Monolingual

Dialectology
in
Europe

Prepared by:

Maria Alpha B. Cauan

Dialectology in Europe

Motivations for dialect research:

1. Result of theories within historical linguistics, in
particular the claim that ‘sound laws are exceptionless’
Sound Law – the correspondence identified by linguists
between ,bh.; in Sanskrit <b>; in Germanic languages and
,<f>; in Latin.
3. The feeling that rural speech was being rapidly eroded by
the pressure of modernization and urbanization,
especially in Europe
Dialectology Defined
 the systematic study of dialect
 sometimes labelled ‘linguistic geography’ or ‘geolinguistics’

Aim of Dialectology
The primary aim of linguistic geography is to reveal the
occurrence and distribution of speech usages, especially
those characteristic of particular regions… (Orton and
Wright, 1974)
Outline of the procedures
associated with traditional
dialectology
1. Preliminary investigation or pilot survey
2a. Network of geographical localities where the fieldwork is
to be conducted is decided upon
2b. List of items to be investigated is drawn up in format of a
questionnaire
3. Fieldwork is then conducted
4. Data analysis is then undertaken
Some questions excerpted from
the Survey of English Dialects
(Orton and Wright 1974)

Vocab: e.g. What do you call the thing you

carry water with?
Semantics: e.g. People starve from hunger;
what else can people starve from?
Grammar: e.g. We say today it snowed;
yesterday it also –
Pioneers of Dialectology

Georg Wenker (1852-1911),

was a German Linguist who
began documenting German
dialect geography during
the late 19th century. His most
notable work was the Deutscher
Sprachatlas.
Jules Gilliéron (1854-1926),
was a Swiss-French linguist
And dialectologist. His most
Notable work was the Atlas
Linguistique de la France,
published between 1902 -1910.
Drawing and Interpreting
Dialect Maps

A key feature of dialectology

is the isogloos: a line drawn
on a map separating areas
according to particular
linguistic features.
Major dialect areas
Authenticity

 Bachmann and Palmer (1996, p.23) define authenticity as

“the degree of correspondence of the characteristics of a
given language test task to the features of a target
language task,” and then suggest an agenda for identifying
those target language task and for transforming them into
valid test items.
 Authenticity of a test may be present in the following
ways:
Authenticity

 The language in a test is as natural as possible.

 Items contextualized rather than isolated.
 Topics are meaningful (relevant, interesting) for the
learner.
 Some thematic organization to items is provided, such as
through story line or episode.
 Tasks represent, or closely approximate, real-world tasks.
Thank you!!!