The Social Motivation
of a Sound Change
The work which is reported in the following pages concerns the direct
observation of a sound change in the context of the community life from
which it stems. 1 The change is a shift in the phonetic position of the first
elements of the diphthongs /a if and /au/, and the community is the island of
Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts. By studying the frequency and distribution of phonetic variants of fai/ and /auf in the several regions, age
levels, occupational and ethnic groups within the island, it will be possible
to reconstruct the recent history of this sound change; by correlating the
complex linguistic pattern with parallel differences in social structure, it
will be possible to isolate the social factors which bear directly upon the
linguistic process. It is hoped that the results of this procedure will contribute to our general understanding of the mechanism of linguistic change.
The problem of explaining language change seems to resolve itself into
three separate problems: the origin of linguistic variations; the spread and
propagation of linguistic changes; and the regularity of linguistic change.
The model which underlies this three-way division requires as a starting
point a variation in one or several words in the speech of one or two
individuals.2 These variations may be induced by the processes of assimilation or differentiation, by analogy, borrowing, fusion, contamination,
random variation, or any number of processes in which the language
system interacts with the physiological or psychological characteristics of
the individual. Most such variations occur only once, and are extinguished
as quickly as they arise. However, a few recur, and, in a second stage,
they may be imitated more or less widely, and may spread to the point
I An abbreviated version of the present paper was given at the 37th Annual Meeting
of the Linguistic Society of America in New York City on December 29, 1962.
2 See E. Sturtevant, An Introduction to Linguistic Science. New Haven: 1947. Ch. VIII:
“Why are Phonetic Laws Regular?” The discussion by Martinet in his report, “Structural Variation in Language,” Proceedings of the Ninth International Congress of
linguists, implies a similar model.
1-w 273
274 WILLIAM LABOY
where the new forms are in contrast with the older forms along a wide
front. Finally, at some later stage, one or the other of the two forms
usually triumphs, and regularity is achieved.
Whereas for the first stage, we are often overwhelmed with an excess of
possible explanations, we have quite the reverse situation in attempting to
account for the propagation and regularity of linguistic changes. A number
of earlier theories which proposed general psychological, physiological or
even climatic determinants, have been discarded for some time.3 The contribution of internal, structural forces to the effective spread of linguistic
changes, as outlined by Martinet, 4 must naturally be of primary concern
to any linguist who is investigating these processes of propagation and
regularization. However, an account of structural pressures can hardly tell
the whole story. Not all changes are highly structured, and no change takes
place in a social vacuum. Even the most systematic chain shift occurs with
a specificity of time and place that demands an explanation.
Widely divergent ideas appear to exist as to what comprises an explanation of the mechanism of change. The usual diachronic procedure, as
followed in palaeontology or geology, is to explore the mechanism of
change between states by searching for data on intermediate states. It
follows that we· come closer and closer to an accurate depiction of the
mechanism of change as the interval between the two states we are studying
becomes smaller and smaller. This is certainly the method followed by such
historical linguists as Jespersen, Kokeritz and Wyld, and it is the motivation behind their extensive searches for historical detail. On the other hand,
a viewpoint which favors the abstract manipulation of data from widely
separated states has been propounded recently by M. Halle ;5 explicit defense of a similar attitude may be found in H. Pilch’s study of the vowel
systems of Shakespeare, Noah Webster, and present-day America.6 Neither
Halle nor Pilch distinguish the three aspects of change outlined above.
It would seem that the historical approach is more appropriate to an
empirical science concerned with change, even over a narrow time span, as
this approach leads to statements which are increasingly subject to confirmation or disconfirmation. At the same time, such a close view of
3 A number of these theories are reviewed by Alf Sommerfelt, “Sur Ia propagation de
changements phonetiques,” Norsk Tidsskrift for Sprogvidenskap IV (1930), 76-128.
4 Economie des changements phonetiques. Berne: 1955. The empirical confirmation of
many of Martinet’s ideas to be found in Moulton’s investigation of Swiss German
dialects has provided strong motivation for some of the interpretations in the present
essay. In particular, see "Dialect Geography and the Concept of Phonological Space,‘’
Word XVIII (1962), 23-32.
s “Phonology in a Generative Grammar,” Word XVIII (1962), 67-72.
6 “The Rise of the American English Vowel Pattern,” Word XI (1955), 57-63.
THE SOCIAL MOTIVATION OF A SOUND CHANGE 275
historical change makes us increasingly sceptical of the value of limitations
on the kinds of data which may be considered: as, for instance, that the
linguist explain linguistic events only by other linguistic events. One would
expect that the application of structural linguistics to diachronic problems
would lead to the enrichment of the data, rather than the impoverishment
of it.7
The point of view of the present study is that one cannot understand the
development of a language change apart from the social life of the community in which it occurs. Or to put it another way, social pressures are
continually operating upon language, not from some remote point in the
past, but as an immanent social force acting in the living present.
Sturtevant has outlined a concise theory of the spread and consolidation
of language changes which consistently views this process in its social
dimension. One sentence in particular will serve as an excellent theme for
this investigation:
Before a phoneme can spread from word to word … it is necessary
that one of the two rivals shall acquire some sort of prestige.s
It is hoped that the study of the particular case under discussion will lend
support to this general view of the role of social interaction in linguistic
change.
1. The island of Martha’s Vineyard
The island of Martha’s Vineyard, Dukes County, Massachusetts, was
chosen as a laboratory for an initial investigation of social patterns in
linguistic change.9 Martha’s Vineyard has the advantage of being a selfcontained unit, separated from the mainland by a good three miles of the
Atlantic Ocean. At the same time, the Vineyard has enough social and
geographic complexity to provide ample room for differentiation of
linguistic behavior. We are also fortun~te in having the records of the
7 For a parallel criticism of restrictions on the data imposed by Bloomfieldian linguistics, see W. Diver’s review of W. P. Lehmann’s Historical Linguistics, Word XIX
(1963), 100-105.
s Op. cit., pp. 74-84. See also H. Hoenigswald’s remarks in “Are There Universals of
Linguistic Change?” J. S. Greenberg, ed., Universals of Language. Cambridge, Mass.,
1963. FootnoteS: “Sound changes can apparently not be entirely predicted from internal,
systemic stresses and strains, nor can they be explained as the effect of scatter around a
target or norm; they have direction and are in that sense specific, much like other
happenings in history.”
9 For further details on the social and economic background of Martha’s Vineyard,
see my 1962 Columbia University Master’s Essay, The Social History of a Sound Change
on the Island of Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, written under the direction of
Professor Uriel Weinreich.
276 WILLIAM LABOY
Linguistic Atlas of New England (henceforth abbreviated LANE) as a background for the present investigation.to It is just thirty years since Guy
Lowman visited Martha’s Vineyard; his interviews with four members of
the old families of the island give us a firm base from which to proceed, and
a time depth of one full generation which adds considerably to the solidity
of the conclusions which can be drawn.
Figure 1 shows the general outlines of Martha’s Vineyard, and Table 1
gives the population figures from the 1960 Census.
Down-island
FIGURE 1. Location of the 69 informants on Martha’s Vineyard. Ethnic origin of the
informants indicated by the following symbols: o English, • Portuguese, ‘Y Indian.
Symbols placed side by side indicate members of the same family.
The island is divided into two parts by an informal, but universally used
distinction between up-island and down-island. Down-island is the region of
the three small towns where almost three-fourths of the permanent population live. Up-island is strictly rural, with a few villages, farms, isolated
summer homes, salt ponds and marshes, and a large central area of uninhabited pine barrens.
As we travel up-island from Vineyard Haven, we come first to the town
of West Tisbury, which contains some of the most beautiful farms and
fields of the island, now largely untilled and ungrazed. At Chilmark, the
ground rises to a series of rolling hills which look out to the Atlantic on one
10 H. Kurath eta/. Providence: 1941. Background information on the informants is
to be found in H. Kurath, Handbook of the Linguistic Geography of New England.
Providence: 1939.
THE SOCIAL MOTIVATION OF A SOUND CHANGE 277
TABLE 1. POPULATION OF MARTHA’S VINEYAROII
Down-island [towns] 3,846
Edgartown 1,118
Oak Bluffs 1,027
Vineyard Haven 1,701
Up-island [rural) 1,717
Edgartown 256
Oak Bluffs 292
Tisbury 468
West Tisbury 360
Chilmark 238
Gay Head 103
Total 5,563
side, and to Vineyard Sound on the other. Chilmark’s salt pond is permanently open to the Sound through a narrow channel, and so serves as a
permanent harbor for the dozen fishermen who still operate from the docks
of the village of Menemsha in Chilmark. Finally, at the southwest corner
of the island, there is the promontory of Gay Head, and the houses of the
hundred and three Indians who represent the original inhabitants of
Martha’s Vineyard.
The six thousand native Vineyarders fall into four ethnic groups which
are essentially endogamous. First, there are the descendants of the old
families of English stock, who first settled the island in the 17th and 18th
centuries: the May hews, Nortons, Hancocks, Aliens, Tiltons, Vincents,
Wests, Pooles-all closely related after ten generations of intermarriage.
Secondly, there is a large group of Portuguese descent, immigrants from
the Azores, Madeira and the Cape Verde Islands. There are Portuguese all
along the southeastern New England coast, but the Vineyard has the
largest percentage of any Massachusetts county. In 1960, II% of the population was of first or second generation· Portuguese origin; with the third
and fourth generation Portuguese, the total would probably come close to
20%.12
The third ethnic group is the Indian remnant at Gay Head. The fourth is
the miscellaneous group of various origins: English, French Canadian,
Irish, German, Polish. Though the sum total of this residual group is
II From U.S. Bureau of the Census. U.S. Census of Population: 1960. Number of
Inhabitants. Massachusetts. Final Report PC(I)-23A. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1962. Table 7, page 23-11.
