A tipping point in dialect obsolescence? Change across the generations in Lerwick, Shetland
A tipping point in dialect obsolescence? Change across the generations in Lerwick, Shetland
复制标题
方言过时的转折点？
DOI：
--
复制
发表时间：
2011
期刊：
影响因子：
--
通讯作者：
M. Durham
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Jennifer Smith;M. Durham
设得兰群岛所说的方言是不列颠群岛最有特色的方言之一。然而，有人声称，这种变种正在迅速消失，年轻一代的局部变种被更标准的变种所取代。在这篇文章中，我们通过对来自主要城镇勒威克的三代演讲者的不同形式的定量分析来检验这些说法。我们的目标是六个变量：两个词汇变量，两个形态句法变量和两个语音/音位变量。我们的结果表明，在所有六个变量中，局部形式的使用率都有所下降。对个人用法的进一步分析表明，年龄较大的人群形成了一个语言上相同的群体。相比之下，年轻的说话者形成了一个不同的群体：一半的年轻说话者使用本地形式的比例很高，而另一半几乎完全使用标准变体。我们认为，这些结果可能准确地指出了这一传统方言遗存地区迅速消失的根源。
The dialect spoken in the Shetland Islands is one of the most distinctive in the British Isles. However, there are claims that this variety is rapidly disappearing, with local forms replaced by more standard variants in the younger generations. In this paper we test these claims through a quantitative analysis of variable forms across three generations of speakers from the main town of Lerwick. We target six variables: two lexical, two morphosyntactic and two phonetic/phonological. Our results show that there is decline in use of the local forms across all six variables. Closer analysis of individual use reveals that the older age cohort form a linguistically homogeneous group. In contrast, the younger speakers form a heterogeneous group: half of the younger speakers have high rates of the local forms, while the other half uses the standard variants near-categorically. We suggest that these results may pinpoint the locus of rapid obsolescence in this traditionally relic dialect area.