Linguistic variation and sociological consciousness

Much current thinking in the field of linguistic variation assumes that speakers actively manipulate linguistic variables for local social purposes. While broad social structures such as class, ethnicity, and gender continue to shape the basic questions that variationists ask, attention to speakers' context-driven uses of variables is gaining prominence. Eckert (2002) addresses this shift in her description of the three "waves" of linguistic variation studies. Critically, third-wave studies assume that speakers (consciously or not) use linguistic variables to construct identities situated within local social contexts. The claim that particular uses of linguistic variants index dynamic and ultimately supra-local social meanings entails that speakers recognize links among different levels of social organization. Despite the upsurge of ethnographic work in sociolinguistics, the latter claim has yet to be fully supported or even well investigated, partly, I argue, for lack of an adequate theoretical framework for speakers' perceptions.;This study explores sociological consciousness---the recognition of links among the levels of social structure---as a factor conditioning linguistic variation. The sociologist C. Wright Mills' (1959) notion of the "sociological imagination" is used as a framework. The sociological imagination is the quality of mind that allows one to conceptualize daily life in terms of society-wide social forces. According to Mills, those who possess well-developed sociological imaginations manage to understand personal troubles and public issues as the products of historical events, social structures, and biography---the three "coordinate points.".;The speech community under investigation is Worthington, Ohio, a mostly white, upper-middle class community lying immediately to the north of Columbus. Worthington was founded in 1803 by well-educated, Episcopalian settlers from Massachusetts and Connecticut, and some of the current residents work vigorously to maintain the city's "traditional" New England identity with its religious and educational values intact. This task has become all the more relevant and challenging as Columbus has expanded; in fact. Worthington is now completely surrounded by annexed Columbus land, much of which has been stuffed with residential developments. A preliminary analysis of the sociolinguistic distribution of /l/ vocalization with respect to locally-relevant social categories (Dodsworth 2005a) reveals a significant linguistic distinction between living within the Worthington city boundaries and living in the surrounding areas of Columbus. Building on that conclusion, the present study considers the ways in which Worthingtonites understand and react to the forces that promote urban sprawl and urbanization. (Abstract shortened by UMI.).