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	The term "diasystem" originally had a different meaning. It was coined by linguist and dialectologist ] in a 1954 paper as part of an initiative in theorizing aimed at exploring how to extend advances in ] theory (which in that period was ]) to ]. The basic issue was to explain ] across dialects. In his vision, a particular phenomenon of dialectal divergence would be explained by constructing a "diasystem" which is "a system of a higher level out of the discrete and homogeneous systems that are derived from description".{{sfn\|Weinreich\|1954\|p=390}} In the example he gave, the scope of the "system" was just vowel phoneme inventories, but in principle it would be entire dialects. A diasystem being a higher order system, its component units of analysis would accordingly (under structuralist theory) be abstractions of a higher order than the units of analysis of the individual systems. For example, just as allophones constitute a ] within a dialect, in the "intersystem", as it were, phonemes would constitute a ].		The term "diasystem" originally had a different meaning. It was coined by linguist and dialectologist ] in a 1954 paper as part of an initiative in theorizing aimed at exploring how to extend advances in ] theory (which in that period was ]) to ]. The basic issue was to explain ] across dialects. In his vision, a particular phenomenon of dialectal divergence would be explained by constructing a "diasystem" which is "a system of a higher level out of the discrete and homogeneous systems that are derived from description".{{sfn\|Weinreich\|1954\|p=390}} In the example he gave, the scope of the "system" was just vowel phoneme inventories, but in principle it would be entire dialects. A diasystem being a higher order system, its component units of analysis would accordingly (under structuralist theory) be abstractions of a higher order than the units of analysis of the individual systems. For example, just as allophones constitute a ] within a dialect, in the "intersystem", as it were, phonemes would constitute a ].

	Weinreich's paper inspired research in the late 1950s to test the proposal. However, the investigations soon proved it to be generally untenable, at least under structuralist theory. That is, it is unfeasible to construct a single grammar portion (let a alone an entire grammar) multiple dialects unless the dialect differences are very minor and unless only a very few dialects are involved. With the advent of ] theory circa 1960, adherents of ] tried developing cross dialectal grammars. The generative approach rejects the positing of structural units of a higher order of abstraction than the phoneme (and redefines the phoneme).{{sfn\|Wells\|1982\|pp=41-68}} However, after the 1970s the generative approach was also adjudged a theoretical failure.{{sfn\|Chambers\|Trudgill\|1998\|loc=section 3.3}}{{sfn\|Auer\|Di Luzio\|1988\|p=1}} The followup to Weinreich (1954) 14 years later used the term just once (not counting footnotes).{{sfn\|Weinreich\|Labov\|Herzog\|1968\|loc=section 3.2.1}} Since the 1970s, therefore, the use of the term ''diasystem'' no longer denotes a cross dialectal grammar. The terms ''diasystem'' and ''diaphoneme'' have limited currency in linguistics to the extent that neither the International Encyclopedia of Linguistics (2003 edition) nor the ], (second edition, 2006) mention these terms in their indexes. The latter work gives the Weinreichian type of definition in its Glossary section.		Weinreich's paper inspired research in the late 1950s to test the proposal. However, the investigations soon proved it to be generally untenable, at least under structuralist theory. That is, it is unfeasible to construct a single grammar portion (let a alone an entire grammar) for multiple dialects unless the dialect differences are very minor and unless only a very few dialects are involved. With the advent of ] theory circa 1960, adherents of ] tried developing cross dialectal grammars. The generative approach rejects the positing of structural units of a higher order of abstraction than the phoneme (and redefines the phoneme).{{sfn\|Wells\|1982\|pp=41-68}} However, after the 1970s the generative approach was also adjudged a theoretical failure.{{sfn\|Chambers\|Trudgill\|1998\|loc=section 3.3}}{{sfn\|Auer\|Di Luzio\|1988\|p=1}} The followup to Weinreich (1954) 14 years later used the term just once (not counting footnotes).{{sfn\|Weinreich\|Labov\|Herzog\|1968\|loc=section 3.2.1}} Since the 1970s, therefore, the use of the term ''diasystem'' no longer denotes a cross dialectal grammar. The terms ''diasystem'' and ''diaphoneme'' have limited currency in linguistics to the extent that neither the International Encyclopedia of Linguistics (2003 edition) nor the ], (second edition, 2006) mention these terms in their indexes. The latter work gives the Weinreichian type of definition in its Glossary section.

