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Beschreibung

The Handbook of Dialectology provides an authoritative, up-to-date and unusually broad account of the study of dialect, in one volume. Each chapter reviews essential research, and offers a critical discussion of the past, present and future development of the area.

  • The volume is based on state-of-the-art research in dialectology around the world, providing the most current work available with an unusually broad scope of topics
  • Provides a practical guide to the many methodological and statistical issues surrounding the collection and analysis of dialect data
  • Offers summaries of dialect variation in the world's most widely spoken and commonly studied languages, including several non-European languages that have traditionally received less attention in general discussions of dialectology
  • Reviews the intellectual development of the field, including its main theoretical schools of thought and research traditions, both academic and applied
  • The editors are well known and highly respected, with a deep knowledge of this vast field of inquiry

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Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

List of Contributors

Introduction

1 The Origins of Dialect Variation and the Status of Dialectology

2 Defining Dialects

3 The Origins and Development of Dialectology

4 The Present and Future State of Dialectology

5 Rationale and Plan of This Book: The Blind Man and the Lame

REFERENCES

Section 1 – Theory

REFERENCES

1 Dialectology, Philology, and Historical Linguistics

1.1 Introduction

1.2 Dialect Awareness and Attitudes

1.3 The Description of Dialects

1.4 The Antiquarian Tradition

1.5 Dialects in the Age of Prescriptivism

1.6 The Denigration of Dialects

1.7 From Philology to Linguistics

1.8 Features of Indo‐European Studies and Comparative Philology

1.9 The Dawn of Modern Dialectology: The Beginnings of a New Discipline

1.10 Dialect Societies and Materials

1.11 Dialect Studies

1.12 Data Collection Methods

1.13 Accessibility of Data

1.14 Dialectology and General Linguistics

1.15 Structuralism and Generativism

1.16 Dialectometry

1.17 The Rise of New Dialects

1.18 Conclusion

REFERENCES

2 The Dialect Dictionary

2.1 Introduction

2.2 The User’s Perspective: Meta‐Lexicographical Considerations (Why, and for Whom)

2.3 Macrostructural Considerations

2.4 Onomasiological or Semasiological Arrangement

2.5 Onomasiological Arrangements

2.6 Semasiological Arrangement

2.7 Microstructural Considerations

2.8 Data Collection by Fieldwork

2.9 Purposive Systematic Fieldwork

2.10 Oral Investigation (Direct Method)

2.11 Investigation by Correspondence (Indirect Method)

2.12 The Questionnaire

2.13 The Structure of the Questionnaire

2.14 Question Types (+ Examples)

2.15 How Much?

2.16 New Technologies and Desiderata for the Future

REFERENCES

3 Linguistic Atlases

3.1 Introduction

3.2 Terminology and Method

3.3 History of Linguistic Atlases

3.4 Data and Maps

3.5 Linguistic Atlases and Linguistic Theory

REFERENCES

4 Structural Dialectology

4.1 Introduction

4.2 Structuralism

4.3 Dialectology as a Non‐Structural Linguistics

4.4 Weinreich’s Watershed Essay

4.5 Describing Dialects Structurally

4.6 From Phones to Phonemes

4.7 Diasystemic Analysis

4.8 Isoglosses and Dialect Boundaries

4.9 The Legacy of Structural Dialectology

REFERENCES

5 Dialectology and Formal Linguistic Theory: The Blind Man and the Lame

5.1 The Dialectological Investigation of Dialect Variation, in Brief

5.2 On the Formal Theoretical Investigation of Dialect Variation

5.3 Why Should They Collaborate?

5.4 How Can They Collaborate?

5.5 How Have They Collaborated so Far? And What Has It Achieved?

5.6 The Roads Ahead

Acknowledgments

REFERENCES

6 Sociodialectology

6.1 What Is Sociodialectology?

6.2 The Crucial Role of Technology

6.3 Variability, Variation

6.4 Linguistic Embedding

6.5 On the “Explanatory Power” of Linguistic Embedding

6.6 Social Embedding: Rural and Urban Realities, Dialect and Standard

6.7 The “Primary Determinants”: Class, Sex, and Age

6.8 Social Networks

6.9 Communities of Practice

6.10 Combining Narrow and Broad Perspectives

6.11 On the “Explanatory Power” of Social Embedding

6.12 Language‐Ideological Embedding

REFERENCES

7 Dialectometry

7.1 Introduction

7.2 Historical Background A: From the

Ancien Régime

up the End of the Nineteenth Century

7.3 Historical Background B: Jules Gilliéron and ALF (

Atlas linguistique de la France

)

