Reading Working Papers in Linguistics 4 (2000) - The University of ...

J. MARSHALL
SOCNET is again not significant as a predictor of dialect maintenance, even at
the 0.05 level. The r-squared value has again been lowered by its addition to
the model. It can safely be said, therefore, that social network strength does
not predict dialect maintenance in this database.
8. Conclusion
Urban and rural speech communities often differ from each other in marked
ways. The structure of local social networks, people’s attitudes, the direction
of language change, and social class structures may differ radically, so as to
have dissimilar effects on dialect maintenance. While social network strength
indices have been shown to correlate highly with dialect maintenance in some
urban areas, such as Belfast (Milroy 1980), the picture may be more
complicated. The network has often been seen as an ‘all-seeing eye’, which
exercises supervision over the community’s social behavioural (including
linguistic) norms. People with dense, multiplex networks are seen as being
almost pressured into conformity with network norms. The Doric Study has
shown that, at least for this rural community, there is no correlation between
network indices and dialect maintenance. An individual’s free choice in
matters such as degree of integration into local social networks and dialect use
must be an important factor. The data analysis has shown that such linguistic
choices are highly correlated with the individual’s degree of mental
urbanisation. McIntosh’s (1961) notion of ‘resistant types’ may be explained
by this, in that this factor alone has proved a reliable predictor of dialect
maintenance in this rural community. Understanding the social ‘mechanisms’
involved in language change in rural communities may be more complex than
simply applying models developed in urban studies.
References
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