An Emmet's tale: The duality of social and lexical change

IF 1.3 2区文学 Q2 COMMUNICATION Language & Communication Pub Date : 2023-08-29 DOI:10.1016/j.langcom.2023.08.002

Rhys J. Sandow

引用次数: 1

Abstract

Stockwell and Minkova (2001: 34) state that ‘the lexicon is the language layer most responsive to socio-political and cultural changes’. Despite this, lexis has been labelled as the ‘Cinderella of sociolinguistics’ (Beal 2010; Durkin 2012) due to the lack of focus on this level of linguistic structure by variationist sociolinguists. This article redresses the dearth of lexis-oriented sociolinguistic studies by considering the ways in which the lexicon is responsive to cultural changes in Cornwall, UK, by providing a case-study of the polysemous noun emmet (‘ant’ or ‘tourist’). From a study of 80 speakers from Cornwall, I consider the variation and change of emmet from the perspectives of semasiological and onomasiological usage as well as its social meaning. I conclude that this article provides support for Stockwell & Minkova’s (2001) claim and that lexical variation can provide unique insights to the sociolinguistic endeavour and enable sociolinguists to tell new stories about language and society.

查看原文

微信好友朋友圈 QQ好友复制链接

本刊更多论文

埃米特的故事:社会和词汇变化的双重性

Stockwell和Minkova(2001: 34)指出，“词汇是对社会政治和文化变化最敏感的语言层”。尽管如此，词汇还是被贴上了“社会语言学灰姑娘”的标签(Beal 2010;Durkin 2012)，因为变异社会语言学家对这一层次的语言结构缺乏关注。本文通过对多义名词emmet(“蚂蚁”或“游客”)的个案研究，探讨了英国康沃尔地区词汇对文化变化的响应方式，从而弥补了以词汇为导向的社会语言学研究的不足。本文通过对80名康沃尔语使用者的研究，从语义和象声学用法以及社会意义的角度来考察emmet的变异和变化。我的结论是，本文为Stockwell &Minkova(2001)的观点和词汇变异可以为社会语言学提供独特的见解，并使社会语言学家能够讲述关于语言和社会的新故事。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

求助全文

约1分钟内获得全文去求助

来源期刊

Language & Communication Multiple-

CiteScore

3.40

自引率

6.70%

发文量

期刊介绍： This journal is unique in that it provides a forum devoted to the interdisciplinary study of language and communication. The investigation of language and its communicational functions is treated as a concern shared in common by those working in applied linguistics, child development, cultural studies, discourse analysis, intellectual history, legal studies, language evolution, linguistic anthropology, linguistics, philosophy, the politics of language, pragmatics, psychology, rhetoric, semiotics, and sociolinguistics. The journal invites contributions which explore the implications of current research for establishing common theoretical frameworks within which findings from different areas of study may be accommodated and interrelated. By focusing attention on the many ways in which language is integrated with other forms of communicational activity and interactional behaviour, it is intended to encourage approaches to the study of language and communication which are not restricted by existing disciplinary boundaries.