Linguists and speakers in the classification of linguistic spaces|Linguisti e parlanti a confronto nella classificazione delle aree dialettali

Abstract

This paper offers an insight into the ways nonlinguists perceive variation in Tuscan dialects by means of perceptual dialect maps, completed by 258 students from secondary schools across Tuscany. The 258 maps showed a detailed, lively and dynamic "common folk knowledge" with respect to linguistic variation. They represent the perceived space not only according to landscape or geographical borders, or according to traffic and economic flows, but also according to concrete linguistic variation.