Dialectology
By: J. K. Chambers, Peter Trudgill.
Contributors: Trudgill, Peter, joint author.
Series: Cambridge textbooks in linguistics
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 1980
Place of publication: Cambridge [Eng.]; New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 218
Subjects: Dialectology; Sociolinguistics; Language and languages -- Variation
Description: Dialectology is the study of language variation. Traditionally, this has largely been the province of dialect geographers, who concentrated on the speech of the linguistically conservative rural population in order to map regional differences. More recently, however, interest has shifted to urban speech, and sociolinguists have correlated linguistic variables with other variables such as age, social class, sex and ethnic background. Dialectology not only provides a thorough exposition of these two approaches - their histories, methodologies and significant results, drawn from studies of a wide range of languages - but for the first time also integrates them within a single conceptual framework as two aspects of the same discipline. The authors argue that dialectology can thus make an important contribution to general linguistic theory and in particular answer questions about variability in language, which has in the past too often been assigned peripheral or accidental status. -- Publisher description.
Notes: Bibliography: p. 209-214.
Includes index.