American Speech
REAL AND APPARENT TIME
IN LANGUAGE CHANGE:
LATE ADOPTION OF CHANGES
IN MONTREAL ENGLISH
CHARLES BOBERG
McGill University
abstract: Linguists often rely on synchronic generational differences in language
to supply evidence of language change in progress in “apparent time,” yet this approach must always be evaluated against the possibility that such differences reflect
change over speakers’ lifetimes (“age grading”), rather than language change. The
present paper compares apparent-time data on Montreal English with “real-time”
data from earlier studies of the same community, in order to test the assumptions of
the apparent-time model. The comparison reveals that, while some age-correlated
lexical variables show stability over speakers’ lifetimes, clearly suggesting ongoing
change, others show changes in progress combined with change over speakers’
lifetimes. However, the nature of individual change is generally found to be not the
rejection of new variants by older speakers associated with the age-grading model,
but late adoption of new variants by adults who learned older variants as children.
Most postacquisition change therefore accelerates rather than retards change in
progress. Evidence from two phonological variables suggests that late adoption is
most characteristic of lexical variation. In any case, the possibility of late adoption
implies that an accurate view of language change only emerges when both apparentand real-time data are examined.
While historical linguists have traditionally studied language change
as a diachronic succession of completed changes reflected in the historical
record, sociolinguists have preferred to study change as an active process
reflected synchronically in age-based linguistic variation. (For general discussions as well as examples of this approach, see Labov 1994, 43–72; Chambers
1995a, 185–206; 1998a; Bailey 2002.) The sociolinguistic approach has
advanced our understanding of the mechanism of language change by examining data on the social characteristics of innovative speakers that are not
generally available in the historical record. However, in taking age differences
to be the synchronic manifestation of diachronic change, this approach has
had to rely on the apparent-time hypothesis, the assumption that people
do not significantly alter the way they speak over their adult lifetimes, so
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that each generation of speakers reflects the state of the language when
they acquired it as children. Generational differences in language therefore
represent change in “apparent” time—that is, the passage of time inferred
from generational comparisons.
While this hypothesis is intuitively appealing, it can only be accepted in
cases where the opposite possibility, called age-grading, can be discounted.
In age-grading, people do change the way they speak over their adult lifetimes, so that generational differences represent the effect of aging rather
than change in the language. Apparently innovative features used by younger
speakers decline in frequency as those speakers grow older but are adopted
afresh by the next generation of younger speakers. The conflict between
these hypotheses about the interpretation of age-based linguistic variation
has long been recognized by sociolinguists studying language change. In
their original statement of the relation between diachronic change and synchronic variation, Weinreich, Labov, and Herzog (1968, 188) were careful
to say that, while all changes must necessarily involve a period of variation
among newer and older forms, some cases of variation may be diachronically
stable (“not all variability and heterogeneity in language structure involves
change”). Since then, Labov (1994, 46) has observed that distinguishing the
effects of change in apparent time from those of age-grading has been the
major preoccupation of recent sociolinguistic research on language change.
The question is not whether generational change exists: this is obvious from
the fact that all languages change over time. Rather, the question is whether
age-grading also exists, in which case we cannot reliably conclude in a given
instance that generational differences indicate change in progress.
The standard way to test the apparent-time hypothesis is to compare
apparent-time data from one study with real-time historical data on the
same variable from an earlier study of the same speech community. If the
older participants in the apparent-time study still speak the way they or their
age-peers spoke as younger participants in the earlier study, the apparenttime hypothesis is supported. On the other hand, if the older participants in
the apparent-time study have changed the way they speak since the earlier
study, and if the earlier data suggest that they once spoke just as the younger
participants do now, the apparent-time hypothesis must be rejected, and the
hypothesis of age-grading adopted instead.
For various practical reasons, the number of opportunities to test the
apparent-time hypothesis in such a direct manner has been limited. The most
common restriction is simply the absence of an earlier study: real-time data
of the requisite sort do not exist for most communities. In the cases where
such data are available, methodological differences between the newer and
older studies often make informative comparisons difficult. Nevertheless,
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several comparisons have been made, often by sociolinguists returning
to reexamine communities they first studied a generation earlier, thereby
ensuring methodological continuity. Many of these are reviewed by Labov
(1994, 83–112) and Chambers (1995a, 200–206).
