Area

地域

A term used in dialectology for any geographical region isolated on the basis of its linguistic characteristics. The study of the linguistic properties of “areas”-the analysis of the divergent forms they contain, and their historical antecedents-is known as areal linguistics. It is often possible to identify a focal area-the region from which these linguistic characteristics have spread to the area as a whole (as in the case of London)-and several other significant parts of an area have been terminologically distinguished, e.g. the transitional areas which occur between adjacent areas, the relic areas which preserve linguistic features of an earlier stage of development.

方言学用来指根据语言特点划分的地理区域。研究不同“地域”的语言特点（歧异形式和历史渊源等）的学科叫作地域语言学。在一个地域内，经常可以找出一个中心地域——语言特点从这个中心扩散到整个地域（伦敦就是这样一个中心）。另有几种重要的地域用不同术语表示，如过渡地域是两个相邻地域的中间地带，残余地域是保存早期发展阶段语言特点的地域。