Dialect Spoken Research Articles

Morphophonological Study of Southern Bade Prefixes

This paper describes the structures and functions of prefixes in southern Bade, a dialect of Bade language. Bade is the West Chadic-B language of Afro-Asiatic phyla, mainly spoken in the northern part of Yobe State, Nigeria. Prefixation, as a morphological operation, is a process whereby a bound morpheme is attached before a root or a stem to derive a new lexeme or inflect the existing one. In addition to the researcher’s innate knowledge as a native speaker, the data were obtained through an oral interview and unobtrusive observation, mainly from dialect speakers of the language. Generative Approaches (Chomsky and Halle, 1968) formed the theoretical framework of the study. From the data obtained, the paper identified and discussed five derivational prefixes found in the nominal system of the dialect {ma-} prefix is used in deriving agential nouns, personal and instrument names, {ga(a)-} in forming participial adjectives and adverbs, {saa-} in deriving female namesake and circumstantial names. {tə-} and {də-} are used in deriving personal names and adjectives respectively from a verb base. The morphophonological alternations that occurred in the prefixation processes include the weakening of voiced velar /g/ to becoming labial velar [w]; schwa [ə] deletion re-syllabification; insertion of link element; deletion, labialization; and palatalization. It argues that some of the prefixes simultaneously co-occur with varying suffixes, depending on the word class derived, in the formation process, while a few are not.

Translating African-American English into Chinese: A Case Study of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was met with great controversy once it came out. In addition to being attacked morally, some of these languages in the novel are considered inferior and “trashy”. We cannot, however, completely reject it. African-American English (AAE) is the most spoken dialect in the novel, with many phonetic and grammatical variants compared to the standard English. This paper compares and analyses the translation techniques used in three Chinese translations while examining the characteristics of AAE in Huck Finn. The study found that Cheng Shi prefers to use “yuyin feibai” to translate AAE, Xu Ruzhi primarily uses modal particles to reflect the features of spoken language and Zhang Wanli uses standardized translation. This paper hopes to provide some inspiration for future retranslation of the book.

Linguistic Insecurity and Dialect Divergence in Southwestern Saudi Arabia: A Study of the Malki Dialect

Malki is an under-researched Arabic dialect spoken by an isolated speech community in Southwestern Saudi Arabia. The aim of this study is to uncover whether Malki dialect speakers experience linguistic insecurity and do environment, age, and gender as variables affect linguistic confidence? Data was gathered for quantitative analysis via survey on the Malki dialect using a five-point Likert scale. A descriptive statistical analysis and ANOVA test were conducted on 257 surveys, identifying eight groups determined by age and gender. Results showed that more formality of the environment and age of the participant were the most significant variables affecting attitudes about the Malki dialect. The greatest disparity occurred between the oldest age group (51+) and the youngest age group (18-25). Participant gender had no significant effect on linguistic insecurity.

Phonological Account of English Loanwords Adapted by Qunfudhah Arabic Dialect Speakers (QAD)

The current study aimed to investigate, descriptively, how English loanwords become part of Qunfudhah Arabic Dialect (QAD), an Arabic dialect spoken in the southern part of Saudi Arabia. Hundreds of English loanwords were collected using different resources such as social media posts, news articles, blogs, every-day interactions, and shop signs. The purpose was to find out the triggering motive used by QAD speakers to adapt English loanwords. In other words, the paper sought to answer this question: what phonological rules do the QAD speakers implement to adapt the English loanwords? Using the descriptive data analysis method, the results revealed that English loanwords have been phonologically adapted to fit into the host system using a number of processes to map English consonants and vowels into the recipient language. QAD speakers exercised several modifications to produce an Arabic sound on the foreign consonants (English in this situation) by targeting the manner, place, and voicing. Vowels, on the other hand, were mapped according to the height, tensity, or backness using a number of rules such as monophthongization, lengthening, or position shift. All these processes were used by QAD speakers to more easily produce the foreign sounds, especially those sounds which differ from their own system (marked ones). The result of the current study should add more insights into the body of the literature and pave the way for researchers to investigate this Arabic dialect thoroughly.