12 From U.S. Bureau of the Census, U.S. Census of Population: 1960. General Social
tmd Economic Characteristics. Massachusetts. Final Report PC(I)-23c. Washington,
D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1962. Table 89, page 23-260.
278 WILLIAM LABOY
almost 15%, it is not a coherent social force, and we will not consider it
further in this paper.13
Another group which will not be considered directly is the very large
number of summer residents, some 42,000, who flood the island in June
and July of every year. This tide of summer people has had relatively little
direct influence on the speech of the Vineyard, although the constant
pressure from this direction, and the growing dependence of the island
upon a vacation economy, has had powerful indirect effects upon the
language changes which we will consider.
The Vineyard is best known to linguists as an important relic area of
American English: an island of r-pronouncers in a sea of r-lessness. With
a three-hundred-and-twenty-year history of continuous settlement, and a
long record of resistance to Boston ways and manners, the island has pre·
served many archaic traits which were probably typical of southeastern
New England before 1800. The most striking feature, still strongly en·
trenched, is the retention of final and pre-consonantal /r/.14 New England
short fo/ is still well represented among the older speakers. Exploratory
studies of the Vineyard in 1961 showed that most of the special traits of the
island speech shown on the LANE maps may still be found among traditional
speakers from 50 to 95 years old.
Lexical survivals of 17th-century English are even clearer indications of
the archaic nature of the Vineyard tradition. We find bannock, for a fried
cake of corn meal, studdled for ‘dirty, roiled’ water, in addition to such
items as tempest and buttry listed in the LANE. Perhaps the most dramatic
evidence of the fact that the Vineyard represents an underlying stratum is
the presence of belly-gut, for a face-down sled ride. In LANE records, this
form is shown on the Vineyard and in western New England: in the inter·
vening area, it has been overlaid by three successive layers-belly-bump,
belly-flop, and currently, no word at all.15
13 There is a sizeable number of retired mainlanders living on the Vineyard as year·
round residents. While they are included in the population total, they do not form a part
of the social fabric we are considering, and none of the informants are drawn from this
group.
14 On the LANE maps, we find that Guy Lowman regularly recorded the up-island /r/
as [3’) in [Wllt3’, ha3’d, ba3’n], and down-island /r/ as [~] in the same positions. Essentially
the same pattern is to be found among the older speakers today, though not with the
regularity that Lowman noted. It is possible that this treatment of /r/ was in fact intended
as a broad transcription, for the LANE was much more concerned with vowels than
consonants.
IS See H. Kurath, A Word Geography of the Eastern United States. Ann Arbor: 1949.
Fig. 162. Belly-flop (and the corresponding lexical item in other regions) has generally
shifted for the younger generation to denote a flat dive into the water. Coasting is now a
less important sport, and its terminology is appropriately impoverished.
THE SOCIAL MOTIVATION OF A SOUND CHANGE 279
As interesting as the structure of Martha’s Vineyard English may be, it is
not the purpose here to contrast one static system with another. We would
like to understand the internal structure of Vineyard English, including the
systematic differences which now exist and the changes now taking place
within the island. For this purpose, we will select for study a linguistic
feature with the widest possible range of variation and the most complex
pattern of distribution characteristic of Martha’s Vineyard.
2. Selection of the linguistic variable
It would be appropriate to ask at this point what are the most useful
properties of a linguistic variable to serve as the focus for the study of a
speech community. First, we want an item that is frequent, which occurs so
often in the course of undirected natural conversation that its behavior can
be charted from unstructured contexts and brief interviews. Secondly, it
should be structural: the more the item is integrated into a larger system of
functioning units, the greater will be the intrinsic linguistic interest of our
study. Third, the distribution of the feature should be highly stratified:
that is, our preliminary explorations should suggest an asymmetric distribution over a wide range of age levels or other ordered strata of society.
There are a few contradictory criteria, which pull us in different directions. On the one hand, we would like the feature to be salient, for us as
well as for the speaker, in order to study the direct relations of social
attitudes and language behavior. But on the other hand, we value immunity from conscious distortion, which greatly simplifies the problem of
reliability of the data.t6
In the exploratory interviews conducted on the Vineyard in 1961, many
structural changes were noted which were plainly parallel to changes taking
place on the mainland under the influence of the standard Southeast New
England pattern. Changes in phonemic inventory were found: New
England short Jof is rapidly disappearing; the two low back vowels, fa/ and
fof are merging. Important changes in phonemic distribution are occurring:
the for- ‘Jr/ distinction is disappearing: initial fhw/ is giving way to /hf.17
16 Many ingenious devices are needed to detect and eliminate deceit on the part of
metropolitan informants, whether intended or not. On Martha’s Vineyard, this is much
less of a problem, but the effects of the interview situation are evident in the careful style
of some informants.
17 The disappearance of New England short /o/ follows the pattern described by
W. Avis, “The ‘New England Short o’: a Recessive Phoneme.” Language XXXVII
(1961), 544-558. Exploratory interviews at other points in southeastern New England
(Woods Hole, Falmouth, New Bedford, Fall River, Providence, Stonington) indicate
tbat the loss of the /or-:>r/ and /hw–w-/ distinctions is parallel to that on Martha’s
V"meyard.
280 WILLIAM LABOY
Shifts in structured lexical systems, all in the direction of regional standards,
can be traced. Archaic syntactic features are disappearing. Yet as interest·
ing as these changes may be, there is no reason to think that their distribu·
tion will follow a pattern peculiar to the Vineyard.
In the case oftautosyllabic /r/, however, we do have a linguistic variable
defined by the geographical limits of the island, which follows a social
pattern idiosyncratic to Martha’s Vineyard. In some island areas, retroflexion is increasing, and in others, decreasing; as we will note later, the
social implications of this fact can not be missed. The variations in /r/
are frequent, salient, and involve far-reaching structural consequences for
the entire vowel system.
However, the preliminary exploration of the Vineyard indicated that
another variable might be even niore interesting: differences in the height
of the first element of the diphthongs /ai/ and /au/. Instead of the common
Southeast New England standard [a1] and [au], one frequently hears on
Martha’s Vineyard [1n] and [1m], or even [:n] and [:m]. This feature of
centralized diphthongsts is salient for the linguist, but not for most
speakers; it is apparently quite immune to conscious distortion, as the
native Vineyarders are not aware of it, nor are they able to control it con·
sciously. As far as structure is concerned, we cannot neglect the structural
parallelism of jai/ and /au/; on the other hand these diphthongs are
marked by great structural freedom in the range of allophones permitted
by the system. These are strictly sub-phonemic differences. Since there are
no other up-gliding diphthongs with either low or central first elements in
this system, it is not likely that continued raising, or even fronting or
backing, would result in confusion with any other phoneme.
The property of this feature of centralization which makes it appear
exceptionally attractive, even on first glance, is the indication of a complex
and subtle pattern of stratification. This very complexity proves to be rewarding: for when the centralizing tendency is charted in the habits of
many speakers, and the influence of the phonetic, prosodic and stylistic
environment is accounted for, there remains a large area of variation. In·
stead of calling this “free” or “sporadic” variation, and abandoning the
field, we will pursue the matter further, using every available clue to
discover the pattern which governs the distribution of centralized
diphthongs.
18 The terms centralized diphthongs, centralization, and degree of centralization will bo
used throughout this study to refer to the various forms of the diphthongs /ai/ and /auf
with first elements higher than [a]. It is not intended that the terms themselves should
imply any process or direction of change, except when used with explicit statements to
that effect.
THE SOCIAL MOTIVATION OF A SOUND CHANGE 281
The problem becomes all the more significant when it becomes apparent
that the present trend on Martha’s Vineyard runs counter to the long-range
movement of these diphthongs over the past two hundred years. And
while this sound change is not likely to become a phonemic change in the
foreseeable future, it operates in an area where far-reaching phonemic
shifts have taken place in the past. It is, in effect, the unstable residue of
the Great Vowel Shift.
3. The history of centralized diphthongs
It seems generally agreed that the first element of the diphthong fai/ was
amid-central vowel in 16th- and 17th-century English.I9 We may assume
that when Thomas Mayhew first took possession of his newly purchased
property of Martha’s Vineyard in 1642, he brought with him the pronunciation [;:n] in right, pride, wine and wife. The later history of this vowel
in America indicates that [;,1] continued to be the favored form well into
the 19th century.zo
When we examine the records of the LANE, we find that centralized fai/
was a healthy survivor in the speech of the Atlas informants.21 We find it
scattered throughout the rural areas of New England, and strongly entrenched in the Genesee Valley of western New York. It had disappeared
completely from the Midland, but was quite regular-before voiceless consonants-in both the Upper and Lower South. This differential effect of
voiceless and voiced following consonants was only a directing influence in
the North, but stood as a regular phonetic rule in the South. On Martha’s
Vineyard, as on neighboring Nantucket and Cape Cod, centralized /ai/ was
frequently recorded.
The history of fauf differs from that of fai/ more than our general expectations of symmetry would lead us to predict. There is reason to believe
that in England the lowering of fauf was considerably in advance of /ai/,
and it is not likely that the same Thomas Mayhew used j;,vj in house and
19 See 0. Jespersen, A Modern English Grammar on Historical Principles, I, London:
1927, page 234, and H. Kokeritz, Shakespeare’s Pronunciation, New Haven: 1953,
p. 216. Among recent historical linguists, H. C. Wyld is a notable exception in positing
a front first element in the transition of M.E. i: to Mod. E. /ai/, relying on occasional
spellings with ey and ei, but without considering the many other indications of central
position. See A History of Modern Colloquial English, Oxford: 1920, pages 223-225.
