Moravians in Prague : a sociolinguistic study of dialect accommodation in the Czech Republic.

The thesis reports on the linguistic accommodation of 39 university students from
Moravia (the eastern half of the Czech Republic) living in Prague, Bohemia (the
western part of the Czech Republic). In Bohemia, the informants' highly-localized
native dialects and Standard Czech (SC) - a semi-artificial, archaic and primarily nonspoken
standard with no native speakers - are both stigmatized, although for different
reasons. Consequently, it has been 'hypothesized' that speakers of Moravian dialects
living in Bohemia quickly reduce the frequency of or avoid stigmatized variants of
their localized vernaculars and converge towards the host dialect, Common Czech
(CC). Although a non-standard variety, CC is a semi-prestigious koine that is socially
unrestricted throughout Bohemia and parts of western Moravia and is, according to
some linguists, assuming the role of a national vernacular. However, the 'contact
hypothesis' is based solely on introspective data and is ideologically driven, insomuch
as it is the product of linguists who promote the social and geographical spread of CC.
The present study is the first attempt to systematically describe the results of
dialect contact between speakers of CC and Moravian dialects and to test the above
hypothesis. To my knowledge, it is the first systematic variationist account of
language variation in the Czech Republic. The study combines a quantitative analysis
of six linguistic variables with both qualitative and ethnographic research and it
identifies to what extent speakers of Moravian dialects living in Prague assimilate CC
forms, what route their accommodation takes, and which variants of the host variety
are most likely to acquired or rejected. A primary aim of the study is to describe the
impact of a set of independent social variables on speakers' assimilation of CC forms.
Special attention is accorded to speakers' sex, region of origin, length of residence in
the host community and network integration.