Perceptual regions in Poland: An investigation of Poznań speech perceptions

Abstract

In this paper, ideas from perceptual dialectology, linguistics of speech, and cognitive science are drawn upon to explain the perceptions of others’ speech. The perceptual map task, based on Preston’s “Draw-a-map methodology,” was collected from 215 respondents in Poland and transformed into result maps. The second step in the analysis of the perceptual maps was to collect all of the labels that were assigned to the perceived speech varieties around the country. Those two facets of the data show how the idea of connecting speech with a specific locality can be observed quantitatively. The results propose an explanation of the distribution of speech perceptions in Poland. The shape of the perceptions is created through activating gestalt processes to arrive with an observational artifact. Those are based mostly on the concept of geography facilitated by shared cultural schemas. All of those steps lead to a creation of multidimensional perceptual regions.