Sociolinguistics

Chapter 6

Regional and Social Dialects

Regional variation

International varieties

PronunciationExample 2

VocabularyAustralia – sole parentBritain – single parentNew Zealand – solo parent

GrammarExample 3

Regional variation

Intranational or intra-continental variation Britain

Example 4 United States

Northern, Midland, Southern Australia and New Zealand

Less variation in English than in Maori

Regional variation

IsoglossesThe boundary lines that mark regional variation

Dialect chainsExample 5

Language vs. Dialect

What is a language?

What is a dialect?

Activity 6.1

Look at the use of the word ‘language’ in the four sentences. Try to work out the sense of the word in each sentence.

What is a language?

1 Chinese is his native language.2 When the teacher spoke to the class, the

language she used was very informal.3 If you want to know the rules of the language,

you should get a good grammar book.4 In England the language they speak is called

English; in China the language they speak is called Chinese.

What is a language?

1. The word ‘language’ is used in different ways by different people, e.g., writers, journalists, educationalists, teachers and linguists.

2. The meaning of the term ‘language’ is often very vague.

3. The meanings of ‘language’ often overlap.

Dialect

A regionally or socially distinctive variety of a language, identified by a particular set of words and grammatical structures. […] Any language with a reasonably large number of speakers will develop dialects. (Crystal, 1980)

More on dialect

“The term ‘dialect’ has generally been used to refer to a subordinate variety of a language. For example, we are accustomed to saying that the English language has many dialects.” (Romaine, 1994)

West Germanic Dialect Continuum

Netherlands Germany

German dialectsDutch dialects

German

Dutch

What makes a language?

Linguistic factors? Pronunciation Vocabulary Grammatical system

Mutual intelligibility?

What makes a language?

‘A language is a dialect with an army and navy.’ (Weinreich)

Language has a political dimension

Language is political, not a linguistic categorisation

What makes a language?

The Dutch dialects are heteronomous with respect to standard Dutch, and the German dialects to standard German. (Chambers and Trudgill, 1980: 10-11)

Influence of political factors on languages

Yugoslavia

Under communism,

Serbian and Croatian Serbo-Croatian

After civil war,

Serbo-Croatian Serbian and Croatian

Languages in Hong Kong

Languages in Hong Kong

Activity 6.2

Do languages develop from dialects or do dialects develop from languages? Answer this question from the perspective of Crystal, then Weinreich.

Variety/Code

Sociolinguists use the term variety (or sometimes code) to refer to any set of linguistic forms which patterns according to social factors.

Social dialects

Social dialects are varieties which reflect people’s social backgrounds: social prestige, wealth, education, occupation, income level, residential area.

Received Pronunciation (RP)

A prestigious social accent used by less than 5% of the population in Britain

Figure 6.2

Figure 6.3

Social dialects

Vocabulary

U vs. Non-U in 1950s England Pronunciation

[h]-dropping

Example 12

Figure 6.4

[in]

Table 6.2 Grammatical patterns

Department Store Study

Sociolinguistic study by William Labov in 1960’s

The phrase fourth floor was elicited from sales people at three department stores

Rise and fall of r

New York City was r-pronouncing in 18th century r-less in 19th century until World War II r-pronouncing again after World War II The prestigious New York dialect (and Standard

American English) is now rhotic

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W68VaOuY6ew

The Battleground

High prestige: Sak’s Fifth Avenue

Middle prestige: Macy’s

Low prestige: S. Klein

Percentage of r-use

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

Saks Macy's S.Klein

% of r-use

R-results

Social variation

Sak’s > Macy’s > S. Klein

floorwalkers > salesclerks > stockboys Gender

women > men Age

younger > older Level of formality

more “r”s in careful pronunciation

Arbitrariness

There is nothing inherently bad or good about the pronunciation of any sound.

The different status of [r]-pronunciation in different cities illustrates this point.

Figure 6.5

Social dialects

Grammatical patterns

Vernacular present tense verb forms

Figure 6.6

Figure 6.7

References

Chambers, J.K. and P. Trudgill. (1980). Dialectology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Crystal, D. (1980). A first dictionary of linguistics and phonetics. London: André Deutsch.

Labov, W. (1972b), Sociolinguistic patterns, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

Romaine, S. (1994). Language in society: An introduction to sociolinguistics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.