City Talks: The Emergence of Urban DialectologyTimothy Jewell

California State University, FullertonLING 599: Dr. Natalie Operstein

1. Introduction

1.1. Language vs. Dialect(?)

Drawing a well-defined line between language and dialect isa nearly impossible task. Characterizing the division betweenlanguage and dialect has occupied linguists for much of the twentiethand twenty-first century; the terms that have acquired the mostcurrency with dialectologists remain Abstandsprache ‘language bydistance’ and Ausbausprache ‘language by development’ (Kloss 1967),which have supplied scholars within the field of Dialectologywith two useful terms imbued with little to no sociopoliticalconnotation.

However, as speech communities have spread out anddiversified during the past century as a result of globalizationand the wider distribution of communication media, new linguisticsituations have arisen that challenge the efficacy of Kloss’classifications. In many speech communities, particularly on thenational level, standard languages enjoy unchallenged prestige inrelation to other regional linguistic forms that may existalongside the standard even in the daily lives of individualspeakers, who may have fluent command of both linguisticvarieties. Such extant diglossic and heteroglossic conditions arecommon in politically prominent regions such as the UnitedKingdom, the United States, Germany, France, China, many Arabic-speaking countries, and countless others. The coexistence ofregional dialects and standard languages is not a novel concept,and most of these nations have undergone significant languageplanning procedures that have established a standard variety,i.e. English, German, French, Mandarin Chinese, and ModernStandard Arabic, that serves as the national or regional mediumof individual, communal, and political communication. In regard

to these linguistic situations, Kloss’ definitions functionproperly to distinguish a standard (Ausbausprache) from a dialect(Abstandsprache).

As worldwide linguistic situations change due to populationgrowth and migration towards more densely-populated regions andconurbations, it has become increasingly necessary to augmentKloss’ approach. Though the traditional dichotomy betweenlanguage and dialect functions admirably as a general outline oflinguistic situations in any region or nation in question, theinternational sociolinguistic landscape has responded toprocesses of globalization, immigration, and urbanization in waysthat cannot be sufficiently described using this dichotomy.

In particular, urbanization and its relationship toDialectology, language contact, and language change must bescrutinized as a crucial research area in the emergence of 21st-century linguistic situations. According to the World HealthOrganization (WHO), roughly half of the world’s populationinhabits an urbanized region (defined minimally as a regioninhabited by 100-500,000 people; only about 10% of urbanresidents inhabit a ‘megacity’ with a population of 10,000,000+residents), and by 2050, WHO projects that two-thirds of theworld population will live in cities. Thus, the continuingvitality of Dialectology and its related fields is contingentupon their ability to investigate developing linguisticsituations in the context of dense urban living, at times withinthe hyperlocal level of adjacent city blocks, rather than at aholistic national (or even regional) level.

1.2. Project Goals

The current project seeks to address the international urbanlinguistic situation by surveying the significant foundations ofcontemporary language change in languages and dialects that havealready developed, that are currently developing, and that willlikely develop in the context of international cities: cognition,personal identity, sexuality, social networks, regional history,space and topography, sociopolitical identity, enregisterment andcommodification, and language standardization on a regional andsupraregional level, with an emphasis on recent discussions of

glocalisation as an impetus for sociolinguistic change in urbanenvironments (Trudgill 2004). Within this discussion, Kloss’dichotomy will be examined and new models regarding therelationship between standardized and non-standardized languageswill be proposed.

The current project will also integrate a discussion ofPerceptual Dialectology (PD) as an essential aspect of urbandialectology whose present development, both methodologically andtechnologically, will allow for an effective and consistentexamination of urban language change on a local and supralocallevel with its provision of the insightful Five-Point Methodregarding language perception and attitudes (Preston 1999) aswell as valuable data from studies that employ GeographicalInformation Systems (GIS) in their examination of complexlanguage situations in specific areas (Montgomery 2012, 2013). PDhas historically emphasized the significance of regionalvariation in its nearly century-long existence, and urbansociolinguistic scholarship will benefit substantially from anextension of such methodology and data-processing technology.

