Mapping languages from inside: notes on perceptual dialectology.

Language maps can represent many aspects of the linguistic situation in a certain territory.
They usually draw particular views of the language setting as seen from outside, i.e. by
linguists or scholars in general. However, maps can also be used to show the geographical
distribution of the perception of language variation from the point of view of the speakers.
The starting point for every kind of language map is the language border (and its
deŽnition): thus a perceptual language map needs a deŽnition of border from the point of
view of the speaker. To do that it is necessary to analyse ‘perceptual data’, that is to study
the opinion the speaker has of the language diversities and compare the different kinds of
perception. Points of interest can be, for example: the inuence of the perceived ethnic
diversity on the language variation—or vice versa, the fact that perceived ethnic borders do
not match with perceived language borders; or moreover that perceived language borders
do not necessarily match with the perceived comprehensibility of other language varieties
(symbolic versus communicative function of language). Hence a possible linguistic borderline
on perceptual language maps could be the limit among social language behaviours.
From this point of view, sociolinguistic studies can be a good tool to draw perceptual
language maps, since quantitative sociolinguistic researches provide the diatopic/diasthratic
variation of the data, whilst qualitative research provides the perception of the variation.
The paper discusses some Želd research case studies, coming from the Eastern and Western
Alps in Italy, to better introduce this kind of perceptual geolinguistic explanation.

Introduction.
This paper focuses on perceptual dialectology,
a branch of linguistics strictly connected with
geography. One of its main goals is to map the
linguistic landscape of a speciŽc region or community1
as it is seen from the inside—that is,
seen from the standpoint of the members of the
communities living there. It attempts to draw
the geographical distribution of language varieties
as it is perceived by the speakers themselves,
and this entails dealing with the notions
of linguistic border and linguistic boundary (for
more general remarks on perceptual dialectology
see Canobbio and Ianna` ccaro 2000b; Ianna`
ccaro forthcoming; Niedzielski and Preston
2000; Preston 1986, 1989, 1993, 1999).
Of course, perceptual dialectology is but one
element of a far broader body of work concerned
with the socio-spatial aspects of language
use. Classical geolinguistic analysis, for
instance, pays particular attention to diatopic
variation of the internal structure of the language,
as well as to the spatial determination of
different types of speech.2 However, because of
methodological issues, geolinguistics does not
consider the social aspect of the language, compressing
all social variation into just one spatial
dimension. In contrast, sociolinguistic’s view of
language reality focuses on the vertical differentiation
among social and demographic
classes, as well as on communicative situations.
Sociolinguistic explanations, nevertheless, are
particularly limited at the diatopic level, and
tend to consider the area under consideration
as geographically homogenous. Perceptual
dialectology, as a ‘border’ discipline of both
sociolinguistics and geolinguistics, particularly
adopts an interpretive, interactional approach
(see for instance Auer and Di Luzio 1984;
Cameron 1995; Duranti 1997; Fasold 1984;
Saville-Troike 1989; Schiffrin 1994).
Crucially, we would argue that perceptual
dialectology—that is, the scientiŽc evaluation
of the speaker’s opinion—can be viewed as a
means of integrating these two perspectives.
This proposal is certainly not new. Many
strands of the geolinguistic literature during
much of the twentieth century have sought to
explore the broader contexts of language usage.
While a speciŽc concern with perceptual
linguistics has developed slowly, nevertheless it
has gained much currency in recent years.
Perceptual dialectology then, in its speciŽc
terms, does not deal either with internal
linguistic variability or with the variation of
linguistic phenomena. Its goal is the study of
the geographical treatment of the variation of
the language itself; in other words, it focuses
on linguistic habits and notions of linguistic
identiŽcation. Indeed, it is an attempt to
explain through cartography some phenomena
that are internal to spatial communities.3 Crucially,
by building on the tenets of perceptual
dialectology, some familiar geolinguistic concepts
take on a partially new shape, particularly
the notion of the language border. Indeed,
it is this well-known theme in geolinguistics
that we seek to explore and re-evaluate in this
paper.

