Linguistic Geography
Linguistic geography, as a field, is dominated by linguists rather than geographers. Charles Withers describes the difference as resulting from a focus on "elements of language, and only then with their geographical or social variation, as opposed to investigation of the processes making for change in the extent of language areas." To quote Trudgill, "linguistic geography has been geographical only in the sense that it has been concerned with the spatial distribution of linguistic phenomena." In recent times greater emphasis has been laid upon explanation rather than description of the patterns of linguistic change. The move has paralleled similar concerns in geography and language studies. These studies have paid attention to the social use of language, and to variations in dialect within languages in regard to social class or occupation. Regarding such variations, lexicographer Robert Burchfield notes that their nature "is a matter of perpetual discussion and disagreement". As an example, he notes that "most professional linguistic scholars regard it as axiomatic that all varieties of English have a sufficiently large vocabulary for the expression of all the distinctions that are important in the society using it." He contrasts this with the view of the historian Professor John Vincent, who regards such a view as
| “ | "a nasty little orthodoxy among the educational and linguistic establishment. However badly you need standard English, you will have the merits of non-standard English waved at you. The more extravagantly your disadvantages will be lauded as 'entirely adequate for the needs of their speakers', to cite the author of Sociolinguistics. It may sound like a radical cry to support pidgin, patois, or dialect, but translated into social terms, it looks more like a ploy to keep Them (whoever Them may be) out of the middle-class suburbs." | ” |
| — John Vincent, The Times |
Burchfield concludes that "Resolution of such opposite views is not possible", though the "future of dialect studies and the study of class-marked distinctions are likely to be of considerable interest to everyone".
In England, linguistic geography has traditionally focussed upon rural English, rather than urban English. A common production of linguistic investigators of dialects is the shaded and dotted map showing where one linguistic feature ends and another begins or overlaps. Various compilations of these maps for England have been issued over the years, including Joseph Wright's English Dialect Dictionary (1896–1905), the Survey of English Dialects (1962-8), and The Linguistic Atlas of England (1978).
Read more about this topic: Language Geography
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