Speakers of different L1 dialects with acoustically proximal vowel systems present with similar nonnative speech perception abilities: Data from Greek listeners of Dutch

Previous evidence suggests that nonnative speech perception is modulated by the speakers’ first language (L1) dialect. This study aims (a) to examine the discrimination of Dutch vowel contrasts by Greek listeners , and (b) to determine whether listeners' L1 Greek dialectal background, namely, Standard Modern Greek (SMG) and Cypriot Greek (CG), affects the discrimination of nonnative contrasts. It has been proposed that crosslinguistic similarity between L1 and nonnative sounds can predict the perception of the latter sounds. For that purpose, discrimination predictions were developed using a linear discriminant analysis (LDA), which was based on the acoustic similarity between SMG/CG and Dutch vowels and which provided quantification of the classification of nonnative vowels in terms of the listeners' L1 categories. The participants of the perceptual study were adult Greek (SMG and CG) listeners of Dutch who completed an AXB test on a PC script. The results of the discrimination test showed that three out of four contrasts signaled good discrimination, while one contrast signaled less good discrimination. Although crosslinguistic acoustic similarity was a relatively good predictor of the listeners’ nonnative discrimination patterns, it failed to provide accurate predictions for some contrasts. Another important finding was that SMG listeners did not differ from CG listeners in the discrimination of Dutch vowel contrasts. Probably, the high acoustic proximity between the vowel systems of the two varieties led listeners to employ similar acoustic properties to discriminate nonnative sounds.

Лингвоаксиологический аспект изучения корреляции диалектных дериватов с суффиксом -уш/а с ценностной парадигмой пространства православной духовности

The research aims to describe the specifics of functioning of the derivative dialect vocabulary with the suffix -уш/а in the space of axiological dominants of a Russian speaker. The involvement of Russian subdialects allows the researchers to trace the mechanisms of explication of the system of values associated with Christian culture in the word-formation system of dialect derivatives, in which a dialect speaker intuitively chooses components for the verbalisation not only of the realities of the surrounding world, but also of his attitude to them. The scientific novelty of the research lies in determining the pejorativeness of the meaning of a derivative, highlighted in the context of its use, which indicates the processes of linguistic “stigmatisation” of a person who departs in their daily activities from prescribed moral and ethical norms, in their nature repeating the axiological paradigm of the texts of the Bible and the Holy Fathers. The researchers identified thematic groups of derivatives with the suffix -уш/а that are heterogeneous in their quantitative composition; it is important to note that the number of derivatives in each of the groups reflects not a high/low degree of significance of one or another aspect of human activity, but the value of people’s “proper/improper” collective behavior. As a result, it has been proved that with the help of the word-formation suffix -уш/а, the assessments of a person in the Orthodox world are actualised in the aspect of family and friendly relations, in the aspect of interaction with material values, in their attitude to physical labour, food and, finally, to faith.

Репрезентация концепта КОМАР в эвенской языковой картине мира

The research is aimed at the complete description of the concept MOSQUITO in the Even language picture of the world. The scientific novelty consists in the description of the concept MOSQUITO in the Evens study with the linguocultural aspect. As a result, it is revealed that the concept MOSQUITO in the ethnic language consciousness is a part of macronomial field of the summer season. The key lexemes-representatives кулин and куличан date back to the Tunguso-Manchurian root кули- and have the general definition ‘insect’. The derivation field of the concept is represented by a small set of verb lexemes. The figurative content of the concept MOSQUITO is identified in the speech of dialect speakers, in the texts of fiction and folklore discourses and is represented with the comparative constructions formalized by the formants -мдас, -гчин, -гичин, the adverb урэчин, the metaphors and methonymic transfers. It is substantiated that the anthropomorphic, zoomorphic, vital, ornithological and subject features are the prevailing figurative conceptual characteristics. Value and assessment components expressed by the lexical units with expressive assessment in the Even language show the world perception and negative attitude of the native speakers towards the nature phenomena MOSQUITO.

