Dialect Test
The Dialect Test was created by A.J. Ellis in February 1879, and was used in the fieldwork for his work "On Early English Pronunciation". It stands as one of the earliest methods of identifying vowel sounds and features of speech. The aim was to capture the main vowel sounds of an individual dialect by listening to the reading of a short passage. All the categories of West Saxon words and vowels were included in the test so that comparisons could be made with the historic West Saxon speech as well as with various other dialects.
Dialectician
Historically, dialecticians and dialectical thought have been primarily associated with Marxism, as the philosophical grounding of Marxism is based on a materialist interpretation of Hegelian dialectic. However, individuals widely recognized as dialecticians exist outside of Marxism. Indeed, dialectic is at least as old as Plato, who argues that it is the process by which one ascends the divided line (cf. "Republic" book VI) to reach the "unhypothetical first principle of everything." Plotinus, too, argued that dialectic was necessary in order to become Intellect, the second hypostasis, in the soul's search for the One.