Folklinguistics and social meanings of TRAP~PALM in BATH words in Australian English

The TRAP-BATH split in the eighteenth century saw the earlier TRAP vowel replaced with PALM in particular phonetic environments. This change was not completed with some lexical items retaining the original vowel and others continuing to alternate even in RP (Wells, 1982). The variation is maintained within Australian English and has been shown to be dependent on numerous factors including lexical item, socio-economic status and city (e.g. Bradley, 1991, 2004). This paper explores the social meanings of this variation, drawing on folklinguistic/ethnometapragmatic accounts of forms from young Melbournians. It provides a complex account of the indexicalities and evaluations of the alternating vowel, focussing on words that are principal carriers (Niedzielski & Preston, 2000) of the variation in folklinguistic discourse.

The primary sources of data are folklinguistic comments collected via a pen-and-paper questionnaire and 15 semi-structured interviews. The questionnaire items were part of a set of 3 questionnaires of which two also collected self-reported usage used to contextualise discussion (N=702). The analysis relies on simple quantification alongside detailed qualitative examination of questionnaire responses and interview discourse.

Self reporting on three lexical items broadly aligns with findings from elicitation in previous research. Folklinguistic comment in questionnaire data illustrates how speakers attend to differing indexicalities of usage of particular forms including accounts that position the variation internationally, nationally and within the city. These accounts are then explored further through the examination of interview discourse and ideas presented within this. I provide an indexical field for some of this variation, drawing on and critiquing Eckert (2008).

It is argued that folklinguistic discourse can be systematically studied to provide rich insights into social meanings (Penry Williams, 2018, in preparation). Specifically, the findings provide a rich account of social meanings of variation in bath words in Australian English.

References

Bradley, D. (1991). /æ/ and /a:/ in Australian English. In J. Cheshire (Ed.), English around the world: Sociolinguistic perspectives (pp. 227–234). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Bradley, D. (2004). Regional characteristics of Australian English: Phonology. In E. W. Schneider, B. Kortmann, K. Burridge, R. Mesthrie, & C. Upton (Eds.), A handbook of varieties of English: A multimedia reference tool (Vol. 1, pp. 645–655). Berlin; New York: Mouton de Gruyter.

Eckert, P. (2008). Variation and the indexical field. Journal of Sociolinguistics, 12(4), 453–476.

Niedzielski, N. A., & Preston, D. R. (2000). Folk linguistics. Berlin; New York: Mouton de Gruyter.

Penry Williams, C. (2018). Appeals to semiotic registers in ethno-metapragmatic accounts of variation. Manuscript submitted for publication.

Penry Williams, C. (in preparation). Folklinguistics and social meaning in Australian English (Working title). Routledge.

Wells, J. C. (1982). Accents of English (Vol. 1-3). Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press.