Устные рассказы диалектоносителей о новой технике: жанровая специфика и языковые особенности

В статье исследуется локальный речевой контент, записанный в диалектологических экспедициях в Кирилловский район Вологодской области. Доказывается промежуточное положение рассказов между бытовым и фольклорным нарративом, выявляются отличительные черты диалектной языковой картины мира. Ключевые слова: диалектная языковая картина мира, говоры Вологодской области. The article examines the local speech content recorded during dialectological expeditions to the Kirillovsky district of Vologda region. The intermediate position of the stories between everyday and folklore narrative is proved, the distinctive features of the dialectal linguistic picture of the world are revealed.

Non-Conventional Spelling in Informal, Colloquial Arabic Writing on Facebook

Arabic has a standard form used in formal situations and print materials and a non-standard, colloquial form used in daily conversation. Each Arab country has its own dialect. Before social media, educated Arabs used to use Standard Arabic when they communicated in writing. But with the advent of social media, people started to use non-standard Arabic, i.e., their own dialects, when they communicate in writing on social media. A corpus of spelling errors in Arabic was collected from Facebooks posts and analyzed to find out the types of errors made, the strategies Arab Facebook spellers use, why educated Arabs make those errors and their effect on decoding ability and communication. It was found that Facebook users completely ignore Standard Arabic spelling rules. They spell words the way they pronounce them in their local dialects. They delete vowels, substitute long vowels by short ones and vice versa and confuse consonants with the same sound. Some graphemes are no longer used. They connect several words together as one word, ignoring the pauses between them. The same word or phrase, in the same dialect, is spelled differently by different users. Sometimes it is difficult to understand what some users are trying to say. It seems that the non-standard Arabic spelling used on Facebook is undergoing a simplification process. Users do not seem to recognize word boundaries, cannot connect phonemes with the graphemes they represent and cannot distinguish vowel length in their spoken dialect. A detailed classification of spelling anomalies, the faulty spelling strategies used and reasons for those spelling weaknesses detected are reported.

Phonotactic transposition in light of the modern linguistic lesson (Central Sudanese dialect as a model)

This study aims to trace the phenomenon of phonotactic transposition in the dialect of Central Sudan in light of the modern linguistic lesson. The rules this dialect has followed were explored by identifying the letters affected by transposition and the reasons behind it. The relationship of this transposition to that in classic Arabic dialect was considered in order to document the phonemic phenomena therein and to identify their origins and link them to the mother tongue from which they emanate. The researchers have collected vocabularies in which transposition took place from the dialect spoken in Central Sudan to describe and analyze them to specify the type of transposition used. The research used the descriptive historical analytical method to serve its purposes. This study will contribute to providing an approximate view for those interested in oriental linguistic studies and developing educational curricula that overcome obstacles arising from the existence of such a phenomenon and the lexical confusion that may result from it.

Exploratory Examination of Speech Disfluencies in Spoken Narrative Samples of School-Age Bidialectal Children

This study examined the relationship between school-age children's speech disfluencies and the use of and variation of Mainstream American English (MAE) and African American English (AAE). Given that bilingual children may present with notably more speech disfluencies than monolingual children, it was hypothesized that bidialectal speaking children (i.e., those that use both MAE and AAE) may exhibit higher speech disfluencies, as compared to children who speak mainly MAE and those who mainly speak AAE. It was also hypothesized that bidialectal speaking children would exhibit a greater variety of speech disfluency types when compared to the other two dialect groups (i.e., MAE and AAE). School-age children (n = 61) with typical development and fluency were classified into three dialect groups: MAE speakers (n = 21), bidialectal MAE-AAE speakers (n = 11), and AAE speakers (n = 29). Tell-retell narrative samples were elicited from each participant using a wordless picture book. Speech disfluencies exhibited during these narrative samples were examined for frequency of stuttering-like and nonstuttering-like speech disfluencies and type of speech disfluency. Findings indicated that bidialectal speaking children do not present with a higher frequency of speech disfluencies when compared to children who speak MAE and children who speak AAE. Additionally, there were no differences in the types of speech disfluencies exhibited by the different dialect groups. Unexpected findings of this study nullify both hypotheses and suggest that bidialectalism, in comparison to bilingualism, has less of an impact on speech fluency. Findings provide evidence that bidialectal speaking children are not at an increased risk for a misdiagnosis of stuttering. Clinically, these preliminary findings provide some scientific validity and specification to the appropriateness of using already established diagnostic criteria commonly used for stuttering with dialect speakers.