The language border.
Reection upon language borders has been one
of the fundamental characteristics of traditional
linguistic geography (see Aitchison and
Carter 1994; Ambrose 1980; Ambrose and
Williams 1988, 1991; Breton 1976; Laponce
1984; Mackey 1973; Williams 1996).
Some of its methodological instruments,
however, such as isoglosses (a line on a map
showing the boundary of an area in which a
linguistic feature is used (see Crystal 1992)),
have always appeared very weak, even to those
who have never been interested in social or
variational studies. For example, even Pisani, a
traditional neo-grammarian indo-europeanist,
argues that.
Our delimitation of the dialects are always arbitrary,
unless the differences are not between two different
linguistic types, such as Romance and Germanic,
where the lack of mutual comprehension between
monoglot (monolingual) speakers of the two languages
clearly shows the dividing line. In the absence
of this line, the best we can do is to take the type of
a well deŽned centre as a basis (for example, Milan
and Turin) and given the most important distinctive
features, to ascribe to one type or to the other the
local varieties according to these features. Anyhow,
this is only a practical expedient, lacking in theoretical
basis. (1971: 77–78)
Of course, this is not to say that no worthwhile
research has been conducted on the concept of
the linguistic border. Indeed, some excellent
quantitative elaboration based on scientiŽc
principles such as dialectometry has been conducted
in this Želd (see among others Goebl
1982). There is insufŽcient space to explore
these studies in this paper. We consider particularly
fruitful, however, the theoretical and
empirical research that delegates the Žnal
judgement concerning the nature of the linguistic
border to the speakers themselves. In other
words, we believe that much may be gained
through a detailed exploration of ‘the limits of
the experienced life that the bearer of the
linguistic phenomenon has’ (Telmon 1983:
102). Fundamentally, it is the social environment
as a whole that creates language borders,
through people’s experience of them. Of
necessity, this point of view implies that borders
imposed on communities ab ovo do not
exist; on the contrary, it is the community itself
which recognizes its own borders, and which
decides then to Žt in with them.
This theoretical outlook, however, is a major
development from more classical geolinguistic
research—mainly based on Gillie´ron and
Jaberg’s work—which has been focused on
pure intralinguistic features and it is based on
the analysis of geolinguistic maps and atlases
(see, for instance, Garcõ´a Mouton 1994; Pop
1950). Precedents to our theoretical and
methodological perspective can be found in the
linguistic atlas of Itoigawa (Japan), developed,
through Grootaers’ mediation, from Buld and
Weiner’s Flemish school (Ianna` ccaro forthcoming;
see also Goeman 1989; Grootaers
1959, 1964a; Mase 1964a, 1964b). This atlas,
which dates back to the 1950s and 1960s, traces
the linguistic geographies of the subjective
dialectical areas in Japan as they appear in the
informers’ explicit opinions, obtained through
direct interview techniques (see also Ianna` ccaro
1995, forthcoming). The main point here is that
the ‘other’ varieties of language or dialect (different
from one’s own variety, but more or less
contiguous) are always felt to be ‘completely
different’ from one’s own. Work carried out by
Weinen (as quoted in Goeman 1989) in Flanders,
Leonard (1987) in the Vende´e, and de
Paiva Bole´o (1971) in Portugal support this.
Crucially, objective phonetic and grammatical
differentiation between the languages and
dialects4 are not considered: imagined geographies
of difference are far more signiŽcant (on
this broad theme, see Said 1978).
The upshot of this discussion is that there is
often a signiŽcant difference between etic
isoglosses, that is, ‘objective’ boundaries
between areas of different language usage constructed
by outside observers; and the linguistic
emic spaces of the speakers of the language.5 In
fact, in normal communicative situations,
speakers always come in contact with many
varieties that are different from their own from
a diaphasic, diastratic and diatopic point of
view.
To communicate successfully during an
ongoing linguistic event means to be able to
distinguish, often in a very subtle way, between
the different styles of language and dialect that
can be used during a communicative exchange.
Such statements suggest that we need to recognize
the existence of a number of different
borders that intersect in different linguistic situations.
Therefore, to belong to a structured
culture involves (or implies) a reference to different
types of borders (diachronic, diaphasic,
diastratic, and so on), and not only to a diatopic
one.
Consequently, the concept of the ‘language
border’, which, according to some linguists is
in crisis, does not seem to disturb the speakers.
On the contrary, they are incredibly aware of
diatopic variation, and subsequently of ‘other’
varieties. As such, they seem to mark their
whole experience of linguistic space with so
deŽnite and precise boundaries that they may,
to the outside observer, appear disconcerting
(Canobbio 1995: 107). To summarize, therefore,
the speakers and those geolinguists
belonging to the classical school propose a
geographical and spatially deŽned vision concerning
linguistic facts. But speakers’ borders,
even if they are marked in a precise and geographically
determined way, do not match with
the ‘objective’ ones assumed by linguists on the
basis of phonetic and grammatical differences
(see Dell’Aquila 1997).
We believe, therefore, that the perceptual
approach may be useful since it enables us to
explore and penetrate speaker’s statements, and
to test the effective geographical value of his or
her assertions concerning language and dialect
usage. In fact, ‘l’enqueˆ teur est bien la dernie` re
personne a` qui l’on parlera franchement’6
(Chaurand 1968: 20). That is why the so-called
vertical boundaries are concealed to the dialectological
inquiry: the interviewed does not
readily speak with the researcher about the
intra-communitary tensions. Therefore, it is
difŽcult to explore the internal variation within
a given community, either diachronic or diastratic,
or diaphasic, if this last is important
enough to be considered. Rather than elaborating
on these internal variations, we would
argue that respondents tend to focus on linguistic
stereotypes (see Labov 1972; Quasthoff
1987), or the conscious level of linguistic differentiation
(Ianna` ccaro forthcoming). In other
words, it is the speaker’s ideological answer to
the problem concerning borders that carries
with it a hyper-evaluation by the speaker of
diatopic linguistic differentiations.
Therefore, not to analyse the grammatical
linguistic border as it is conceived by the
researcher, as well as the linguistic border as it
is experienced by the speaker—even if it is
necessary to keep these two levels distinct—
seems limiting. However, until recent years,
researchers have tended to pay far more attention
to considerations of the so-called external
boundary, rather than on its perception. Moreover,
no attempt to compare the Žndings of
these two perspectives has been made, although
such attempts would be useful since they could
furnish many fruitful results.