	According to some ],{{sfn\|Chambers\|Trudgill\|1998\|p=44}}{{sfn\|Auer\|Di Luzio\|1988\|p=1}} the diasystem idea for incorporating variation into linguistic theory has been superseded by the ]'s notion of the ].		According to some ],{{sfn\|Chambers\|Trudgill\|1998\|p=44}}{{sfn\|Auer\|Di Luzio\|1988\|p=1}} the diasystem idea for incorporating variation into linguistic theory has been superseded by the ]'s notion of the ].

Revision as of 14:27, 8 March 2012

In dialectology, the term diasystem now denotes related dialects. It is thus a generic term, in the way that 'language' is a generic term and 'English', 'Chinese', 'French' are the names of particular languages. Some scholars use "related" in a far broader sense than other scholars. Another term for related dialects is dialect continuum.

The term "diasystem" originally had a different meaning. It was coined by linguist and dialectologist Uriel Weinreich in a 1954 paper as part of an initiative in theorizing aimed at exploring how to extend advances in linguistic theory (which in that period was structuralist) to dialectology. The basic issue was to explain linguistic variation across dialects. In his vision, a particular phenomenon of dialectal divergence would be explained by constructing a "diasystem" which is "a system of a higher level out of the discrete and homogeneous systems that are derived from description". In the example he gave, the scope of the "system" was just vowel phoneme inventories, but in principle it would be entire dialects. A diasystem being a higher order system, its component units of analysis would accordingly (under structuralist theory) be abstractions of a higher order than the units of analysis of the individual systems. For example, just as allophones constitute a phoneme within a dialect, in the "intersystem", as it were, phonemes would constitute a diaphoneme.

Weinreich's paper inspired research in the late 1950s to test the proposal. However, the investigations soon proved it to be generally untenable, at least under structuralist theory. That is, it is unfeasible to construct a single grammar portion (let a alone an entire grammar) for multiple dialects unless the dialect differences are very minor and unless only a very few dialects are involved. With the advent of generative theory circa 1960, adherents of generative grammar tried developing cross dialectal grammars. The generative approach rejects the positing of structural units of a higher order of abstraction than the phoneme (and redefines the phoneme). However, after the 1970s the generative approach was also adjudged a theoretical failure. The followup to Weinreich (1954) 14 years later used the term just once (not counting footnotes). Since the 1970s, therefore, the use of the term diasystem no longer denotes a cross dialectal grammar. The terms diasystem and diaphoneme have limited currency in linguistics to the extent that neither the International Encyclopedia of Linguistics (2003 edition) nor the Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, (second edition, 2006) mention these terms in their indexes. The latter work gives the Weinreichian type of definition in its Glossary section.

According to some sociolinguists, the diasystem idea for incorporating variation into linguistic theory has been superseded by the William Labov's notion of the linguistic variable.

History of the Weinreichian sense of diasystem

Conception by Weinreich

By the 1950s, linguists considered variation between varieties outside of the scope of inquiry of grammar construction; each variety, in their thinking, should only be studied on its own terms. In addition, there was some perceived incommensurability between dialectology and linguistics; linguists found the practice of dialectology at the time to be "impressionistic" whereas dialectologists found linguistic theory "metaphysical." Weinreich proposed applying the structuralist concept of the grammar to the description of regular correspondences between different varieties. Different dialects would be described by a diasystem, a supergrammar consistent with the individual grammars of all the member dialects and representing a higher level of abstraction. Weinreich exemplified the diasystemic approach by an arrangement of phoneme correspondences in three dialects of Yiddish.