7.4 The Practical and Theoretical Importance of ALF

7.5 From ALF to Jean Séguy’s

Dialectométrie

7.6 Regensburg‐Salzburg Dialectometry (RS‐DM): Theoretical Assumptions and Practical Achievements

7.7 Some Methods and Findings of the RS‐DM

7.8 Final Remarks

REFERENCES

8 Dialect Contact and New Dialect Formation

8.1 Introduction

8.2 The Urge to Converge

8.3 Acquiring a Second Dialect

8.4 Old Ingredients, New Dialects

8.5 Leveling

8.6 Simplification

8.7 Interdialect

8.8 Reallocation

8.9 Challenging Change

8.10 Conclusion

REFERENCES

9  Dialect Change in Europe—Leveling and Convergence

9.1 Introduction

9.2 Dialect and Standard

9.3 Convergence, Divergence, Diffusion, and Leveling

9.4 Dialect‐to‐Standard Convergence: Regional Dialects and Regional Standards

9.5 Dialect Loss

9.6 What About the Standard?

9.7 Divergent Changes

REFERENCES

10 Perceptual Dialectology

10.1 Introduction

10.2 PD Boundaries: The Netherlands and Japan

10.3 Degree‐of‐Difference

10.4 Listen for Differences

10.5 Draw‐a‐Map

10.6 PD with an Attitude

10.7 Talk About Language Variety

10.8 The Linguistic Content of PD

10.9 Putting It All Together: PD, Attitude, and the Linguistic Facts

10.10 Conscious and Nonconscious

10.11 Conclusion

REFERENCES

11 Dialect Intelligibility

11.1 Introduction

11.2 Definition of “Dialect” and “Language”

11.3 Intelligibility as a Measure of Distance

11.4 The Role of Linguistic and Extra‐Linguistic Factors for Intelligibility

11.5 Desiderata for Future Research

REFERENCES

12 Applied Dialectology: Dialect Coaching, Dialect Reduction, and Forensic Phonetics

12.1 Introduction

12.2 Dialect Coaching

12.3 Dialect Reduction

12.4 Forensic Phonetics

12.5 Conclusions

REFERENCES

Section 2 – Methods

Methods

Data Collection

Linguistic and Geographical Methods

Statistics for Variationist Studies

Future Challenges

REFERENCES

13 Dialect Sampling Methods

13.1 Sampling

13.2 Dialect Surveys

13.3 Postal Questionnaires

13.4 Internet Surveys

13.5 Conclusion

REFERENCES

14 The Dialect Questionnaire

14.1 Introduction

14.2 Historical Approaches and Their Limitations

14.3 Contemporary Approaches

14.4 Conclusion

REFERENCES

15 Written Dialect Surveys

15.1 Georg Wenker and the Tradition of Written Questionnaires

15.2 Testing Gilliéron’s Bias

15.3 Practical Advantages of Written Dialect Surveys

15.4 Asking the Right Questions

15.5 Looking Ahead

REFERENCES

16 Field Interviews in Dialectology

16.1 Introduction

16.2 Some Issues That Guide Approaches to Fieldwork

16.3 The Conduct of Field Interviews

16.4 The Atlas of North American English

16.5 Conclusion

REFERENCES

17 Corpus‐Based Approaches to Dialect Study

17.1 Introduction

17.2 Examples of Dialect Corpora

17.3 Research Questions

17.4 Methods

17.5 Issues and Problems

17.6 Future Directions

REFERENCES

18 Acoustic Phonetic Dialectology

18.1 Acoustics and Regional Dialects

18.2 Vocalic Studies

18.3 Consonantal Studies

18.4 Prosodic Studies

18.5 Outlook

REFERENCES

19 Computational Dialectology

19.1 Introduction

19.2 Categorical Comparisons

19.3 Frequency‐Based Methods

19.4 String Edit Distance

19.5 Consistency and Validity

19.6 Available Tools

19.7 Future Challenges

REFERENCES

20 Dialect Maps

20.1 Introduction

20.2 Mapping Techniques

20.3 Purposes of Dialect Maps

20.4 Future Perspectives, Challenges, and Risks

REFERENCES

21 Identifying Regional Dialects in On‐Line Social Media

21.1 Dialect in Social Media

21.2 Dataset

21.3 Known Lexical Variables

21.4 Discovering Lexical Variables

21.5 Discovering Dialect Regions

21.6 Change Over Time and Other Next Steps

Acknowledgments

22 Logistic Regression Analysis of Linguistic Data

22.1 Introduction

22.2 Category Data

22.3 Example Data

22.4 Model Fundamentals

22.5 Example Regression Analysis

22.6 Summary

REFERENCES

23 Statistics for Aggregate Variationist Analyses

23.1 Aggregation and Perspectives from the Aggregate

23.2 Clustering

23.3 Dimension Reduction

23.4 Regression Models

23.5 Conclusions and Prospects

REFERENCES

24 Spatial Statistics for Dialectology

24.1 Introduction

24.2 Data

24.3 Spatial Autocorrelation Analysis

24.4 Variogram Analysis

24.5 Spatial Interpolation

24.6 Conclusion

References

Section 3 – Data

25 Dialects of British and Southern Hemisphere English

25.1 Introduction

25.2 The Study of Dialects in Britain and the Southern Hemisphere

25.3 The Principal Linguistic Features of British and Southern Hemisphere Dialects

REFERENCES

26 Dialects of North American English

26.1 Introduction

26.2 The Study of North American English Dialects

26.3 Major North American English Dialects and Their Principal Features

REFERENCES

27 Dialects of German, Dutch, and the Scandinavian Languages

27.1 Basic Facts

27.2 Main Data Collections and Sources

27.3 Major Regional Dialect Divisions

27.4 Research Topics

27.5 Future Research

REFERENCES

ONLINE RESOURCES

28 Dialects of French

28.1 Basic Facts

28.2 Major Regional Dialect Divisions and Linguistic Variables

28.3 Dialects of French: Main Studies and Sources

28.4 Themes of Past and Current Research

28.5 Future Research

REFERENCES

29 Dialects of Italy

29.1 Historical and Sociolinguistic Background

29.2 Sources

29.3 Classification

REFERENCES

30 Dialects of Spanish and Portuguese

30.1 Basic Facts

30.2 Spanish: Main Sources

30.3 Portuguese: Main Sources

30.4 Spanish Dialect Zones and Characteristics

30.5 Portuguese Dialect Zones and Characteristics

30.6 Current Research Trends

30.7 Future Research

REFERENCES

31 Dialects of the Slavic Languages

31.1 Introduction

31.2 East Slavic

31.3 West Slavic

31.4 South Slavic

31.5 Future Tasks

REFERENCES

32 Dialects of Arabic

32.1 Introduction

32.2 Varieties of Arabic in Contemporary Times

32.3 Arabic Dialect Geography

Additional Resources

REFERENCES

33 Dialects in the Indo‐Aryan Landscape

33.1 Introduction

33.2 The Historical Record of Dialect Variation

33.3 Studies and Sources

33.4 Language and Dialect in the Indo‐Aryan Context

33.5 The Hindi Belt: Dialect Differences and Emergence of the Standard

REFERENCES

34 Dialects of Chinese

34.1 General Introduction

34.2 The Development of Chinese Dialect Research

34.3 The Classification of Chinese Dialects

34.4 Sources of Data on Chinese Dialects and Their Methods

34.5 Remaining Questions and Future Work

34.6 Discussion and Conclusions

REFERENCES

35 Dialects of Japanese

35.1 Introduction

35.2 The Main Studies and Sources

35.3 Divisions and Features of Japanese Dialects

35.4 Current Research

35.5 Japanese Dialectology in the Future

REFERENCES

36 Dialects of Malay/Indonesian

36.1 Malayic Languages and Dialects: Basic Facts

36.2 Main Studies and Sources

36.3 Past and Current Research Questions in the Study of Malay and Indonesian

REFERENCES

Index

End User License Agreement

List of Tables

Chapter 03

Table 3.1 Partial LAMSAS speaker database.

