Language and Space

An International Handbook o
Linguistic Variation
Volume 1: Theories and Methods
Edited by
Peter Auer and Jrgen Erich Schmidt

De Gruyter Mouton

III. Structure and dynamics o a language space

13. Identiying dimensions o linguistic variation
in a language space
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.

Dimensions of variation and the architecture of a language

Linguistic variables and linguistic varieties
Diatopic varieties
Diastratic variation and diastratic varieties
Diaphasic variation and diaphasic varieties
Variation in a language space as a multidimensional continuum
References

1. Dimensions o variation and the architecture o a language

A language space is made up of language varieties and at the same time a language is
conceivable, broadly and metaphorically speaking, as a language space, i. e., a scene
occupied by linguistic entities. This space, which constitutes a language, is by no means
a homogeneous space; on the contrary, it is a realm of linguistic heterogeneity and differences of various kinds, which form on the whole the inner variation of a language.
Variation permeates all languages, has a socio-cultural as well as a biological foundation
and shows itself in multifarious manners with an adaptive significance (Chambers 1995:
206253). For the purpose of the present article, it is in particular noteworthy that the
underlying cause of sociolinguistic differences, largely beneath consciousness, is the human instinct to establish and maintain social identity (Chambers 1995: 250).
The aim of this article is exactly to try establishing a certain order in this heterogeneity, which means identifying dimensions of variation and aiming at modeling them
in a congruent way. In spite of the sometimes diverging terminology, there is a wide
consent among linguists on most subjects and issues dealt with in this founding article:
therefore, the following presentation will be mostly apodictic.
As a first approach in order to capture the major generalizations pertaining the inner
variability of a language or a language space it is useful to sketch out some main dimensions of variation, picking out classes of correlations (co-occurrences) between values of
linguistic variables and relevant extra-linguistic (environmental, social, pragmatic)
factors in a linguistic community.
The main factors in the societal structure of a given linguistic community that can
co-occur with (inner) linguistic differences fall into four types. First, time and space;
then, social stratification; and last, social situations. Correspondingly, we can formulate
four axioms: (i) a language varies with the passing of time; (ii) a language varies with
the geographical distribution of its speakers; (iii) a language varies with the social class/
group of its speakers; (iv) a language varies with the communicative situations in which
it is employed. Consequently, there are four main dimensions of variation: the temporal,

13. Identifying dimensions of variation

historical dimension; the spatial, geographical dimension; the social dimension; and the
situational dimension.
These main dimensions representing the impact of extralinguistic macrofactors on
linguistic structures have been singled out since the first theoretical approaches of linguistics to the study of the life of language in society, see, e.g., Gabelentz (1891: 267
283) in Europe or Whitney (1875: 153160) and Bloomfield (1933: ch. 3.43.8) in America; and their phenomenology as it appears in linguistic facts has been widely analyzed in
sociolinguistic theory and research from Labov (1966) on. In the continental European
tradition the distinction has been often treated unitarily in terms of the four dia-dimensions, in accordance with the terminology of classical Greek flavor adopted by Eugenio
Coseriu in the tradition of Leiv Flydal (see Coseriu 1980; Albrecht 1986: 2003): (i) diachronic dimension (diachronia): variation across time; (ii) diatopic dimension (diatopia):
variation across space; (iii) diastratic dimension (diastratia): variation across socio-economic classes and social groups; (iv) diaphasic dimension (diaphasia): variation across
situations. At any given time, diachronia is out of action, so that attention must be paid
only to the three synchronic dimensions: diatopia, diastratia and diaphasia. However,
studies by William Labov and other authors (cf., e.g., Labov 1994, 2001) have demonstrated how the synchronic dynamics of the inner variation often mirrors language
change in progress, so that synchrony and diachrony should not be separated from each
other. The synchronic dimensions work together inside a linguistic space that can be
metaphorically depicted as a cube or a parallelepiped, in which the horizontal base axis
(length) represents diatopia, the vertical axis (height) represents diastratia and the horizontal orthogonal axis (width) represents diaphasia. The whole is in a dynamic relationship and moves along the independent temporal axis. In synchrony, any point inside the
cube, therefore, represents a certain combination of language variation factors concerning a given location in the geographical space, a given position on the social scale and a
given type of socio-communicative situation. Of these three main dimensions, European
dialectology has concentrated its attention at length upon geographical variation,
whereas American variationists following the example of Labov (1966) have mostly focused on the social and stylistic (diaphasic) variation.
The three dimensions together with their reciprocal relationships constitute what in
the Coserian tradition is called Architektur der Sprache (a languages architecture). Every language or every language space has its own architecture, depending both on the
extent of geographical variation or on the weight of social variation etc., as well as on the
reciprocal correlation and the hierarchical relationship between the varieties belonging to
different dimensions. In the Italian language space, for example, until recently diatopia
appears to be a major differentiating factor (Berruto 1989a), whereas in the British and
American language space diastratia seems to have more importance than the other dimensions, and in the French language space diaphasia (Gadet 2003) is prevailing.
However, by and large, the diatopic dimension has a great relevance, at least because
it is the first to draw the observers attention. It is common sense to say that every
place in the world has its own language, in every place in the world one finds a different
way of speaking. Place, in one form or another nation, region, county, city, or
neighborhood is one of the most frequently adduced correlates of linguistic variation
(Johnstone 2004: 65). The same author discusses also the double nature of place, place
as a location and place as meaning, and points out that place is to be conceived not
only as a physical entity, but also as a socially constructed context, shaped and constituted by people through shared experiences and shared orientations (2004: 69).

