An Exploration of Dialect Recognition by researchers through examining non-linguists reactions to Spoken language: Kurdish dialects as an illustration

Abstract

Regional dialects and accents have been generally studied and examined in English dialects recognition and perception in folk linguistics. Nevertheless, it is widely argued that a limited number of researches have been carried out concerning this problem particularly  regarding the recognition of the Kurdish main dialects : Northern Kurdish , Central Kurdish, Southern Kurdish and Goran Dialect isoglosses by non-specialists people. Thus, the current qualitative and quantitative investigation will explain the most significant approaches, studies and practical academic implications for non-linguists’ reactions to spoken language recognition in general with highlighting the main reasons for perceptual dialectology as a whole and presenting the findings of 50 Kurdish male and female second and third students of English Department , Faculty of Arts , Soran University in 2019, by taking advantage of an Approach well-known as Mental Mapping Methodology ,which has already been used by Preston (1982 , 1993) and Demirci (2002). It has been hypothesized that when there are different factors of mass media, mobility, experience and awareness available, then the informants from both genders - male and female in the English Department will be able to perceive regional dialects and accents better.