LINGUIST List 19.3786
Wed Dec 10 2008
Diss: Phonetics/Socioling: Loukina: 'Regional Phonetic Variation in...'
Editor for this issue: Evelyn Richter
<evelynlinguistlist.org>
1. Anastassia
Loukina,
Regional Phonetic Variation in Modern Greek
Message 1: Regional Phonetic Variation in Modern Greek
Date: 10-Dec-2008
From: Anastassia Loukina <anastassia.loukinastx.ox.ac.uk>
Subject: Regional Phonetic Variation in Modern Greek
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Institution: University of Oxford
Program: Faculty of Linguistics, Philology and Phonetics
Dissertation Status: Completed
Degree Date: 2008
Author: Anastassia Loukina
Dissertation Title: Regional Phonetic Variation in Modern Greek
Linguistic Field(s):
Phonetics
Sociolinguistics
Subject Language(s): Greek (ell)
Dissertation Director:
John Coleman
Dissertation Abstract:
The thesis looks at the phonetic properties of Greek spoken in Thessaly andCyprus - two Greek-speaking areas with different history, demographics andpresumably different phonetic features - and compares them to AthenianGreek in order to determine how profound the differences are between thesevarieties and examine the factors which might have contributed to theirdevelopment.
The study is based on original data recorded by the author in Cyprus,Athens and Thessaly from the speakers of the same age and social group. Therecordings consisted of spontaneous monologues; the effect of factors whichare of less interest for this study was minimized by means of a carefullyselected sampling method.
The study confirmed the existence of some well-known regional features ofModern Greek and provided more precise phonetic descriptions of thesefeatures. It also revealed further regional differences in finer phoneticdetails. Most of these differences have been previously mentioned indetailed impressionistic descriptions of Modern Greek dialects, but so farhave not been widely recognized in studies on Modern Greek dialectology.
An important finding of this thesis is that the phonetic features usuallydescribed as typical of a specific variety, may also occur in the othervarieties. It was shown that the difference between the dialects often liesnot in the presence or absence of a certain feature, but rather in theextent or frequency of use of this feature, especially in quick casual speech.
Comparison with published descriptions of contact languages of each of thevariety showed that in many cases the features commonly occurring in agiven variety are also described for its contact languages. I argue thatthe spread of a certain feature to a greater extent in one variety than inanother may be related to the presence of this feature in another languageor languages that is or was spoken in the region.
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