1 We are very grateful for comments on earlier versions of this paper to Juan Antonio Cutillas-Espinosa and

José María Jiménez-Cano at the University of Murcia; David Britain at the University of Essex; and, crucially, the

anonymous referees of Estudios de Sociolingüística, as well as the Editors, Xoán Paulo Rodríguez-Yáñez, Anxo M.

Lorenzo Suárez and Fernando Ramallo.

GEOLINGUISTIC PATTERNS OF DIFFUSION IN A SPANISH REGION:

THE CASE OF THE DIALECT OF MURCIA1

J.M. Hernández-Campoy

Departamento de Filología Inglesa

Facultad de Letras

Campus de La Merced

University of Murcia

30071 Murcia (Spain)

jmcampoy@um.es

Running Head:

GEOLINGUISTIC PATTERNS OF DIFFUSION IN A SPANISH REGION

ABSTRACT

A paradigm whose existence is older than that of the covariation of linguistic and social

phenomena is the possible relationship between the regional transmission of linguistic

phenomena and geographical factors. Nevertheless, its systematic observation and the

application of models from Human Geography is rather recent and sporadic. In the same way

as the Region of Murcia has historically been a transition area of South-eastern Spain where

many different cultures and civilizations have met, the Spanish spoken in Murcia is a transition

variety, sharing features with Valencian Catalan, Castilian, Aragonese and Andalusian Spanish,

and having a traditional characterisation as an eminently non-standard speaking region. With

all this in mind, the aim of this article is to show and analyse the relationship between the

geolinguistic patterns of diffusion of the standard Castilian Spanish over the Murcian territory

and the (increasingly) actual use of standard forms in these traditionally non-standard areas.

The real presence or absence of some degree of standardisation as well as its intra-regional

variation will reveal to us whether the detected geolinguistic patterns of linguistic uniformisation

are applicable to the Region of Murcia.

(Keywords: dialects in contact, vernacular varieties, language loyalty, standardisation,

hierarchical/epidemic diffusion, geolinguistic patterns, gravity models, sociolinguistic patterns).

1

I. INTRODUCTION

A paradigm whose existence as a field of study is older than that of the covariation of linguistic

and social phenomena is the relationship between the regional transmission of linguistic

phenomena and geographical factors —such as geographical features and communication

networks. However, as Merinel Gerritsen (1988:1574) and Britain (1991, 2002) point out, its

systematic observation and the application of models from Human Geography to improve the

description and explanation of the geographical distribution and behaviour of linguistic

phenomena is rather recent (see particularly Trudgill 1974; Chambers & Trudgill 1980; Gerritsen

& Jansen 1980; Chambers 1982; Bailey, Wikle, Tillery, & Sand 1993; Breton 1991; Britain 1991,

2002; García-Mouton 1994; Boberg 2000; or Wolfram & Schilling-Estes 2003).

While Traditional Dialectology was eminently rural and Modern Dialectology (Labovian

Sociolinguistics) is eminently urban, in contrast, Trudgillian Geolinguistics is a multidisciplinary

sociolinguistic branch interested in the spatial characteristics of language. Its nature is based, as

conceived by Chambers & Trudgill (1980), on the confluence of three areas: linguistic

geography (Dialectology), urban dialectology (Sociolinguistics) and human geography

(Geography). Geolinguistics is thus concerned with the relationships between language and

geography: the spatial study of language, or the study of language in its geographical context, in

addition to the social and cultural contexts. The foundations of Geolinguistics and its subsequent

development, are, consequently, clearly and inevitably dialectological as well as sociolinguistic.

In fact, Chambers (1993) called it ‘sociolinguistic dialectology’, and, similarly, Trudgill (1983:

51), labelled it as ‘sociolinguistically informed dialectology’.

If the consideration of who talks to whom, when, how, and with what purpose is an

important postulate in sociolinguistic research, in the same way, the study of aspects such as

where that action is done from a macro-level, where a linguistic community is physically located

and its possible interaction and relationship with others, and why linguistic innovations appear

and spread to a centre A from a centre B and not from C, are of great relevance for geolinguistic

studies. It combines, as Britain (1991: 10-11) points out, the enormous number of data

accumulated by traditional dialectologists, the methodological rigour of Labov’s Secular

Linguistics and a more profound understanding of spatial networks and the diffusion of

sociolinguistic innovations. For this purpose, dialectologists have to use certain techniques and

theoretical concepts developed by social geographers: in the same way as the linguistic variable,

with the help of sociological theory and methods, can improve our knowledge of the relationship

between language and society, «the linguistic variable, together with a number of methodological

and theoretical insights from human geography, can improve our knowledge of the relationship

between language and geography, and of the geographical setting of linguistic change» (Trudgill

1983: 52). This dynamic dialectology, or geolinguistics, making use of time-incorporating

geographical diffusion models and sociolinguistic and geographical techniques that permit the

handling of gradient phenomena, may assist us in ascertaining the geographical diffusion of

linguistic features (Trudgill 1983: 87).

With this in mind, a geolinguistic approach to the study of the dialectal situation of the

Murcian geolect can thus be revealing and would complement any dialectological and

sociolinguistic (secular linguistic, in fact), especially to describe and explain some of the

processes involved in the geographical diffusion of linguistic innovations.

2

Figure 1: Epidemic structure of diffusion (source: Abler, Adams & Gould 1971: 390)

I.1. Diffusion and Innovation

Diffusion is a process by means of which «an innovation is communicated through certain

channels over time among the members of a social system» (Rogers 1985: 5). In many ways,

diffusion is a kind of social change since it occurs within a social system with some alterations

that take place in the structure and function of the social (linguistic) system. But also, at the same

time, the system’s social structure, with the roles of opinion leaders (core-peripheral members),

change agents, types of innovation-decisions, the local norms of diffusion, etc., together with the

consequences of innovation, highly condition the diffusion process.

On the other hand, an innovation is «an idea, practice, or object that is perceived as new

by an individual or other unit of adoption» (Rogers 1985: 11). But newness in an innovation does

not necessarily mean knowledge, as it may be expressed in terms of knowledge, persuasion, or

a decision to adopt it: someone may have known about an innovation for some time but not yet

developed a favourable or unfavourable attitude towards it, and hence, not have adopted or

rejected it.

There are two main types of diffusion: «“Relocation diffusion” refers to a change in the

spatial location of some trait without a corresponding increase in the number of people

possessing it; “expansion diffusion” refers to an increase in the total number of people who

possess some trait, either with or without a corresponding change in the spatial distribution of

that trait» (Bailey, Wikle, Tillery & Sand 1993: 366). But the most usual type normally follows

an expansion structure, which in turn can be: epidemic, hierarchical and contra-hierarchical. In

the case of an epidemic/contagious expansion diffusion, the spread takes place in a centrifugal

manner from the source location outwards in a pattern closely related to the neighbourhood effect

because of considering the importance of proximity and interaction between actual adopters and

potential adopters (see Figure 1). The wave-theory is founded on this type of diffusion: some

linguistic changes are perceived spreading from a specific linguistic area, having maximum effect

on adjacent languages, and progressively less effect on languages further away, since, as we

know, innovation waves tend to reach the proximate before the remote (see Figure 2).

3

Figure 2: The wave model (source: Wolfram & Schilling-Estes 2003: 714)

Figure 3: Hierarchical structure of diffusion (source: Hernández-Campoy 1999a: 268)

Hierarchical/cascade expansion diffusion is a process in which the transmission of a

given phenomenon takes place through a system of ordered centres and step by step, primarily

spreading in large central places horizontally between centres of the same level and vertically

down the hierarchy to smaller central places (see Figure 3). In the case of contra-hierarchical

expansion diffusion, the transmission of innovations occurs from smaller (rural) to larger (urban)

spaces rather than the contrary.

Given the existence of a hierarchical system of urban centres, at least in the industrialised

Western world, the most likely as well as frequent type of diffusion of innovations is

hierarchically structured. This is the structure of diffusion normally found in those (developed)

countries with a gradual hierarchy of urban nuclei, i.e. with a gradation between the capital and

regional centres (multicephalous system). There are studies such as those carried out by Trudgill

(1974, 1983, and 1986) in East Anglia and Brunlanes, or Callary (1974) in Illinois, which

demonstrate the fact that the diffusion of linguistic innovations, like any other innovations, is

generally hierarchically structured. Kloeke (1929) and Kurath (1949) also showed their

4

inclination to this kind of hierarchical process when underlining the importance of cities in the

diffusion of linguistic innovations. Generally speaking, this is due to, according to Trudgill

(1995: pp. 147-149), «the general economic, demographic and cultural dominance of town over

country, and to the structure of the communication network». Patterns of diffusion of linguistic

innovations having an epidemic (contagious) structure, contended by historicist linguists through

the Wave Theory, can be normally found nowadays in under-developed countries, where there

is no urban nuclei gradation but rather an abrupt demographic distance between the largest city

and the rest (monocephalous system). But a combined structure (both epidemic and hierarchical),

and even a contra-hierarchical one are also feasible (see Bailey, Winkle, Tillery & Sand 1991,

1993). According to Bailey, Wikle, Tillery & Sand (1993: pp. 385), differing patterns of diffusion

are significantly tied to the differing social meanings of the innovation, since features that diffuse

hierarchically represent the encroachment and imposition of external norms into an area, whereas

innovations that spread contrahierarchically represent the reaffirmation and revitalization of

traditional norms.

I.2. Geolinguistic Principles

From our perspective, any approach to the study of the patterns of geographical diffusion of

sociolinguistic innovations in the Region of Murcia should rely on the following six geolinguistic

principles.