2. Perceptual Dialectology: Attitudes and Awareness

Crucial to an understanding of urban language environmentsare the attitudes that residents of an urban area exhibit,whether consciously or subconsciously, towards sociolinguisticvariation within the urban environment itself. Prominent languageideologies are often rampant in large conurbations whoselinguistic characteristics are perceptible not only to thosewithin the urban region but also to those who have been exposedto such urban dialect varieties through communication orentertainment media (especially in the case of Californiaspeech); thus, the role of folk perceptions of languagedifferences must be carefully considered and integrated to someextent in any study of urban dialects.

Perceptual Dialectology, an especially vibrant field in theUnited States, is founded upon the tenets of Folk Linguistics, afield wherein specific and detailed attention is directed towardsnon-linguists’ beliefs and perceptions of the distinction between‘standard’ and ‘non-standard’ speech; that is, the difference

between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ speech. Whereas Folk Linguistics seeksprimarily to understand the trends of language attitudes anddescribe the shifts in subjective language perceptions on aholistic level (Preston and Niedzielski 2000), PD has built uponthe developments of Folk Linguistics specifically by focusing onregional variation in language attitudes rather than on generallanguage ideologies that often emerge from folk linguisticstudies.

At the forefront of PD is the work of Dennis Preston, whohas not only investigated national language attitudes in theUnited States from respondents in individual states but alsodeveloped a functional cognitive model for the processes thatguide dialect perception and the formation of language attitudes(Preston 2010: 102). Preston’s current model, a comprehensiveanalysis of which cannot be addressed within the scope of thiscurrent project, identifies four primary cognitive processes inthe development of language attitudes:

1. Noticing: a conscious or subconscious realization by a speakerthat another speaker is utilizing a non-standard form of speech,whether the realities of such a deviation from the standard islexical, phonological, grammatical, etc.;2. Classification: a cognitive cataloguing of that speaker’s non-standard speech within a mental framework of language ideologiesin connection with previous exposure to other speakers of thevariant in question;3. Imbuing: an application of internalized language ideologies,whether positive or negative, with the speaker of the variant inquestion;4. Reaction: an external expression of folk beliefs aboutlanguage variation.

Preston’s model, though still undergoing refinement withinthe context of his notion of language regard, has proved useful toPD in understanding the motivations for the development oflanguage attitudes in any region or nation; analysis within PD ofsubjective responses to perceptual tasks have benefitted byintegrating an additional cognitive layer to the understanding ofthe motives behind the processes of respondents who not only

recognize dialectical variation on a profound level but alsodevelop specific social, cultural, and spatial attitudes that cangradually emerge as enregistered stereotypes, which is evident inthe case of Pittsburghese American English (Johnstone 2009) andGeordie British English (Beal 2009), as sociolinguistic codeswithin a region or a nation, which is evident in the case ofKiezdeutsch (Freywald et. al. 2011) and varieties of urbanParisian French (Fagyal & Stewart 2011), and as linguisticpolitical tools, which seem to exist in many of Europe’sincreasingly independent nations (Deutsch 1942) and in therelatively homogenous linguistic landscape of Canada (Chambers2012).

2.1. The Future of Perceptual Dialectology

Preston’s findings and methodologies have been utilizedwidely by studies in the United States, Europe, Asia, and otherdeveloping nations (though few perceptual studies have emergedfrom Africa, and much of the focus on the linguistic features ofAfrican regions is limited to the more broad yet less revealingspectrum of Sociolinguistics and Dialectology as a whole), and incombination with GIS-mapping technologies developed and used byMontgomery (2012) and Evans’ two discussions of regionalperceptions in the state of Washington (2013), a more lucidvision of the purposes and implications of PerceptualDialectology has arisen.

