Unsexy linguistics is called generative linguistics, and it is inordinately obsessed with rules, formalisms, and things called 'minimal pairs' which are basically like little experiments.
Exhibit 1: minimal pair showing wh-movement in English
Imagine the question to the answer "She loves Cromwell."
(1) *She loves who?
(2) Who does she love?
Findings: The wh-element corresponding to "Cromwell" cannot remain in-situ as the object of "love," but must move to a higher position in the sentence.
Perhaps because of their obsession with principled rules, generative linguists haven't generally paid much attention to cross-dialectal differences. Or at least, not to those distinctive turns of phrase that make it so easy and fun to stereotype people from other places. So I've had to do quite a bit of my own research just to be able to hold my own when doing impressions of British people, Australians, Southerners, and people from the Indian subcontinent.
As a research assistant, I have had the good fortune to come across many different dialects of Spanish, and my imitations are getting pretty good. Here is a sampling from my increasingly vast repertoire (if I may be so bold):
Exhibit 2: dialectal stereotyping
Imagine the response to a statement like "The sky is green."
Schoolbook Spanish: No es cierto.
Nicaraguan: No me digás eso, que a vos no te creo.
Mexican: ¡Ay, guey! No manches.
Dominican: Coño, mujel, pero si tú 'ta loca.
Chilean: Vos estái completamenta alocá, ¿cachái?
Findings: Ha ha! This is fun!