The above discussion, therefore, enables us
to recognize two basic meanings of the term
‘linguistic border’, ones that may imply different
linguistic and dialectological realities:
The more traditional geographical and static
linguistic boundary, which does not consider
other forms of differentiation or any
dynamic process. It is usually related to standard
dialectological works, and has its
linguistic counterpart in the classical
isogloss, which does not take into consideration
the internal structure of the society
speaking the language
-The abstract non-intralinguistic (in other
words, non-grammatical or phonetic, etc.)
border that modiŽes the linguistic vision or
the linguistic behaviour of the speaker
-Those internal and ideological borders are
responsible for the actual linguistic behaviour
of the speaker, but they are perceived as
geographical borders.

We will deal here only with the second kind of
linguistic border. When asking the speakers
about their perception of the linguistic landscape
in which they live, we can obtain different
kinds of responses referring to a wide range
of perceived realities and those responses are—
according to the subject of the question—more
or less inuenced by social and ideological
factors.
So, for instance, when directly asking about
language borders, we obtain classic, ideologically
or socially acceptable answers; in a word,
answers pointing out the perceived symbolic
value of the language (Edwards 1985). Those
are principally diatopic: the main goal for the
speaker being to distinguish very clearly
between the ‘we-group’ and the ‘other-group’
(see Canobbio 1995: 106–107; De Simonis
1984), and, of course, the Žrst division one can
think of is the geographical one. That is why
linguistic variation is most of the time seen as
a diatopic one, clearly overstating the territorial
distinction among different dialects in
neighbouring communities. For the same reason,
internal borders are very frequently
neglected.

By testing the interviewed with indirect hints
about actual language use or situations,7 we
can obtain a different set of data which point
more to the pragmatic linguistic landscape. By
doing this, we are far more likely to obtain
information about the communicative value of
the language (Edwards 1985). These data show
a minor degree of rationalization and are hence
less inuenced by the symbolism of the language
issue; they are also less sharply deŽned
and show more blurred borders. Finally, in the
light of this second type of information, we can
outline the structure that rules the linguistic
behaviour of the community.

