Taal en Tongval - Volume 63, Issue 1, 2011

Regiolectisation has been the topic of a lot of interesting recent research in the Low Countries and in other European areas. This paper discusses a few factors that stirred this increased interest, as well as some of the most important lines for future research.

Typically, modern dialects show contact-induced rather than endogenous phonological change, i.e. a given dialect absorbs features of other varieties of the same language with which it is in contact, often replacing the dialect’s own sounds. In most cases, this process is lexicalized, i.e. it proceeds word by word, although the entire sound structure of the variety may be affected in the end. One of the unresolved questions of research on phonological dialect change is the nature of the spread of these changes. In principle, they can be due to horizontal (neighbouring dialects) or vertical contact (the standard variety or other forms with a wider range influence the dialects in the area “below” it). This paper discusses some quantitative measures used to estimate the magnitude of the two alternative forms of the propagation of a change, and reports some findings for the traditional dialects of southwest Germany in the last century. On the basis of a large corpus of spontaneous speech, we present an aggregated analysis using statistical correlations and a mixed logistic regression model.

As a result of high levels of mobility in contemporary England, one outcome of the resultant dialect contact that has been regularly highlighted in the literature is supralocalisation – the success of dialect variants that have a wide geographical currency at the expense of those which are much more locally restricted. This article begins by presenting the case for the existence of supralocalisation, but then goes on to problematize it, thereby suggesting where we must look in order to fully understand the linguistic consequences of present-day social and geographical mobility. I begin by pointing out that supralocal forms mentioned in the literature are often still minority forms in their communities, but suggest that this is understandable given the multiscalar nature of our own mobilities. Secondly, I argue that whilst mobility is often portrayed as a democratising force that is driving linguistic convergence, contemporary mobilities themselves are extremely socially differentiated. I suggest, consequently, that this diversity needs to be taken into consideration when we examine the linguistic consequences of movement – we need to ask who is mobile. Finally, I propose that we need to socialise studies of supralocalisation, which, until now, have largely ignored the dynamics of the social indexicality of supralocal forms. Both supralocalisation and mobility have been depicted as forces of convergence – this article attempts to show that the diversity of the latter undermines a simplistic view of the former.

In this paper we will investigate the relation between regiolect formation and the emergence of tussentaal (‘interlanguage’) in Flanders. More in particular, we will try to find out to what extent tussentaal is the product of regiolect formation as defined by Hoppenbrouwers (1990) and Hinskens (1993, 1996). In all Flemish regions a supra-regional interlanguage is gaining ground, with an indisputable Brabantic character. As for the intra-regional communication, the situation is different in the three regions under consideration. In the Brabantic region the traditional dialects are on the decline, except for the Antwerp city dialect, which – more than any other dialect – contributes to the formation of the Brabantic regiolect. In the West-Flemish region the traditional dialects are still fairly vital, but nevertheless a West-Flemish regiolect seems to be emerging too. In the East-Flemish region people tend to switch directly from the traditional dialects to the interlanguage. There seems to be no such thing as an East-Flemish regiolect. This regiospecific dynamics between dialect, regiolect (if any) and interlanguage makes for a very complex situation of language variation in Flanders today.

In this paper we report on a dialectometrical study of dialect change at the lexical, morphological and sound component levels. In particular, recently collected fieldwork data on a reasonable number of different Dutch dialects have been analysed to trace the processes leading to their convergence and/or divergence. Then, using these data, we provide the answers to four sets of research questions: Do dialects change? Do the patterns of change at the different levels correlate with each other? Which level is most strongly affected? Do dialects converge towards each other? Do the patterns of convergence/divergence at the different levels correlate with each other? Do dialects converge towards or diverge from standard Dutch? Do the patterns of convergence/divergence at the different levels correlate with each other? Do dialects which are distant from standard Dutch converge more strongly towards it than those that are closer to it? Can dialect change be explained by convergence among dialects and dialect convergence towards standard Dutch?   In Section 2, as a first step towards answering the research questions, we outline the methods used to collect the data in the field and the measurement techniques applied to this information. Then, in Section 3, some initial results are presented and the research questions are answered. As this contribution is an interim report on work-in-progress, only part of our planned study can be discussed herein. Accordingly, only the preliminary conclusions from the outcomes of the available data for this part of the project will be discussed in Section 4.

