Nivel ascético-místico

Here, the cone model developed by Auer and Hinskens (1996) can be considered (See Figure 15 below). It represents a situation of diaglossia. The premise is that the base of the cone encompasses the variety of dialects of a given language. Hence, it is the largest part of the cone. The tip represents the standard language, and in between are regional variations, with regiolects close to the base and regional standards first below the tip. The model below, reproduced from Auer (2005b), represents the distinction and distance between the standard and dialects with reference to the “in-between” regiolects and regional standards. The base dialects and regional variations differ in that the base dialect would be considered to be the traditional, older dialect of a particular (mostly rural) area, whereas the regional variations are intermediate, often levelled, varieties coloured by either the standard or traditional variety.

Differences between regiolects and regional standards are explained later in this section.

Figure 15: Auer’s cone model (reproduced from Auer, 2005b)

It is important to note that although the figure shows a clear hierarchical, or vertical, structure extending from the base dialects at the bottom of the cone to the standard language at the top, it also shows the connections between horizontal relationships. The dotted areas show these

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variations between relationships, with the diagonal arrows indicating that regiolects and regional standards can vary on both a horizontal and vertical level. That is, they may

converge on, influence, and be influenced by, other speech varieties on their same “level”, as well as base dialectal and standard speech varieties.

The next question is: how do we then distinguish a regiolect and a regional standard (as they appear in the cone model) from a base dialect and a national, or official, standard? A regiolect is defined by Hoppenbrouwers (1983) as being one of several intermediate dialectal varieties that occupy the structural space between the standard variety and the base, or “traditional”

dialect. These varieties are subtly different, and are sometimes considered to be the result of a dialect converging across other regional, perhaps neighbouring, varieties (Heeringa &

Hinskens, 2015), rather than converging to the standard. Thus, it differs from the base dialect by virtue of its inclusion of other forms, but is recognised as a regional variety, and is not considered to be a standard variety. Nerbonne et al. (2013) describe the regiolects of the cone succinctly as “the convergence of varieties, the influence of the standard on regional speech”

(p.208). By contrast, a regional standard may be understood to be closer to the national standard variety than a regiolect (with more of a regional influence on standard speech, rather than standard influence on regional speech). It is possibly the result of dialect speakers’

conscious attempts to acquire the standard variety, but falling somewhat short (Auer &

Hinskens, 1996), such as the case of southeast Limburg’s Hollendsj mit knoebele (‘Dutch with bumps’) (Hinskens & Taeldeman, 2013; Auer & Hinskens, 1996). A regional standard is somewhat of a mixture between local dialectal and standard varieties, and there may, in some cases, be a certain regional standard feature where there already exists a standard and

dialectal variant (Sandøy, 2002). It is likely to differ phonetically from the national standard or traditional dialect (Sandøy, 2002), yet a speaker of such a variety could still be considered to be using standard, if perhaps “accented”, variants. This is caused, obviously, by the convergence of dialects towards the standard, or vice versa. Speakers of a regional standard variety may be able to be regionally placed by their speech, and while their speech falls short of the prestige variety, they are not traditional dialect speakers; they would be considered to speak the standard variety for their region.

In the case of Achterhoeks, this model raises the question of whether what is seen as the dialect variety today is actually higher in the cone, or if the base has actually risen from the original representation of the dialect. The consequence of the base rising is that speakers are

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still using “vernacular”, but it has levelled. Therefore, what is regarded as the dialectal variety may differ as changes occur over a number of generations. Auer (2017) states that dialect speakers today are likely to admit that they do not speak the old traditional dialect anymore, but continue to use the term “dialect” to describe their speech, on the condition that it contains regional characteristics. The perception of what is considered dialect is an

important aspect of this study, and this cone helps to address that aspect to some extent – it would be fair to expect the base of the cone to have risen since 1979 with the inclusion of more Standard Dutch phonological features in what participants consider “speaking Achterhoeks” to be. This is measured in this study through the participants completing sentence and picture tasks, being specifically instructed to do these in their (Achterhoeks) dialect. This is also how we can distinguish between what is considered dialect and what is considered to be regional standard – whether participants report themselves to be speakers of dialect or speakers of the standard variety.

3.2. Accommodation

Accommodation theory, as proposed by Giles (1973), seeks to explain social motivations for style shifting. It suggests that speakers change their speech style based on their interactions with interlocutors. Changes can be conscious or subconscious, and occur as a result of the speaker’s desire to either conform to the speech of the interlocutor, or deviate away from it (Giles, 1973). The speaker may have positive opinions of who they are speaking to, and so may change their speech style in a show of solidarity or a desire to be liked and accepted by the interlocutor (Gallois & Callan, 1988); such changes may be seen in the phonology, lexis or syntactic structure of their speech. Conversely, the opposite may be true, and we therefore see speakers diverge away from the style of the interlocutor. We also see situations where speakers adopt new variants in preference to old ones due to their perception that the old features may be out of date, but the new features – or the people who use them – represent a kind of modernity (Williams & Kerswill, 1999, p.13; Kerswill, 2003, p.3). The outcome of this is of dialect forms being lost in favour of the features of the other (usually more widely used) target variety (Britain, 2010, p.7), resulting in dialect levelling. Short-term

accommodation, be it conscious or subconscious, can result in long-term accommodation, which is “defined as semi-permanent changes in a person’s habitual speech after a period of contact with speakers using different varieties” (Kerswill, 2002a, p.680). This in turn has the

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possibility of leading to a permanent change over a number of generations and a levelled dialect (Trudgill, 1986; Kerswill, 2002).

