On the types of regional variation of the linguistic norm

The paper presents an overview of research on the issue of the linguistic territorial differentiation in the orthological aspect. It is revealed that linguists distinguish three types of regional variation with regard to the linguistic norm: 1) the coexistence of separate locally marked units in one system of norms; 2) the divergence of diatopic orthologic complexes; 3) the interaction between normative linguistic manifestations and their non-normative dialectal varieties in the national language. Special attention is paid to the orthological approach to the study of regional variation in Soviet and Russian linguistics. The author considers the usage of localisms in modern Russian mass communication.