20 Abundant evidence is given by George Phillip Krapp, The English Language in
America, II, New York: 1925, pages 186-191.
21 The best view of the distribution of /ai/ may be had from Maps 26-27 in H. Kurath
and R. McDavid, The Pronunciation of English in the Atlantic States, Ann Arbor: 1962.
Centralized diphthongs are well known as a feature of Canadian English, where the
effect of the voiceless-voiced consonant environment is quite regular.
282 WILLIAM LABOY
out.22 The American evidence of the late 18th and 19th centuries, as
summed up by Krapp, points to [ou] as the conservative, cultured form,
giving way to [au] or [au], with the rural New England form as [reu] or
[w].23 The Linguistic Atlas records show only a hint of parallelism of fail
and fau/. 24 We find [;m] mainly in eastern Virginia, before voiceless con·
sonants, with some small representation in upstate New York, but the
principal New England form of [au] stood out against a background of
rural and recessive [reu]. Martha’s Vineyard shows very little centralization
of fau/ in the LANE maps.
This brief review indicates that the isolated position of /auf has facilitated
phonetic variation on a truly impressive scale. The first element has ranged
from [1] to [o], from [s] to [o] all within the same general structural
system. Perhaps one reason why fail has not shown a similar range of
variation is the existence of another up-gliding diphthong, /.,ij. 25 In any
case, as the stage is set for our present view of Martha’s Vineyard
diphthongs, /ai/ is well centralized, but /auf is not. It may be too strong a
statement to say that this represents the phonetic heritage of the seven·
teenth century Yankee settlers of the island, but we may venture to say that
we have no evidence of any intervening events which disturbed the original
pattern.
4. The investigation of fai/ and /au/
The summer visitor to Martha’s Vineyard gets only a fleeting impression
of the native speech pattern. Seven out of every eight human beings on the
island are visitors like himself. But for the Vineyarder, there is no effect of
dilution. For him, summer visitors have very little status on the island and
their ephemeral nature is convincingly demonstrated on the first week in
September of every year, when they disappear even more quickly than the
insect population of the summer months. The normal native speech of
Martha’s Vineyard can then be heard as the dominant sound in public
places. A knock on any up-island door will no longer produce a Back Bay
stockbroker, but the rightful owner in possession once again. As a rural
up-islander he is very likely to use a high degree of centralization of /ai/ and
/au/; but in the small town areas of down-island one may also hear this
22 Jespersen, op. cit., pages 235-236. Kokeritz, op. cit., pages 144-149. Wyld, op. cit.,
pages 230-231.
23 Op. cit., pages 192-196.
24 Kurath and McDavid, op. cit., Maps 28-29.
2s The possibility of phonemic confusion with /o:Ji/ apparently became a reality in the
17th and 18th century, in both England and America, when both diphthongs had central
first elements.
THE SOCIAL MOTIVATION OF A SOUND CHANGE 283
feature, particularly in words such as right, white, twice, life, wife, like, but
not so much in while, time, line, I, my, try. Similarly, one may hear in the
streets of Vineyard Haven centralized forms in out, house, doubt, but not so
much in now, how, or around.
In order to study this feature systematically, it was necessary to devise
an interview schedule which would provide many examples of jai/ and /au/
in casual speech, emotionally colored speech, careful speech, and reading
style. The first of these diphthongs is more than twice as frequent as the
second, but even so, several devices were required to increase the concentration of occurrences of both.
l. A lexical questionnaire, using the regional markers shown as most
significant in the maps of the LANE, supplemented with recent observations,
and concentrating on the following words containing jai/ and /au/:
spider rareripe iodine dying out
sliding swipe quinine flattening out
scrimy dowdy
white bread nigh outhouse
white of egg pie frying pan backhouse
nightcrawler sty fry pan crouch
lightning bug firefly mow
Italian shiretown rowen
2. Questions concerning value judgments, exploring the social orientation of the respondent, were so phrased as to elicit answers containing faif
and fau/ forms.26 Answers to such questions often gave a rich harvest of
diphthongal forms, with contrasting uses of emotionally stressed and
unstressed variants.
3. A special reading, used mainly in the high school, was offered
ostensibly as a test of the ability to read a story naturally.27 Since these
readings gave the most exact compari~ons between speakers, they were
utilized for the spectrographic measurements discussed below.
26 “When we speak of the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, what does
right mean? … Is it in writing? . … If a man is successful at a job he doesn’t like, would
you still say he was a successful man?” These questions were generally successful in
eliciting the informant’s versions of the italicized words.
27 This two-hundred word reading is constructed as a story told by a teen-age Vineyard boy, of the day he found out his father wasn’t always right. An excerpt will show
the technique involved: “After the high winds last Thursday, we went down to the mooring to see how the boat was making out … My father started to pump out the bottom,
and he told me to find out if the outboard would start. I found out ali right. I gave her
a couple of real hard pulls but it was no dice. ‘Let me try her,’ my father said. ‘Not on
your life,’ I told him. 'I’ve got my pride.”’
284 WILLIAM LABOY
In addition to the formal interview, observations were made in a great
many casual situations: on the streets of Vineyard Haven and Edgartown,
in diners, restaurants, bars, stores, docks, and many places where the
general sound of public conversation could be noted, if not effectively recorded. But these notations only served as a supplementary check on the
tape-recorded interviews. The basic information was gathered in the course
of 69 interviews with native island speakers made in three periods: August
1961, late September-October 1961, January 1962. These 69 interviews
provide the basis for the discussion to follow.
The sixty-nine speakers, somewhat more than I% of the population, represent a judgment sample of the community of native residents, and the
groups which are important in the social life and value systems of the
island. The sampling is proportional to area rather than population: 40 are
up-islanders, and only 29 are from down-island, though over 70% of the
people live down-island. The most important occupational groups are
represented: 14 in fishing, 8 in farming, 6 in construction, 19 in service
trades, 3 professionals, 5 housewives, 14 students. The three main ethnic
groups are represented: 42 of English descent, 16 Portuguese and 9 Indian.
The locations of the 69 informants are shown on Figure 1, coded by
ethnic group. It may be understood that a large proportion of those engaged in fishing are to be found in Chilmark; the fanners are well inland,
mainly in West Tisbury; the service trades are heavily concentrated in
Edgartown and Vineyard Haven. Of Guy Lowman’s four LANE informants,
one was in Chilmark, one in West Tisbury, and two in Edgartown.
As a result of these 69 interviews, we have about 3,500 instances of /ai/
and 1,500 instances of fau/ as the basic data for this study.
5. Scales of measurement
An important step was to construct a reliable, inter-subjective index to
the degree of centralization. In the original transcriptions of the taperecorded interviews28 a six-point scale of height of the first element was
used, ranging from the standard New England form [a1] to the fully
centralized [:n]. Such a transcription was intended to push the distinctions
noted to the limits of auditory discrimination. This corresponded to the
practice of the LANE, in which the same number of degrees of height can
28 The interviews were recorded at 3! inches per second on a Butoba MT-5, using a
Butoba MD-21 dynamic microphone. A tape recording of the standard reading, "After
the high winds … " read by five of the speakers whose formant measurements appear on
Figure 3, and other examples of centralized diphthongs used by Vineyard speakers in
natural conversation, may be obtained from the writer, Department of Linguistics,
Columbia University, New York 27, N.Y.
THE SOCIAL MOTIVATION OF A SOUND CHANGE 285
be symbolized. However, it was recognized that such fine distinctions
could probably only be reproduced consistently by individuals who had
attained a high degree of convergence, and then over a very short time span.
Independent instrumental measurements were used to reduce the scale
by objective criteria, and to give a certain degree of objective validity to the
entire system of transcription.
Acoustic spectrograms were made of eighty instances of fai/ as spoken
and recorded by seven different Vineyarders.29 A study of the assembled
formant patterns indicated that one particular point in time might be best
suited for measuring the degree of height of the first element of the
diphthong. This is shown in Figure 2, as the point where the first formant
[r a 1 d r e 1 d]
FIGURE 2. Measurement of typical/ail diphthongs at first formant maximum.
reaches a maximum. Measurements of the first and second formant
positions at this point seemed to correspond well to the formant measurements for steady state vowels [a] to [a] in Peterson and Barney’s vowel
studies.30
The eighty measurements were then plotted on a hi-logarithmic scale,
with abscissa and ordinate corresponding to first and second formants.
The original impressionistic transcriptions were then entered for each
measurement, and the result examined for clear separation of impressionistic levels. On the whole, the stratification was good: the impressionistic ratings with more open first elements showed higher first formant
29 Spectrograms were made on the Kay Sonograph, using both wide and narrow
bands. Seven of these, showing fifteen instances of /ai/ and /au/, are reproduced in the
Master’s Essay cited above.
30 G. E. Peterson and H. L. Barney, “Control Methods Used in a Study of the
Vowels,” Journal of the Acoustical Society of America XXIV (1952), 175-184. The
degree of overlap shown in Figure 3 seems roughly comparable to Peterson and Barney’s
results.
286 WILLIAM LABOY
and lower second formant readings. However, the separation of grades 2
from 3, and 4 from 5, were not as clear as the others. A reduced four-step
scale was then established, and the resulting correlation shown in Figure 3,
and the table below.Jl
Scale I Scale II
1 [a] 0
2 [aL]~
3 [~T]
4 [~]~ 5 [~L] 2
6 [~] 3
Figure 3 shows the values for Scale II mapped on the hi-logarithmic scale.
This is a satisfactory result, with good separation of the four grades of
centralization. We have also obtained some justification for the use of the
first formant maximum in measuring spectrograms, rather than the second
formant minimum. Since the lines separating the four grades parallel the
second-formant axis more than the first-formant axis, we have a graphic
demonstration that our phonetic impressions are more sensitive to shifts in
the first formant than the second.