Milroy and Milroy (1992) explain how in some places such as Belfast or New York, young men are derided by others should they use middle-class rather than vernacular speech forms (p.4). This suggests that the adoption (or, indeed, suppression) of certain features of a dialect is the outcome of the speaker wanting to identify him/herself with a particular group,

although the interlocutor may or may not belong to this group. This draws attention to the importance of covert prestige, as well as the overt prestige of standard dialects²⁸; in Achterhoeks there is a level of covert prestige and solidarity attached to the use of dialect features in certain situations.

Further in relation to the case of Achterhoeks, we would need to consider the dialect alongside its current social status in order to judge the likelihood of long-term

accommodation affecting it. As discussed earlier in this thesis, Achterhoeks is generally viewed as a regional dialect to which the prestige of Standard Dutch is not attached. While the dialect may carry a reasonable amount of covert prestige, the case may be that speakers will mostly be affected by geographical and social mobility factors as they feel the pressure to alter their speech in order to be more intelligible to speakers of Standard Dutch; certainly, they tend to use recognisable dialect forms in conversation only with other Achterhoeks speakers, according to the participants in this study. Bloemhoff’s (2008b) study, as referred to in Section 2, has shown that the percentage of self-reported dialect speakers has declined, providing solid evidence for the hypothesis that long-term accommodation of phonetic features to those of Standard Dutch is a real possibility in the future of this dialect. I would suggest that the findings of this current research also echo the ideas described by Bloomfield (1933), and later Trudgill (1986) and Hinskens (1992), in that levelling occurs as a result of linguistic accommodation, either on a conscious or a subconscious level.

3.3. Standardisation

James Milroy (2000, 2007) emphasises that in the process of standardisation, only one of a possible number of variants will be accepted by speakers as the standard, and others rejected;

28 The idea of prestige, in terms of how one wishes to be perceived socially, can play a role in accommodation, but accommodation also happens without it, as a kind of alignment between two people. In fact, Trudgill (2004) points out that recent developments within England have been away from the prestigious RP form.

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the standard variety leaves no room for differences. The standard variety is the prestige variety, and carries with it the notion of correctness. As a standard language such as Dutch is officially codified throughout a long process (Milroy, 2000; Auer, 2005b), deviations from this codification are considered non-standard by speakers of that language. The orthography and pronunciation of Achterhoeks, both of which differ from Standard Dutch, embody an example of a non-standard variety, which lacks the prestige, authority and correctness (Milroy, 2007) of Standard Dutch. The existence of an orthography in Achterhoeks does suggest that there has been some variable level of standardisation within the dialect, but not to the extent that we see in Standard Dutch.

According to Auer (2005b), once a written standard is in place, it is the higher classes that begin using it in oral conversation first, whilst inhabitants of mainly rural areas continue to use the dialectal varieties. In the case of the standardisation of Dutch, the eastern rural varieties would be much more noticeable in speech due to their marked difference from the national standard variety. Dialect change in Dutch dialects is due mainly to convergence to Standard Dutch (Heeringa et al., 2000; Heeringa & Hinskens, 2015), and this process could thus be interpreted as the dialects slowly undergoing a standardisation process. However, the absence of a formal movement to standardise Achterhoeks would instead suggest that the standard variety is merely the target of subconscious convergence within the dialect, and this results in dialect levelling rather than standardisation. In other words, it could have been any variety to which Achterhoeks has exhibited some convergence, but due to the status and reach of Standard Dutch, it follows that that is the variety to which Achterhoeks would likely converge. However, as previously mentioned, the case in Limburg showed that changes in a dialect do not necessarily have to involve a convergence towards the standard language, and that horizontal levelling occurs as well; that is, dialects can converge on each other without becoming more standard (Hinskens, 1992). Standardisation processes therefore equate to vertical dialect levelling, and thus there are situations where it acts as one possible cause of the broad notion of dialect levelling. However, dialect levelling and standardisation should not be regarded as the same thing. Although dialect loss is often associated with convergence to the standard variety, Hinskens (1992) explains that “dialect levelling is not necessarily equivalent to convergence to the standard language” (p.461).

As an example from the Netherlands, Hagen (1987, cited in Swanenberg and Van Hout, 2013) concluded that the dialects in North Brabant have adapted to Standard Dutch, and

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proposes four stages in a dialect-standard continuum, which could occur as a result of

levelling or standardisation. Like Auer’s Cone Model, these can be seen to be occurring both chronologically, and with different groups of speakers at the same time. Stage 1 is labelled

“Dialect”, which refers to the original dialect from the old generations. Given the current linguistic situation in the Netherlands, it is perhaps far more likely that what is viewed as dialect today fits more into the next stage, i.e, Stage 2, which is labelled “Intermediate varieties”, considered to be younger dialect varieties. These have fewer primary features which may be thought of as being old-fashioned. However, marked secondary features are contained within these varieties. Stage 3 are “Accent varieties”, which correspond to regional standards in Auer’s Cone Model. These are varieties that are considered to be standard, yet the speaker will have a regional accent. Stage 4 is the “Standard”, indicating use of the standard language with no regional features present.

I would argue that if the results are to show that there is some convergence towards the Standard variety, it would not be due to any attempts to standardise the dialect towards Standard Dutch, and would instead be the result of subconscious levelling or convergence.

However, there may be some Standard influence. This is because there exists no movement within the Achterhoek area to formally standardise the dialect. Speakers tend to view

Standard Dutch and Achterhoeks separately: participants in the study have reported conscious use of a standardised variety in certain situations, which they appear to view as a wholesale shift from their dialectal, vernacular speech. Most likely, we see a situation where both vertical and horizontal convergence occurs, as in Limburg and Brabant (see Section 3.1).