Perceptual Dialectology

PhD thesis investigating implicit and explicit attitudes towards non-native (Asian) speakers of English in China, Japan and South Korea using a cross-cultural research instrument for direct comparison. The study also investigates factors on social judgements such as nationality, gender, and identification rate. The research uses a verbal guise experiment, a free classification task and an adapted perceptual dialectology task in order to measure judgements towards speakers of English from Hong Kong, India, Japan, Mainland China and South Korea.

See download for detailed abstract.
Full text available at: http://nrl.northumbria.ac.uk/id/eprint/18036

Keywords: language attitudes; EFL; ELF; Asian Englishes; World Englishes; verbal guise; speaker identification; speech perception; folk linguistics; sociolinguistics

The theme of this paper, which is divided into three sections, is deixis in the corpus of the Atlante Linguistico della Sicilia (ALS). In the first section, after a brief account of previous ALS studies on deixis, the network of survey centres (“pilot network”) is described, questionnaire input questions and the composition of the data corpus are illustrated. The second section is devoted to the illustration of the theoretical tools borrowed from cognitive linguistics and, in particular, from the semantics of conceptualization in order to define both the theoretical framework of deixis in metalinguistic discourse and the methodological apparatus useful for analysis and interpretation. The data constitute the focus of the third section, in which the deictic modes and typologies detected in the corpus are illustrated. This section opens with an explanation of the ALS theoretical tools used for analysis and
interpretation and the reasons for the importance of deixis within the corpus. The complex variables functionally related to the detected deictic types are illustrated and discussed.

Here is the first chapter of my most recent book (thanks to Benjamins for permission to post and it share it here).
TOC and abstract of the entire book can be accessed here: https://www.academia.edu/18162995/The_Written_Questionnaire_in_Social_Dialectology_History_Theory_Practice_Dec._2015_

This paper presents the results of a sociolinguistic research on perceptual dialectology of Mexican Spanish. The investigation is based on 60 maps drawn by people working in a public institution in Mexico City. From the proposals of folk linguistics (Niedzielski & Preston 2003) and perceptual dialectology (Preston 1999), a dialectological map based on the subjective impressions of the respondents is traced. This map reflects only four major dialects of Mexican Spanish: North, Centre, coastal (Guerrero and Veracruz) and Yucatan peninsula. Designations used by respondents and their value judgements to designate more or less correct varieties are discussed.
Keywords: perceptual dialectology, sociolinguistics, Mexican Spanish.

German dialectology has had a central role in the conceptualization of political borders in language continua at least since Kremer's pioneering work (1979). In the early 1980s, Michael Clyne (1984, 1992, 1995) developed the concept of pluricentricity, which operates on the base of "linguistic centres" that, more often than not, can be equated with nations and their norm-providing and codification institutions. A decade or so later, Hermann Scheuringer (1996) proposed what he considered to be the counter concept of "pluriareality". While unheard and unknown in English linguistics, pluriareality is quite popular in German dialectology to this day, often at the expense of pluricentric approaches.

I maintain, as laid out in a recent talk, that pluricentricity is a theoretical concept, as it makes falsifiable predictions, while pluriareality is not (in Popper's sense). The latter is, in fact, a red-herring term that has set back considerably the discussion of regional (areal) variation in German dialectology.

This study investigates the way in which speech varieties are employed in animated films in the Netherlands. In part, it is a response to the work of Rosina Lippi-Green (1997; 2012) who has examined in detail the language practices of Disney characters. The current study focuses on the Dutch dubbed counterparts of the original works of Disney and Pixar and explores the range of foreign accents and Dutch dialects that are used in the films in connection to the character types and backgrounds. Data on the animated characters was collected from DVD’s that are dubbed and distributed in the Netherlands. Lippi-Green has found significant instances of linguistic discrimination. For instance, in all cases where a character spoke African American Vernacular English, these characters had the form of animals (e.g. Whoopi Goldberg as a hyena in The Lion King), whereas only 54% of Standard American English speaking characters portrayed animals. This was found to reflect a language ideology of stigmatization of African American Vernacular English and its speakers. Processes of linguistic discrimination similar to the original versions have been found in the Dutch dubbings of the Disney animations, where non-standard varieties of Dutch (e.g. Flemish, regional dialects, accented-Dutch spoken by Caribbean and Mediterranean immigrant speakers) were employed in a stereotypical manner, thereby reflecting the underlying language attitudes and ideologies in the Netherlands. Furthermore, the films were found to propagate linguistic homogeneity by either ignoring or stereotypically depicting the native Dutch linguistic varieties.