I.2.a. Principle I: speaker and language

Both linguistic change and its subsequent diffusion must be assumed to start in speakers

themselves: «The drama of linguistic change is enacted not in manuscripts nor inscriptions, but

in the mouths and minds of people» (Wyld 1927: 21). In fact, as James Milroy (1992: 4) states,

languages without speakers do not change, since «it is speakers, and not languages, that

innovate» (Milroy 1992: 169). The fact that the spoken language is the principal scenario of

language change is a truism to which linguists have not devoted enough attention. As Trudgill

(1992b: iv) points out, it is speakers who change languages with their everyday use in

communicative interaction: «A language changes as a result of what its speakers do to it as they

use it to speak to one another in everyday face-to-face interaction».

I.2.b. Principle II: speaker, language and geography

Space is also important in determining the adoption of an innovation. Assuming that language

is where people are, the study of the spatial population distribution and the analysis of both

population concentration and dispersion may reveal to us where languages are used. Similarly,

from the perspective of the speaker’s geographical mobility, assuming that language also goes

where people go, the success or failure of any process of diffusion of a given innovation will

largely depend on the extent of mobility of the adopter. Starting from this premise, socio-

economic factors such as industrialisation and the subsequent processes of urbanisation, for

example, may not simply cause migratory movements, but also changes in the individuals’ life-

style that fully affect his or her social as well as linguistic values and attitudes. Industrialisation

and urbanisation engender migrations from, normally, rural to urban areas that can easily alter

their relative linguistic systems (Hernández-Campoy 1999a, 2000, forthcoming).

5

In this sense, the analysis of spatiality within the spectrum of language and geography,

or the study of language in its geographical context, particularly in the case of both social and

geographical diffusion of linguistic innovations, is crucial to a further understanding of the

mechanisms of change, transmission and/or maintenance of linguistic forms: «An analysis of

spatiality is critically important if we wish to fully understand the processes involved both in the

diffusion of linguistic innovations and the development of typological differences in languages

and dialects alike» (Britain 1991: pp. 251-252).

I.2.c. Principle III: linguistic contact and conversational interaction

Linguistic contact, which takes place through speakers’ interaction in predominantly

conversational communicative contexts (spoken language), is inevitably necessary for the

transmission of an innovation to occur. As Trudgill (1992a: 76) underlines, interpersonal contacts

—with face-to-face interaction— between potential adopters will be essential for any process of

diffusion (also see Trudgill 2002).

Starting from this basic communicative premise, and assuming the fact that language is

eminently and necessarily a social phenomenon, linguistic change is a product of speaker-activity

in social contexts (face-to-face interaction), which cannot thus be completely explained

exclusively from the perspective of the properties of language systems themselves: «Speech is

a social activity in a sense that writing is not, and the primary locus of speech is conversation.

Conversations take place between two or more participants in social and situational contexts, and

linguistic change is one type of phenomenon that is passed from person to person in these

situations» (J. Milroy 1992: 5).

I.2.d. Principle IV: social networks

The Social Network Theory (see L. Milroy 1980; L. Milroy & J. Milroy 1985) with acts of

identity (group identity and solidarity) is of paramount importance in developing a theory of

linguistic diffusion. Different studies (Labov 1973;, Wolfram 1971; or Lesley Milroy 1980, for

example) have demonstrated that people are influenced linguistically by members of the social

networks to which they belong, acting membership as a linguistic norm-enforcement mechanism,

and even within the same social group there may be linguistic differences very closely related to

the core/peripheral nature of its members: the speaker’s degree of adherence to the social network

(core/peripheral nature) highly affects his or her structure of speech and also the possibility of

adoption, and subsequent diffusion, or rejection of a given innovative linguistic feature in process

of change.

The transmission of linguistic change «is encouraged by relatively open channels of

communication and discouraged by boundaries or weaknesses in lines of communication» (J.

Milroy 1992: 185). Urban areas, for example, tend to exhibit lower density and multiplexity in

personal ties and to be more open to outside influence than remote rural areas. Likewise, weak-

ties are also crucial to develop a theory of linguistic diffusion, since, according to Granovetter

(1973 and 1982), weak and uniplex interpersonal ties are critical channels through which both

innovations and influence flow from one close-knit group to another, linking such groups to the

wider societal system. Innovators are likely to be persons weakly linked to the group and,

subsequently, susceptible to outside influence (J. Milroy 1992: 181).

Consequently, according to J. Milroy & L. Milroy (1985), it is the ‘weak social ties’

rather than the ‘strong social ties’ in the social network that provoke the transmission of

6

2 The effect of electronic media on the transmission of linguistic innovations is much more limited than

apparently seems to be. It is also from the perspective of the Accommodation Theory and language contact that we can

explain the importance of media in the spread of linguistic innovations. Radio and television play an essential role in the

transmission of certain innovations that are highly salient linguistic features, such as new words and idioms or fashionable

pronunciations of individual words. But in this case, according to Trudgill (1986: 40), it is a process of imitation rather

than accommodation, as there is no face-to-face contact and interaction. Otherwise, the whole English-speaking world

would be pronouncing in the way Americans do (General American accent, probably), because of the influence of films,

for example, or the whole British Isles would be using the RP accent because of the extensive influence of the BBC

television and radio programmes.

linguistic innovations in process of change because they i) require a smaller effort, ii) affect a

wider range of individuals, iii) tend to escape from vernacular speech norms, and iv) are most

exposed to external pressures for change, such as the strength of contact with speakers from other

different regional varieties. Regular mobility, high interaction, will inevitably lead to the

weakening of ties to local communities, those speakers whose social contacts are class-

heterogeneous being more likely to act as potential innovators: «... in a mobile society, weak ties

are likely to be very much more numerous than strong ties (especially in urban communities), and

some of them are likely to function as bridges through which innovations flow» (J. Milroy 1992:

181).

I.2.e. Principle V: linguistic accommodation and adoption

Accommodation is as essential for the transmission of innovations as face-to-face interaction

between speakers is for accommodation to take place. At a micro-level of interaction, and from

a micro-sociolinguistic point of view, the geographical diffusion of a linguistic innovation has

to be thought of primarily in terms of both the innovating individuals and the process of face-to-

face interaction (Trudgill 1992a: 76). Giles’ (1973) theory of linguistic accommodation, with its

convergence/divergence processes, according to Trudgill (1986), can help very decisively to

produce linguistic modifications in conversational face-to-face interaction between speakers of

different dialect backgrounds, as well as even to facilitate the possible spread of a linguistic

change. That is to say, linguistic accommodation to salient linguistic features of other

accents/dialects in face-to-face interaction is crucial in the geographical diffusion of linguistic

innovations. Providing attitudes are favourable, in face-to-face interaction speakers from different

dialect/sociolect backgrounds will accommodate each other linguistically by reducing

dissimilarities between their speech models and by adopting —not imitating2— other’s

pronunciation features. In fact, «diffusion can be said to have taken place, presumably, on the

first occasion when a speaker employs a new feature in the absence of speakers of the variety

originally containing this feature» (Trudgill 1986: 40). A key concept here is the relative salience

of a dialect feature, which is a measure of both its awareness or distinctiveness to speakers of

other dialects and their readiness to vary or accommodate to it: «accommodation does indeed

take place by the modification of those aspects of segmental phonology that are salient in the

accent to be accommodated to» (Trudgill 1986: 20).

In the context of diffusion, according to Rogers (1985: 36), any innovation-decision

process consists of five stages: i) knowledge, ii) persuasion, iii) decision, iv) implementation, and

v) confirmation: it is a «mental process through which an individual (or other decision-making

unit) passes from first knowledge of an innovation to forming an attitude toward the innovation,

to a decision to adopt or reject, to implementation of the new idea, and to a confirmation of this

decision». This innovation-decision process can lead to either adoption —i.e. full use of an

7

innovation as the best option available— or to rejection. Both mutually exclusive possibilities

normally take place at the level of a single individual, although the larger the number of adopters

of a given innovation, the greater the pressure on those non-adopters to do it. Additionally, this

process of diffusion is socially and spatially selective, at least at some stages, since it is

considerably biassed by the individual’s behaviour codes, which in turn vary depending on age,

sex, social class, life-style, etc. Broadly speaking, according to Rogers (1985), there are at least

five factors influencing the spread innovations as amplifiers or barriers: a) the phenomenon itself;

b) communication networks; c) distance; d) time; and e) social structure. Whereas the work of

Labov (1966, 1972, 1994) and Trudgill (1971, 1972) shows the impact of (a) and (e), the work

of Callary (1975), Lesley Milroy (1980) and James Milroy (1992) illustrate the influence of (b)

on language change and diffusion. Trudgill (1974), Gerritsen & Jansen (1980), Pederson,

McDaniel & Adams (1990, 1991), Bailey, Winkle, Tillery & Sand (1991, 1993), and many other

scholars have emphasised the importance of factors (c) and (d); Britain (1991, 2002) in The Fens

focussed on (b) and (e), and Hernández-Campoy (1996, 1999a, 1999b, 2003) and Conde-

Silvestre & Hernández-Campoy (2003) on (b) and (c).

Linguistic accommodation is located within the Social Network Theory in those cases

where speakers have weak uniplex ties, because of their greater probability to contact with

speakers of different varieties. Furthermore, both the social and spatial mobility of speakers

generates a greater exposure to contact, then to undergo the linguistic accommodation process,

and, consequently, to the transmission of innovations.

I.2.f. Principle VI: exposure to the innovation and gravity models

The history of communications in a given area is largely responsible for the distribution of

isoglosses, as greater or lesser similarity of features between any given varieties implies stronger

or weaker communication between their speakers (Penny 2000: 82). In this way, the geographical

diffusion of linguistic innovations, like any other innovations, depends not only on i) the physical

location of dialect areas and ii) the natural features of the given region but also on: iii)

demographic factors, such as their relative population sizes and densities, communication

networking amongst urban centres (inter- and intra-areas), or the geographical as well as social

location of the innovation (innovating social group); and iv) sociolinguistic factors, such as the

relative prestige of the varieties in contact, the linguistic distance amongst those varieties, as well

as the linguistic system itself as a possible resistance/accelerating factor of diffusion

(barrier/amplifier).

