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Urban Dialectology

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lightbulbAbout this topic
Urban Dialectology is the study of language variation and change within urban settings, focusing on how social, cultural, and geographical factors influence dialects. It examines the linguistic features of urban speech communities, including phonetics, syntax, and vocabulary, to understand the dynamics of language in densely populated areas.
lightbulbAbout this topic
Urban Dialectology is the study of language variation and change within urban settings, focusing on how social, cultural, and geographical factors influence dialects. It examines the linguistic features of urban speech communities, including phonetics, syntax, and vocabulary, to understand the dynamics of language in densely populated areas.

Key research themes

1. How do multilingual urban contact dialects emerge and function as social identity markers in multiethnic cities?

This research theme focuses on the sociolinguistic dynamics and structural features of urban contact dialects that develop among youth in linguistically diverse, multiethnic urban contexts. It investigates how these dialects arise through language contact, reflect processes of social identity construction, and interact with societal attitudes, particularly in European and African urban settings. Understanding these dialects informs broader questions about language change, societal multilingualism, and the role of urban space in shaping linguistic innovation.

Key finding: This paper documents the emergence of new urban contact dialects among young people in European and African cities as peer-group markers within multiethnic neighborhoods. In European contexts, monolingual societal biases... Read more
Key finding: Investigating rural Syrian youth, this study reveals age- and gender-related bidirectional change involving substitution of the rural voiceless uvular stop [q] by the urban glottal stop [ʔ]. Girls maintain their mothers'... Read more
Key finding: This collection of studies underscores that dialect performance is a key mechanism for constructing and negotiating both individual and group identities in diverse communities globally, including urban environments in Europe,... Read more

2. What are the theoretical and epistemological frameworks needed to analyze complex, multilayered urban phenomena beyond traditional bounded city models?

This theme explores the necessity to rethink urban theory and methodology in light of increasingly variegated, multiscalar, and globally interconnected urbanization processes that defy classic conceptions of the city as a fixed, bounded entity. It engages with diverse epistemological approaches—critical social theory, postcolonial theory, Southern urbanism scholarship—and calls for pluralistic, context-specific models that capture uneven spatial development, planetary urbanization, and lived experiences of urban marginality. These frameworks underpin more effective interpretation and intervention in contemporary urban realities.

Key finding: This paper argues that inherited urban epistemologies, which view the city as a fixed, bounded settlement type, are inadequate to capture the contemporary polymorphic and planetary nature of urbanization under capitalism.... Read more
Key finding: The paper distinguishes two epistemological approaches to urban theory in the current 'urban age': 'Urbanization 1,' which adopts a planetary urbanization thesis viewing urbanization as a universal capitalist process, and... Read more
Key finding: Drawing on Stuart Hall's methodological insights, this essay critiques the confinement of current urban theory debates to abstract theoretical registers divorced from on-the-ground social realities. Using empirical research... Read more
Key finding: This chapter proposes a grammarian model that challenges dominant rational, technocratic frameworks in urban planning, particularly for Southern cities. It posits urban development as an autopoietic communication process... Read more

3. How do cultural, literary, and lexical representations shape and reflect urban change and spatial identities in cities?

This theme investigates the role of literary and cultural texts, linguistic landscapes, and media in producing urban imaginaries that influence perceptions of cities and urban transformations. It highlights how representations encapsulate complex interactions of socio-political, economic, and affective urban dimensions, shaping public discourse and policy. Additionally, it explores multilingual signage as an embodied practice revealing identity work, global mobility, and migrant presence in urban spaces.

Key finding: Through analysis of contemporary London novels, the paper identifies dominant mental structures and sensory perceptions that contribute to constructing an intelligible and legible urban experience. It argues that literary... Read more
Key finding: This study applies geosemiotics to analyze Arabic commercial signage in downtown Brooklyn, NYC, revealing how bottom-up linguistic landscapes articulate migrant identities and negotiate meanings of homeland and belonging in a... Read more
Key finding: Reflecting on diverse urban contexts, this epilogue critiques the dominant global North urban lexicon that inadequately captures realities in global South cities. It emphasizes the need for rewording and re-theorizing urban... Read more
Key finding: This edited volume investigates how dialect performances in diverse media and community settings contribute to social identity construction, emphasizing linguistic variation as a site of cultural negotiation and power. It... Read more

