6.3 KiB
| title | chunk | source | category | tags | date_saved | instance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dialect levelling | 6/7 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialect_levelling | reference | science, encyclopedia | 2026-05-05T15:40:54.369184+00:00 | kb-cron |
=== In Denmark and Sweden === Kjeld Kristensen and Mats Thelander discuss two socio-dialectal investigations, one Danish and one Swedish. The paper suggests that the development of urban society and an increasing degree of publicness were mentioned as important non-linguistic causes of the accelerating dialect levelling. For example, heavy migration from the countryside to towns and cities, increased traffic and trade, longer schooling within a more centralized system of education and the spread of mass media and other kinds of technological development may all be factors that explain why the process has been more rapid during the 20th century than it was in the 19th or why levelling hits dialects of certain regions more than dialects elsewhere. The levelling of dialects of Danish towards the metropolitan standard of Copenhagen has been dubbed Copenhagenization by Tore Kristiansen.
=== In African American Vernacular English (AAVE) === In this case study, Anderson (2002) discusses dialect levelling of African American Vernacular English (AAVE) spoken in Detroit. In her research, she analyzes a very particular linguistic variable, the monophthongization of /aɪ/ before voiceless obstruents. While monophthongization of the diphthong /aɪ > aː/ is common in AAVE, it generally occurs in the environment of voiced, not voiceless, obstruents. For example, a southern speaker of AAVE would pronounce the word tide (voiced obstruent) as [taːd] and pronounce the word tight (voiceless obstruent) as [taɪt], but some southern white speakers would pronounce it as [taːt]. The monophthongization of /aɪ/ before voiceless obstruents is a salient characteristic of southern white dialects such as Appalachian and Texas varieties of English, and in the southern states, it indexes group membership with southern white people. To the north, however, in Detroit, the linguistic feature does not mark group membership with white people. Anderson presents evidence that this linguistic marker has been adopted among speakers of AAVE in Detroit, in part because of contact with white Appalachian immigrants. In other words, the diphthongization of /aɪ/ before voiced obstruents, which is a common feature of AAVE, has been levelled with that of southern white dialects and is now then being pronounced as a monophthong. In her article, Anderson reports that black and white segregation in Detroit is higher than in any other American city. She describes the demographics stating that the overwhelming majority of white people have moved to the suburbs and most local black people live in the inner city of Detroit (pp. 87–8). White Appalachians who have migrated to Detroit have found refuge in the inner city and have maintained close ties with black people. That is partly because of their cultural orientation to the South but also because both groups have been marginalised and, hence, subject to discrimination. The contact among them has led to the levelling of AAVE with a southern white variety in which speakers of AAVE have adopted the monophthongization of /aɪ/ before voiceless obstruents. In the South, the linguistic marker indexes group membership between black people and white people, but in the North, the linguistic marker no longer works since white Detroiters do not use this feature in their speech. Anderson concludes that "the overall effect is that Detroit AAVE aligns with a Southern vowel system for the /ai/ vowel variable, including that of the Detroit Southern White community, while indexing an opposition with Northern Whites" (p. 95).
=== Mandarin tonal levelling in Taiwan === A study of Mandarin leveling in Taiwan investigated the tonal leveling of Mandarin between Mandarin-Waishengren (外省人) and Holo-Benshengren (本省人) in Taiwan. The results indicated that the tonal leveling of Mandarin between these two ethnic groups started one generation earlier than the general patterns suggested by Trudgill. This leveling has nearly reached its completion in the following generation, taking approximately 30 years. Four factors were proposed to interpret the rapidity of this dialectal leveling:
The intensiveness of immigration to Taiwan The exclusive Mandarin-only language policy The pre-established social order and infrastructure during the Japanese colonial period The frequent contacts between Waishengren and Benshengren.
=== In Britain ===
== Related terms ==
=== Language convergence === Language convergence refers to what can happen linguistically when speakers adapt "to the speech of others to reduce differences". As such, it is a type of accommodation (modification), namely the opposite of divergence, which is the exploitation and making quantitatively more salient of differences. One can imagine this to be a long-term effect of interspeaker accommodation. Unlike convergence, dialect levelling in the sense used in this study (a) is not only a performance phenomenon, but (b) also refers to what ultimately happens at the level of the 'langue', and (c) though in the long-term meaning it comes down to dissimilar varieties growing more similar, it does not necessarily come about by mutually or one-sidedly taking over characteristics of the other variety. Like interference, dialect levelling is a contact phenomenon. However, it cannot be considered to be a type of interference according to Weinreich (1953), since (a) it is not a concomitant of bilingualism, and (b) it is not merely a performance phenomenon. Dialect leveling need not produce a new usage, but it may very well result in qualitative changes.
=== Geographical diffusion === Geographical diffusion is the process by which linguistic features spread out from a populous and economically and culturally dominant centre. The spread is generally wave-like, but modified by the likelihood that nearby towns and cities will adopt the feature before the more rural parts in between. At the individual level in such a diffusion model, speakers are in face-to-face contact with others who have already adopted the new feature, and (for various reasons) they are motivated to adopt it themselves. The reduction or attrition of marked variants in this case brings about levelling.