Table 3.2 Partial database of dragonfly responses for LAMSAS speakers.

Chapter 05

Table 5.1 Findings: loss of DFD, territorial gain for WftD.

Chapter 07

Table 7.1 Meanings of the symbols used in the formula at (1).

Chapter 10

Table 10.1 Ratings for speech in the North (area 2 in Figure 10.9) and South (area 1 in Figure 10.9) for 12 attributes (* indicates the only two adjacent scores that are significantly different, and ‡ indicates negative ratings; Preston 1999c, 366).

Table 10.2 Mean scores based on regional values assigned each step of the increasingly monophthongized versions of /ay/ (Plichta and Preston 2005, 121).

Table 10.3 Formant values of tokens offered to respondents to match with the vowel in the speaker’s pronunciation of

last

(Niedzielski 1999, 74).

Table 10.4 Respondent matching results for the vowel in

last

(adapted from Niedzielski 1999, 72).

Chapter 14

Table 14.1 Examples of the different question types used in the Survey of English Dialects questionnaire (Orton 1962).

Table 14.2 Example questions from the Identity Questionnaire used in the

Accent and Identity on the Scottish/English Border

project (Watt

et al

., 2014a, 2014b).

Table 14.3 Example prompts from Cheshire

et al

. (1989)

Survey of British Dialect Grammar

.

Chapter 15

Table 15.1 Responses to four questions in Field interviews and Postal questionnaires in the

Linguistic Atlas of the Upper Midwest

(Allen 1973–1976; selected from Chambers 1998, 233, Table 3). Percentages exceed 100 because multiple answers were counted equally.

Table 15.2 Comparison of coverage and duration of the Field Survey and the Postal Survey for the

Linguistic Atlas of the Upper Midwest

(Allen 1973–1976, from Chambers 1998, 229, Table 1).

Chapter 16

Table 16.1 Correlation of

might could

in LAGS with Different Elicitation Strategies.

Table 16.2 Comparisons of Self Reports on the Use of Linguistic Features with Their Actual Use in 28 Interviews in the SOD Field Survey.

Chapter 19

Table 19.1 Correlations of linguistic measures with Norwegian perceptual distances. The Levenshtein variants given here generate absolute distances with forced alignment (see Section 19.4.2).

Chapter 22

Table 22.1 Three types of contrasts for a four‐level variable,

City

.

Table 22.2 Contingency table for

was/were

variation by individual speaker (single character labels), affirmative/negative, standard

was/were

contexts, gender, age, and speaker.

Table 22.3 Chi‐squared test for the model of independence for gender and

was/were

use, carried out separately for first‐ and third‐person singular versus second‐person or plural grammatical contexts.

Table 22.4 Logistic regression model of York English

was/were

variation, with reference‐cell parameterization.

Table 22.5 Logistic regression model of York

was/were

variation, with sum contrast parameterization.

Table 22.6 Likelihood ratio tests for parameter groups in Logistic regression model of York

was/were

variation.

Table 22.7 Speaker contrasts incorporating gender and age contrasts.

Table 22.8 Parameter values for the model York

was/were

variation in (22.5).

Table 22.9 Analysis of the deviances in the model of (22.5) and Table 22.8.

Chapter 23

Table 23.1 An example table of aggregate differences between Dutch sites. The cells in the diagonal are empty, with the implicit value zero since there are no differences between a site and itself. The cells below and to the left of the diagonal are blank, because these would be the same as those above and to the right, since the differences between sites

a

and

b

are the same as those between

b

and

a

. This also means that the row for the last site in the table can be empty. We omit this row as the example is developed further.

Table 23.2 The (partial) table after fusing Haarlem and Delft but before determining the differences between the recently fused element and the other elements. The missing values are signaled by question marks, and the following value is the mean of the distances from two components of the fusion to the other site. From Heeringa (2004: 147).

Chapter 24

Table 24.1 Join count results.

Table 24.2 Global Moran’s

I

results.

Chapter 26

Table 26.1 Broad transcription of English vowel phonemes, with keywords from Wells (1982). Keywords for /iw/ do not appear in Wells, who includes /iw/ in the

GOOSE

set.

Chapter 27

Table 27.1 Examples of the Second German Consonant Shift in High or Standard German forms, compared to unshifted sounds in Low German and other Germanic languages.

Chapter 34

Table 34.1 Chinese dialect classification based on geographical distribution. Numbers in the top row are column labels to aid in comparison of the different schemes. (Refer to Yan 2006: 8–9; Cf. Wang L. 1981: 487; Wang S‐Y 1996: 249; He 1995: 414–415.)

List of Illustrations

Chapter 02

Figure 2.1 Headword

baeye, beye

“berry” (Kiliaan 1599).

Figure 2.2 Onomasiological classification.

Figure 2.3 Example page from the onomasiological dictionary article SIJSJE “siskin” (old material, i.e., collected before 1950) in WVD III,1: 100.

Chapter 03

Figure 3.1 LAMSAS responses for the

thunderstorm

item. Word frequency (counts) is shown on the y axis, whereas the x axis represents the number of individual word forms (N = 109).

Figure 3.2 Partial map of

bureau

,

dresser

,

chiffonier

(and others) from the Linguistic Atlas of New England (Kurath 1939–1943).

Figure 3.3 Gilliéron’s (1918) map of “bee” variants in France and neighboring countries.

Figure 3.4 Map of

snake doctor

responses from LAMSAS, LAP website.

Chapter 05

Figure 5.1 Constraint ranking on a continuous scale with stochastic evaluation

Chapter 06

Figure 6.1 Distribution of

du

and

man

across “conditional construction” and “other contexts.”

