Ethnic , Gender and Other Dialects

African American English (AAE)

Phonological DifferencesR-deletion

guard = god, sore = saw, poor = paL-deletion

all = awe, help = hepNeutralization of [I and [E] before nasals (intermediate sound)

pin = pen, ten = tinLoss of interdental fricatives

Ruth = roofBrother = broverThis = disThat = dat

Syntactic DifferencesDouble negatives

“he don’t know nothing”“he don’t got none”

Deletion of the verb “to be”He is nice. = He nice.I am gonna do it. = I gonna do it.

Habitual “be”Sarah is happy. = Sarah be happy.( Sarah is a always a happy person)He is late. = He lateHe is always late. = He be late.

Latino/Hispanic/Chicano English

Phonological DifferencesSubstitution of the Spanish 5 vowel system for the English 11 vowel

systemship & sheep = sheeprid and read = read

Interchangeability of sh and chshow = chocheck = sheck

Devoicing some consonants easy = isiguys = gais

Final consonant cluster simplificationwar and ward = warstar and start = star

Consonant substitutionth = t (thin = tin)th = d (they = dey)

Addition of e sound at beginning of s wordsschool = eskoolstart = estart

Latino/Hispanic/Chicano English

Syntactic Differences:

Double negatives“he don’t know nothing”“he don’t got none”

Use of more for move often

Use of out from for away from

Styles and Registers

• Situational dialects that are used in different roles and in differing social situations.

• Informal vs formal

EG. Tu vs usted in Spanish

Motherese with young children

Slang

• An informal set of alternative vocabulary and/or meanings

• Including:– Recombining existing words in new ways to

create meanings (“spaced out”)– Introducing new words (zonked)– Attaching new meanings to existing words

(“to text”)

Jargon/Argot

• A set of vocabulary that is used in a specified limited technical, professional or occupational context.

• EG. The vocabulary that you have been learning in this class that is used by specialists in Linguistics: phoneme, morpheme, phonetics, phonemics, morphology, syntax, semantics, grammar, etc.

Taboo Language vs Euphemisms

Taboo = language that should not be used in polite situations

Euphemism = a word that replaces a taboo or unpleasant word

Class Exercise

Why Use Taboo Language? Why Use Euphemisms?