Critiques

Trubetzkoy in 1931 had proposed the following types of sound difference: differences in phoneme inventory; differences in "distribution" (i.e., phonotactics), differences in the phonetic realization of phonemes; and differences in the incidence of phonemes. "Incidence" refers to distribution of phonemes across the vocabulary (in particular, which phonemes occur in which member words of a interdialectal lexical correspondence set).

A few linguists (in particular Cochrane (1959) and Moulton (1960)) took up the challenge of Weinreich (1954), and "as was very soon pointed out, the inadequacy of the diasystem as used by Weinreich is in its neglect of all phonological aspects except phonemic inventory". Some of the failures had been anticipated by Weinreich himself, as described above. Moulton (1960) found an extreme example of divergent incidence in a study of two dialects of Swiss German, Luzerner and Appenzeller, which evolved independently of each other. He reported that phonetically speaking, although each dialect seems to have the same set of eleven short vowel phonemes, only one pair of phonetically identical vowels, /i/ ~ /i/, is in lexical correspondence, i.e., are diachronically equal, have a common parent vowel in earlier stages of German. The remaining phonetic similarities between the Luzerner and Appenzeller phoneme sets are fortuitous results of multiple mergers and splits that each dialect underwent.

Pulgram (1964), examining Cochrane (1959) and Moulton (1960), noted not only the need for refinements in the original proposal, but that perhaps different researchers had not agreed on definitions, disciplines of study, and objects of inquiry. For extensive theoretical discussion of the implications of Cochrane and Moulton for the original diasystem idea, see Pulgram (1964), and Francis (1983). The research and debate supported the conclusion that multiple dialects could in general not be described by a common grammar, at least not under structuralist theory.

Trudgill (1974), in a book length sociolinguistic study of the dialect of one medium sized English city, his hometown of Norwich, called it the "Norwich diasystem". But as a critic of Weinreich's original suggestion, he was using "diasystem" in a different sense. The population of Norwich in fact speaks a single "variety" (as he termed it) of English. However, Trudgill concluded from his investigations that this single embraces a great diversity and variability of sociologically conditioned linguistic variables. Most speakers of this dialect can vary their pronunciation of each variable depending on the circumstances in which they are speaking. This scholar chose to summarize this variability and versatility with the term "diasystem".

Nowadays "diasystem" is used as a convenient expression for multiple related dialects. For example, a 1996 paper on the "diasystem of Romani", whose scope is European dialects of Romani, reports only an isogloss and a set of interdialectal sound correspondences, not first steps toward a common phonology of all European Romani dialects.

Explanatory notes

"The term 'diasystem' stands for the complete set of varieties (diachronic as well as diatopic-synchronic) supposed to derive from one ancestor."
Weinreich also proposed the use of variety to replace dialect as it was commonly used at the time
The term 'incidence' was not the one used by Trubetzkoy. Its introduction for the purpose of describing this part of grammar is attributed to Kurath.
Trudgill mentions GR Cochrane (1959), WG Moulton (1960), E Pulgram (1964), RD King (1969), H Kurath (1969), and Trudgill's own dissertation of 1971, which was the basis of Trudgill (1974).
Francis quotes Giuseppe Francescato (1965a, 1965b) at length.
county of Norfolk, historical region of East Anglia

Citations

^ Weinreich, Labov & Herzog 1968, section 3.2.1.
De Schutter 2010, p. 73.
Weinreich 1954, p. 390.
Wells 1982, pp. 41–68.
Chambers & Trudgill 1998, section 3.3.
^ Auer & Di Luzio 1988, p. 1.
Chambers & Trudgill 1998, p. 44.
Weinreich 1954, p. 388.
Weinreich 1954, p. 389.
Weinreich 1954, p. 389-390.
Petyt 1980, pp. 118–119.
Francis 1983, p. 34.
Petyt 1980, p. 118.
Pulgram 1964, p. 70.
Pulgram 1964.
Trudgill 1974, p. 134.
Francis 1983, pp. 165–166.
^ Francis 1983, p. 163.
Trudgill 1974, p. 133.
Clouthiade 1997.