2.1.1. GIS in PD

In his discussion of GIS as a data-mapping tool in a studyof northeast English regional dialects, Montgomery (2012)expounds upon the notion that perceptual responses can bephysically illustrated through maps that are generated through aseries of questionnaires that ask respondents to share theirperceptions regarding the existence of linguistic borders on amap of the United Kingdom and label cities that they recognize onthe same map (Montgomery 2012: 626). Montgomery concludes fromhis data and from the maps created through GIS that political andnational borders, as well as the existence of salient urban and

regional dialects such as ‘Cockney’, ‘Brummie’, and ‘Scouse’,strongly affect the perception of dialects throughout a region(Montgomery 2012: 660-661). Most significantly, GIS allowsdialectologists to holistically aggregate data gathered fromrespondents through GIS mapping tools that represent data throughthe coloration of specific regions of greater prominence torespondents and the increase in size of labels utilized morefrequently by respondents in research questionnaires, even if thedata is extracted from multiple questionnaires with results thatvary on statistically significant levels; thus, GIS expedientlyprovides dialectologists with a more accurate framework andliteral picture from which to derive conclusions about thegeneral attitudes towards dialectical variation in a region ornation. GIS has provided the groundwork for complexinvestigations of dialect regions of any size, and the potentialapplication of GIS mapping from perceptual questionnaires couldhave significant effects on the emerging role of perceptualdialectology in relation to specific urban environments.

GIS was also recently used in a study of the state ofWashington, wherein perceptual questionnaires and draw-a-maptasks (Preston 1999) about the variation of English in the statewere integrated into a GIS map of Washington, revealing not onlythat specific urban regions such as Seattle, Tacoma, and Spokanewere generally perceived as more distinct from the rest of thestate (Evans 2013a: 278-279) but also that the state was dividedneatly divided into distinct western and eastern regions by theCascade Mountains (Evans 2013a: 280). In addition, Evans (2013b)discusses the significant role of ‘unusable’ data from the studyof Washington state, revealing that the representation of the GISdialect maps can change considerably when data that is typicallyignored or removed from a perceptual study is utilized toconstruct a new or concurrent narrative regarding the perceptionof dialects in a single region (Evans 2013b: 76). Evans believesthat the close examination and qualitative analysis of subjectiveresponses to perceptual questionnaires alongside GIS mapping ofother perceptual tasks are essential to understanding the complexdata gathered by such studies; utilizing subjective responsesfrom her Washington State study, Evans demonstrates that, eventhough core data show that dense urban areas and geographical

divisions are salient to most respondents, other responses thatseem statistically insignificant may actually expose synchronouslanguage perceptions and ideologies, and Evans states that the 31respondents who “wrote comments on a map…without drawing linesaround perceived dialect areas as instructed” (Evans 2013b: 63)contribute additional beliefs of the ‘homogeneity’ of WashingtonState’s English dialect regions, which may “…reflect a semioticprocess of erasure” (Evans 2013b: 76). Both studies by Evansconclude that full knowledge of dialect regions in relation toperceptions by speakers who live in the regions beinginvestigated can only be obtained through a comprehensiveincorporation of GIS mapping and qualitative response discussion.

A full analysis and discussion of the recent history ofPerceptual Dialectology is beyond the scope of this project, andultimately, this project seeks only to utilize the aspects of PDthat have proved useful in understanding the complexities andmethodological difficulties of conducting perceptual studies indense urban environments rather than a broad regional or nationallevel. Therefore, see Preston (1999) for further discussion ofPreston’s Five-Point Method regarding perceptual questionnaires,Preston & Long (2002) for updated research methods and studies inPD, and Montgomery & Stoeckle (2013) for a more recent discussionabout the application of GIS data to perceptual tasks in theUnited Kingdom and Germany.

2.1.2. Implications of PD for Urban Dialect Research

As will be explored further in this project, the arealmethodologies of PD have significant implications for the fieldof urban dialectology. Because of its emphasis on specificregions rather than on entire nations, PD must be closelyexamined and remain in direct communication with any emergingstudies of urban dialectology. Related studies and discussions ofthe relationship between respondents and the spatial traits ofthe urban environment as well as other environments thatcontribute to the perception and use of urban dialects shouldalso be addressed in the development of the urban dialectologyfield, such as Romanello (2002) in relation to southern Italy,Ivars (2005) in relation to Finland Swedish-speaking cities, and

Schreier (2006) in relation to English speakers with identityassociated with both the United Kingdom and their original homein Trista da Cunha.