Taken as a whole, the results of real-time comparisons have generally
been ambiguous and self-contradictory. Some, like Fowler’s replication of
Labov’s study of (r) in New York City department stores (Fowler 1986; cited
in Labov 1994, 86–94), suggest change in real time, though Labov comments
that the change is slower than might have been expected from the earlier
apparent-time data (1994, 90). Other comparisons suggest age-grading,
though these appear to be fewer in number; Chambers (1995a, 188–89)
offers variation between British zedd and American zeee in Ontario English as
an example. Still others, like Cedergren’s restudy of (ch) in Panama City,
suggest a mixture of both types of variation: some real-time change at the
community level accompanied by change over individuals’ lifetimes (Cedergren 1988; cited in Labov 1994, 94–97).
Indeed, much of Labov’s own work indicates a mixture of effects. In
comparing the results of his apparent-time study of diphthong centralization
on Martha’s Vineyard with real-time data from the Linguistic Atlas of New
Englandd (Kurath 1939–43), Labov (1972, 24) tentatively suggests that a
change has occurred, but admits that “the effect of age [i.e., age-grading]
cannot be discounted entirely, and it may indeed be a secondary factor in
this distribution over age levels.” In summarizing his later research on the
Philadelphia vowel system, as well as other real-time studies, he concludes
that, while phonological systems are essentially stable over people’s lifetimes
and generational change is “the basic model for sound change,” one body
of evidence nevertheless “shows that variables operating at high levels of social awareness are modified throughout a speaker’s lifetime, with consistent
age-grading in the community” (1994, 111–12). In other words, it is not
impossible for older people to adapt their speech to the new patterns they
hear around them; only future trend studies will be able to clarify the role
of age-grading in sound change. One such study, of (r) in Montreal French,
shows exactly the pattern Labov anticipates: some of the participants who used
the traditional, apical variant in an older study have adopted the innovative,
uvular variant in the restudy, though other speakers show consistent behavior
over time (Sankoff, Blondeau, and Charity 2001, 151; Sankoff 2003). The
interaction of individual and community patterns in sound change therefore
remains an open question.
Another question is the extent to which these patterns extend beyond
phonetic variation. Bailey’s work on Texas, which looks at several levels of
grammar, appears to offer strong evidence for the apparent-time hypothesis.
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Almost every change in apparent time identified in his recent surveys is
confirmed by real-time data gathered a generation earlier. Even Bailey
(2002, 319), however, is careful to say that “the validity of the apparent-time
construct has yet to be shown for lexical, semantic, or pragmatic features.”
The lexical level is particularly interesting in this respect, since it is generally
acknowledged to be much less stable, and therefore much more subject to
postacquisition change, than other levels. If age-grading were to be found
anywhere, we should expect to find the strongest evidence for it in lexical
variation. This paper examines age-based lexical variation in the English of
Montreal, Canada, in an effort to expand our understanding of the relation
of linguistic variation to language change.
REAL- AND APPARENT-TIME DATA ON MONTREAL EN GLISH:
METHODOLOGIC AL BACKGROUND
In the study of Canadian English in Montreal, we are fortunate to have not
one but two previous studies with which to compare apparent-time data. The
first, by Hamilton (1958), is a replication in Montreal of a survey of speech
differences along the Ontario–United States border by Avis (1954–56).
Avis’s survey concentrated on alternations among British and American
variants at all levels of grammar, as well as on the prevalence in Ontario of
Northern versus Midland American forms, and on a few Canadianisms. With
a limited sample of mostly younger, well-educated Montrealers, Hamilton
concluded that Montreal English was generally more American than British
(no surprise to any objective observer); that there were some differences
between Ontario and Montreal English; and that in several instances these
differences involved a higher frequency of American variants in Montreal
than in Ontario. Unfortunately, Hamilton’s published report of the data is
of limited utility for real-time studies, since he prefers general discussion to
quantitative precision.
Avis’s Ontario survey was the beginning of a tradition of questionnairebased research on Canadian English that reached its zenith in the publication of the Survey of Canadian English (Scargill and Warkentyne 1972).