Language borders: examples from the Alps.
In this section, we discuss some brief vignettes
drawn from some research we have conducted
in the Alpine region of Italy. Taken together,
these examples help to demonstrate the utility
of perceptual dialectology to the study of language.
The Želdwork consisted of interviews carried
out by the authors following a path which
derives in part from Gould andWhite’s (1986)
instruction for the drawing of ‘mental maps’
and in part from the suggestion of Preston
(1986, 1999). These ‘hints’ have been further
processed within a working group on ‘folk
language borders’ at the University of Torino.8
Given the qualitative structure of the research,
the sample was composed of 40 persons chosen
among the population of the target areas.
These individuals were asked to perform two
basic tasks. At Žrst we asked to draw on a
white paper the position of the informants’
village in relation to the surrounding regions,
in order to understand the extension and the
articulation of their declared mental map. The
second task let them draw lines corresponding
to their perceived language borders (or perceived
language areas) on a simpliŽed geographical
map. Afterwards the interviewed
were asked to answer speciŽc and ideological
questions about language identities in the area.

The Borders of Ladinia.

The Žrst example relates to a perceptual poll
carried out in the Fassa valley. According to the
literature on Romance languages, the region
belongs to the so-called Ladin-speaking areas
of the Dolomites. Geopolitically speaking, this
area, in common with other areas of the northeastern
border of Italy, was part of the Austro-
Hungarian empire until 1919. Along with
Italian, Ladin is (since 1995) the co-ofŽcial
language of this small area, comprising of
seven municipalities and approximately 10,000
inhabitants. More than half of the overall
Ladin-speaking population, however, resides in
the bilingual (German–Italian) Autonomous
Province of South Tyrol, north and west of
Fassa valley, in villages where the ofŽcial and
school languages are Italian, German and
Ladin (Dell’Aquila and Ianna` ccaro 1999; Ian
na` ccaro and Dell’Aquila 2000). The Romance
varieties that lie southward and eastward of the
Fassa valley are closely related to Ladin, but no
ofŽcial status is granted to them, and they are
considered as merely Italian dialects.9 Critical
for our discussion is the neighbouring Alpine
region of Cadore, in which Ladin-like varieties
are spoken but yet was never part of the Empire.
In recent years, an ideological movement
has arisen here re-vindicating the ‘Ladinity’ of
local dialects and folklore.

IMAGE

We can start the discussion by analysing
Figures 1 and 2. Figure 1 demonstrates the
linguistic geographies produced as a result of
asking a group of speakers, placed in front of a
black and white map of the region, ‘can you
draw an imaginary line beyond which you no
longer understand if the local variety is spoken?
’ As we can see, the area of better comprehension
lies to the south of the Fassa valley.
Figure 2, however, represents a map of linguistic
perceptions, based on answers to the question
‘Where is Ladin spoken?’. Very curiously,
but not unexpectedly, Ladin is said to be spoken
to the north and east of Fassa valley.
Southward, it is believed that another language
is spoken, namely Italian and its dialects.

IMAGE.

SigniŽcantly, the two maps seem to depict
different linguistic realities. In particular the
second map is an ideological one. Every inhabitant
of Fassa valley knows (by heart) where the
boundary between Ladin varieties and ‘others’
are: they are taught at school to recognize those
borders on a map. In fact, the area outlined in
the second map tallies well with the received
ideas of ‘Ladinia’, or in other words, the territories
in which Ladins are said to live and in
which Ladin varieties are said to be spoken.
The crucial point we would wish to emphasize
is the difference between the two maps. We
have noted above that Ladin speakers tend to
recognize the fact that most of the easily comprehensible
languages and dialects are located
to the south of the Fassa valley, even though
Fassa valley lies at the southernmost point of
the classical Ladin region. Whilst the second
map represents the symbolic value and ideological
geographies of the language, the Žrst
illustrates the pragmatic linguistic landscape,
or, in effect, the borders of the communicative
value of the Fassan variety.
The examples discussed above clearly shows
that linguists (dialectologists), speakers and
language-behavioural rules do not seem to follow
the same borders. Most particularly, the
language borders as perceived by the speaker
do not necessarily respect the variations of the
internal structure of the languages involved.
Inside the same linguistic continuum, perceived
borders and phonetic-grammatical variations
seem to be following different paths, even if a
high gap in the linguistic structure and typology
of the neighbouring languages can help the
two kinds of border to merge. At the same
time, areas in which people understand the
other’s varieties can easily cross the perceived
linguistic borders.tories in which Ladins are said to live and in
which Ladin varieties are said to be spoken.
The crucial point we would wish to emphasize
is the difference between the two maps. We
have noted above that Ladin speakers tend to
recognize the fact that most of the easily comprehensible
languages and dialects are located
to the south of the Fassa valley, even though
Fassa valley lies at the southernmost point of
the classical Ladin region. Whilst the second
map represents the symbolic value and ideological
geographies of the language, the fiŽrst
illustrates the pragmatic linguistic landscape,
or, in effect, the borders of the communicative
value of the Fassan variety.
The examples discussed above clearly shows
that linguists (dialectologists), speakers and
language-behavioural rules do not seem to follow
the same borders. Most particularly, the
language borders as perceived by the speaker
do not necessarily respect the variations of the
internal structure of the languages involved.
Inside the same linguistic continuum, perceived
borders and phonetic-grammatical variations
seem to be following different paths, even if a
high gap in the linguistic structure and typology
of the neighbouring languages can help the
two kinds of border to merge. At the same
time, areas in which people understand the
other’s varieties can easily cross the perceived
linguistic borders.

