Особливості сприйняття та розрізнення говорів української мови з погляду перцептивної діалектології (на основі анкетування, проведеного у м. Чернівцях)

To the best of our knowledge, the present paper is the first to analyse the Ukrainian language within the framework of perceptual dialectology. It is based on a questionnaire conducted in Chernivtsi, in which students of English and Ukrainian philologies were given a map of Ukraine with nineteen major cities marked on it, and asked to indicate regions “where people speak differently”. Analysis of their answers reveals certain peculiarities in their perception of dialectal differences within Ukrainian, but also suggests that those differences were viewed as secondary to the degree of prevalence of Russian in various regions. The paper is divided into four sections. The first section briefly introduces the main concepts and achievements of perceptual dialectology, a sociolinguistic paradigm introduced by D.R. Preston in 1980s and 1990s, whose interest lies primarily in how non-linguists perceive various dialects and differences between them. Also mentioned is the technical side of the draw-a-map method employed in the present paper, together with references to fuller descriptions. The second section presents the questionnaire that was used to collect the data, as well as the social profile of the interviewed group. Almost all of the 90 interviewees were women younger than 30, students, the majority born and raised either in the Chernivtsi or in the Ivano-Frankivsk oblast. Nearly a half has completed a course in Ukrainian dialectology. The third section presents and discusses the results of our research. A comparison of the map compiled from individual questionnaires, with a map of dialectal boundaries in Ukraine, as well as with the distribution of Ukrainian vs Russian speakers, suggests that the interviewees attached considerably more weight to the latter distinction – although exceptions are also clearly visible. Most answers follow fairly closely one of five patterns; the choice of the pattern, or how closely it was followed, does not correlate with the place of birth or any other social characteristic of the interviewees. It can also be observed that several cities have a strong tendency to be marked, or not marked, together; interestingly, all lie in the east of Ukraine. The completion of a course of Ukrainian dialectology appears to have had little impact on the answer. Lastly, the fourth section contains a brief summary together with conclusions for future research.