This was a study of ninth-grade students and their parents in every province
of Canada, covering pronunciation, morphosyntax, vocabulary, and even
spelling. Of 14,228 respondents, 1,358 were from Quebec; of these, it is safe
to assume that the large majority were from Montreal, given the overwhelming concentration of Quebec’s English-speaking population in that city. The
breakdown of the Quebec respondents by age and sex is shown in table 1.
Because Scargill and Warkentyne’s report gives precise data on most of the
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table 1
Quebec Respondents to the Survey of Canadian English
(Scargill and Warkentyne 1972) by Age and Sex
Generation
Grade 9 Students
Parents
total
Female
555
163
718
Male
540
100
640
Total
1,095
263
1,358
questions they asked, their study will serve as the basis for real-time comparisons with modern apparent-time data. Since this paper deals exclusively
with age variation, any sex differences in the Scargill and Warkentyne data
have been leveled out by taking an average of the numbers associated with
females and males to represent each generation. (Intragenerational sex differences are small-to-nonexistent for most variables and were less important
than age differences for every variable considered here.)
The modern, apparent-time data come from a new survey of Montreal
English carried out by the author, in collaboration with J. K. Chambers of the
University of Toronto, in 1998 and 1999. In the 1990s, Chambers reprised
the questionnaire tradition of research on Canadian English in an updated
form which he calls Dialect Topography (Chambers 1994, 1998b). Beginning
with a survey of the Golden Horseshoe region around Toronto, Chambers
planned to replicate his survey in every region of Canada, in collaboration
with a regional director.1 The present survey, therefore, is called the Dialect
Topography of Montreal (DTM), and uses the standard Dialect Topography
questionnaire, which can be consulted online at http://dialect.topography
.chass.utoronto.ca/dt_about.php. This questionnaire comprises 75 questions
on 60 variables, many of which are identical to those investigated by Scargill
and Warkentyne, thereby providing an excellent basis for comparison. Of
564 responses received, the present analysis is based on a subset of 439 from
participants who were born and raised in Greater Montreal. The breakdown
of these respondents by age and sex is shown in table 2. Age was measured
in 10-year intervals.
Complete data from the Montreal Dialect Topography questionnaire appear in Boberg (forthcoming). The present paper will focus on the analysis
of those questionnaire items that displayed considerable variation according
to respondents’ ages, possibly indicating a change in progress. Naturally, the
analysis is restricted to variables that also appear in Scargill and Warkentyne
(1972); fortunately, there are enough of these to support general conclusions
about the role of change over speakers’ lifetimes in the process of language
change. Furthermore, we will focus on lexical rather than phonological or
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table 2
Local Respondents to the Dialect Topography of Montreal
(Boberg forthcoming) by Age and Sex
Generation
14–19
20–29
30–39
40–49
50–59
60–69
70+
total
Female
32
53
37
51
37
33
42
285
Male
19
33
17
17
28
23
17
154
Total
51
86
54
68
65
56
59
439
morphosyntactic variables. One reason for this focus is to provide complementary data to those presented elsewhere on phonological variation (for
example, in the studies cited above). Another is that the lexicon is less subject
than other levels of grammar to interference from attitudinal biases and
other sources of error, which might be introduced by the reliance of written
questionnaires on self-reports rather than direct observation. Our analysis
will conclude, however, with two phonological variables, in order to test the
generality of our findings beyond lexical data.
Real-time comparisons will be made between the students from 1972,
most of whom would have been 14 years old in that year, and the teens (14–19
group) from 1999; and between the parents from 1972 and the 40–49-yearold group from 1999. The latter comparison assumes that the 1972 parents
were 25–30 years old when they had their 14-year-old children, so that they
would have been 39–44 in 1972.
It will also be important to project the 1972 participants forward in
time to 1999, in order to assess whether their linguistic behavior is stable
or subject to change over the period between the two studies. In 1999, the
1972 students would be 41, likely parents themselves, while their parents,
potentially now grandparents, would be 66–71, roughly comparable with the
60–69-year-old group in the new study. In order to make our comparisons as
exact as possible, apparent-time analyses of the 1999 data will make use only
of the real and projected age categories of the 1972 study (people in their
teens, 40s, and 60s). For simplicity’s sake, we will refer to these groups by the
generational labels, teens, parents, and grandparents (GPs). The 1972
teens are the 1999 parents; the 1972 parents are the 1999 grandparents. By
an apparent-time analysis, the linguistic behavior of grandparents, parents,
and teens in 1999 reflects the state of Montreal English in the 1940s, 1960s,
and 1980s, respectively.
