Issues of periodization: dialectological thought, methodological development and ideological turns

LTStraipsnio autorės sukurta lietuvių tarmėtyros periodizacija gali būti aptariama ir vertinama keliais pjūviais ir ne vienu aspektu. Nelygu kriterijai. Todėl šiame straipsnyje bandoma sistemiškai pateikti tuos bruožus, kuriais galima apibūdinti visus išskirtuosius lietuvių tarmėtyros laikotarpius. Išskirti trys tokie bruožai – tarmės teritorinio apibrėžtumo, žymėtumo ir santykio su bendrine (ar rašomąja) kalba. Pabrėžtina, kad jie pastebėti dar ikitarmėtyriniu laikotarpiu senosiose lietuvių kalbos gramatikose ir įvairiomis formomis kalbininkų fiksuojami iki mūsų dienų per visą lietuvių tarmėtyros raidą. [Iš leidinio]Reikšminiai žodžiai: Lietuvių dialektologija; Geolingvistika; Tradicinė tarmė; Patarmė; Tarmiškumas; Naujasis tarminis darinys; Regiolektas; Geolektas; Tarminis požymis; Lithuanian dialectology; Geolinguistics; Traditional dialect; Subdialect; Dialecticism; New dialectal derivation (regiolect, geolect); Dialectal feature.

ENThis article aims to systemically present the characteristics inherent to all periods of the Lithuanian dialectology which have been singled out. The author distinguishes three such characteristics - the territorial definability of a dialect, its markedness and its relation with the standard (or written) language. The characteristics were first identified during the pre-dialectological period in the old grammars of the Lithuanian language. They have been recorded in some form by dialectologists throughout the whole period of the Lithuanian dialectology development and are still being traced today. The pre-dialectological period, which can be traced in the early Lithuanian language grammars between the 17th and the first part of the 19th century, is also important to the development of dialectology in general. The history of the Lithuanian dialectology can comprise be divided into at least three stages, different not only in their duration but also in terms of methodologies and ideologies: 1) the beginning of dialectology, the early and late pre-geolinguistic periods (the second half of the 19th century until the end of the 1930s, when the Lithuanian dialectology became an independent discipline); 2) the early and late geolinguistic period (the 1940s until the end of the 20th century). This period was characterised by the classification and illustration of dialects on maps as well as by the compilation of questionnaires and dialect atlases); 3) the neogeolinguistic period (in Lithuania it emerged alongside the sociocognitive and perceptual dialectology at the beginning of the 21st century). These above-mentioned stages of dialectology evolution are not characterised by strict chronology or very coherent order in terms of the timescale, i.e. the division is done mostly according to the attitudes, ideologies and methodologies of the researchers.Therefore, similarly to other countries, works dedicated to the different dialectology periods have been published simultaneously in Lithuania. The pre-geolinguistic period is different from the pre-dialectological one in several ways. The list of the dialectal features in the works of the researchers of the time is more extensive and diverse. In addition, attempts were made to describe and (or) break down the Lithuanian dialects more systemically in accordance with the afore-mentioned features and to find for the most suitable dialectal variant to become the basis of the written Lithuanian language which was being formed at that time. The early geolinguistic period in Lithuania can be described as a stage of systemic collection, accumulation and generalization of the dialectal material. This was first and foremost approached through lexicography. Therefore, the clear dialectological research direction that formed in the first decades of the 20th century was gradually becoming separate from the lexicographic one, as the course was being taken away from the single fact-to-fact synthesis. The period of the dialectal data generalization thus began; which was also the case all over Europe. Following the changes in the historical and political circumstances after the World War II, the Lithuanian dialectology needed at least several decades to recover. All humanitarian sciences, including dialectology, had to be re-oriented in accordance with the standards and requirements of the then USSR. However, due to the efforts of the new-generation linguists preserving the continuity of the inter-war Lithuanian dialectology became possible and this work could carry on despite the new political conditions.A new phase in qualitative research was the creation of the phonological school of Lithuanian dialectology by Aleksas Girdenis, who combined the basic principles of structuralism with a new concept of language and speech. Girdenis’ school distinguished between synchrony and diachrony, paradigmatics and syntagmatics, and applied new research methods such as the distributional analysis, the binary distinctive principles of dichotomous phonology, alongside the traditional provisions and attitudes inherited from the Neogrammarian times - for example, the informants were being selected in accordance with the NORM criteria, whilst the dialects were mostly being analysed by native speaking researchers of their respective dialects. Nomenclature of regional variability has almost always been related to the administrative location nominations: both at the outset of the Lithuanian dialectology and during the present period of modern dialectology. It can be concluded that in this case the paradigmatic turning point has not occurred. It should be noted that during the different periods of the Lithuanian dialectology the observation of dialectal markedness only densifies, the stock of dialectal characteristics gets richer and its systematicity is gradually exposed. However, under the conceptual assessment, the discourse of dialectal markedness is one of the most sustainable keynotes both at the dawn of dialectology and during the stages of paradigm establishment and evolution. The inclusion of the prescriptive aspect into the dialectology discourse has at all times been significantly affected not only the dialectological thought, but in the long run "programmed" the algorithm of erroneous attitude, i.e. to measure a dialect from the standard language perspective. [From the publication]