At the geolinguistic stage, three factors are of paramount importance: i) the population

size of the urban centres involved, be they affected or not by linguistic innovations, ii) the

geographical distance amongst them, and iii) the linguistic distance, or linguistic similarity,

existing amongst the linguistic systems peculiar to those urban centres representing some dialect

areas.

In order to explain the reasons why a given innovation appears and spreads to a centre B

from a centre A rather than from, for example, centre C, the gravity models have to be taken into

account; i.e. the interaction between two centres with their relative influence on one another and

two dependent parameters such as distance and population size. This probabilistically-based

macro-analytical model was borrowed from the Physical Sciences, particularly from Newton’s

law of universal gravitation, and adapted by the geographer Ravenstein, initially, and, later, the

sociologists Stewart and Zipf. With Newton’s law in mind, the geographers’ assumption is that

movements of population, goods or information between two given centres depend not only on

8

their relative sizes, but also on the distance existing between them. In this way, the variables

population size and distance were incorporated in order to quantify their interaction in the

analysis of migrations. According to Goodall (1987: 198), such model is «an approach to

summarizing in mathematical terms the essential nature of patterns of use of networks which

relates interaction to the attraction or generating power of the nodes and the length or friction of

the routes between them». Paraphrasing Newton’s law, the movement between two cities (Mij)

is directly proportional to the product of the population sizes (Pi and Pj) and inversely

proportional to the square of the distance between them (Dij). K is a gravity constant to be

determined at calibration:

II. OBJECTIVES

With all this background in mind, and assuming that linguistic variation is not only socially but

also spatially conditioned, the aim of this study is to analyse the existence of the relationship

between, on the one hand, the geolinguistic patterns of diffusion of standard Castilian Spanish

—coming from central and northern Spain— over the Murcian territory and, on the other, the

(increasingly) actual use of standard forms in this traditionally non-standard region.

Standardisation is understood here in J. Milroy’s (2001: 531) sense: the imposition of a

‘legitimized’ uniformity upon linguistic variation for (social, economic, political, historical,

regional, etc.) prestige reasons. The significant correlation of geolinguistic and sociolinguistic

data would show, as Britain (1991, 2002) has pointed out, that geographically informed

variationist linguistics can benefit from the insights and methodologies of Human Geography.

For this purpose, interaction indexes and potential exposure to innovation scores obtained

with the geolinguistic analysis (section IV.1) will be correlated with the adoption of standard

features from Castilian Spanish as measured with a sociolinguistic (variationist) analysis (section

IV.2). The geolinguistic patterns of diffusion will be traced on the basis of the quantification of

the intra-regional gravity models, as done by Trudgill (1974) in East Anglia and Brunlanes;

Callary (1975) in Illinois; Britain (1991, 2002) in the Fens; Gerritsen & Jansen (1980) in

Amsterdam; Hernández-Campoy (1999a, 1999b) and Conde-Silvestre & Hernández-Campoy

(2003) in the United Kingdom; Bailey, Wikle, Tillery, & Sand (1993) in Oklahoma; Boberg

(2000) on the U.S.-Canada border; or Hernández-Campoy (2003, forthcoming) in Murcia. This

will provide us with the prediction of potential urban centres that would hypothetically be

reached by the standardisation process and the sequential order.

With these regards, the use of a reasoning founded on statistical data —such as

population, distance, communications, connections, inter-urban status, etc.— provided by Human

Geography may be crucial to ascertain empirically the influence of physical space (in addition

to social, contextual and temporal spaces) in the diffusion of sociolinguistic innovations, and in

this particular case, of the process of standardisation of Castilian Spanish. The actual speakers’

standard/non-standard performance in Murcia will be obtained from the quantification of the use

and/or non-use of standard forms in geographically diverse samples of casual speech.

The measurement of the real presence or absence of some degree of standardisation and

its intra-regional variation will tell us whether the detected geolinguistic patterns of regional

9

Figure 4: Political and administrative division of Murcia Region

and its main municipalities

diffusion of Castilian Spanish are accurate or not. This, in turn, will shed light on the

improvement and development of the application of the gravity models to sociolinguistic

phenomena and situations. Ultimately, it will emphasise the convenience of considering the

analysis of spatiality in the study of the social and geographical diffusion of linguistic

innovations, as claimed by Britain (1991, 2002).

II.1. Area of Study: The Region of Murcia

The region of Murcia is a single-province region located in south-eastern Spain, lying between

the regions of Valencia, Castile-La Mancha, Andalusia and the Mediterranean, and covering

some 11,000 square kms. The region has 1,115,068 inhabitants, most of them living in Murcia

City (the capital, with 349,040), Cartagena (175,628), and Lorca (69,930); and having with a

population density of 95.5 people per square km, which is above the national average (78.4). Of

that one million people, 551,343 are males and 563,725 are females.

With more than 3,000 hours of sunshine a year, Murcia also has some 274 km of

coastline, known as Costa Cálida, a quarter of it belonging to the Mar Menor —a quirk of nature

produced by a thin 22-kms. arm of land embracing a minute portion (180 sq. kms.) of the

Mediterranean Sea. The river Segura is the chief source of its surrounding areas (“vegas”), where

the fertile plains it irrigates (the orchards) have traditionally been used for agriculture. But, the

local raw material being the common element in most cases, the region combines primary sector

(fruit and vegetable growing and viticulture from both dry-farmed and irrigated crops; and cattle),

secondary/manufacturing sector (agribusiness, canning industry, cold meat production,

viniculture, timber manufacturing, ceramics, petrochemistry, mining industry, shipyards, etc.),

and service/tertiary sector (exports, transport, tourism, etc.).

10

Both politically and administratively, Murcia is sub-divided into twelve standard regions,

or “comarcas” (Huerta de Murcia, Mar Menor, Campo de Cartagena, Bajo Guadalentín, Alto

Guadalentín, Río Mula, Noroeste, Valle de Ricote, Vega Media, Vega Alta, Oriental, and

Altiplano), and there are 45 municipalities (see Figure 4).

II.2. The Sociolinguistic Situation of the Murcian Dialect

In the same way as Murcia has historically been a transition area where many different cultures

and civilizations have met (Iberians, Carthaginians, Phoenicians, Greeks, Romans, Visigoths,

Muslims, Jews, Castilians, Aragoneses, Catalans and Genoveses), the Spanish spoken in Murcia

is a transition dialect, sharing features with Valencian Catalan, Castilian, Aragonese and

Andalusian Spanish. Its linguistic characterisation has traditionally been thus eminently non-

standard, as the rest of southern varieties of peninsular Spanish.

This diversity of regional dialect features found in the Murcian vernacular variety is thus

simply a reflection of what at a given moment constituted a confluence of traditional dialects

during the reconquest of Spain from the Moors and the subsequent processes of Castilianisation

—i.e. the expansion of Spanish features from Old Castile in north-central Spain since the 10th

century.

Historically speaking, the Kingdom of Murcia was a fully Arabic-speaking area until

1244, when it became part of the Kingdom of Castile, which —together with Aragonese and

Leonese— was originally an Hispano-Romance or Latin-based speaking area. Although Arabic

and even Mozarabic began to be displaced, they were spoken alongside Castilian for considerable

periods of time after the conquest. But, as a result of a Moorish revolt in Murcia, Jaime I of

Aragon helped Alfonso X ‘the Learned’ by sending Aragonese and Catalan settlers to this

kingdom (see Zamora-Vicente 1989; Penny 1991), which meant that there were other geolectal

substrata in the configuration of the Murcian variety during its process of Castilianisation.

Therefore, Murcian Spanish, like Andalusian, can best be considered as a southward

extension of varieties originating in the centre-north of the Iberian Peninsula. One of the most

remarkable features of these two southern varieties is the loss of postvocalic consonants in final

position —except -m and -n —, and the aspiration (Andalusian) or regressive assimilation

(Murcian) of consonant clusters in word-internal position —except -m, -n and -l. This categorical

/s/ loss makes Murcian Spanish unlike those many other varieties of Spanish where zero

(Murcian) may alternate with /h/ (Andalusian) or /s/ (Northern ones). And a similar situation is

found in the case of word-internal postvocalic /s/ regressive assimilation. Obviously, it does not

mean to suggest that no native speaker of Murcian ever employs /s/, but when this does occur it

is diastratically (socially) and/or diaphasically (stylistically) accompanied by many other features

which make it clear that dialect-switching to Standard Castilian is occurring and that Murcian

Spanish is no longer being spoken (see Hernández-Campoy & Trudgill 2002). Similar results

were obtained in Cutillas-Espinosa’s studies (2001a, 2001b).

Two consequences of the consonant deletion in pronunciation are the dramatic impact on

the synthetic morpho-syntactic structure of Spanish, apparently entailing a loss of grammatical

information and an increase in ambiguity in Murcian Spanish. Postvocalic /s/ dropping in word-

final position affects noun number and verb person marking: in noun-phrases, /s/ is the plural-

marker on articles, adjectives and nouns:

11

La/una/otra casa bonita ‘The/a/another nice house’Las/unas/otras casas bonitas ‘The/some/other nice houses’

and in verb forms, word-final /s/ is heavily involved in person-marking:

Simple Present Tense2nd p.sg. (tú) com-es ‘you (fam.) eat’

(usted) com-e ‘you (pol.) eat’3rd p.sg. él/ella) com-e ‘he/she eats’

Simple Past Tense1st p.sg. (yo) com-ía ‘I ate’2nd p.sg. (tú) com-ías ‘you (fam.) ate’

(usted) com-ía ‘you (pol.) ate’3rd p.sg. (él/ella) com-ía ‘he/she ate’

As in Andalusian Spanish, diachronically speaking, the loss of consonants in postvocalic

position has also had dramatic consequences for the Murcian vowel system. Historical word-final

/eC, oC, aC/ have become /D, N, æ/, and the same vocalic developments have occurred word-

internally in the case of vowels before assimilated consonants, which has led to an 8-vowel

system (see Hernández-Campoy & Trudgill 2002), despite traditionally standard-centred

descriptions:

/i/ /u/

/e/ /o/

/D/ /N/

/æ/ /a/

However, Murcian Spanish diverges from Andalusian basically in the lack of some

segmental phenomena —such as aspiration or ceceo—, as well as supra-segmental ones

—differences in intonation (see Monroy 2002), for example.

