(...)
The speech variant of the next generation up the ladder is a better candidate for being the source of language change, as the peculiarities of teenagers' speech are not peculiar features of individual speakers, but they exist by convention, which means that at least the speakers of one group must have already agreed upon this specific feature. This makes it a lot easier for any innovation to carry on into adult speech.
Furthermore, it is more likely for youth language features to become standard than that of other varieties because on the one hand, all youths will eventually become adults, while on the other hand, youth language is not a variety restricted to a very specific situation but by definition the default way of speaking for teenagers, so to say.
So unlike other varieties, youth language does apply to a great part of the speech community in general. Therefore, it should be very easy for features of youth language to carry on into adult language by just not being dropped by their speakers.
However, this assumption of teenage language being the main source for language change is of course not self-evident. It is therefore of high interest to have a further look whether such a proposition is really true or not. Therefore, it is good idea to have a closer look at adolescents' as well as adults' everyday speech and compare them with regards to their linguistic innovations. If the above assumption is true, then linguistic innovations should appear later in adult language than in teenagers' language.
This is what will be done in this work. After a short excursus on important aspects of the theory of grammaticalisation, we will have a close look at adolescents' speech and its peculiarities through some works on the COLT study of 1993. We will then examine a small corpus on adults' colloquial language in 2007. In the end, we will compare the results to see what this tells us about language change and the role of teenage language therein.
We will mainly be focused on grammatical, i. e. syntactical or morphological aspects, respectively. Phonetic aspects are for the most part excluded except for the phenomenon called t-glottalisation, which is easy to identify and also very interesting in the context of a work on London English.
Inhaltsverzeichnis (Table of Contents)
- Introduction
- Grammaticalisation
- Teenage Language
- COLT - The Bergen Corpus of London Teenage Language
- Features of teenage Language
- Tendencies of adult language
- Johnny Vaughan's Morning Show
- Findings
- Glottalisation
- Negative concord
- Reported speech
- Question tags
- Omission of have
- gonna, gotta, wanna
- Functions of like
- Results
- Conclusion
Zielsetzung und Themenschwerpunkte (Objectives and Key Themes)
This work aims to investigate the potential role of teenage language as a source of language change. It analyzes and compares features of colloquial speech in adolescents and adults in London, specifically looking for innovations in both groups. Here are some of the key themes of this study:- The role of teenage language in language change
- Grammaticalisation as a process of language change
- Comparison of linguistic features in adolescent and adult speech
- Specific linguistic innovations in colloquial London speech
- The influence of social factors on language change
Zusammenfassung der Kapitel (Chapter Summaries)
- Introduction: This chapter introduces the topic of language change, focusing on the potential role of teenage language as a driving force. It examines the historical debate regarding language change and emphasizes the importance of studying both adolescent and adult speech to understand its dynamics.
- Grammaticalisation: This chapter explores the concept of grammaticalisation, a key process in language change. It outlines the characteristics of grammaticalisation and how it affects the evolution of grammatical structures in English. It emphasizes that grammaticalisation is a complex process involving various stages and features, not just a simple shift from lexical to grammatical items.
- Teenage language: This chapter delves into the study of teenage language, specifically analyzing the COLT corpus. It examines the features of teenage language that deviate from standard norms and how they can be compared across different time periods. It acknowledges that not all teenage innovations become standard features, but they play a significant role in linguistic evolution.
Schlüsselwörter (Keywords)
This work focuses on the study of colloquial London speech, analyzing the relationship between teenage language and language change. Key terms and concepts include grammaticalisation, linguistic innovations, teenage language, adult language, COLT corpus, and features of colloquial speech such as glottalisation, negative concord, reported speech, question tags, and the use of "like."- Arbeit zitieren
- Jörg Thöle (Autor:in), 2007, Current tendencies in colloquial London speech, München, GRIN Verlag, https://www.grin.com/document/115911
