6.3 Style as the Second Main Dimension of Linguistic Variation

All of the above efforts are clearly trying to maintain a twodimensional model, with group social characteristics (or variables) conditioning variation in a general fashion, on the one hand, and simultaneously individual identities and circumstances conditioning it in a very specific manner [15]. Obviously the two cross-cut each other

in any single instance. This basic conception, which is widely shared, creates both a methodological and a theoretical problem.

The theoretical problem is to understand how the two dimensions are related to each other. The methodological problem is parallel to the one of controlling for population differences – there, sampling is the answer, and allows you to compare how different groups talk. In the case of style, the problem is how to control for the circumstances that affect variation.This problemwas first understood andmethods created byWilliamLabov in hisNYC study, and despitemany advances inmethods and criticisms of his theoreticalmodel of style,many people still use his approach today.

One can get a lot of mileage out of this two-dimensional approach to variation and the role it casts for style. This is an instance of a general phenomenon in theory-buildingwhich one can think of as the Elsewhere or Garbage-Can phenomenon.Attention focuses around a dominant theoretical domain as giving themost desirable sorts of explanation – e.g. generative syntax in the 1960s and early 1970s – while things which cannot be well explained by it are relegated to other, theoretically underdeveloped andpolitically marginalized, domains which function for practitioners of the dominant paradigm as Garbage Cans – e.g., at that time, pragmatics [14].

Also, typically, problems which ought to be solved by the marginalized domain are treated in the dominant one, just because it is dominant. Eventually, such problems come to be recognized as numerous and important. The theory and practice of the marginalized domain become more developed; it is seen as complementary to the dominant domain, rather than a threat, and it is given academic prominence. This is obviously related to Th. Kuhn’s ideas on scientific revolutions. Another relevant example in linguistics: free variation and the idiolect.

We can see in Bell’s and Wolfram & Schilling-Estes’s accounts that the emphasis on the individual is the most powerful influence on style research today, and this is partly because of the growth of discourse studies, where groups are downplayed and individuals come to the fore (for all sorts of reasons).

There are problems created, too, by looking at style as the second major dimension.One is that it’s almost impossible to get a good definition. Herewewant to get a handle onwhat sociolinguists actually dowith style, aside from what they say. In practice, we can treat style as consisting of:

1) co-varying sets of optional features,whether phonological,morphological, or syntactic (e.g., the English sociolinguistic variables (TH), (ING), or the get-passive); 2)…or lexical – though the latter case overlaps a common definition of ‘register’with a specific social distribution, i.e. located in a particular speech community [13, p. 41 – 56].

These sets are ranged on a social continuum–most commonly, one of formality – which presumably also applies to other areas of sociallyevaluated behavior (dress, bearing). This one-dimensionality has been identified as problematic, and it is, but it is certainly not a necessaryfeature of all definitions, as we will see below.

William Labov’s [10, p. 53]: “By style we mean to include any consistent… [set of] linguistic forms used by a speaker, qualitative or quantitative, that can be associatedwith a… [set of] topics, participants, channel, or the broader social context”. He is interested in characterizing a set of linguistic forms, and in relating themto some social factors beyond the individual. His discussion is also very practical and focused on the target of eliciting vernacular speech, a stylewhich is privileged in Labovian work. Partly because of that, we’re going to use Labov’s model for coding style on our data, thoughwe need not subscribe to his early theory

of style as attention paid to speech.