The maintenance of Malangan Javanese dialect in the trade transactions in the border area of Malang and Blitar

This study aims to observe the form of Javanese language in Malangan dialect in the trade transactions occurring in the border area between Malang and Blitar. The research design used in this study is of qualitative research, namely providing an overview of a certain phenomenon as clear as possible. The purpose of this research is to become a reference to a policy design in maintaining Malangan dialect, especially in border communities. The results of this research show that the maintenance of Javanese language in Malangan dialect in the domain of trade transaction in border areas is still well maintained. The process can be acknowledged from the words chosen and spoken in the domain of trade transactions by both buyers and sellers which represent the characteristics of Malangan dialect. In addition, even though there are sellers and buyers from different regions speaking different dialects, it does not restrain the native speakers of Malangan dialect from understanding their utterances. The factors that strengthen the maintenance of the Javanese language in Malangan dialect in the domain of trade transaction in the Malang and Blitar border area are: custom, speaker’s identity, geographical area, and a sense of dissimilarity from having and using different dialect.Keywords: border area, language maintenance, Malangan dialect, Mataraman dialect, trade transactions

Phonological influence in bilectal speakers of Brazilian and European Portuguese

Aims and objectives:This article investigates naturalistic acquisition of a second dialect (D2), comparing the global accent of speakers of Brazilian Portuguese (BP) exposed to European Portuguese (EP), either as children or as adults (early vs late bilectals). The focus is on the predicted advantage of an early age of onset of the D2, as well as possible crosslinguistic influence from the D2 onto the first dialect (D1).Design and methodology:The study is an Accent Rating Task, where 50 raters judged the global accent of 30 BP speakers living in Portugal (15 early + 15 late bilectals), who were recorded in both BP and EP modes. Using a 6-point Likert-type scale, the raters judged whether the speakers sounded Brazilian or Portuguese and also indicated how certain they were about their judgment.Data and analysis:The data consisted of two 10-second audio snippets from each speaker, one in BP and the other in EP mode (altogether 60 items). In addition, there were 10 control items produced by native BP and EP speakers. Several mixed-effects models compared the target groups to each other and to the monolectal controls.Findings and conclusions:Both the early and late bilectals were rated as Brazilian in BP mode, but the degree of rater certainty was significantly lower for early than for late bilectals, which was again lower than for BP monolectals. In EP mode, early bilectals were perceived as Portuguese (though the raters were less certain than when rating EP monolectals), while late bilectals were judged as Brazilian.Originality:The study adds to the novel but increasing body of research on speakers of two closely related varieties.Significance and implications:This research illustrates that bilectalism displays a number of similarities with bilingualism, specifically that there may be significant effects of age of onset of the D2.

The most important characteristics of Kubeisa dialect as one qiltu dialects

This research presents briefly Iraqi Arabic dialects including KIA which is under investigation. It sheds on the main characteristics which are the main concern in this research which distinguish the qiltu dialects from other gilt dialects. This may be due to the fact that Kubeisa is a small town located far from urban regions which remains a "virgin territory" that the dialect spoken by its people requires analysis and investigation . In addition to the investigation of segmental phonemes and sounds in context (Deflexion) in Kubeisa Iraqi Arabic (KIA), this study also aimed at pointing out whether this dialect belongs to "qiltu - dialects" or "gilt - dialects" spoken in Iraq. Then the dialect under investigation in this research, i-e., segmental phonemes of KIA are presented. The phonological analysis of the segmental phonemes of KIA was the focus of the current study's explanatory qualitative design, which involved gathering and analyzing qualitative data. The analysis of taped content, comprising sentences and words said by KIA speakers using a tape-recording equipment, is the focus of the current work. In addition, audio recording equipment is used. This study is a qualitative inquiry that is based on the words and writing created by a small group of KIA speakers. This study is descriptive since it deals with information that was gathered in the form of Instead of statistics, use recorded speech or conversations. This research concentrates on conducting interviews with KIA speakers and leveraging the instruments for recording audio activity. In this research, the researcher uses interviews which consist of several preset topics that are addressed to people who become the research subjects. To acquire qualitative data, the current study used semi-structured interviews. A semi-structured interview is one in which questions are prepared ahead of time but the interviewer is permitted to add several questions that were not planned ahead of time during the interview Also, it presents a brief survey of the main dialects used in the west of Iraq, namely HIA and RA (Dlaim Arabic). This research presents the most important results and discussion of findings of data analysis. In conclusion, the most important points in which the research is conducted are presented.