Figure 6.2 Results from the LANCHART Jutland studies. Percentages of the perfect participle morpheme

‐et

pronounced with an “eastern” approximant [ð] or a “western” stop [d] by social groups distinguished in terms of

age/time

(upper), and

class/sex

(lower). The total number of tokens is 3,328, produced by 104 informants.

Chapter 07

Figure 7.1 Flow chart of the methods used by the Regensburg‐Salzburg‐dialectometry.

Figure 7.2 Histogram of the total ALF‐corpus, showing the granulation and frequency of 1681 working maps (WMs) belonging to all linguistic categories. For better understanding: the granulation of the WMs starts with 2 taxates/WM (valid for 245 WMs) and ends with 90 taxates/WM (valid for 1 WM).

Plate 1 Sample of a

phonetic

working map: spatial distribution of the Gallo‐Romance results of final ‐A in the Latin etymon ÁLA (< Fr.

aile

) “wing“ (following ALF 204 aile). Cartographic status:

qualitative

choropleth map. See Section 7.7.1, pp. 129–131.

Figure 7.3 Data matrix and similarity matrix. Scheme of calculation of the interdialectal similarities via RIV

jk

(Relative Identity Value).

Plate 2 Sample of a similarity map: spatial distribution of the similarity values referring to ALF‐point 307 (Saint‐Ay, Département Loiret). Similarity index: RIV

307,k

: corpus: 1681 working maps, all linguistic categories; algorithm of visualisation: MINMWMAX 6‐tuple. Cartographic status:

quantitative

choropleth map. See Section 7.7.4, pp. 133–139.

Plate 3 Sample of a parameter map: synopsis of 641 skewness values (according to the asymmetry index of R. A. Fisher). Similarity index: RIV

jk

: corpus: 1681 working maps, all linguistic categories; algorithm of visualisation: MEDMW 8‐tuple. Cartographic status:

quantitative

choropleth map. See Section 7.7.4, pp. 133–139.

Plate 4 Sample of a interpoint map (honeycomb mode): synopsis of 1791 distance values (according to RDV

jk

). Distance index: RDV

jk

: corpus: 1681 working maps, all linguistic categories; algorithm of visualisation: MEDMW 10‐tuple. Cartographic status:

quantitative

isarithmic (or: isopleth) map. See Section 7.7.4, pp. 133–139.

Chapter 08

Figure 8.1 A travel agent’s linguistic accommodation to her customers: the use of flapped /t/ in Cardiff (Coupland 1984, 63).

Figure 8.2 [eɪ] variants of /ei/ among different friendship subclusters within an East End London youth club Each speaker is represented by a circle; circled groups of speakers represent small friendship groups; the lines between the friendship groups show intergroup connections.

Chapter 09

Figure 9.1 Design of the southwest German dialect study (NORM = non‐mobile older rural male; NORF = non‐mobile older rural female).

Figure 9.2 Reflexes of MHG /ei/ in the word

heim

‘home’ in the traditional dialects of southwest Germany, according to the

Deutscher Sprachatlas

(DSA) (black isoglosses) and the

Südwestdeutsche Sprachatlas

(SSA) (gray isoglosses and shaded areas). The symbols represent additional SSA questionnaire results in individual locations outside the main areas.

Figure 9.3 Reflexes of MHG /ei/ in the word

heim

‘home’ in southwest German Alemannic in spontaneous speech (based on 1,356 tokens from 248 locations). For comparison, the map shows the old SSA isoglosses as well (gray isoglosses and shaded areas). The sizes of the symbols represent the number of tokens in each location

Figure 9.4 Realization of MHG /uo/ in std.G.

Bruder

“brother” in the traditional dialects (elicited data):

Deutsche Sprachatlas (DSA)

(solid black line, black dashed line), Fischer’s

Schwäbischer Dialektatlas

(1895) (black dashed line), and

Südwestdeutscher Sprachatlas

(SSA) (gray solid line, gray dashed line; adapted from Schwarz, 2015).

Figure 9.5 Realization of MHG /uo/ in std.G.

Bruder

“brother” in the traditional dialects (spontaneous data: 291 tokens from 112 locations). For comparison, the isoglosses given in the

Südwestdeutscher Sprachatlas

(elicited data) are added in gray

Figure 9.6 Pronunciation of the past participle (standard Danish) suffix

‐et

in different Jutland dialect areas (Rasmussen

et al

. 2000 ; Map K 6.1, adapted from Jensen and Maegaard 2012, 172). Copyright Jysk Ordbog, reprinted with permission.

Chapter 10

Figure 10.1 The westernmost section of the North Brabant, showing dialectologists’ boundaries (thick lines) and the “little arrows” of respondent similarity perceptions

Figure 10.2 The determination of two perceptual dialectology areas in Itoigawa, Japan (Sibata 1959 [1999, 42]).

Figure 10.3 Mase’s perceptual dialect areas for a section of Alpine Japan (Mase 1964a [1999, 80]).

Figure 10.4 Southeastern Michigan (marked by an asterisk) respondents’ rating of degree‐of‐difference for the 50 US states (Preston 1996, 318).

Figure 10.5 A multidimensional scaling of Madrid respondents’ evaluations of degree‐of‐ difference for 17 areas of Spain (1 = Galicia, 2 = Asturias, 3 = Cantabria, 4 = Basque Country, 5 = Navarra, 6 = Aragon, 7 = Catalonia, 8 = Castile‐Leon, 9 = Rioja, 10 = Extremadura, 11 = Madrid, 12 = Castile‐La Mancha, 13 = Valencia, 14 = Balearic Islands, 15 = Andalusia, 16 = Murcia, 17 = Canary Islands) (Moreno and Moreno 2002, 304).

Figure 10.6 Cluster analysis (at .25) of Georgia respondents’ completion of a similarity pile‐sort task

Figure 10.7 The nine home sites of the male voices (Preston 1996, 322).

Figure 10.8 Cluster analysis of southern Michigan placement of nine voices on the map in Figure 10.7.