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At a first and very wide glance, geographical diversity already works at the general
level of the human language faculty (the Saussurean faculte de langage): the six thousand
and more languages existing today on earth (approximately 6800 are listed by the web
site Ethnologue) can be considered to be varied forms of the human verbal language.
More significantly, all languages show widespread differentiation depending on the geographical zones where they are spoken. A standard language spoken as national language in different countries can easily develop partially different standard forms in each
country, in particular as far as the lexicon is concerned, so that it ends up having different norms in different nations (pluricentric language, Clyne 1992). In a given country, a language or a language space (these two terms are employed in this article as nearsynonyms) displays regional variation; in a given region, a language displays subregional
variation; and so forth, up to the minimal language point, even a very small community settled in a given geographical point, maybe a single individual. For instance,
German is a typical pluricentric language with slightly different but clearly recognizable
national standards in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Thus, in the language (space)
German (Ammon 2003: 5; also see Ammon 1995) one finds a geographically unmarked
form (general German), nationally marked forms (e.g., Austrian German), regionally
marked forms (e.g., Northern Germany), and forms marked sub-regionally by the area
of a single state (bayrisch referring to Bavaria) or the region of a dialect (schwbisch
Swabian). Swabian itself takes different colors in the various Swabian towns, villages
and countryside.
The diastratic dimension gives every geographically identified variety an internal social depth. It is commonplace to note that people reveal in their ways of speaking not
only their geographical origin but also their social position and education, so that social
class markers are recognizable in all languages. Thus this car, it needs washing said by a
British subject, with pronunciation of postvocalic /r/, identifies the speaker as presumably Scottish (by a phonetic trait indicating geographical localization), while this car, it
needs washed, with postvocalic /r/ and washed (a morphosyntactic feature implying social
characterization) rather than washing (Trudgill 1995: 6), suggests the speaker is Scottish
and of lower social class.
A third very important range of variation within a language or a language space and
even within a given socio-geographical variety is added by the intervention of the diaphasic dimension. Every type of social and communicative situation is characterized by a
certain language use: every speaker in a speech community has the ability to change his/
her way of speaking in relation to the manifold factors present or activated in a situation,
choosing the appropriate variety for that type of situation. Halliday (1978: 3434, 225;
also see Gregory 1967) has emphasized that a major distinction between diatopic and
diastratic variations and varieties and diaphasic variation and varieties (both authors
call the latter diatypic varieties) is that the former are chosen according to the user
(because they are the linguistic reflection of reasonably permanent characteristics of the
user in language situations) and the latter according to the use (because they are the
linguistic reflection of recurrent characteristics of the users use of language in situations). This means that a given speaker speaks spontaneously one diatopic variety,
which refers to his/her geographical provenance, and one diastratic variety, which correlates to his/her position in the social stratification within a society; simultaneously he/she
is able to speak several diaphasic varieties according to the various communicative situations.

