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

据说，过去100年不列颠群岛的社会经济变化导致了“方言水平”，当地方言形式被更标准或“超地方”的方言形式所取代。例如，在苏格兰方言中，“house”、“ken”和“aye”等形式随着时间的推移可能会被“house”、“know”和“yes”所取代。这一过程的一个结果是农村地区的传统方言逐渐消失，最终这些迄今为止各具特色的方言消亡。虽然这样的方言流失有很好的记录，但在这种方言变化的格局中，一个很大程度上被忽视的情况是“双方言”的增加，在这种情况下，方言的本土品种与更标准的品种一起在一个讲方言的社区中得到保留，而不是丧失。据说，这种情况增加得如此之多，以至于在现代生活中，特别是在年轻人中，单一的传统方言使用者是例外。然而，很少有研究直接解决这种地方和标准的平行使用，因此一些关于双方言的重要问题仍然没有答案，包括：1)所有的说话者都能在他们的语言曲目中使用两种变体-地方和超地方？2)年轻的说两种方言的人比年长的说两种方言的人更熟练吗？3)双方言说话者在本地方言和超本地方言之间是否表现出流利的转换，或者两者之间是否存在混合？特定的语言形式（如词汇和语法）是否比其他形式更容易转换？5)双方言在方言的平等化、方言的消耗和更普遍的语言变化中起着怎样的作用？在提议的研究中，我将尝试通过对苏格兰东北部巴基的一个小社区的社会语言学研究来回答这些问题，他们注意到在他们的节目中使用当地方言和更标准化的多样性。在这个社区里，大部分时间都使用当地方言，还有一些类似标准苏格兰英语（SSE）的方言，主要用于学校和与外人交谈。然而，我们之前在这个社区的研究使我们得出结论，这两个品种的使用可能是年龄和形式相关的。老一代的人似乎在标准种类上几乎没有能力，他们的转换仅限于少数几个单词；中年的讲话者可以转换更广泛的形式；在特定的语境中，年轻的说话者在使用当地和标准变体方面更加灵活。然而，即使在这年轻一代中，说话者也会系统地在词汇和语音形式的地方和标准之间切换，而不是语法形式。换句话说，双方言可能只是部分的。本研究将通过对巴基两代人的双方言现象进行定量的社会语言学分析，进一步调查这些观察结果。我将收集64位演讲者的语料库数据，按年龄和性别划分。演讲者将与1)一个社区“圈内人”和2)一个“局外人”进行对话录音。这将测试可能的双方言，因为讲话者将被期望切换到一个更标准的形式，由一个局外人作为对话者。从这些录音中，我将创建一个文本到声音同步可搜索的语音数据库。然后，我将进行一系列的形式定量分析-词汇，语音，语法-已知在这个社区的标准和方言之间存在差异，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，这将有助于解答有关21世纪不列颠群岛的双方言主义和语言变化的问题。

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.