Figure 10.9 A hand‐drawn map of US dialect areas by a southeastern Michigan European‐American female, aged 18 in 1984.

Figure 10.10 Computer‐generalized regions from 147 southeastern Michigan hand‐drawn maps of US dialect areas (Preston 1996, 305).

Figure 10.11 A generalized perceptual map of English and Scottish dialects from the point of view of two north of England sites: Brampton and Hexham (Montgomery and Stoeckle 2013, Map 25).

Figure 10.12 A generalized perceptual map of Schopfheim respondent identification of the local dialect area compared to Catholic and Protestant areas in the same region (F = France, D = Germany, CH = Switzerland). Schopfheim is marked with a white arrow (Montgomery and Stoeckle 2013, Map 16).

Figure 10.13 Areas of Texas identified as having a “drawl” (Cukor‐Avila, forthcoming).

Figure 10.14 Areas of Texas identified as having a “twang” (Cukor‐Avila, forthcoming).

Figure 10.15 Southeastern Michigan ratings of the 50 US states, New York City, and Washington DC on a scale of 1 (least) to 10 (most) for language “correctness” (Preston 1996, 312).

Figure 10.16 Southeastern Michigan ratings of the 50 US states, New York City, and Washington DC on scale of 1 (least) to 10 (most) for language “pleasantness” (Preston 1996, 316).

Figure 10.17 Local and non‐local respondent groups’ correct understandings of the item

socks

as an isolated word, in a phrase, and in a sentence (Labov 2001, 69).

Figure 10.18 Change over time in girls’ and boys’ production and perception of the merger of the

THOUGHT

/

LOT

vowels (Herold 1990).

Figure 10.19 Assignment of seven‐step monophthongized male and female samples of

guide

to the nine sites in Figure 10.6 (Plichta and Preston 2005, 121).

Chapter 14

Figure 14.1 Example of map task materials as used in the

Intonational Variation in English

project (Grabe

et al

., 2001). The map on the right is used by the direction giver, the map on the left is used by the direction receiver.

Figure 14.2 Completed Sense Relation Network sheet (one of three) as used by a female speaker of Middlesbrough English (Llamas 1999, 114).

Chapter 16

Figure 16.1 Comparison of Self Reports on Six Features in the SOD Field Survey and Among Native Respondents in Communities under 25,000 in the SOD Telephone Survey

Figure 16.2 Sample Questions from the Protocol of the Field Survey Portion of SOD.

Figure 16.3

Chapter 17

Figure 17.1 Box plot depicting frequency variance of non‐standard

was

by dialect region in FRED (Szmrecsanyi 2010, 48).

Chapter 18

Figure 18.1 Spectrogram of a vowel with a superimposed formant track, showing possible measurement points for a token of the word

life

. Dashed vertical lines represent the onset and offset of the diphthong. Solid vertical lines represent timepoints 25%, 50%, and 75% of the distance between onset and offset.

Figure 18.2 F

1

/F

2

plots of mean values of the vowels of two DARE speakers, one from northern Ohio (left) and one from central Ohio (right). The relative position of the

GOOSE

,

GOAT

, and various other vowels differs. Arrows indicate the gliding of dynamic vowels. Lower‐case letters represent classes with only a single token.

Figure 18.3 Mean normalized F

2

values of the

GOAT

vowel nucleus from two surveys, DARE and a sample of speakers born 1970 or later, from eastern Ohio. DARE speakers are underlined. Squares represent the most backed values, circles the most fronted, and triangles intermediate values. Younger speakers are more fronted than the DARE speakers. Circles (fronted forms) are found mostly south of the horizontal line, whereas younger speakers with backed forms (squares) are found only north of the horizontal line.

Figure 18.4 Landmarks used for the measurement of peak delay, that is, the position of the peak value of a pitch accent relative to its host syllable. The pitch track, set from 50 to 350 Hz, is superimposed on a wideband spectrogram set from 0 to 5000 Hz. The first pitch accent is hosted by the syllable

I

. The onset and offset of the

I

syllable are marked, as well as the peak of the pitch contour. The onset is at 0.082 second into the sound file, the offset at 0.271 second. The peak is 0.189 second after the onset, that is, 0.790 of the distance from onset to offset.

Chapter 19

Figure 19.1 Relative feature frequencies measured for 21 features by Hoppenbrouwers and Hoppenbrouwers (2001). Gray bars represent frequencies for the northern Dutch dialect of Wagenborgen, and black bars represent frequencies for the southern Dutch dialect of Kerkrade. Frequencies are divided by the total number of segments in a dialect text. The correlation between the frequencies of the two dialect locations is

r

 = 0.95. Picture after Hoppenbrouwers and Hoppenbrouwers (2001, 9–10).

Figure 19.2 The number of operations in a multidimensional Levensthein distance increases exponentially with the number of dimensions (2

n

– 1), that is, the number of strings that is simultaneously considered by the algorithm. Picture taken from Heeringa and Hinskens (2015).

Chapter 20

Figure 20.1 Isogloss map (variants for “hungry” in the dialects of England, AED, map 53).

Figure 20.2 Point‐symbol map (lexemes for “billy goat” in the dialects of the Carpathian Mountains, OKDA, vol. 5, map 73).

Figure 20.3 Point diagram map (several vowel features for the historically [1914] Armenian‐speaking territories in the Middle East, Sargsyan 2008, map 10 [detail]).

Figure 20.4 Point‐text map (variants for “oil lamp” in the Southern Italian dialects, AIS, vol. 5, map 915 [detail]). The numbers (e.g., “791” etc.) refer to collection sites.

Figure 20.5 Directed line map (movements of the variants of the intervocalic consonant cluster

‐hs/ss/ks‐

in Germany, Schirmunski 1956, map 15).

Figure 20.6 Qualitative area map/chorochromatic map (multilingualism in the Aosta Valley, Dell’Aquila 2010, map 2304 [redrawn in grayscale]).