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THREE MODELS OF AGE-BASED LINGUISTIC VARIATION
Before examining the data from Montreal English, it will be useful to formulate more precisely the hypothetical models of age-based linguistic variation
that we wish to test, relating them specifically to the context of the present
study. The first model is that of the apparent-time hypothesis, presented in
figure 1. This model assumes that grammars stabilize after acquisition, so that
people’s linguistic behavior at any point in their adult lives reflects the form
of the language that they learned as children. From this model we can infer
that generational differences in language reflect ongoing change, whereby
each new generation of speakers pushes the change slightly further ahead.
The hypothetical example in figure 1 assumes an innovative feature that
was used by 25% of parents in 1972, but by 50% of their children. Projecting these groups forward to 1999, we would expect their levels of usage to
remain stable, though they are now grandparents and parents, respectively.
If we assume a constant rate of increase for the innovative feature, however,
the children of the 1972 teens will show a further rise in frequency, to 75%,
as the new generation of teens in 1999. Thus we have two corresponding
measures of change: in apparent time, we have an inverse correlation between age and use of the innovative feature in both studies, with younger
people using more of the new form; in real time, this pattern is confirmed
by comparisons of parents and teens in the two studies, with parents’ usage
increasing from 25% in 1972 to 50% in 1999, and teens’ from 50% in 1972
to 75% in 1999.
The second model is that of the age-grading hypothesis, presented in
figure 2. This model assumes that grammars continue to evolve after acquisition, so that people’s linguistic behavior in later life may not be an accurate
Percent Innovative Feature
figure 1
The Apparent-Time Hypothesis:
Individual Stability and Community Change
80
1972
1999
60
40
20
0
GPs
Parents
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Real and Apparent Time in Language Change
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Percent Innovative Feature
figure 2
The Age-Grading Hypothesis:
Individual Change and Community Stability
80
1972
1999
60
40
20
0
GPs
Parents
Teens
reflection of how they spoke as children, or of the state of the language
when they acquired it. Postacquisition change has generally been assumed
to take the form of increasing conservatism with age, meaning that older
people discard some of the innovations they adopted in their youth. These
changes are presumably conditioned by age-related shifts in social values
and orientations, from innovation and counterculture in youth, to social
ambition and increasing conformity in middle age, to conservatism in old
age. The result of such instability at the individual level would be stability at
the community level: no net change. Rather than causing the language to
evolve, generational differences simply repeat themselves from one decade
to the next, and teenagers end up speaking just like their parents. In figure
2, we have the same 1999 apparent-time data as in figure 1, but rather than
confirming what looks like a change in progress, the 1972 real-time data in
figure 2 show that there has been no change in the use of this feature over
time. The 1972 teens and parents used it just as frequently, respectively, as
the 1999 teens and parents. The inverse correlation with age is produced in
this case by people decreasing their use of the feature as they grow older. This
possibility has generally been held to be the main obstacle to apparent-time
analyses of age variation in language: we cannot conclude that a change is
underway until we have ruled it out.
The main thrust of this paper is to propose a third model of age-based
linguistic variation, the late adoption hypothesis. Late adoption is really
another kind of age-grading, in that it involves change rather than stability
in postacquisition grammars. However, unlike classical age-grading, which
entails rejection of changes as people grow older, late adoption involves
adoption of changes among older speakers. Rather than preventing what
would otherwise be a change from occurring, the behavior of older speakers
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Percent Innovative Feature
figure 3
The Late Adoption Hypothesis:
Individual Change and Community Change
80
1972
1999
60
40
20
0
GPs
Parents
Teens
in late adoption contributes to the speed with which an innovative feature
replaces an obsolescent feature in the community as a whole. In this sense,
late adoption accelerates rather than retards changes in progress, because
the overall use of the innovative feature at the community level rises more
quickly than would be inferred from real-time data in an apparent-time,
postacquisition-stability model. Figure 3 presents the late adoption hypothesis using the same apparent-time data as appeared in figures 1 and 2. In
this case, however, parents’ and teens’ use of the innovative feature in 1972
was assumed lower than in 1999, so that generational increases in use are
accompanied by a partial shift of older speakers toward the new form. The
1999 generation of teens still leads the way in adoption of the new form,
but some of their parents and grandparents, originally users of the older
form, have joined them in the change since the original data were collected
in 1972.