Esta investigación tiene como objetivo entender la manera como los hablantes mexicanos perciben las diferencias dialectales al interior del país a partir de una encuesta elaborada ex-profeso. En particular, en el instrumento se pregunta por las variedades más cercanas y más lejanas al habla propia (técnica empleada en Quesada Pacheco [2014] para el español hispanoamericano). La muestra se recogió utilizando un formulario en línea de Google Docs, con el que se obtuvieron 500 respuestas de todos los estados del país y gran diversidad de perfiles sociales (edades, sexo, educación y ocupación). Los resultados confirman la tendencia de los hablantes a construir regiones perceptuales muy similares a las hechas por dialectólogos.

Es ist Ende Jänner 2020, also schon ein Zeiterl her. Der ORF-Korrespondent in China berichtet gerade über einen neuartigen Virus, der in Wuhan die Runde macht. Er sagt dabei: “das Virus”. Dieser Gebrauch, Artikel das, war für mich merkwürdig, hatte sich damals aber schon im Medienvokabular in Österreich festgesetzt. Nicht der Virus. Sondern das Virus.  Das Virus klingt, wenn nicht fremd, dann zumindest ungewohnt, ungewohnt formell vielleicht, für die allermeisten österreichischen Ohren. Ziel dieses Buches ist, auf den Punkt gebracht aber theoretisch fundiert und wissenschafstheoretisch abgesichert und zugänglich zugleich zu zeigen, dass, z.B., der Virus in Österreich ganz und gar nicht falsch ist – so wie auch viele andere in Deutschland als falsche oder bestenfalls belächelte Formen und Verwendungen.

La diversidad del español y su enseñanza es la primera publicación concebida para reflexionar sobre la diversidad de la lengua desde un punto de vista crítico, interdisciplinario, institucional, aplicado e internacional. El análisis de doce lecturas y de una detallada guía de explotación didáctica potencian la adquisición de conocimientos sobre la lengua y desvelan la complejidad de la investigación sobre las variedades del español.

Características principales:

• Artículos de investigación desde diferentes enfoques y perspectivas;

• Actividades de reflexión para verificar la asimilación de contenidos;

• Análisis crítico de extractos y citas de autoridad (español e inglés);

• Preguntas analíticas sobre el estado de la cuestión y recursos institucionales;

• Modelos metodológicos de investigación empírica sobre la diversidad de la lengua;

• Propuestas de temas para la investigación y el debate dentro y fuera del aula;

• Pautas bibliográficas detalladas para profundizar sobre la materia;

• Selección de conceptos clave para potenciar la adquisición de terminología lingüística;

• Glosario bilingüe en línea (español e inglés) sobre variedades del español, sociolingüística aplicada y política lingüística;

• Soluciones de las guías de lectura e información complementaria.

Diseñado como libro de texto o material de autoaprendizaje, La diversidad del español y su enseñanza es una herramienta imprescindible para familiarizarse con la diversidad de la lengua. La información será de interés y aplicable en contextos académicos y profesionales de enseñanza, diseño curricular y elaboración de materiales didácticos de español como lengua extranjera o segunda y de herencia. Cualquier investigador, profesor, estudiante o lector podrá acceder de manera crítica y pautada a esta importante parcela de conocimiento sobre el idioma.