In addition to these features concerning postvocalic consonant loss/assimilation and

vowel alternation, cases of consonant permutation (neutralisation: l>r and r>l), intervocalic /d/

deletion (specially in words ending with the sequences -ado and -ido: d>Ø), or velarisation

(ito>ico) and even palatalisation (ico>iquio) of diminutive endings are among its most salient

features which diverge from the Standard Castilian Spanish (see Lapesa 1988, Zamora-Vicente

1989, Alvar 1996, Gómez-Ortín forthcoming or Hernández-Campoy forthcoming for a full

description; and Monroy 2002 for a supra-segmental approach).

An interesting sociolinguistic aspect of this variety is its stereotype as ‘the orchard

pronunciation’ (‘el habla de la huerta’), with connotations of ruralness, and even its relative

stigmatisation as ‘bad speech’ for its own Murcian speakers: the Spanish spoken in Murcia has

traditionally been associated with the vernacular world of farmers working in the fertile plains

irrigated by the River Segura. Likewise, as quantified by Laura Sánchez-López (1999,

forthcoming), there is a sense of stigmatisation of this variety among local speakers themselves,

who consider it as an unaesthetic, incorrect and inadequate sub-standard one. In fact, in cases of

inter-dialect contact situations between Murcian and Castilian speakers of Spanish, there is a

tendency for the former to accommodate to the other’s prestige variety —except in cases of

language loyalty to the local values, where there is divergence rather than convergence.

12

Figure 5: Dialect areas and main urban centres in Murcia Region

Yet the particularly contradictory situation is that this overt view of their local variety as

‘bad speech’ is for public consumption only: despite Murcian speakers’ negative value

judgements towards their own variety, they do not abandon it entirely. In many ways, the local

accent clearly has covert prestige (see Trudgill 1972). This clearly reflects a love-hate

relationship or, according to Jiménez-Cano (2001), a situation of linguistic schizophrenia that

leads to linguistic masochism or even sadism due to a linguistic inferiority complex.

III. METHODOLOGY

III.1. Procedure

According to Mackey (1988), four basic stages must be followed in order to undertake a

geolinguistic study to analyse the relationship between language and territory: i) observation, ii)

description, iii) interpretation, and iv) prediction. Firstly, the object of our observation must be

decided: a language, a dialect, an accent, a particular linguistic form, etc. Secondly, the unit of

observation must be described in terms of its identification, location, territorial segmentation,

function and evolution. It is essential, according to Trudgill (1983: 53), to consider the

plausibility of correlating dialectologists’ data with preconceived geographical units, in the like

manner as geographers have done in their works. In this way, dialect maps have to be greatly

improved by using geographical cartographic techniques (see Hägerstrand 1952): the landscape

is uniformly divided up into a number of areas, cells, and investigators have to calculate the

percentage of use of a given linguistic feature in each cell, at given points in time, in the same

way as William Labov (1966) calculated percentages for different social class cells.

13

In the case of the Region of Murcia, the uniform division of the landscape could have

emulated the political and administrative subdivision into sub-regions, as seen in Figure 1, or

even into municipalities. However, we adhered to the intra-dialect division proposed by Gómez-

Ortín (forthcoming), which is obviously based on linguistic grounds, and used his five main

dialect areas of the Murcian territory as cells: Altiplano, Northwest, Guadalentín, Centre, and

Coast (Figure 5). The 45 municipalities were used (Central zone: 23; Altiplano zone: 2; Coast

zone: 8; Northwest zone: 5; and Guadalentín zone: 7), with their relative population sizes, and

the geographical distance between them.

Once sufficient descriptive information is at our disposal, different questions can be

raised from a geolinguistic perspective, such as the distribution of the unit of observation, its

power of attraction, potential or vitality, status, possibility of expansion, extinction, replacement

or substitution, etc., which we will deal with later in sections IV and V. Not only the

geographical location of a particular phenomenon but also, for instance, its density and social

distribution have to be shown. Theoretical concepts developed by social geographers can thus

give account for many variables: the relative population density of adjacent areas, networking

between a given area and large population centres, the geographic location of an innovation, the

innovating social group, the relative prestige of given varieties, linguistic distance amongst them,

and the linguistic system itself as a resistance factor. Finally, as provided in section VI, and no

prophesy intended, certain predictions or projections about the future of languages, dialects, or

linguistic forms can be hazarded on the basis of their past evolution and present status.

It is widely-known that in sociolinguistics theory emerges from the analysis and

conclusions obtained after correlating linguistic (language), social (society) and contextual

(situation) data. For the second part of our study, the sociolinguistic (variationist) approach, in

section IV.2, we focussed on intervocalic /d/ deletion as our linguistic variable, with 1,772

occurrences analysed. Concerning the social and context variables, 50 geographically diverse

samples of casual speech (of 10-15 minutes each) from age-graded male and female speakers

belonging to the same ordinary social class spectrum were used. There were thus 10 samples

recorded from the same amount of informants per zone: 3 from the gravity centre municipality

and 7 from the rest of the zone.

III.2. Data Gathering

In order to carry out the geolinguistic analysis, data concerned with Human Geography aspects

of Murcia were obtained from different official statistical services, such as the Instituto Nacional

de Estadística (INE) and the Consejería de Política Territorial y Obras Públicas de la Región

de Murcia.

In the sociolinguistic analysis, the linguistic data used for the quantification of the

presence/absence of standard forms was obtained from a noncommercial corpus of local speech

carry out between 1997 and 1999 (Región de Murcia: Acentos, Hernández-Campoy 1999c).

IV. ANALYSIS

IV.1. Geolinguistic Analysis: Gravity Models and Geolinguistic Patterns of Diffusion

As mentioned in I.2.f (Principle VI), at the geolinguistic stage, three factors are of paramount

importance in our study: i) the population size of the urban centres involved, be they affected or

14

not by linguistic innovations, ii) the geographical distance amongst them, and iii) the linguistic

distance, or linguistic similarity, existing amongst the linguistic systems peculiar to those urban

centres representing dialect areas.

IV.1.a. Population Potential (PPI)

Regarding population size, population density, and its social distribution, innovations are more

likely to arise in large, heavily populated cities that have historically been cultural centres, and

to spread out hierarchically from there to other moderately sized cities falling under the area of

influence of the larger focal centre, thence to towns, and so on, until they ultimately and gradually

reach the smallest and most sparsely populated villages —even though they are quite close to the

original focal area of the innovation. Population, therefore, is an important ingredient of diffusion

processes, since it implies that interpersonal contacts are a function of population size: «the larger

the population of a city, the more likely an individual from elsewhere is to come into contact with

a speaker from that city» (Trudgill 1992: 76). In this sense, for example, «a speaker from

Norwich [...] is 30 or 40 times more likely to meet a Londoner than vice versa at a given time

simply because the population of London is that much bigger than the population of Norwich»

(Trudgill 1986: 40). People living in densely populated areas are expected to come into contact

more easily and more frequently than those living in sparsely populated areas.

From the point of view of Human Geography, every single urban centre can be classified

according to its inter-urban status (form, size, function, historical transformations, etc.), which

implies the establishment of a hierarchy of central places with regard to their demographic

elements, area of influence, and flow systems amongst the different settlements. At an inter-urban

point level, not all cities play the same role nor have they the same importance, but rather they

constitute a hierarchy in which demographic distance as well as functional distance have a

significant influence. The first is supplied with the difference in population size existing amongst

the different settlements, while the second is derived from the first and determines the number

of functions and activities provided by the urban centre. The difference in population size

amongst the different settlements is crucially important in the organization into a hierarchy of

urban nuclei (multicephalous system).

Yet, according to the framework developed by the German geographer W. Christaller

(1966) in his central place theory, this hierarchy of population sizes subsequently implies

functional and spatial ones: the larger a city is, the higher the number of different activities and

functions it monopolises, which, in turn, results in a wider area of influence that embraces other

urban centres with a lower centrality (or accessibility) and functional range. Within this

hierarchical system, urban centres with smaller ranges will always resort to the services provided

by those others with a higher range. This fact implies, as Lacoste & Ghirardi (1983: 174) point

out, that the hierarchy of urban nuclei depends on the unequal importance of the tertiary sector

activities (services) they supply for their respective regions; hierarchy is thus the result of an

inequality of tertiary functions. In every tertiary-sector urban centre, some services will be

intended for its own inhabitants, while others will additionally embrace the surrounding areas,

which will probably be less important and even rural settlements: the inhabitants living in the

sphere of influence of a given urban field will travel to a given city, or central place, rather than

to another depending on the services provided by that city. It is in this way that the city polarises

space, and that polarization is shown through population, merchandise, and currency movements,

which constitute the flow systems amongst different urban settlements with transportation and

communication networks as its own physical medium.

