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11 - Perceptual Dialectology

from Part 2 - Direct Methods of Attitude Elicitation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 June 2022

Ruth Kircher
Affiliation:
Mercator European Research Centre on Multilingualism and Language Learning, and Fryske Akademy, Netherlands
Lena Zipp
Affiliation:
Universität Zürich
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Summary

This chapter discusses research methods in the field of perceptual dialectology, which aims to uncover non-linguists’ beliefs, thoughts, and perceptions about dialect variation. The chapter details the historical development of contemporary approaches to perceptual dialectology, including a discussion of folk linguistics. Perceptual dialectology methods rely to a large extent on allowing respondents to provide freely given data, without providing too many constraints. Whilst this is a strength of the approach as it allows researchers to challenge their assumptions and biases, it can produce ‘messy’ data that is difficult to process. The development of a suite of methods to investigate dialect perception is examined, including the draw-a-map task, voice placement, and voice reactions tasks (including which features listeners might pay attention to as they hear speakers), along with ratings tasks and those that deal with interview data. Practical considerations in the application of perceptual dialectology methods are addressed with a focus on the type(s) of data such methods generate. For example, the chapter discusses using GIS software for processing draw-a-map data. The chapter uses perception data of English dialect variation in Great Britain to demonstrate the power of the draw-a-map method also for understanding broader questions about the nature of perception.

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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

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  • Perceptual Dialectology
  • Edited by Ruth Kircher, Mercator European Research Centre on Multilingualism and Language Learning, and Fryske Akademy, Netherlands, Lena Zipp, Universität Zürich
  • Book: Research Methods in Language Attitudes
  • Online publication: 25 June 2022
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108867788.014
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  • Perceptual Dialectology
  • Edited by Ruth Kircher, Mercator European Research Centre on Multilingualism and Language Learning, and Fryske Akademy, Netherlands, Lena Zipp, Universität Zürich
  • Book: Research Methods in Language Attitudes
  • Online publication: 25 June 2022
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108867788.014
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Perceptual Dialectology
  • Edited by Ruth Kircher, Mercator European Research Centre on Multilingualism and Language Learning, and Fryske Akademy, Netherlands, Lena Zipp, Universität Zürich
  • Book: Research Methods in Language Attitudes
  • Online publication: 25 June 2022
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108867788.014
Available formats
×