When this display was originally planned, there was some question as to
whether it would be possible to map many different speakers on the same
graph. We know that there are significant differences in individual frames
of formant reference. Small children, for instance, appear to have vowel
triangles organized at considerably higher frequencies than adults. The
seven speakers whose readings are displayed in Figure 3 are all male; four
are high school students, aged 14 to 15. But the other three are adults,
from 30 to 60 years old, with widely different voice qualities.
Ideally, if we were studying the acoustic nature of the faif and fauf
diphthongs, we would want a more uniform group of speakers. Secondly,
we would ask for better and more uniform recording conditions: one recording was outdoors, two were in living rooms, four in an empty conference room. However, since the object of the testing was to lend objective
confirmation to an impressionistic scale of discrimination, it is only realistic
to use a range of recordings as varied as the body of material on which the
entire study is based. Absence of separation of the four grades in Figure 3
31 A parallel problem of condensing a finely graded impressionistic scale is discussed
in L. Gauchat, J. Jeanjaquet and E. Tappolet, Tableaux phontftiques des patois suisses
romands (Neuchatel: 1925), p. ix. A seven-level transcription of the mid vowels was reduced to five levels, but without the instrumental justification presented here.
THE SOCIAL MOTIVATION OF A SOUND CHANGE
2000 \ ~
>-
u
z
UJ
::l
0
UJ
lr
LL.
1-
z
<
~
lr
0
LL.
0
z
0
u
UJ
(/)
\
\
1900 \
\
’ 1800 ',
1700
1600
0
1500
1400
1300 0
1200
1100
0
900 ° 800
3
3
3
0 0
0
700 600
FIRST FORMANT FREQUENCY
287
3
500
FIGURE 3. Correlation of instrumental measurement and impressionistic ratings of
centralization. Numbers 0-3 are the Scale II equivalents of impressionistic ratings of
height of first elements of eighty-six /ai/ diphthongs, assigned before spectrographic
measurement. Seven different Martha’s Vineyard speakers, males ranging from fourteen
to sixty years old, are represented here. 0 identifies speaker EP, age 31; + identifies
speaker GW, age 15.
288 WILLIAM LABOV
might then have indicated only defects in instrumental technique, but a
positive result can hardly be derived from such a bias.
It is interesting to note that measurements from no one speaker are
distributed over more than half of Figure 3, and some speakers are
sharply limited to a narrow sector-still occupying portions of all the
grades of centralization. For instance, the highly centralized speaker EP,
aged 31, accounts for all of the readings in the lower right portion marked
with a o sign: 0°, 2°, etc. He shows no readings higher than 650 or 1500 cps.
On the other hand, speaker OW, aged 15, also highly centralized, accounts
for the upper left portion; his readings, marked with a + sign, are all higher
than 625 or 1550 cps. Again, speaker GM, aged 15, is limited to a belt
from lower left to upper right, filling the space between the two just mentioned. Despite the differences in· vowel placement, these seven speakers
utilize the same dimension to produce the effect of centralized or open
vowels: widely separated formants for centralized vowels, adjacent formants for open vowels. The opposition, though not distinctive, is clearly
seen as ranging from compact to (relatively) non-compact.
This display then indicates for us that the reduced impressionistic scale
shows good stratification in terms of physical parameters, and we may proceed to employ such ratings with some confidence in their validity.
6. The linguistic environment
We can now plot the distribution of centralized forms for each speaker.
This is done for each of the 69 interviews on a chart such as is shown in
Figure 4. We find that these charts fall into three basic types:
a. uncentralized norms: all words, or almost all, fall into Grade 0,
with at most only a few Grade 1 's in favored words such as right
and out.
b. centralized norms: most words with Grade 2, and only a few
Grade 1 ‘s for unfavored forms, such as time and cow.
c. phonetic conditioning: the influence of the phonetic environment
is reflected in a range of values from Grades 0 to 2. Figure 4 is
an example of this type.
Such phonetic conditioning is reminiscent of the phonetic regularity found
in the southern United States.32 But on Martha’s Vineyard, the distribution is more complex, and nowhere codified with the precision to be found
in the South. Before proceeding to chart the various social factors which
influence this feature, we should consider the influence of the linguistic
environment, and primarily phonetic conditioning.
32 See Edwin F. Shewmake, English Pronunciation in Virginia. Davidson, N.C.: 1927.
THE SOCIAL MOTIVATION OF A SOUND CHANGE 289
FIGURE 4. PHONETIC DETERMINATION OF CENTRAUZATION.
CENTRALIZATION CHART FOR NORTH TISBURY FISHERMAN GB
Grade 0 1 2 0 1 2
right •• •••• •••• •••• •• • ••• out
•• • night •• •• • • • about white • • • trout like •• • house sight ••• • quite • •• • south striped •• • ••• mouth swiped • • • couch wife •• life •• • •• • •• now knife • • •• how
spider • •• sound side •••• • •••• down
••• • ••• tide ••••• • •• applied • • ••• round characterized • • hound Ivory • • ground live • • five • I’ve •
CI /au/: 0.39 by • fly in • high • fry in • why •
my ••
trY •
ru • piles • while ••• mile • violence •
shiners • kind • iodine • quinine • time •• line •
• •••• • ••••
• • ••••
fired • tire •
CI /ai/: 0.75
290 WILLIAM LABOY
SEGMENTAL ENVIRONMENT. The influence of the following consonant may
be indicated by tabulating five general articulatory dimensions:
Not favoring Favoring
centralization centralization
(a) sonorants zero final obstruents
(b) nasals orals
© voiced voiceless
(d) velars labials apicals
(e) fricatives stops
If we apply these oppositions in the order given, from (a) to (e), we arrive
at a consonant series from most favoring to least favorable to centralization, which seems to conform q’uite well to the facts:
/t, s: p, f: d, v, z: k, e, ts: 13: 1, r: n: mf33
The preceding consonant follows a rather different pattern, almost the reverse, and has considerably less effect. The most favoring initial consonants
in centralized syllables are /h, 1, r, w, m, n/, with the glottal stop allophone
of zero heading the list. Thus the most favored words are right, wife, night,
light, nice, life, house, out.
PROSODIC FACTORS. Stress regularly increases the degree of centralization
for speakers with type b and type c charts. This is not at all an obvious
rule, for the speech of many metropolitan areas shows the opposite tendency: one may note an occasional centralized diphthong in rapid reduced
forms, but the same word under full stress is completely uncentralized.
This corresponds to the difference between a centralized occurrence and a
centralized norm.
A typical case of centralization under stress occurs in this excerpt from a
story told by a North Tisbury fisherman:
Why I could do anything with this dog. I used to drop a [naif] or my handkerchief
or something, and I’d walk pretty near a quarter of a mile, and I’d stop and I’d tum
to the dog: “You go get that! Where’d I lose that [mnf]!”
STYLISTIC INFLUENCE. While we find that most urban speakers have a
variety of shifting styles of speech, and that interviews under varying conditions will produce varying counts of phonological features, this is not the
case with most Vineyarders. The majority are essentially single-style
speakers. Sometimes the conversation will take a livelier tone, or a more
33 /ai/ and /au/ are rare before /b, g, IJ, c, J/; /t/ includes [?]. The non-distinctive [t]
variant of zero onset also favors centralization heavily, as in the 1 forms of Figure 3.
THE SOCIAL MOTIVATION OF A SOUND CHANGE 291
formal aspect, but the percentage of centralized forms is not significantly
affected. Changes in centralization are apparently aspects of a pattern
which develops over longer periods of time.34
LEXICAL CONSIDERATIONS. A few special words are given greater centralization than their phonetic form or prosodic position would usually
account for. An example is sliding, meaning coasting with a small sled. It
may be that confusion with an alternant form sledding is responsible, or
that words which originate in childhood, and are seldom spelled, are more
prone to centralization.
7. Distribution by age and time
The over-all degree of centralization for each speaker is expressed by the
mean of the numerical values of the grades of each instance listed on the
chart. Thus on Figure 4, the centralization index for /ai/ (CI /ai/), is 0.75,
and the index for fauf (CI /auf), is 0.39. We can then find the mean CI for
any group of persons by averaging the CI for the members of the group.
We may first wish to see if centralization varies with the age level of the
speaker. Table 2 indicates that it does.
TABLE 2. CENTRALIZATION INDEXES BY AGE LEVEL
over 75
61 to 75
46 to 60
31 to 45
14 to 30
CI /ai/
0.25
0.35
0.62
0.81
0.37
CI /au/
0.22
0.37
0.44
0.88
0.46
Centralization of fai/ and /auf appear to show a regular increase in successive age levels, reaching a peak in the 31 to 45 group. We must now consider the reasons for assessing this pattern as evidence for an historical
change in the linguistic development of Martha’s Vineyard. Is this an
example of sound change, or is it merely evidence for a regular change in
speaking patterns which is correlated with age?
At this point it is necessary to consider the general question as to
whether sound change can be directly observed. The well-known statement
of Bloomfield seems to contradict this possibility:
The process of linguistic change has never been directly observed; we shall see that
such observation, with our present facilities, is inconceivable.J5
34 One small stylistic influence which appeared was in the standard reading. Those
with centralized norms, whose charts were of type b and c, had slightly higher indexes of
centralization for reading than for conversation. The opposite effect was noted for those
with uncentralized norms.
35 Language (New York: 1933), p. 347.
292 WILLIAM LABOY
When this opinion is viewed in the light of Bloomfield’s entire discussion of
phonetic change, it appears to be strongly motivated by arguments for the
absolute regularity of sound change. Bloomfield wishes to show that such
change is quite autonomous, “a gradual favoring of some non-distinctive
variants and a disfavoring of others,” and quite distinct from the normal
fluctuation of non-distinctive forms, “at all times highly variable.” Yet
since direct observations will always pick up this normal fluctuation,
"even the most accurate phonetic record of a language at any one time
could not tell us which phonemes were changing."36 The changes we do
observe are likely to be the effects of borrowing and analogic change.
