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A pioneering sociolinguistic concept: Amund B. Larsen and his discovery in the 1880s of neighbour opposition as a socio-psychological mechanism in linguistic change – and its rediscovery in the 1980s as hyperdialectism

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Published/Copyright: November 14, 2017
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Abstract

In the 1880s, the Norwegian linguist Amund Bredesen Larsen (1849–1928) discovered a special socio-psychological mechanism in linguistic change which is today referred to in the literature as hyperdialectism. Larsen named the mechanism naboopposition [neighbour opposition, in modern Norwegian: naboopposisjon]. This paper gives an account of Larsen’s discovery, and shows that this mechanism was rediscovered an entire century later and then integrated into sociolinguistic theory. It describes how Larsen presented his theory in 1886, and went on to provide more detail in a fundamental paper in 1917. It then accounts for Peter Trudgill’s rediscovery of the mechanism in the early 1980s, and shows that Trudgill coined the term hyperdialectism in the years between 1981 and 1985.

The paper also includes a short biography of Amund B. Larsen.

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Published Online: 2017-11-14
Published in Print: 2017-11-1

© 2017 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

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