Sociological consciousness as a component of linguistic variation (original) (raw)

2008, Journal of Sociolinguistics

While practice theory has provided a valuable framework for establishing connections between individual-level sociolinguistic variation and social structures, Bourdieu's (1977) formulation of practice theory has been argued to inadequately address subjectivity. The sociologist C. Wright Mills' (1959) concept of the sociological imagination – consciousness of links among personal experiences, social structures, and historical processes – is posited as a partial solution, as it offers a framework for modeling one aspect of subjectivity. Use of the sociological imagination concept is demonstrated through a quantitative acoustic analysis of /o/ fronting in Worthington, Ohio, a Columbus suburb confronting acute urban sprawl. The distribution of /o/ fronting across 21 speakers largely resists traditional sociolinguistic explanations. A close analysis of four speakers' mental representations of the local tensions surrounding urban sprawl reveals significant differences which are argued to account for their variable use of fronted /o/.

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