Cette thèse se propose d’étudier de quelle façon la misogynie peut prendre pour cible des pratiques linguistiques pouvant être perçues comme féminines et prend l’exemple du stéréotype sexiste de la « Valley Girl. » Ce terme, popularisé dans les années 1980 par le titre éponyme de Frank Zappa, a d’abord fait référence à des adolescentes, prétendument futiles et décérébrées, appartenant à la classe moyenne californienne. Bien que ces dernières aient été ridiculisées dans la chanson, cette exposition médiatique a paradoxalement eu pour effet de lancer un effet mode dont l’une des manifestations était linguistique : le Valspeak. Ce dialecte comprend entre autres des marqueurs phonétiques (le California Vowel Shift), prosodiques (l’utilisation d’un contour intonatif montant), lexicaux (fer sure, gag me with a spoon) ou de discours (LIKE). Bien que certains de ces marqueurs n’aient pas été (uniquement) popularisés par les Valley Girls, ils peuvent néanmoins être perçus comme tels, et y avoir recours peut exposer un locuteur à une perception négative de sa personne. Ce travail cherche à interroger les liens pouvant exister entre la stigmatisation des marqueurs du Valspeak et la misogynie, phénomène que nous appelons la « misogynie linguistique » du Valspeak. Dans quelle mesure la potentielle stigmatisation de ces marqueurs peut-elle être due au genre féminin des locutrices prototypiques de ce dialecte ? Trois éléments de réponse à cette question sont proposés. Tout d’abord, une étude de perception dialectale quantitative portant sur trois marqueurs du Valspeak (le California Vowel Shift, le contour intonatif montant et LIKE) est menée auprès de locuteurs de l’anglais américain. Deuxièmement, des entretiens qualitatifs ont pour but d’évaluer quelles idéologies sont associées aux marqueurs linguistiques du Valspeak et à la persona Valley Girl. Enfin, l’analyse porte sur trois représentations télévisuelles humoristiques de personnages féminins dans Parks and Recreation, Les Griffin et Ew! (un sketch dans The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon). Il est montré que des marqueurs du Valspeak sont utilisés afin d’orchestrer la stigmatisation de personages féminins sans faire explicitement appel au stéréotype Valley Girl.

Methods of linguistic data collection are among the most central aspects in empirical linguistics. While written questionnaires have only played a minor role in the field of social dialectology, the study of regional and social variation, the last decade has seen a methodological revival. This book is the first monograph-length account on written questionnaires in more than 60 years. It reconnects – for the newcomer and the more seasoned empirical linguist alike – the older questionnaire tradition, last given serious treatment in the 1950s, with the more recent instantiations, reincarnations and new developments in an up-to-date, near-comprehensive account. A disciplinary history of the method sets the scene for a discussion of essential theoretical aspects in dialectology and sociolinguistics. The book is rounded off by a step-by-step practical guide – from study idea to data analysis and statistics – that includes hands-on sections on Excel and the statistical suite R for the novice.

This study analyzes the origins and development of the phonology of Cavite Chabacano, focusing particularly on the role of superstrate and substrate influence on the history of the vowel system. This endangered language, spoken in Cavite City, Philippines, is a Spanish-lexified creole with Tagalog as the substrate. The study incorporates sociophonetic methodology, insights from second language phonological acquisition, and consideration of the language attitudes and ideologies of the speakers in order to describe the development of the phonological system. The data come from word list tasks, reading tasks, interviews, and perceptual dialectology tasks conducted during six months of fieldwork.

The first part of the study describes the segmental and prosodic phonology of Cavite Chabacano, including synchronic and diachronic variation related to how the phonological system developed over time under input from the substrate and superstrate systems, particularly with respect to the vowel system. Modern Cavite Chabacano has a 5-vowel system like the superstrate Spanish and generally preserves Spanish forms faithfully, but there are some words that have vowels differing from the Spanish forms in ways that indicate early substrate influence from the Old Tagalog 3-vowel system.

The second part of the study focuses on the sociophonetic analysis of the vowel system, arguing that it is at the phonetic rather than the phonological level where substrate/adstrate influence in the language is most evident. Stressed vowels and phrase-final vowels are significantly different from unstressed and nonfinal vowels in terms of vowel quality and duration. These phonetic patterns are more characteristic of the substrate Tagalog than of the superstrate Spanish. The results also confirm and expand upon previous claims (German 1932, Miranda 1956) about dialectal variation in the vowel system. The dialects of the Caridad and San Roque districts of Cavite City both have acoustic overlap between unstressed high and mid vowels, but in San Roque there is more phrase-final mid vowel raising, particularly for /e/. Overall, Caridad has a more dispersed vowel system compared to San Roque, perhaps indicating greater phonetic restructuring as the additional vowel contrasts of Spanish were acquired. However, substrate influence in the prosodic conditioning and phonetic realization of the vowels is evident in both districts.

