Lexical Diffusion
Lexical diffusion refers to the name given to a theory which opines that sound changes are occurring in a system of a word by word. It is of significance to note that this theory evolved independently from the Labovian school. However, the theory of Lexical diffusion is complementary to compatible with the perceived long term of change process (Mesthrie, Swan, Deumert, & Leap, 2009). As affirmed by the theory through its hypothesis, sound change is not applicable to all the environments and words in a simultaneous manner. Rather, some environments are more sensitive to such changes than the others. On the same note, change can be varying in their incorporation from one word to another in that one word can come after another. This situation is possible is when there is a loss of nasal constant at the end of some words in the French as well as the accompanying of the nasalization of the vowel. This is the reason behind the silence of some consonant sounds such as good and bon. Another hypothesis for the Lexical diffusion theory is concerned with the rate at which the sound changes are effected in the language. There is the suggestion by Chen that the general rate of change in the sound can be illustrated in an S curve which has the variables of time and the number of words.
The Gravitational Model
The gravity model was a suggestion by Trudgill. It was aimed at describing the influence of the bigger centers from the smaller ones. This analogy was drawn out from the physics principles where the bodies with higher mass exert a gravitational influence over those which have smaller mass within their gravitational vicinity. According to the model, the population is analogical responding to the population size. In essence, an example is given by the language and the cities whereby the small towns will be influenced by the bigger cities such as the town of Sheffield speaking the language of the Londoners. The smaller city like Sunderland may be affected by the same features of linguistics characteristics. Importantly is that the features might be transferred to some other smaller towns within the neighboring cities. On a specific example note, it can be traced like the linguistic characteristics originate from the City of London, being a bigger city it will influence smaller cities like Sunderland to adopt these linguistic features. Upon adopting these features a neighboring town like Newcastle may adopt the same from Sunderland (Mesthrie et al., 2009). Nevertheless, at the stage between small towns, the adoption is indirect. Again important is that this model might be affected by features such as geographical boundaries and the intensity of social contacts.
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The Atlas of North American English
This work came as a result of the culmination of the twentieth-century research and work in the American region dialectology. The project had its roots and base in the University of Pennsylvania by Labov and other researchers. The work was informed by sound change and social dialects researched earlier by Labov. Precisely, the study is informed by the research conducted on the series of sound change and their effects on the entire vowel system. Even though the scope of this work was based on the neighborhood, it is magnified through the Atlas to encompass the whole of the United States and Canada. The methodology used in this case is the way the telephone from the period of 1992 to the year 1999 (Mesthrie et al., 2009). The speakers involved in this case are strictly the people born from urbanized areas. It was realized that this survey is different from traditional surveys in many ways. The maps are grounded according to the interest in sound change progress. Also, the information conveyed in these maps is seen to be the subject of previous studies.
References
Mesthrie, R., Swan, J., Deumert, A., & Leap, W. (2009). Introducing sociolinguistics . Edinburgh University Press. George Square, Edinburgh
