The sociolinguistics of mergers

In the attested history and spread of English many mergers, conditioned and non-conditioned, have taken place. Some of these involved consonants, such as the which not equal witch merger, but the majority affected the vowels of the sound system, such as the horse not equal hoarse merger. Many mergers at present are shared across a broad spectrum of varieties of English with conservative vernaculars retaining sound distinctions longest. A sociolinguistic interpretation of this situation would suggest that communities with strong internal bonds show an inherent resistance to mergers. In addition to these considerations, this chapter looks at mergers evident in second-language forms of English and examines to what extent sizeable homophony can be compensated for by pragmatic context and discourse framework.