312 Lynn Clark and Graeme Trousdale
P: guys that just like tae travel there, read their paper, have a laugh aboot
what wiz on the telly
LC: aye
P: an talk aboot the fitbaw an stuff like that like Bobby used tae be on oor
bus fae Dream Valley, we used tae have a quiz an stuff like that in the
mornings an stuff like that eh. That’s what it wiz that’s-that’s the wiy we
did it. A dinnae mind(6b) English
P: at the front you normally get me, Lewis, Connor...
LC: right
P: guys that just like to travel there, read their paper, have a laugh about
what was on the television
LC: yes
P: and talk about the football and stuff like that, like Bobby used to be on
our bus from Dream Valley, we used to have a quiz and stuff like that in
the mornings and stuff like that. That’s what it was that’s-that’s the way
we did it. I don’t mind.
The argument presented here therefore follows Hudson (1996: 246) and
suggests that speakers, as agents, can choose to signal their affiliation with
a particular social group or type by selecting the linguistic variants that they
associate with that social type. Speakers typically feel more or less affinity
with a given social type but the linguistic choices available to signal alle-
giances are often binary (e.g. (th): [Ɵ]~[f]). Speakers can therefore use
frequency of linguistic variation as a signal of their degree of allegiance to
the social types that they perceive to be linked to each variant (Hudson
1996: 248). In other words, speakers can use linguistic variation as an ‘act
of identity’ (Le Page and Tabouret-Keller 1985). In Cognitive Grammar
terms, speakers abstract over salient displays of style (such as dress, beha-
vior and speech) and create schematic categories. Crucially, this process of
abstraction occurs over both social and linguistic knowledge and so speak-
ers create schematic categories at the phonological pole (e.g. the phoneme
/Ɵ/) and the semantic/meaning pole (e.g. ‘tiny wee pipers’). Because Cog-
nitive Linguistic models (and Cognitive Grammar in particular) assume a
non-modular view of language, this allows connections to be made in the
mind between these categories of social and linguistic knowledge. The
repeated co-activation and entrenchment of particular (social and linguistic)
nodes and links in the cognitive network enables each speaker to associate
social knowledge with particular linguistic variants. Speakers can then
choose to signal their affiliation with a particular social type by activating