Perceptual Dialectology

In his article 'Tussentaal wordt omgangstaal in Vlaanderen', De Caluwe (2009) states that interlanguage is becoming the common colloquial speech in Flanders. He uses the four features put forward by Lemahieu (2008) as his main arguments. Although Lemahieu focused on spoken Standard Dutch, these features can also be used for research of written interlanguage. This contribution examines chat language of 60 subjects, both male and female, within the five Flemish provinces (West Flanders, East Flanders, Antwerp, Flemish Brabant with Brussels and Limburg). Next to gender and geographical divisions age is also taken into account. The research is based upon several online chat conversations that were fragmented and analysed. The analysis of the above-mentioned variants per participant, age and province gives an idea of the presence of interlanguage. The variants of Lemahieu are therefore an interesting tool because they provide data regarding how many times a representative selection of Flemish chatters with regard to a set of variants choose to use interlanguage in a situation in which they have the choice to use inter-or Standard language. The conclusion resulting from this research reveals that there are indeed regional variants and there is a high percentage of interlanguage, but Standard Dutch still prevails. Therefore, it is claimed that chat language does not impoverish the standard written language, but enriches it and that it rather should be considered as change in progress.

This contribution offers a methodological reflection on the writing and transcription
of the Calabrian dialect, to promote the preservation and valorization of regional
linguistic heritage. Through the analysis of specific phonetic and orthographic phenomena,
it highlights the need for a phonologically based graphic codification capable of
capturing the complexity of local varieties. Examples of spontaneous writing, normalization
proposals, and strategies for representing sounds not found in standard Italian are
examined. The work serves as a practical tool for authors, linguists, and speakers, providing
guidelines for a coherent transcription system that supports the intergenerational
transmission of the dialect

Geordie, the variety of English spoken in Tyneside, represents a critical edge case for linguistic theory: a variety exhibiting substantial phonological, morphosyntactic, and lexical divergence from Standard English, rooted in distinct historical trajectories, yet wholly lacking institutional recognition or standardization. This paper examines Geordie's empirical linguistic profile, historical development, and contemporary social position to assess its placement on the dialect-language continuum. Drawing on the Ausbau/Abstand framework, we argue that Geordie possesses sufficient linguistic distance to merit autonomous language status on purely structural grounds, yet remains institutionally classified as a dialect due to historical contingencies rather than linguistic properties. We further explore the feasibility and risks of standardization, demonstrating that formal language status could generate unintended consequences including class displacement, authenticity policing, and community fragmentation. The analysis reveals that "language" status is fundamentally an institutional outcome rather than a natural linguistic category, and suggests that edge cases like Geordie require theoretical frameworks that account for the gap between structural autonomy and social recognition.

L’obiettivo di questo lavoro è verificare la trascrizione ortografica di alcuni suoni specifici dei dialetti della Calabria in varie tipologie testuali scritte in vernacolo da autori non specialisti. A tal proposito verificheremo l’aderenza tra la resa grafica e la produzione dei suoni retroflessi provenienti da -LL- latina, STR e TR al fine di constatare l’esistenza o meno di un’ortografia univoca.
Il punto di partenza è rappresentato dalle ricerche di Trumper, Romito e Mendicino (2000) e di Padula (2001) poiché gli autori hanno cercato di individuare un modello di corrispondenza tra fonemi o foni e grafemi per i dialetti calabresi.
Come si evincerà dalle analisi, i poeti calabresi considerati nella ricerca utilizzano trascrizioni differenti per i nessi provenienti da -LL- latina, mentre per quanto riguarda STR e TR essi non registrano ortograficamente il processo di retroflessione che li interessa. Nonostante l’assenza di uno standard di trascrizione per i suoni considerati nella ricerca, la presenza di letteratura dialettale conferma la vitalità dei dialetti calabresi. Questo dato fornisce una chiara indicazione alle istituzioni scolastiche, cioè quella di porre l’attenzione non solo verso le lingue degli immigrati ma di considerare gli effetti dei dialetti sullo scritto e sul parlato degli alunni delle scuole italiane.

