Elvira Glaser

Crowdsourcing language change with smartphone applications

Crowdsourcing linguistic phenomena with smartphone applications is relatively new. In linguistics, apps have predominantly been developed to create pronunciation dictionaries, to train acoustic models, and to archive endangered languages. This paper presents the first account of how apps can be used to collect data suitable for documenting language change: we created an app, Dialäkt Äpp (DÄ), which predicts users’ dialects. For 16 linguistic variables, users select a dialectal variant from a drop-down menu. DÄ then geographically locates the user’s dialect by suggesting a list of communes where dialect variants most similar to their choices are used. Underlying this prediction are 16 maps from the historical Linguistic Atlas of German-speaking Switzerland, which documents the linguistic situation around 1950. Where users disagree with the prediction, they can indicate what they consider to be their dialect’s location. With this information, the 16 variables can be assessed for language change. Thanks to the playfulness of its functionality, DÄ has reached many users; our linguistic analyses are based on data from nearly 60,000 speakers. Results reveal a relative stability for phonetic variables, while lexical and morphological variables seem more prone to change. Crowdsourcing large amounts of dialect data with smartphone apps has the potential to complement existing data collection techniques and to provide evidence that traditional methods cannot, with normal resources, hope to gather. Nonetheless, it is important to emphasize a range of methodological caveats, including sparse knowledge of users’ linguistic backgrounds (users only indicate age, sex) and users’ self-declaration of their dialect. These are discussed and evaluated in detail here. Findings remain intriguing nevertheless: as a means of quality control, we report that traditional dialectological methods have revealed trends similar to those found by the app. This underlines the validity of the crowdsourcing method. We are presently extending DÄ architecture to other languages.

Documenting sound change with smartphone apps

Crowdsourcing linguistic phenomena with smartphone applications is relatively new. Apps have been used to train acoustic models for automatic speech recognition (de Vries et al. 2014) and to archive endangered languages (Iwaidja Inyaman Team 2012). Leemann and Kolly (2013) developed a free app for iOS—Dialakt App (DA) (>78k downloads)—to document language change in Swiss German. Here, we present results of sound change based on DA data. DA predicts the users’ dialects: for 16 variables, users select their dialectal variant. DA then tells users which dialect they speak. Underlying this prediction are maps from the Linguistic Atlas of German-speaking Switzerland (SDS, 1962-2003), which documents the linguistic situation around 1950. If predicted wrongly, users indicate their actual dialect. With this information, the 16 variables can be assessed for language change. Results revealed robustness of phonetic variables; lexical and morphological variables were more prone to change. Phonetic variables like to lift (variants: /lupfə, lʏpfə, lipfə/) revealed SDS agreement scores of nearly 85%, i.e., little sound change. Not all phonetic variables are equally robust: ladle (variants: /xaelə, xaellə, xaeuə, xaeɫə, xaeɫɫə/) exhibited significant sound change. We will illustrate the results using maps that show details of the sound changes at hand.

Mittelalterliches Code-Switching? Zu den Sprachwechselstrategien Notkers III. von St. Gallen

Notker III., der St. Galler Mönch und Schulmeister, ist in der deutschen Sprachgeschichte bekannt als Urheber einer umfangreichen volkssprachlichen Überlieferung, die zum einen in der großen Mehrzahl ihren Ausgangspunkt in einer lateinischen Vorlage hat, also eine Übersetzung aus dem Lateinischen darstellt, und zum anderen in unterschiedlichem Umfang innerhalb althochdeutscher Passagen lateinische Elemente aufweist. Die so entstandenen komplexen Textensembles, die in der Regel aus lateinischer Vorlage, althochdeutscher Übersetzung und fallweise lateinischen und althochdeutschen Kommentaren bestehen, sind in schulischem Kontext entstanden, wie Ekkehart IV. von St.Gallen in seinem Liber benedictionum ausführt, und sie wurden wohl für ein vertieftes Studium der lateinischen Quellentexte benutzt. Das komplexe Textarrangement hat immer wieder auch Editoren vor enorme Herausforderungen gestellt, wenn sie die verschiedenen Bestandteile graphisch und im Layout erkennbar machen wollten, wie das an dem folgenden Beispiel eines Notker’schen Psalmenkommentars illustriert werden soll, zu dessen differenzierter Darstellung auf verschiedene Schriftauszeichnungen (kursiv, fett, unterstrichen, Farbe) zurückgegriffen wird: