The Queen's University of Belfast

For linguistic geography we are creating a new paradigm within the electronic mode, user-generated linguistic maps. Our two prototypes treat different areas, one for part of Scotland and the other for part of the United States; the programs respond to the requirements of different survey designs, one moderate in size and the other very large. We illustrate how the programs work and how they differ; we discuss some of the difficulties we have had to overcome to produce them; finally, we speculate about their potential. 1. Electronic Atlas Although dialectologists have been using the computer as a tool in linguistic map making for some time, most such efforts have been directed towards the publicatio