Figure 20.7 Surface map/shaded isarithms (spelling variants

o

[along the north‐western coastline including Middelburg, Rotterdam, The Hague, brown in the original color version of the map] and

a

[in the triangle roughly between Arnhem, Brussels, and Maastricht, green in the original] in

af

“off” in fourteenth‐century Middle Dutch charters (Wattel and van Reenen 2010, map 2502 [redrawn in grayscale]).

Figure 20.8 Point‐symbol map with isogloss (

pail

[open circles] versus

bucket

[dots] in Pennsylvania (Carver 1987, p. 11 [detail; numbers not in the original]).

Chapter 21

Figure 21.1 An example broadcast message followed by a conversational reply, which is addressed to the original author by beginning the message with his username.

Figure 21.2 Geolocations for messages containing four lexical variables known from previous work on spoken American English. In every case but

yinz

, 1000 randomly selected examples are plotted; for

yinz

, only 535 examples are observed, so all are plotted.

Figure 21.3 Four examples of lexical variables discovered from social media analysis.

Figure 21.4 Cumulative proportion of counts across top metropolitan areas. The plot for a word will be flat to the extent that its usage is dominated by a single city, and will track the “all” line to the extent that its usage is independent of geography.

Figure 21.5 Geolocations for messages containing the words

af

(

as fuck

),

ard

(

alright

),

ion

(

i don’t

),

lbvs

(

laughing but very serious

),

ctfu

(

cracking the fuck up

), and the emoticon

‐_‐

(ambivalence or annoyance).

Chapter 22

Figure 22.1 QQ‐normal plot of model residuals.

Figure 22.2 Plot of residuals versus fitted values for the model, separated by affirmative and negative polarity contexts; lines connect points belonging to the same individual.

Figure 22.3 Model diagnostics for the model in (22.5) fit to data from the affirmative polarity contexts of Table 22.2.

Chapter 23

Figure 23.1 A dendrogram displaying the results of UPGMA clustering on the distance matrix in Table 23.1. From Heeringa (2004: 147). The horizontal distance from the leaves on the left to a branching point shows the cophenetic distance.

Figure 23.2 Left: a map of the Netherlands showing the largest four clusters obtained using Ward's method. We shall discuss the Frisian area in the Northwest, the Lower Saxon area in the Northeast, the West Flemish (including Zealand) area in the Southwest, and the large Franconian area in the middle. On the right, a projection of the same data into two dimensions using MDS (

r

 = 0.76). The MDS graph shows that there is an “archipelago” of Frisian sites (boxes) that are quite similar to Lower Saxon, and that Lower Saxon is otherwise fairly distinct, whereas the West Flemish and Franconian sites are less well distinguished. The MDS perspective adds to the clustering. From Gabmap, www.gabmap.nl.

Figure 23.3 Contour plot obtained with a generalized additive model. The contour plot shows a regression surface of pronunciation distance (from standard Dutch) as a function of longitude and latitude obtained with a generalized additive model using a thin plate regression spline. The (black) contour lines represent aggregate distance isoglosses, darker shades of gray indicate smaller distances closer to the standard Dutch language, lighter shades of gray represent greater distances. Note that the empty square indicates the location of the IJsselmeer, a large lake in the Netherlands. Reprinted (including caption) from Wieling (2012) with permission.

Chapter 24

Figure 24.1

Not

contraction raw map.

Figure 24.2

Everyone/Everybody

alternation raw map.

Figure 24.3

Not

contraction Getis‐Ord

G

i

* map (600 km maximum distance).

Figure 24.4

Everyone/Everybody

Getis‐Ord

G

i

* map (600 km maximum distance).

Figure 24.5

Not

contraction Getis‐Ord

G

i

map (inverse distance).

Figure 24.6

Everyone/Everybody

Getis‐Ord

G

i

map (inverse distance).

Figure 24.7

Not

contraction local Moran’s

I

map (600 km maximum distance).

Figure 24.8

Not

contraction Getis‐Ord

G

i

*

variogram.

Figure 24.9

Not

contraction inverse distance weighted interpolation.

Figure 24.10

Not

contraction ordinary kriging.

Chapter 25

Figure 25.1 Trudgill’s dialect boundaries of England. Letters A to I identify localities and boundaries mentioned in the main text.

Chapter 26

Figure 26.1 Major dialects of North American English.

Chapter 27

Map 27.1 Traditional dialects of German around 1900.

Chapter 28

Figure 28.1 The indigenous non‐French varieties of France.

Chapter 29

Figure 29.1 Percentage of Italian, dialect, diglot, and other languages speakers in Tuscany, Veneto, Apulia, and around the province of Bolzano in 2000 and 2006 (cf. ISTAT).

Figure 29.2 Survey locations where informants invert the subject‐verb order of

Questa donna non mi piace

(

AIS

1678). In gray, we indicate the “standard” word order; in italics, the added elements, whose basic forms appear as column headings in the top row.

Figure 29.3 The dialect groupings in Italy

Chapter 31

Figure 31.1 Map of Russian dialect regions discussed in the text.Legend: darker lines indicate borders between major regions, labeled with Roman numerals; lighter lines indicate borders between sub‐regional dialects areas, labeled with Arabic numerals. I North Russian: 1. Ladoga‐Tikhvin; 2. Vologda; 3. Kostroma; 4. Interzonal. II South Russian: 5. Western; 6. Upper Dnepr; 7. Upper Desna; 8. Kursk‐Orjol; 9. Rjazan; 10a Western interzonal; 10b Eastern interzonal. III Central Russian: 11. Gdov; 12. Novgorod; 13. Pskov; 14. Vladimir‐Volga. Gray area: Western dialect zone.

Chapter 32

Figure 32.1 Map showing the Arabic‐speaking regions and the status of Arabic in the various countries

Chapter 33

Figure 33.1 The distribution of the Indo‐Aryan languages.

Chapter 34

Figure 34.1 Family tree diagram showing the branching of Chinese dialect groups from Han Chinese, their common ancestral “parent.”

Figure 34.2 Map of Chinese and Non‐Chinese languages, with locations of major regional varieties of Chinese

Chapter 35

Figure 35.1 Dialect regions of Japan.

Chapter 36

Figure 36.1 Location of Malay and Malayic varieties referred to in this section.

