Folia Linguistica Historica XVI 1-2 pp. 149-174 © Socieua Linguistica Europaea "POL1TENESS", SOCIOLINGUISTIC THEORY AND LANGUAGE CHANCE .·:·* k MAX W. WHEELER 0. This paper is intended äs a contribution to sociolinguistic theory, that is, to thc issue of explanation in sociolinguistics, and more particularly, in historical sociolinguistics. In the introduction to his 1992 book, James Milroy mentions some major questions we can pose in historical sociolin- guistics. One of these is (la). It is this question, or a Version of it, that will be addressed in the present paper. (1) a. "Why do changes in the "prestige" norm over the centuries seem to originale in the "lower-status" varieties ... rather than in elite ones?" (Milroy 1992: ix-x). b. "In developing our social model of language change ... mod- els of social identity ..., accommodation ..., and politeness (Brown and Levinson 1987) will not be irrelevant" (Milroy 1992: 221). In the conclusion of the same book, Milroy makes a prophecy äs in (Ib), which I believe is well-founded. What I propose to do specifically in this paper is to explore the role of Brown and Levinson's politeness principles in a social model of language Variation and change. 1. At the heart of the question why language change originales in "lower-status" varieties lies the Labovian sociolinguistic marker. A soci- olinguistic marker is Labov's name for that phenomenon in which linguis- tic Variation along the style continuum (casual - formal) correlates posi- tively wilh the scale of the Speakers' social class (Working Class - Middle Class). As an Illustration of this type of fmding, nowadays familiär enough in sociolinguistic textbooks, we have in Figure l three graphs of the (ing) variable in English, derived (a) from Labov's work in New York City, (b) from TrudgilPs in Norwich, and (c) from Petyt's in West Yorkshire. Earlier versions of this paper were delivered at the Sociolinguistics Symposium 9 (University of Reading, April 1992), at the University of Newcastle (February 1993), and to the Falmer Language Group (University of Sussex, May 1993). I am very grateful to Dick Hudson, Maria Sifianou, Jenny Cheshire, Jenny Coates, Aidan Coveney, Richard Coates, James Milroy and Lesley Milroy for their helpful com- ments and suggestions. Brought to you by | University of Glasgow Library Authenticated | 130.209.6.50 Download Date | 9/22/13 1:05 AM