3. Urban Languages and Codes

3.1. Measuring Local Varieties

The relationship between languages and dialects in urbanenvironments is complex, and in contrast to previous definitionsof the binary between the two terms, the terminology necessary tounderstand the perceptions of and motivations for using urbandialects must reflect a spectrum of language and dialect use. Thisproject has sought to use Muljačić (1997) as a model foranalyzing the spectral categories of urban language, whereindefinitions for languages and dialects are implemented not withinbroad, overarching designations but rather within a relativisticframework that can be applied not only to single languages andtheir associated dialects but also to multiple languages extantin a single region. In Muljačić (1997), utilizing the example ofItalian dialects, language and dialects are shown to be able totransition fluidly between three basis categories:

1. High Language (HL): a language that likely enjoyssociopolitical supremacy within its region and has absoluteautonomy; i.e. Standard Italian.2. Middle Language (ML): a language that enjoys high regionalstatus but has not been standardized or enregistered, thusreflecting a coexistence of heteronomy and autonomy; i.e. Veneto,Piedmontese.3. Low Language (LL): a language that does enjoy anysociopolitical prominence beyond possibly local status and existsin absolute heteronomy with surrounding languages; i.e.Florentine, Romanesco.

(source: Muljačić 1997: 388)

Muljačić (1997) believes that languages can exist in morethan one category depending on the region in question; Muljačić

states that Standard German, for example, is a HL in Germanybecause it has been associated with the governing body and thecultural heritage of many of Germany’s residents but is an ML inSouth Tyrol because the province is politically associated withItaly, wherein Standard Italian has been enregistered as thenational HL. The fluidity of Muljačić’s terms allows the currentproject to analyze the varieties of languages and dialectsdiscussed within each section more accurately and with theability to objectively assess the role of urban varieties withoutexplicit endorsement of any variety.

3.2. A Survey of Urban Varieties

3.2.1. Urban Varieties in North America

Several instances of varieties distinctly associated withparticular urban regions exist in the United States, Canada, andMexico/the Caribbean. Some varieties are highly visible and haveenjoyed enregisterment on a local and sometimes supralocal level.

3.2.2. The United States

Johnstone (2009) discusses the Pittsburghese dialect in thecity of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and believes that itsenregisterment for speakers of the dialect within the city aswell as for local residents who are familiar with the dialect isa result of commodification processes, as many retail products haveentered the national marketplace because of Pittsburghese’sdistinct dialectical features, such as t-shirts, coffee mugs, anddictionaries (Johnstone 2009: 157-158). Pittsburghese isrelatively intelligible to speakers of American English and canbe identified as an LL in the context of the United Statesbecause of its lack of prominence beyond urban Pittsburgh, butits use by residents of Pittsburgh and the existence ofPittsburghese products allows the establishment of a distinctlocal identity and the open discussion within the community ofthe sociolinguistic implications of the dialect (Johnstone 2009:172). Furthermore, the vigor of this urban variety has likelybeen facilitated by the city’s national football team, the

Pittsburgh Steelers (known in Pittsburghese as the Stillers), andthrough the local salience of spatial features such as the GiantEagle supermarket chain (known as jynt iggle) and the point, a localterm for the convergence of Pittsburgh’s three rivers. Johnstonebelieves that features of this urban variety are inextricablylinked to the identity associated with the city of Pittsburghitself, and the various dialectical ways of referring to thecity, i.e. Picksburg, the Burgh (which are defined in a Pittsburghesedictionary as ‘the greatest city in Pennsylvania’ and ‘a helluvacool place’, respectively) indicate the heightened sense of urbanpride felt by speakers of Pittsburghese, which has likelycontributed to its continuing sturdiness as a marker of localidentity. For a similar discussion of the commodified ‘Geordie’dialect in northern England, see Beal (2009).

