Distinct Dialects Research Articles

About Dialectology Lessons at Lithuanian Schools: a Qualitative Study

Modern standard Lithuanian language is the result of the development of the language over a period of time. The basis for the language was the dialect spoken in the western part of the Aukštaitija ethnographic area of Lithuania around the city of Kaunas. The vitality, wit, and meaning of the language can be better understood through dialects.
 Today, however, dialects are less and less used by pupils, teachers, and students of philology; we hear less of them on radio and TV. It is understood that public use of dialects is limited by the fact that not all residents of Lithuania can understand texts in local dialects, so the most distinctive, interesting, unexpected, and expressive dialect words and words of the standard language are used passively making the language bookish, its syntactic structure rigid, and changing the whole grammar. Dialects for many pupils and young people are associated with poor language, provincial intellect and other negative associations. Such thinking is provoked by the lack of information and reluctance to take interest in one’s own local dialect as well as many other socio-cultural reasons. However, dialects are a very important part of Lithuanian culture. Many people in the21st century are bilingual, because they can speak both the standard language and dialects or at least the language with clear or slightly felt distinguishing characteristics.
 Contributing to EU attempts to promote local languages and having regard to the fact that the living tradition of dialects in Lithuania is in decline, the Seimas declared 2013 as the Year of Dialects.
 The aim of this article is to discuss the situation in teaching dialects at general education schools and to explore the attitude of teachers and pupils of general education schools to teaching / learning dialects.
 Objectives of the research: 1) to discuss the situation in teaching dialects at general education schools and opportunities for improvement; 2) to compare the attitude of teachers and pupils to dialects; 3) to compare the attitude to dialects of teachers and pupils who work / study in an environment which has a specific dialect and in an environment which does not have a specific dialect.
 The scientific problem of the article is whether teaching and learning dialects in today’s globalised world help students and teachers form their identity?
 Research methods: literary analysis, analytical descriptive method, survey of teachers and pupils, and analysis of the data of the survey.
 The research showed that teachers in the regions pay more attention to dialects than teachers in the city of Vilnius. Most teachers are satisfied with the theoretical material provided in the Lithuanian language textbooks, but would like to see a wider range of interesting and practical tasks. All teachers associate teaching dialects with literature lessons; activities of teachers from the Žemaitija (Samogitia) ethnographic area of Lithuania are particularly interesting as they read the books of Samogitian authors in the Samogitian dialect. Although pupils tend to assess dialect lessons positively, sometimes a very pragmatic approach to dialects can be seen: dialects are not interesting, because pupils do not see benefit from it.

An Effect on Cultural Identity: Dialect

This study was carried out in North Cyprus to discuss the dialect differences of three cities in North Cyprus. Some geographical features of these cities were taken into consideration as well. This study was conducted with qualitative techniques. This study included a sample of a total 50 settlers of Turkish Cypriots from Nicosia, Famagusta and Omorphou whose ages ranged from 15 to 72. The study provided significant findings on the awareness of dialect, which has a big effect on cultural identity. According to the data, Cypriot Turks, after a lot of immigration, have different dialects in each city. It can be said each region has a variety of its own. The most effective factor on this is age. The old, the middle-aged and the youth of Cyprus have distinct dialects from each other. The dialect of the middle-aged people is closest to the standard but if they are educated. Consequently we can say education is another factor, but the youth tries to use the deepest Cyprus Turkish because they find it more sincere. Also they prefer to get into communication by using their own dialect.

Essentialising Ethnic and State Identities: Strategic Adaptations of Ethnic Chinese in Kelantan, Malaysia

:This paper looks at how a heterogeneous minority group sustains its multiple identities in a politically challenging context. Focusing on the Chinese minority (3.4 per cent) residing in Kelantan, the paper highlights strategies used by the group to retain its rights and identity as a separate cultural community. The peculiarity of this group is attributed to its entity as a non-Muslim minority under orthodox Islamic rule, and secondly, as citizens of a state led by the opposition party. The fact that they are born in Kelantan and possess fluency in the Kelantanese Malay dialect has strengthened their identity as orghe Kelantan (dialect referring to people who were born and grew up in the state). These factors create a sense of “oneness” between the Chinese and other Kelantanese beyond ethnic, religious and class boundaries. This paper demonstrates how the Chinese in Kelantan seek to be accepted through behaviours appropriate to the majority and simultaneously build in-group solidarity. The underlying interplay between essentialism and provincialism is showcased when the Chinese strategise linguistically to maintain their orghe Kelantan identification as an exclusive identity. The identity and the distinct dialect spoken have enhanced the “provincial” image of Kelantan in the national political discourse.

