Socio-historical linguistics

Socio-historical linguistics is a relatively new field of linguistic research which represents a merger of two distinct sub-disciplines of linguistics; sociolinguistics and historical (or diachronic) linguistics. Researchers in this field use sociolinguistic methods to explain historical change. This approach is particularly useful when language-internal data alone is unable to account for some seemingly inexplicable developments. Instead of relying solely upon intra-linguistic evidence and data to explain language change, socio-historical linguists search for extra-linguistic causes of change. One of the seminal works in the field is Romaine (1982)'s "Socio-Historical Linguistics". Other studies such as John McWhorter's work, "The Missing Spanish Creoles", are more specific in this case examining the extra-linguistic reasons why there are no creoles with Spanish as a lexifier language (as opposed to English, French, Dutch, Portuguese, etc.). Not all linguists believe that sociolinguistic methods can be applied to historical situations. They argue that the sociolinguistic means at our disposal today (e.g. face-to-face interviews, recording of data, large and diverse sampling, etc.) are necessarily unavailable to sociolinguists working on historical developments. They therefore argue that it is exceedingly difficult to do socio-historical linguistics, and that the results will always be suspect due to lack of data and access to native speakers in real-world situations. For those who question the validity of socio-historical linguistics, it is a field of conjecture rather than solid conclusions. Those arguing for the validity of socio-historical linguistics reply that it is better to use what remaining textual evidence is available to begin to posit likely scenarios rather than leave some questions completely unanswered. Methods such as social network theory (cf. Lesley Milroy) that look at human interactions and their effects on the larger society are particularly well-suited to socio-historical research.

References

*McWhorter, John H. 2000. The Missing Spanish Creoles: Recovering the Birth of Planatation Contact Languages. University of California Press. Berkeley.

*Nevalainen, Terttu. 2003. Socio-Historical Linguistics: Language Change in Tudor and Stuart England. Longman. London.

*Romaine, Suzanne. 1982. Socio-Historical Linguistics: its Status and Methodology. Cambridge University Press. New York.

*Thomason, Sarah Grey and Terrence Kaufman. 1988. Language Contact, Creolization and Genetic Linguistics. University of California Press. Berkely.