15

With this in view, and though intuitively predictable for a native of the region, in order

to select the 5 urban nuclei that are the gravity centres in their relative dialect areas in accordance

with the existing intra-area hierarchies, we proceeded to obtain their population potential index

(PPI). Its equation is as follows (see Hernández-Campoy 1999a or 1999b for further information

about its description and application):

The addition of all PP scores for every single urban place provided us with the following indexes

and percentages:

Table 1

POPULATION POTENTIAL INDEXES (PPI)

CENTRAL Zone

Locality raw data relative data (%)

1 Abanilla 43988 2.24%2 Abarán 56685 2.89%3 Albudeite 52211 2.66%4 Alcantarilla 138928 7.08%5 Alguazas 118343 6.03%6 Archena 75761 3.86%7 Beniel 63503 3.24%8 Blanca 51106 2.61%9 Campos del Río 49043 2.50%

10 Ceutí 91528 4.67%11 Cieza 65803 3.36%12 Fortuna 52701 2.69%13 Las Torres de Cotillas 106283 5.42%14 Lorquí 98765 5.04%15 Molina de Segura 141937 7.24%16 Mula 48153 2.46%17 Murcia 377645 19.26%

18 Ojós 50291 2.56%19 Pliego 35868 1.83%20 Ricote 42406 2.16%21 Santomera 68520 3.49%22 Ulea 66134 3.37%23 Villanueva de Río Segura 65647 3.35%

COAST Zone

1 Cartagena 185361 38.42%

2 Fuente Álamo 32794 6.8%3 Los Alcázares 35969 7.46%4 Mazarrón 28969 6%5 San Javier 47278 9.8%6 San Pedro del Pinatar 38246 7.93%7 Torre Pacheco 57529 11.92%8 La Unión 56334 11.68%

GUADALENTÍN Zone

1 Águilas 32175 14.86%

16

2 Aledo 12243 5.66%3 Alhama de Murcia 25236 11.66%4 Librilla 15117 6.98%5 Lorca 76047 35.13%

6 Puerto Lumbreras 22522 10.40%7 Totana 33117 15.30%

NORTHWEST Zone

1 Bullas 15873 16.31%2 Calasparra 13723 14.10%3 Caravaca 29127 29.92%

4 Cehegín 23731 24.38%5 Moratalla 14887 15.29%

ALTIPLANO Zone

1 Jumilla 22614 42.91%2 Yecla 30092 57.09%

According to the PPI scores obtained (Table 1), the urban nuclei that would constitute the

gravity centre in their relative dialect areas are Murcia City (Central zone), Cartagena (Coast

zone), Lorca (Guadalentín zone), Caravaca de la Cruz (Northwest zone) and Yecla (Altiplano

zone). They are also the central places in their relative dialect areas in accordance with the intra-

areas hierarchy provided by human geography studies (see F. Calvo García-Tornel 1989: 89). In

the case of Murcia City, Cartagena and Lorca, with indexes of 377,645 (19.26% in its zone),

185,361 (38.42% in its zone) and 76,047 (35.13% in its zone) respectively, their population

potential in relation to the rest of urban centres in their dialect areas is sufficiently patent,

convincing and even presumable. Murcia, with 349,040 inhabitants, in the Central zone, is the

capital of the Region of Murcia, constituting its historically most important financial and cultural

centre and the point of reference for the whole communications and transportation networks in

the regional territory. With 175,628 inhabitants, Cartagena, on its side, in the Coast zone, is the

second most important Murcian urban centre and the second industrial nucleus, especially with

petrochemistry, mining industry and shipyards; it has an important harbour, and is the site of one

of the principal Spanish navy bases. Lorca (69,930 inhabitants) is an inland town with a

traditionally consolidated agricultural sector (dry-farmed crops and pigs) and manufacturing

industry (meat processing, construction raw materials, ceramics, etc.). Caravaca de la Cruz

—with 21,924 people— is, basically, remarkable for its both dry-farmed and irrigated crops of

fruit and vegetable growing; and, finally, Yecla (28,522) also stands out because of its both dry-

farmed and irrigated crops, especially with viticulture and viniculture industry, and timber

manufacturing.

This hierarchy of urban centres implies that, at an intra-regional level, innovations —or

the processes of standardisation in our case— are more likely to reach the urban centres selected

through the population potential quantification first, and subsequently they will spread out into

other inferior nuclei (with a lower population potential score index) of the same grid. Within the

Central zone, for example, an innovation coming from an outside dialect area will contact Murcia

City before it reaches Molina de Segura, Lorquí, Santomera or Fortuna, and so on, until it arrives

in other immediately inferior centres (normally municipal districts). In any case, population,

goods or information movements between two given cities depend not only on their relative

sizes, but also on communications as well as transportation networks and, crucially, the physical

distance existing between them.

17

IV.1.b. Interaction Potential (IPI)

As in any epidemic development, during the process of diffusion and adoption of a given

innovation, communication —conceived in terms of social face-to-face interaction— and

mobility have a crucial influence. Regarding physical distance, the neighbourhood effect (see

Rogers 1985) restricts the potential adopters’ probability of interacting and thus of adopting

innovations: the nearest to the source of innovation the potential adopting unit is, the greater the

possibility of being adopted will be. This is due to the fact that, «other things being equal, people

on average come into contact most often with people who live closest to them and least often

with people who live furthest away» (Trudgill 1992: 76). Flow systems amongst the different

settlements, i.e., the inhabitants’ mobility within their geographical space, will provide a higher

or lower exposure to innovations. The degree of mobility directly affects urban centres, regions,

and particularly their inherent characteristics, such as their extent of conservativeness or

innovativeness.

By weighting the spatial interaction amongst the different urban centres, taking into

consideration both population size and distance, we were able to find out the actual flow of

regional social communication, or at least to trace the most likely tendency. As pointed out in

I.2.c (Principle III), this is ultimately fulfilled through speakers’ action, since both linguistic

change and its subsequent diffusion start from speakers themselves. With the object of obtaining

the spatial interaction index for the 45 urban centres of the Region of Murcia, we made use of

the gravity model assumptions (see Hernández-Campoy 1999a or 1999b), whose formula and

results are the following (Table 2):

Table 2

INTERACTION POTENTIAL INDEXES (IPI)

CENTRAL zone

Locality raw data relative data (%)

1 Abanilla 4.85 0.29%

2 Abarán 24.78 1.50%

3 Albudeite 2.40 0.15%

4 Alcantarilla 178.00 10.81%

5 Alguazas 68.80 4.18%

6 Archena 32.40 1.97%

7 Beniel 12.90 0.78%

8 Blanca 8.80 0.53%

9 Campos del Río 3.00 0.18%

10 Ceutí 36.50 2.22%

11 Cieza 33.50 2.03%

12 Fortuna 7.20 0.44%

13 Las Torres de Cotillas 91.96 5.58%

14 Lorquí 33.80 2.05%

15 Molina de Segura 234.80 14.25%

16 Mula 12.58 0.76%

17 Murcia 467.00 28.35%

18 Ojós 0.96 0.06%

19 Pliego 3.11 0.19%

20 Ricote 1.63 0.10%

21 Santomera 18.43 1.12%

18

Figure 6: The density of transportation provision (bus and train densities) for Murcia,

Cartagena, Lorca, Caravaca and Yecla.

22 Ulea 4.41 0.27%

23 Villanueva de Río Segura 5.91 0.36%

TOTAL 1287.72 78.17%

COAST zone

1 Cartagena 93.40 5.67%

2 Fuente Álamo 11.10 0.67%3 Los Alcázares 8.20 0.50%4 Mazarrón 6.00 0.36%5 San Javier 35.88 2.18%6 San Pedro del Pinatar 19.48 1.18%7 Torre Pacheco 42.67 2.59%8 La Unión 29.58 1.80%TOTAL 246.31 14.95%

GUADALENTÍN zone

1 Águilas 4.80 0.29%2 Aledo 0.56 0.03%3 Alhama de Murcia 15.60 0.95%4 Librilla 5.81 0.35%5 Lorca 22.90 1.39%

6 Puerto Lumbreras 4.44 0.27%7 Totana 15.53 0.94%TOTAL 69.64 4.23%

NORTHWEST zone

1 Bullas 5.70 0.35%

2 Calasparra 3.10 0.19%3 Caravaca 12.60 0.76%

4 Cehegín 11.00 0.67%5 Moratalla 2.79 0.17%TOTAL 35.19 2.14%

ALTIPLANO zone

1 Jumilla 4.58 0.28%2 Yecla 3.82 0.23%

TOTAL 8.40 0.51%

19

Figure 7: daily mechanised mobility indexes (source: C.A.R.M. 2000: 55).

In the light of the results shown in Table 3, as expected and in tune with the population

potential results, the hierarchy of dialect areas is maintained from the perspective of interaction

potential, with the Central zone (46%) and particularly Murcia City having the highest scores,

which means that this area has, by large, a greater exposure establishing contact with innovations

than the rest. The Coast zone, with Cartagena, has the second highest scores of interaction (37%).

These interaction potential characteristics are also recreated by public transportation provision

(bus and train densities) in Figure 6 (see also Serrano 2001). And so does the measurement of

daily mechanised mobility in the five dialect areas (C.A.R.M. 2000: 55) in Figure 7.

But, irrespectively of the dialect areas, focussing on the municipalities at a global regional

level, there are localities, such as Molina de Segura, Alcantarilla and Las Torres de Cotillas

(14.25%, 10.81% and 5.58% respectively), which —despite not being the gravity centres of the

Central zone— show similar or even higher interaction percentages than the gravity centres of

other zones (Cartagena, 5.67%; Lorca, 1.39%; Caravaca, 0.76%; and Yecla 0.23%). There are

also locations, such as Abanilla, Alguazas, Archena, Cieza, Lorquí, Fortuna, Santomera or Ulea,

which have a considerably inferior range in the Central zone and, however, also show similar

or even higher interaction percentages than the gravity centres of the Guadalentín, Northwest, and

Altiplano zones. For example, the Alguazas urban centre, with 6,933 inhabitants, shows a higher

interaction index (4.18%) than Caravaca (0.76%) in the Northwest zone, with 21,924 people, or

than Lorca (1.39%) in the Guadalentín zone, with 69,930 inhabitants. Public transportation

provisions for the routes Murcia-Alcantarilla, Murcia-Molina, Murcia-Santomera or Murcia-

Cieza show a similar tendency: averages of 124, 80, 59 and 29 respectively.

This is due to the fact that interaction (communication) is a function that decreases with

distance and population size. During the process of diffusion and adoption of innovations, like

in epidemies, communication —if understood as a social face-to-face interaction act— and

20

proximity have a primary influence. The gradient principle is decisive, since the extent of

influence from the source of innovation to the nearest potential unit is inversely proportional to

the distance between them and directly proportional to their size (range). Likewise, the

neighbourhood effect, restricts the potential adopters’ probability of adopting innovations for

being closely related to distance: the nearest to the source of innovation the potential adopting

unit is, the greater the possibility of being adopted will be. In this way, this interaction gravity

model obtained suggests two basic types of relationships: given two urban centres, i) the larger

the population size of one or both centres is, the higher the movement between them will be; and

ii) the more geographically distant urban centres are, the lower the movement between them will

be. This means that distance has a frictional effect on mobility (see Bradford & Kent 1977: 115).

The Central zone has a greater concentration of scarcely distant urban nuclei; its flow system

among its different settlements is exceptionally more dynamically active than in the other zones

with less localities ‘per square metre’ and consequently with more distance among them.

IV.1.c. Influence Potential (InfPI)

Yes distance does not have a linear relation to interaction, since the extent of influence from the

source of innovation to the nearest potential unit is inversely proportional to the distance between

them and directly proportional to their size (range). That is, communication (interaction) is a

function that decreases with distance and size. Thus, the gradient principle (see C. Clark 1967

and W. Clark 1982), together with the possible neighbourhood effect, are decisive during the

hierarchical irradiation of the innovative influences generated in the diffusion nuclei of a change,

emphasizing the decreasing effect of innovations with distance and population size.

Speaking in terms of probability, interaction between two given urban centres can never

be equal if they have different population sizes, since, it consists of influence in each direction

proportional to population size. Thus, as emphasised in IV.1.a, population is an important

ingredient of diffusion processes, since it implies that interpersonal contacts are a function of

population size: people living in densely populated areas are expected to come into contact more

easily and more frequently than those living in sparsely populated areas. In this way, innovations

arisen in London, for example, ‘are more likely’ to be successfully diffused than those in

Norwich.

Therefore, a measure calibrating the influence of one urban centre on another is needed.

The degree of influence exerted and received by the different centres can be quantified with the

influence potential formula (see Hernández-Campoy 1999a or 1999b), with which, also taking

into account interaction potential, an explicit model of geographical distribution and diffusion

of innovations can be developed.

The definition of the influence potential —both exerted (InfPIe) and received (InfPIr)—

of every single urban centre as the addition of its different individual influence potentials with

respect to the rest of centres provided us with the following results (Table 4):

21

Table 4

INFLUENCE POTENTIAL INDEXES (InfPI)

CENTRAL zone

Locality

Influence exerted Influence received

raw data relative value (%) raw data relative value (%)

1 Abanilla 0.81 0.10% 4.00 0.49%

2 Abarán 7.90 0.96% 16.70 2.03%

3 Albudeite 0.35 0.04% 2.00 0.24%

4 Alcantarilla 34.00 4.13% 144.00 17.49%

5 Alguazas 15.00 1.82% 53.80 6.53%

6 Archena 12.70 1.54% 19.60 2.38%

7 Beniel 1.30 0.16% 11.60 1.41%

8 Blanca 2.00 0.24% 6.70 0.81%

9 Campos del Río 0.59 0.07% 2.41 0.29%

10 Ceutí 10.90 1.32% 25.50 3.10%

11 Cieza 19.47 2.37% 14.00 1.70%

12 Fortuna 1.15 0.14% 6.10 0.74%

13 Las Torres de Cotillas 33.70 4.09% 58.25 7.07%

14 Lorquí 7.35 0.89% 26.45 3.21%

15 Molina de Segura 82.00 9.96% 152.80 18.56%

16 Mula 4.70 0.57% 7.80 0.95%

17 Murcia 425.00 51.63% 42.00 5.10%

18 Ojós 0.07 0.01% 0.90 0.11%

19 Pliego 0.46 0.06% 2.65 0.32%

20 Ricote 0.21 0.03% 1.41 0.17%

21 Santomera 2.00 0.24% 16.37 1.99%

22 Ulea 0.74 0.09% 3.67 0.45%

23 Villanueva de Río Segura 1.22 0.15% 4.69 0.57%

TOTAL 663 80.61% 623 75.71%

COAST zone1 Cartagena 70.7 8.5% 22.7 2.7%

2 Fuente Álamo 1.9 0.2% 9.1 1.1%

3 Los Alcázares 1.4 0.1% 6.7 0.8%

4 Mazarrón 1.4 0.1% 4.5 0.5%

5 San Javier 15.5 1.8% 20.3 2.4%

6 San Pedro del Pinatar 7.2 0.8% 12.3 1.5%

7 Torre Pacheco 15.1 1.8% 27.4 3.3%

8 La Unión 3.4 0.4% 26.1 3.1%

TOTAL 116 14% 129 15.7%

Guadalentín zone1 Águilas 1.6 0.19% 3.1 0.3%2 Aledo 0.02 0.002% 0.5 0.07%3 Alhama 4 0.4% 11.4 1.3%4 Librilla 0.5 0.06% 5.2 0.6%5 Lorca 13.3 1.6% 9.5 1.1%

6 Puerto Lumbreras 0.7 0.09% 3.6 0.4%7 Totana 4.9 0.6% 10.5 1.2%TOTAL 25.1 3.06% 44 5.3%

Northwest zone1 Bullas 1.6 0.19% 4 0.49%2 Calasparra 0.8 0.10% 2.3 0.28%3 Caravaca 6.6 0.81% 5.9 0.72%

4 Cehegín 4.2 0.51% 6.8 0.83%5 Moratalla 0.7 0.09% 2 0.24%TOTAL 14 1.71% 21 2.56%

Altiplano zone1 Jumilla 1.75 0.21% 3.22 0.39%

2 Yecla 1.62 0.20% 2.19 0.27%

TOTAL 3.37 0.41% 5.41 0.66%

22

Focussing on dialect areas, and from a holistic point of view, in the same way as with the

IPIs obtained in IV.1.b, the fact that the Central zone shows almost the same so high percentage

of probability for both being influenced (75.7%) and influencing (80.6%) is due to its greater

concentration of scarcely distant urban nuclei and its much more active flow system. On the

contrary, the Altiplano zone has the lowest due to the frictional effect of distance.

Yet, focussing on municipalities, and from an atomistic perspective, the results show a

very similar situation to that offered by the results of the quantification of the interaction

potential of the 45 urban centres involved. Again, it is Murcia City (51.6%) that is, by far, the

most influencing urban centre in the Region of Murcia, followed mainly by Molina de Segura

(9.9%), Cartagena (8.5%), Alcantarilla (4.13%) and Las Torres de Cotillas (4.09%). In turn,

incidently, Molina de Segura (18.5%), Alcantarilla (17.4%) and Las Torres de Cotillas (7.07%)

show the greatest potential to be influenced, whereas, by contrast, places from the Guadalentín,

Northwest and Altiplano zones, together with others from the Central one (Villanueva, Abanilla,

Ulea, Campos del Río, Albudeite and Ojós), have a low or even null potential for both

influencing and being influenced by their most immediately surrounding localities.

In the light of these data, results and hierarchical structure of transmission, the main

routes followed by a given sociolinguistic innovation arisen or firstly arrived in Murcia City

during the process of geographical expansion throughout the region can be traced. With these

regards, the degree of interaction amongst the different urban centres provides us with a

magnitude of the exposure to contact with innovations in the process of diffusion. Thus, the route

followed by the process of expansion of Castilian Spanish would arrive in Murcia City earlier

than in other Murcian places: any new forms (innovations or standard features from Castilian

Spanish) are probabilistically more likely to reach Murcia City before they reach, for example,

Molina de Segura, and Molina before they do Ricote, or even Lorca or Cartagena, simply because

of the neighbourhood effect. Likewise, any new forms (innovations or standard features from

Castilian Spanish) are probabilistically more likely to be transmitted from Murcia City (IPI

28.3%), to Fortuna (IPI 0.4%), for instance, than vice versa. Among other reasons, because

—according to regional annual statistics (C.A.R.M. 1998)— Murcia City has, for instance, a

population density of 394 people per square metre (Fortuna: 44), a mail correspondence flow of

54,492 (Fortuna 355), an index of 374 telephone lines per one thousand inhabitants (Fortuna:

269), and a natural increase index of 1,570 (Fortuna: 36).

In any case, the degree of similarity amongst the linguistic systems peculiar to the

different dialect areas also affect the process and pattern of diffusion conditioning them and,

consequently, theoretically, it might probably alter the ranking here obtained. Regarding the

linguistic system itself and the prior-existing linguistic similarity, the extent of compatibility of

a given innovation having the inherent characteristics of a dialect variety will make the process

of adoption easier or more complicated. A linguistic system can certainly have either a restraining

(barrier) or stimulating (amplifier) effect on the adoption of a given innovation during the process

of geographical diffusion (the unfavourable system theory). A sound change, by means of which

X becomes Y, will spread geographically to other dialects, providing there are no internal

linguistic disorders caused, until it reaches the boundaries of a dialect where the Y feature is

already present; the diffusion will stop there since the collapsing of Y1 and Y

2 usages would

induce ambiguity in the system (Gerritsen & Jansen 1980: 30). In this way, quoting Trudgill’s

words (1974: 234), «it appears to be psychologically and linguistically easiest to adopt linguistic

features from those dialects or accents that most closely resemble one's own, largely, we can

assume, because the adjustments that have to be made are smaller». This is simply due to the fact

that, for example, «... Norwich English is probably more like that of Canterbury than that of

23

Peterborough, for example, although this is a difficult thing to measure» (Trudgill 1974: 224).

However, since the sub-dialects of the Murcian region are phonologically very similar to each

other, we did not take into account the possible values of a linguistic similarity index and its

formula, as initially developed by Trudgill (1974).

