Nis speech through the prism of diglossia
Authors: Trajkovic Tatjana 
Published: March 2019

This paper presents an analysis of the speech used by teachers and pupils in
high schools in Nis, which linguistically and geographically belongs to the
Prizren-Timok dialect area, and in a narrower sense to the Prizren-South
Moravian dialect. Yet, it differs as an urban environment from the nearby
rural speeches. The examination was done on the basis of an anonymous
questionnaire which contained questions on the attitudes towards the dialect
and its place in communication, while the other part of the questionnaire
was related to the practical use of dialectal and standard forms of the
Serbian language in different communicative circumstances. The data received
were analyzed after the quantitative and qualitative methods. The statistic
analysis contained the following segments: the attitudes towards the
dialect, the use of dialect forms in all situations, the use of standard
forms or those adapted to the standard in all situations, the use of
linguistic forms according to gender and the use of standard forms or those
adapted to the standard in formal circumstances. The descriptive method was
used to analyze all the results, which led to the description of the basic
characteristics of the observed idioms, the difference between the two
groups and the portrait of the modern Nis vernacular from the angle of
diglossia of the chosen groups of speakers. It was shown that the teachers
decide to change the code more often when adapting to the interlocutor. In
those cases, they usually adapt the place of accent which points to the fact
that the dialectal place of the accent is an important characteristic of the
speech of teachers in informal situations. In addition, the teachers decide
to change the manner in which they use the Future Tense I, which shows that
the usage of the analytic forms enclitic (+ da) + the Present Tense is also
a characteristic of the teachers? speech. The students most often decide to
adapt the Future Tense I forms, which would mean that the construction
enclitic (+ da) + the Present Tense is an important characteristic of the
students? speech. Furthermore, the place of the accent in a speech unit,
which refers to the dialect in informal circumstances of communication, is
also an important characteristic. Both speaker groups rarely decide to
change the use of the locative case in speech. Such a state leads to the
conclusion that both teachers and students use the standard form of the
locative case in uncontrolled speech, that is, they rarely interchange it
with the forms of the accusative case or the general case which marks it as
an important characteristic of the Prizren-Timok speech. The analysis of the
diglossic behavior of the two groups of Nis speakers pointed to the fact
that there is a certain type of interdialect, which is especially noticeable
in the group consisting of students. They use the standard and dialectal
forms at the same time regardless of the interlocutor and that would be the
basic characteristic of this idiom. Only one segment of Nis city speech is
presented in this paper and it should be examined further and in greater
detail, by using different methods.