Gardenese: Germanic or Romance?

A second example relates to particular language
situations that seem to be considered by
speakers as connecting areas between two language
groups. The Gardena valley represents
such a view. Gardena is ofŽcially a trilingual
valley. Whilst Ladin is the local variety, German
(both High German and Tyrolian substandard)
is the code that holds the highest
prestige. In that area, Ladin is deeply inuenced
by German, especially in vocabulary, but also
in some phonetic items. Spoken languages are
mainly Ladin and German Dialect, but written
ones are predominantly Italian and German.
Interestingly, our informants in the Fassa valley
consider the Gardena Ladin to be a sort of
bridge between Germanic language and
Romance ones. By doing so, they disregard the
Romance character of the Gardenese Ladin,
which is clearly evident. In the same way, in
Badia, the northernmost Ladin area, which is
linked in terms of economy and administrative
purposes to Bruneck/Brunico in the Germanspeaking
Pustertal (see Figure 3), speakers seem
to neglect unconsciously the existence of the
Romance–Germanic border in the north of
their territory. Those speakers state that while
they can understand people speaking a sort of
German Pustertal as well as Romance varieties
of South Tyrol, they also say they do not
understand either Germanic or Romance varieties
in other surrounding areas. In this way
they seem not to have injected any form of
differentiation between Romance and German
(which is very striking for a linguist). Their
perception of ‘understandable’ varieties as
opposed to ‘non-understandable’ ones is simply
based on geographical consideration of proximity.
We still do not have any scientiŽcally
obtained data about the language perception of
the Gardena inhabitants, but our experiences in
the region allows us to suggest that even they
feel their own language to be a link between
the two main areas. We believe that a question
like: ‘Is Gardenese more similar to German or
to French?’ would not give any clear answer,
even among the Gardenese speakers themselves.
It is clear that the peculiar way of life,
the good relationships of the Gardena inhabitant
with the German-speaking population and
their high use of German as a culture language,
are all factors that deeply inuence the perception
and evaluation of the linguistic character
of this group. What is important here is that
regardless of how the thinking has developed, it
only takes linguistic features for the neighbouring
Ladins to state that in Gardena they speak
a highly Germanized Ladin (instead of, say,
stating that in Gardena they ‘feel’ themselves
too Germanic). In other words, differentiation
takes the shape of a linguistic (and more importantly,
spatially deŽnable) stereotype and not
that of a generic negative judgement about the
inhabitants.

