Studying Dialects: Methods Flashcards
Who was John Ray?
A dialect collector that created a “Collection of English Words not Generally Used (1674)
What was the issue with this technique? John Ray (Collection of English Words not Generally Used)
No recognisable method just simply noting down local words and phrases.
Who was the principle collector?
Joseph Wright - The English Dialect Dictionary
Why must we excercise caution?
The first dialect collectors used simplistic unsystematic methods.
Development of dialect study, why did dialectology develop?
developed as a set of methods for gathering systematic observations relating to the way in which dialects differed.
What are neo-grammarians?
New scholars of grammar.
What did they mean by “sound changes are exceptionless” ?
Sound changes change in all dialects
What did this hypothesis indicate? (neogrammarians)
That dialect data needed to develop and become systematic to prove it
What are the main features of tradtional dialect study?
Aimed to further understanding of linguistic change - assumpttions about the interrelatedness od language and their dialects
Takes an “Item centred” approach - focusing on individual linguistic items
Attempted to define dialect areas
Who investigated Early English Pronunciation?
Alexander Ellis - first systematic and wide-ranging dialect survey in the uk.
What were the three methodological components of his study? (Alexander Ellis Early English Pronunciation)
- the comparitive specimen
- Classfied word list
- Dialect test
covered loads of regions
Which phonological features did he base his findings on? Alexander Ellis - early english pronunciation
- STRUT~FOOT split.
- Pronunciation of /r/
- reduction of the definite article.
- the monothongal realisation of MOUTH words
The Survey of English Dialects -Eugen Dieth and Harold Orton (1948)
To record traditional types of English amongst the rural populations
What method did they use?
Questionnaires using direct questoning and indirect questioning
What did the questioning in these questionnaires in the SED obtain?
Spontaneous speech is gathered - informants opinions etc.
What is the advantage of having a single questionnaire administered by a team?
Interviews can be conducted by many fieldworkers but still elicits a common core of linguistic data
What type of people were the respondants normally? (SED)
NORMs
Nonmobile - speech is representitive in their region
Older
Rural - urban communities involve too much mobility and flux
Males - females are more conscious of their speech than mens
How have linguists improved on dialect study? (4 things)
- Studying the urban population
- Widening the range of informants e.g social class gender and age
- becoming more representitive
- recording data
What are Sense relation networks (SRNS)?
Method by the Survey of Regional English - visual
They are a web of
words that represent linguistic expressions in the mind. Asked to give words for following words and then interviewed afterwords.
What are SRNs useful for?
lexical data and accent
What is the Millenium Memory Bank?
Local radio stations recorded personal oral histories of people
