СТАВОВИ ЛЕСКОВЧАНА ПРЕМА УРБАНОМ И РУРАЛНОМ ГОВОРНОМ ТИПУ ПРИЗРЕНСКО–ЈУЖНОМОРАВСКОГ ДИЈАЛЕКТА

The paper presents the results of a study dealing with the attitudes of the people of Leskovac towards the urban and rural varieties of the Prizren–South Morava dialect. The study was based on a sample of 206 respondents – the main body of participants in our survey comprised 128 respondents aged 25–35, along with two additional control groups, the first being a group of younger respondents (ages 18–24) and the other group composed of older respondents, aged 36– 47. The research was conducted by way of an online survey. The aims of this paper are manifold – namely ascertaining the underlying attitudes of mostly young people of Leskovac towards the urban and rural varieties of the Prizren–South Morava dialect and the dominant prestigious model of speech, as well as the extent to which the tracked social variables influence the attitudes expressed. The paper starts from two main hypotheses, the first one being that the respondents from urban environments tend to choose a model of speech they deem prestigious – that being something closer to the standard language – the other one being that there is no significant stratification with regard to the use of the dialect based on key important demographic factors. Both hypotheses were proven using adeqate statistical methods.