Chapter 8: Dialects
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Anneli Meurman-Solin
Abstract
In comparison with both Middle English and Late Modern, and Presentday English, regional variation in the Early Modern English period has been a less intensively researched area owing to the lack of quantitatively and qualitatively valid data in digital form. Instead of the data-driven and data-oriented approach, historical dialectology focusing on this period has often yielded to language attitudes and the prescriptivist tradition, defining dialect use as non-standard and describing it with reference to marked features exclusively. In the 21st century, several new corpora have been compiled to increase the diatopic representativeness of EModE databases, those drawing on manuscripts being particularly relevant. In modern corpus-based dialect research, the description of linguistic systems at the local and regional levels is based on comprehensive inventories of all features in a particular area, not a pre-selected set of features, probably biased or prejudiced, alleged to permit a diagnosis of a particular variety as dialectal.
Abstract
In comparison with both Middle English and Late Modern, and Presentday English, regional variation in the Early Modern English period has been a less intensively researched area owing to the lack of quantitatively and qualitatively valid data in digital form. Instead of the data-driven and data-oriented approach, historical dialectology focusing on this period has often yielded to language attitudes and the prescriptivist tradition, defining dialect use as non-standard and describing it with reference to marked features exclusively. In the 21st century, several new corpora have been compiled to increase the diatopic representativeness of EModE databases, those drawing on manuscripts being particularly relevant. In modern corpus-based dialect research, the description of linguistic systems at the local and regional levels is based on comprehensive inventories of all features in a particular area, not a pre-selected set of features, probably biased or prejudiced, alleged to permit a diagnosis of a particular variety as dialectal.
Chapters in this book
- Frontmatter I
- Table of Contents V
- Abbreviations VII
- Chapter 1: Introduction 1
- Chapter 2: Early Modern English: Overview 8
- Chapter 3: Phonology 27
- Chapter 4: Morphology 47
- Chapter 5: Syntax 68
- Chapter 6: Lexicon and semantics 89
- Chapter 7: Pragmatics and discourse 108
- Chapter 8: Dialects 128
- Chapter 9: Language contact 150
- Chapter 10: Standardization 167
- Chapter 11: Sociolinguistics 188
- Chapter 12: Pronouns 209
- Chapter 13: Periphrastic DO 224
- Chapter 14: The Great Vowel Shift 241
- Chapter 15: Relativization 267
- Chapter 16: Literary language 287
- Chapter 17: The language of Shakespeare 309
- Index 333
Chapters in this book
- Frontmatter I
- Table of Contents V
- Abbreviations VII
- Chapter 1: Introduction 1
- Chapter 2: Early Modern English: Overview 8
- Chapter 3: Phonology 27
- Chapter 4: Morphology 47
- Chapter 5: Syntax 68
- Chapter 6: Lexicon and semantics 89
- Chapter 7: Pragmatics and discourse 108
- Chapter 8: Dialects 128
- Chapter 9: Language contact 150
- Chapter 10: Standardization 167
- Chapter 11: Sociolinguistics 188
- Chapter 12: Pronouns 209
- Chapter 13: Periphrastic DO 224
- Chapter 14: The Great Vowel Shift 241
- Chapter 15: Relativization 267
- Chapter 16: Literary language 287
- Chapter 17: The language of Shakespeare 309
- Index 333