All papers in Urban Dialectology

The Kölner Korpus des Kiezdeutschen/Cologne Corpus of Kiezdeutsch is a dataset documenting the urban youth language variety known as Kiezdeutsch as spoken in Cologne (North Rhine-Westphalia), Germany. It includes audio recordings and GAT... more
This study attempts an analysis of a restructured Swahili variety spoken by Nairobi's street community: Kinoki. Adapting tools of sociolinguistic inquiry and focusing on Kinoki's divergence from the dominant urban slang, Sheng,... more
American English, also known as US English, is a set of dialects in the English language mostly used in the United States. It has considerable variations in terminology, phrasing and syntax. The differences are mostly on regional basis.... more
The article presents a sociolinguistic analysis of dialectal conversations in the German part of Switzerland. It focusses on an adolescent peer group, whose members position themselves socially using a wide range of stylistic variation.... more
The paper presents the results of diglossia research in the speech of Vranje. This is a survey conducted through the poll of two groups of representatives of the Vranje vernacular. Groups of fi nal year high school students from Vranje... more
Background: Literature only mentioned a few kinds of research that did study the development of the speech sounds of the Colloquial Egyptian Arabic dialect. Moreover, these studies focused on describing the phonological processes that... more
Folk linguistics attempts to study people's beliefs and attitudes about language through their metalinguistic statements, usually collected in a naturalistic setting. Data was collected in a semistructured focus group setting with 11... more
American English, also known as US English, is a set of dialects in the English language mostly used in the United States. It has considerable variations in terminology, phrasing and syntax. The differences are mostly on regional basis.... more
The research aims to describe the Keiga Language. Issues such as the word formation and phonology in the Keiga language, were covered and lights were shed on the verbs and tenses. Contrastive studies were made between the Keiga language... more
The authors of the article present the analysis of about 100 Poznan regional lexical items that are verbal in nature and are connected with man’s physiological functions and physical condition, and which are registered in Słownik gwary... more
As part of a larger perceptual dialectology study of linguistic diversity within California, this article focuses on a survey of Californians regarding the evaluation of language use within the state. Quantitative and qualitative analysis... more
It is well-known that contact between speakers of different languages or varieties leads to dynamics in many respects. From a grammatical perspective, especially contact between closely related languages/varieties fosters contact-induced... more
Artykuł koncentruje się na usystematyzowaniu aktualnych badań doty-czących języka miasta Moskwy i próby odniesienia tej kategorii do podstaw metodolo-gicznych i zakresów definicyjnych w badaniach czeskich i polskich dialektów miejskich.... more
Warsaw urban dialect as the medium in the process of borrowing the words of Russian origin into Polish languageThis article shows Warsaw urban dialect as the medium in the process of borrowing the words of Russian origin into Polish... more
This volume constitutes a selection of presentations from the Third Nuba Mountain Languages Conference. In addition, a number of contributions on languages in this area are included which could not be presented at this conference for... more
The Baggara Belt constitutes the southernmost periphery of the Arabic-speaking world. It stretches over 2500 km from Nigeria to Sudan and it is largely inhabited by Arab semi-nomadic cattle herders. Despite its common sociohistorical... more
This paper is part of a larger project that investigates language variation and change in the city of Tartus, Syria, where more variables are examined. The current study investigates the variable use of the Qaf variable, which is realized... more
Grammatical gender is known to be prone to language variation and change. The papers in this special issue account for gender variation and change in modern Germanic languages, in particular Danish, German, Norwegian, and Southern Dutch.... more
This study is an investigative approach, highlighting some linguistic features, on the autobiographical speech of a Pakistani worker, in a pidgin used in the Gulf countries, consisting of Arabic and Urdu elements, subsequently named... more
The metalinguistic function, one of the famous functions of language formulated by Jakobson (1960), is the capacity of language to talk about language itself. This reflexivity is considered to be one of the defining features of natural... more
This study investigates the spread of two urban features used in Syrian urban centers such as Damascus and Hims to the vernacular Arabic of non-migrant, rural children and adolescents who are residing in the Syrian village of Oyoun... more
Although many researchers have attempted to include age as a variable in explaining linguistic variation, the delicate mechanisms via which variability in speech relates to age-grading aspect are still incomplete in especially... more