Do accent biases observed half a century ago and 15 years ago still hold today in Britain? We provide an updated picture of national attitudes to accent labels by replicating and extending previous studies. Mean ratings and relative rankings of 38 accents for prestige and pleasantness by a large representative sample of the British population (N = 821) attest to a remarkably stable, long-standing hierarchy of accent status. We find little evidence of demotion of conservative prestige varieties or reranking of accents, although we do observe a slight improvement in lower rankings. We focus in detail on age and life stage, finding that most of the age patterns observed in earlier studies were in fact instances of age-grading (lifespan effects), not real-time change in attitude. The midlife phase of life corresponds to conservative shifts in the perception of global, migrant-heritage, and stigmatised varieties. Our findings add change in speech evaluation to the growing body of research on lifespan change in speech production. Finally, although effects of ethnicity, social class, regional self-and other-bias, and age remain firmly in place, earlier gender differences in respondent behaviour have more or less disappeared.

Minority or minoritized languages are often restricted to ingroup use by their own speakers and indexically related to them. Nevertheless, minority languages and their speakers are never isolated; they are part of a multilingual ecology and included in local language hierarchies. In this paper, I focus on the occurrence and role of Siwi in the interaction between Siwi and Arabic speakers in the Siwa Oasis. In this multilingual space, a national minority language, Siwi Amazigh, is spoken by the majority of the population, and different varieties of the dominant language, Arabic, are spoken as L1 by a smaller portion of the population and as L2 by virtually everyone. Data from mixed-group conversations show that although Arabic varieties far outscore Siwi, as one would expect, everyday practices are characterized by the hybridity and heterogeneity typical of multilingual ecologies. This paper provides an accurate portrait of conversational habits in Siwa and depicts Siwi fluctuating between an identity marker value, due to its vitality, and an identity maker value, which builds on it.

Il paper esplora le lingue fischiate come pratiche di resistenza ecoculturale, intrecciando perdita linguistica, paesaggi multispecie e relazioni umano-ambientali. Attraverso il caso del silbo gomero e il suo innesto artistico a Corvetto, la lingua fischiata emerge come forma poetica, adattiva e politica di sopravvivenza culturale ed ecologica.

Tutkielma käsittelee pääkaupunkiseudun puhekieleen liitettäviä havaintoja ja käsityksiä kansanlingvistisestä näkökulmasta. Tutkielmassa tarkastellaan tiedekeskus Heurekassa haastateltujen vierailijoiden käsityksiä pääkaupunkiseutulaisista kielenpiirteistä. Tutkielman tavoitteena on selvittää aineiston pohjalta, minkälaisia piirteitä vastaajat mieltävät pääkaupunkiseutulaisiksi ja miten tulokset vastaavat aiemman tutkimuksen antamaa kuvaa. Tavoitteena on myös selvittää, miten tiettyjen puhekielisten piirteiden puuttuminen pääkaupunkiseudun puhetta esittävästä tekstistä vaikuttaa tunnistettavuuteen. Vaikeuttaako yleisimmin pääkaupunkiseutulaispiirteinä pidettyjen elementtien puuttuminen tai muuttaminen joksikin neutraalimmaksi piirteeksi muiden pääkaupunkiseutulaisten puhekielen piirteiden tunnistamista? Tutkielmassa kiinnitetään huomiota myös vastaajan asuinpaikkakunnan ja kielellisen taustan vaikutukseen sekä vastaajan ikään ja sukupuoleen. Tutkielman aineisto on kerätty vuonna 2009...

