Transcending the Line - Focusing on the Spot: An Alternative Approach for the Cartographic Representation of Dialects

Abstract

My research has shown that the east and the southeast of England are not homogeneous dialect areas and that the neat lines on dialect maps - boundaries and isoglosses alike-hide much of the internal variability. I have demonstrated elsewhere that "there are no clearly defined dialect boundaries in the East and the South-East of England" (Wegmann 2004: 183), and on the basis of the heterogeneity in the area under consideration, I shall argue, in accordance with Chambers and Trudgill (1998: 104), that "variability causes the isogloss to vanish." Although I was generally inspired by Chambers and Trudgill's suggestions as to how to deal with variability in their Dialectology book, I will not follow them in detail; rather, this paper presents the major aspects of my own approach, developed on the basis of their suggestions.