Mapping Boundaries of Dialect

How Hard is it to Establish Boundaries of Dialect….?

This is the link to our next blog text about the “Mapping of Dialect Boundaries,” for which the summary is due on Monday, Feb. 25th, by Alex Gholson.

You can also access this document by opening the pdf link .

PROMPT:

When you respond to the summary, focus on the question whether it is possible for lay people (not researchers) to establish “boundaries” for dialects – look at the people’s statements in the article: “we have more of a twang to our words,” “never noticed much difference,” “they speak more broken hillbilly slang,” “southern Ohio is like West Virginia but not as twangy,” “well their vocabulary is different,” “they have a different kind of drawl in their voice,” “they have their own way of saying things,” “they slur their words,” “I don’t quite get it… they just talk kind of strange,” etc…….

Could you distinguish certain areas around the place where you grew up or lived for a long time that speak a dialect different from your own? (Name them!) Do you know exactly where the demarcation line is, and what is it, an interstate?

When would you consider such boundaries to be true, so they can be made official? Is there a way at all to ascertain a border between regions where different dialects are spoken?