Fought (2002) and Podesva (2011a) have discussed theexistence of urban varieties in the state of California, and thefeatures of California’s urban dialects, some of which havebecome nationally (and perhaps internationally) prominent throughHollywood films such as Fast Times at Ridgemont High and Clueless (Podesva2011a: 44), are extremely visible on both a lexical andgrammatical level.

In Fought (2002), a mixture of positive and negativeperceptions of distinctly urban Californian lexemes such as dude,like (discourse marker), and hella is evident in a perceptual studyin which students at the University of California, Santa Barbaradivide California into a northern and southern dialect zone,identifying the San Francisco and Los Angeles regions morefrequently as a source of these lexemes than other Californiaregions such as the Central Valley and the northernmost areasclose to the border with Oregon; furthermore, in theirperceptions of dialects in other states, the students followed asimilar trend in identifying the salient lexical items and mediastereotypes of urban regions such as New York City (i.e. fuckballsand the vague label ‘coffee talk’) and the Midwest (i.e. ‘Fargo-like’ [ostensibly referring to the 1996 Coen Brothers film]).Many of these labels are likely influenced by the respondents’exposure to films that capitalize on the stereotypes of suchurban dialects (i.e. the ‘surfer dude’, ‘valley girl’, andMidwesterner archetypes popularized by the aforementioned films),

but according to Fought, the stereotype has become anenregistered element of the California phonetic system, as “…California is a state caught between a general aura ofdesirability and a specific association with negative linguisticstereotypes” (Fought 2002: 132), which is reflected by theresponses given by many of the students of California as a statespeaking not necessarily ‘Proper English’ but overwhelmingly‘Good English’. Fought believes that speakers of English inCalifornia generally have a ‘fond acceptance’ (Fought 2002: 132)of their state despite the ambivalence of most respondentstowards the existence of ‘surfer’ and ‘valley girl’ slang. Theassociation of California with the speech of stereotypicalCalifornians from the large urban regions, i.e. San Francisco,Los Angeles, and, to a lesser extent, San Diego, illustrates thathighly visible urban environments have been projected into theconsciousness of state residents through the media, personalexperience, and perhaps residency in these major cities.

The conclusions made about California speech varieties inFought (2002) are echoed in a discussion about the CaliforniaVowel Shift (CVS) and its association with personal linguisticstyle (perhaps also accurately identified as the socialimplications of an idiolect) in Podesva (2011a) in the context ofa gay man’s speech. Podesva’s subject, a gay Vietnamese male fromOrange County in Southern California named Regan, was asked torecord his speech in three different social scenarios, andPodesva proposes that Regan’s varying use of the CVS, which isitself concomitant within and outside of California withCalifornia ‘surfer’ and ‘valley girl’ stereotypes seen in theaforementioned films, allows different levels of indexicalreference to the ‘fun’, ‘laid-back’ persona that such Californianspeech varieties imbue into specific social situations (Podesva2011a: 45). For example, Regan’s use of socially salient urbanCalifornian speech styles (i.e. boot-fronting, ban-raising, bat-backing, and an idiosyncratic falsetto voice) is most evidentduring his social forays in his current residence of SanFrancisco with his close male friends but far less pronouncedduring a dinner meeting with a good friend and even lesspronounced during a meeting with his supervisor at the companyfor which he works (Podesva 2011a: 37-40). Podesva (2011a)

believes that Regan’s speech indicates that an enregistered urbandialect (particularly one visible in national film media) canbecome associated with distinct personas connected with a consciously-chosenpersonal style, as Regan appears to heavily utilize CVS featureswith his close friends in order to develop a ‘partier’ personabut almost never utilizes them in professional encounters(Podesva 2011a: 47). Regan’s variant speech styles suggest thatspeech itself can reflect one’s association with a particularurban environment, as Regan’s most heightened use of the CVSoccurs during his nights out in the city of San Francisco withhis close friends; though he also works in the city, he uses theCVS less frequently in the professional environment, and hisspeech reveals that interconnections likely exist between severaldistinct factors for the use of certain speech varieties in urbansettings (in addition to the HL, ML, and LL distinction):

1. Physical setting, i.e. workplace, residence, store,restaurant, etc.2. Social setting, i.e. coworkers, family, close/casual friends,strangers, etc.3. Social comfort, i.e. ‘Boy’s Night Out’, relaxed encounter,professional encounter, etc.4. Style/Persona choice, i.e. ‘partier’, ‘professional’, etc.

