11 - Perceptual Dialectology

Summary

This chapter discusses research methods in the field of perceptual dialectology, which aims to uncover non-linguists’ beliefs, thoughts, and perceptions about dialect variation. The chapter details the historical development of contemporary approaches to perceptual dialectology, including a discussion of folk linguistics. Perceptual dialectology methods rely to a large extent on allowing respondents to provide freely given data, without providing too many constraints. Whilst this is a strength of the approach as it allows researchers to challenge their assumptions and biases, it can produce ‘messy’ data that is difficult to process. The development of a suite of methods to investigate dialect perception is examined, including the draw-a-map task, voice placement, and voice reactions tasks (including which features listeners might pay attention to as they hear speakers), along with ratings tasks and those that deal with interview data. Practical considerations in the application of perceptual dialectology methods are addressed with a focus on the type(s) of data such methods generate. For example, the chapter discusses using GIS software for processing draw-a-map data. The chapter uses perception data of English dialect variation in Great Britain to demonstrate the power of the draw-a-map method also for understanding broader questions about the nature of perception.