An Initial Sociolinguistic Analysis of Aljouf Dialect

This paper presents an initial sociolinguistic analysis of the varieties of Saudi Arabic spoken in the Aljouf region. The main objective of the paper is to uncover some of the sociolinguistic aspects characterizing the Jouf dialect as distinct from other Arabic variants in Saudi Arabic. Word lists and interviews were used for collecting data in Aljouf and four other areas, namely Ha’il, Alhijaz, Jazan, and Alkhubar. Four other dialects were included to provide a comparative dimension for the analysis, which was expected to consolidate the findings. Students enrolled in the sociolinguistics course at Jouf University participated actively in the process of data collection. The main criteria for selecting students were an affiliation with Aljouf and the named comparable regions. Results suggest that there are clear dialectal differences between the Aljouf dialect and the four other dialects. Variations in lexical choice were found to be relatively large between regions. Specifically, the differences between the Aljouf dialect and the Jazan dialect are greater than those between the Aljouf dialect and the Ha’il dialect. Age and gender differences were found to be significant among speakers of the Aljouf dialect. The speech of men and women proved to be slightly different with regard to certain lexical choices. Men and women used certain words that were exclusive to each sex. Speech variants between young men and women were reported by a considerable number of subjects. Slang and swearing, on the other hand, were identified as characterizing the speech of young males, who tended to use these words less as they approached adulthood.

The perceptual consequences of style shifting

We focus on the perception of changes in production made by self-identified bidialectal Southern (SUSE) and Mainstream (MUSE) US English speakers, who were recorded reading words in both dialects. Acoustical analysis shows quantifiable changes across the two guises, but that speakers' MUSE guises still looks more Southern than monolingual speakers of MUSE-like dialects, consistent with claims that many bidialectals do not categorically shift between dialects (Hazen 2001). The stimuli were then used in three listening tasks – a lexical decision task, a transcription task and a speeded dialect classification task – and all show evidence that listeners (N = 123) were sensitive to the changes made by the speakers in their two guises. In fact, for the measures of communicative ease (accuracy in lexical decision, transcription accuracy), responses to the MUSE guise of the bidialectal speakers was indistinguishable from those to monodialectal MUSE speakers. For dialect classification, the MUSE guise of the bidialectal speakers is heard as significantly less Southern than their Southern guise, but more Southern than monodialectal MUSE speakers, and there is a significant effect of listener dialect, with Southern listeners more likely to hear the bidialectal MUSE guise as not Southern. The results sugget that self-identified bidialectal speakers likely use different criteria in assessing bidialectalism (intelligibility, in group perception) than linguists, who typically focus on analyzing speech production.

Exploring macro-rhythm in African American English

This study contributes to a growing body of research on quantifying the theory of macro-rhythm, a model of prosodic typology proposed by Sun-Ah Jun (2014) that looks at the global pitch patterns of an utterance, through comparing African American English (AAE) to Mainstream (white) US English (MUSE). Based on prior research on intonation, rhythm, and prosody in AAE (cf. Thomas, 2015 for a thorough overview), we predicted that AAE would have stronger macro-rhythm than MUSE, such that speakers would produce higher peaks and lower valleys, pitch excursions of greater magnitude, have a greater consistency in slope, a greater frequency of high (H) and low (L) pitch targets, and more regular spacing of these pitch targets. Data weretaken from the Valdosta group of the Corpus of Regional African American Language (CORAAL) for Black speakers and the Buckeye corpus for white speakers. Contrary to our expectations, Buckeye speakers proved to be more macro-rhythmic than their CORAAL counterparts in all but one metric, but these results confirm that macro-rhythm is a viable method for cross-dialectal analysis as it reveals quantifiable differences between speaker dialect groups of the same language.