Hockett, while recognizing the possibility of divergent views, has further
refined the doctrine of imperceptible changes as a basic mechanism of
linguistic change. Movements of the center of the normal distribution of
random variations are, for all practical purposes, not subject to direct
observation,37 while the cruder forms of change which are observed must
be due to minor mechanisms. Weinreich has pointed out the theoretical
limitations of this position ;3s here we may profitably examine the result of
applying such neo-grammarian thinking to empirical observations.
The prototoype of close studies of sound change in a single community
is Gauchat’s 1899 investigation of the patois of Charmey, in Frenchspeaking Switzerland.39 Gauchat observed and tabulated differences in six
phonological features in the speech of three generations: speakers over
60 years old, those between 30 and 60, and those under 30. Hermann returned to the scene in 1929, one generation later, to investigate four of these
features: his results confirmed the interpretation of Gauchat’s data as
evidence for historical change, since three of the four had advanced considerably in the same direction. Yet Hermann also showed that real time
depth is essential for an accurate view, since the fourth feature had not
changed since 1903, and was apparently subject to a number of conflicting
influences. 40
The neo-grammarian viewpoint is that such observable shifts are the
36 Ibid., p. 365.
37 A Course in Modern Linguistics (New York: 1958), p. 439.
38 Review of Hockett, A Course in Modern Linguistics, in Romance Philology XIll
(1959), pp. 329-332. “It is hard to feel comfortable with a theory which holds that the
great changes of the past were of one kind, theoretically mysterious and interesting,
whereas everything that is observable today is of another kind, transparent and (by
implication) of scant theoretical interest.”
39 L’unite phonetique dans le patois d’une commune. Halle: 1905.
40 “Lautveriinderungen in der Individualsprache einer Mundart,” Nachrichten tkr
Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften zu Gottingen, Philosophisch-historische Klasse XI (1929),
195-214.
THE SOCIAL MOTIVATION OF A SOUND CHANGE 293
results of a series of borrowings, imitations, and random variations.41
These complicated explanations could be applied without contradiction to
the present observations on Martha’s Vineyard. But we need not make the
gratuitous assumption that sound change is something else again, an ineluctable process of drift which is beyond the scope of empirical studies.
Here I would like to suggest that the mixed pattern of uneven phonetic
conditioning, shifting frequencies of usage in various age levels, areas, and
social groups, as we have observed it on Martha’s Vineyard, is the process
oflinguistic change in the simplest form which deserves the name. Below
this level, at the point of individual variation, we have events which are
sub-linguistic in significance. At the first stage of change, where linguistic
changes originate, we may observe many sporadic side-effects of articulatory processes which have no linguistic meaning: no socially determined
significance is attached to them, either in the differentiation of morphemes,
or in expressive function. Only when social meaning is assigned to such
variations will they be imitated and begin to play a role in the language.
Regularity is then to be found in the end result of the process, as Sturtevant
has argued, and not in the beginning.42
If we now accept the evidence we have on hand as adequate in quantity,
as reliable and valid, we must still decide if this particular case is an
example of a change in community habits of speech. Two aspects of the
question seem to make a good case for a positive answer.
First, the records of the LANE show only moderate centralization of /ai/
for the four informants of 1933, aged 56 to 82. It is impossible to calibrate
the Lowman transcription against our present scale, especially since his
data put more stress on short utterances with stressed, elicited forms. But
if we take the LANE symbol [ll] as equivalent to our present [ll] of Grade 2,
it appears that these speakers had centralized norms for fai/ averaging
about 0.86, as high as the highest point reached in our sample for age level
60 to 90, but only half as high as the highest point for age level 30 to 60. If
we weigh their performance against a matched group of present-day
speakers, we may conclude that there has been an intervening drop of
centralization before the present rise.
41 Such arguments were indeed advanced in some detail to explain Gauchat’s results,
by P. G. Goidanich, “Saggio critico sullo studio de L. Gauchat,” Archivio Glottologico
Italiano XX (1926), pp. 60-71, [cited by Sommerfelt, op. cit.]. As implausible as
Goidanich’s arguments seem, they are quite consistent with Bloomfield’s position cited
above.
42 Sturtevant, op. cit., pp. 78-81. See Hoenigswald, op. cit., for further considerations
which support this view.
294 WILLIAM LABOY
Secondly, the question of fau/ is conclusive. The LANE informants had
an average rating of 0.06 for CI /au/: that is, for all practical purposes,
zero. The record shows a steady rise in centralization of /auf-which we
have seen to be a completely new phenomenon in Martha’s Vineyard
English-reaching indexes of well over 1.00 for most old family, up-island
speakers, and going as high as 2.11 in one case. No postulated change in
speaking habits with age could account for this rise.
The fact that the amount of centralization for the very old, and the very
young speakers, is at a minimum, shows that the effect of age cannot be
discounted entirely, and it may indeed be a secondary factor in this distribution over age levels.
8. Possible explanations for a rise -in centralization
So far, our discussion of centralization, the dependent variable under
study, has been merely descriptive. As we turn to the problem of explanation, we are faced with the question of what independent variables to examine. Certainly the structural parallelism of /ai/ and fauf is significant
here.43 Let us assume for the moment that centralization declined to a low
point in the late 1930’s, and then, after the war, began to rise. At this point
we find that a rising first element of fai/ carries the first element of /au/ with
it. Such a change in direction would seem to give us a plausible explanation
for the parallelism being called into play at this time, rather than the
assumption that it suddenly began to operate after a three hundred year
hiatus.
There remains the prior question, that of explaining (or giving a larger
context for) the general rise of centralization on the island. Why should
Martha’s Vineyard turn its back on the history of the English language?
I believe that we can find a specific explanation if we study the detailed
configuration of this sound change against the social forces which affect
the life of the island most deeply.
If we choose a purely psychological explanation, or one based only on
phonological paradigms, we have as much as said that social variables such
as occupation, income, education, social aspirations, attitudes, are beside
the point. We could only prove such a claim by cross-tabulating the independent social variables, one at a time, with the degree of centralization,
and showing that any greater-than-chance correlations are spurious.
43 We might wish to construct a rule here which would, in essence, convert [+compact]
to [-compact], simpler by one feature than a rule which would merely convert [ru) to a
centralized form. While such a statement is satisfying in its simplicity and neatness, it
should be clear from the following discussion that it would explain only a small part of
the mechanism of linguistic change.
THE SOCIAL MOTIVATION OF A SOUND CHANGE 295
However, our first attempts reveal some striking social correlations
which are not easily explained away. Table 3 shows us the geographical
bias of centralization, favoring rural up-island against small-town downisland areas. Table 4 shows the occupational biases, with fishermen at the
top and farmers at the bottom. If we add to this the data of Table 5, showing the distribution by ethnic groups, we find ourselves embarrassed with
TABLE 3. GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION OF CENTRALIZATION
CI /ai/ CI /au CI /ai/ CI /au/
Down-island 0.35 0.33
Edgartown 0.48 0.55
Oak Bluffs 0.33 0.10
Vineyard Haven 0.24 0.33
Up-island 0.61 0.66
Oak Bluffs 0.71 0.99
No. Tisbury 0.35 0.13
West Tisbury 0.51 0.51
Chilmark 1.00 0.81
Gay Head 0.51 0.81
TABLE 4. CENTRALIZATION BY OCCUPATIONAL GROUPS
fishermen
farmers
others
CI /ai/
1.00
0.32
0.41
CI /au/
0.79
0.22
0.57
TABLE 5. CENTRALIZATION BY ETHNIC GROUPS
Age Level
over 60
46 to 60
31 to 45
under 30
all ages
English Portuguese Indian
CI CI CI CI CI CI
/ai/ /au/ /ai/ /au/ /ai/ /au/
0.36-0.34 0.26-0.26 0.32-0.40
0.85-0.63 0.37-0.59 0.71-1.00
1.08-1.09 0.73-0.83 0.80-1.33
0.35-0.31 0.34-0.52 0.47-0.88
0.67-0.60 0.42-0.54 0.56-0.90
too many explanations. Are these social variables connected in any demonstrable way with the linguistic change? Are they truly independent
from one another, or are some of the correlations spurious, the result of
some dependency on a larger factor which is logically prior to these? If
such a larger pattern exists, we must ask how did it originate, and in what
way is it connected with the linguistic events. A simple-minded bookkeeping approach will not answer such questions. We will have to gain
some insight into the social structure of the island, and the pressures which
motivate the social changes of present-day Martha’s Vineyard.
296 WILLIAM LABOY
9. The interaction of linguistic and social patterns44
To understand Martha’s Vineyard, we must first realize that this is a
very beautiful place, and a very desirable place to live. But it is not an easy
place to earn the kind of living which agrees well with the achievement
orientation of modern American society. The 1960 Census shows that it is
the poorest of all Massachusetts counties: it has the lowest average
income, the highest number of poor people, and the smallest number of
rich people. 45 The Vineyard has the highest rate of unemployment: 8.3%
as against 4.2% for the state, and it also has the highest rate of seasonal
employment. One might think that life on the island is nevertheless easier:
perhaps the cost ofliving is lower. Nothing could be further from the truth:
the high cost of ferrying is carried over to a higher price for most consumer goods. As a result, there ·are more married women with young
children working than in any other county: 27.4% as against 17.3% for the
state as a whole.