The details of these factors cannot be discussed within thescope of this project, but consult Romanello (2002) for aperceptual study into the role of physical/spatial relationshipsto speech varieties, Blom & Gumperz (1972) for an examination ofsocial context in relation to speech varieties, and Podesva(2011b) for a contrastive study of the speech styles of gayprofessionals in various social situations.

In Canada, a somewhat different linguistic situation hasbeen identified by Chambers (2012). Through a diachronic analysisof lexical items for the term ‘wedgie’ and phonetic features suchas ‘Canadian Raising’ and ‘/aw/ fronting’, Chambers concludesthat, unlike the lexical variation and vowel shifts seen in NorthAmerican urban environments such as California and manyMidwestern cities in the United States, such as Detroit andCleveland (for a detailed discussion of the Northern Cities Vowel

Shift, consult Plichta (2004) for a general outline ofinterdisciplinary standpoints and Campbell-Kibler (2011) for aspecific discussion of Ohioan dialects), Canada’s urban dialectsare instead undergoing processes of homogenization and levelling dueto the sociopolitical and ethnolinguistic unity of major Canadiancities such as Toronto, Vancouver, Winnipeg, and Victoria(Chamber 2012: 469-470). Chambers (2012) also briefly discussesthe role of urban dialects in cities that have not yet becomedialectically homogenized with other Canadian cities, proposingthat cities which have not yet assimilated into the Canadianprocesses of homogenization, such as Montreal in Quebec and St.John’s in Newfoundland, have resisted these processes because ofthe extant urban dialects that have already enregisteredthemselves within the urban environments. In relation toMontreal, Chambers believes that the Anglophone community doesnot form enough of a cohesive sociolinguistic entity to establishsociopolitical solidarity with other major Canadian cities(Chambers 2012: 470), and in relation to St. John’s, Chambersstates that the existence of a Hibernian urban middle-classdialect has only until recently halted the progress of Canadianhomogenization processes (Chambers 2012: 474). Chambers’conclusions support the existence of additional dimensions in themaintenance and motivations for use of an urban dialect,suggested below in regards to the following interrelatedcategories:

1. Sociopolitical unity:o sociolinguistic cohesion within a specific urban

environmento salient sociolinguistic association with other urban

environmentso resistance to sociopolitical/sociolinguistic levelling

due to existence of local dialect with local/regionalcurrency

2. Ethnolinguistic unityo association with national ‘ethnicity’, i.e. urban

middle-class Canadian

o association with local/regional ‘ethnicity’, i.e. urbanmiddle-class linguistic community in Montreal, St.John’s, etc.

o association with ethnic heritage, i.e. Hibernian,French, Canadian, English (British)

In short, Fought (2002), Podesva (2011), and Chambers (2012)indicate that urban dialects are not fixed but are rather variablein connection with social, political, ethnic, professional, and stylistic contexts, andenregistered dialects of varying dimensions can either spreadthroughout a socio-politically cohesive region/nation due tosalient regional/national pride or delay/terminate the influenceof other salient urban dialects due to the local/regionalenregisterment of a socially advantageous speech style. Furtherinvestigations utilizing these models for understanding thedevelopment and maintenance of urban speech styles in NorthAmerica will be addressed in future projects, and any attempt tounderstand the complexities of urban speech from a perceptual andcognitive standpoint may find it useful to employ these roughprototypes for the development of further comprehension regardingthe sociolinguistics of urban speech in America.

