The convergence and divergence of dialects in Europe. New and not so new developments in an old area

Transmission and diffusion: Linguistic change in the regional French of Béarn

“…Labov states, however, that any general view of language descent must be prepared to integrate the mechanisms of both TRANSMISSION and DIFFUSION, particularly when a well-defined speech community cannot be identified. For example, in western European dialectological studies (Auer and Hinskens 1996, Trudgill 1996, Kerswill 2003, the contrast between TRANSMISSION and DIFFUSION is said to be less prominent because these studies have generally identified the transfer of well-known features of older established dialects as the main linguistic phenomenon taking place: 'We rarely find reports of changes from below that depend on transmission through incrementation, as in the many new sound changes of North America' (Labov, 2007: 348 and DIFFUSION because, without a higher degree of abstraction, the preservation or loss of constaints on variation and change cannot be accurately identified (Labov, 2007: 348).…”

Measuring socially motivated pronunciation differences

“…We examine their speech in light of Auer and Hinskens' (1996) coneshaped model of the speech continuum, which includes REGIOLECTS, which they define as a sort of comprise between standard languages and local dialects (more below). In this examination we use a measure of pronunciation difference which has been successful in dialectology (see for an overview) and which has been demonstrated to be valid both for measuring dialect differences and also for measuring speech differences due to limited auditory acuity (cochlear implants).…”

“…Since they are paid professional speakers of regionally colored speech, it is interesting to ask where their speech falls in Auer and Hinskens' conical model. A second goal is to suggest how sociolinguistic discussions of the sort Auer and Hinskens (1996) and Auer (2005) exemplify might benefit from quantitative assessments of sociolinguistic conjectures and postulates. This should be a natural step given the geometric nature of the model, and also given discussions about it, which abound in references to one form of speech being "closer" to another, in references to the "space" between varieties, and in discussions of how a given speech form must be understood as the "convergence" of one form toward another.…”

“…But this is what we see in Groningen and Antwerp. In terms of Auer and Hinskens' (1996) cone, this regional speech has dropped below the base formed by the basilects. We return to this in the discussion.…”

“…We first examine the data graphic in figure 4 (below) in light of the first question, adopting the perspective of the base dialects and asking whether they are indeed closer to the regional speech than to the standard, as Auer and Hinskens' (1996) model predicts. In terms of box-and-whisker plots, we expect to see the plot of distances with respect to the standard (the left box-and-whiskers plot in each of the eight charts) to be above the plot of distances with respect to the regional speech (the box-and-whiskers plot on the right).…”