Traditional and Modern Dialectology
Traditional and modern dialictology
Historically, the study of language in society features three perspectives:
Geographical perspective (since 19th century),
Anthropological perspective (since 1920s), the study of language and culture
Sociological perspective (since 1960s). Anthropology, sociology
A major distinction is made between the geographical perspective, also referred to as traditional dialectology, and the sociological perspective, or modern dialectology.
Dialectology as such is the study of dialects of a language with a focus on their distribution (regional and/or social) and characteristic linguistic features. modern dialectology or sociolinguistics is used generally for the study of the relationship between language and society.
Traditional and modern dialectology study dialects with a difference in scientific focus: Traditional Dialectology | Modern Dialectology | Since 19th century | Since 1960s | Geographical Sociolinguistics | Sociological Sociolinguistics | Focus on rural areas | Focus on urban areas | Focus on regional variation/varieties: accent and lexicon | Focus on social variation/varieties: accent, lexicon and grammar | Focus on NORMS (Non-mobile Old Rural Male Speakers) | Less restricted focus: study of diverse social groups (age, class, male/female…) | Elicitation of information via questionnaires and interviews (tape-recorded) | Plus corpora, modern statistical methods for analysis of linguistic data | Result: creation of linguistic maps (dialect maps) with isoglosses indicating dialectal borders | | Also: regional dialectology or dialect geography | Also: social dialectology or urban dialectology |
ISOGLOSSES: Isoglosses are borderlines on a dialect map, i.e. (imaginary) lines illustrating the geographical distribution of studied linguistic features (e.g. lexical, phonological). On a linguistic map they can locate dialectal regions and by means of this indicate dialect boundaries.
A dialect boundary
Historically, the study of language in society features three perspectives:
Geographical perspective (since 19th century),
Anthropological perspective (since 1920s), the study of language and culture
Sociological perspective (since 1960s). Anthropology, sociology
A major distinction is made between the geographical perspective, also referred to as traditional dialectology, and the sociological perspective, or modern dialectology.
Dialectology as such is the study of dialects of a language with a focus on their distribution (regional and/or social) and characteristic linguistic features. modern dialectology or sociolinguistics is used generally for the study of the relationship between language and society.
Traditional and modern dialectology study dialects with a difference in scientific focus: Traditional Dialectology | Modern Dialectology | Since 19th century | Since 1960s | Geographical Sociolinguistics | Sociological Sociolinguistics | Focus on rural areas | Focus on urban areas | Focus on regional variation/varieties: accent and lexicon | Focus on social variation/varieties: accent, lexicon and grammar | Focus on NORMS (Non-mobile Old Rural Male Speakers) | Less restricted focus: study of diverse social groups (age, class, male/female…) | Elicitation of information via questionnaires and interviews (tape-recorded) | Plus corpora, modern statistical methods for analysis of linguistic data | Result: creation of linguistic maps (dialect maps) with isoglosses indicating dialectal borders | | Also: regional dialectology or dialect geography | Also: social dialectology or urban dialectology |
ISOGLOSSES: Isoglosses are borderlines on a dialect map, i.e. (imaginary) lines illustrating the geographical distribution of studied linguistic features (e.g. lexical, phonological). On a linguistic map they can locate dialectal regions and by means of this indicate dialect boundaries.
A dialect boundary