Works consulted

Auer, Peter; Di Luzio, Aldo (1988). "Introduction. Variation and convergence as a topic in dialectology and sociolinguistics". In Auer, Peter; Di Luzio, Aldo (eds.). Variation and convergence: studies in social dialectology. Sociolinguistics and language contact. Vol. 4. pp. 1–10. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |loc= (help); Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Chambers, J. K.; Trudgill, Peter (1998). Dialectology. Cambridge textbooks in linguistics (2nd ed.). Cambridge University Press. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameters: |chaptertitle= and |loc= (help); Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Clouthiade, Marcel (1997). "Quelques aspects du diasystème phonologique de la langue rromani". Faits de langue. 5 (10): 113–120. {{cite journal}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |loc= (help); Invalid |ref=harv (help) (This author uses the Albanian language spelling, Rromani.)
De Schutter, Georges (2010). "Dialectology". In Fried, Mirjam; Östman, Jan-Ola; Verscheuren, Jef (eds.). Variation and change: pragmatic perspectives. Handbook of pragmatics highlights. Vol. 6. John Benjamins. pp. 73–80. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |loc= (help); Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Francis, W. N. (1983). Dialectology: an introduction. Longman linguistics library. Vol. 29. Longman. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameters: |chaptertitle= and |loc= (help); Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Petyt, K. M. (1980). The study of dialect : an introduction to dialectology. The language library. A. Deutsch. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |chaptertitle= (help); Invalid |ref=harv (help); Unknown parameter |loc= ignored (help) Published simultaneously in Boulder, Colorado by Westview Press. The chapter, "Other recent approaches", which discusses generative explanations and the lect theory of Bickerton, was anthologized in Harold B. Allen, Michael D. Linn, eds., 1986, Dialect and language variation, Academic Press.
Pulgram, Ernst (1964). "Structural comparison, diasystems, and dialectology". Linguistics. 2 (4): 66–82. {{cite journal}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |loc= (help); Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Trudgill, Peter (1974). The social differentiation of English in Norwich. Cambridge studies in linguistics. Vol. 13. Cambridge University Press. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameters: |chaptertitle= and |loc= (help); Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Weinreich, Uriel (1954). "Is a structural dialectology possible?" (PDF). Word. 10: 388–400. {{cite journal}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |loc= (help); Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Weinreich, Uriel; Labov, William; Herzog, Marvin (1968). "Empirical foundations for a theory of language change". In Lehmann, Winfred P.; Malkiel, Yakov (eds.). Directions for historical linguistics: a symposium. University of Texas Press. pp. 97–195. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |loc= (help); Invalid |ref=harv (help)
Wells, J.C. (1982). Accents of English I. An Introduction. (3 volume work). Cambridge University Press. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameters: |chaptertitle= and |loc= (help); Invalid |ref=harv (help)

Revision as of 14:24, 8 March 2012 editDale Chock (talk \| contribs)1,004 edits Correction of terminology, clarify explanations of theories. Remove {{dubious}} tag because the discussion was already given two paragraphs back.← Previous edit		Revision as of 14:27, 8 March 2012 edit undoDale Chock (talk \| contribs)1,004 editsm add missing wordNext edit →
Line 3:		Line 3:
	The term "diasystem" originally had a different meaning. It was coined by linguist and dialectologist ] in a 1954 paper as part of an initiative in theorizing aimed at exploring how to extend advances in ] theory (which in that period was ]) to ]. The basic issue was to explain ] across dialects. In his vision, a particular phenomenon of dialectal divergence would be explained by constructing a "diasystem" which is "a system of a higher level out of the discrete and homogeneous systems that are derived from description".{{sfn\|Weinreich\|1954\|p=390}} In the example he gave, the scope of the "system" was just vowel phoneme inventories, but in principle it would be entire dialects. A diasystem being a higher order system, its component units of analysis would accordingly (under structuralist theory) be abstractions of a higher order than the units of analysis of the individual systems. For example, just as allophones constitute a ] within a dialect, in the "intersystem", as it were, phonemes would constitute a ].		The term "diasystem" originally had a different meaning. It was coined by linguist and dialectologist ] in a 1954 paper as part of an initiative in theorizing aimed at exploring how to extend advances in ] theory (which in that period was ]) to ]. The basic issue was to explain ] across dialects. In his vision, a particular phenomenon of dialectal divergence would be explained by constructing a "diasystem" which is "a system of a higher level out of the discrete and homogeneous systems that are derived from description".{{sfn\|Weinreich\|1954\|p=390}} In the example he gave, the scope of the "system" was just vowel phoneme inventories, but in principle it would be entire dialects. A diasystem being a higher order system, its component units of analysis would accordingly (under structuralist theory) be abstractions of a higher order than the units of analysis of the individual systems. For example, just as allophones constitute a ] within a dialect, in the "intersystem", as it were, phonemes would constitute a ].

