American Dialects
...pective, the familiar yardstick of classifying language varieties by “mutual intelligibility” (and using other strictly linguistic factors) recedes in importance, making way for political and cultural distinctions (Trudgill 1995: 4). For example, although Standard Dutch and Standard German are both of Germanic origin, the distinction made between them is not usually considered problematic. Most people, laymen and academics alike, would agree that Dutch and German are two separate and distinct languages. They are both standardized, have distinct literary traditions, and its speakers are bound together by common social, political and historical traditions. Additionally, fluent comprehension of the one does not necessarily mean fluent comprehension of the other, although some similarities may exist. Mutual intelligibility (or unintelligibility) as a criterion for classifying languages applies here unproblematically, but becomes a dilemma when comparing language varieties adjacent to the Dutch-German border. Trudgill (1995) points out that these varieties on each side of the border are rather similar linguistically and that all the speakers in this region can reasonably understand each other. In which case, classifying these varieties as either German or Dutch will of course have to be done via political and cultural factors. Trudgill (1995) has introduced a useful way of conceptualizing language varieties to account for the more problematic ones: one may consider them either autonomous or heteronomous (4). Standard Dutch and Standard German are considered autonomous (i.e., they are separate languages), for the several reasons stated above. The language variety on the Dutch side of the border is considered a dialect of Dutch due to its heteronomy in relation to Standard Dutch, despite its mutual intelligibility with the language variety just across the border. These speakers are likely to read, write, watch television, and conduct government business in Standard Dutch. Likewise, the variety on the German side is considered a dialect of German because of its heteronomy in relation to Standard German: its speakers read, write, and watch television in Standard German. That is, both varieties have been “politically defined as different” (Brown and Attardo 2000: 88). A pivotal point to keep in mind in trying to define language and di...