ABSTRACT
This chapter explores how sociophonetic study informs and enhances our understanding of dialectal variation. While sociophonetics emerged from within traditional dialectology to mature into a distinct discipline in the late twentieth century, we argue that the two are reconverging due to their complementary, mutually beneficial agendas. In three stages, we review literature related to the interactions between sociophonetics and dialectology, first with an emphasis on “socio-,” next emphasizing “phonetics,” and finally highlighting recent studies in “dialect” that rely on mapping and visualization. Emerging trends based on large-scale data are illustrated with a case study on distinct patterns of regional variation in mid vowels in Standard Italian. Looking toward the future, we argue that a collaborative approach between sociophonetics, dialectology, and other areas of linguistics can benefit our theories of language variation and use.