Evidence for vocal learning in juvenile male killer whales, Orcinus orca, from an adventitious cross-socializing experiment.

Killer whales (Orcinus orca) are thought to learn their vocal dialect. Dispersal in the species is rare, but effects of shifts in social association on the dialect can be studied under controlled conditions. Individual call repertoires and social association were measured in three adult female killer whales and three males (two juveniles and an adult) during two periods, 2001-2003 and 2005-2006. Three distinct dialect repertoires were represented among the subjects. An adventitious experiment in social change resulted from the birth of a calf and the transfer of two non-focal subjects in 2004. Across the two periods, 1691 calls were collected, categorized and attributed to individuals. Repertoire overlap for each subject dyad was compared with an index of association. During 2005-2006, the two juvenile males increased association with the unrelated adult male. By the end of the period, both had begun producing novel calls and call features characteristic of his repertoire. However, there was little or no reciprocal change and the adult females did not acquire his calls. Repertoire overlap and association were significantly correlated in the first period. In the second, median association time and repertoire similarity increased, but the relationship was only marginally significant. The results provided evidence that juvenile male killer whales are capable of learning new call types, possibly stimulated by a change in social association. The pattern of learning was consistent with a selective convergence of male repertoires.

A Way of Life of the Zelianrong Nagas in Manipur with Special Reference to Rongmei (Kabui) Tribe

 Abstract—The Zelianrong is the combined name of Zeme, Liangmei and Rongmei(Kabui) including Puimei. These four sub tribes are more or less similar in tradition, customary laws, traditional customs, folk songs, folklore, folk dances etc. They only difference of these four tribes is that they have distinctive dialects of their own. The article portrays the perspective of Rongmei, the Naga Tribe of Manipur. It indicates all their cultural, tradition, religion, social and economic life etc. of Rongmei tribe, which has been practices since time immemorial and passed on from their fore-father to the present generation. It also attempts to set the current changes that are taking place in the Rongmei society. The data is based on available secondary sources and fieldwork. The information and opinions collected from the informants have been thoroughly cross-checked by the authors for culling out accurate facts.

Native dialect effects in non-native production: Cuban and Peninsular learners of English

AbstractThis study investigates how learners with distinct native dialects, Cuban (CS) and Peninsular Spanish (PS), produce the English vowels æ, Λ, a/. Experiment 1 compares the native vowels along several acoustic parameters to determine the extent of the cross-dialectal differences, and Experiment 2 assesses the differences in L2 production of the same speakers who are also advanced learners of English. More fronted and shorter vowels are predicted for PS versus CS. As such, L2 /æ, A, a/ are expected to be more fronted in the interlanguage of PS learners as compared to CS learners. Dialect-specific patterns of assimilation are highlighted. PS learners produce æ, Λ, a/ with good spectral differences but with no duration differences whereas for CS learners /Λ, a/ overlap spectrally but are realized with different durations. Differences found in L2 production are caused by the conjoint effect of the native dialect, the input, and the learning experience.

A multivariate spatial analysis of vowel formants in American English

This paper presents the results of a multivariate spatial analysis of thirty-eight vowel formant variables measured in 236 cities from across the contiguous United States, based on the acoustic data from the Atlas of North American English. The results of the analysis both confirm and challenge the results of the Atlas. Most notably, while the analysis identifies similar patterns as the Atlas in the West and the Southeast, the analysis finds that the Midwest and the Northeast are distinct dialect regions that are considerably stronger than the traditional Midland dialect region identified in the Atlas. The analysis also finds evidence that a vowel shift is actively shaping the language of the Western United States.