This contribution addresses a number of conceptual and methodological issues regarding processes of dialect change leading to koineization. After a discussion of some notions and key findings from  a few recent relevant studies concerning present-day Dutch dialects, two paradigms of linguistic theorizing will be briefly presented. Next, these paradigms will be compared on the basis of the findings from a recent diachronic study of the deletion of postvocalic /r/ before coronal obstruents. It will be shown that only one of the paradigms survives this test. As to the internal factors, the study offers evidence for the claim that, as far as phonological and morphophonological variation is concerned, the  place of a given dialect feature in the typology of phonological rules plays a determining role in its chances for survival in situations of long-lasting, extensive dialect contact. Finally, attention will be paid to some desiderata and possibilities for further research which are either of a methodological (especially data related) or of a more theoretical nature.

Although the border between Dutch and Belgian Limburg is younger than the remainder of the border between both countries, its influence has been illustrated repeatedly for e.g. lexical oppositions. This article deals with the question whether the border between the Netherlands and the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium might play a diverging role in the formation of regiolects in the Dutch and Belgian province of Limburg. Hinskens (1992) has been able to describe several instances of dialect levelling and regiolectization in the southeast Dutch Limburg dialect of Rimburg that take place in the direction of either Standard Dutch or the more western Limburg dialects. The same goes for e.g. the decline of the Sittard diphtongization. In Belgian Limburg, however, there as to be no sign yet of the formation of regiolects, at least as fas as concerns some phonological developments. This can be partly due to the less strong influence of the standard language and the orientation towards an own Belgian substandard, but might probably also be related to the fact that the dialect landscape in Belgian Limburg consists of many more smaller scaled areas than in Dutch Limburg and lacks a widely spread or prestigious variant. Furthermore, it seems that there is no significant difference with regard to the pace at which changes take place in dialects or regiolects. In contrast to what e.g. Hoppenbrouwers (1983) previously assumed, language change in dialects does not develop relatively slow, as can be shown by means of some internally conditioned dialect changes in Zutendaal in the second half of the twentieth century.

Unlike other major European languages, in German regiolect and regional dialect represent two clearly distinct varieties. This is true not only in terms of their linguistic status, but also with regard to their differential evaluation by those who speak and hear them and their disparate roles in recent language change. This article begins with some conceptual clarification and a consideration of the often misunderstood relation between regiolect and the dialect–standard continuum. It then examines the separate emergence of the two varieties and their individual development since 1880 (for the regional dialects) and 1930 (for the regiolects).The conclusions offer an insight into the current state of German regional languages as a whole on the basis of various current long-term projects focussed on dialect–standard variation in German.

Sociodialectological research on border dialects, viz. vernaculars spoken in localities near a political or national boundary, has some advantages over traditional dialect studies – especially when of a more rarely found cross-border design. Depending on the language situation on each side of the border, i.e. in two separate diasystems (cf. Goossens 2000a: 335), one observes constellations with different, similar or identical standard languages roofing equally different, similar or identical dialects, and this in a small-scale setting, i.e. in often comparable extralinguistic conditions.   The reported study investigates functional and structural dialect change at the Dutch-German border (Low Saxon dialect area), using proficient but all the same “natural” dialect speakers (N= 40) aged under 45 or over 55. In this article the outcome of the main linguistic hypotheses is discussed, presenting comparatively less structural levelling (Røyneland 2010: 261) in the German dialect. Functional loss, however, is proven to be smaller in the Dutch dialect. These findings are assumed to be connected with the varying standard-substandard constellations in the Dutch and German diasystems and their differing interference potentials. It is shown that dialect loss and regiolectization, even when attested in nearly identical dialects, evolve dissimilarly on both sides of the border. Next to this the article also provides an overview of the amount and quality of levelling products found in the informants’ speech.