Lexical Variation and Attrition in the Scottish Fishing Communities

Millar, Robert McColl; Barras, William; Bonnici, Lisa

doi:10.1515/9780748691784

Cited by 7 publications

(2 citation statements)

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“…They have found lower frequencies of regional variants of concepts such as splinter and autumn in the more recent data set, which indicates levelling of lexical usage. While Johnson (1996) and Britain, Blaxter, and Leeman (2021) focus on levelling at the national level, Millar, Barras, and Bonnici (2014) discuss the loss of traditional dialect lexis in the more localised context of fishing communities on the East coast of Scotland. 3 They observe change in apparent-time, with younger 2.…”

Section: Dialect Contact and Linguistic Changementioning

confidence: 99%

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Maidin Cornwall

Sandow

2022

EWW

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While the research literature on regional dialect levelling is substantial (e.g. Williams and Kerswill 1999; Britain 2002; Watt 2002; Jansen 2019), this process is under-explored and under-theorised when it comes to patterns of lexical usage. Using maid as a case-study, in this article I provide a detailed account of processes of lexical levelling in Cornwall. I consider the usage of maid from two perspectives, that of onomasiology and semasiology. From an onomasiological perspective, maid, as a variant of the concept woman, exhibits socio-stylistic reallocation, with attested usages of maid in this study being limited to older speakers in careful speech styles. From a semasiological perspective, two senses of maid, ‘woman’ and ‘female servant or attendant’, have undergone structural reallocation in apparent-time with maid ‘woman’ being the prototypical sense for older speakers but a more peripheral sense for their younger counterparts.

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Section: Dialect Contact and Linguistic Changementioning

confidence: 99%

“…For a review of the research on regional dialect levelling, see Kerswill (2003) and Britain (2010). Johnson (1996) nor Millar, Barras, and Bonnici (2014) use the term levelling, but the attrition of regionally marked lexis reported in these studies is consistent with a pattern of regional dialect levelling.…”

Section: Dialect Contact and Linguistic Changementioning

confidence: 99%