Language and Space

An International Handbook of Linguistic Variation Edited by Jrgen Erich Schmidt

Volume 1

Theories and Methods

Edited Edited by Peter Auer and Jrgen Erich Schmidt
2010. Berlin/New York: De Gruyter Mouton. ISBN 978-3-11-018002-2

Errata

11. Language, space and the folk by Dennis Preston The wrong map appeared on page 181 of the print edition (Map 11.1). Please find the correct map on the following replacement pages.

varie reevaluation 17. Emergence of varieties through restructuring and reevaluation by Alexandra Lenz An incorrect figure appeared on page 298 of the print edition (Figure 17.2). Please find the correct version on the following pages. The errors have been rectified in the electronic edition of the handbook. We apologize sincerely for this mistake.

11. Language, space and the folk

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Map 11.1: The westernmost section of the North Brabant, showing production boundaries (dark thick lines), little arrows of respondent similarity perceptions, and perceptual areas (gray thick lines) (enlarged and adapted from Weijnen 1946)

In general, the principal motivation in this early Dutch research seemed to have been a desire to give production dialect boundaries greater or lesser weight by establishing their folk validity, combining folk and scientific notions of linguistic space. This is thoroughly discussed by Weijnen (1968) and is explicitly realized in Daan (1969) who, in an ambitious study of contiguous Dutch-speaking areas, provides a map based on both perception and production data. Kremer (1984) is another interesting little-arrow study of the perception of varieties by German and Dutch speakers within and across national boundaries. All these studies, however, make use of the technique of drawing perceptual boundaries around areas not crossed by any little arrows, i. e., judgments of dialect similarity by folk respondents.

17. Emergence of varieties less neglected. Attitudes are commonly conceptualized as beliefs and valuations that according to the mentalistic concept of Allport (1954) are compounds of cognitive, evaluative and conative elements (cf. Rosenberg and Hovland 1960; Hewstone, Manstead and Stroebe 1997). They are not innate, predefined and invariable constants, but dynamic and processual features which emerge, further develop and vary in socially interactive processes from sedimentations of individual and transferred experience (cf. Deprez and Persoons 1987). Variety reevaluation processes, and the restructuring which they imply, are subject to the general dynamics of attitudes. This includes all forms of attitudinal dynamics, especially the ebb and flow of prestige. Linguistic and attitudinal dynamics form a complex relational network from which new varieties can emerge, which in turn can initiate and support new linguistic and attitudinal processes. Within the history of European dialect standard constellations, three primary patterns for the emergence of varieties through reevaluation can be reconstructed: Type A: Reevaluation of a vernacular variety as a high variety. Type B: Reevaluation of a vernacular variety as a low variety. Type C: Reevaluation of a high variety as a low variety. The first type of reevaluation process (Type A) is found in the case of a monocentric selection and implementation of a standard variety which emerges from the growing prestige of an existing variety, for example. This variety increasingly becomes an orientation norm for other diatopic varieties among which it originally existed as more or less an equal. The reevaluation of a vernacular variety as a high variety is sketched in Figure 17.1. This depiction, like Figures 17.2, 17.3 and 17.7, draws on Auer 2005, but here the aspect of (re)evaluation is emphasized. A more detailed discussion of this reevaluation type follows in section 3.

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Fig. 17.1: Reevaluation of a vernacular variety as a high variety (Type A: Emergence of a standard variety via monocentric selection)

The concomitant reevaluation of the other vernacular varieties as dialects represents an example of the second type of reevaluation process (Type B, see Figure 17.2). It is only through the existence of their standard counterpart that dialects become a relational and constitutive element of the dialect standard constellation (see section 4). Similarly, regiolects which can be located on the vertical axis as middle varieties, above the dialects but below an overarching standard variety presuppose the

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III. Structure and dynamics of a language space

Fig. 17.2: Reevaluation of vernacular varieties as low varieties (Type B: Emergence of dialects, in the sense of relational diasystems)

existence of both relational poles. In the research literature, the emergence of regiolects is mostly explained as a complex interplay of vertical and horizontal convergence processes (cf. Bellmann 1983; Siebenhaar, this volume; Ryneland, this volume). Alongside convergence processes which effect structural changes on the dialect standard axis, reevaluation processes have to be taken into consideration in explaining the emergence of regiolects. As can be illustrated by the test case of German (see section 5.3), intermediate varieties may be identified as old high varieties, which are devalued as a result of the superimposition of a new high variety and take on a modified position and function within the variety spectrum (Type C, see Figure 17.3).

Fig. 17.3: Reevaluation of an erstwhile high variety as a low variety (Type C: Emergence of regiolects by superimposition)

In general, the evaluation and reevaluation of varieties presents a complex and highly challenging object of research (cf. Auer, Hinskens and Kerswill 2005: 38 39). Evidence for a varietys changing prestige can be provided by so-called hyperforms, which are (primarily) the result of a speakers inadequate approximation of an intended target variety and which can in certain cases even attain system-internal status (see Herrgen 1986; Pargman 1998). In linguistic terms, hyperforms are motivated by a partial contrast between varieties, i. e., where no one-to-one correspondence between the varieties in contact can be formulated. The generation of hyperforms can be explained as false