Language use and place attachment – an exploratory data analysis
In recent years, there has been an emerging focus on how to quantify the interrelationship between language use and place attachment (e.g. Carmichael 2023, Monka et al. 2020, Casey 2016). These studies use different methods and different data but the overall finding is that the stronger the individual is tied to their place of residence, the more likely they are to use dialect features.
Monka et al. (2020) suggest a quantitative Index of Local Attachment (ILA) based on eight factors relating to the speakers’ past, present, and future place attachment. This study found some correlation between high ILA scores and the use of dialect features among 28 young speakers from a rural part of Southern Jutland, Denmark, in an interview with a dialect speaking interviewer.
Using data from the same set of speakers, the present study tests a new set of methods that enables us to nuance the understanding of speakers’ language use, their place attachment, and the interrelationship between the two. Concretely, we perform a Multiple Factor Analysis (MFA), which allows us to explore the structure of and relationships between several sets of data relating to individuals (Husson et al. 2017, Pagès 2015). Our analysis targets three sets of variables: the speakers’ use of dialect features when talking to a dialect speaking interviewer, their use of dialect features when speaking to a standard speaking interviewer (see Monka & Hovmark 2016), and the eight factors relating to place attachment. The two set of variables relating to language use are used as active variables in the analysis, whereas the variables relating to place attachment are used as supplementary variables.
The MFA initially explores patterns in the data related to the active variables, allowing us to create a profile of the language use of each speaker in the two interview settings. In both settings we find that variation in language use can be understood in two dimensions. The first dimension covers the extent to which they use dialect features at all; the second dimension covers the extent to which they use particular features. The MFA then explores relationships between the patterns found in the two settings. This allows us to quantify both how and how much the speakers code-switch. This gives us a more comprehensive understanding of the structured heterogeneity in the speakers’ use of dialect than previous studies.
In addition, the MFA explores patterns relating to the supplementary variables, which enables us to create a profile of each speakers’ place attachment. This allows us to understand how past, present, and future attachment interrelate, rather than treating it as a monolithic score and thus glossing over socially significant distinctions. In a final step of this analysis, we quantify the degrees to which the dimensions of variation relating to place attachment correlate with the dimensions of variation relating to language use. This is interesting because previous research has demonstrated that young people who eventually become geographically and socially mobile use fewer dialect features than their non-mobile peers even before leaving (Monka 2013).

Keywords: dialect, place attachment, Danish, data analysis, Multiple Factor Analysis

References:
Casey, Christina Schoux. 2016. Ya Heard Me? Rhoticity in Post-Katrina New Orleans English. American Speech 91:2. 166-99
Carmichael, Katie. 2023. Locating Place in Variationist Sociolinguistics: Making the Case for Ethnographically Informed Multidimensional Place Orientation Metrics. Journal of Linguistic Geography 11:2. 65-77
Husson, François, Sébastien Lê, Jérôme Pagès. 2017. Exploratory Multivariate Analysis by Example Using R. CRC Press
Monka, Malene. 2013. Sted og sprogforandring – en undersøgelse af sprogforandring i virkelig tid hos mobile og bofaste informanter fra Odder, Vinderup og Tinglev [Place and language change - an investigation of real time language change among mobile and non-mobile informants from Odder, Vinderup and Tinglev]. PhD-thesis. Department of Nordic Research, University of Copenhagen. Publ. in Danske Talesprog 13, 1-356. Museum Tusculanum Press: Copenhagen
Monka, Malene & Henrik Hovmark. 2016. Sprogbrug blandt unge i Bylderup anno 2015 [Language use among young people in Bylderup anno 2015]. Danske Talesprog 16: 73-114
Monka, Malene, Pia Quist, and Astrid Ravn Skovse. 2020. Place Attachment and Linguistic Variation – A Quantitative Analysis of Language and Local Attachment in a Rural Village and an Urban Social Housing Area. Language in Society: 173-205
Pagès, Jérôme. 2015. Multiple Factor Analysis by Example Using R. CRC Press