Introduction and Antecedents

The term and concept of apparent/real time used in sociolinguistic variation derive from the change in linguistic paradigm that took place during the XX century, at the end of the sixties and beginning of the seventies. This new paradigm involved, a) the adoption of new theoretical proposals such as function, social and stylistic meaning, language variation and change, relations between synchrony and diachrony, on the one hand, and between internal and external variation, on the other, and b) the proposal of several principles such as stability, curvilinear pattern, change from above, change from below, and others, which have guided research in this field ever since.

These concepts are not specific to sociolinguistic variation and on-going linguistic change; they were first proposed in early and late structuralism (Bloomfield 1933, Hockett 1950) and more recursively when the change of paradigm started to take place (Weinreich 1953; Herzog, Labov and Weinreich, 1968). For Hockett (1950), for example, the distribution in use of a particular linguistic variable throughout different age groups did not necessarily involve a structural change in a speech community’s variety, but could very well imply a characteristic age gradation pattern which repeated itself generation after generation.

Sociolinguistic variation research has proved that many sociolinguistic variables exhibit this gradual, behaviour, so that adolescents and young people from a specific speech community, while they are not being observed, use stigmatized forms more habitually and frequently than middle-aged speakers. However, the question to ask is whether or not it is possible to say that an on-going linguistic change is taking place after observing that there is a distribution of linguistic variables across different age groups when they are observed at the same synchronic point in time, that is, in apparent time.

The most important antecedents have to be with the Principal Investigator’s (and also other members’) academic and research links with NWAVE (New Ways of Analyzing Variation in English and Other Languages), an international forum on language variation and change which has been celebrating annual conferences primarily in the US and Canada since 1970 and assembles the most important pioneer researchers in the field (Hymes, Labov, Trudgill, David Sankoff, Gillian Sankoff, Cedergren, Guy, Bailey, Rickford, Kroch) and draws from research conducted in the Project on Linguistic Change and Variation, supervised by Labov during the eighties and early nineties of the XX century, which has helped to lay and consolidate the foundations of the discipline. These links have also been established with the European counterpart of NWAVE; that is, the International Conference on Language Variation in Europe (ICLaVE), which assembles language variation scholars from Europe and has celebrated 4 conferences: Barcelona, Uppsala, Amsterdam, Cyprus. Evidence of this collaboration is illustrated in the number of papers that have been submitted to these conferences and in the articles published in the most important journals related to the discipline: Language Variation and Change, Language in Society and The International Journal of Bilingualism.

Other antecedents which help us validate our hypotheses have to do with joint research conducted by the majority of project members on the study of Catalan language variation and change in apparent time and that we are now reconsidering in real time. Results of this research in apparent time appeared in Turell (1995), with contributions by Alturo, Montoya, Pla, Plaza, Pradilla and Turell. This research was funded by CICYT (Comisión Interministerial de Ciencia y Tecnología) in 3 consecutive Spanish Ministry of Education projects (PB09-0540; SEC93-0725; SEC96-0627; PI: M. Teresa Turell).

General Aims

The main general aim of this Project is to analyze in real time those linguistic changes that were detected in apparent time in several Catalan-speaking communities. Within the framework of the Theory of Language Variation and Change, this research involves a theory-building context, and this is so for two main reasons: on the one hand, because it is the first time that language change in Catalan is observed in real time and, on the other, because if the hypotheses related to change initiation, diffusion and route were confirmed, Catalan sociolinguistic variation would be developing the theoretical and methodological principles of this theory.

The most immediate objective has to do with the study of language change by considering when a particular language change is set out and is analyzed in apparent time, its diffusion, the form it takes and the sociolinguistic route it adopts, determining in other words who continue to be the change innovators and leaders.

The starting hypotheses that we are verifying are as follows:

It is hypothesized that the curvilinear pattern will apply, that is, that it is the intermediate social groups (higher working class and lower middle class speakers) that will lead the change.
It is hypothesized that in stable sociolinguistic situations, men will use non-standard forms more frequently than women.
It is hypothesized that in changes from above, women will favor the use of innovative forms more than men.
It is hypothesized that in changes from below, women will lead the change.

Joint objectives

To study in real time several Catalan speech communities that were analyzed in apparent time in the past, taking into consideration the speakers’ most spontaneous variety in order to be able to describe the language variation and change processes that are taking place in present-day Catalan.
To go back to these communities in order to collect data from the same speakers that participated in the study of language variation and change in apparent time, by making use of the same instruments, that is, the sociolinguistic interview. These communities, all of them from diverse dialectal areas of Catalan, are:
1. El Pont de Suert, a village in the Catalan region of Ribagorça, where a gradual substitution of several local variants by the corresponding standard variants is taking place (in phonology: [t] []; Alturo & Turell (1990) and in syntax: ser-à haver; Alturo (1995)).
2. La Canonja, a small municipality in the Tarragonès county, where the variety spoken there is undergoing a series of changes constrained by internal, but above all, external factors, among which the influence of the Spanish, spoken by immigrants from other areas of Spain, on the local Catalan variety.
3. Benicarló, a municipality in the Baix Maestrat county, where the urban dialect is experimenting or undergoing a phonological change by which the local articulations of several affricate sounds are being substituted by standard ones (Pradilla 1995).
4. Petrer, a small village in Alacant, where different language change processes have been observed, in particular, the devoicing of the voiced affricate palatal.
To apply statistical methods in order to confirm our hypotheses, both in terms of the main internal linguistic (preceding or following phonological context; word context, grammatical category, verb tense) and external factors reflecting different parameters (curvilinear patterns, diffusion and route of change, sociolinguistic situation, change innovators and leaders).
To frame these results within the Theory of Language Variation and Change in order to contribute with new data, corroborate these principles and retrieve new formulations of the theory, after applying the analysis to Catalan-speaking communities and establishing the relations between apparent and real time.

Methodology

In general terms, the methodology used in this Project involves repeating the past and going back to the same scenario where variation and change were observed in the past. In more specific terms, it is materialised through the realization of two types of study:

Trend studies, in the context of which the same age groups and analytical techniques that were used in the past are selected a number of years after the apparent time collection of data was performed (usually between 10 ~ 15 years) (Bailey and Maynor 1987).
Panel studies, which involve the location of exactly the same individuals and the use of the same instruments that were used in apparent time (Sankoff and Sankoff 1973; Brink and Lund 1975; Prince 1987; Sankoff and Thibault (1977).

In this Project we are using panel studies for all the communities, although due to methodological problems such as not being able to interview exactly the same speakers, either because they don’t want to participate or because they are dead, we might need to adopt a trend study.

In terms of experimental design, the methodology used in all communities includes: a) the use of the same samples of informants that were used in apparent time, adding an age group from the bottom of the social scale (between 18 – 25 years of age), since an age group from the top of the social scale has been lost; b) the use of the same instrument, that is, the sociolinguistic interview and c) the use of the same quantitative methods of multivariate analysis (Varbrul 2 i 3; GOLDVARB 2001).

Originality and interest

It is the first study on sociolinguistic variation and change in real time ever conducted in Spain.
It is the first study on sociolinguistic variation and change in real time whose object of analysis is a language of Spain: the Catalan language.
It is a project which addresses questions whose answers can be useful in language planning policies.
It is a project which tries to establish the effect of both internal (linguistic) and external factors (for example, language contact between Spanish and Catalan) on the system of Catalan.
This research will help us understand better language change in Catalan and language change in general, contributing to the Theory of Language Variation and Change.
And it will also help establish the convergence and divergence processes of different Catalan dialects towards standard Catalan.