3.2.3. Europe

Though the sociopolitical history of Europe has caused thesociolinguistic landscape of Europe to diverge significantly fromthat of North America, many similarities exist between the urbansociolinguistics and stylistics of each continent. Several recentstudies regarding the perception and motivations of urban speechin European cities will be discussed in the following sections,and specific European models for the analysis of European urbanspeech will be proposed on the basis of these studies for usealongside the North American models. This project will emphasizedialectical changes and the interaction of HL/ML/LL languages inthe Nordic countries, i.e. Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, and adetailed analysis of British and continental European cities willbe supplied in future projects.

3.2.3.1. Northern Europe

Studies of the urban sociolinguistics of northern Europe,specifically in reference to the Scandinavian countries, haverecently emerged as a result of the increased prestige ofregional dialects in Norway (and to a lesser extent in Sweden andDenmark) and the pressure felt by speakers of Nordic languagesfrom foreign linguistic influences, which has culminated in thedesire to utilize Scandinavian languages more frequently ininter-Nordic discourse (Östman & Thøgersen 2010) as well as inthe heightened linguistic consciousness of Scandinavian languagespeakers in response to the encroachment of World Englishes andother non-Nordic languages (Vikør 2010). Though thesesociolinguistic issues are too complex to be thoroughly discussedwithin the current project, other salient issues regarding therelationship between urban dialects and traditional Nordiclanguage situations will be discussed.

Kristiansen (2003) discusses the role of Standard CopenhagenDanish on the levelling of other Danish dialects in the nation ofDenmark and concludes that the prestige of Copenhagen as asociopolitical entity has caused the spread of the urbanCopenhagen variety throughout Denmark (Kristiansen 2003: 64).However, even within urban Copenhagen, a linguistic situation hasemerged in which speakers find it socially valuable to exhibitvariation within their speech between the traditional rigdansk(‘high Copenhagen variety’) and less traditional københavnsk (‘lowCopenhagen variety’). In previous studies wherein Danish speakersare asked to rate the varieties of Danish they like most and likeleast, rigdansk usually appears as best and københavnsk oftenappears as least, and Kristiansen believes that thishierarchization reflects public discourse about ideologies ofstandard Danish in Denmark (Kristiansen 2003: 64). However, theincreasing mixture of regional varieties with rigdansk, especiallywithin Copenhagen itself, reflects the influence of the salienturban Copenhagen as a model for pronunciation throughout thenation, even from the seemingly LL variety københavnsk, andKristiansen thus contributes the idea of urban capital visibility on thelinguistic changes that occur both within the urban environmentand in the surrounding regions.

In Ivars (2005), the complex intercourse of local andregional dialects (perhaps most accurately described in the termsprovided by this project as a relationship between LL and MLvarieites) in several Swedish towns wherein Finland Swedish actsas a regional standard is detailed. Ivars (2005) concludes thatcertain Finland Swedish-speaking towns, such as Kristinestad,have assimilated their local LL dialects into the regionalstandard because of a sociolinguistic convergence of urbanmiddle-class speakers into the supralocal sociolect of FinlandSwedish due to their lack of sociolinguistic cohesion and desireto preserve a nabo-opposition against less prestigious ruralvarieties in the city (Ivars 2005: 1067). In Jakobstad, however,two concurrent sociolects have developed as a result of thesociopolitical unity of both urban and rural speakers andpreserved two distinct sociolinguistic situations whereinspeakers of each variety within the city associated themselveswith their ethnolinguistic heritage (Ivars 2005: 1058-1059). Ivars(2005) contributes the notion of the urban vs. rural binary toperception and concurrent maintenance of urban ML and LLdialects.