RESULTS
Of the 75 questions on the Dialect Topography survey, 27 revealed age
patterns that were suggestive of a change in progress. A subset of these was
selected for further analysis and for comparison with the 1972 data. Nine
of the variables are presented here, to exemplify the hypothetical models
discussed above, beginning with lexical variation (involving alternations in
both vocabulary and phonemic incidence) and concluding with phonological
variation (changes affecting phonemic inventory).
Two variables provide unambiguous support for the apparent-time hypothesis. Figure 4 shows the replacement of British /S
/S- / with American /sk-/
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figure 4
Frequency of /sk-// in schedule in Montreal English:
Real Time Confirmation of Apparent Time Pattern
100
1972
1999
Percent /sk-/
90
80
70
60
50
GPs
Parents
Teens
in the word schedule,
e while figure 5 shows a rapid increase in the frequency
of American zee,
e to indicate the last letter of the alphabet. In both cases,
the parents and teens of 1972 maintain their usage of the innovative variants at virtually identical levels in 1999, while teens in 1999 either carry
on a change already underway in 1972 (in the case of schedule
l ) or begin a
change for which there was no precedent in the earlier data (in the case of
zee). The latter case is particularly interesting, in that it appears to contradict
Chambers’s (1995, 188–89) observation that alternation between zedd and zee
in Ontario English is a clear example of age-grading. There is no evidence
of age-grading in Montreal: the real-time comparison of teens in 1972 and
1999 shows a striking increase in use of the American form, to the point
where it is now the majority usage for that generation. However, since this
is a new phenomenon, we cannot yet tell whether teens who now say zeee will
figure 5
Frequency of zee for zed in Montreal English:
Real Time Confirmation of Apparent Time Pattern
Percent zee
60
1972
1999
40
20
0
GPs
Parents
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return to saying zedd when they are themselves parents or grandparents; only
a future study can determine this.
The next two variables also show the gradual replacement of typically
British with typically American forms, but offer only qualified support for
the apparent-time model. Figure 6 features the pronunciation of the noun
progress, which varies between British /o:// (as in rogue),
e and American /Å
/ / (as
2
in frog
o ). In this case, the teens of 1972 have maintained their usage of /Å
/ / at
between 50% and 60% in 1999, but their parents appear to have increased
their usage from less than 40% in 1972 to almost 50% in 1999, an adoption
of the change that will be observed more systematically below. The real-time
comparison of parents and teens in the two studies, however, shows parallel
but clearly separated slopes, with a notable increase in the frequency of /Å/
over the 27-year period. In figure 7 we see a slow replacement of British /i:/
figure 6
Frequency of /Å
/ / in progresss (n) in Montreal English:
Small Shift in Older Speakers (Adoption)
Percent /Å/
80
1972
1999
60
40
20
GPs
Parents
Teens
figure 7
Frequency of /E
/ / in leverr in Montreal English:
Small Shift in Older Speakers (Rejection)
Percent /E /
30
1972
1999
20
10
0
GPs
Parents
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with American /E
/ / in lever,
r which appears to be leveling off by 1999.3 Once
again, the teens of 1972 maintain their usage in 1999, but their parents
behave in the opposite way from what we saw with progress: here they appear
to have rejected the change, using less of the innovative feature than they
did in 1972. Nevertheless, we again see a slight advance of the frequency of
/ / in the real-time comparison of the two studies.
/E
Three variables give striking support to the late-adoption hypothesis,
already hinted at in the data on progress. In figure 8, we see the replacement
of British bath
h with American bathee as a transitive verb, as in to bath(e) a baby.
This change is nearing completion: virtually no one under 50 years of age
still uses the British form. What is remarkable here is the rapidity with which
usage of the new form has advanced in the period between the two studies.
The apparent-time slope of the 1999 data appears quite moderate, in fact,
when compared to the large shift in real time. Not only has usage of bathe
increased dramatically for both parents and teens, but significant proportions
of the parents and teens of 1972 have adopted the new form later in life.