13. Identifying dimensions of variation

2. Linguistic variables and linguistic varieties

Variation implies linguistic (or better, but less common, sociolinguistic) variables. The
sociolinguistic variable is a very crucial concept for analyzing language internal variation. The rise of sociolinguistic, variationist studies in linguistics started in the 1960s
with the seminal work by William Labov on linguistic variables (Labov 1966). A sociolinguistic variable is, in a nutshell, one point of the system of a language (a phonetic/
phonological unit, a morphological item, a syntactic structure, a construction, a semantic
unit and so on) that admits and shows different realizations, with the same referential
meaning, in correlation with extralinguistic (geographical, social, situational) factors and
properties (see Tagliamonte 2006: 7098). Thus, a sociolinguistic variable, as a linguistic
form carrying social meaning, represents the minimal sociolinguistic unit in which language and society (in the broadest sense) closely correlate; it is the stitch that sews
together language and society. Each realization of a given variable is one of the values
of this variable. Therefore, each value is a variant of a variable; a sociolinguistic variable
is a set of linguistic variants. This technical sense of (socio)linguistic variable has nothing to do with the broad meaning of the expression sociolinguistic variable that is sometimes found even in sociolinguistics; for instance, what is meant by a title such as Age
as a Sociolinguistic Variable (Eckert 1998 is that age is a social variable possibly correlating with linguistic phenomena or showing linguistic significance, but by no means, of
course, that age itself is a sociolinguistic variable.
The pronunciation of the -ing suffix in British English represents a good, simple example of a variable; its final sound can have two different realizations: alveolar nasal [n]
and velar nasal [n]; each realization bears a social significance, since [n] is the standard
pronunciation and occurs, therefore, in educated speech, while the non standard [n]
occurs in uneducated speech. Usually, notation marks for variables are put in round
brackets: thus, in this case we have the (socio)linguistic variable (ng), with two variants,
[n] and [n]. A sociolinguistic variable can occur at every level of the linguistic system
and embody units of any extension; Cornips (1998) shows how the variable can concern
even the setting of a parameter, in the sense of generative grammar, in syntactic variation
(for a wider overview on this topic, see Cornips and Corrigan 2005).
The distribution of variants in a language space is not random. On the contrary they
are arranged in such a way that they tend to occur together with some given extralinguistic, social features. The tendential co-occurrence of variants gives rise to linguistic varieties. Therefore, a linguistic variety is conceivable as a set of co-occurring variants; it is
identified simultaneously by both such a co-occurrence of variants, from the linguistic
viewpoint, and the co-occurrence of these variants with extralinguistic, social features,
from the external, societal viewpoint. Thus, a linguistic variety bears a double characterization, as a linguistic as well as a social entity, it is made of linguistic variants together
with their social value. In simple words, a variety of language is a set of linguistic items
with similar social distribution (Hudson 1996: 22).
Linguistic varieties, i. e., the varieties of a given language, can be classified in relation
to the main dimensions of the architecture of a language: we have indeed geographical
or diatopic varieties, social or diastratic varieties, situational or diaphasic varieties. Some
authors have raised doubts about the suitability of a variety-based model of language
variation, since varieties are often difficult to identify and defining their presence in any
given text can be problematic. Hudson (1996: 2222, 4849), for instance, argues rather

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for a model based on the notion of item. Even if the definition of varieties raises
doubts on many issues (but these are partially removed if varieties are conceived as
particular points in a continuum, cf. section 6), the notion of variety brings about so
many advantages in terms of generalization and abstraction when one deals with variation phenomena, that this notion seems difficult to replace or eliminate.

