Free variation

Free variation in linguistics is the phenomenon of two (or more) sounds or forms appearing in the same environment without a change in meaning and without being considered incorrect by native speakers. Examples from English include:

• the word economics may be pronounced with /i/ or /ɛ/ in the first syllable; although individual speakers may prefer one or the other, and although one may be more common in some dialects than others, both forms are encountered within a single dialect and sometimes even within a single idiolect;

• the comparative of many disyllabic adjectives can be formed either with the word more or with the suffix -er, for example more stupid or stupider.

When phonemes are in free variation, speakers are strongly aware of the fact, and will note, for example, that tomato is pronounced differently in British and American English, or that either has two pronunciations which are fairly randomly distributed, but only a very small proportion of English words show such variations.

However, we still have the case of the allophones. In phonetics, an allophone is a phenomenon of several similar phones that belong to the same phoneme. A phone is a sound that has a definite shape as a sound wave, while a phoneme is a basic group of sounds that can distinguish words (e.g. changing one phoneme in a word can produce another word); speakers of a particular language perceive a phoneme as a single distinctive sound in that language. Thus an allophone is a phone considered as a member of one phoneme.

We may distinguish complementary allophones, which are distributed regularly within the idiolect of the same speaker according to phonetic environment, from free variants, which are a matter of personal habit or regional accent.

For example, [pʰ] as in pin and [p] as in spin are allophones for the phoneme /p/ in the English language because they occur in complementary distribution. English speakers generally treat these as the same sound, but they are different; the first is aspirated and the second is unaspirated (plain).

In the case of allophones, free variation is exceedingly common and along with differing intonation patterns is the most important single feature in the characterizing of regional accents.

When about other language acquisitions, free variation plays a quite considerable part. Free variation is itself highly variable from one learner to another. To some extent it may indicate different learning styles and communicative strategies. Learners that favor high-risk communicative strategies and have an other-directed cognitive style are more likely to show substantial free variation, as they experiment freely with different forms.

To exemplify, here it goes a song by Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong, 'Let's call the whole thing off'. Follow the lyrics.

Things have come to a pretty pass

Our romance is growing flat

For you like this and the other

While I go for this and that

Goodness knows what the end will be

Oh, I don't know where I'm at

It looks as if we two will never be one

Something must be done...

You say either and I say either

You say neither and I say neither

Either, either, a neither, a neither

Let's call the whole thing off

You like potato and I like potato

You like tomato and I like tomato

Potato, potato, tomato, tomato

Let's call the whole thing off

But, oh, if we call the whole thing off

Then we must part

And, oh, if we ever part

Then that might break my heart

So if you like pajamas and I like pyjamas

I'll wear pyjamas and give up pyjamas

For we know we need each other, so we

Better call the whole thing off

Let's call the whole thing off

You laughter and I say laughter

You say after and I say after

Laughter, laughter, after, after

Let's call the whole thing off

You like vanilla and I like vanilla

You saspirilla, and I sarsaparilla *

Vanilla, vanilla, oh, chocolate strawberry

Let's call the whole thing off

But, oh, if we call the whole thing off

Then we must part

And, oh, if we ever part

Then that might break my heart

So if you go for oyster and I go for oysters

I'll order oysters and cancel the oyster

For we know we need each other, so we

Better call the calling off off

Let's call the whole thing off

You say either - and you say either

You say neither - and you say neither

Either, either, a neither, a neither

Let's call the whole thing off

You like potato - and you like potato

You like tomato - and you like tomato

Potato, potato, tomato, tomato

Let's call the whole thing off

But, oh, if we call the whole thing off

Then we must part

And, oh, if we ever part

Then that might break my heart

So if you like pyjamas - I like pyjamas

I'll wear pyjamas - You've got pyjamas!

For we know we need each other, so we

Better call the whole thing off (the calliing off off)

Let's call the whole thing off

Let's call the whole thing off