The third part of the study shows that Cavite Chabacano speakers have high metalinguistic awareness of this dialectal variation in the vowel system, and that the San Roque dialect has greater prestige. It is argued that substrate influence in the vowel system initially arose through phonetic restructuring during second language acquisition, but that due to sociohistorical and ideological motivations, the substrate features were retained even as Cavite Chabacano phonology otherwise conformed to standard Spanish in terms of other features.

The study combines methodology and insights from sociophonetics, historical phonology, second language acquisition, and perceptual dialectology in order to provide a nuanced account of how the Cavite Chabacano vowel system emerged and developed over time. The results demonstrate how substrate influence in creoles can be evident at the phonetic as well as the phonological level, and how sociohistorical factors can shape the development of the language.

Perceptual dialectology is the study of how ‘normal people’ – i.e. non-linguists – perceive language variation. The work of Preston in North America, and the continuing adaptation of his methods, has established a baseline methodological approach for exploring the shared language attitudes of speakers, their knowledge and understanding of regional distribution, and the significance of ‘folk perceptions’ in shaping variation and change (Preston, 1999).
Recent application of this methodology in the U.K. has been limited to research in England, Wales, and the borderlands between Scotland and England. Application of Preston’s methodology to Scottish dialect areas has proven even scarcer. This study uses a modified but comprehensive version of Preston’s framework to examine the linguistic situation in the North East of Scotland.
The region’s relative linguistic conservatism means that the North East’s ‘Doric’ dialect of Scots has maintained relic features no longer found elsewhere (Millar, 2007). Intra-regional divisions have also been documented, with a historical difference perceived between the rural ‘fermfolk’ and coastal ‘fisherfolk’, as well as a city vs. countryside divide. However, since the discovery of North Sea oil in the 1970s, the demography of this corner of Scotland has been in a considerable state of flux.
The study is informed by the responses of 320 North East residents, sampled from two age groups (14-18 and 60+). Overall results suggest an ongoing negotiation between competing hyperlocal identities, as well as evidence of cross-generational shift in local perceptions of speech in line with documented accounts of dialect attrition. Further results indicate an ‘othering’ of speakers from certain locations (for reasons which do not always seem to be purely linguistic). The study also confirms the continuing prominence of the ‘Doric’ dialect label while at the same time revealing informants’ understanding of the term and its boundaries to be complex and dependent on micro-regional perceptions.

This study discusses perceptions of variation across dialects of Arabic in the Arab world as revealed through a perceptual dialectology map task. On a map of the Arab world, female undergraduate students at Qatar University provided information about bound- aries where people speak differently and labels for those boundaries. A correlation analy- sis of the boundaries showed that participants viewed Arabic dialects as constituting five major dialect groups: the Maghreb, Egypt and Sudan, the Levant, the Gulf, and Soma- lia. A closer analysis of the content of the labels revealed variation in terms of principal (Goffman 1981) on whom they draw in their judgments, the latter being either individ- ual, regional (intermediate) or wide-scope generic. This analysis not only identifies more granularity in the concept of principal, it also quantifies the different kinds of principal and identifies statistical relationships between them, the labels, and the boundaries.