The reason for this economic pressure, and the resulting dependency on
the tourist trade, is not hard to find. There is no industry on Martha’s
Vineyard. The island reached its peak in the great days of the whaling
industry; for a time, commercial fishing in the local waters buoyed up the
economy, but the run of fish is no longer what it used to be. Large scale
fishing is now out of New Bedford on the Grand Banks. Farming and
dairying have declined sharply because of the ferry rate, which raises the
cost of fertilizer but lowers the profit on milk.
The 1960 Census shows us that the island’s labor force of two thousand
souls is heavily occupied with service trades. Only 4% are in manufacturing, one seventh of the state average. Five percent are in agriculture,
44 The information given in the following discussion of social patterns on Martha’s
Vineyard was derived in part from conversations with the 69 informants. Even more
significant, perhaps, was information gained from discussions with community leaders
who were in a position to view these patterns as a whole. I am particularly indebted to
Mr. Benjamin Morton, head of the Chamber of Commerce, Mr. Henry Beetle Hough,
editor of the Vineyard Gazette, and Mr. Charles Davis, superintendent of the Martha’s
Vineyard Regional High School. Among my informants, I am especially grateful to
Mr. Donald Poole of Chilmark, Mr. Benjamin Mayhew, selectman of Chilmark, and
Mr. Albert Prada, town clerk of Edgartown.
45 Table 36 of the 1960 census report PC(l)-23c, cited above in footnote 12, shows
some striking contrasts among Massachusetts counties. The median family income for
the Vineyard is $4,745, as against $6,272 for the state as a whole. Barnstable County
(Cape Cod) and Nantucket are also dependent on a vacation economy, yet they show
median incomes of $5,386 and $5,373. The most agricultural county in Massachusetts,
Franklin, shows a median of $5,455. The state as a whole has only 12.4% of families
with incomes under $3,000; the Vineyard has 23%. The state has 17.0% with incomes
over $10,000; the Vineyard has only 6.6%.
THE SOCIAL MOTIVATION OF A SOUND CHANGE 297
2.5% in fishing, and 17% in construction; these percentages are five, ten
and three times as high as those for the state as a whole. 46
These economic pressures must be clearly delineated in order to assess
the heavy psychological pressures operating on the Vineyarders of old
family stock. Increasing dependence on the summer trade acts as a threat
to their personal independence. The more far-seeing Vineyarders can envisage the day when they and their kind will be expropriated as surely as
the Indians before them. They understand that the vacation business cannot help but unbalance the economy, which produces far too little for the
summer trade, but far too much for the winter. Yet it is very hard for the
Vineyarder not to reach for the dollar that is lying on the table, as much as
he may disapprove of it. We have already noted that many Vineyarders
move out of their own homes to make room for summer people.
Those who feel that they truly own this island, the descendants of the old
families, have a hard time holding on. Summer people, who have earned
big money in big cities, are buying up the island. As one Chilmarker said,
“You can cross the island from one end to the other without stepping on
anything but No Trespassing signs.” The entire northwest shore has fallen
to the outsiders. In Edgartown, the entire row of spacious white houses on
the waterfront has capitulated to high prices, with only one exception, and
the descendants of the whaling captains who built them have retreated to
the hills and hollows of the interior.
This gradual transition to dependency on, and outright ownership by the
summer people has produced reactions varying from a fiercely defensive
contempt for outsiders to enthusiastic plans for furthering the tourist
economy. A study of the data shows that high centralization of fail and
fauf is closely correlated with expressions of strong resistance to the incursions of the summer people.
The greatest resistance to these outsiders is felt in the rural up-island
areas, and especially in Chilmark, the only place where fishing is still a
major part of the economy.47 Chilmarkers are the most different, independent, the most stubborn defenders of their own way of living. In
order to assess the changing orientation of island groups towards the old
<46 See Table 82 of the 1960 census report, as in footnote 45.
47 Despite the low number of Vineyarders listed as fishermen by occupation in the
Census, a much larger number of islanders rely upon part-time fishing to supplement
their income. In particular, harvesting bay scallops in the salt ponds is a prized source of
revenue in the summer months. A great deal of local legislation is designed to protect
the professional fishermen from the great number of part-time scallopers taking in too
large a share. Much discussion and considerable bitterness develops as a result of this
conflict of interest, in which the truly professional Chilmarkers are, psychologically at
least, on top.
298 WILLIAM LABOY
family tradition, I included in my interview a battery of questions dealing
with the semantics of the word Yankee. One question read: “Where on the
island would a typical old Yankee be most apt to live?” By far the most
common answer was “Chilmark.” Chi! markers were named most often as
examples of “typical old Yankees.”
Chilmarkers pride themselves on their differences from mainlanders:
You people who come down here to Martha’s Vineyard don’t understand the
background of the old families of the island … strictly a maritime background and
tradition … and what we’re interested in, the rest of America, this part over here
across the water that belongs to you and we don’t have anything to do with, has
forgotten all about …
I think perhaps we use entirely different … type of English language … think
differently here on the island … it’s almost a separate language within the English
language.
To a large extent, this last statement is wishful thinking. Much of the
language difference depended upon whaling terms which are now obsolete.
It is not unnatural, then, to find phonetic differences becoming stronger
and stronger as the group fights to maintain its identity. We have mentioned
earlier that the degrees of retroflexion in final and pre-consonantal fr/ have
social significance: at Chilmark, retroflexion is at its strongest, and is
steadily increasing among the younger boys.
In Table 3, we note that centralization is higher up-island than downisland, and highest of all in Chilmark. In Table 4, we note that of all
occupational groups, fishermen show the highest centralization. Our total
number of cases is too small to allow extensive cross tabulations, but if we
take the group of Chilmark fishermen in the middle age level, from 30 to
60, we find that these five informants have average indexes of 1.48 for /ai/
and l.l8 for /au/, higher than any other social group which we might select
on the island. Conversely, let us list the six speakers with the highest degree
of centralization in order of CI jai/-that is, the upper ten percent:
Chilmark fisherman, age 60
Chilmark fisherman, age 31
Chilmark fisherman, age 55
Edgartown fisherman, age 61
Chilmark fisherman, age 33
Edgartown fisherman, age 52
CI jail
1.70
1.65
1.50
1.43
1.33
1.31
Cl /au/
1.11
2.11
1.24
1.07
0.79
1.31
It should be noted here that the two Edgartown fishermen listed are
brothers, the last descendants of the old families to maintain their position
on the Edgartown waterfront in the face of the incroachment of summer
people noted above.
THE SOCIAL MOTIVATION OF A SOUND CHANGE 299
We have now established within reason that the strong upturn in
…;ntralization began up-island, among Chilmark fishermen, under the same
influence which produced parallel results among the few Edgartown residents who shared their social orientation.
Table 5 shows the developments by age level for each of the three main
ethnic groups. All of the examples we have used so far deal with the
English group of old family descent; in Chilmark, this is the only group of
any size. Let us continue to follow the development of this group through
the succeeding age levels, and examine the interaction of social and linguistic patterns.
We see that centralization reaches a peak in the age level from 30 to 45,
and that centralization of fauf has reached or surpassed /ai/ at this point.
This age group has been under heavier stress than any other; the men have
grown up in a declining economy, after making a more or less deliberate
choice to remain on the island rather than leave it. Most of them have been
in the armed forces during World War II or in the Korean conflict. Many
have been to college, for the English descent group has a strong bent towards higher education. At some point, each of these men elected to make
a smaller living on Martha’s Vineyard, while many of their contemporaries
left to gain more money or more recognition elsewhere.
Severe strains are created in those who are pulled in both directions; the
traditional orientation of Martha’s Vineyard has long been inward and
possessive, yet the pull of modern achievement-oriented America is even
greater for some.
I think actually it’s a very hard thing to make that decision … It comes to you
later, that you should have made it before. I have another son-Richard-is an
aeronautical engineer. He really loves the island. And when he decided to be an aeronautical engineer we discussed it-at length-and I told him at that time: you just
can’t live on Martha’s Vineyard … He works at Grumman, but he comes home every
chance he gets and stays just as long as he can.
The speaker is a woman of 55, a descendant of the Mayhew family, who
left business school in Boston, and returned to the island to become a real
estate agent. Her son made the opposite choice; but another family, oflong
standing in Chilmark, had this to report about their son:
… we had an idea that he’d go away to school, but he really didn’t want to go
away … When he was at Chauncey Hall, they tried to get him to go to M.I.T.; but
he said no, he didn’t want to go anywhere where he had to learn to do something that
he couldn’t come back to this island.
We can learn a great deal about centralization by studying such histories of
particular families. The two speakers who head the list of centralized
speakers on page 298 are father and son. The father, a Chilmark lobsterman,
300 WILLIAM LABOY
is a thoughtful, well-read man with a passionate concern with the history
of the whaling industry; he is perhaps the most eloquent spokesman for the
older Vineyard tradition, and the author of the quotation on page 298. His
son is a college graduate who tried city life, didn’t care for it, came back to
the island and built up several successful commercial enterprises on the
Chilmark docks. He shows a high CI /au/ at 2.11, considerably more
centralized than anyone else I have heard at Chilmark. One evening, as I
was having dinner at his parents’ house, the conversation turned to speech
in general, without any specific reference to jai/ or jauj. His mother remarked, “You know, E. didn’t always speak that way … it’s only since he
came back from college. I guess he wanted to be more like the men on the
docks … "
Here we see a clear case of hypercorrection at work, and from other
evidence as well, it is reasonable to assume that this is a very regular force
in implementing the phonetic trend we are studying.