Songs from the Edge of Japan: Music-making in Yaeyama and Okinawa by Matt Gillan (review)

Reviewed by: Songs from the Edge of Japan: Music-making in Yaeyama and Okinawa by Matt Gillan Sarah J. McClimon Songs from the Edge of Japan: Music-making in Yaeyama and Okinawa. By Matt Gillan. (SOAS Musicology Series.) Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2012. [xix, 220 p. ISBN 9781409424048. $99.95.] Illustrations, music examples, glossaries, bibliography, discography, index. Songs from the Edge of Japan provides an ethnographic account of music making on the tiny islands of Yaeyama at the western-most edge of Okinawa. Okinawa has a unique place in Japan, given its previous history as an independent nation and its historical connections to Taiwan and China. As a result, Okinawa is positioned at the edge of Japan both physically and culturally. With a language (some would say “dialect”) that is related yet unintelligible to Japanese speakers, and with its distinct musical scales that sound closer to Balinese [End Page 750] or Southeast Asian than Japanese scales, Okinawan music is a stage for a complex “discourse surrounding the nature of the Japanese nation” (p. 1). Yaeyama is a collection of small high volcanic and low coral reef islands with its cultural and political center in Ishigaki. Within Yaeyama there are distinct dialects and cultural identities. Despite its remote location and tiny population of just over 50,000 people, it has a large cultural presence in Okinawa Prefecture and Japan. Its music is at the heart of the Okinawan popular music phenomenon, with a large number of musicians performing throughout Okinawa and Japan, and increasingly throughout the world. This, combined with its rich traditional music cultures, which are an integral part of daily life, make it an important region for a thorough study of traditional music. Matt Gillan has written a detailed study of Yaeyaman musical life, with a focus on traditional (pre-World War II) genres, but also addressing its role in Okinawan popular music today. Gillan has lived on the island of Shikoku and in Osaka and Tokyo, where he currently teaches at International Christian University. He is an active performer on sanshin (Okinawan three-stringed plucked lute), and he is fluent in Japanese and several dialects of Okinawan. The book is based on fifteen months of fieldwork in Yaeyama, in addition to several shorter trips, and it draws on his longtime study of the musical culture. The overarching theme of the book is the layered identities of Yaeyaman musicians. Musicians position themselves as Japanese, Okinawan, and Yaeyaman, as members of distinct islands and villages, and sometimes even as members of specific neighborhoods (called buraku in Okinawa). The relation of Yaeyama to Okinawa and Japan is important. I was initially concerned with Gillan’s placement of Yaeyama at the margins of the Japanese nation, and his relative lack of discussion in the early chapters of issues of Japanese political and American military occupation. However, as the book continues, Gillan paints a complex portrait of the links and disconnects between Yaeyama and mainland Japan. Since there is no American military presence in the islands of Yaeyama, the anti-American movement does not play a large part in the study. Gillan presented a nuanced picture of what it means to be Yaeyaman in the twenty-first century. Chapter 1, “Island Treasures (Sïma nu Takara),” presents the geography of the islands, introducing discourses of tradition and modernity and concepts from island studies. As part of his ethnographic methodology, Gillan describes the challenges of studying traditional music in Yaeyama. As in other parts of Japan, the expectation of loyalty to one teacher makes it difficult for ethnomusicologists to gather a balanced picture of a musical community; despite this challenge, Gillan’s holistic knowledge of the musical culture is impressive. Chapter 2, “Islands of Song and Dance: Yaeyama and Its Music,” is an overview of the history and music of Okinawa. While the organization of headings in this chapter is somewhat confusing, the prose clearly classifies the main genres in Yaeyama and provides useful information for understanding the music in the rest of the book. There are two main categories of music in Yaeyama: peasant music (koyM) and elite music (fushiuta or koten min ’yM). The genres of koyM, which are primarily unaccompanied vocal music...

