This article reports on research carried out in the Fens in Eastern England, a region noted in the dialectological literature as the site of a number of important phonological transitions, most notably [] and [a – a:], which separate northern and southern varieties of British English. Recordings of 81 speakers from across the Fens were analyzed for the use of (ai), a particularly salient local variable. A “Canadian Raising” type of allophonic variation was found in the central Fenland: speakers in this area used raised onsets of (ai) before voiceless consonants but open onsets before voiced consonants, morpheme boundaries, and //. The article weighs a number of possible explanations for the emergence of this variation in the Fens. Based on compelling evidence from the demographic history of the area, it supports a view that such an allophonic distribution, previously thought not to be found in Britain, emerged as the result of dialect contact. The sociolinguistic process of koineization that is commonly associated with post-contact speech communities (Trudgill 1986) is held responsible for the focusing of this allophonic variation from the input dialects of an initially mixed variety. The article concludes by suggesting a socially based explanatory model to account for the way that speakers implement processes of focusing and koineization in areas of dialect contact. [English, dialects, contact, koine, geographical linguistics, social networks, structuration theory)

https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S0047404500019394

Dialect contact and phonological reallocation: “Canadian Raising” in the English Fens

This volume presents a study of the phenomenon of dialect levelling, the process of the reduction of structural variation. The investigation focuses on an originally rural Limburg dialect of Dutch. The approach is basically quantitatively sociolinguistic, although methods and insights from historical linguistics, dialectology as well as (linear and non-linear) phonological theory also play an important role. After a discussion of the findings, the outlines are sketched of a theory of dialect levelling. The possibilities as well as some of the problems are discussed of an integration of the study of language variation and change on the one hand and formal linguistic theory on the other.

DIALECT LEVELLING IN LIMBURG Structural and Sociolinguistic Aspects

world is strongly characterized by diglossia.1 The literary language, Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) contrasts with the (non-written) vernacular geographic variants known collectively as colloquial Arabic. The implications of diglossia for language learning have severely affected the teaching of Arabic as a foreign language, since instead of one language variant, students have to learn at least two if they wish both to be literate and to be able to converse about everyday topics. This problem, compounded by the inherent difficulties of a non-Indoeuropean language with a nonroman script, has discouraged and frustrated generations of students and potential students, who start out enthusiastically, but after one or two years of study often give up, finding that despite great effort, they are still extraordinarily limited in terms of communicative competence. Attempts to deal with the diglossia problem, such as the decision at the Middlebury Summer Arabic School to use MSA for all speaking and listening purposes as well as for reading and writing, have resulted in improved levels of proficiency, but in a variety of language which is not a form of spontaneous speech in the everyday world of Arabic speakers.2 A new form of widely intelligible spoken Arabic seems to be emerging in the Arab world, however, used for inter-dialectal conversation by educated native speakers, for semiformal discussions, and on other social occasions when the colloquial is deemed too informal, and the literary, too stilted. Sociolinguistic research has begun to investigate and define the characteristics of this language variant, and for a number of reasons it has become the language of choice for most spoken Arabic training at the Foreign Service Institute (FSI) of the US State Department. According to FSI's experience and increasing scholarly documentation, this new Arabic may now represent a viable option for spoken proficiency development in Arabic academic programs as well. At FSI, it is normally taught concurrently with MSA, so that students develop their ability to converse along with their ability to read.3

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Proficiency Despite Diglossia: A New Approach for Arabic

Paris mushroomed in the thirteenth century to become the largest city in the Western world, largely through in-migration from rural areas. The resulting dialect-mixture led to the formation of new, specifically urban modes of speech. From the time of the Renaissance social stratification became sharper as the elites distanced themselves from the Parisian 'Cockney' of the masses. Nineteenth-century urbanisation transformed the situation yet again with the arrival of huge numbers of immigrants from far-flung corners of France, levelling dialect-differences and exposing ever larger sections of the population to standardising influences. At the same time, a working-class vernacular emerged which was distinguished from the upper-class standard not only in grammar and pronunciation but most markedly in vocabulary (slang). This book examines the interlinked history of Parisian speech and the Parisian population through these various phases of in-migration, dialect-mixing and social stratification from medieval times to the present day.

K. M. Petyt

Papers

Challenging Insular Traditions@@@Dialectology@@@The Study of Dialect: An Introduction to Dialectology