Effects of mobility on dialect change: Introducing the linguistic mobility index

Area of Science:

• Sociolinguistics
• Dialectology
• Linguistic Geography

Background:

• Increased geographical mobility diversifies linguistic connections, potentially accelerating dialect change.
• Traditional dialectology research needs methods to account for participants' exposure to linguistic variation.
• Existing sociodemographic variables inadequately capture the impact of mobility on dialect evolution.

Purpose of the Study:

• To propose and evaluate the Linguistic Mobility Index (LMI) as a quantitative measure of long-term exposure to dialectal variation.
• To assess the LMI's utility in predicting dialect change by analyzing its correlation with linguistic variation.
• To provide a standardized reference for "localness" in survey participants for dialectological research.

Main Methods:

• Developed the Linguistic Mobility Index (LMI) based on a participant's linguistic biography, including parental and partner dialects, places of residence and work, and education.
• Quantified linguistic effects by calculating linguistic distance, weighted by exposure intensity and relationship importance.
• Validated LMI prototypes using mixed-effects modeling on the Swiss German Dialects Across Time and Space (SDATS) corpus (500 speakers, 125 localities).

Main Results:

• The LMI effectively predicts dialect change, demonstrating that higher exposure to linguistic variation accelerates this process.
• The impact of dialectal variation exposure, as measured by LMI, is more significant than sociodemographic factors like sex and education.
• Four LMI prototypes showed consistent utility, confirming the model's robustness across different theoretical considerations and data availability scenarios.

Conclusions:

• The Linguistic Mobility Index (LMI) offers a valuable tool for dialectologists to quantify exposure to linguistic variation and its impact on dialect change.
• LMI provides a more nuanced understanding of "localness" than traditional measures, accounting for complex mobility patterns.
• This methodology can be adapted for dialectological studies in diverse linguistic contexts beyond Swiss German.