Dan, I agree that this doesn't contradict the Bybee and Slobin article.
The point is that small children can't change language *on their own*:
it takes a village, or a city.
I was disappointed at Yang's presentation at the 2016 LSA that he
focused so exclusively on small children. I haven't read his work in
detail; maybe he does talk about older adults. I tried to talk to him
afterwards, but that was the panel where the discussants huddled
together on stage for 10-15 minutes and then left, ignoring the
audience. If his data show that people of all ages make changes, then
his model should include all ages.
I also haven't had time to wrap my head around the distinction you
raised between transmission and diffusion - unless it's just time vs.
space? In any case, I've been convinced by Penny Eckert that
adolescents in particular play a very important role.
Here is another paper that Bybee and Slobin published with more detail
about that study - but minus the catchy title:
https://www.jstor.org/stable/414099
On 3/23/2017 11:15 AM, Daniel Ezra Johnson wrote:
> Another view - perhaps with more support! - is that older children and
> adolescents are very much part of the process of transmission and
> incrementation in communities, as argued for example by a paper under
> review.
>
> On Thu, Mar 23, 2017 at 2:04 PM, Daniel Ezra Johnson
> <[log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]>> wrote:
>
> Re: this article by Bybee and Slobin, I've asked Charles Yang if
> he'd allow me to post the following (see also chapter 6 of his
> 2016 book, where acquisition data from many cases are discussed).
> Following his affirmative reply, I do so, viz.
>
> "Only third graders and adults produced irregularization errors.
> Adults did so more. Not 3- and 4-year-olds and first graders, for
> whom over-regularization abounds. The wug test is fishy for older
> speakers and it seems like a game: see Carson Schutze's papers on
> this. Finally, [note] the virtual absence of irregularization from
> millions of words of child production data."
>
> This is not to contradict B & S, but to underline that everybody
> changes language: young children, older children, and adults. The
> question is whether we can observe that different age stages are
> associated with different types of change.
>
> The hypothesis might be that community change is tightly linked to
> the changes made by young children when they first form a peer group.
>
> The changes made by older children, adolescents, and even more
> likely, those made by adults - which are (by definition) changes
> over the lifespan - may correspond to the "diffusion" of
> linguistic change (when looked at geographically) rather than its
> "transmission" (and "incrementation") within communities.
>
> > Le 23 mars 2017 à 12:02, Angus B. Grieve-Smith
> <[log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]>> a écrit :
> >
> > In counterpoint, please see Bybee and Slobin (1982), "Why small
> children cannot change language on their own":
> >
> >
> https://www.unm.edu/~jbybee/downloads/BybeeSlobin1982ChildrenEnglishPastTense.pdf
> <https://www.unm.edu/%7Ejbybee/downloads/BybeeSlobin1982ChildrenEnglishPastTense.pdf>
> >
> >
> >> On 3/23/2017 2:50 AM, Daniel Ezra Johnson wrote:
> >> "In most research on language change, the focus is on adults, and
> >> children are usually ignored"
> >>
> >> But maybe this is more methodology (access, largely), since I
> too was
> >> always given to believe that young children were the absolute
> key, at
> >> least for the type of change associated with "transmission"
> >> ("incrémentation", etc.). There's a great project starting up in
> >> France under the direction of Jean-Pierre Chevrot, who is going to
> >> study the spread of innovations in French by recording entire
> primary
> >> school classes (for some hours each day, for a number of months?).
> >> It's great to find ways to study language change right where we
> >> believe much of it is happening!
> >>
> >> As far as "awkward" ("is concerned", I would have _insisted_ on
> saying
> >> 20 years ago), I think I'm an adopter of the new sense, but as
> often
> >> with newer slang, I sometimes wonder if I'm using it "wrong"
> >> (differently from the kids). I would have said it's still different
> >> from "weird" and still related to the earlier "awkward". But,
> even if
> >> it "just means 'weird'", it could be part of a cultural and
> linguistic
> >> turn towards the emotional and social, in speaking and in
> evaluating
> >> language use. Here are a few examples of words and phrases on
> the rise
> >> (omitting corpus-linguistic proof) that I feel [sic] represent this
> >> trend:
> >>
> >> I feel
> >> awkward
> >> offensive
> >> inappropriate
> >> call out on
> >>
> >> And there must be positive examples too, which I may find
> myself less
> >> often on the receiving end of... The idea (sorry I can't remember
> >> where I read this) is that one is now tending to evaluate
> speech more
> >> - or at least more so than previously - in terms of the emotional
> >> reaction of the hearer, and the social consequences for the
> speaker,
> >> rather than focusing on its "intellectual content". I think - or at
> >> least feel - that much of "political correctness" and the debate
> >> thereabout could be related to this "turn".
> >>
> >> Dan
> >>
> >>> Le 23 mars 2017 à 06:49, Troike, Rudolph C - (rtroike)
> <[log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]>> a
> écrit :
> >>>
> >>> In most research on language change, the focus is on
> adults, and children are usually ignored
> >>
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> > -Angus B. Grieve-Smith
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