Alex
DÕArcyÕs quick links
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I am a quantitative variationist sociolinguist,
trained in the Labovian paradigm. Linguistic
heterogeneity fascinates me, even more so for its systematicity; uniformity (in
the sense of Guy 1980) is mind-blowing stuff.
IÕm currently involved in a number of research
projects, so visiting the SLRL (Sociolinguistics Research
Lab) page will give you an idea of some of the other work that is currently
been done, both here at UVic and collaboratively with
other labs.
Only time will tell (aka, Kids Talk)
The Kids Talk project aims to address one of the most
longstanding and central questions in the study of language change: How does change advance across
successive generations of speakers? Because children must speak differently from
their parents for any change to both survive and progress, only real time observation of the same
speakers can provide answers to this question. Language change is constant and
integral to living languages; this project explicitly sets out to observe the onset and early progression of change in
order to track the diachronic evolution of specific linguistic features. Children
will be recorded at home, with their caregivers, to give a picture of the immersive language context from
which they begin. Past research has engaged in post-hoc theorizing about the continuous
advancement of change but it has never addressed it directly. This project zeroes in on
the period when children begin to participate in change by shifting their language
model along an apparently pre-set direction of change. In doing so, it will add to our understanding of
language change and, by extension, of human language in general. It will impact theory and practice within
linguistics, informing current understanding of when speakers begin to participate in change, whether they
start with their parentsÕ model or not, whether girls and boys participate in the same way, and
whether or not change is continuous. In short, the project will sketch out the early stages of participation in
change, ultimately addressing one of the most perplexing challenges in the field. Kids Talk will inform
theory about the language model that children are directly exposed to at home, and about the model they adapt
to when interacting with their peers.
This project was recently featured in The
Ring: ÔUVic linguist tunes in to kids for new studyÕ
This research is supported by the Social Sciences and
Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC).
The Victoria English Project:
development and current state
Photo by Nik West, shot on location at the Empress Hotel,
Victoria.
ÔPlain, unpretentious Canadian is a lost language in Victoria.Õ W.E. Walsh, 1923, The Canadian Forum
This
project was recently named one of UVicÕs Top Stories of 2011 (ÔUVic linguist traces VictoriaÕs fabled British rootsÕ).
This research
is fundamentally about where, and how, Victorian English speakers fit into the
matrix of Standard Canadian English (SCE) speakers more generally. Why should
this matter? The answer is multifaceted and can be summarized by the three main
objectives of the project: (1) to contribute to the knowledge base of English
in Canada; (2) to elucidate the pathway of change in an urban variety of
Canadian English that is demographically distinct from other major urban
contexts (e.g. Toronto, Vancouver); and (3) to document English in Victoria,
from its origins to the present day.
* Press: Read the article by Peigi
McGillivray in The Times Colonist (Nov 27 2011, p.C05): click here.
* Press: Hear the interview with Jo-Ann Roberts on All
Points West, CBC Radio One (Nov 30 2011): click here (it starts at minute 17.36).
* Press: Read
the article by Lindsay Kines in The Times Colonist (Dec 2 2011, p.A01):
click here.
* Press: There
was also an article by Natalie North in The Saanich News
(Dec 5 2011).
This research was supported by the Social
Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC).
Variationist perspectives on discourse: focus on 'like'
One of the things I'm really interested in is where
discourse features such as 'like' come from and how they're used (e.g. Like, Pat is like so cool). These types of linguistic devices aren't usually
subjected to traditional variationist methodology, and one of the fundamental
questions underlying my research into 'like' is: What insights can be gained
from looking at this feature in a framework that considers not just those
places where it is used, but also those where it isn't? I'm also curious about
who uses it, how they use it, and how old a person has to be to use 'like' in
one way or another. One of the most important things I've found is that despite
appearances, 'like' is absolutely not
random. If we look at what's been going on over the past 200 years or so, we
find that it has actually developed very systematically, following regular
syntactic parameters. 80, 45, or 15 years old, we all have a lot in common when
it comes to 'like'.
See my publications page, the abstract from my doctoral
dissertation (Like: syntax and
development, University of Toronto, 2005), or email me for more information.
* Press: See the article by Mark Peters in Psychology Today (May/June 2008)
* Press: See the column by Elizabeth Osmers Gordon in The Press (Nov 8 2008)
* Press: Watch the story by Bill Weir on Good Morning America, Weekend Edition
(April 19 2009)
* Press: Hear the interview on Answerman, hosted by Erik White
as part of CBC Radio SudburyÕs Morning North with Markus Schwabe (August 18 2010): click <here>.
* Press: See post by Neal Whitman (or listen to the podcast read by Mignon
Fogarty) on Grammar Girl (December 5 2014)
* Press: See post by on Gretchen
McCulloch on All Things Linguistic
(February 4 2015)
* Press: See the column
by Mark Peters in The Boston Globe
(January 22 2017)
This research was supported by the Social
Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC), and I have book in press with John Benjamins, Discourse-Pragmatic
Variation in Context: Eight-Hundred Years of ÔlikeÕ. Watch this space!
Constructing dialogue in time and
space
An ongoing focus of my research concerns verbs of
quotation and the system in which they operate. Here I am interested in
regional, national, and ethnic factors, as well as in longitudinal changes that
might be taking place within the system. The past ten years have witnessed an
unprecedented amount of interest in the English quotative system. The reasons
are two-fold. One, the system has been the site of recent and rapid change. The
innovative collocation be like has
made substantial inroads since its genesis in the early 1980s. Concomitantly,
speakers have been shifting toward higher rates of reported inner monologue
while increased use of more traditional forms such as the null form, think, and go has also been reported. In other words, what we appear to be
witnessing is whole-scale reorganization of the way in which dialogue is
constructed in discourse. Two, since the early 1990s, be like has been diffusing vigorously across varieties of English
worldwide (Romaine & Lange 1991). This renders the form a prime test case
for investigating processes of globalization and, in particular, the linguistic
processes that operate at the nexus of global forms and their local indigenization.
If you would like to know more about this project,
please feel free to contact me.
This research was supported by the School
of Languages, Cultures and Linguistics and by the College of Arts at the
University of Canterbury.
The paper that resulted from this work was published
in Language Variation and Change in
2012 (The diachrony of quotation: Evidence from New Zealand English). I also collaborated
on a project with Sali Tagliamonte and Celeste Rodriguez Louro
that tackles the global development of be like. That
work, supported by a Research Collaboration Award from the University
of Western Australia, appeared in Language in late 2016.
Other research
I also engage with collaborators both here and
overseas (see my publications page). My past and current collaborators include:
Isabelle Buchstaller (UniversitŠt Leipzig)
Derek Denis (University of
Toronto, now a SSHRC Post-Doc at UVic)
Bill Haddican
(CUNY)
Sky Onosson
(University of Victoria)
Celeste Rodriguez Louro
(University of Western Australia)
Rebecca Roeder (UNC Charlotte)
Nicole Rosen (University of
Manitoba)
Sali Tagliamonte (University of
Toronto)
Ann Taylor (University of York)
Martina Wiltschko
(University of British Columbia)
photo: Sali
Tagliamonte (left), Alex DÕArcy (right) at NWAV 39,
University
of Texas at San Antonio, November 2010
[photo credit: Patricia Cukor-Avila]
Think youÕd like to work with me? I am keen to
supervise research in the following areas:
á
language
variation and change
á
mechanism of
linguistic change, especially incrementation
á
internet
linguistics (and ethics)
á
historical
sociolinguistics
á
grammaticalization
For
more details, visit my teaching page.