Verbal Behavior between Freedom and Necessity

An attempt is made to demonstrate how the freedom of linguistic choices & the necessity of giving culturally correct answers to different sociocultural stimuli pattern speakers' language behavior. Data collected in 20 communes of the Teleorman county, & its capital Alexandria, Romania, for Costin Bratu's et al Texte dialectale. Muntenia III ([Dialectal Texts: Muntenia. Volume 3), Bucharest, 1987) are analyzed for language behavior of interviewees (N unspecified) interacting, in their local dialect, with the interviewer who spoke Standard Romanian. A list of dialectal features persistent in the informants' speech is compiled, concluding that such variables as the interview situation, speaker education, the topic discussed, & the interlocutor's social status had no effect on the interviewees' choices of linguistic code, indicating that their dialectal speech meets all the communicative needs & satisfies all the necessity of expressing themselves adequately in their local variety. Thus, the freedom of electing a linguistic repertory was not affected by communicative necessities. 17 References. Z. Dubiel