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The role of social factors in the dynamics of sound change: A case study of a Russian dialect

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 January 2006

Alexei Kochetov
Alexei Kochetov
Affiliation:
Simon Fraser University
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Abstract

This article presents results of a sociolinguistic study of a Northern Russian dialect as spoken in a small rural community of Pokcha in the Western Urals, Russia. Because of a number of social influences, the dialect has been undergoing a rapid shift towards Standard Russian. The study examines two sound changes in progress: (1) a merger of unstressed mid back vowels and (2) a split of a post-alveolar fricative into two phonemes. The focus of the study is on the role of social factors—age, mobility, education, and sex—in determining the dynamics of the two rather different phonological processes.I am grateful to Jack Chambers for his encouragement and advice throughout this project. I thank Joseph Schallert, Keren Rice, and an anonymous reviewer for many helpful comments and suggestions on the article. I also thank Dr. Tatyana Permyakova and Dr. Irina Rusinova of Perm' University for their help in the organization of my field trip to Cherdyn' region, Russia. All errors are my own. This research was partly supported by a travel grant from the University of Toronto School of Graduate Studies.Some of the results of this study have been previously reported in: Kochetov, Alexei. (2000). Sound change in progress: An effect of standardization on a Northern Russian dialect. Toronto Working Papers in Linguistics 18:62–79.

Type
Research Article
Information
Language Variation and Change , Volume 18 , Issue 1 , March 2006 , pp. 99 - 119
Copyright
© 2006 Cambridge University Press

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References

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