Evaluation of a Diabetes Education Video Among the Tz'utujil Maya in Guatemala

The prevalence of diabetes is rising throughout Latin America, particularly in the Tz’utujil Maya town of Santiago Atitlan, Guatemala. Major gaps in biomedical knowledge about the causes, chronicity, and long-term complications of diabetes have been reported in rural Guatemala among diabetes patients. In one rural Guatemalan study, respondents believed that ‘‘strong emotions’’ caused diabetes. Diabetes education services are limited in Santiago Atitlan, as the primary language for 94% of the population is Tz’utujil Maya, one of 21 distinct Mayan dialects spoken in Guatemala, and few biomedical clinicians are conversant in this non-written language. To address this need, a health education video was developed for a target audience of Tz’utujil-speaking community residents living with type 2 diabetes mellitus for use by the local hospital and other healthcare posts. Health education videos are an increasingly utilized medium of communication, with over 500 American hospitals currently having produced publicly available health education videos. The purpose of this letter is to provide an evaluation for this Tz’utujil-language diabetes education video. Mixed qualitative and quantitative methods for this study included semistructured interviews and preand post-testing of the video’s content immediately before and after the video screening as a rough metric of understanding and retention. The stratified random sample included 20 community residents (stratified as 17 urban and three rural) who were selected via randomly generated Global Positioning System points on a satellite map of the town. A Tz’utujil–Spanish translator was present to assist with each semistructured interview. Responses from the interviews were captured on digital audio recordings and paper-based field notes. Interviews were conducted between 09:00 and 15:00 h Monday– Friday in March 2010 and typically lasted 30–60 min. SPSS version 12.0 for Windows (SPSS Inc., Chicago, IL) was used to analyze preand post-video responses using v tests and t tests for comparisons of means. The study was approved by the Committee on Human Research at the University of California, San Francisco and the Mayor and Ministry of Health of Santiago Atitlan, Guatemala.

Behavioral Evidence for Song Learning in the Suboscine Bellbirds (Procniasspp.; Cotingidae)

Abstract Why vocal learning has evolved in songbirds, parrots, and hummingbirds but not in other avian groups remains an unanswered question. The difficulty in providing an answer stems not only from the challenge of reconstructing the conditions that favored vocal learning among ancestors of these groups but also from our incomplete knowledge of extant birds. Here we provide multiple lines of evidence for a previously undocumented, evolutionarily independent origin of vocal learning among the suboscine passerines. Working with bellbirds (Procnias spp.), we show that (1) a captive-reared Bare-throated Bellbird (P. nudicollis) deprived of conspecific song not only developed abnormal conspecific songs but also learned the calls of a Chopi Blackbird (Gnorimopsar chopi) near which it was housed; (2) songs of Three-wattled Bellbirds (P. tricarunculata) occur in three geographically distinct dialects (from north to south: Nicaragua, Monteverde, and Talamanca); (3) Three-wattled Bellbirds at Monteverde, Costa Ri...

Generational Divisions: Dialect Divergence in a Los Angeles-Salvadoran Household

Parodi (2003; 2004; 2009a; 2009b; 2011) has proposed and evidenced the existence of a Los Angeles, California dialect of Spanish called Los Angeles Vernacular Spanish (LAVS). This ‘rur-urbana koiné’ is argued to be based on rural Mexican Spanish dialects but with its own unique characteristics as well. The author affirms that Latin American immigrants to the region (not only Mexicans but also Salvadorans, Hondurans, etc.) accommodate their speech to LAVS outside of the home, but maintain the use of their original dialect inside, while their children born in the region acquire solely the LAVS dialect. The present ethnographic study seeks to discover how these claims play out in natural, real-time interactions amongst the members of a Salvadoran family living in Los Angeles. Through an in-depth breakdown of both phonological (/s/-aspiration, /n/-velarization, /y/-deletion, and /y/-epenthesis) and morphosyntactic (voseo and tuteo) features of the different family members’ speech, we confirm the presence of three distinct dialects in the home: two Salvadoran (one employed by the mother, another by the father), and one ‘Angelino’, used by the children. The results thereby support Parodi’s theory that Los Angeles possesses its own dialect and speech community which are distinct from those of other varieties of Spanish.