3. Diatopic varieties
The most typical diatopic (geographical) variety is a dialect. Dialect seems to be a
simple category, but it turns out to be a very controversial one. First of all, for American
and British linguists dialect is often understood as a synonym for (language) variety,
designating any particular language form with at least some differences in structure and
grammar with respect to any other language form. Dialect is simply a neutral label to
refer to any variety of a language which is shared by a group of speakers (Wolfram
and Schilling-Estes 1998: 2). In other words, every socio-geographically recognizable
language variety is a dialect. Similarly, Gregory (1967) distinguishes between dialectal
variation and diatypic variation as the two basic aspects of language variation, with
respect to society in a broad sense and to situations (see above). In this way, e.g., Standard English is to be conceived as a dialect of English: Standard English is a dialect
[]. Subvarieties of languages are usually referred to as dialects, and languages are often
described as consisting of dialects (Trudgill 2002: 165); a conception which undermines
the fundamental opposition between standard language and dialect as two mutually self
determining concepts. For linguists from the European continent, dialect (French dialecte, German Dialekt/Mundart, Spanish dialecto, Italian dialetto, Russian , etc.)
is better understood as any language variety spoken in a given place or region in concomitance with a more prestigious superimposed variety (the latter being a standard
language), so that its diatopic characterization comes crucially to the fore. For a continental linguist Standard English is a dialect might therefore be a rather odd, confusing statement.
Moreover dialect is a category sensitive to the different sociolinguistic situations and
to the particular characteristics of linguistic repertoires, and can mean somewhat different things in different situations (Britain 2004). While, for example, in the USA dialects are simply spoken varieties of English with some differences in pronunciation and
lexicon (cf. Chambers and Trudgill [1980] for a general Anglo-Saxon perspective, and
Wolfram and Schilling-Estes [1998] for the USA), in Germany as well as in Italy dialects
are mostly spoken regional linguistic systems with a noticeable structural distance from
(Standard) German and (Standard) Italian, and with an autonomous history and development. As a consequence, it can be observed that in Italian and in German speaking
countries not only two (dialects and standard) but three kinds of diatopic variety exist.
Between dialect and standard there is an intermediate variety (cf. section 6), representing
the way in which a standard language is regionally/locally spoken under the influence
of a local dialect: the Umgangssprache or Substandard German in Germany or in Austria
(see, e.g., Barbour and Stevenson 1990, Dittmar 1997: 193201), the italiano regionale
in Italy (Berruto 1989a). In a number of situations, in particular where we find a constellation of diaglossia (Auer 2005a) or dilalia (in which both the low and the high

13. Identifying dimensions of variation

variety are employed in ordinary conversation; Berruto 1989b; Dittmar 1997: 150151),
intermediate varieties such as regional dialects and regional standards emerge from intensive contact between local dialects and national standard. The former are relatively
standardized varieties of the dialects under interference from national language and having a superlocal range; the latter are varieties of the standard language with local coloring due to the interference of the dialect and representing the regional socially unmarked
form of the national standard.
It is useful at this point to introduce a distinction made by Coseriu (1980) between
primary dialects and secondary dialects. Primary dialects are the varieties existing in a
given language space before the formation of a standard, that is to say the sister
varieties of the (future) standard, sharing the same origin with the variety which will
later become the standard one. Secondary (and tertiary: but the present article will not
deal with this further distinction proposed by Coseriu) dialects are regional varieties
evolving after the establishment of a standard, as a result of its local differentiation.
Another useful notion in this context is that of a roof language/roofing language
(Dachsprache): with this term the German sociologist Heinz Kloss designates the (standard) language which, as a metaphorical roof, covers the dialects which are clearly related to it (existing in the same country and having the same origin), the language in
question being taught at school to the native speakers of these dialects (see Ammon
1989: 3843).
Clearly, the distinction between dialect and (standard) language is by no means a
linguistic one, but rather a by-product of social, historical and cultural factors. Dialect
proves to be in a dialectical way a concept opposed to standard, in need of sociolinguistic
definition. From a merely linguistic point of view there is no difference between standard
and dialect; it is impossible to define an existing language form as a dialect or as a
language on the grounds of purely linguistic features. The difference rests on their position in society: dialect is a geographically restricted variety, mainly spoken and lacking
of (overt) prestige, occupying the low level in a linguistic repertoire; standard, instead,
is a prestigious variety with a wider geographical range, which occupies the high level
in a linguistic repertoire and is employed in written and more formal usages. In short,
one could say with Hudson (1996: 36): there is no real distinction to be drawn between
language and dialect (except with reference to prestige). Normally a standard language is superimposed on many dialects (or, better, it covers them as a Dachsprache).
What these dialects precisely are depends on the nature of the repertoire to which they
belong and on the history of any given linguistic community.
Finally, it is worth emphasizing that a dialect, as any language or language space,
can easily display inner variation across the three synchronic dimensions: diatopia, diastratia and diaphasia. The extreme limit of sociogeographical variation is the single
individual, and consequently the minimum sociogeographical variety is the so called
idiolect, the language form of a single individual. The extreme limit of variation generally
speaking, i. e., including the diaphasic dimension, is the variety spoken by a given single
individual in a given actualized situation (for which no specific technical term is currently
in use).
The sociolinguistic counterpart of a dialect is a standard variety. A standard is a
language form which, gaining prestige due to literary tradition, cultural acceptance, political or religious reasons, socio-economic factors and so on, has attained to a full elaboration (Ausbau) and has become through a codification process the reference norm (the