When we come to high school students, we must realize that many of the
young people from the old-family group do not intend to remain on the
island, and this is reflected in the lower average index of Table 5. Comparatively few of the sons of the English descent group will be earning their
living on the Vineyard in the next twenty years. In a series of interviews in
Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School, it was possible to compare
speaking habits very closely by means of the standard reading, “After the
high winds … “A marked contrast was observed between those who plan
to leave the island and those who do not. The latter show strong centralization, while the former show little, if any. To highlight this point, we
may take four 15-year old students: the two down-islanders who intend to
leave for careers in business and finance, show little or no centralization;
the two up-islanders who hope to go to college and return to make their
living on the island, show considerable centralization.48 The indexes speak
for themselves:
Down-island, leaving
0.00—0.40
0.00—0.00
Up-island, staying
0.90-1.00
1.13-1.19
One of the down-islanders, from Edgartown, has fallen very much under
the influence of the upper class Bostonian summer visitors. He has lost all
constriction in tautosyllabic /r/, and has a fronted low center vowel as well
in such words as [ka:], ‘car’.
48 On the question of leaving the island, one of these boys said: " … I can’t see myself
off island somewhere … I like it a lot here, like my father goes lobstering. That’s quite
a bit of fun … as long as I get enough money to live and enjoy myself. I was figuring
on … going into oceanography because you’d be outdoors: it wouldn’t be office work.”
THE SOCIAL MOTIVATION OF A SOUND CHANGE 301
10. Centralization among other ethnic groups
We can now turn to the special position of the Portuguese and Indian
ethnic groups, and see if the same approach can account for the distribution of centralized forms among them.
The most common view of the early Portuguese immigration is that the
settlers. came from an island with a very similar economy, shared the
Yankee virtues of thrift and industry, and fitted into the island life almost
perfectly. The Azoreans who came first seemed to have a strong inclination
for farming and fishing, rather than factory work; in the Vineyard’s rather
diffuse economy, there was little concentration of the Portuguese into the
kinds of industrial pockets we find on the mainland.49 Even among the
tough-minded Chilmarkers, we find a certain grudging acknowledgement
of the Yankee-like orientation of the Portuguese:
… they worked, that’s why they were respected. Nobody ever particularly interfered
with ‘em. You hear somebody make a remark about the dumb Portagee or something,
but actually I think they’ve been pretty well respected because they mind their own
business pretty well. They didn’t ask for anything.
It took some time, however, for the Portuguese descent group to make its
way into the main stream of island life. Intermarriage of Portuguese and
Yankee stock occurs, but it is rare. Second-generation Portuguese certainly do not feel at home in every situation: as some Vineyarders put it,
these Portuguese have “a defensive attitude.” A member of the English
group wiii as a rule speak his mind freely, condemning the summer people
and his neighbors with equal frankness. But the second-generation
Portuguese never criticizes the summer people in the interview situation,
and he is extremely wary of criticizing anyone. When the word Yankee is
introduced, he shifts uneasily in his chair, and refuses to make any comment
at ail.
While the speech of the Portuguese second generation is free of any
detectable Portuguese influence, so it is also lacking the special Vineyard
flavor. If we examine the Portuguese age groups over 45 in Table 5, which
contain a large proportion of second-generation speakers, we find little or
no centralization.
This is not the case with third- and fourth-generation Portuguese speakers.
In this group, we find centralization very much on the increase, particularly
with fauf. In Table 5, we see that the age group from 31 to 45 has a very
49 Jn many ways, the Vineyard seems to be more democratic than the mainland. I
bave heard on the mainland strong expressions of hostility between Portuguese groups
from the Azores and those from the Cape Verde Islands, but never on Martha’s Vineyard.
so On the other hand, I have heard a strong Portuguese accent from a second generation Portuguese man, about 40 years old, who was raised on a farm near Taunton, Mass.
302 WILLIAM LABOY
high degree of centralization. This age level contains a great many thirdgeneration Portuguese. It is the first Portuguese group which has entered
the main stream of island life, occupying positions as merchants, municipal
officers, and many other places of secondary leadership. These speaken
consider themselves natives of the island, and in response to the term
Yankee, they either include themselves in, or make fun of the whole idea.
In the youngest age level, the Portuguese descent group shows a very
regular use of centralization, whether second or third or fourth generation,
and their average centralization index in the table is, at this point, higher
than the English group.
One might think that centralization might be on the way to becoming a
marker of the ethnic Portuguese on the island, if such a trend continues.
But this possibility runs counter to the strongly democratic nature of
present-day Vineyard society. Among high school students, for example,
there appear to be no social barriers between the ethnic groups, in clubs,
at dances, and between friends. This situation is especially shocking to
some former mainlanders, who would like to draw a color line against
some of the children with Cape Verde backgrounds. But despite a few
such counter-currents, the unifying, protective nature of Vineyard society
shields the island native from the kind of reality which is practised on the
outside.st
The reason that the youngest Portuguese group shows higher centraliza.
tion is that a larger percentage identify themselves with the island and the
island way of life, than is the case among the English descent group.
Whereas almost all of the English group leave the island to go to college,
and few return, almost all of the Portuguese group remain. As a result, they
are gradually supplanting the English group in the economic life of the island.
It is fair enough to say that the main problem of the Portuguese group
has not been to resist the incursions of the summer people but rather to
assert their status as native Vineyarders. Their chief obstacle has not been
the outsiders, but rather the resistance to full recognition from the English
descent group. With full participation in native status, has come full use of
the special characteristics of Martha’s Vineyard English, including
centralized diphthongs.
The Indian descent group is relatively small and homogeneous. The
hundred citizens of Gay Head are united in a few closely related families.
51 In several cases, Vineyard youngsters have received rather severe shocks on leaviq
the island for the armed services or for work in an area where caste restrictions were in
force. One boy was put into a Negro regiment on entering the service, though action
from Vineyard leaders had him transferred soon afterwards.
THE SOCIAL MOTIVATION OF A SOUND CHANGE 303
One would think that these survivors of the aboriginal Wampanoag
Indians would have had little trouble in asserting their native status. On the
contrary, a long tradition of denigration of the Indian has served, for over
a hundred years, to rob him of the dignity which should accompany this
feat of survival. The issue revolves around the fact that the declining Indian
community has necessarily intermarried with outsiders over the past ten
generations. The logic of American society dictated that these outsiders
should be Negroes. Thus as early as 1764, the Yankee officials of the
Vineyard claimed that only one quarter of the Indians were "of pure
blood."52 In 1870, the Governor of Massachusetts took away the reservation status of Gay Head, on the ground that they really weren’t Indians at
all, and handed them over to the political ministrations of Chilmark.
For many decades, the Indians were literally second class citizens, and
the resentment dating from this period is not entirely gone. On the other
hand, we find that a number of Vineyarders, of both English and Portuguese descent, regard the Indians with a mixture of sarcasm and scepticism:
… show me a Gay Head Indian and I’ll like to see one.
The Indian people are aware of this situation, as shown in this quotation
from one of the Indian informants, a woman of 69:
These island folks, they don’t want to mix at all, up this end … They don’t like to
give the Indian his name, here on the island. I’ll tell you that. They like to be dirty with
some of their talk.
Despite the great shift in Vineyard ideology over the past three generations,
the Indians still feel blocked, geographically and socially, by the Chitmarkers, “up this end.” Their attitude toward the Chilmarkers is ambiguous: on the one hand, they resent the Chilmarkers’ possessive attitude
toward the island, and the traditional hard-fisted, stiff-necked Yankee line.
Their reaction to the word Yankee is sarcastic and hostile. 53 But their
main complaint is that they deserve equal status, and whether they will
admit it or not, they would like to be just like the Chilmarkers in many
ways.
As far as centralization is concerned, Table 5 indicates that the Indians
follow close behind the Chilmarkers. At the same time, they show a greater
relative increase of centralization of /au/, similar to the Portuguese development, especially among the young people. Here there are signs of an
52 A very rich vein of information on this score may be tapped from Richard L.
Pease’s Report of the commissioner appointed to complete the examination … of all
boundary lines … at Gay Head. Boston: 1871. Pease was acting essentially as the
hatchet man for the Governor of Massachusetts, to whom he was reporting.
53 “Where they come from-down south somewhere? o o o Lot of 'em come from
Jerusalem, you know o o o”
304 WILLIAM LABOY
additional phonetic feature, shared by both Portuguese and Indians: a
backed form of fauf, which may be written [AU]. It is characteristic of five
speakers in the sample, all under 30, all fairly low in socio-economic status.
Whether it represents a general trend cannot be determined at this point.
We may note that there has been a revival of Indian culture in the form
of pageants staged for the tourist trade, headwork and other Indian crafts,
and with these a revived emphasis on tribal organization. The younger
Indians acknowledge that this revival was commercially motivated in its
beginnings, but they claim that it is now more than that, and that Indian
culture would survive if the vacationers disappeared entirely. The Indian
language has been dead for several generations, however, and the ritual
formulas must be learned from _a book. The Indians are truly traditional
speakers of English, and their claim to native status must be expressed in
that language.
II. The social meaning of centralization
From the information we now have at hand, there readily emerges the
outline of a unifying pattern which expresses the social significance of the
centralized diphthongs.
It is apparent that the immediate meaning of this phonetic feature is
… Vineyarder.” When a man says [nnt] or [htms], he is unconsciously
establishing the fact that he belongs to the island: that he is one of the
natives to whom the island really belongs. In this respect, centralization is
not different from any of the other sub-phonemic features of other regions
which are noted for their local dialect. The problem is, why did this feature
develop in such a complicated pattern on the Vineyard, and why is it
becoming stronger in the younger age levels?
The answer appears to be that different groups have had to respond to
different challenges to their native status. And in the past two generations,
the challenges have become much sharper through severe economic and
social pressures.
The old-family group of English descent has been subjected to pressure
from the outside: its members are struggling to maintain their independent
position in the face of a long-range decline in the economy and the steady
encroachment of the summer people. The member of the traditionoriented community naturally looks to past generations for his values:
these past generations form a reference group for him. 54 The great figures
of the past are continually referred to, and those who have died only a few
years ago have already assumed heroic stature … If you could only have
54 In the technical sense developed by R. Merton, Social Theory and Social Structure.
Glencoe, Ill.: 1957.