Røyneland (2009) examines the unique dialectical situationin Norway, wherein varieties of the Bokmål standard that areassociated with Norway’s secondary standard, Nynorsk, iexistalongside the standard with individual local and regionalprestige with nearly as much currency with specific rural andurban environments (Røyneland 2009: 1-2). Røyneland examines thedivergence and levelling processes of Norwegian dialects andconcludes that, whereas rural speakers tend to speak varietiescloser to the standard Bokmål than the previous generations,urban speakers adopt varieties that are less standardized and oftenperceived as less correct by speakers of Bokmål in cities such asOslo, wherein social class and professional relationships oftendirect a speaker’s use of certain varieties of Norwegian(Røyneland 2009: 8-9). In Norway, though Bokmål and, to a lesserextent, Nynorsk both exist as HL national standards, each region,because of the increasing prominence of regional economies(Røyneland 2009: 8) has come to enregister their own ML varietiesthat approach the level of HL within each specific urbanenvironment. Røyneland believes that ideologies of language

purism still run rampant, and that many regional varieties arestill judged by the Bokmål and Nynorsk standards, but Røynelandemphasizes that younger speakers are triggering a mixture ofregional varieties because of the dismantling of traditional socialstructures after World War II, and processes of urbanization acrossthe nation allow young speakers to “…engineer their ownlifestyles…[and] combine, oscillate between or even abandondifferent identities—also linguistically speaking” (Røyneland2009: 11-12). Røyneland (2009) contributes to this project’sdeveloping model the notion of fluid identity, and the linguisticsituation in Norway, wherein speakers can choose to variablyutilize HL, ML, or LL varieties of Norwegian, seems to reflectmany emerging urban linguistic environments, in which speakersassociate with several levels of identity and often employmultiple varieties or styles of a language or several languagesin order to identify themselves with other speakers who alsoparticipate within the sociolinguistic situation in question.

3.2.3.2. Further Reading

For relevant discussions of urban dialects and ethnolects inEurope that cannot be surveyed within this project, see Fagyal &Stewart (2011) for an investigation of the role of prosody in theconstruction of social identity of working-class adolescents inthe urban La Courneuve district of Paris, Freywald et. al. (2011)for a discussion of the emerging Kiezdeutsch ethnolect in urbanenvironments in Germany, Jaspers (2011) for an analysis ofconstructed non-standard urban speech styles among adolescents inthe Netherlands, Kerswill (2005) for a perceptual study on theconnection of urban dialects to social class and communityidentity in the British city of Milton Keynes, Lipski (2002) forthe influence of European and African dialects on the formationof urban Spanish varieties in Central and South America, andSchreier (2006) for a discussion of the simultaneous formation ofpersonal and community identity within an urban and ruralenvironment, i.e. London in the United Kingdom and the tinyBritish territorial island Tristan da Cunha.

4. Conclusion

Few detailed studies of urban environments have beenconducted to further the understanding of linguistic processesthat direct the contact and change of languages and dialects inurban sociolinguistic settings. Hall-Lew & Yaeger-Dror (2014)have indicated the necessity of examining ethnic identity andemerging sociopolitical situations in North American urbanenvironments in order to understand the linguistic of urbancenters such as Columbus, New York City, Philadelphia, SanFrancisco, and Toronto (Hall-Lew & Yaeger-Dror 2014: 1).Furthermore, the dimension of racial affiliations and socialclass within individual urban environments must be investigatedseparately within each urban setting with a sensitivity to thesociopolitical and racial histories of each individual urbansetting or conurbation (Wong & Hall-Lew 2014).

Though this complexity of urban sociolinguistic dimensionsmight be seen as a hindrance for the increased comprehension ofthe sociolinguistic models that direct the cognitive and socialmotivations behind perceptions and maintenance of urbanvarieties, this project has sought to contribute specificdefinitions and dimensions that may be integrated within allfuture investigations and projects in the context what thisauthor collectively labels Urban Dialectology, which will likelybecome a part of a larger sociolinguistic movement in the 21st-century perhaps most accurately described as Urban Sociolinguistics.As millions, and perhaps further billions, of this planet’speople move into urban environments across the world andencounter new social, political, cultural, and linguisticsituations, researcher and scientists must adjust their methodsand conclusions to these emerging urban conditions and found upontheir discoveries new and more detailed ways to understand theintricate dimensions of urban language.

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