Globalization, local practice and the diffusion of LIKE

The most fundamental issue addressed in the present research relates to adoption and embedding of globally available innovations into localized speech communities. In other words, this investigation explores the implications of globalization for contemporary concepts of sociolinguistic theory:

“globalization forces sociolinguists […] to rethink itself as a sociolinguistics of mobile resources, framed in terms of trans‐contextual networks, flows and movements” (Blommaert 2010:1). Globalization in the present context is, hence, defined as:

a multidimensional set of processes that create, multiply, stretch, and intensify worldwide social interdependencies and exchanges while at the same time fostering in people a growing awareness of deepening connections between local and the distant (Steger 2003:13).

Indeed, over the past few years, speech communities in culturally diverse settings have increasingly gained attention among scholars in general, and sociolinguists in particular (cf. Buchstaller & D’Arcy 2009:293). However, this globalized setting and the impact of supra‐local flows on local systems require adjusting methodological and theoretical concepts.

Meyerhoff and Niedzierlski (2003) were among the first to address the relation between effects of globalization (or more specifically, Americanization), i.e. supra‐local trends, and their implementation in local

systems. What they observed was, however, not a uniform trend towards standardization, as e.g. Hjarvard (2004) suggests, but that “globalization has been found to be accompanied by increased localization” (Meyerhoff &

Niedzierlski 2003:535). This finding contrasts with previous studies which suggested that “[l]anguage itself is seen as essentially unaffected by globalization (culture, society, and so on), and globalization is seen as just another context in which language is practiced, a new one at best” (Blommaert 2010:2).

Commonly, sociolinguistic analyses have viewed the diffusion⁴ of linguistic variants as spreading outward from a major economic or cultural epicenter.

While this poses less of a problem when regionally adjacent speech communities are concerned, diffusion across non‐continuous geographic settings is more complex (Buchstaller & D’Arcy 2009:291). Meyerhoff and Niedzierlski (2003) point to a very intriguing aspect of trans‐national spread:

following Audretsch (2000:73) they hypothesize that complex meanings of variables spread “only if there is face‐to‐face, quality contact between individuals” (2003:537), while only fairly superficial aspects of the innovation are transferred if personal contact is notably limited (cf. Meyerhoff &

Niedzierlski 2003:538‐539). Most sociolinguistic analyses – in particular those discussed in Labov (2001:228) – assume face‐to‐face contact as the prototypical scenario in cases of diffusion and show that the influence of mass media is limited or even negligible:

A uniform increase in contact with other dialects may also be an effect of the mass media. But all of the evidence generated in this volume and elsewhere points to the conclusion that language is not systematically affected by the

4 There are two distinct definitions of diffusion in contemporary sociolinguistics. One refers to the process of a linguistic element entering previously constrained (syntactic) environments (cf. e.g. Bybee 2002). In this study, diffusion is considered synonymous with the concept of spread and refers to a process of spreading from one speech community to another.

mass media, and is influenced primarily in face‐to‐face interaction with peers. (Labov 2001:228)

The hypothesis that mass media lack a substantial effect on language change rests on many studies conducted in American cities but also other locations, e.g. Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand (Tagliamonte 2001:41). Most of these studies have, however, focused exclusively on phonological change and dismiss spread of lexical innovations. With respect to the spread of lexical elements, Romaine (1994:34) shows that the lexical innovation “nerd” emerged in Scandiinavia through an American movie and concludes:

… the possibilities for change of this type are indeed enormous nowadays, considering how much more mobile most people are, and how much exposure people get to speech norms outside their immediate community through the mass media. (Romaine 1994:34)

Although more recent accounts put stronger emphasis on the mass media as a method of diffusion ‐ which has so far been disregarded (Hickey 2003:360)

‐ the effect of mass media on language change remains controversial.

Tagliamonte, for instance, summarizses the current state of affairs as follows:

In some cases, media language appears to faithfully reflect ambient community norms. The forms and ranking of intensifiers very, really, and so in the television series Friends mirrored reported usage (Tagliamonte and Roberts 2005). However, a study of quotative be like in American film found neither sufficient tokens nor the patterns (i.e. constraints) that had been consistently reported in the literature (Dion and Poplack 2007). This suggests that the rapid spread of be like in North America was not the result of, nor influenced by, the media. (Tagliamonte 2011:41)

Meyerhoff and Niedzielski (2003) similarly assert that the recognition of constraints and the functionality of innovations relys upon quality face‐to‐face interaction. In their variationist study of be like in NZE, they show that cases of superficial contact, as in the case of acquisition via mass media, only transmits

superficial information about the innovation at hand (Meyerhoff & Niedzielski 2003:537‐538). In cases of geographically non‐continuous or even remote varieties, this implies that the variety‐specific functionality, positioning and attitudes which undergo more severe re‐negotiation presumably lead to rather distinct usage profiles and positional distributions. The crucial point here is to differentiate between transmission, which refers to native‐language acquisition by children (cf. Labov 2010:307) and diffusion, which refers either more generally to the transfer of features from one speech community to another or, more specifically, from one adult speaker to another (cf. Labov 2010:308). In most cases of borrowing, the processes we observe are best described as diffusion rather than transmission, although transmission will take place after the innovation has become nativized. Another important difference between transmission and diffusion relates to the fact that transmission faithfully preserves the language variation patterns while diffusion does not (Hazen 2010:12). In cases of transmission, intra‐linguistic constraints are preserved because children readily learn underlying grammatical usage constraints: in cases of diffusion, constraints are lost because adults are not apt to learn the underlying grammar of innovations. This difference is crucial, as Labov considered the preservation of intra‐linguistic constraints during L1 acquisition as a key difference between diffusion and transmission (cf. Labov 2007).