“Usos peninsulares y americanos del léxico de la edad”

Fecha de recepción: 22 de agosto de 2011.Fecha de aceptación: 16 de abril de 2012. En este trabajo, se exponen las convergencias y divergencias del léxico de la edad en distintas modalidades peninsulares y americanas de la lengua española con base en un estudio comparado, diacrónico y diatópico. Analizamos un corpus de textos históricos (siglos XVI al XIX) y un corpus oral (siglo XX), con muestras de distintos dialectos. Nuestro propósito es identificar los adjetivos de edad más frecuentes en los geolectos estudiados.

<i>Dialects of English: Newfoundland and Labrador English</i> (review)

Reviewed by: Dialects of English: Newfoundland and Labrador English Gordon Alley-Young Sandra Clarke. 2010. Dialects of English: Newfoundland and Labrador English. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Pp. 212. $34.80 (softcover). Newfoundland and Labrador English (NLE) is the most distinct dialect of Canadian English (CE) while it more closely resembles southwest British English (BE) and southeast Irish English (IE) (Fee 2002, Boberg 2010). NLE’s uniqueness as a dialect within Canada is why it is the best-documented variety of CE. In this book Clarke blends published research with unpublished Master’s theses on NLE, which were widely unavailable until recently. The book transcribes and analyzes the source of the most salient features of NLE phonology and grammar through their introduction to the region, rise, and in some cases decline. Other chapters provide analysis of the language and the speakers of NLE within a greater cultural context. The book is one of six already published in the Dialects of English series by Edinburgh University Press (four new books are forthcoming). This review will first provide an overview of the book and then discuss each chapter in greater detail with special attention to selected elements. The first three chapters of the book orient the reader to the history of Newfoundland and Labrador’s main linguistic areas and then familiarize the reader with the phonetics/phonology and morphosyntax of NLE. The following two chapters compare and contrast NLE with CE, American English (AE), BE, and IE, first on the basis of vocabulary and discourse and then in terms of language attitudes and language change. The sixth chapter surveys the literature on NLE. Chapter 7 provides the sample texts that are referenced throughout the book in a longer format that can be used along with audio files provided by the author and publisher. Chapter 1 explores migration and settlement patterns that helped to characterize NLE in terms of Newfoundland British English (NBE) and Newfoundland Irish English (NIE). Basque, Portuguese, and French influences are also explored but NBE and NIE are the main foci of the book, as NLE retains such high homogeneity to these two language founder groups. The province is divided into four linguistically distinct areas: the Avalon Peninsula, the southern west coast, the English settled coastline, and Labrador. Discussion of Aboriginal language influence on NLE is limited as the author argues that these languages have not had the systematic investigation needed in order to discuss them effectively in this volume. However, Chapter 4 does reference the contribution of Aboriginal languages to the lexicon of NLE, particularly in Labrador. [End Page 459] Chapter 2 covers vowel and consonant systems by first introducing relevant phonetics/phonology terminology and then presenting NLE relevant IPA characters. Clarke uses Wells’ (1982) keywords list to make the phonetic differences of NLE understandable to speakers of AE and BE as six lax and four tense vowels, three diphthongs, and six pre-/r/ vowels. This section effectively relates how NLE speakers engage Canadian Raising differently through the use of backing and rounding. The discussion of consonant features include the treatment of /ð/ and /θ/, the insertion of an initial /h/, and insertion and deletion of /r/ in NLE. For instance, Clark states that /θ/ is frequently turned into /t/ in words such as thrash, thus making it sound like trash. The /ð/ sound evokes more stopping and this is used in speech to consciously reference Newfoundland identity. Web resources for Chapters 4 and 5 show NLE speakers using these linguistic features to claim their own and/or contest others’ identity performances in music videos and media texts. Such content that references linguistic elements as central to identity performance makes the volume relevant for academics in communication arts oriented disciplines (folklore, performance/cultural studies). Chapter 3 introduces NLE morphosyntax; at the outset Clarke states that research often distinguishes versions of English phonetically but argues that NLE has a rich and historically significant morphology that warrants examination. Similarly, a recently published review of a comparative analysis of CE was criticized for a less thorough analysis of grammatical structures (Brock 2011). This chapter is thorough, however, in its analysis of historical syntax and word structures. It offers an ample listing of how NLE has regularized, partially...