The article presents a sociolinguistic analysis of dialectal conversations in the German part of Switzerland. It focusses on an adolescent peer group, whose members position themselves socially using a wide range of stylistic variation.... more
This paper attempts to draw the attention of the linguistic researchers to the role that applications of linguistics can play in people's lives in Sudan. It particularly concentrates on the relevance of linguistic research to the... more
African urban youth language (AUYL) syndrome is a sociolinguis-tic phenomenon. Its most distinguishing symptom is the investment of African youths in a stigmatized variety to the exclusion of more prestigious languages. AUYLs have long... more
In this chapter, we outline the scope and the main aims of this volume. First, we briefly sketch the diversity of contact settings involving German(ic) varieties and the according research history. This sets the scene for a brief overview... more
This chapter discusses the emergence of the opposition between the “rural” and the “urban” identities in Arab societies. It shows that this opposition is lacking in most, if not all, Arabic dialects. But because of massive rural migration... more
This study examines the acquisition of variation from the vernacular Syrian Arabic input of 22 parents in the output of their 21 children in the village of Oyoun Al-Wadi in Syria, using the four rural vowel variables (o), (o:), (e), and... more
This study investigates the spread of two urban features used in Syrian urban centers such as Damascus and Hims to the vernacular Arabic of non-migrant, rural children and adolescents who are residing in the Syrian village of Oyoun... more
abstract: This article examines the perceptual dialectology of 50 residents of greater Boston. Map drawing reveals perceived dialect boundaries, particularly within the northeastern United States, but also in other regions of the country.... more
Author(s): Rudd, Philip W. | Abstract: African urban youth language (AUYL) syndrome is a sociolinguistic phenomenon. Its most distinguishing symptom is the investment of African youths in a stigmatized variety to the exclusion of more... more
features [ ] and [a] in place of the rural features [q] and [e] respectively in the vernacular Arabic of rural, non-migrant children and adolescents in the village of Oyoun Al-Wadi in Syria. The study shows that linguistic change in this... more
In the very center of the Republic of the Sudan, the province of South-Kordofan is home to several tens of diverse indigenous communities, each of which speaks (alongside with Arabic, the main vehicular of that region) a tongue of their... more
U of K- Annual Conference of Postgraduate Studies and Scientific Research-Humanities and Educational Studies February 2013- Khartoum-Sudan: Conference Proceedings Volume One
The paper presents the results of diglossia research in the speech of Vranje. This is a survey conducted through the poll of two groups of representatives of the Vranje vernacular. Groups of final year high school students from Vranje and... more
Background Literature only mentioned a few kinds of research that did study the development of the speech sounds of the Colloquial Egyptian Arabic dialect. Moreover, these studies focused on describing the phonological processes that... more
In this study, I present a new model for analyzing sociolinguistic variation within the framework of Optimality Theory (OT) and the Gradual Learning Algorithm (GLA). This model contributes to the advancement of sociolinguistic methodology... more
This study investigates the assimilatory processes taking place in the major Oromo dialects. The area has not been thoroughly treated in some previous works. Thus, this work will throw light onto the description of the language. The study... more
features [ ] and [a] in place of the rural features [q] and [e] respectively in the vernacular Arabic of rural, non-migrant children and adolescents in the village of Oyoun Al-Wadi in Syria. The study shows that linguistic change in this... more
Adverbs and adverb phrases of Russian origin in Polish language IThis article focuses on the issue of Russian adverbs and adverb phrases that were adopted into Polish language. Basing on different Polish language dictionaries author... more
This study tested the difference and relationship between student and educator perceptions of prevalence of students' use, attitude, and views about sheng speakers in selected schools in Gucha District, Kenya. Two hundred and thirty nine... more
Address/reference terms and social honorifics are linguistic phenomena presumably found in most or all languages. Address terms are words and phrases used for addressing a person. They refer to the interlocutor and thus contain a strong... more
The present study is part of a project that documents the sociolinguistic situation of the Tabaq ethnic group. The title of the project is "Documenting Tabaq, a Hill Nubian language of the Sudan, in its sociolinguistic context." It was... more
This article has two aims: First, to study specific dialect labels using Google Trends and, second, to assess the usefulness of this tool in this respect. The motivation was Jensen's (2017) suggestion to use Google Trends in the field of... more
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