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Last update:
9 February 2010

© John Benjamins
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Handbook of Perceptual Dialectology

Volume 1

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Edited by Dennis R. Preston
Michigan State University

1999. xl, 413 pp.
Publishing status: Available

HardboundIn stock
978 90 272 2180 3 / EUR 174.00
978 1 55619 534 1 / USD 261.00
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e-BookAvailable from e-book platforms
978 90 272 9841 6 / EUR 174.00 / USD 261.00
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Perceptual dialectology investigates what ordinary people (as opposed to professional linguists) believe about the distribution of language varieties in their own and surrounding speech communities and how they have arrived at and implement those beliefs. It studies the beliefs of the common folk about which dialects exist and, indeed, about what attitudes they have to these varieties. Some of this leads to discussion of what they believe about language in general, or “folk linguistics”. Surprising divergences from professional results can be found. For the professional, it is intriguing to find out why and whether the folk can be wrong or whether the professional has missed something.
Volume 1 of this handbook aims to provide for the field of perceptual dialectology:
  • a historical survey;
  • a regional survey, adding to the earlier preponderance of studies in Japan, the Netherlands, and the United States;
  • a methodological survey, showing, in detail, how data have been acquired and processed;
  • an interpretive survey, showing how these data have been related to both linguistic and other socio-cultural facts;
  • a comprehensive bibliography.
The results and methods of perceptual dialectical studies should be interesting not only to linguists, variationists, dialectologists, and students of the social psychology of language but also to sociologists, anthropologists, folklorists, and other students of culture as well as to language planners and educators.


Table of contents

List of Figures
List of Tables
Series Editor’s Introduction
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Dennis R. Preston
I: The Dutch Contribution: ‘Little Arrows’
Informant Classification of Dialects
W.G. Rensink
Dialects
Jo Daan
The Netherlands-German National Border as a Subjective Dialect Boundary
Ludger Kremer
II: The Japanese Controversy: ‘Subjective’ and ‘Objective’
Consciousness of Dialect Boundaries
Takesi Sibata
Consciousness of Linguistic Boundaries and Actual Linguistic Boundaries
Kikuo Nomoto
Dialect Consciousness and Dialect Divisions: Examples in the Nagano-Gifu Boundary
Yoshio Mase
On Dialect Consciousness: Dialect Characteristics Given by Speakers
Yoshio Mase
The Discussion Surrounding the Subjective Boundaries of Dialects
Willem Grootaers
On the Value of Subjective Dialect Boundaries
Antonius A. Weijnen
Dialects and the Subjective Judgments of Speakers: Remarks on Controversial Methods
Ton Goeman
III: Images, Perceptions and Attitudes
Classification of Dialects by Image: English and Japanese
Fumio Inoue
Subjective Dialect Division in Great Britain
Fumio Inoue
Geographical Perceptions of Japanese Dialect Regions
Daniel Long
Mapping Nonlinguists’ Evaluations of Japanese Language Variation
Daniel Long
The Perception of Post-Unification German Regional Speech
Jennifer Dailey-O’Cain
Variation and the Norm: Parisian Perceptions of Regional French
Lawrence Kuiper
The Perception of Turkish Dialects
Mahide Demirci and Brian Kleiner
Regional Variation in Subjective Dialect Divisions in the United States
Donald M. Lance
A View from the West: Perceptions of U.S. Dialects by Oregon Residents
Laura Hartley
“Welshness” and “Englishness” as Attitudinal Dimensions of English Language Varieties in Wales
Nikolas Coupland, Angie Williams and Peter Garrett
Dialect Recognition
Angie Williams, Peter Garrett and Nikolas Coupland
A Language Attitude Approach to the Perception of Regional Variety
Dennis R. Preston
References
Additional Readings
About the Contributors and Translators
Index


Dennis Preston has done the field of empirical linguistics great service in his earlier work on perceptual dialectology, both to raise our consciousness of the phenomenon and to document some facts about the perception of English varieties. Now he has done it again in the Handbook of Percpetual Dialectology, to expose the foundation of the study of perceptual dialectology and to extend our knowledge of it around the world.
William A Kretzschmar Jr., University of Georgia

The Handbook is recommended to everyone interested in sociolinguistics and the social psychology of language in general, and in dialectology, language attitudes and folk-linguistic awareness in particular.
Hans J. Ladegaard in Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development

Preston's volume is successful in communicating the problems as well as the insights of perceptual dialectology. The text is highly effective in arguing and illustrating the benefits of such a perspective for a wide array of linguistic subfields and other social sciences. Each chapter is useful in itself, and when linked together, the chapters proffer a well-constructed infrastructure of information. Undoubtedly, this collection will be come a valuable resource to language scholars and social scientists alike.
Clare J. Dannenberg in Language 77:2, 2001