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The Handbook of Dialectology

 

 

Edited by

Charles Boberg, John Nerbonne, and Dominic Watt

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Names: Boberg, Charles, editor. | Nerbonne, John A., 1951– editor. | Watt, Dominic James Landon, editor.Title: The handbook of Dialectology / edited by Charles Boberg, John Nerbonne, Dominic Watt.Description: First edition. | Hoboken, NJ : John Wiley & Sons, Inc., [2017] | Series: Blackwell Handbooks in linguistics | Includes index.Identifiers: LCCN 2017017090 (print) | LCCN 2017029760 (ebook) | ISBN 9781118827598 (pdf) | ISBN 9781118827581 (epub) | ISBN 9781118827550 (cloth) | ISBN 9781119068419 (pbk.)Subjects: LCSH: Dialectology–Handbooks, manuals, etc. | Language and languages–Variation–Handbooks, manuals, etc.Classification: LCC P367 (ebook) | LCC P367 .H46 2017 (print) | DDC 417/.2–dc23LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017017090

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List of Contributors

Alexander AdelaarThe University of Melbourne, Australia

Ronelle AlexanderUniversity of California, Berkeley, CA, USA

Enam Al‐WerUniversity of Essex, Colchester, UK

Lieselotte AnderwaldUniversity of Kiel, Germany

Peter AuerDepartment of German Linguistics, University of Freiburg, Germany

Guy BaileyUniversity of Texas Rio Grande Valley, Texas, USA

Charles BobergMcGill University, Montreal, Canada

David BritainDepartment of English, University of Bern, Switzerland

J.K. ChambersUniversity of Toronto, Canada

Ashwini DeoThe Ohio State University, USA

Jacob EisensteinGeorgia Institute of Technology, USA

Hans GoeblDepartment of Romance Studies, University of Salzburg, Austria

Charlotte GooskensCenter for Language and Cognition, University of Groningen, Netherlands

Matthew J. GordonDepartment of English, University of Missouri, Columbia, Missouri, USA

Jack GrieveAston University, UK

Damien HallNewcastle University, Newcastle, UK

Wilbert HeeringaFryske Akademy, Netherlands

Raymond HickeyInstitute for Anglophone Studies, University of Duisburg and Essen, Germany

Frans HinskensMeertens Instituut (KNAW) & Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Netherlands

Rudolf de JongUniversity of Leiden, Netherlands‐Flemish Institute in Cairo

Jacques Van KeymeulenDepartment of Linguistics – Dutch, Ghent University, Belgium

William A. Kretzschmar, Jr.Department of English, University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia, USA

Tore KristiansenNordic Research Institute, University of Copenhagen, Denmark

Sebastian KürschnerCatholic University of Eichstätt‐Ingolstadt, Germany

John M. LipskiPennsylvania State University, State College, PA, USA

Carmen LlamasUniversity of York, UK

Ronald MacaulayPitzer College, USA

John NerbonneUniversity of Groningen, Netherlands & University of Freiburg, Germany

Takuichiro OnishiNational Institute for Japanese Language and Linguistics, Tokyo, Japan

John C. PaolilloIndiana University Bloomington, USA

Dennis R. PrestonDepartment of English, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, Oklahoma, USA

Jelena ProkićUniversity of Marburg, Germany

Stefan RabanusUniversity of Verona, Italy

Benedikt SzmrecsanyiUniversity of Leuven, Belgium

Chaoju TangUniversity of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, Sichuan, P.R.China

Tullio TelmonUniversità degli Studi di Torino, Torino, Italy

Erik R. ThomasNorth Carolina State University, USA

Kevin WatsonUniversity of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand

Dominic WattDepartment of Language and Linguistic Science, University of York, UK

Martijn WielingUniversity of Groningen, Netherlands

Vladimir ZhobovSofia University, Sofia, Bulgaria

Introduction

CHARLES BOBERG, JOHN NERBONNE, AND DOMINIC WATT

DIALECTOLOGY is the study of dialect, or regional variation in language, a subfield of linguistics. This handbook presents a comprehensive survey of that subfield, including the theory of dialect variation; the methods of collecting, analyzing, and interpreting dialect data; and the facts of dialect variation in many of the world’s most widely spoken languages. Before proceeding with our survey, we offer by way of introduction the following reflections on some of the most basic issues in the field, as well as an explanation of the approach we have taken in planning this book and an outline of what is to follow.

1 The Origins of Dialect Variation and the Status of Dialectology

Dialect differences are caused by two forces operating in tandem: language change and the expansion of speech communities. Language change is of course a constant, on‐going process in all speech communities: one of the axioms of historical linguistics is that all languages change all the time. As long as communities remain small, language changes are adopted or rejected by the community as a whole, or show only social differentiation. When a speech community expands sufficiently across a territory, however, the network of interpersonal communication that diffuses changes among its members is disrupted: sheer distance, or physical barriers like mountains and bodies of water—and sometimes also cultural, economic, or social divisions—make it impossible for change to diffuse evenly across the entire community. Eventually, an accumulation of undiffused or partially diffused changes causes community members in one region to recognize that people in other regions speak a different version of their language: what we would call a dialect.

Given enough time, this process of differentiation can cause dialects to diverge to the point where they are no longer wholly mutually intelligible, in which case we begin calling them separate but historically related languages. Such divergence lies at the heart of how historical linguists conceive of the development of families of related languages, like the Indo‐European languages spoken across most of Europe and the Americas today, which hypothetically began their individual existence as dialects of a common ancestral language. In other cases, dialect differences can persist in a stable relationship for centuries, without leading to language divergence, or can decline and disappear, as the communication barriers that produced them are overcome by social or technological change. All normal languages, except those spoken in single, restricted locations, display regional variation and have always done so: accounts of dialect differences are as old as written language itself, appearing two millennia ago in Ancient Greece and China. Given its universality, dialect variation should be seen as a fundamental aspect of human language and dialectology an important branch of linguistics, the scientific study of language. A linguistics that did not include dialectology would be incomplete.

