Educational orientation and micro-choices in language change
In order to address questions of language change in rural dialects, we examine how adolescent speakers deploy both changing and stable linguistic variables to create anew the sociolinguistic fabric of their community. This paper draws from recent work in WV schools to assess the sociolinguistic choices 21st-century teenagers face in developing their own dialect identity within their educational contexts. Although the Southern Vowel Shift surged throughout WV until WWII, several stages became increasingly negatively socially marked as the 20th century wore on. This presentation examines awareness of these trends as well as the identities behind synchronic variation. We answer how adolescents’ ongoing recreation of their social meanings builds community patterns that lead to synchronic variation and language change. This study looks at the sociolinguistic space from the individual to the community—the crucible of language variation—to search for the triggering mechanisms for both maintenance of variation patterns and language change.
