eye dialect

[Dennis R. Preston]

>I am happy to have this difficult to attribute status.

No, of course we can't provide these 'levels' since they do not form
such a neat continuum. After the neuro-cognitive existence of the
idiolect (the only 'physical' fact), language diversity is enormously
overlapping and at least as dependent on sociopolitical and
psychjological factors for its at6tributed 'boundaries' as on
'actual' linguistic diversity, as the 'ausbau' crowd has always known.

When I don't know what I'm talking about, I always use 'variety.'

dInIs

>Dennis Preston's posts are always difficult to attribute. I think he wrote
>all of this, to include both quote levels:
>
>>>I use 'dialect' very broadly (to cover social and stylistic levels).
>>>I think I'm not alone. For me, thereefore, since 'gonna' reflects an
>>>actual pronunciation difference (however badly), it is not
>>>'eye-dialect.'
>>
>>
>>dInIs (whose respelled name is rather obviously not eye-dialect for
>>the 'I' but is for the single 'n'))
>
>It would be nice if the linguists gave us a set of words (probably NOT
>formed on 'lect) that adequately let us describe the serial levels up from
>'idiolect' (the language of me myself) up to something resembling
>'independent language' (current Swedish vs. current Danish), and maybe,
>something beyond this. David Crystal could do this.
>
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--
Dennis R. Preston
Department of Linguistics and Languages
Michigan State University
East Lansing MI 48824-1027 USA
preston at pilot.msu.edu
Office: (517)353-0740
Fax: (517)432-2736