IV.2. Sociolinguistic Analysis: Real Degree of Standardisation in Murcia

Having applied adaptations of the gravity model formula to obtain an interaction potential index

(IPI) and having established a hierarchy of intra-regional urban centres playing roles in the

process of diffusion of standard Castilian Spanish, our next step was to measure the actual use

of standard (Castilian Spanish: centre-northern Spanish) and non-standard (Murcia Spanish:

southern Spanish) forms in this traditionally non-standard region. This would allow us to analyse

any possible relationship between the geolinguistic patterns of diffusion of standard Castilian

Spanish over the Region of Murcia quantitatively detected in IV.1 and the actual performance

of Murcian speakers in regard to standard versus non-standard performance.

As described in II.2, there are many linguistic features diverging from standard Castilian

Spanish which are salient in Murcian accent. Some cases of consonant deletion, such as

postvocalic /s/, are so absolutely embedded within the Murcian speech community that their use

is not so much clearly subject to social and/or stylistic variation; in fact, its maintenance sounds

utterly unnatural and is usually the result of hypercorrection for linguistic insecurity reasons.

There are others, such as nasal reinforcements (epenthesis), consonant permutation,

simplification of stressed diphthongs (apocope), vowel reduction and alteration, yeísmo,

metathesis, assimilation in consonant cluster, articulative intrusion (both epenthesis and

prothesis), or syncope, which are usually regarded as vulgarisms by adherents to the ‘standard

ideology’ (see J. Milroy 2001) and may be considered as indicators —they are subject to social

but not stylistic variation (see Jiménez-Cano & Hernández-Campoy forthcoming and Hernández-

Campoy & Jiménez-Cano forthcoming).

At this stage now with the sociolinguistic approach, our variation analysis focussed on

intervocalic /d/ deletion, which specially affects words ending with the past participle sequences

-ado, -ada, -ido, and -ida in current standard (Castilian) Spanish.

acabado [Yka0$aðo] [Yka0$ao]

comido [ko0miðo] [ko0mio]

Table 5

VARIATION MODEL OF CHANGE (Wolfram & Schilling-Estes 2003: 716)

Stages of

ChangeCharacteristics

Linguistic Environment

E1

E2

Stage 1 Categorical status, before undergoing change X X

Stage 2 Early stage begins variably in restricted environment X/Y X

Stage 3Change in fun progress, greater use of new form in E1

where

change first initiatedX/Y X/Y

Stage 4Change progresses toward completion with movement

toward categoricality first in E1 where change initiatedY X/Y

Stage 5 Completed change, new variant Y Y

24

We know that, as stated by Weinreich, Labov & Herzog (1968: 188) while all change

involves variability, not all instances of variability involve change, and intervocalic /d/ is a good

example of the latter, as it largely shows a socially and stylistically functional fossilization.

Linguistically speaking, as Table 5 illustrates, change goes through a number of stages in the

transition from a categorical use of one variant to its categorical replacement by another (see

Bailey 1973).

In fact, as Penny (2000: pp. 3-5) states, throughout the history of Spanish, some words

offering intervocalic <d> in Latin, such as sed‘re (‘to sit, be’), have undergone a process of

diachronic variation as in Table 5, showing the smoother development in which variants with this

consonant in intervocalic position are dropped after a given stage and leaving the variant with

no internal consonant to descend into the modern language.

Latin sed‘re > Spanish ser

Others, such as n§dus, v~dum, or crãdus, suffered a regressive development throughout their

history. Innovative forms added at a certain stage to the range of existing variants may be

subsequently lost while the older variant remains (Table 6).

Hispano-Romance Medieval Spanish Modern Spanish Current Sp.

Latin n§dus [0nido] > [0niðo] > [0nio] > [0niðo]

Table 6: MODEL OF REGRESSIVE DEVELOPMENT IN SPANISH nido

(source: R. Penny 2000: 4)

Stage 1 [0nido] [0niðo]

Stage 2 [0nido] [0niðo] [0niðo]

Stage 3 [0niðo] [0niðo] [0nio]

Stage 4 [0niðo] [0niðo]

Stage 5 [0niðo]

The variation present in intervocalic /d/ in past participle endings is not clearly a change

over time following the process shown in Table 1, or a regressive development (Table 2), since,

after many centuries of instability, it seems there will be no full replacement of the older form

but rather a socially and stylistically functional fossilization. This fossilization may be largely

due to the crucial competing influence of orthography (the written system). According to

Narbona, Cano & Morillo (1998: 176), the deletion of intervocalic /d/ is becoming a widespread

phenomenon in casual speech of peninsular Spanish. Variable (d) in intervocalic position was

studied by Lynn Williams (1987) in Valladolid, a city of Old Castile, where she found that it is

in co-variation with social and context factors. In many ways, it has a status as a marker, since

it is subject to both social and stylistic variation, with a conscious use in the case of the standard

variant in formal contexts: whereas its maintenance is preponderantly part of formal styles, its

omission is the usual form in casual speech (see Penny 1991 and 2000).

In Murcia, variable (d) is also a marker. The difference lies in that intervocalic /d/

deletion in Murcia, as well as in Andalusia (see Narbona, Cano & Morillo 1998: pp. 176-81), is

both stylistically and socially more extended: the non-standard variant is consistently much more

frequently found in formal situations and upper social classes in the Spanish of Murcia than in

that of Old Castile. So, while in Castile the standard form prevails in usage, it is the non-standard

variant that predominates in Murcian Spanish.

25

For the purpose of our study, we concentrated on instances of past participle endings with

two variants of variable (d) being considered: the conservative form (variant [ð]), which consists

in its maintenance and is realised as a voiced interdental fricative [ð] due to its intervocalic

position; and the innovating form (variant Ø), which refers to its omission in pronunciation.

Fifty geographically diverse samples of casual speech (of 10-15 minutes each) from age-

graded male and female speakers belonging to the same social class spectrum were used. There

were thus 10 samples recorded from the same number of informants per zone: 3 from the gravity

centre and 7 from the rest of the zone. The samples included 1,772 occurrences of variable (d).

Of these, only 14% (244) were realised as the standard form from Castilian Spanish (variant [ð]),

and 86% (1,528) were deleted as in the non-standard usage (variant Ø). The results obtained are

displayed in Table 7 and Figures 8-9.

Table 7: PERCENTAGES OF USAGE: VARIABLE (d)

GRAVITY CENTRES

Gravity Centre Zone Standard form ([ð]) Non-standard form (Ø)

Municipality informants # % # %

Murcia 3 Centre 18/44 41% 26/44 59%

Cartagena 3 Coast 10/31 32% 20/31 68%

Lorca 3 Guadalentín 6/42 14% 36/42 86%

Caravaca 3 Northwest 2/40 5% 38/40 95%

Yecla 3 Altiplano 2/46 4% 44/46 96%

total (15 informants) 38/203 19% 164/203 81%

DIALECT AREAS

Zone Standard form ([ð]) Non-standard form (Ø)

dialect area informants # % # %

Centre 3+7 126/572 22% 446/572 78%

Coast 3+7 77/385 20% 308/385 80%

Guadalentín 3+7 30/260 12% 230/260 88%

Northwest 3+7 7/301 2% 294/301 98%

Altiplano 3+7 4/254 2% 250/254 98%

total (15+35=50 informants) 244/1772 14% 1528/1772 86%

26

Figure 8

Figure 9

V. CORRELATION OF RESULTS

As Table 7 shows above, and as far as variable (d) is concerned, the pattern of geolinguistic

behaviour of the Murcian dialect areas and gravity centres obtained in IV.1 largely coincides with

the pattern of sociolinguistic behaviour of the Murcian speech community. Table 8 and Figure

10 is a summary of the different indexes contrasted. It displays the linguistic (standardisation

index) and extralinguistic (interaction, transportation and mobility indexes) results obtained for

each gravity centre in the context of their relative dialect area with the geolinguistic (IV.1) and

sociolinguistic (IV.2) analyses and their correlation.

27

Figure 10: the grey-scaled map represents the extent of standardisation

concerning variable (d): the darker the grey in the area, the higher the

use of the Castilian Spanish form [ð], and, conversely, the lighter the

grey in area, the higher the use of the Murcian form (d-deletion).

Table 8: CORRELATION OF RESULTS

Gravity Centre

geolinguistic analysis sociolinguistic analysis

Interaction Potential

Index (IPI)Transportation provision

to/from Murcia City

(bus and train densities)

Daily

Mechanised

Mobility Index

Standardisation Index

for variable (d)

centre zone centre zone

Murcia City (Central) 28.35% 78.17% — 1,188,384 41% 22%

Cartagena (Coast) 5.67% 14.95% 60 427,766 32% 20%

Lorca (Guadalentín) 1.39% 4.23% 52 297,872 14% 12%

Caravaca (Northwest) 0.76% 2.14% 32 118,863 5% 2%

Yecla (Altiplano) 0.23% 0.51% 16 108,699 4% 2%

From an atomistic point of view, considering localities, the presence of the standard

variant [ð] is much higher in the capital of the region, Murcia City (41%), than anywhere else,

and, in turn, this degree of standardisation is also higher in the gravity centres of their relative

dialect areas, or zones. This fact allows us to predict a pattern of geographical diffusion of

Castilian Spanish, the standard, throughout the region of Murcia following a hierarchical

structure which is similar to that obtained using the gravity models. After all, as stated in IV.1,

at an inter-urban point level, not all cities play the same role nor have they the same importance,

but rather they constitute a hierarchy in which demographic as well as functional and physical

distances have a significant influence. The regional urban network hierarchy of Murcia, with its

different range levels and power of attraction, is overtly reflected both in the geolinguistic and

28

sociolinguistic behaviour of the region and in its different dialect areas and gravity centres with

different scores for variable (d). In fact, if considered from the point of view of a linguistic

change in progress, the pattern of diffusion seen in Table 5 (x > x/y > y) is found in the use of

variable (d) by the different dialect areas and their relative gravity centres: whereas the Central

zone and Murcia City (core) are in a more advanced stage of development and show a clearer

variability range in the use of both the local and the standard forms, on the other hand, the others

(periphery) are in the initial stages of the process and still exhibit categorical uses of the local

form, with much less or no variability present. If change goes through a number of stages in the

transition from a categorical use of one variant to its categorical replacement by another, Murcia

City is leading the adoption of the standard form, with the other localities and dialect areas being

more conservative. A real-time analysis in 25 years time, for example, would be revealing to

confirm this tendency detected.

