The methods of spatial statistics have been successfully applied to the study of linguistic variation, especially for detecting the existence of spatial patterns in the geographical distribution of linguistic features. However, the use of local indicators of spatial autocorrelation for detecting spatial clusters have been limited to continuous variables, and we propose to apply the new method of Anselin and Li (2019) for categorical variables to linguistic data. We illustrate this method with the case of Japanese rendaku, or sequential voicing, whose dialectal variation is still poorly documented. Focusing on regional differences in the frequency of rendaku, we examined the occurrence of rendaku for four lexemes in 4,921 place names from all Japan. A statistical analysis of local spatial association and an unsupervised density-based cluster analysis revealed the existence of two cluster areas of high rendaku frequency centered around Wakayama and Fukushima-Yamagata prefectures. This suggests that rendaku is more frequent in those dialects, and we recommend that further studies in the dialectal variation of rendaku start by looking at those areas.

This paper investigates the occurrence of inflected predicative adjectives, an optional yet distinguishing feature of German dialects spoken in southern Switzerland. We provide an in-depth analysis of the patterns of change of this morphosyntactic marker with a particular focus on extralinguistic factors. Historical records from 1950 were compared to contemporary data collected from 192 speakers across 49 localities in 2020–21. Our results corroborate previous reports indicating a substantial, real-time decline in inflected forms. Logistic mixed-effects modeling suggests that the inflection of predicative adjectives occurs more frequently among speakers who report tight social networks, have a strong local dialect identity, and regularly use one or more Romance languages. These findings support the claim that tight social networks and local dialect identity construction may lead to the preservation of conservative grammatical forms. Additionally, the effect of Romance languages highlights the role of transfer phenomena induced by language contact.

Who as a restrictive relativizer in English is an old change from above. In urban dialects, it still acts as a prestige form, whereas it is infrequent or negligible in rural British and American varieties. We compare earlier findings from Toronto, the largest city in the province of Ontario (D’Arcy & Tagliamonte, 2010), with a range of communities from the Ontario Dialects Project (Tagliamonte, 2003–present). While none of the rural locations has as much who as Toronto, there is a substantial range. Regions along the major highways to the north and east of the city have more who, while the smaller towns in less accessible locations have less, consistent with a Cascade Model effect (Labov, 2003). Nonetheless, who shows evidence of diffusion, increasing in apparent time in recent decades. We suggest that this reflects overt pressure from above, consistent with the enduring role that prestige plays in English relativizer variation.

Recent sociophonetic research has focused on the ways in which race and ethnicity influence language as well as how language is used to construct racial and ethnic identity. Comparisons of the speech of members of one ethnic group across different regions are still uncommon. In this study, fifty-one native American English speakers of Korean descent, hailing from three different dialect areas of the United States (Los Angeles County and Orange County, California; Harris County, Texas; and Gwinnett County, Georgia), were recorded speaking English in casual interviews. Their speech was analyzed for characteristics of local sound patterns in each region, including the Short Front Vowel Shift (California Vowel Shift) and the Southern Vowel Shift, as well as overall Vowel Space Area. All three groups showed evidence of the Short Front Vowel Shift, and none demonstrated the Southern Vowel Shift. The Californian speakers had the smallest vowel spaces, while the Georgian speakers had the largest. We relate these findings to the ways Korean Americans in Texas and California understand their ethnic identity vis-à-vis a kind of metropolitan or urban speech style in a highly multicultural environment, while, in comparison, Korean Americans in Georgia may use vowel space to highlight their orientation toward or away from local mainstream (white) cultural identity.

Phonetic spelling was common practice in English dialect texts until the API (English: IPA), in 1893, launched its normative signs of transcription. Nevertheless, phonetic spellings have rarely been studied, the least in dialects. This paper ventures to trace some of the immanent norms and the sound functions of some phonetic spellings in the Isle of Wight during the Late Modern English period. The investigation is mainly based on data retrieved from EDD Online, which allows for sophisticated aggregate queries so that spelling practices can be quantified and mapped. The paper focuses on spellings unique to the island, such as double a, e, and o before another vowel, that is, in diphthongs, and u-spellings for schwa in posttonic syllables. The figures for non-unique features, such as voicing of fricatives, are normalized and allow for correlation to other counties. In sum, the Isle of Wight accent was marked by its typical “drawl.”