Nondialect

Nondialect is a term used in linguistics to describe a form of speech that does not align with any identifiable regional or social dialect. It is not treated as a distinct linguistic variety on its own, but rather as a label for speech that lacks salient features typically used to classify speakers into dialect groups. In practice, nondialectal speech may resemble a standard or prestige variety, but it is defined by the absence of regionally clustered phonological, lexical, or syntactic patterns.

The concept is often encountered in sociolinguistic studies that map variation within a language. Speakers who move across regions, receive education in standardized forms, or are exposed to mass media may produce nondialectal speech in some contexts. However, nondialect does not imply uniformity; individual idiolects and cross-context variation still exist, and features of speech can shift with situation, audience, and purpose.

Critics note that the category can be elusive, since all language users display some degree of variation and there may be no clear boundaries between dialectal and nondialectal features. The label can reflect the analyst’s criteria—whether phonological, lexical, or syntactic patterns are considered diagnostic—and can differ across studies. Consequently, nondialect is most often used as a descriptive shorthand rather than a fixed linguistic category.

In related work, researchers may use nondialect to separate standard or nonregional features from regional ones in corpora, fieldwork, or experimental data. See also standard language, dialect, linguistic variation, and language ideology.