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good language) in a linguistic community and the correct model taught at school.
Thus a standard is in contraposition to a dialect supraregional, homogeneous,
explicitly codified (i. e., with an overt norm and an acknowledged corpus of reference
texts, grammars, dictionaries), typically written and normally linked to the upper middle
class (Ammon 1986: 2004).
However, besides dialect many other terms are in use to refer to diatopic varieties:
vernacular, patois, basilect, koine, regiolect and accent are amongst the most recurrent of
them. Both vernacular and patois can be viewed as near-synonyms of dialect, bearing
different nuances. By vernacular linguists usually mean a dialect in so far as it is the
mother tongue of a definite group or community of speakers (see Macaulay 1988); patois
designates, mostly in the French tradition or with reference to French or Galloroman
speaking areas or also to Creole languages (and sometimes with a slight depreciatory
nuance), a local dialect lacking any prestige. Basilect is instead a term adopted in creolistics (see, e.g., Bickerton 1973), where it has been employed to mean the most local,
marked and least prestigious varieties within a variety continuum (cf. section 6), showing
at the one end these basilects, at the other end the most prestigious standardized variety
(the acrolect), with intermediate varieties (the mesolects) in between. The terms refer to
the idea of the continuum as a metaphorical triangle, at whose base there are many
basilects and at the top (Greek a extremity, peak) one acrolect.
While vernacular, patois and basilect are all varieties at the bottom of the sociogeographical scale, koine and regiolect (lect, from dia-lect and similar expressions, is sometimes employed as a neutral term for language variety and serves as formative for the
names of other classes of varieties) are located at the top. A koine, from Greek
common (language), is the stabilized result of mixing of linguistic subsystems such as
regional or literary dialects (Siegel 1985: 363), often characterized in negativo by the
reduction of too locally marked features: a typical koine is a regional koine, that usually
serves as a lingua franca among speakers of the different contributing varieties (Siegel
1985: 363), i. e., of the various partially different local dialects spoken in the region.
Often, it is an amended variety of the dialect of the principal town that works as a
koine in a given region. Regiolect is a term sometimes employed, mainly by German and
Dutch speaking linguists, to refer to the dialect of a whole region, with a superlocal
range. Finally, accent means a diatopic variety marked in pronunciation only, characterized exclusively by phonetic (segmental and/or suprasegmental) features.

4. Diastratic variation and diastratic varieties

As American and British variationists have shown since Labov (1966) in New York City
and Trudgill (1974) in Norwich, social variation in its strict sense often takes on the
form of a sociolinguistic pattern, in which for each considered variable there is continuous variation (fine stratification) based on differences in frequency and showing
no sharp breaks, rather than a plain opposition of the all-or-nothing kind: A major
finding of urban sociolinguistic work is that differences among social dialects are quantitative and not qualitative (Romaine 1994: 70). The same source reports a simple example concerning two opposite sociolinguistic patterns: the variable postvocalic r as analyzed by Labov and Trudgill (Table 13.1).

13. Identifying dimensions of variation

233

Tab. 13.1: Percentage of post-vocalic /r/ pronounced in New York and Reading (Romaine 1994)
New York City

Reading

Social class

32
20
12
0

0
28
44
49

upper middle class

lower middle class
upper working class
lower working class

The inverse distribution of variants is socially significant insofar as the amount of

