THE PERCEPTION AND EVALUATION OF TERRITORIAL DIALECTS IN INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION OF REGIONAL GROUPS IN THE USA

Abstract

The article is devoted to the problem of perception and evaluation of territorial dialects as indicators of belonging of their carriers in the historically formed regional linguocultural communities of the United States. Deals with the issue of phonetic peculiarities of the dialectic language as an ideal of the signs of the territorial jurisdiction of native speakers in terms of interpersonal communication. The main causes of regional dialects are analyzed. Geographically determined variation of language units within the national norm is considered as an object of perception and evaluation in differentiated according to the socio-economic principle linguocultural communities. All territorial dialects of the United States are recognized by experts as correct in phonological terms and “socially equivalent”. However, as practice shows, many of the spoken variants contain socially-conditioned emotional-evaluative connotation. Social assessment of linguistic changes is manifested in the communicative act with different degrees of intensity. The same spoken options may be perceived as prevailing or stigmatizing in a regional linguistic and cultural context. Two opposite trends in the development of the American linguistic and cultural community at the beginning of the XXI century are analyzed: on the one hand, the desire of the nation to unify the traditions of speech behavior and, on the other hand, to preserve territorial dialects as artifacts of national culture.