Reduplication in Urban Hijazi Arabic Dialect Spoken in the Western Region of Saudi Arabia

This study focuses on trilateral reduplicated roots (CVCC), such as laff “wrap’”, and quadrilateral duplicated roots (CVCCVC), like waswas “whisper” and their reduplicated counterparts of the type C1VC2CC1VCc21 and C1VC2C1VC2 in the Urban Hijazi Arabic dialect (UHA dialect). This research centers on reduplication in the UHA dialect as a total duplication. Semantically, reduplication in this dialect displays three main functions: 1) intensifying reduplication, as in adjectives; 2) emphatic reduplication, as in nouns; and 3) iterative reduplication, as in verbs. The data were collected using interviews with native speakers of the UHA dialect via Blackboard and face-to-face meetings. The analysis of the data shows that sometimes the C1VC2C1VC2 pattern is a duplication at the surface level (i.e., pseudo-reduplication) because it has a genuine root and is underived from the trilateral roots whereas others are derived from trilateral roots and undergo the process of duplication. However, the C1VC2CC1VCC2 pattern shows that the second syllable is a copy of the original root. Nevertheless, both patterns show similar functions of reduplication in verbs, nouns, and adjectives. In addition, they reveal a similar derivational mechanism in changing parts of speech by adding the prefix y- to the verb, the prefix mu- to the adjective, and the suffix -a to the noun. In conclusion, this study confirms that not all quadrilateral duplicates originated from trilateral reduplicated roots. Also, the results are in line with the Basra linguists’ claims that roots in the Arabic language can be trilateral, quadrilateral, and so on.

Acquisition of Voice Onset Time for Voiced Plosives of English by Adult Learners of Balochistan

This study focuses on two experiments conducted with Eastern and Western Balochi speakers. In Eastern Balochi, voiceless stops have aspirated features, but in Western Balochi, they are unaspirated. Eighty-four native speakers of both dialects of Balochi participated in this study. Participants of the first experiment produced words of their L1 in a picture naming task, and those of the second experiment read words in English. VOTs of the L1 and L2 voiced stops elicited from recordings of the productions. Results show that speakers of Western Balochi transfer their L1 negative VOTs to L2 English-voiced stops. However, Eastern Balochi speakers produce English-voiced stops with VOTs, significantly different from their L1 VOTs. Though they could not produce English-voiced stops with native-like accuracy, they produced English stops with significantly longer pre-voicing duration than their L1-voiced stops. Therefore, the study concludes that speakers of those languages with stops with negative VOT ranges face more difficulty acquiring L2 voiced stops of short-lag positive VOTs than those learners whose L1 does not have such stops. The speech learning model is used in this study to analyze all results.

Transport and Means of Communication in Language Worldview of Vologda Peasant: Traditions and Innovations

The article is devoted to the study of records of dialect speech, verbalizing the ideas of rural residents of the Vologda region about the system of transport and means of communication. The object of analysis is the lexical set of names of vehicles and means of communication, as well as the corpus of texts. Informants differentiate roads in detail from the point of view of the possibilities of their use in summer or winter, for walking, skiing, wheeled, sledge, caterpillar, sled, etc. transportation. Many traditional beliefs and customs of dialect speakers are associated with the road. Informants living near navigable rivers and large lakes perceive movement by water as one of the ordinary components of the transport system, while those living far from water bodies treat water transport with caution and prejudice, emphasizing the danger of the water element. The most vivid impressions of dialect speakers about movement in space are associated with air transport. The narrative of this event is clothed in the genre form of a “story-plate”, which occupies an intermediate position between everyday and folklore non-fairy-tale prose. However, such stories, as a rule, tell about the first or only air flight in the life of the informant.