the standard, more prestigious form in both speech communities (i. e., the realization
of /r/, as prevalent in General American, in New York, and its deletion, according to the
Received Pronunciation, in Reading) progressively increases along the social scale. In
Reading, no tokens of nonstandard pronunciation were recorded among the informants
of the upper middle class, while the greatest proportion of occurrences was found in the
lower working class. This pattern is overtly symmetrical, with inverse values (no realization of /r/ by members of the lower working class, the greatest amount by the upper
middle class), to the one found in New York City by Labov.
There is no stabilized term for diastratic varieties, analogue to dialect for diatopic
varieties. A diastratic variety is normally referred to as a social dialect, or more specifically as a social-class dialect. However, the term sociolect is also employed, in particular
by German speaking sociolinguists, either as a synonym of social dialect or with more
specific meanings (Durrell 2004).
On the diastratic dimension, a language can co-vary with many different social
factors. Besides social class, the main social factors which intervene to determine diastratic variation are age, sex or better gender (the sex of a person as reflected in social
position, status and role and their attributes), ethnicity and social network. In many
societies membership in social or professional groups or religious faith can also be relevant factors of language differentiation. Over the last decades a type of variety which
for some authors can be traced back in extenso, and in certain regards, to the diastratic
dimension has increasingly gained in importance: the interlanguages (learner varieties)
of foreign immigrants.
In spite of its importance as an obvious first reference point in diastratic variation,
social class is by no means a clear-cut and undisputable category: it is often difficult to
establish in what precisely a social class consists, being undoubtedly in itself a plurifactorial concept, that includes in various mixtures ingredients such as education, occupation,
income, attitudes, life styles and so on (some of them hardly quantifiable; Georg 2004).
Social class membership moreover depends on the different social patterns and the different shapes the social stratification takes in different societies. Establishing how many
social classes should be taken into account in correlating language and society, as well
as defining exact boundaries between social classes within a society, are also questionable
matters. In early sociolinguistics, four classes were preferably taken into account (see
Table 13.1); a higher number of classes, five or six or even nine (upper class, middle class
and lower class, each subdivided in upper, middle and lower), was also sometimes taken
into consideration. Trudgill (1974) in his survey in Norwich assumed five socio-economic
classes, calculated on the basis of an index resulting from six components: occupation,
fathers occupation, income, education, locality, housing. In Romance sociolinguistics a
more descriptive, albeit methodologically less articulated, representation of social class

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has been often adopted: Sanga (1981) for instance deals with Italian sociolinguistic stratification in the 1970s by means of six classes such as bourgeoisie ( middle class), petite
bourgeoisie du tertiaire ( lower middle class, traders), classe ouvrie`re (working class),
artisans et couches moyennes pre-industrielles ( craftsmen and pre-industrial lower middle class), paysans (peasants) and marginaux (outcasts). Lately, though, it has become
increasingly difficult to deal with the social stratification in globalized societies through
categories of this kind.
Since the work of Milroy (1980) sociolinguists often prefer to work with social networks rather than social classes as the main social factor correlating with language variation. Social network, a structured set of social relations connecting a person and the
people with whom this person interacts, seems to correlate very well with the distribution
of socially significant linguistic features and has the advantage of being less abstract and
more flexible than the concept of class. It involves not only the social position of an
individual in a group but also the actual interactions in which he/she takes part. Closeknit networks, i. e., dense and multiplex networks (density and multiplexity are two
important criteria in defining types of network) appear to correlate with conservative
variants, while loose-knit networks (networks with little density and low multiplexity)
appear to correlate with innovative variants in the dynamics of language change (Milroy
1992). Furthermore, a social network perspective is perfectly compatible with a social
class perspective, for, on the one hand, certain network shapes turn out to be (more)
typical of certain classes and, on the other hand, socialization patterns as well as communicative habits are important in characterizing both social class and social network.

5. Diaphasic variation and diaphasic varieties

The first sociolinguistic surveys already reported a recurrent behavior of many variables.
A variable such as (ng) in Norwich (Trudgill 1974; cf. section 2) varies at the same time
with social stratification and, for each socio-economic class, with what has been called
style: the more nonstandard realizations [n] are recorded, the less controlled language
use is, i. e., the less formal the situation is perceived. This means that (ng) presents a
stylistic variation pattern. Each language variety that depends on the relative formality
of a communicative situation is a style (sometimes specified as contextual style; cf.
Eckert and Rickford 2001 on the whole issue of style). Relative formality is an important
parameter correlating with the diaphasic dimension. There are obviously other parameters which play an important part in diaphasic variation. The most remarkable among
them are the activity carried out in interaction and the subject matter of discourse, both
needing typical syntactic and textual patterns and a particular lexicon. Any language
variety depending on the activity and topic dealt with in a communicative situation is
a register.
If all linguists agree in distinguishing register and style as the two main genres of
diaphasic varieties, the definition of these notions is slightly blurry, and the terminology
is in need of further elucidation. According to many sociolinguists, register is rather an
overarching term, generally designating any variety according to use and, therefore,
on the same rank as the notion of dialect, the variety according to the user. In a
functional perspective, Halliday (1978; see also Gregory 1967) identifies within the situa-

