Relevance of Research

a. In conclusion, it can be stated that the field of linguistics is in dire need of introducing complex geographic concepts and quantitative methodology to the discussion of the distribution of linguistic variation, especially in dialect syntax. The proposed research will considerably support a specification of spatial perception in dialectology. It establishes the groundwork for a closer cooperation between dialectology and GIScience – an extraordinarily relevant topic: „Linguistics is thus especially connected to Geographic Information Systems, a connection which will be of increasing importance in the coming years.“ (Lameli et al., 2010: xviii).