Attention, identity and linguistic capital: inverted style-shifting in Anglo-Cornish dialect lexis

While stylistic variation in attention-based models has been foundational to sociolinguistic theory (Labov 1972a; Trudgill 1974), other studies (e.g. Coupland 1985; Eckert 1989; Drummond 2018; Snell 2018) conceptualise style as a resource used the context of identity construction. I synthesise these two approaches and consider social meaning variable attentional load. Informed by study lexical Cornwall, account for an inverted pattern with recourse local identity, language ideology. In doing so, introduce attention-to-self model style. This posits that when speakers pay greater attention-to-self, they closer approximate desired self, target aspire embody. For example, subvert standard ideology, their may not be ‘educated’ or ‘posh’, but ‘local’. such cases, careful speech styles can conducive production dialect forms performance identity. propose stylisation Cornwall should interpreted alternative linguistic market, Cornish micro-market, which subverts value system dominant market.