How best to assess similarity and difference between closely related varieties?

What is it about?

Methods for extracting meaningful patterns of variation from different speakers from the same place. We use a dataset taken from recordings in three villages on a small island to show how sociolinguists approach questions about how language features cluster speakers. The question of what the relationship is betwene the individual and groups is also discussed. Different computational methods are used. Graphing networks of features and individuals; plotting of marginalised data; feature relationships within different communities; Bayesian networks showing community distinctiveness; stacked bar charts to visualise temporal changes in use of linguistic features.

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