Dialectology

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Dialectology

• LM Davis (1983) English Dialectology An
  Introduction, University of Alabama Press
• JM Kirk, S Sanderson JDA Widdowson (eds)
  Studies in Linguistic Geography, London Croom
  Helm
• http//www.llas.ac.uk/resources/goodpractice.aspx?
  resourceid964
• http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialectology

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Dialectology

• History of dialect studies
• Some well-known studies
• Methods of data collection
• Dialectometry

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History of dialectology

• Modern study of regional variation in language
  started around 1870s, especially in
  German-speaking areas
• Interest in both phonetics and lexis
• Advances in practical phonetics made
  measurement of accent differences feasible
• Grew somewhat as a response to prevailing view in
  historical linguistics
• mainstream view that all sound changes were
  regular and exceptionless
• dialectologists could show wide variety, and
  somewhat haphazard distribution

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Georg Wenker (1876)

• mailed a questionnaire with 38 short sentences to
  1266 schoolmasters in the Rhine valley, asking
  them to translate them into local dialect
• Extended survey to other parts of Germany over
  next few years 44,251 responses in total
• Data quality very variable informants were not
  trained

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Jules Gilliéron (1897)

• Atlas linguistique de la France
• Used a fieldworker, Edmond Edmont, so phonetic
  data collected was consistently transcribed
• Edmont was untrained (so not tainted by theory!)
• Interviewed just 1 or 2 people in each of 639
  localities, total 700 (of which only 60 female,
  age 15-85)
• Much bigger questionnaire 1500 items

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Primitive methods

• Reading out sentences
• Not clear if the selection of data was carefully
  designed to elicit expected differences
• Naming things
• How do you say head?
• What do you call this? (pointing to head)
• Obvious risk of bias

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Linguistic Atlas of New England

• Atlas projected begun 1929, headed by Hans Kurath
• first major study of English dialects
• focussed on NE for various practical reasons
• much more controlled method of data collection
• demographics of informants strictly prescribed
• age, education/occupation
• lifelong inhabitants of the area and not widely
  travelled
• fieldworkers also highly trained
• conversational technique rather than direct
  questioning to elicit dialect words
• 700 items of data elicited
• lexical, phonological and grammatical

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Survey of English Dialects

• Early study of English dialects by Alexander
  Ellis (1889)
• transcriptions of 970 words
• ten dialect boundaries recognised
• Joseph Wright (1905) English dialect dictionary
• more ambitious, but coverage patchy
• good coverage of Yorkshire
• good work on grammar
• well received so well in fact that many felt
  there was no need for further study

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Survey of English Dialects

• 1095 questions eliciting 1270 items
• 387 phonological
• 128 morphological
• 730 lexical
• 77 syntax
• Nine topics
• farmstead
• cultivation
• animals
• nature
• house and housekeeping
• human body
• numbers, time, weather
• social activities
• states, actions, relations

• suggested by John Orr, student of Gilliéron
• work started 1947 by Eugen Dieth (Zurich) and
  Harold Orton (Sheffield, then Leeds)
• completed by Orton after Dieths death in 1956
• published in parts1962-71

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Types of questions in SED

• Naming questions
• What do you call a dog with half a dozen breeds
  in it?
• What am I doing now? (mimes drinking)
• Completing questions
• If you drop a glass on the floor it might
• A man who cant see at all is
• Converting questions
• Base form When I have an apple I eat it
• Yesterday when I had an apple I it
• Whenever Ive had an apple Ive always it
• Talking questions
• What can you make from milk?
• What trees do you have around here?
• Reverse questions
• Whats the barn for, and where is it?
• What do you mean by corn in these parts?

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Other surveys

• Too many to mention

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Data collection

• dialect surveys depend critically on collection
  of good data
• relies on information gained first-hand from
  speakers of the dialects themselves fieldwork is
  an essential part of the subject
• time-consuming and fraught with difficulties
• issues
• how to 'enter' a community sensitively enough to
  gain the confidence of its members
• how to find relevant people to study
• how to persuade them to be part of the
  investigation, including being recorded
• how to minimise the disruption caused to their
  lives by the data collection process
• how to somehow recompense the community for its
  co-operation

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What to sample

• As already seen, historically dialect surveys
  have always been interested in variation in
• lexis
• phonology
• Efforts made now also to sample variation in
• morphology
• syntax
• .

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How to elicit data

• Conversational method
• very natural, but can be hit-and-miss
• Direct elicitation
• Need to be subtle about eliciting data
• Avoid observers paradox
• Especially, effects of imitation
• Need to compromise
• Try to be natural while asking unnatural things
• eg What do you call this? (pointing to head)

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Data analysis
How are these lines on the map arrived at?
The numbered dots represent individual informants
Obviously, the data has to be collated
source H Orton N Wright (1974) A word
geography of England, London, Seminar Press
reprinted in LM Davis (1983) English
Dialectology An Introduction, University of
Alabama Press
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Data analysis

• Dialect surveys provide maps such as these for
  each individual observation
• So SED had hundreds or thousands of maps, each
  showing an individual result
• Drawing the lines may be easy, but it doesnt
  stop there

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Pronunciation of /r/ in root (L) and rabbits (R)
source D Parry (1985) On producing a linguistic
atlas The survey of Anglo-Welsh dialects. In JM
Kirk, S Sanderson JDA Widdowson (eds) Studies
in Linguistic Geography, London Croom Helm, 51-66
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Dialectometry

• Use of numerical classification methods to
  analyse and help to visualize the data
• Involves application of mathematical
  classification models
• clustering of similar data sets
• done on computers
• dialectologist runs the program by predicting
  what features might plausibly be grouped, or even
  determine relative weights of particular features

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Dialectometry

• Methods also allow dialectologists to quantify
  dialect differences, and hence measure language
  change
• See J Nerbonne Introducing Computational
  Techniques in Dialectometry, Computers and the
  Humanities 37.3, 2003, Pages245-255

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Vocalisation of /l/ among older (L) and younger
(R) speakers of Fenland English from D Britain
(2005) Geolinguistics and Linguistic Diffusion.
In U Ammon, N Dittmar, K Mattheier P Trudgill
(eds.), Sociolinguistics International Handbook
of the Science of Language and Society. Berlin
Mouton De Gruyter. Found at http//www.llas.ac.uk/
resources/goodpractice.aspx?resourceid964
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Criticisms

• Data collection methods do not reflect normal use
  of language
• Single word answers hide
• effects of continuous speech
• possibility of variance in usage
• Disproportionate number of NORMans as
  informants non-mobile old rural men
• Dialectology should include young people, women,
  living in cities

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