IMAGE

Similar linguistic opinions can be found in
the judgements made by Fassa inhabitants
about Cadore, the ofŽcial Italian-speaking area
that lies eastward of the Fassa valley. Commonly
heard statements include the following:
‘They do not speak any Ladin over there, their
way of speaking is much too Italianized’. The
inhabitants of the Fassa valley maintain such
views even though Cadore dialects are much
more easily understandable than Gardenese
ones. Obviously, this is just an unconscious
way of saying that Cadore people are not—and
must not—be part of the Ladin in-group.
Moreover, the opinion towards German is
less negative than that towards Italian, since in
the region German has—for historical, political
and economical reasons—a higher prestige
than Italian. In the mind of the speakers, the
fact that a certain local variety (dialect) is more
or less understandable—at least inside the same
linguistic continuum—does not affect its
afŽliation to one language or another. Instead,
historical, political and especially social reasons
seem to be what attributes a dialect to one
language or to another. Those reasons are then
reected in the pragmatic use of the language.
It is quite common, for instance, that a Fassan
speaker will use Italian to communicate with
people of the adjacent Fiemme valley, and Fassan
with Gardenese speakers, even if the internal
(phonetic, grammatical and lexical)
distance between Fassan and Gardenese is
much deeper than between Fassan and
Fiemmese. Actually, our informants themselves
conŽrm that Fiemmese is much easier to understand
than Gardenese.
In this regard, the conceptual differentiation
between the ‘symbolic value’ and ‘functional
value’ of the language, as theorized by Edwards
(1985), is very fruitful for the explanation of
the linguistic behaviour and the perception of
languages in the Dolomitic area. Furthermore,
it is presumably possible to extend such a
vision to the geographical level, and determine
a ‘symbolic value’ and ‘functional value’ of the
territory. The territory of everyday life—the
focus of a person’s economic and social relationships
(in addition to one’s own village; the
town or the region in which school, health,
commerce and administration facilities are
located; as well as the place where communication
networks are more effective)—does not
necessarily match with the territory of which
one feels to be a part, and within which one
decides to tie one’s aesthetic, emotive feelings
and identity needs.

Sociogeographical variation in the Western Alps.

A further example can be taken from another
valley in the Alps, Val Vigezzo in Piedmont, on
the Swiss–Italian border. Here, Lombard local
varieties and Italian are spoken (the two codes
are not mutually understandable), Italian being
the only written and ofŽcial language (see Ianna`
ccaro 1994, forthcoming). The local dialect
spoken in the village of Coimo has some phonetic
features which help to distinguish it from
neighbouring dialects. For instance, Latin short
O and short E give [ø] in Coimo, but [e] in the
rest of the valley; similarly, Latin CL and GL
give respectively [ky] and [gy] in Coimo, but
[ch] and [j]10 in the rest of the valley. As such,
these two features, along with the existence of
a few archaic words, make a slight difference
(for the linguist) between Coimo and the other
villages. However, the same differences are perceived
as being so signiŽcant by the inhabitants
of Val Vigezzo that they all consider the Coimo
dialect as one which is ‘completely different’
from all the other local dialects. When speakers
are asked about the nature of the differences,
they usually respond by saying that ‘words’ are
distinct in Coimo, and possibly that ‘in Coimo
they just put [ø] in every word’. Respondents
never mention the difference between [ky] and
[ch] or [gy] and [j]. It has actually been proven
that, for speakers, one phonetic stereotyped
and over-generalized variable (for instance,
they put [ø] everywhere), is enough to deŽne
the differentiation between two dialects. This
variable, then, has the potential to hide all
other means of differentiation (see Leonard
1987).
The example of Mrs Giuditta, born and
nurtured in Coimo, but living in Gagnone for
sixty years, is instructive in this respect. In her
own words, ‘every village has its own dialect.
Each village has just one dialect, its own.
Everybody speaks the dialect inside the village’.
But actually she speaks Coimo dialect with her
husband from Gagnone while the husband has
been speaking Gagnone dialect with her for
sixty years. At the same time, she only speaks
Italian with the parson of the parish, even
though he comes from Coimo too, and even
though they used to play together in the same
courtyard as children, speaking the Coimo dialect.
The clear-cut perception of the linguistic
reality shown by Mrs Giuditta (whose behaviour
is shared by the rest of the population of
Gagnone, regardless of age and gender11) does
not seem to match with the pragmatic use of
language in the society in which she lives. In
Gagnone, as in probably all other villages of
the world, in the same house, in the same
family, more linguistic codes co-exist. The
norms ruling the use of these linguistic codes
are to be found in the social structure of the
population and particularly in the different settings
of the single language interactions.
The geographical deŽnition of the language
border seems thus to be a necessary condition
for the classiŽcation of reality—at least for
European people—even when it does not correspond
to the ‘objective’ reality. It seems then to
be clear and unique for all the speakers, independent
of age, social class or so on.
Furthermore, this geographical perception of
language variation has been supported by two
centuries of dialectology for which the static
(geographic) isogloss is a founding principle(Telmon 1983: 101). What a perceptual dialectological
approach can discover, however, are
the internal borders, seen and rationalized by
the speakers as geographical borders. By means
of language, the speaker organizes and systematizes
the surrounding reality. The ‘we-reality’
includes not only the village and the neighbouring
ones, but also all situations in which the
subject comes into contact with the people
living there, and all the language codes he or
she uses to interact with them. Thus the language
not only organizes the geographical
space between the we-group and the othergroup,
but it also arranges the internal structure
of the society.12 Language is the instrument
of cultural differentiation, the Žrst way to state
a perceived variation. A common linguistic
code does not unify different communities; it is
the feeling of belonging to the same community
that makes its members consider speaking the
same language. The border of this language is
thus prominently geographic.