The rapid growth of social media in the past decade has accelerated the transformation of linguistic practices among Indonesian youth. This paper examines how language change (slang lexicon, abbreviation, orthographic play, code-switching), stylistic practice, and identity indexicality take place across platforms such as TikTok, Instagram, and X. Anchored in sociolinguistic frameworks-particularly the principles of identity as an interactional construct (Bucholtz & Hall, 2005, pp. 586-590) and the 'third wave' approach to variation focusing on social meaning and style (Eckert, 2012, pp. 87-93)-this study integrates a selective literature review with illustrative secondary data. Findings highlight three key points. First, mediatization fosters vernacularization and limited destandardization in the digital sphere, marked by acronymization (e.g., *japri, gercep, bucin*), English borrowings (*vibe, bestie*), and graphic play (mixed capitalization, emoji) functioning as markers of intimacy and contemporaneity. Second, these linguistic features serve as stylistic indexes to project personae (trendy, casual, humorous, in-group), strengthening peer solidarity while producing intergenerational contrasts. Third, the impact on Standard Indonesian is ambivalent: on the one hand, it enriches the linguistic repertoire and digital literacy; on the other, it may blur formal norms if not mediated through language awareness. Recommendations emphasize contextualized digital literacy and politeness pedagogy (domain-based register use), the integration of authentic social media examples into teaching materials, and further corpusbased research on the circulation of viral terms across platforms and regions.

This paper deals with language change phenomena in an Alemannic minority dialect in Italy (tbe Walser dialect of Formazza). Walser communities offer an ideai point of view from which one can investigate language change phenomena, either relating them to contact with standard Italian and Italian dialects, or to linguistic archaicism caused by isolation, or, finally. to tbe peculiar situation of language shift tbat is threatening their very existence. The first section of this paper deals witb tbe lexicon: tbe population's puristic attitudes are taken into account to explain tbeir general avertion to explicit loanwords, code-switches and transfer phenomena. Phenomena of Janguage change, however, are considered in detail in tbe next section, devoted to morphosyntax. Changes such as tbe reduction of contexts in which tbe dative case should be obligatory or tbe grammaticalization of new verb endings are argued to be scarcely (and especially not overtly) influenced by Italian but to have developped independently in this very marginai variety of Gennan.Hence, the relation between the majority and the minority code appears complex and dynamic in the case of this small linguistic island, and is best explained as an interplay of convergence with and refusal of the foreign element in a last effort to survive. Questo lavoro rientra nella ricerca 'Nuove situazioni di plurilinguismo dell'Italia settentrionale' coordinata da Gaetano Berruto e finanziata con fondi CNR (contributo 9B.0246B.CTOB). Cfr. DAL NEGRO (1998).

As part of a larger perceptual dialectology study of linguistic diversity within California, this article focuses on a survey of Californians regarding the evaluation of language use within the state. Quantitative and qualitative analysis of two open-ended survey questions regarding where Californians “speak the best” and “speak the worst” reveals that Southern California is stigmatized by a majority of respondents as having the worst speech within the state and Northern California is valorized as having the best speech, due to the perceived differential access of speakers to educational opportunities. A small but socially significant “political correctness effect” also emerges, whereby some respondents indicate reluctance to evaluate others' linguistic varieties. The findings demonstrate both the need for greater attentiveness to ideological issues in research design and the importance of combining different theoretical and methodological traditions in the study of language ide...

Fala de Xálima-aproximación a las identidades lingüísticas Resumen: El objeto de este capítulo es el contexto sociolingüístico, en que vive A Fala de Xálima, una variedad minorizada y amenazada con cerca de 4.000 hablantes, utilizada en la frontera entre España y Portugal. Con el uso de los principios ontológico-epistemológicos de análisis de identidad en interacción de Bucholtz y Hall, además de conceptos tales como la comunidad de práctica o la postura social (ing. stance), analizaremos las dinámicas interaccionales de construcción identitaria observables en una entrevista realizada con dos personas que trabajan para promover y proteger el patrimonio lingüístico local. El análisis demuestra que A Fala es un importante componente social de la comunidad local y un eje alrededor del cual se construye la identidad; es objeto de unas posturas sociales e ideológicas axiológicamente positivas por parte de los miembros de la comunidad, quienes se declaran dispuestos a actuar a favor de la protección de su patrimonio lingüístico. Con todo, destaca el escepticismo demostrado ante las ideas de normalización y normativización de A Fala y la negación de la vulnerabilidad de esta variedad. Palabras clave: lingüística sociocultural, identidad lingüística, lenguas minorizadas, comunidad de práctica, A Fala de Xálima � Según el INE, la población en 2022 ascendía a 3.788 personas. Cfr. https://www.ine.es/dyngs/INE base/es/operacion.htm?c=Estadistica_C&cid=1254736177010&menu=resultados&idp=1254734710990 (consultado el 28 de abril de 2023).