The 1972 parents increase their usage from just over 40% in 1972 to almost
70% in 1999, while the 1972 teens increase theirs from under 50% to over
80%, almost matching the performance of today’s teens. An identical pattern can be observed in figure 9, which shows the replacement of divedd with
dovee as past tense of dive,
e the former being more common in British English,
the latter in American. Again, this looks like a change nearing completion,
but the real-time data show that the generally high frequency of dovee is due
in part to late adoption: the change was much less advanced in 1972, and
both generations from the earlier study have increased their usage of the
innovative form in the interim.
figure 8
Frequency of bathe for bath (vt) in Montreal English:
Large Shift in Older Speakers (Adoption)
Percent bathe
100
80
60
1972
1999
40
20
GPs
Parents
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figure 9
Frequency of dove for dived in Montreal English:
Large Shift in Older Speakers (Adoption)
Percent dove
100
1972
1999
80
60
40
GPs
Parents
Teens
A final example of late adoption comes from a lexical domain that
displays considerable regional variation across North America: furniture. A
particularly wide range of variants has been identified in connection with the
upholstered piece of furniture that seats three people in a row: chesterfield,
couch, davenport,
t divan, settee,
e and sofa. While all of these terms can be found
in both British and American dictionaries, setteee is more common in Britain
than elsewhere, and couchh and davenportt are more common in the United
States (in Britain, davenportt usually refers to a writing desk). Chesterfieldd is
most common in Canada;4 elsewhere, this word is more likely to refer to a
kind of coat. Like many older regional words, however, chesterfield
d is receding, with couch
h its most common replacement, a trend first noted in Ontario
English by Chambers (1995b). Figure 10 shows the spectacular rise of couch,
from about 10% among older Montrealers to almost 80% among teens. In
figure 10
Frequency of couch for sofa in Montreal English:
Combination of Individual and Community Change
Percent couch
80
1972
1999
60
40
20
0
GPs
Parents
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this case, as with prog
og ress, we have a mixture of relative stability among 1972
parents, and late adoption of couch
h by 1972 teens, who increase their usage
from under 20% in 1972 to over 30% in 1999.5 Figure 11 shows that an
even more dramatic effect can be observed if we look not at the adoption
of couch, but at the rejection of chesterfield. The apparent-time data show a
decline from 30% among grandparents to 0% among teens, but the real-time
data indicate a much more rapid change than this gentle slope would imply:
usage has dropped from around two-thirds in 1972 to 10% or less in 1999.
Chesterfieldd was still the dominant term in 1972, yet a majority of people who
used it then have since switched to the new term, couch.
So far we have been concerned only with lexical variation and have
seen several clear instances of late adoption. It is natural to ask whether
this pattern can be observed at other levels of grammar. We therefore turn
to two phonological changes that are affecting most of North America, not
just Canada: the loss of the glide /j
/ / in words like student,
t duty, and Tuesday
a ;
and the loss of aspiration in the initial consonants of words like whine,
e which,
and whether.
r The first change differentiates most North American from most
British English speakers, the latter still retaining /j
/ / after coronal consonants,
but the second change is shared with standard Southern British English.6
These are phonological changes in the sense that they have implications
for the sound system of English: each of them reduces by one the number
of phonemic contrasts that can differentiate one word from another. The
first leads to the collapse of pairs like dew/duee and do, and the second to the
merger of whale,
e whether,
r which, and whinee with wail,
l weather,
r witch, and wine,
e
respectively. These changes, then, are potentially of quite a different nature
from the replacement of chesterfield
d with couchh or the change of vowel in lever
or prog
o ress.
