The Social Diffusion of Linguistic Innovations in Fifteenth Century England: Chancery Spellings in Private Correspondence* JIJA N MANIJEL HERNANDEZ-CAMPOY and JUAN CAMILO CONDE-SIL VESTRE Departamento de Filología Inglesa Facultad de Letras Campus de La Merced Universidad de Murcia 30071 Murcia (Spain)
[email protected] [email protected] ABSTRACT The aim ofthispaper ir to apply the conclusions oj'recent sociolinguistic studies on the spread of innovations to the Iiistorical inzplemeritation of standard English. In particular, we belieiv thnt the attenpts by Jarnes and Lesley Milroy at correlatirig standardisation, prestige norm focusirig arld the upii!ard social aspiratioris of sotne speakers ivitiz the analytic tool of 'social rier14~orks'niny yield fruitful n)nclusions ns regards rhe social diffusion qf rhe Cizancen standard in the 1atejiPeentIi centuy. In view of rhe IJniformitarian Principie formulated @ Labov, we believe rhat historical stnges of language developmerir were possib(v subject to constrnints similar to tizose afecting conremporac speech communities, to the exterir that the liriguisric behnviour of latejifteenrh centup spenkers may have beeri determined by nrrirudes to presrige, by social arid spatial mobilie as ~~ellas by rhe everydq corztacts nnd the personal circumstances of individuals. Ifthis is so, the projile of those members of rhe comrnuriily who adopted arzd transmitred the Chancen nortn in rlze period may be reconstructed. With rliis purpose in niind Irle interid to trace n number of inrinbles related to Chancen usage in rhe sections of 1areJjieenth centun priinte correspondence included in the diacizronic pnrt of rhe Helsinki Corpus of English Texts. The referetices to social (sex, age, social status), geographical (dialect) pararnerers, ns well ns to Qpe of interaction appended ro each text in rhe Corpus will help us ro drairi a picture of the speakers who innoivaredand dljilsed the newl nortn at that time.