Perceptual dialectology is the scientific study of how ordinary individuals perceive variation in language—where they believe it exists, where they believe it comes from, how they believe it functions, and how they socially evaluate it. Perceptual dialectology differs from ordinary dialectology in that it is concerned not with empirical linguistic understandings or discoveries about language itself, but rather with empirical research on how non-linguists perceive language, also known as folk linguistics, which includes how non-linguists perceive various accents, vocabulary usages, grammatical structures, etc. Such perceptions may or may not align with actual linguistic findings. Perceptual dialectology falls under the general field of sociolinguistics. Common topics in the study of perceptual dialectology include the comparison of folk perceptions of dialect boundaries with traditional linguistic definitions, the examination of what factors influence folk perceptions of variation, and what social characteristics individuals attribute to various dialects.
History Linguists disagree on whether the beginnings of perceptual dialectology can be traced to the 1920s in Japan or the Netherlands in the 1930s. A pioneering study in traditional perceptual dialectology took place in the Netherlands in 1939 and was conducted by W.G. Rensink. The study sought to investigate perceptual dialect boundaries through a Dutch dialect survey in which subjects were asked to state whether they thought other people spoke the same or different dialect as them, and what the dialect difference was if there was deemed to be any. Weijnen analyzed this data through the little-arrow method that she devised. Many studies proceeded from this, and perceptual dialectology surveys took place in various countries. Perceptual dialectology studies in Japan were also taking place during the early 20th century. Japanese methodology was fundamentally different from the Netherlands' in that informants were asked to judge differences between dialects on degrees of difference (for example, from 'not different' to 'incomprehensible'). Data was thus analyzed by drawing lines between areas to indicate a scale of difference, and was the first method in 'calculating' perceptual boundaries. Linguists became increasingly interested in how non-linguists distinguish between language varieties, including the fact that pitch accent is one of the major ways that non-linguists distinguish between varieties. Contemporary perceptual dialectology was spearheaded by Dennis Preston, who is seen to be the major proponent of perceptual dialectology. His five-point approach to the study has been a benchmark for the advancement of the field. Language attitude studies and its related matched-guise methodology are also seen to be related to perceptual dialectology.
Methodology 1.0
Little arrow method The little arrow method is an early method for comparing regional dialects. In the little arrows method, researchers begin with a general map of a region, often with traditional linguistic dialect boundaries indicated for reference. Then, informants from several sites are asked how similar they believe the language of other sites is to their own. Sites which participants indicate as being extremely similar are connected by a "little arrow." By gathering responses from several informants and sites, these "little arrows" connect to form networks of related languages. From this information, information on perceptual dialectical boundaries can be drawn. Perceptual dialect categories consist of areas linked together by the "little arrows," and dialect borders are indicated when there are no connections between sites. These informant-perceived categories can then be compared to more traditional linguistic boundaries for further analysis.
Preston's five-point method The Preston five-point method is a set of techniques developed by Preston for the study of perceptual dialectology in the 1980s. The specific measures composing the five-point method include:
Draw-a-Map: in this method, informants are given a blank or very simplified map of the region being studied, and are asked to draw borders identifying the locations where they believe different dialects exist. Computerized methods of interpretation can also be used to draw generalized maps to be generated from the responses. Degree of Difference: In this method, informants are asked to rate the similarity or difference of the language of two regions, often on a numerical scale. Preston's original methods use a scale of 1-4 (where 1=same, 2=a little different, 3=different, and 4=unintelligibly different). Such comparisons usually ask the informant to rank a neighboring region in comparison to the participant’s home region. Correct and Pleasant: this method asks informants to rate regions according to how “correct” or “pleasant” the variants spoken there are, either on a numerical scale or in comparison to other regions. Although Preston mostly investigated measures of "correctness" or "pleasantness," other works may also investigate other subjective qualities, such as whether a language is "formal" or "casual", "polite" or "rude", "educated" or "uneducated." Dialect identification: methods ask informants to listen to recorded speech samples from a given dialect continuum and attempt to identify the region the sample is from. Qualitative data: in addition to the aforementioned methods of gathering data, researchers in perceptual dialectology also gather data by asking more open-ended interview questions about the subjects thoughts on language variants, speakers, and other topics of interest.
Topics in perceptual dialectology
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