Zayk wrote:In short, this feature hasn't even reached the first step towards standardization: adoption by an upper class. (And just to be clear, adoption by an upper class doesn't automatically mean it becomes standard. It has to first become enregistered as a symbol of the upper class before the linguistically insecure will adopt it and spread it to the rest of society.)
I agree with you that "I seen" isn't on its way to being standard; but I think you've got the process wrong here. Acceptance by the upper class isn't the first step-- it's the last step.
You're closer with the stuff about covert prestige. But forms marked for the lowest classes normally stay there.
Labov has spent the most time on this, though he mostly studies sound change. But what he found is that the source of change is the upper working class-- and specifically elements within it that have just the right combination of upwardly mobile (so they are respectable and well connected in their communities) and unconventional (so they use nonstandard forms).
zompist wrote: Acceptance by the upper class isn't the first step-- it's the last step.
You're right, actually. I was following the common misconception that high prestige means the upper classes use the variant. That's simply untrue.
But what he found is that the source of change is the upper working class-- and specifically elements within it that have just the right combination of upwardly mobile (so they are respectable and well connected in their communities) and unconventional (so they use nonstandard forms).
With that said. The upper working class (and along with the lower middle class) are not the source of change so much they're the agents of change. They're upwardly mobile, but I'm not sure what you mean by unconventional. Labov himself argues that they're the most linguistically insecure, and precisely because they're upwardly mobile. They exhibit high levels of style shifting in order to mark themselves with higher class than they actually hold. So it's not as though they feel they have the ability to break convention because they're respected; they're embracing nonstandard forms because their insecurity makes them the most sensitive to prestigious variants. The change then trickles over to other segments of society. But I haven't seen any sociolinguist claim that the origin or prestige of prestigious variants originates within the upper working/lower middle classes. They are, indeed, just mimicking a feature with a prestigious origin.
Well, we can't be reading the same work by Labov. I'm relying on Principles of Linguistic Change: Social Factors (2001), where he goes into the mechanism in great detail. And he definitely speaks of these upper working class folks as the source of sound change. They're not aping a higher socioeconomic level at all.
He goes to the level of identifying individuals at the forefront of sound change-- mostly women, in fact. (This is found in many other studies worldwide, but there are male-led sound changes too.) As I said, they're a bit of a paradox. The unconventionality is precisely why they adopt forms that aren't the same as everyone else. Often they're most pronounced in the rebellious years of adolescence and get scaled back as the person ages. But they also tend to be ambitious and well connected-- precisely the sort of people who become neighborhood leaders, and thus in a position to influence others.
(That's "well connected" in the "six degrees of separation" sense. They know a lot of people; they connect different social circles.)
Luckily for you, The Zomp, I haven't read that book (although I've read excerpts, not to mention my familiarity with the work through popular discussion), so I cannot say what it does or does not say.
With that said, I am deeply suspicious of your claim that he claims therein that the upper working class is the source of innovations rather than the agents of change (and likewise, women). Everything you are saying sounds perfectly in line with the descriptions of agents of change. As such, you'll find dozens of works in which the subjects are agents of change who are adopting features rather than innovating them themselves.
I'm somewhat limited at accessing such works at the moment, but I can give some well-known examples. I think it was Milroy's study that discussed how in Belfast, a highly segregated city in which Catholics and Protestants never intermixed, a feature of one group entered the speech of another group via upper working class women. The study I'm referring to was pointing out the importance of speech networks in language variation, but it applies here because it's a variant that was adopted by upper working class women, not originating with them.
Then there's the Chinese yuppies, which by a much similar process, adopted features from other languages.
And in trying to remember an example of language change that wasn't a result of language contact between speech communities, I realized you're completely ignoring one of Labov's key principles: change from above. Sure, it's been decades since "change from above" meant change from mimicking the upper classes. But it remains the same concept, only adjusted according to further research and has changed to denote that change from above does not necessarily originate in mimicking the upper classes. Now "change from above" refers to conscious change first introduced through formal stylization in the upper working class/lower middle class women. But this conscious change comes about from consciously introducing prestigious variants as a marker of higher class.
And after that realization I realized I could cite Labov's study on the incoming rhotacization of English in New York, a case where he concluded that the rise in rhotacization came about as the result of "change from above." And yes, this study was back in the days when "change from above" was still defined as mimicking higher classes. Moreover, he noticed hypercorrection occurring in one of the middle classes (although I'm uncertain whether it was in fact the lower middle class), a strong indication of the very linguistic insecurity inspiring agency rather than origin.