Undertaking a broadscale experiment in theory and praxis, this book demonstrates grounds for insisting on a more integrational approach to dialectology while simultaneously demonstrating grounds for defining the hidden Phula languages of the Sino-Vietnam borderlands. The modern languages and their ancestral lineage are defined dialectically, through dynamic syntheses of correlative perspectives. [pdf includes Preface, TOC and Chapter 1]

Miami-Dade County differs from other major metropolitan areas in the U.S., mostly because of the immense Latinx national origin diversity and its characterization as the most dialectally diverse Spanish speaking city in the world (Carter & Lynch, 2015). Sociologists and anthropologists have been concerned with how Spanish and shared cultural practices act as a unifying force in the maintenance of pan-Latinidad in Miami (e.g. Mahler, 2018). Linguists, however, have only recently begun to address such questions (cf. Fernández Parera, 2017; Valencia & Lynch, 2019). As a point of departure, this dissertation first examines how Cubanness, stemming from Miami’s historically dominant Latinx group (Nijman, 2011, inter alia) and pan-Latinidad, emerging in the last 60 years, become constructed in digital communities. This dissertation investigates how, as a result of globalization and mediatization (Blommaert, 2010), Miami-based social media accounts on Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok represent what it means to ‘speak Miami.’ Results show that idioms (e.g. comer mierda ‘to be bored’) are indexical of Cuban Miami. The data suggest that Miami’s mediascape (Appadurai, 1996) reinforces a sociolinguistic imaginary, following Anderson (1983), with regard to Miami Cuban Spanish. The focus of the dissertation then turns to how the resemiotized language (Leppänen et al., 2014) collected through translocal new media (Androutsopoulos, 2014) are conceptualized in terms of neighborhood associations. Young adult participants in Miami (N = 98) completed a perceptual dialectology survey in Qualtrics, which resulted in heat maps. Those data were analyzed using Chi-square to test for significance among the neighborhood associations during the heat mapping tasks. Aggregate results show that the idioms are strongly associated with Miami’s Cuban American neighborhoods, Little Havana and Hialeah. The results also show differences of ‘associative specificity,’ where for Cubans and heritage speakers of Spanish the idioms represent Cuban Miami specifically and, for non-Cubans and non-heritage speakers, the idioms are indexical of a broader concept of Miami. In addition to demonstrating a new heat mapping method, the dissertation demonstrates how online communities add to linguistic capital (Bourdieu, 1991) through the process of mediatization and argues for the concept of ‘perceptual communities’ in discussions of globalized speech communities.

This study discusses perceptions of variation across dialects of Arabic in the Arab world as revealed through a perceptual dialectology map task. On a map of the Arab world, female undergraduate students at Qatar University provided information about bound- aries where people speak dierently and labels for those boundaries. A correlation analysis of the boundaries showed that participants viewed Arabic dialects as constituting five major dialect groups: the Maghreb, Egypt and Sudan, the Levant, the Gulf, and Somalia. A closer analysis of the content of the labels revealed variation in terms of principal (Goffman 1981) on whom they draw in their judgments, the latter being either individual, regional (intermediate) or wide-scope generic. This analysis not only identifies more granularity in the concept of principal, it also quantifies the dierent kinds of principal and identities statistical relationships between them, the labels, and the boundaries.

This paper (excerpt only at this stage) explores two innovations from DCHP-2, The Dictionary of Canadianisms on Historical Principles. Second Edition, that are deemed relevant to address the lexicographical & dialectological problem of regional labelling more generally. www.dchp.ca. Presented on 27 March at Ox-Lex 4, see http://www.pmb.ox.ac.uk/sites/default/files/library/Documents/Conferences/oxlex_programme_revised_draft_180315.pdf .

Currently under review with the International Journal of Lexicography.

The analysis of the perception of Spanish varieties requires a theoretical or metatheoretical assembly of several models. This is a complex reality where psycholinguistic and sociolinguistic processes are as important as linguistic units and functions. Models used as theoretical framework proceed from the perceptual dialectology, the cognitive sociolinguistics, and the sociolinguistics of globalization. These three areas include analysis of language attitudes among their antecedents. This study focuses on the perceived similarity between all the Spanish language varieties. A global survey has been applied regarding the varieties from all Hispanic countries and territories, those considered traditional or historical and those perceived as more peripheral. The analysis of the collected materials allows knowing how Spanish varieties are perceived and how factors such as age, country of origin and residence or native language influence the perception of similarity. Besides, the results provide valuable conclusions for the future development of methodologies that can be applied on international or global samples.