13. Identifying dimensions of variation

tional or contextual variation three interacting dimensions, called field, tenor and mode.
Field refers to the nature of the social action carried out in the situation and includes
the subject matter of discourse as a special aspect; tenor concerns the role structure
governing the relationships between participants; mode has to do with the function the
discourse is assigned to in the given situation and also includes channel or medium, i. e.,
the distinction between speaking/speech and writing. Any variety selected on these three
interplaying dimensions is a register; within register, style concerns the aspect corresponding to tenor. Any language includes numerous registers, chosen by the manifold
situational configurations in different domains (Biber and Finegan 1994). A special type
of register is the so-called foreigner talk, namely the simplified language native speakers use in certain circumstances with foreigners little competent in the native speakers
mother tongue (sometimes also called xenolect).
The distinction between written and spoken language is such a pervasive differentiating factor in all languages that some authors have suggested a fourth main synchronic
dimension of variation, namely the diamesic dimension. Even if the medium of communication is in principle selected by the situation, a reasonable ground for postulating
an independent diamesia lies in the wide range of differences one normally finds between written and spoken language, including pragmatics and textuality, lexicon, morphosyntax, etc. (Halliday 1985; Koch and sterreicher 1990).
In order to avoid confusion or overlapping with the meaning of style as a literary
and rhetorical term, other sociolinguists call registers what have been called styles above,
i. e., different ways of speaking according to the degree of formality of a given situation
and the relationship with the addressee. According to this terminology (Berruto 1995:
148150), the varieties depending primarily upon the type of activity and upon the
subject matter of discourse (and hence governed by the field) are variously called
sectorial languages, subcodes, or special languages. Subtypes of these with a link to the
technical or professional areas in which they are employed and which require a specific
lexicon are called Fachsprachen, Sondersprachen, langues de specialite, languages for special/specific purposes, technolects, jargons and so forth. In this approach, no general term
for the varieties on the diaphasic dimension is employed.
A particular notion of sociolinguistic style has been developed by German sociolinguists from an interpretative perspective. Dittmar (1995: 156) considers sociolinguistic
style as a complex and ordered system of preferences of language use, selecting forms of
expression from the individual linguistic variety space and combining them by means of
co-occurrence restrictions (see Auer 1997), in order to realize/achieve speakers goals and
purposes through accommodating to the interactional partners speech.

6. Variation in a language space as a multidimensional continuum

The arrangement of varieties in the language space constituting a language takes the
form of continua. The concept of continuum implies an ordered set of elements arranged
in such a way that between two adjacent entities of the set (in this case, language varieties) there are no sharp boundaries, but rather a gradual, fuzzy differentiation, each
variety sharing some sociolinguistically marked features with adjacent varieties. The very
notion of a continuum in variational linguistics arose in geolinguistics, where the dialec-

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III. Structure and dynamics of a language space

