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Sociolinguistic stratification in Newfoundland communities has been readily

studied over the last few years. Wade Colbourne and Sandra Clarke conducted two of

these studies. Colbourne thought that St. John’s, Newfoundland would be the ideal place

to interview people to find out whether or not phonological changes increased

considerably over the last 40 years. Clarke’s main focus was the people of Long Island,

Notre Dame Bay, Newfoundland. She was interested in studying the linguistic variables

that were most productive for revealing Long Island’s variabilities.

Clarke’s location of study was a great deal larger than that of Colbourne due to

the fact that St. John’s is the capital city of the province and therefore has a greater

population. St. John’s currently has a population of approximately 162,000 while Long

Island has about 470 people. Therefore Clarke randomly selected 120 subjects for her

study while Colbourne o...