Interação e identidade no rádio: o caso de um programa popular de Belo Horizonte

This article focuses on telephone conversations between addressees and radio announcers. The main aim of this work is to describe and analyse the discursive strategies interactants adopt in the co-construction of social identities at a popular radio show broadcast in Belo Horizonte (“Mistureba” – a Radio Favela program). This consists of a microanalysis work of discourse in the field of Interactional Sociolinguistics (Gumperz 1982, Tannen, 1984, 1989, Schiffrin, 1996). Data were obtained from recordings on audio tapes, transcribed, accounting for a total of 171 interactions or three hundred transcribed pages. The analysis shows that the social identities of addressees and radio announcers are built on a demonstration of social affiliation that is revealed, especially in the way they address each other, which claims inclusion in the group and lexical choices that reflect the use of a distinctive dialect. This work also made it possible to understand the ethos of Brazilian radio interactions which are defined in essence as a place of social “interaction” – in the words of Da Matta (1979), the “horror of distance” and the desire for closeness. Key words: language, identity, interaction, radio.

Regional Dialect Variation in the Vowel Systems of Typically Developing Children

To investigate regional dialect variation in the vowel systems of typically developing 8- to 12-year-old children. Thirteen vowels in isolated h_d words were produced by 94 children and 93 adults (males and females). All participants spoke American English and were born and raised in 1 of 3 distinct dialect regions in the United States: western North Carolina (Southern dialect), central Ohio (Midland dialect), and southeastern Wisconsin (Northern Midwestern dialect). Acoustic analysis included formant frequencies (F1 and F2) measured at 5 equidistant time points in a vowel and formant movement (trajectory length). Children's productions showed many dialect-specific features comparable to those in adult speakers, both in terms of vowel dispersion patterns and formant movement. Different features were also found, including systemic vowel changes, significant monophthongization of selected vowels, and greater formant movement in diphthongs. The acoustic results provide evidence for regional distinctiveness in children's vowel systems. Children acquire not only the systemic relations among vowels but also their dialect-specific patterns of formant dynamics. Directing attention to the regional variation in the production of American English vowels, this work may prove helpful in better understanding and interpreting the development of vowel categories and vowel systems in children.

Regional variation in vowel acoustics in children.

This study examines the acquisition of the American English vowel system by children who grew up in one of the three distinct dialect areas in the United States: western North Carolina, central Ohio, and southeastern Wisconsin. Of interest is the extent to which children acquire dialect‐specific vowel dispersion patterns and dynamic formant movements (vowel‐inherent spectral change). Ninety‐four children (8–12 years) and 93 adults (51–65 years), males and females, produced 13 vowel categories in isolated hVd words. The results for children clearly show the presence of dialect‐specific features found in adult speakers. The regional positional relations among vowels are generally maintained in children. For some vowels, the correspondence in the amount of spectral change and formant trajectory shape between children and adults is remarkable. Two major changes in children are common across dialects: reduction of formant movement in selected monophthongs and more uniform production of diphthongs in which dialectal differences present in adults tend to disappear. These results show that children are able to adopt and reproduce dialect‐specific acoustic vowel characteristics quite well despite their exposure to highly variable input, which creates opportunities for dialect convergence and standardization through interaction with mass media and telecommunication. [Work supported by NIH.]

Intersystemic Correspondence Rules and Headwords in Dutch Dialect Lexicography

The headwords in the three regional dialect dictionaries of the southern Dutch dialect area-the Dictionary of the Flemish Dialects (WVD), the Dictionary of the Brabantic Dialects (WBD) and the Dictionary of the Limburgish Dialects (WLD)-are 'Dutchified' forms: that is, headwords are rendered in Standard Dutch orthography and generalize across a number of phonologically distinct dialect forms. This article explains how the Dutchification of headwords was operationalized in the Dictionary of the Flemish Dialects. It is shown that a number of so-called correspondence rules can be found that mediate between dialect and Standard Dutch phonology and which form the basis of Dutchification. Phonological models confirm this lexicographical intuition; the work of Rys (2007) is used to exemplify the correspondence rules with examples from the Maldegem dialect.

