What role can perceptual dialectology play in the way in which linguists understand language variation and change?

Abstract

The discipline of Perceptual Dialectology investigates what users of a particular language themselves believe and think about that language. Perceptual Dialectology is the exploration of dialect areas of particular language which exists according to the belief of that language users, , the geographic extent of those areas, along with exploration of people's reaction to that spoken language. All these explorations are focused on the speakers of the language who are non-linguists and asking them directly about how, why and where language varies provides a comprehensive understanding to the linguists in understanding the variation in language. The non-linguists who are directly asked to provide their beliefs and thoughts about the language they speak are called “Folk Linguistics” in the discipline of Perceptual Dialectology. They are called non-linguists because they have no formal linguistic training. Every language has its stories and folks which are a part of culture of those language speakers. These folks and stories are a part of the history which speakers have inherited from their forefathers. This history exists in the form of opinion and thoughts in the minds of language users which can be retrieved through questioning which can be helpful in gaining a comprehensive understanding about the variation in spoken language in different dialect regions.

Introduction

The variation in the way people speak the particular language is global phenomenon if we move geographically. According to one survey, people cannot even mindfully change the segmental features which are specific to their geographic dialect. In that survey, people were asked over the phone to disguise their voices. The subjects successfully changed their voice quality, intonation and tempo but were unable to modify the dialect specific to the geographic region they belonged. The research in the field of Perceptual Dialectology strongly suggests that people's perceptions of dialect regions are not confined to province boundaries. Even within a city you'll find people having strong opinion and recognition about the variation in the way people speak the particular language. When it comes to the language attitude research, the dialect regions can be safely divided into two distinct parts, Rural and Urban as you'll find strong opinions people from each side hold about the variation in the way people speak the particular language (Brainard & Doupe, 2002, pp.32).

The method of Perceptual Dialectology discovered in early 1980s. Though there are some similar studies that had been done earlier than Perceptual Dialectology, but this technique of asking linguistically naïve respondents to hand-draw the maps of regional speech areas is novel and never employed previously to understand the speech variations by linguists (Cherry & Taylor, 1954, pp.554).

The five stage approach to the Perceptual Dialectology.

Draw-a-map. Boundaries are drawn by the informants around the areas on either blank or minimally detailed maps based on their belief about the existence of regional speech zones.

Degree of difference. Regions are ranked on a scale of 4 to 1 (4 = unintelligibly different, 3 = different, 2 ...