Search

This study uses variationist sociolinguistic methodology to explore the construction of gender in four of Shakespeare’s comedies. Gender performance is at issue in these plays specifically, not only because, in Shakespeare’s time at least, young male actors play the female roles, but also because each play contains a female character in male disguise. By analysing and comparing the patterns of variation used by Shakespeare’s female, male and “female as male” characters, this study provides further insight into Shakespeare’s construction and conceptualisation of gender. Further, by comparing the patterns of gender variation found in these plays with non-fiction data on the gendered variation of the period (Nevalainen, Terttu & Helena Raumolin-Brunberg. 2003. Historical sociolinguistics. Harlow: Pearson Education Ltd.), it is possible to investigate how accurately Shakespeare captures the sociolinguistic variation present in his society. This study hopes to provide support both for the validity of using sociolinguistic methods to study literature but also for using data from literature in studies of historical sociolinguistic variation and change.

Research by Miriam Meyerhoff, Elaine Ballard, Helen Charters, Alexandra Birchfield and Catherine I. Watson examines the impact of migration on the phonology of Auckland English, focusing on the variable realisation of the definite article in New Zealand’s largest and most multicultural city. Their research is based on conversational data from 70 people, male and female, younger and older, from three ethnographically distinct areas of the city. Their pronunciation of the was tested before a following vowel, in stressed or non-stressed NPs, to see if the standard [ði] was used rather than [ðɘ]. Multivariate analysis showed that [ɘ] is becoming more typical before vowel-initial NPs in all three areas of Auckland, even more so in South Auckland, which has been most ethnically diverse for the longest. Evidence also suggests [ɘ] is spreading rapidly among younger speakers in the other two communities. These pronunciation changes are thus associated with migration and higher levels of multilingualism in the community and support the claim that high levels of diversity in communities favour the emergence of new and distinct regional features.