunde (Groningen),
10/2020, Letnik:
25, Številka:
2
Journal Article
Recenzirano
The spine of language change In his contribution to the 2005 anniversary issue of the journal Nederlandse Taalkunde, Fred Weerman remarked on the famous S-curve underlying language change, and ...claimed that a good explanation for this pattern is still lacking. We pick up the thread and assess what 15 years of research have clarified about the nature of the curve. We look at two aspects: the onset of the curve (also known as the ‘actuation problem’), and the sigmoid trajectory (known as ‘propagation’). For the actuation problem, we highlight the role of external variables, notably the role of cities in what kind of changes are more likely to occur. Higher urbanization leads to morphological simplification. For the propagation, we investigate the underlying mathematics of the curve, and its conceptual motivation. We argue that the lesser-known probit function is conceptually more insightful than the commonly used logit function, and marginally outperforms the latter as well, when tested on real data. The difference is so small, however, that in actual practice, the logit function, which is mathematically simpler, may continue to be preferred
Resumen La presente contribución indaga en la difusión de los vocativos representativos del cheli en las décadas posteriores al auge contracultural, y más allá, en los factores subyacentes al cambio ...lingüístico micro-diacrónico. Más en concreto, se estudia empíricamente cómo se han propagado los vocativos contraculturales de mayor importancia en el paradigma cheli (p. ej. tío/-a ), en contraste con vocativos de significado y uso generales (p. ej. chico/-a ), en el español coloquial de los últimos cincuenta años, prestando especial atención a los cambios de productividad de las formas bajo análisis. Para ello, se recurre a la consulta de varios corpus orales, a saber, CORLEC (años 90), COLAm (años 2000), y CORMA (2016–2019), que recogen datos conversacionales de diferentes décadas. Estos datos se complementan con informaciones documentales y testimoniales. Los resultados sugieren que los rasgos semánticos y la fuerza expresiva de los vocativos juegan un papel primordial en su ruta de difusión hasta fechas recientes.
Variation is an essential part of language, and language variation and language change are inextricably linked. But how exactly does sound change occur? Why doesn't change always happen? And vice ...versa: why do languages sometimes change, while they might as well not change? This question is called the actuation problem. Actuation deals with the question of why languages change, while at the same time actuation must explain both change and stability.This commentary shows how and why the approach in Cesko C. Voeten's article "Individuele verschillen in de fonologisering van taalverandering" (same journal issue) makes it possible to better understand how sound change is initiated and how it refines the understanding of actuation. Pinget explains where we stand with our understanding of language change and the concept of actuation and then discusses the avenues explicitly or implicitly proposed by Voeten to investigate sound change. In addition, Pinget proposes a few other avenues that we should explore further in the study of sound change to solve the actuation problem.
What is the explanation for vigorous variation between was and were in plural existential constructions, and what is the optimal tool for analyzing it? Previous studies of this phenomenon have used ...the variable rule program, a generalized linear model; however, recent developments in statistics have introduced new tools, including mixed-effects models, random forests, and conditional inference trees that may open additional possibilities for data exploration, analysis, and interpretation. In a step-by-step demonstration, we show how this well-known variable benefits from these complementary techniques. Mixed-effects models provide a principled way of assessing the importance of random-effect factors such as the individuals in the sample. Random forests provide information about the importance of predictors, whether factorial or continuous, and do so also for unbalanced designs with high multicollinearity, cases for which the family of linear models is less appropriate. Conditional inference trees straightforwardly visualize how multiple predictors operate in tandem. Taken together, the results confirm that polarity, distance from verb to plural element, and the nature of the DP are significant predictors. Ongoing linguistic change and social reallocation via morphologization are operational. Furthermore, the results make predictions that can be tested in future research. We conclude that variationist research can be substantially enriched by an expanded tool kit.
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