Discussion and conclusions.

Language differentiation deŽnes the border
between the ‘we-group’s’ space and the ‘othergroup’s’
space and at the same time structures
the internal ‘we-group’ space. The stereotype,
which is the diatopic characterization of othergroups,
is the ideological and culturally produced
answer of the speaker to the problem of
linguistic variation—both diastratic and diatopic.
This is the Žrst, most obvious issue on
which the interviewed has rationally thought
about; in other words, that ‘we’ are different
from ‘them’. With regard to social relations, all
linguistic borders have the same practical,
pragmatic and functional value. Language consciousness
(Canobbio and Ianna` ccaro 2000a)
applies to all borders and profoundly inuences
the corresponding linguistic behaviour.
Linguistic behaviour does not follow any
rule that has been determined according to
objective differentiation, but is rather adjusted
to the perceived representation of linguistic
space. In other words, to react adequately to all
communicative situations, linguistic consciousness
has the capability to create evaluation
schemes, which enable the speaker to recognize—
consciously or unconsciously—all kind
of linguistic borders. Only some of these evaluations
are then rationalized as stereotypes.
The ideological aspect of the declared geographical
linguistic border helps to determine
notions of the ‘we-group’ and the ‘othergroup’,
and this evaluation can be made public
and explicitly afŽrmed. The pragmatic aspect
of the linguistic border (actually the recognition
of a network of diastratic and diatopic
boundaries) instead allows the speaker to select
the right linguistic variety and the socially correct
linguistic behaviour. Hence, for the
speaker, the quantitative content of a (linguistic)
border is not really important. He or she
does not quantify the degree of differentiation
between the ‘we-group’s’ speech and the ‘othergroup’s’
speech, which can be characterized by
either major or minor grammatical or phonetic
differences. It is just the others’ way of speaking.
The speaker does not care how the other
actually speaks, or why the other speaks like
that. What is important instead in or at a
language border are the pragmatic considerations
that enable the individual to select the
right code and, furthermore, to allow the
maintenance of the linguistic behaviour rules
inside the ‘we-group’ (see Leonard 1987: 11).
Although the diatopic variable would seem
to be the Žrst and most important variable, in
fact when the interviewees were asked directly
this variable seems to inuence the linguistic
behaviour less than other (social/interactional)
variables. The diatopic variation can—depending
on the sociolinguistic situation of the
area—at most lead to a switch to a completely
different code. The diastratic variation, instead,
induces the speaker to adjust and accommodate
his or her speech to a high variety of codes (up
to the overall switch to a completely different
code) according to precise, but sometimes
unconscious, social rules. It seems thus that the
language border is an ideal boundary among
different linguistic situations. In effect, it represents
the moment of the recognition of the
different language-behaviour situations.
Such perceived language borders are fundamental
in the reconstruction of the linguistic
space of the speaker, the mental map of his or
her community and moreover the ‘actual’ one
(not the declared one). It is the mental map
that teaches the rules for the selection of the
socially appropriate language code. It is, however,
important to interpret it beyond any
merely geographical and static schemes. ‘Die
Grenzen meiner Sprache bedeuten die Grenzen
meiner Welt’, wrote Wittgenstein: The limits of
my language mean the limit of my world.
Actually, language borders, producing linguistic
behaviour rules, give meaning to the pragmatic
linguistic acts and to the social
communicative interactions between speakers.