style

A social approach to variation: the KM community case study
Linguistic Seminar: Friday, March 24th, 2006
Stephanie Hendrick

An approach to variation that begins with STYLE and works down to INDIVIDUAL VARIABLES, and one that begins with the POTENTIAL SOCIAL MEANINGS of variation and works down to the UNFOLDING OF THOSE MEANINGS in styles.
-Penelope Eckert, The Meaning of Style, 2004
***
Rather than analysing blog discourse in a linear fashion, one should examine the socially constructed context and style.

WHY??
•‘In creating an association of particular forms with particular social groups, style becomes central to an understanding of how linguistic changes spread through the community.’ –Milroy, 2003.
•‘No community exists in a vacuum and the social meaning(s) of variation…are to be found in their orientation to, use of, and contact across the wider ‘metropolitan’ area.’ –Eckert, 2000
•‘A theory of variation as social practice sees speakers as constituting rather than representing, broad social categories, and it sees speakers as constructing, as well as responding to, the social meaning of variation.’ –Eckert, 2000
•‘Because particular topics and settings are associated with specific types of addressee, the situational variables of topic and setting are subservient to the addressee variable’ -Bell
• ‘The social meaning associated with variation is local - it has to do with concrete places, people, styles, and issues’ –Eckert, 1999

RESEARCH QUESTION(S):
•What possible variation exists in this ‘whorl’?
oWhat kinds of speech communities are found?
oHow do the thematic shifts change the structure of these communities? I.e., how does thematic shift effect language (variation, meaning-making)
oHow does style differ in the personal space of the blog versus the public forum of the comment section?

PATTERNS FOUND THUS FAR:
•There are ‘communities of practice’ within the blogowhorl.
•These communities contain a central core, fuzzy boundaries, and mini-clusters which shift thematically.
•Over time, the fuzzy boundaries can change dramatically, yet the core stays fairly static.


HOW??
Treat:
•The speaker as a linguistic agent
•Speech as a building of meaning
•The community as mutually engaged in a meaning-making enterprise
The Research Group:
•5 from the core
•5 from the periphery
•5 from two different mini-clusters at different ‘slices’ of time in two thematic shifts
•Take a certain period of time from the archives (how long?)
Methods:
•Quantitative
oType/token ration for each group
oLexical density for each group
oWord frequency
•Qualitative
oCode language for
Social function
Perceived audience (if possible)

VARIOUS ISSUES TO CONSIDER??
•The roll of RSS and back channelling
•The network strength of different Individuals (Connectors, Mavens, Salesmen)
•Digital natives versus digital immigrants.