Interaction between social category and social practice: explainingwas/werevariation

Abstract

Abstract This paper explores the ways in which structural and practice-based social constraints contribute to the maintenance of nonstandardwerein Bolton, England. Using data from a school ethnography, 2747 tokens of first- and third-person singularwas/wereare analyzed according to informants' social class, community of practice, self-identification, and place of birth. Varbrul analyses reveal consistencies in the linguistic constraints on variation irrespective of the type of social analysis undertaken. These patterns generally confirm the findings of previouswas/werestudies. However, comparisons of log likelihood results suggest that although different social factors constrain this variation with varying degrees of accuracy, no one factor alone sufficiently explains it. Comparisons of groups and individual speakers reveal that nonstandardweremaintenance is in fact explained by the combined effect of an established correlation between nonstandardwereand local social structures and on-going revitalization of the form in contemporary forms of social practice.

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