The important issue at hand is, thus, not only to explore which processes are at work in cases of diffusion from one speech community to another but also to review which processes are at work when linguistic innovations diffuse throughout the respective speech communities.

LIKE is an ideal item for investigating such processes; this vernacular feature is common, widespread, and currently undergoing rapid change as it spreads throughout the English‐speaking world (Tagliamonte 2005:1898). In a study pursuing similar ends, Buchstaller and D’Arcy (2009) hypothesize that

“global innovations must be considered in light of local systems into which they are adopted […] [and that] the form and amount of contact must be correlated

with respect to the knowledge transfer they allow” (2009:291). In other words, in cases of global diffusion (in this study synonymous with global spread) moving outward from an original epicenter, the innovative features are not simply adopted, but their implementation is accompanied by re‐

contextualization, re‐organization and re‐negotiation of their meaning (cf.

Kachru 1992; Buchstaller & D’Arcy 2009:292‐294). These linguistic newcomers thereby undergo transformation and adaptation when interloping into pragmatic niches of the respective varieties as a result of the social and linguistic local underpinning. Consider Buchstaller and D’Arcy (2009:317‐

318):

[I]nstead of simply accepting or rejecting an innovation, potential adopters are often active participants in the diffusion process, struggling to give meaning to the new idea as it is applied to their local context. […] In other words, global resources are negotiated in situ as they are integrated into pre‐

existing local norms and practices.

In Labovian terms, such processes constitute “contact across (national) communities in which speakers (often adults) acquire new variants from an originating community (i.e. diffusion; Labov 2007)” (Buchstaller & D’Arcy 2009:291‐292). The theoretical implications of such scenarios are of particular relevance here: how stable are supra‐local or universal trajectories concerning the diffusion of innovative forms through social strata in geographically distinct settings, and to what degree do such processes of adaptation and adjustment lead to locally distinct patterns of social stratification?

Following Britain (2002:618), there are at least three scenarios in cases of contact between a global or supra‐local innovation and the norms and practices of local speech communities: (i) wholesale adoption; (ii) flat rejection; or (iii) interaction between the globally available form and its local implementation. Investigating the mechanisms at work in such scenarios, Buchstaller (2008) as well as Buchstaller and D’Arcy (2009) have indicated that linguistic elements are not simply borrowed or adopted wholesale (i.e.

Britain’s (2002:618) first scenario) but they undergo re‐interpretation as they are adapted to the local systems. This suggests that LIKE, when implemented in local systems, undergoes similar modifications leading to regionally distinct usage patterns. Indeed, this not only applies to the linguistic elements themselves, but also to the attitudes attached to them. An attitudinal study conducted on be like in EngE by Buchstaller (2006b), for instance, strongly suggests that “the adoption of global resources is a more agentive process, whereby attitudes are re‐evaluated and re‐created by speakers of the borrowing variety” (Buchstaller 2006b:362). Buchstaller’s (2006b) analysis, therefore, calls into question the universality of the association of vernacular uses of LIKE with female adolescents leaving room for regionally distinct associations between LIKE and possible reference groups and social categories.

In other words, the assumption that LIKE is generally associated with the California “Valley Girl” persona, as attested to by D’Arcy (2007) for North American English, may not hold for other regional varieties of English. This

“reallocation of attitudes” (Buchstaller 2006b:363), may impact the gender‐

and age‐specific usage patterns leading to a diversity of variety‐specific distributions.

The increasing attention paid to the “sociolinguistic mechanisms of globalization” (Buchstaller 2008:15) poses an additional, albeit related, problem. For the past thirty or so years, sociolinguistic studies have focused on monolingual settings and do “not deal with influences that may stem from dialect contact or the substrate effects of other mother tongues” (Labov 2001:518). The more common case of linguistic and cultural diversity in multilingual settings has for the most part been neglected (Sture Ureland 1989:242‐245):

The overall perspective is excessively monolingual and only inner‐linguistic evolutionary processes are stressed, assuming that contact is secondary and of minor importance. […] It is a monolingual world without bilingual or bilectal speakers, in which each language or dialect functions completely independently of all other languages and language varieties.

The underlying premise of a monolingual speech community is, however, more often than not fictitious, particularly in second language varieties such as IndE. The stability of recurring patterns in sociolinguistic diffusion may erode if applied to different local systems in which innovative forms meet linguistically diverse settings and quite different competing variants. A case in point is Sankoff et al.’s (1997) study of discourse marker use in a contact situation. Indeed, Sankoff et al. (1997:213) found that the use of French comme is very suggestive of interference effects from English vernacular uses of LIKE.

This implies that various issues relating to possible factors influencing linguistic behaviour have, unfortunately, been neglected.

Before discussing possible shortcomings of contemporary sociolinguistic theory, let us survey its basic theoretical concepts and mechanisms.