Handbook of Perceptual Dialectology: Volume 1(Handbook of Perceptual Dialectology)

Perceptual dialectology investigates what ordinary people (as opposed to professional linguists) believe about the distribution of language varieties in their own and surrounding speech communities and how they have arrived at and implement those beliefs. It studies the beliefs of the common folk about which dialects exist and, indeed, about what attitudes they have to these varieties. Some of this leads to discussion of what they believe about language in general, or “folk linguistics”. Surprising divergences from professional results can be found. For the professional, it is intriguing to find out why and whether the folk can be wrong or whether the professional has missed something.Volume 1 of this handbook aims to provide for the field of perceptual dialectology: • a historical survey; • a regional survey, adding to the earlier preponderance of studies in Japan, the Netherlands, and the United States; • a methodological survey, showing, in detail, how data have been acquired and processed; • an interpretive survey, showing how these data have been related to both linguistic and other socio-cultural facts; • a comprehensive bibliography. The results and methods of perceptual dialectical studies should be interesting not only to linguists, variationists, dialectologists, and students of the social psychology of language but also to sociologists, anthropologists, folklorists, and other students of culture as well as to language planners and educators.

Table of Contents:
1. List of Figures; 2. List of Tables; 3. Series Editor's Introduction; 4. Acknowledgments; 5. Introduction (by Preston, Dennis R.); 6. I: The Dutch Contribution: 'Little Arrows'; 7. Informant Classification of Dialects (by Rensink, W.G.); 8. Dialects (by Daan, Jo); 9. The Netherlands-German National Border as a Subjective Dialect Boundary (by Kremer, Ludger); 10. II: The Japanese Controversy: 'Subjective' and 'Objective'; 11. Consciousness of Dialect Boundaries (by Sibata, Takesi); 12. Consciousness of Linguistic Boundaries and Actual Linguistic Boundaries (by Nomoto, Kikuo); 13. Dialect Consciousness and Dialect Divisions: Examples in the Nagano-Gifu Boundary (by Mase, Yoshio); 14. On Dialect Consciousness: Dialect Characteristics Given by Speakers (by Mase, Yoshio); 15. The Discussion Surrounding the Subjective Boundaries of Dialects (by Grootaers, Willem); 16. On the Value of Subjective Dialect Boundaries (by Weijnen, Antonius A.); 17. Dialects and the Subjective Judgments of Speakers: Remarks on Controversial Methods (by Goeman, Ton); 18. III: Images, Perceptions and Attitudes; 19. Classification of Dialects by Image: English and Japanese (by Inoue, Fumio); 20. Subjective Dialect Division in Great Britain (by Inoue, Fumio); 21. Geographical Perceptions of Japanese Dialect Regions (by Long, Daniel); 22. Mapping Nonlinguists' Evaluations of Japanese Language Variation (by Long, Daniel); 23. The Perception of Post-Unification German Regional Speech (by Dailey-O'Cain, Jennifer); 24. Variation and the Norm: Parisian Perceptions of Regional French (by Kuiper, Lawrence); 25. The Perception of Turkish Dialects (by Demirci, Mahide); 26. Regional Variation in Subjective Dialect Divisions in the United States (by Lance, Donald M.); 27. A View from the West: Perceptions of U.S. Dialects by Oregon Residents (by Hartley, Laura); 28. "Welshness" and "Englishness" as Attitudinal Dimensions of English Language Varieties in Wales (by Coupland, Nikolas); 29. Dialect Recognition (by Williams, Angie); 30. A Language Attitude Approach to the Perception of Regional Variety (by Preston, Dennis R.); 31. References; 32. Additional Readings; 33. About the Contributors and Translators; 34. Index

Review :
Dennis Preston has done the field of empirical linguistics great service in his earlier work on perceptual dialectology, both to raise our consciousness of the phenomenon and to document some facts about the perception of English varieties. Now he has done it again in the Handbook of Percpetual Dialectology, to expose the foundation of the study of perceptual dialectology and to extend our knowledge of it around the world. The Handbook is recommended to everyone interested in sociolinguistics and the social psychology of language in general, and in dialectology, language attitudes and folk-linguistic awareness in particular. Preston's volume is successful in communicating the problems as well as the insights of perceptual dialectology. The text is highly effective in arguing and illustrating the benefits of such a perspective for a wide array of linguistic subfields and other social sciences. Each chapter is useful in itself, and when linked together, the chapters proffer a well-constructed infrastructure of information. Undoubtedly, this collection will be come a valuable resource to language scholars and social scientists alike.