Languages vary in many ways: across time and space, as just discussed, as well as across social categories. Today, dialectology is often seen as part of a larger sub‐discipline of linguistics dealing with all of these types of variation, collectively called language variation and change (see, e.g., Chambers and Schilling 2013, another handbook in this series). This integrative approach reflects the many ways in which these types of variation have been shown to interact, first brought into clear focus in the work of William Labov (see below). Much of the variation we observe in speech communities is in fact the synchronic manifestation of diachronic processes, or changes in progress: newer forms, before being uniformly adopted, compete for dominance with older forms, in patterns that reflect an intersection of regional and social influences. Nevertheless, as difficult as it can be to isolate regional from other types of variation, the primary focus of this book will be on regional variation.

2 Defining Dialects

We shall begin our discussion of regional variation with just this problem, by exploring the meaning of the word dialect, which cannot be properly understood without reference to social variation as well. As linguistic variation arises in speech communities, it usually reflects social differences: different ways of speaking, like different ways of dressing or eating or having fun, come to be associated with groups arrayed on a socio‐economic hierarchy involving wealth, power, education, ethnic or social identity, and other factors. Varieties of speech associated primarily with social groups are properly called sociolects rather than dialects and are the main focus of the allied subfield of sociolinguistics, but this type of variation also has an important place in dialectology, since regional varieties of a language—the definition of dialects given above—often develop social attributes. In particular, one variety, usually that spoken by the social, economic, and political élite in a nation’s capital city or other great metropolis, normally comes to be seen as the “correct” form of the language. In many cases, this evaluation is shared not only by its own speakers, who use it as a symbol and even a justification of their higher social position, but also by others in the community, who accept that their own speech is by comparison inferior, or “incorrect.” Because of its perceived social superiority, the élite variety is promoted to the status of a regional or national “standard” variety, which is preferred or even required in domains like broadcasting, education, government, journalism, the law, literature, liturgy, and science. It often serves these functions not only in its city or region of origin but across the entire linguistic territory, at higher social levels. This establishes a nationwide diglossia between the pan‐regional “standard” variety, which comes to be seen not as just another dialect but as the unmarked form of the language itself (for instance, the form taught to foreigners who want to learn the language), and the regionally restricted and socially inferior “dialects,” which continue to be the language of everyday life for peasants or farmers in the countryside and for factory workers and trades people in the towns and cities. Rural and urban dialects often receive distinct social evaluations. Rural dialects are frequently seen as quaint and musical, if also unsophisticated and somewhat comic, and are associated with idyllic notions of traditional country life. Urban dialects are more often seen as lazy, ignorant, and linguistically and morally degenerate, since they are associated (at least in many middle‐class minds) with the social problems of the lower‐class sections of large cities.

An amusing instantiation of this ideology can be seen in the animated adaptation of Kenneth Grahame’s children’s story The Wind in the Willows that was made in the 1980s for Thames Television in the U.K. Though all of the characters are animated figures of animals, the heroes of the story, Rat, Mole, and Badger, speak with subtly different versions of standard British English, or “Received Pronunciation”; the sympathetic minor characters, like a plainspoken otter and a benign cow, have rural, West Country dialects, but the local gang of criminals, the weasels, are given working‐class dialects from London (“Cockney”) and the urban industrial North. That said, the great fool of the piece, Mr. Toad, the lord of the local manor and a sort of upper‐class twit, has the poshest accent of all, reminding us that the correspondence between high‐class speech and positive social attributes is not always simple or direct (indeed, not only fools but cads and villains often have upper‐class accents in popular entertainment). Nevertheless, the fact that this is a children’s program—and a delightful and brilliantly produced one at that, it should be admitted—emphasizes the extent to which dialect ideologies are inculcated in children at a young age by schools, media, and other institutions.

Even more problematic than negative attitudes about dialects is the transfer of such attitudes to the speakers themselves: people who speak what some think of as “lazy” or “ignorant” dialects are thought of as lazy or ignorant themselves, a stereotype that can be used to justify denying them educational, occupational, or social opportunities. Conversely, speakers of standard varieties may be given unfair advantages in the same contexts, a fact that has encouraged many ambitious people from working‐class social backgrounds to try to “improve” their speech, often with measurable benefits. This, indeed, is the main justification for teaching standard varieties in schools, whose main purpose is to maximize the socio‐economic opportunities of their students. Defenders of the exalted status of standard varieties might argue that they are, in fact, democratizing (or at least meritocratizing) instruments, since they can be learned in school or by other means, thereby conferring socio‐economic benefits on the ambitious and becoming a symbol of individual achievement rather than of inherited privilege. Sociolinguists have argued passionately—and correctly—that these notions of superior and inferior dialects are based purely on social prejudice rather than linguistic fact, but they have proven very difficult to dislodge from popular culture, persisting at both ends of the social spectrum (for a critical look at the concepts of “standard” versus “dialect” in English, see Milroy and Milroy (1999) and the contributors to Bex and Watts (1999)).

Not all “dialects,” of course, are socially stigmatized, at least not by general consensus. Many non‐standard dialects, if they lose points on the “status” dimension that governs access to the most prestigious schools and jobs, gain them on the “solidarity” dimension: their speakers are perceived as friendlier, more attractive, more relaxed, funnier, or more honest than speakers of the standard variety, if not more suitable as surgeons or bank presidents. Other non‐standard dialects may be generally disparaged by people outside their own region or social group but are the focus of intense local pride within it. Speakers of these dialects often have a correspondingly negative view of the standard variety and its speakers: as Fischer (1958: 56) observed half a century ago in the pioneer of sociolinguistic studies, “A variant which one man uses because he wants to seem dignified another man would reject because he did not want to seem stiff.” Still other non‐standard dialects are valued even by speakers of the standard variety as genuinely beautiful or cultured, even if inappropriate for some of the domains reserved to the standard variety.

Moreover, not all regional differences are socially marked. It is easy to think of variables in North American English, for example, that appear to be purely regional, with no common perception that one variant is more correct than the other. This is often true of lexical variation, which juxtaposes forms like see‐saw and teeter‐totter, both meaning a tilting board that children play on, or