Folia Linguistica 44/1 (2010), 31–52. issn 0165-4004, e-issn 1614-7308 © Mouton de Gruyter – Societas Linguistica Europaea doi 10.1515/flin.2010.002 Hypervernacularisation and speaker design: A case study 1 Juan Antonio Cutillas-Espinosa, a Juan Manuel Hernández-Campoy a & Natalie Schilling-Estes b a University of Murcia, b Georgetown University In dialect contact situations, hyperdialectisms are a common form of hyper- adaptation. hey are the result of the production of overgeneralised forms in non-standard dialects due to bad analysis. hey occur either because of insuicient knowledge about a given linguistic feature or because of excessive efort to show vernacular identity. Adopting the framework of Speaker-Design heory, which assumes that speakers mould their speech to project a particular image, the present article shows the use of the related phenomenon of hypervernacularisation. his refers to non-standard forms used correctly, though inappropriately, according to socio-demographic and/or stylistic parameters. hough both hyperdialectism and hypervernacularisation are linguistic processes resulting from dialect contact, hyperdialectism is related to incorrectness, whereas hypervernacularisation is associated with inappropriateness. he unexpected use of vernacular forms by an upper-class speaker in non-informal contexts appears to be a strategy to project downward social mobility and a working-class image. Keywords: hyperadaptation, hyperdialectism, hypervernacularisation, style shiting, speaker design, standardness/non-standardness, overt/covert prestige models 1 Financial support for this research was provided by Fundación Séneca (02914/ phcs/05) of the Autonomous Region of Murcia, the Spanish Ministry for Science and Innovation (Dirección General de Programas y Transferencia del Conocimiento, Sub- dirección General de Proyectos de Investigación; grant hum2006-0588/filo), and the European Regional Development Fund. For comments on an earlier version we would like to thank Peter Trudgill, Malcah Yaeger-Dror, Lauren Hall-Lew, Stavroula Tsiplakou, David Britain and the editorial team and anonymous reviewers for Folia Linguistica.