Edit: To add more here to make it more on topic to this thread:
Something like "I seen" could (but probably won't) enter popular use (and after a long time, standardization), following Labov's second principle: change from below. This refers to a change that's more subconscious -- quite often motivated by the covert prestige I mentioned earlier. This is the process I think The Zomp is relying on here, and he correctly identifies that this process is more appropriate here than the "change from above" approach I was starting from.
In this case, "I seen" still hasn't taken the first step towards standardization. While in "change from above," the first step is attaining high prestige (usually, association with socioeconomic success), the first step in "change from below" is for its social value to be reinterpreted such that it becomes valuable to a broad portion of the upper working class/lower middle class.
Since this first step is a bit more stealthy, I imagine Viktor will take it as reinforcement for his idea that it will become standard. But again, my community also has large usage of "I seen," probably close to the extent of any other white neighborhoods in Michigan, and I don't see any indication that its social value is becoming reinterpreted as anything other than a lower class marker of sorts. And quite frankly, if you're hinting that it has been reinterpreted in Saginaw, well, I don't exactly see Saginaw (or Detroit/Flint/etc, from which Saginaw probably would have gotten that reinterpretation) spreading that reinterpretation very far. The first test of the feature will be how well it survives/spreads as the economy in the area picks up. My guess is it will decrease significantly over a period of economic growth (if there's ever sustained growth there ever again).
Anyway, I think we're both overemphasizing certain transmission routes.
Labov's book mostly deals with ongoing sound changes, and these are almost all "change from below". I'm sorry you're "deeply suspicious" of it, but I suggest you go argue with him.
There is change from above too; with sound change it mostly amounts to expansion of the standard language. Labov says this tends to be more of an issue in Europe, where regional dialects have tended to be superseded.
Since we were talking about a nonstandard form ("I seen"), change from above doesn't really seem relevant. If it ever spreads to the uppper classes, it'll be change from below. (After that, certainly, it could spread to other varieties from above).
Change from above has nothing to do with standard variants. Standard variants might have high prestige because they're standard, but this isn't always the case.
As for arguing with Labov, well, I do have strong connections to him that I've been wanting to use for some time now. But I don't want to waste it over something trivial only to find that we do, in fact, have a common understanding (especially as my understanding is ultimately derived from his).
zompist wrote:Edited Serafin's post instead of replying, sorry. The gist being: no, it's never been "The Zompist", so "The Zomp" is strange.
You clearly don't like it (could you revise your kind references on the LCS site to refer to "Zompist", not "the Zompist"?), but that doesn't mean that there isn't quite a number of people who say that...
Xephyr wrote:I dunno, I think "the Zompist" has a nice reverential sound to it.
Shm Jay wrote:Yes, and then we can get a picture taken of you wearing a süpa.
Ok, I can defintely tell you this is a Michigan thing. I've heard far too many Michiganders say this recently. Even my partner said it, and continuously, in a list fasten like...Guess who I seen...Guess who I seen. Etc. Perhaps it's Inland North?
A Handbook of Varieties of English, Volume 2 mentions that large parts of the US mix up the preterite and and past participles. And also mentions have-dropping among New-Zealanders. Both of these I am familiar with and use myself.
finlay wrote:Again, for me it's one of the things which I don't use as much recently since I worked out that occasionally people have trouble understanding it. But yeah, the phrase "whoever smelt it dealt it" (where /dElt/ is the past of deal) was very common in primary school after someone farts and someone else says "eugh, who was that?!", and I didn't realise until I was about 20 that these were a "British" thing to do..
What I didn't realise about those situations until recently is that 'pump' to mean 'fart'.
Izambri wrote:"I seen" seems to me a bad way to say/write "I've seen".
Well, from a prescriptivist point of view, that's exactly what it is.
However, I honestly don't think I've ever produced this, nor am I sure I've actually encountered it in the wild from a native speaker. Is it an Americanism?
No, it's very common in Scotland too.
Other examples include "I've went".
In Ireland you will hear "I done it", "I seen it" on a very regular basis, and in some people's speech they near-completely replace "I did it", "I saw it".
Izambri wrote:"I seen" seems to me a bad way to say/write "I've seen".
Well, from a prescriptivist point of view, that's exactly what it is.
However, I honestly don't think I've ever produced this, nor am I sure I've actually encountered it in the wild from a native speaker. Is it an Americanism?
No, it's very common in Scotland too.
Other examples include "I've went".
In Ireland you will hear "I done it", "I seen it" on a very regular basis, and in some people's speech they near-completely replace "I did it", "I saw it".
As I said, 'I seen' is very common in Michigan. 'I done' is how we stereotype rednecks, ghetto people, and toddlers.
I'm relying on Principles of Linguistic Change: Social Factors (2001), where he goes into the mechanism in great detail. And he definitely speaks of these upper working class folks as the source of sound change. They're not aping a higher socioeconomic level at all.