One foot in the grave? Dialect death, dialect contact, and dialect birth in England

I survey here some of the recent evidence of dialect attrition from sociolinguistic and variationist studies carried out in England. In doing so, and by highlighting the origins of some of the ongoing changes in English dialects, I hope to make three claims in particular: firstly, that dialect death is inextricably linked to dialect contact — in order to understand how dialect death has changed the dialectological landscape of England, we need to appreciate the linguistic consequences of contact more generally; secondly, and apparently in contrast with some other speech communities, the attrition process has not led to a widespread shift toward RP or standard English. I argue, thirdly, that while some dialects are undoubtedly undergoing attrition, new varieties are emerging, driven by both expansion and relocation diffusion, and shaped by contact between local, regional, interregional, and other, including standard, varieties. Although the developments currently affecting English dialects in England are not necessarily particularly new, they are proceeding on an unprecedented spatial scale, a scale that has resulted from some rather wide-ranging social and economic developments that have accelerated contact between speakers of structurally distinct dialects.

Siân Echard (ed.), A Companion to Gower.

A Companion to Gower edited by Siân Echard is the first guide to the field, and a welcome intervention in the study of a poet who—though, as Echard argues in her Introduction, dogged by his association with Chaucer, by the epithet ‘moral Gower’ that Chaucer assigned to him, by centuries of negative critical comparison between his tales and those of Chaucer—nevertheless has a central place in the study of late medieval English literature. The introductory discussion here is even more productive when Echard suggests some other reasons why work on Gower has only now produced a Companion. Nineteenth-century readers may have seen Gower's politics as problematic: the poet was much too ready to shift allegiances from Richard II to Henry IV. But twentieth- and twenty-first-century readers more often stumble over the writer's trilingualism: his composition of Latin and French texts, and the elaborate Latin paratext within which his English Confessio Amantis is embedded and makes best sense. As more and more commentators suggest that medieval literary scholarship needs to shift away from Chaucerian and towards early and trilingual English cultures (see recent work by Hanna, Watson, Cannon, and Wogan-Browne, for instance), a turn towards that turncoat Gower may be overdue. Echard is aware of this. This Companion contains some useful essays on Confessio Amantis on the slightly predictable topics of gender and sexuality (Diane Watt) and kingship (Russell Peck), but an almost equal amount of space is given to the Vox Clamantis and Cronica Tripertita in a chapter by A. G. Rigg and Edward S. Moore, and to the Mirour de l’Omne and Cinkante Balades by R. F. Yeager. Nor is Confessio Amantis divorced from the Latinate or French traditions that inform the style and concerns of all of Gower's writings: these are matters discussed in chapters by John Burrow, Ardis Butterfield, and Winthrop Wetherbee. Such traditions are also shown to lie behind the carefully-contrived ordinatio of many early manuscripts of Confessio. These and slightly messier, later states of Gower's books are described in a chapter by Derek Pearsall that suggests the importance of Gower (and especially the Gower scribes D and Delta) to study of the late medieval commercial book trade. Bibliographical traditions receive further attention in Echard's chapter on the printing of Gower, which is comprehensive and erudite—as is Jeremy J. Smith's assessment of the distinctive dialect of Gower's London English, and the book's first chapter on Gower's life records.

Hella Nor Cal or Totally So Cal?

This study provides the first detailed account of perceptual dialectology within California (as well as one of the first accounts of perceptual dialectology within any single state). Quantitative analysis of a map-labeling task carried out in Southern California reveals that California's most salient linguistic boundary is between the northern and southern regions of the state. Whereas studies of the perceptual dialectology of the United States as a whole have focused almost exclusively on regional dialect differences, respondents associated particular regions of California less with distinctive dialects than with differences in language (English versus Spanish), slang use, and social groups. The diverse sociolinguistic situation of California is reflected in the emphasis both on highly salient social groups thought to be stereotypical of California by residents and nonresidents alike (e.g., surfers) and on groups that, though prominent in the cultural landscape of the state, remain largely unrecognized by outsiders (e.g., hicks).