Development of quantitative methods of analyzing large-scale dialectal distribution data

2017 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 26370555
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: Japanese linguistics
• Research Institution: National Institute for Japanese Language and Linguistics
• Principal Investigator: KUMAGAI Yasuo 大学共同利用機関法人人間文化研究機構国立国語研究所, 言語変異研究領域, 准教授 (30215016)
• Project Period (FY): 2014-04-01 – 2018-03-31
• Keywords: 日本言語地図 / データベース / 方言分布 / 言語接触 / 言語外情報 / 電子地図 / 計量的分析 / 現象解析

Outline of Final Research Achievements

Linguistic Atlas of Japan (LAJ), whose survey was conducted from 1957 to 1965, is one of the basic research materials capturing the geographical distribution of Japanese dialects in 2400 localities. While nationwide quantitative studies have been conducted on LAJ, most of them used calculations based on the 47-prefecture-unit. We have been developing LAJDB (Linguistic Atlas of Japan Database) to enable us to use the data of 2400 localities on computers. The nationwide "high resolution" patterns of 2400 localities is approximately 51 times the resolution of 47 prefectures. In this study, in order to explore the potential of large scale LAJ data in advancing the quantitative approaches, we prepared the data incorporating important extra-linguistic factors, such as historical road network and time series population distribution, and made some preliminary quantitative observations of LAJ data by utilizing the extra-linguistic factors.

Free Research Field

計量的方言研究，言語地図のデータベース化とこれを用いた方言分布研究