The article is concerned with the geolinguistic comparative analysis that is attributed to Antanas Baranauskas’ descriptions of the dialects (based on the pub­lished Russian and Lithuanian sources, as well as Lithuanian manuscript). The analysis of the dialectal areas, although very different from the point of view of definition that was based on these sources, enabled us not only to recon­struct a rather detailed distribution of all eleven dialectal areas that Baranauskas separated out in the territory of the then Kaunas province, but also to give a map of the first classification of the Lithuanian dialects in the history of the country’s
dialectology.

L’objectif de cette étude est d’examiner la perception, par des auditeurs locaux, des différents accents suisses romands, comparée à celle de la variété parisienne, reconnue comme « standard » par les auditeurs français (Detey & Le Gac, 2008). Au niveau perceptif, le français de Suisse romande semble clairement identifiable sur le plan phonique. Boula de Mareüil et al. (2008) ont en effet montré que, sur six variétés régionales (5 françaises et 1 vaudoise) soumises à des Français, la variété vaudoise obtient le meilleur taux d’identification. Toutefois, les travaux descriptifs ont montré que, tant au niveau segmental que suprasegmental, il n’existe pas un seul français homogène en Suisse mais bien différentes variétés possédant chacune ses propres caractéristiques (voir Andreassen et al. 2010 ; Racine & Andreassen, à paraître). Or, à notre connaissance, aucune étude n’a examiné de manière empirique la question de la perception de ces différentes variétés par des auditeurs locaux. En outre, étant donné que les Romands entretiennent un rapport ambigu avec leur(s) variété(s), qu’ils valorisent et déprécient à la fois (Singy, 1996 ; Matthey, 2003), il nous semble également intéressant de comparer les jugements des Romands sur les différentes variétés romandes à ceux qu’ils portent sur la variété « standard ».
Dans cette étude, 12 auditeurs de quatre régions de Suisse romande (Fribourg, Neuchâtel, Vaud et Genève) ont jugé les productions de deux mots isolés (épais/épée) ainsi que d’une phrase lue, produits par 6 locuteurs (3 hommes et 3 femmes issus de 3 régions : Neuchâtel, Genève et Paris). Ces données sont tirées d’une étude plus large comportant également des stimuli belges, canadiens et africains, tous extraits de la base de données du projet PFC (Durand et al., 2002, 2009, www.projet-pfc.net). Dans la première partie, les auditeurs ont dû indiquer, pour chaque stimulus, si la prononciation était identique à leur propre prononciation. Après une deuxième écoute, ils ont dû estimer si cette prononciation était celle du français internationalement reconnu comme « standard » et, enfin, dans la troisième partie, si cette prononciation était celle du français reconnu comme « standard » dans le cadre de leur vie quotidienne. Pour chacune des questions, les auditeurs disposaient d’une échelle allant de 1 (= Absolument pas) à 5 (= Absolument). Des analyses statistiques permettent de déterminer l’existence d’une éventuelle norme endogène et d’examiner le statut, en Suisse, de la variété parisienne reconnue comme « standard » par des auditeurs français.

The paper presents the results of a questionnaire in perceptual dialectology conducted in 2017 among the students of the University of Szczecin. To the best of my knowledge, it is one of the very few works discussing the laymen’s perception of dialectal variation in Poland. The author encourages Polish dialectologists to approach the results not merely as an oddity but also as a challenge to deepen the discussion and explain the linguistic background of the results.

Se discute la existencia o no de la región noroeste de México como una zona dialectal a partir de datos perceptuales. A partir del análisis de más de una centena de mapas recogidos siguiendo la metodología de D. Preston, se llega a la conclusión de que el norte de México sí se divide perceptualmente en dos subregiones: noreste (con base prototípica en Monterrey, Nuevo León) y noroeste (con base en Culiacán, Sinaloa).

This essay proposes an analysis of contemporary Mexican Linguistics as a discipline. Specific topics treated on this disussion are: Mexican Linguistics and Sociolinguistics, Indigenous Education, the use of perceptual diaelectology data on linguistic planning and the ethics of the linguist and his/her commitments with their communities of study.