Between (anti-)grammar and identity: a quantitative and qualitative study of hyperdialectisms in Brabantish.

Abstract

Incomplete mastery of dialect grammar engenders 'hyperdialectisms' which may be unconscious errors, but which may also be the result of indexical resourcefulness, viz. the profiling of a regional identity. Fifty younger and older speakers from the Brabantish city of Eindhoven (Netherlands) were first administered an acceptability judgment task containing correct forms and three types of hyperdialectisms featuring gender and number constraints. Following the survey, the same respondents participated in a focus group discussion. Regression analysis on the scaled ratings revealed that all three types of hyperdialectisms were rejected, although it was especially the older respondents (almost all L1 dialect speakers) who were weary of the incorrect forms. Analysis of the focus group data demonstrated that older respondents are consciously aware of the rules of their dialect grammar, and hate it when these rules are violated. Younger respondents showed almost no meta-grammatical awareness, and admitted to 'allowing' the incorrect forms in some contexts because they 'sound Brabantish'. Identity construction, in other words, is at the heart of hyperdialectal usage. Methodologically, this paper makes a plea for the confrontation of quantitative data - which provide the backbone of analysis - with qualitative data that offer access to motives for, and constraints on grammatical variation.