Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Figures
- List of Tables
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Dialects as a window on the past
- 3 The Roots Archive
- 4 Methods of analysis
- 5 Word endings
- 6 Joining sentences
- 7 Time, necessity and possession
- 8 Expressions
- 9 Comparative sociolinguistics
- 10 The legacy of British and Irish dialects
- Notes
- References
- Index
4 - Methods of analysis
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 November 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Figures
- List of Tables
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Dialects as a window on the past
- 3 The Roots Archive
- 4 Methods of analysis
- 5 Word endings
- 6 Joining sentences
- 7 Time, necessity and possession
- 8 Expressions
- 9 Comparative sociolinguistics
- 10 The legacy of British and Irish dialects
- Notes
- References
- Index
Summary
Aye, folk gets fed up with folk wie long faces, hen, ken.
(Joan Dewar, 67, CMK, 007)The analyst must take these materials – words, reminiscences, stories – and analyse them in such a way as to characterize the grammar of the dialects. In this chapter I outline the methods used to analyse the linguistic features. Methods for analysis of language differ quite substantially from one area of linguistics to another. For example, the standard practice of dialectology is to map words to places. The methodological approach I will take to the dialect data in the Roots Archive and the British Dialects Archive is instead modelled on the comparative method of historical linguistics (Baldi, 1990; Hoenigswald, 1960; Meillet, 1967) married with the methodological innovations of sociolinguistic analysis (Poplack and Tagliamonte, 2001: 7–8). In so doing, I integrate insights and techniques developed in fields that have seldom previously collaborated: historical linguistics, sociolinguistics and dialectology.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Roots of EnglishExploring the History of Dialects, pp. 49 - 63Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2012