La Dialettologia Percettiva, disciplina che si occupa dello studio delle opinioni dei parlanti sulle varietà di lingua, nell'ultimo decennio ha rinnovato i propri fondamenti. Il volume da un lato intende ripercorrere criticamente tali profonde innovazioni, dall'altro propone una serie di modelli originali per l'analisi e l'interpretazione dei dati. Il corpus della ricerca è costituito dalle risposte di circa 1000 informatori distribuiti in 60 punti d'inchiesta a tre domande del questionario dell'Atlante Linguistico della Sicilia (ALS) pensate per rilevare la percezione e rappresentazione della differenza linguistica. Una mole imponente di dati linguistici ed extra-linguistici che sono stati trattati con un approccio quanti-qualitativo dimensionato al corpus e dialogando con un complesso eterogeneo di settori di studio che in un modo o nell'altro riguardano le scienze del linguaggio. Il volume offre anche un quadro completo dei principali fenomeni linguistici che caratterizzano l'articolato repertorio della Sicilia contemporanea. Di quest'ultimo vengono analizzate pure le dinamiche di contatto italiano vs. dialetto e le implicazioni ideologiche e identitarie. In appendice, un apparato cartografico a colori.

The Standardology of Slovenian: Is Standard Slovenian Closer to Early-Type or Late-Type Standardization?
Haugen's model of language standardization is presented together with its most prominent additional distinctions (Joseph, Subačius), followed by the characterization of standard Slovenian as an example of latetype standardization according to the selection time, social position of the language, type of development, differences between the written and spoken codes, perceptual evaluation of these differences, and dialect basis awareness of the standard. Finally, some key characteristics that make standard Slovenian similar to and different from other early or latetype standard languages are presented.

Scholars wanting to investigate Byzantine perceptions of Ancient Greek dialectology have to disentangle a perplexing web of mutually interrelated grammatical treatises, many of which still need a reliable edition. Further text-critical study is thus required before using these treatises as sources to reconstruct-how ever sketchily-the historical perceptual dialectology of Ancient Greek in Byzantine times. This paper aims to illustrate this methodological point with a line-by line textual commentary on the Aeolic section of the Grammaticus Leidensis as recently re-edited by Schoubben et al. (2023). The commentary is preceded by a brief introductory part which synthesizes the observations made in the commentary and draws conclusions of a more general kind.

Citation: Schoubben, N. (2025), "The Grammaticus Leidensis on the Aeolic Dialect: A Study in Textual Criticism and Historical Perceptual Dialectology" in P. Probert & A. Willi (eds.), Perceptions and Social Uses of the Ancient Greek Dialects. Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter, 395-414

See https://www-degruyterbrill-com.leidenuniv.idm.oclc.org/document/doi/10.1515/9783111679112/html#contents (Because of copyright issues, I can only upload the first page; write to me if you don't have access to the full paper).

Il contributo esplora la letteratura di viaggio dedicata a Isola del Liri, mettendo a confronto vedute, mappe storiche e testi d’epoca. Ne emerge il fascino che questo paesaggio protoindustriale esercitò sui viaggiatori nordeuropei, attratti dal suo singolare intreccio tra natura e industria.

