Íslenskt mál og almenn málfræði - 01.01.1992, Page 92

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Höskuldur Þráinsson og Kristján Árnason
of dialectal variables and linguistic change and tries to determine to
what extent they can be applied to Icelandic data. We will argue that
although there are some obvious social and sociolinguistic factors at
work in the spread and disappearance of Icelandic dialectal features,
it seems to be clear that linguistic or stmctural factors can also play
a role and have an influence as to which features will spread when
dialects are in contact. Finally, we try to summarize the main points in
the concluding remarks in Section 4.
1. Why study phonological variation?
There are at least three different reasons that have prompted dialectal
studies in the past and continue to do so: descriptive, pedagogical and
theoretical. These different interests are explained in (1) with particular
reference to Icelandic dialect studies:
(1) a Descriptive interest: How do Icelanders speak? What are
the dialectal variables in Modem Icelandic and what is their
geographical and social distribution? What is changing in
Icelandic phonology (or in the pronunciation of Icelandic)
and how?
b Pedagogical interest: What should be taught in Icelandic
schools about the pronunciation of Modem Icelandic? To
what extent is it necessary or advisable ffom the point of
view of linguistic planning to adopt a specific standard in
schools and electronic mass media? This aspect is particularly
important in the context of the quite conservative and puristic
language policy which has prevailed in Iceland in this and the
last century.
c Theoretical interest: How and why do phonological changes
originate and spread? What can dialectal differences tell us
about social stratification in Iceland? What can dialectal dif-
ferences tell us about the nature of language and language
acquisition?
The first attempts at describing Icelandic dialectal differences, such