figure 11
Frequency of chesterfield
d for sofa in Montreal English:
Combination of Individual and Community Change
Percent chesterfield
80
1972
1999
60
40
20
0
GPs
Parents
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Figures 12 and 13 show that, as might be expected, phonological variables
do not display the same patterns of change as lexical variables. In both cases,
the apparent-time data reveal what looks like a vigorous change in progress,
with a steep age-slope, toward glideless /u:// in studentt and toward unaspirated
/ / in whine. The real-time data in both cases support an analysis of change
/w
in progress, since there has clearly been an increase in use of the innovative
variant since 1972. However, the 1972 parents tend to reject rather than adopt
the change in later life: there is a slight decline in this group’s use of /u:// in
1999 and a sharper one in their use of /w
/w/. This increasing conservatism with
age is very much in line with the classical age-grading model. The pattern
of 1972 teens is not so clear: they appear to maintain their use of /u:/, but to
increase their use of /w/
/ , in contrast to their parents. These variables, then,
present a complex picture: age-grading and change-in-progress appear to
figure 12
Frequency of /u:// in student in Montreal English:
Increasing Conservatism with Age
Percent /u:/
100
1972
1999
80
60
40
20
GPs
Parents
Teens
figure 13
Merger of whine and wine in Montreal English:
Increasing Conservatism with Age
Percent Merged
100
1972
1999
80
60
40
GPs
Parents
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Teens
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Real and Apparent Time in Language Change
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be going on at the same time, with late adoption by middle-aged speakers
followed by late rejection by older speakers. Whether this pattern is a general
attribute of phonological change remains to be tested in future research.
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS
In this study, real- and apparent-time data on Montreal English were compared in order to determine whether data from a recent study suggesting
change in progress in apparent-time would be corroborated by data from a
previous study showing an earlier stage of the change. In general, the apparent-time hypothesis was supported: the comparison showed that synchronic
age patterns were matched by corresponding shifts in real time. By contrast,
evidence for the classical model of age-grading was not found: in no case
was a synchronic age pattern reproduced exactly in the two studies, with no
change in real time. The most compelling finding, however, was that changes
in progress typically involve a combination of generational advancement and
what we have labeled late adoption: the conversion of older speakers to an
innovative form, even if they learned an older form as children. The main
character of postacquisition change, then, was seen to be not rejection of
innovative forms as people grow older and more linguistically conservative,
but adoption of innovative forms by a subset of older people who continue
to participate in change in later life. This behavior is presumably a response
to the increased salience of innovative forms that have come to be used by
a majority of younger people. A more complex pattern was observed with
phonological variables, however: in the two cases examined, the real-time
data indicated a change in progress, but older speakers showed a mixture of
adoption and rejection of the changes. The oldest speakers, indeed, appeared
to reject them, reverting to more conservative standards of pronunciation
in the later study.
The last observation supports the common view that the more abstract
levels of grammar, like phonology and syntax, are less susceptible to postacquisition change than the less abstract levels, like the lexicon and, possibly,
certain aspects of phonetics. We might therefore advance a hypothesis that the
likelihood of late adoption is inversely correlated with the degree to which a
variable is structurally embedded: variables that are implicated in structural
relations with other elements of the linguistic system, like phonemes and
the contrasts they support, will be less susceptible to change in later life than
variables like vocabulary items or matters of phonemic incidence, which
typically bear no such structural relations and can be altered or replaced
without systemic ramifications. A useful direction for future research might
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american speech 79.3 (2004)
be to test the generality of this prediction on a wide range of data in a wide
range of languages.
This study suggests that the possibility of age-grading, in the classical
sense of the rejection of innovations by older speakers, is not as serious an
obstacle to apparent-time analyses of change in progress as has previously
been assumed. Rather, we find that the behavior of older speakers most commonly helps to drive changes to completion, at least with lexical variables,
in the sense that the frequency of innovative forms in the community rises
more quickly than apparent-time data would suggest. This casts a different
light on the traditional view that apparent-time data are a convenient but
less reliable substitute for real-time data when the latter are not available.
Our data suggest that real- and apparent-time analyses are both necessary
to an accurate view of changes in progress, with corresponding strengths
and weaknesses. Evidence of late adoption, in fact, can only emerge from
studies that marshal both kinds of data. The relative scarcity of such studies
in the past suggests that late adoption may be a far more regular property
of change in progress than has previously been supposed.