From a holistic perspective, considering the five different dialect areas, the presence of

the standard variant is higher in Central zone (22%), where there is much flux because of being

most densely populated, having a greater concentration of urban and industrialised areas (see

González-Ortiz 1999: 98), and having a much larger transportation provision as well as

mechanised mobility (Figures 4 and 5). Population is an important ingredient of diffusion

processes, since it implies that interpersonal contacts are also a function of population size:

people living in densely populated areas are expected to come into contact more easily and more

frequently than those living in sparsely populated areas. Additionally, following the gradient

principle and the friction of distance, the greater concentration in this area provokes a higher

neighbourhood effect, which has an impact on mobility (interaction) and on the extent of

exposure to contact with the local focal area (Murcia City).

Obviously, any alteration of the models of diffusion would take place, ultimately,

provided that dramatic demographic, economic, politic or even geographical changes are

produced, or simply, provided that attitudinal and linguistic factors are sufficiently favourable

to allow it.

VI. CONCLUSION

Our geolinguistic analysis displays geographically different degrees of interaction potential and

exposure to contact with innovations. On the other hand, the sociolinguistic analysis exhibits

geographically different magnitudes of usage of the standard feature under research which

significantly match the geolinguistic results (see Table 8). This correlation of geolinguistic and

sociolinguistic patterns of linguistic behaviour shows how local features, such as the deletion of

intervocalic /d/, are being eroded by the process of standardisation of Castilian Spanish following

a hierarchical structure of diffusion based on city size and distance —from larger to smaller urban

centres, though proportionally depending on the frictional effect of distance (gradient principle).

The use of standard Castilian Spanish is spreading gradually and consistently in Murcia

region. But this expansion of standardisation coming from central-northern Spain is not being

geographically homogeneous but rather hierarchically, demographically and geographically

selective and ranked. As Figure 10 shows, Murcia City and its dialect area are particularly

undergoing this process of standardisation at a greater extent and higher rate than the rest of

localities. Furthermore, once illiteracy has dramatically decreased during the last twenty-five

years and given the so close relationship between spelling and pronunciation in Spanish,

29

orthography is playing a crucial competing influence in favour of the standardisation process of

the non-standard areas. However, the results obtained in other studies, such as Cutillas-Espinosa

(2001a and forthcoming) or Hernández-Campoy & Jiménez-Cano (forthcoming) are

prognosticating that, given the situation of covert prestige the Murcian speech enjoys (seen in

II.3) and, ultimately, language loyalty, this fact does not mean that this local accent will disappear

as a result of the increasingly Castilianisation of the region. Despite the negative social

connotations and value judgements of Murcian speakers themselves towards their own local

pronunciation, with a simultaneously love and hate relationship, there would never be a complete

language shift process in this area, as it is highly unlikely that they would ever abandon it.

Standard features will be possibly gradually introduced —as in fact they are— in the linguistic

behaviour of the Murcian speech community, because, after all, it is the national standard variety

which enjoys overt prestige; but the loyalty to the local idiosyncrasy and community pressures

seem to strongly favour the survival, in terms of maintenance, of the dialect of Murcia, or, at

least, of its most salient features. These factors will probably consolidate a situation of

bidialectalism with diglossic characteristics, in which the Murcian vernacular features will be

associated with informal contexts and Castilian Spanish, the Standard, with formal ones.

The correlation of the adoption of standard features and interaction scores has

successfully been detected and shown quantitatively, which had traditionally been unnoticed, at

least empirically. This means that the use of a reasoning founded on statistical data —such as

population, distance, communications, connections, inter-urban status, etc.— provided by Human

Geography may be crucial to ascertain empirically the influence of physical space (in addition

to social, contextual and temporal spaces) in the diffusion of sociolinguistic innovations, and, in

this particular case, of the process of standardisation. Likewise, the significant correlation of

geolinguistic and sociolinguistic data shows that geographically informed variationist linguistics

can benefit from the insights and methodologies of Human Geography. Thus, we must insist on

the convenience of completing a combined approach to the phenomena of diffusion of language

change from diverse perspectives, amongst which the sociolinguistic (variationist) and

geolinguistic ones must not be absent. These approaches are, as Trudgill (1992a) states, entirely

complementary treatments focussed on the same object of study: variation and language change

phenomena.

The models of analysis of diffusion developed in Human Geography have both

advantages and disadvantages. According to Gerritsen (1988: 1589), «the most important

advantage of the use of human geographical models for dialect geographical purposes is that it

prevents giving ad hoc explanations», since it requires from the researcher the determination of

i) the factors causing a diffusion, and ii) the presence of those factors in the diffusion area and

not where the phenomenon did not spread; i.e, not only to describe the geographical distribution

of linguistic features but also to explain this distribution: why linguistic innovations appear and

spread to a centre A from a centre B and not from centre C. In this way, as Trudgill (1974) states,

we will be able to understand, more accurately, the sociolinguistic mechanisms that lie behind

the geographical distribution of linguistic innovations. According to Hard (1972: 58), these

simulation models are useful to verify hypotheses about the causes of a diffusion process,

accepting or rejecting them, since they can at best show that a given explanation is or is not

highly probable. For their part, Trudgill (1974) and Chambers & Trudgill (1980) go further and

make a greater defence of the models; these sociolinguists consider not only they are useful in

that they allow the researcher to verify or invalidate hypotheses about the origins of a diffusion

but also have a heuristic value, since, in cases where the model does not work, the researcher

necessarily has to find out the reasons and explain them.

30

It could be true that these probabilistic models of macroscopic analysis are characterized

by a deterministic approach, involving a specification of the relationship between diffusion and

its explanatory variables; it could also be true that they are specifically designed for predicting

and raking diffusion flows and the influence potential of urban centres but only under restricted

assumptions, as Jones (1990: 199) states in the case of probabilistic models for migration. In fact,

as underlined earlier, although people are not molecules, they can be regarded as predictable in

their aggregate behaviour on the basis of mathematical probability (Jones 1990: 189). In their

search for empirical regularities in aggregate data, holistically, they offer general tendencies that,

atomistically, however, do not have to coincide with particular phenomena. But, a real-time

contrast between two models, for example, though obtained through aggregate data, may provide

us with a wider perspective for perceiving how diffusion patterns change as the importance of

urban centres and prestige of local dialects vary from period to period throughout the history of

a given language, and ultimately for a better understanding of the mechanisms of diffusion.

Yet linguistic diffusion is not simply a by-product of geographical and demographic

attributes, but also face-to-face interaction between the speakers of the urban centres in question,

local social networks and the social as well as psychological meanings attached to different

dialect forms can drastically affect the process of diffusion, or rather sociolinguistic diffusion.

Although the geolinguistic gravity models often give adequate statistical explanation for the

volume, distance and direction of geographical diffusion flows by submitting aggregate data to

macroscopic analysis, however, they do not manage to reveal to us anything at a microscopic

level of analysis (micro-sociolinguistics): i) in which particular social group the innovation arose

(the diffusing social group); ii) the profile of potential diffusers and adopters; iii) the reasons

leading speakers to adopt or reject an innovation; as well as iv) the extent to which overt prestige

or covert prestige might or might not be involved. An approach to these diffusion phenomena

from the micro-sociolinguistic level of interaction is thus also necessary, since there are also

attitudinal factors that may stimulate or retard the adoption of innovations and its subsequent

transmission both geographically and socially. The arbitrary and subjective nature of social

attitudes towards the prestige of language or dialect varieties is largely an originator of changes

in linguistic systems; and, in turn, some linguistic systems will offer more resistence to an

innovation than others not simply for purely linguistic but also extra-linguistic (attitudinal)

reasons.

In any case, there is no room for doubt that, regardless of their precise evidencing and

explanatory power, the geolinguistic approach to linguistic diffusion processes developed with

models adopted and adapted from Human Geography is considerably much well-founded than

that of Traditional Dialectology: as Wolfram & Schilling-Estes (1998: 145) point out, they often

provide «a better picture of dialect diffusion than a simple wave model», since the wave model’s

consideration of only distance and time in accounting for linguistic diffusion was excessively and

naively simplistic. Obviously, as Gerritsen (1988) states, this supplementary evidencing and

explanatory value has a price to pay, which is its inconveniences: i) the need to collect and work

with data unfamiliar to linguists, such as population sizes, distances, communications, (air, land

and sea) connections, physical geographical aspects, etc.; ii) quantification of data; and iii) the

division of the landscape into areas of uniform size and shape (grids or cells); in addition to iv)

the obtainment of sociological and linguistic data for each cell under regard.

Until very recently, the concepts of space and spatiality, or the spatial properties, and

their, on the other hand, necessary integration within the social theory have performed a role as

scarcely emphasized as marginal in the evolution of the sociological thought. Time, in terms of

historical developments, has always been considered as the main context unit for social theory,

31

while space, on the contrary, has been a secondary dimension. History was elevated to an

explanatory category for social reality since this second was considered as the result of a given

development, and, thus, the descriptions of such a development from its very origins was

absolutely crucial to understand reality (Dilthey 1883). Both Linguistics has not been exempted

from these historicist conceptions. Time and historical developments have traditionally

constituted the models of analysis in Historical Linguistics, with its wave theory, and in

Comparative Philology, with its family-tree theory, for example. Accordingly, with the

incorporation of the geo- into sociolinguistics as claimed by Britain (1991, 2002), concepts such

as space and spatiality are gaining more prominence both theoretically and methodologically in

the study of the transmission and maintenance of linguistic forms, together with the social and

contextual dimensions.

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