Go to the project view and click on distribution maps. The distribution maps show the geographic distribution of a chosen variant of a linguistic variable.
We could, for example, ask ourselves: What are the main variants of the pronunciation of the word ‘Georgia’? In the drop down menu of items we choose ‘Georgia’ and click Select item. All variants of this variable (with the number of occurrences in brackets) will be listed. To show a map you can click on one of the variants and then on the button Show distribution map. The map shows in which of the sites the specific variant is used; the darker the color on the map the more frequent use.
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Some of the variants of the word ‘Georgia’ occur only once, while others are frequent. Look at some of the most frequent variants of this variable. Can you identify any geographic areas? Which linguistic features are distinguishing for the different areas? |
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A number of variants, all of them very infrequent, start with a ‘t’ instead of a ‘d’. By pressing the Ctrl button on your keyboard while you click on the variants, you can choose all of them before you click Show distribution map. In which area are the variants starting with a ‘t’ used? |
Another way of selecting multiple variants simultaneously is to use regular expressions. For example, writing ‘t’ in the Regular expression box will automatically select all the variants that have a ‘t’ anywhere in the transcription string.
To make distribution maps of another item, choose the item in the drop down menu and click Select item.
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Look at the distribution maps of the word ‘thousand’. What kind of variation do you find for this item? |