A final comment must be made on the larger dialectological context
of the variables we have discussed. It will not have escaped most readers’
attention that the data presented above generally indicate the adoption of
American forms in Canadian English and the corresponding recession of
British (or in some cases Canadian) forms. The Americanization of Canadian
English is itself part of an even larger question about the future of all regional
varieties in North America, and indeed in many other places: are local varieties
being supplanted by standard national or continental varieties? At an intuitive
level, many people suppose that they are, judging by social and technological
changes that would seem to favor continental standards. Regional isolation
from supraregional speech varieties has been considerably eroded by a rise
in travel, internal migration, and electronic communication. In the case of
Canadian English, this intuition receives empirical support from the data
presented here, as well as from other, similar studies, like that of Nylvek
(1992). Arrayed against the continental convergence hypothesis, however, are
two powerful forces, which preserve old regional distinctions and give rise to
new ones. One is that of local identity: people wishing to identify with local
or regional rather than continental sociocultural groups. The other is the
issue of structural embedding referred to above: continental convergence,
like late adoption, is more likely to happen at some levels of grammar than
others. At the level of phonemic inventory and its phonetic consequences,
for instance, Boberg (2000) showed an absence of convergence even in those
locations where standard models of geolinguistic diffusion would most predict it, while Clarke, Elms, and Youssef (1995) discovered phonetic changes
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Real and Apparent Time in Language Change
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under way in Canadian English that serve to increase rather than diminish
its similarity to neighboring varieties spoken in the United States. The questions of convergence versus divergence and of local versus global linguistic
identification, like that of the social mechanism of language change, remain
a productive domain for future linguistic research.
NOTES
An earlier version of this paper, titled “Apparent Time vs. Real Time: New Evidence
from Montreal English,” was presented at the annual meeting of the American Dialect
Society, in Atlanta, Georgia, on January 2, 2003. I wish to acknowledge the kind assistance of all those people in Montreal who made this research possible by distributing
and filling out questionnaires, and the support and guidance of J. K. Chambers, who
invited me to collaborate with him on the Dialect Topography of Montreal.
1.
2.
3.
4.
The Dialect Topography project was supported by a grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, awarded to Jack Chambers
at the University of Toronto.
The lexical set of Middle English short /o// before /g
/ / uniformly contains the /Å
/ /
of cott in standard British English, but varies in American English between /Å
/ /,
usually heard in sog
ogg y, and the /O:// of caught,
t usually heard in dog.
g The vowel of
frogg varies regionally, along with that in words like cog,
g fog,
g hog,
g and log,
g but the
vowels in question are not distinguished in Canadian English, which has a general merger of /Å
/ / and /O:/. The variation we are concerned with here is between
upper mid-back long /o:// and the low back vowel that represents the merger of
/ / and /O:// in Canadian English.
/Å
Many Canadians react to the use of American forms in Canadian English with
considerable emotion, reflecting the tension between Canada’s roots as a British
dominion and her present identity, which is more firmly integrated in North
American culture. As with most phonemic incidence questions, that dealing
with leverr involved a comparison of two potential rhymes. The rhymes chosen
by Scargill and Warkentyne (1972) for this item were beaverr and never,
r the first
(one of Canada’s national emblems) to represent the British form, the second
to represent the American. It can only be hoped that this choice did not have a
subliminal influence on the responses!
In a survey conducted at McGill University from 1999 to 2004, 66% of 321
American respondents used couch, with 14% using sofaa and none using chesterfield
(these data are averaged among those from six regions of the United States).
Usage of couch by Canadians varied from a high of 93% of 58 Prince Edward
Islanders to a low of 49% of 396 Montrealers. The lower frequency in Montreal
reflects a relatively higher frequency of sofa (34%), rather than use of chesterfield
(4%). Averaged across 15 Canadian regions, only 11% of 1,760 Canadians used
chesterfield, with usage highest in more remote and less urbanized areas, such as
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5.
6.
american speech 79.3 (2004)
interior British Columbia (24%), northwestern Ontario (21%), Cape Breton
(25%), and Newfoundland (26%).
Some guesswork was necessary in arriving at this analysis, because Scargill and
Warkentyne (1972), in their formulation of the question, rather than listing
couchh as a possible response, used it in the stimulus. In question 29, they ask,
“An upholstered couch is called: (a) a sofa; (b) a chesterfield; (c) a davenport;
(d) by another name” (86). It can only be guessed that most of the people who
chose “other,” a considerable proportion of the student respondents, were trying
to indicate that they say couch.
The merger of /hw/
h / and /w
/w/ has become quite general in standard North American English but is less common in the Southern United States and in the local
speech of areas heavily influenced by Northern British and Scottish settlement
(including parts of Canada).
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