tal landscape is often viewed as a dialect continuum: between two neighboring village
dialects in a linguistic area one finds little difference, while differences increase cumulatively as one considers progressively more distant villages, the greatest difference being
recorded at the extremities of the continuum. In other words, linguistic distance between
local dialects seems to be a function of their geographical distance, no clear-cut boundaries being perceived between contiguous dialects.
To this view two considerations must be added. First of all, dialectometric analysis
of phonological distance between Dutch dialects (Heeringa and Nerbonne 2001) has
shown that differences along the continuum are not simply cumulative, but aggregate in
relation to recognizable dialect areas, so that the continuum presents a certain discontinuity at the points coinciding with isoglosses defining traditional dialect areas. These
appear to be separated by unsharp borders. Jrgensen and Kristensen (1995) likewise
showed by means of quantitative methods that within a dialect continuum there is at
least one clear boundary, i. e., the one between one of the poles (extremities) of the
continuum and the rest. On the other hand, the very notion of border deserves some
reflections, since borders turn out to be not only plainly objective boundaries in space,
based on external criteria, but also depend on subjective attitudes and perceptions defining an identity and resulting in a socially constructed, cognitive space (cf. section 1).
Applying such a cognitive approach to space, Auer (2005b) shows how German dialect
continua across state borders develop (converging or diverging both in linguistic features
and in the structure of the linguistic repertoires) in relation to ideological constructed
borders delimiting imagined communities. Gerritsen (1999), moreover, has examined
how very similar dialects around the BelgianDutchGerman border diverge because
of their exposure to the influence of different standard languages.
The geographical dimension is only one of the dimensions in the architecture of a
language. In order to capture the complex nature of the latter, it is useful to consider
polarized continua such as those suggested by creolistics (Rickford 1987): in fact, each
dimension of variation is conceivable as a continuum, so that the resulting general picture of variation in a language space takes the form of a sum of intercrossing continua,
one nonpolarized (the diatopic variation) and two polarized (the diastratic and diaphasic
variation), as sketched in Figure 13.1.
As Downes (1984: 28) points out, the linguistic side of any variety [] is a clustering
tendency within a continuum. Thus, the result is a Kontinuum mit Verdichtungen (Berruto 1987, continuum con addensamenti); varieties in this continuum represent concentration areas, where a variety, though not clearly-cut separated from other varieties, is
identified by a particular frequency of certain variants, by the co-occurrence of several
features and possibly by some diagnostic traits, which appear in that variety only. A
variety appears where such a concentration, or condensation, takes place. A variant, an
item or a linguistic feature can spread along a certain sector of a dimension or even over
several dimensions. This is for instance evident in the case of diastratia and diaphasia,
because an item (i. e., a certain pronunciation or a certain morphemic opposition or
construction or syntactic structure or lexeme etc.) can appear in the lower part of the
diastratic dimension as much as in the lower part of the diaphasic dimension. There is
no room here for discussing the idea of Bell (1984), that stylistic variation is a subset of
social variation. When such a particular item occurs with high frequency and in cooccurrence with other features, thus forming a belt of concentration, the whole may
constitute a variety.

13. Identifying dimensions of variation

Fig. 13.1: Architecture of a language as a multidimensional continuum

The intersecting continua are additionally structured by the fact that the diastratic
and diaphasic dimensions stretch from a high pole to a counterposed low pole. The high
pole corresponds to a prestigious, socially preferred position, being occupied by formal,
written and elaborated varieties on the situational dimension and by the variety of educated, upper class people on the social dimension; the low pole corresponds to low
prestige, socially dispreferred positions, occupied by informal, spoken varieties (casual
speech, slang, etc.) and by the variety of uneducated, lower class people respectively.
Thus, every linguistic item is simultaneously characterized by a position over the three
interplaying continua. For instance, a particular pronunciation of a phoneme or a particular morphological realization could be, roughly sketching, Scottish, lower class,
informal or Swabian, middle class, formal and so on. This is the status of all sociolinguistically marked elements. There are of course also a good number of linguistic traits
that are neutral with respect to the social variables and are, therefore, sociolinguistically
unmarked. A speaker adopting a certain variant or employing a certain variety places
him/herself not only at a given point of the linguistic space he/she lives in, but also in a
particular position within the speech community, because each variety has a symbolic
value such that its use amounts to an act of identity (Le Page and Tabouret-Keller
1985).
The standard variety occupies the high poles of the diaphasic and diastratic dimensions. What does not belong to the standard is labeled nonstandard by Anglo-Saxon
linguists, while in the European continent the term substandard is often preferred. In
German dialectology, there is a tendency to see substandard varieties as a series of more
or less marked, intermediate varieties between standard and dialect, from the near-stan-

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III. Structure and dynamics of a language space

dard to the most localized and typical dialect (Bellmann 1998), but there is wide agreement on the fact that the concept of substandard is not exhausted by the dichotomy
standard/(geographical) dialect, since everything, in the architecture of a language or a
language space, which is simply below the standard, can be referred to as substandard,
whether it is dialectal or not (Albrecht 1986; Mattheier 1990).

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Gaetano Berruto, Torino (Italy)

14. Horizontal convergence o linguistic varieties

in a language space
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.

Introduction
Some terms and definitions
Diachronic and synchronic evidence
Factors leading to convergence
Conclusions
References

1. Introduction
In traditional diachronic map-based dialectology, priority is given to divergence in an
originally uniform language space (cf. Schrambke, this volume; Harnisch, this volume).
Dialect divergence is explained in terms of natural or man-made borders which limit the
spread of a change in that they impede communication and interaction (Bach 1969: 80
81; Murray, this volume; Paul 1920: 2225; Trudgill 1986). Auer (2004) suggests a
cognitive interpretation of these borders as mental boundaries that crystallize out of
cultural and political borders.