	Weinreich's paper inspired research in the late 1950s to test the proposal. However, the investigations soon proved it to be generally untenable, at least under structuralist theory. That is, it is unfeasible to construct a single grammar portion (let a alone an entire grammar) multiple dialects unless the dialect differences are very minor and unless only a very few dialects are involved. With the advent of ] theory circa 1960, adherents of ] tried developing cross dialectal grammars. The generative approach rejects the positing of structural units of a higher order of abstraction than the phoneme (and redefines the phoneme).{{sfn\|Wells\|1982\|pp=41-68}} However, after the 1970s the generative approach was also adjudged a theoretical failure.{{sfn\|Chambers\|Trudgill\|1998\|loc=section 3.3}}{{sfn\|Auer\|Di Luzio\|1988\|p=1}} The followup to Weinreich (1954) 14 years later used the term just once (not counting footnotes).{{sfn\|Weinreich\|Labov\|Herzog\|1968\|loc=section 3.2.1}} Since the 1970s, therefore, the use of the term ''diasystem'' no longer denotes a cross dialectal grammar. The terms ''diasystem'' and ''diaphoneme'' have limited currency in linguistics to the extent that neither the International Encyclopedia of Linguistics (2003 edition) nor the ], (second edition, 2006) mention these terms in their indexes. The latter work gives the Weinreichian type of definition in its Glossary section.		Weinreich's paper inspired research in the late 1950s to test the proposal. However, the investigations soon proved it to be generally untenable, at least under structuralist theory. That is, it is unfeasible to construct a single grammar portion (let a alone an entire grammar) for multiple dialects unless the dialect differences are very minor and unless only a very few dialects are involved. With the advent of ] theory circa 1960, adherents of ] tried developing cross dialectal grammars. The generative approach rejects the positing of structural units of a higher order of abstraction than the phoneme (and redefines the phoneme).{{sfn\|Wells\|1982\|pp=41-68}} However, after the 1970s the generative approach was also adjudged a theoretical failure.{{sfn\|Chambers\|Trudgill\|1998\|loc=section 3.3}}{{sfn\|Auer\|Di Luzio\|1988\|p=1}} The followup to Weinreich (1954) 14 years later used the term just once (not counting footnotes).{{sfn\|Weinreich\|Labov\|Herzog\|1968\|loc=section 3.2.1}} Since the 1970s, therefore, the use of the term ''diasystem'' no longer denotes a cross dialectal grammar. The terms ''diasystem'' and ''diaphoneme'' have limited currency in linguistics to the extent that neither the International Encyclopedia of Linguistics (2003 edition) nor the ], (second edition, 2006) mention these terms in their indexes. The latter work gives the Weinreichian type of definition in its Glossary section.

	According to some ],{{sfn\|Chambers\|Trudgill\|1998\|p=44}}{{sfn\|Auer\|Di Luzio\|1988\|p=1}} the diasystem idea for incorporating variation into linguistic theory has been superseded by the ]'s notion of the ].		According to some ],{{sfn\|Chambers\|Trudgill\|1998\|p=44}}{{sfn\|Auer\|Di Luzio\|1988\|p=1}} the diasystem idea for incorporating variation into linguistic theory has been superseded by the ]'s notion of the ].

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