THE SOCIAL MOTIVATION OF A SOUND CHANGE 305
been here a few years ago and talked to N. He could have told you so
many things!”
The sudden increase in centralization began among the Chilmark
fishermen, the most close-knit group on the island, the most independent,
the group which is most stubbornly opposed to the incursions of the
summer people. There is an inherently dramatic character to the fisherman’s
situation, and a great capacity for self-dramatization in the fisherman
himself, which makes him an ideal candidate to initiate new styles in
speech. In the early morning, the curtain rises: a solitary figure appears
upon the scene. For the course of an entire day, this single actor holds the
stage. Then at last, the boat docks; the curtain descends. The play is over,
yet the reviews will be read and re-read for generations to come.
I can remember as a boy, when I first started going to sea with my father, he said to
me: remember two things. Always treat the ocean with respect, and remember you
only have to make one mistake, never to come back.
Centralized speech forms are then a part of the dramatized island character
which the Chilmarker assumes, in which he imitates a similar but weaker
tendency in the older generation.
For younger members of the English descent group, we can view the
mechanism in greater detail. For them, the old timers and the up-islanders
in particular serve as a reference group. They recognize that the Chilmark
fishermen are independent, skillful with many kinds of tools and equipment, quick-spoken, courageous and physically strong. Most importantly,
they carry with them the ever-present conviction that the island belongs to
them. If someone intends to stay on the island, this model will be ever
present to his mind. If he intends to leave, he will adopt a mainland reference group, and the influence of the old-timers will be considerably less.
The differential effect in the degree of centralization used is a direct result
of this opposition of values.
The Portuguese group is not faced with a dilemma of going or staying.
The main challenge to which this group has responded is from the English
group, which has certainly served as a reference group for the Portuguese
until very recent times. As the number of Portuguese in prominent positions grows, it is no longer urgent to minimize the effects of being Portuguese, but rather to assert one’s identity as an islander.
The Gay Head developments are dictated by the antinomy of values
which reigns there. On the one hand, the Indian group resents any bar to
full participation in the island life, and the Indians have plainly adopted
many of the same values as the Chilmarkers. But on the other hand, they
would like to insist as well on their Indian identity. Unfortunately, they no
2-w.
306 WILLIAM LABOY
longer have linguistic resources for this purpose, and whether they like it
or not, they will follow the Chilmark lead.
The role of the Chilmarker, or “old-time typical Yankee” has declined
as the reference group which governs the meaning of “islander” has
shifted away from that which governs “Yankee.” Even among the Chilmarkers, the more far-sighted members of the community recognize that
the term Yankee no longer fits the island. Whereas this word may still be
a rallying cry in some parts of New England, it has outlived its usefulness
on Martha’s Vineyard. In emphasizing descent status rather than native
status, Yankee summons up invidious distinctions which are no longer
good currency on the island.
People don’t make so much about it as they used to when I was young. People
would make that statement: “I’m a Yankee! I’m a Yankee!” But now you very
seldom-mostly, read it in print.55
In summary, we can then say that the meaning of centralization, judging
from the context in which it occurs, is positive orientation towards Martha’s
Vineyard. If we now overlook age level, occupation, ethnic group, geography, and study the relationship of centralization to this one independent
variable, we can confirm or reject this conclusion. An examination of the
total interview for each informant allows us to place him in one of three
categories: positive-expresses definitely positive feelings towards Martha’s
Vineyard; neutral-expresses neither positive nor negative feelings towards
Martha’s Vineyard; negative-indicates desire to live elsewhere. When
these three groups are rated for mean centralization indexes, we obtain the
striking result of Table 6.
TABLE 6. CENTRALIZATION AND ORIENTATION TOWARDS MARTHA’S VINEYARD
Persons
40
19
6
Positive
Neutral
Negative
CI /ai/
0.63
0.32
0.09
CI /au/
0.62
0.42
0.08
The fact that this table shows us the sharpest example of stratification we
have yet seen, indicates that we have come reasonably close to a valid explanation of the social distribution of centralized diphthongs.
12. The intersection of social and linguistic structures
The following abstract scheme may serve to summarize the argument
which has been advanced so far to explain the spread and propagation of
this particular linguistic change.
55 The speaker is one of the Mayhews, a retired Chilmark fisherman, who has as
much claim to be a “typical old Yankee” as any person on Martha’s Vineyard.
THE SOCIAL MOTIVATION OF A SOUND CHANGE 307
I. A language feature used by a group A is marked by contrast with
another standard dialect.
2. Group A is adopted as a reference group by group B, and the feature
is adopted and exaggerated as a sign of social identity in response
to pressure from outside forces.
3. Hypercorrection under increased pressure, in combination with the
force of structural symmetry, leads to a generalization of the
feature in other linguistic units of group B.
4. A new norm is established as the process of generalization levels off.
5. The new norm is adopted by neighboring and succeeding groups for
whom group B serves as a reference group.
There remains a gap in the logic of the explanation: in what way do social
pressures and social attitudes come to bear upon linguistic structures? So
far we have assembled a convincing series of correlations: yet we still need
to propose a rational mechanism by which the deep-seated elements of
structure enter such correlations.
It has been noted that centralized diphthongs are not salient in the
consciousness of Vineyard speakers. They can hardly therefore be the
direct objects of social affect. The key to the problem may lie in the fact
that centralization is only one of many phonological features which show
the same general distribution, though none may be as striking or as well
stratified as jai/ and jauj. There are no less than fourteen phonological
variables which follow the general rule that the higher, or more constricted
variants are characteristic of the up-island, “native” speakers, while the
lower, more open variants are characteristic of down-island speakers under
mainland influence. 56 We can reasonably assume that this “close-mouthed”
articulatory style is the object of social affect. It may well be that social
evaluation interacts with linguistic structures at this point, through the
constriction of several dimensions of phonological space. Particular linguistic variables would then be variously affected by the overall tendency
towards a favored articulatory posture, under the influence of the social
forces which we have been studying. Evidence for such an hypothesis must
come from the study of many comparable developments, in a variety of
English dialects and other languages. It is enough to note here that it is a
S6 In the following list of the variables in question, the up-island form is given first.
PHONEMIC INVENTORY: /of- fouf in road, toad, boat, whole … PHONEMIC DISTRIBUTION:
fsl only before intersyllabic frl instead of both /E/ and /re/; /r/- fa/ in tautosyllabic
position. PHONEMIC INCIDENCE: /I-E/ in get, forger, when, anyway, can … ; /E-ref in
ftave, had, that; /A-0/ in got. PHONETIC REALIZATION: [lli-ai) and [eu-au); [r-a<);
[ll-:lr) in work, person … ; [:l-A) in furrow, hurry … ; [o~u-ou) in go, no … ;
[ti-Ii) and [uu-uu); [1°-1) and [E3 -E).
308 WILLIAM LABOY
plausible mechanism for socio-linguistic interaction which is compatible
with the evidence which has been gathered in this investigation.
13. Limitations of this study
We noted earlier that one limitation of this study stems from the fact
that the variable selected is not salient. This limitation, coupled with the
small size of the Vineyard population, made it impractical to explore
thoroughly the subjective response of native speakers to centralized
diphthongs. Other shortcomings of the technique used on Martha’s Vineyard may be seen in the sampling method, which was far from rigorous.57
The statements made about developments through various age levels
among the Portuguese and Indians are based on an inadequate number of
cases. The sample is particularly weak in the down-island area, especially
in Oak Bluffs, and the picture of down-island trends is correspondingly
weaker than up-island developments. Finally, it may be noted that the
interviewing technique was not as firmly controlled as it might have been:
a number of changes in the interview structure were made as the study
progressed.
With these reservations, we can say that the findings give good confirmation of the main theme of the study: the correlation of social patterns
with the distributional pattern of one linguistic variable. 58 The reliability
of the index used was tested in several cases where the same informant was
interviewed twice, with good results. 59 Indexes for reading style did not
diverge sharply from other portions of the interview. The validity of the
scale of measurement was well established by instrumental methods, and
the validity of the whole seems to be reinforced by the unitary nature of the
final interpretation.
The techniques developed on Martha’s Vineyard are presently being
refined and applied to a much more complex situation in the urban core of
57 The problem of sampling technique for linguistic variables is a difficult one at the
moment. While we are sure that linguistic behavior is more general than the behavior
usually traced by survey methods, we do not know how much more general it is, nor can
we estimate easily now far we may relax the sampling requirements, if at all.
58 In addition to the positive correlations discussed above, the explanation given is
reinforced by certain negative results of alternate explanations. The educational level of
the informants is not correlated significantly with degree of centralization. The distribution of sub-standard or archaic grammar does not correspond to the distribution of
centralized forms.
59 For example, two interviews with Ernest Mayhew, Chilmark fisherman, age 83,
showed these results: first interview, CI /ai/ 0.67, CI /au/ 0.58; second interview, CI /ail
0.59, CI /au/ 0.40. The count for /au/ is based on about one-third as many items as for
/ai/.
THE SOCIAL MOTIVATION OF A SOUND CHANGE 309
New York City. Here multiple-style speakers are the rule, not the exception; instead of three ethnic groups we have a great many; mobility and
change are far more rapid; and the population is huge. Here the sampling
requirements must be far more rigid; and the techniques used to assess the
social meaning of linguistic cues must be more subtle and complex. Yet the
basic approach, of isolating the socially significant variables, and correlating them with the patterns of general social forces, is the same as that which
has been used on Martha’s Vineyard. It is hoped that such methods will
give us further insight into the mechanism of linguistic change.
Department of Linguistics
Columbia University
New York 27, New York can you translate the paper into Chinese?