One speaker, two dialects: bidialectalism across the generations in a Scottish community

一种说话者，两种方言：苏格兰社区中几代人的双方言

• 批准号: ES/K000861/1
• 负责人: Jennifer Smith
• 金额: $ 37.81万
• 依托单位: University of Glasgow
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2013
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2013 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=ES%2FK000861%2F1
• 关键词: speaker; two; dialects; bidialectalism; across

Socio-economic changes over the past 100 years in the British Isles are said to have led to 'dialect levelling', where local dialect forms are replaced by more standard or 'supra-local' forms. For example, in a Scottish dialect, forms such as 'hoose', 'ken' and 'aye' may be replaced by 'house', 'know' and 'yes' over time. One result of this process is gradual loss of traditional dialects spoken in rural areas, and eventual 'dialect death' across these hitherto distinctive varieties. While such dialect attrition is well documented, a largely neglected scenario in this changing dialect landscape is the increase in 'bidialectalism', where instead of dialect loss, the indigenous variety is maintained alongside a more standard variety in a community of speakers. This scenario is said to have increased so much that monolectal traditional dialect speakers are the exception in modern day life, especially amongst younger speakers. However, very few studies have directly addressed this parallel use of local and standard, thus a number of important questions on bidialectalism remain unanswered, including:1) can all speakers use two varieties - local and supralocal - in their linguistic repertoire?2) are younger speakers more bidialectal than older speakers? 3) does the bidialectal speaker demonstrate fluent switching between local and supralocal varieties or there mixing between the two? 4) are particular linguistic forms (e.g. lexical vs grammatical) 'easier' to switch than others? 5) what part does bidialectalism play in dialect levelling, dialect attrition and language change more generally? In the proposed research, I will attempt to answer these questions through a sociolinguistic study of a small community of speakers in Buckie, north east Scotland, who are noted to employ both local dialect and more standardised variety in their repertoire. In this community, the local dialect is used the majority of the time, with a variety approximating Standard Scottish English (SSE) mostly circumscribed to school and talking to outsiders. However, our previous research in this community lead us to conclude that the use of the two varieties may be age- and form-dependent. The older generations appear to have little ability in the standard variety, with switching restricted to a handful of words; the middle-aged speakers can switch across a wider range of forms; the younger speakers are much more flexible in utilising both local and standard varieties in particular contexts of use. However, even in this younger generation, speakers systematically switch between local and standard with lexical and phonetic forms, but not with grammatical forms. In other words, bidialectalism may only be partial. This research will investigate these observations further through an quantitative sociolinguistic analysis of bidialectalism across the generations in Buckie. I will collect a corpus of data from 64 speakers, divided by age and gender. The speakers will be recorded in conversation with 1) a community 'insider' and 2) an 'outsider'. This will test for possible bidialectalism as the speakers will be expected to switch to a more standard variety with an outsider as interlocutor. From these recordings, I will create a text to sound synchronized searchable database of speech. I will then conduct a series of quantitative analyses of the forms - lexical, phonetic, grammatical - known to vary between standard and dialect in this community and compare these across the two recordings. This will allow me to identify if, where and when speakers switch forms. This, in turn, will contribute to questions surrounding bidialectalism and language change more generally in the 21st century British Isles.

在过去的100年里，不列颠群岛的社会经济变化导致了“方言水平化”，当地方言形式被更标准或“超地方”的形式所取代。例如，在苏格兰方言中，“hoose”，“ken”和“aye”等形式可能会随着时间的推移而被“house”，“know”和“yes”所取代。这一过程的一个结果是农村地区传统方言的逐渐丧失，并最终在这些迄今为止独特的方言中“方言死亡”。虽然这种方言的磨损是有据可查的，在这个不断变化的方言景观在很大程度上被忽视的情况是增加“双方言”，而不是方言的损失，土著品种是保持在一个社区的扬声器更标准的品种。据说这种情况已经增加了很多，以至于单语传统方言的使用者在现代生活中是例外，特别是在年轻的使用者中。然而，很少有研究直接解决这种并行使用的地方和标准，因此一些重要的问题，双方言仍然没有得到回答，包括：1）是否所有的发言者使用两个变种-本地和超本地-在他们的语言剧目？2)年轻人比年长的人更会说两种方言吗？3)说两种方言的人是否表现出在本地和超本地变体之间流畅的转换，或者两者之间的混合？4)特定的语言形式（例如词汇与语法）比其他语言形式更容易转换吗？5)双方言现象在方言水平化、方言损耗和语言变化中起着什么样的作用？在拟议的研究中，我将试图回答这些问题，通过一个小社区的发言者在Buckie，苏格兰东北部，谁是注意到采用当地方言和更标准化的品种在他们的剧目的社会语言学研究。在这个社区，当地方言是使用的大部分时间，与各种近似标准苏格兰英语（SSE）主要限于学校和与外人交谈。然而，我们之前在该社区的研究使我们得出结论，这两个品种的使用可能与年龄和形式有关。年长的一代人似乎在标准变体中几乎没有能力，切换仅限于少数几个词;中年人可以在更广泛的形式之间切换;年轻人在特定的使用环境中使用本地和标准变体时更加灵活。然而，即使在这年轻的一代中，说话者也会通过词汇和语音形式系统地在本地和标准之间切换，而不是通过语法形式。换句话说，双方言主义可能只是局部的。本研究将进一步调查这些意见，通过一个定量的社会语言学分析跨世代的bidialatalism在巴基。我将从64位演讲者那里收集数据，按年龄和性别划分。发言者将被记录在与1）社区“内部人士”和2）“社区成员”的对话中。这将测试可能的双方言，因为发言者将被期望切换到一个更标准的品种与局外人作为对话者。从这些录音，我将创建一个文本到声音同步搜索语音数据库。然后，我将对这个社区中标准语和方言之间已知的不同形式--词汇、语音、语法--进行一系列定量分析，并在两个录音中进行比较。这将使我能够确定发言者是否、在何处以及何时转换形式。反过来，这将有助于围绕双方言和语言变化的问题，更普遍地在21世纪世纪不列颠群岛。

项目成果

Tracking linguistic change in childhood: Transmission, incrementation, and vernacular reorganization

追踪童年时期的语言变化：传播、增量和白话重组

• DOI: 10.1353/lan.2021.0087
• 发表时间: 2022
• 期刊: Language
• 影响因子: 2.1
• 作者: Smith J

Dressing down up north: DRESS-lowering and /l/ allophony in a Scottish dialect

北方着装：苏格兰方言中的“着装降低”和“/l/”同音异义

• DOI: 10.1017/s0954394517000278
• 发表时间: 2018
• 期刊: Language Variation and Change
• 影响因子: 1
• 作者: Holmes-Elliott S

The unstoppable glottal: tracking rapid change in an iconic British variable

不可阻挡的声门：追踪英国标志性变量的快速变化

• DOI: 10.1017/s1360674316000459
• 发表时间: 2017
• 期刊: English Language and Linguistics
• 影响因子: 1
• 作者: SMITH J

Explanations in Sociosyntactic Variation

社会句法变异的解释

• DOI: 10.1017/9781108674942.004
• 发表时间: 2022
• 作者: Smith J