Il contributo analizza la vitalità del lessico tradizionale siciliano a partire dai dati raccolti tramite il quesito onomasiologico dell’Atlante Linguistico della Sicilia (ALS). Lo studio si concentra, in particolare, sulla relazione tra età, livello di istruzione e competenza lessicale in dialetto, rilevando una netta correlazione tra età e conservazione di arcaismi, a fronte di una limitata incidenza della scolarizzazione. Tuttavia, l’integrazione dell’analisi quantitativa con una prospettiva qualitativa rivela come l’istruzione influenzi significativamente l’uso effettivo del dialetto e le modalità di recupero lessicale. Tale assetto consentirà di cogliere una chiara polarità interna al dialetto: da un lato, un codice ancora attivamente impiegato dai parlanti meno istruiti; dall’altro, un sistema conservato in forma latente e “riattivabile” da parte dei soggetti più colti. Sulla base di questa dicotomia, si propone una riflessione volta a definire nuove categorie di parlanti, che rispecchiano, a loro volta, mutamenti linguistici ancora in atto.

Due to Gwent's position on the border between Wales and England, the historic region shares a hybrid identity of both Welshness and Englishness. During the age of traditional dialectology (nineteenth century until the mid-twentieth century), Gwent's Anglo-Welsh dialect was investigated twice, first by the Survey of English Dialects (SED), between circa 1951-1960) and then the Survey of Anglo-Welsh dialects (SAWD) circa 1971-a testament to its ambiguous cultural/ political identity. These studies provided substantial lexical information on the region. A decade ago, collections of dialectal material by BBC "Voices", an internet project conducted between 2004-05, provided not only new frameworks for dialect surveying (internet-based), but also additional material for Gwent English. This paper continues a report from a prior Tradition Today issue (Jones, 2016a) and consists of a glossary constructed from the findings of a further internetbased survey conducted in 2013 that elicited the speech of forty four young people in Gwent and assessed their regional lexis and their linguistic identity. In the interests of consistency, this glossary imitates the structure found in David Parry's SAWD report: A Grammar and Glossary of the Conservative Anglo-Welsh Dialects of Rural Wales (1999).

Arabic has been traditionally described as a canonically diglossic language , with Standard Arabic (SA) as the high variety and spoken vernaculars as low varieties. Further research has proven that the actual linguistic landscape in Arabic speaking countries does not reflect this dichotomy, but rather a layered continuum where different varieties (and sometimes languages) interact, fulfilling different communicative functions and carrying multiple symbolic values. In this sea of varieties, the metalinguistic label «White Arabic» has gained prominence in the last decade, coinciding with the emergence of an increasingly interconnected Arab world. Although the notion of WA was treated peripherally in previous scientific studies Dufour, 2008;, none of these deal with the term as a main object. There seems to be no clear consensus regarding the definition of White Arabic -data hints at different understandings of the concept in Lebanon, Jordan, 1. We owe a huge debt of gratitude to Stephan Procházka, Mahmoud Al-Batal and Kristen Brustad for their valuable comments on earlier versions of this manuscript. Also, we sincerely thank Julie Haslé for participating in the discussions that shaped this article and Montserrat Benítez Fernández for making this collaboration possible in the frame of her research project Arabic Sociolinguistics and Linguistic Anthropology (LINKB20056), funded by CSIC. All the remaining errors are solely the authors' responsibility. 2.

In this paper, we highlight two recently developed, technology-enabled platforms for documenting the small Walser varieties spoken in northwestern Italy. These platforms address the urgent need to record linguistic varieties that are undergoing rapid erosion. Through four case studies, we show that they also support fine-grained analysis, revealing structurally significant and original features shaped by centuries of language contact. Because they are readily available and easy to use, these digital resources can motivate speakers-especially younger generations-to engage with their heritage and help slow, or even halt, the dissolution threatening these "small languages".

Вранці, в суботу, 24 травня 1952 року, об 11-й годині дня студенти виявили в саду у дворі філологічного факультету Чернівецького університету на дереві на 10-метровій висоті-національний синьо-жовтий прапор та ОУНівську листівку «До молоді». Чергове свідчення віковічного прагнення до незалежності України та до національного прапора. Подія викликала неабияку стурбованість у Києві та навіть у Москві, а Чернівецьке МГБ стало об'єктом критики через неспроможність виявити «зловмисників».