LELA 10082 Varieties of English

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LELA 10082Varieties of English

• Harold Somers
• Professor of Language Engineering
• Office Lamb 1.15

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Varieties of English

• The aim of this course is to show you how English
  varies regionally and socially, and to introduce
  you to the basic methods and concepts required
  for the study of language variation and change in
  progress.
• Accents and dialects
• Style and register
• Case studies, but also methods and concepts

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Topics

• Language, dialect, idiolect
• Languages in contact
• speech communities
• regional and social variation
• language change
• language and society
• Describing language/dialect differences
• phonology, lexis, grammar
• Studying dialects how is data gathered and
  analysed?

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Topics (cont.)

• Style and register
• Language use is defined by purpose as well as
  region
• Language codes marked by lexis and grammar
• LSP, sublanguage
• Can we measure style?
• Literary stylistics authorship studies
• Forensic linguistics

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Reading matter

• Readings will be recommended in connection with
  specific topics
• Some main recommendations
• A. Hughes, P. Trudgill and D. Watt. English
  Accents and Dialects An introduction to social
  and regional varieties of English in the British
  Isles. (4th edition) London (2005) Hodder Arnold.
• P. Trudgill. Dialects. London (1994) Routledge.
• R. Wardhaugh. An introduction to
  sociolinguistics. (2nd edition) Oxford (1992)
  Blackwell
• N. Coupland and A. Jaworksi (eds)
  Sociolinguistics A reader and coursebook.
  Basingstoke (1997) Macmillan. contains various
  articles which will be mentioned later

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Assessment

• No coursework
• Multiple-choice exam in summer
• Dont look at last years exam
• I have taken over this course
• My syllabus is quite different from last years
• Questions will be based on material covered in
  lectures

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Lecture notes

• Lecture notes will be available on website
• http//personalpages.manchester.ac.uk/staff/harold
  .somers/LELA10082/
• Alternatively
• Go via School home page
• Or via search engine

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Language, dialect, idiolect

• What is a language? What is a dialect?
• What language do you speak?
• Are A and B the same language?
• Are A and B different dialects of a single
  language?

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Language, dialect, idiolect

• Everyone speaks differently, in their own
  individual way idiolect
• In fact the way you use language differs from
  moment to moment (more on that later in the
  course)
• Your idiolect will be characterized by phonetic,
  lexical and grammatical features

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Language, dialect, idiolect

• Some phonetic features (and to a lesser extent
  lexical and grammatical) will be wholly
  idiosyncratic (eg voice quality)
• Others will identify your accent and dialect,
  which may be sufficiently similar to other
  peoples idiolects that you say you speak the
  same dialect (or with the same accent)
• Similarly, various accents/dialects are
  identified as being the same language

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Accent vs dialect

• Accent generally refers only to phonetic
  differences
• Dialect usually means differences on all
  linguistic levels
• Phonetic
• Lexical
• Grammatical
• Pragmatic

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Standard vs non-standard

• For many languages, one or another variety is
  recognised as standard
• Other varieties may be referred to as dialects,
  or just non-standard varieties
• Often, non-standard varieties are more or less
  stigmatised
• As linguists, we should not make value judgments,
  though as sociolinguists we may report other
  peoples value judgments

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Standard vs non-standard

• Everyone has an accent
• Why are some varieties of English perceived to be
  better, or more correct?
• Likewise, why are some accents believed to be
  uglier than others?
• Important to distinguish objective facts about
  accents and dialects, and subjective opinions
• And notice how perceptions about accents impinge
  on their use features of prestigious accents
  spread to other accents

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Standard vs non-standard

• For many languages, the standard is the local
  dialect of some prestigious region, typically
  (though not always) the capital
• Not the case for English, which has a
  non-regional standard, called RP (received
  pronunciation)
• RP is a variety of southern English, but is not
  the local accent of London, nor Oxford or
  Cambridge (or anywhere else)
• More on RP later

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Language and dialect

• Whether two varieties are dialects, or separate
  languages is never clear-cut
• Criteria for same language may include
• Mutual intelligibility
• Political, geographical or racial identity
• Historical identity
• Measurable similarities in lexis and grammar

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Some borderline examples

• Swedish, Norwegian x2, Danish linguistically and
  politically distinct but mutually comprehensible
• Serbian, Croatian (erstwhile Serbo-Croat)
• Hindi, Urdu writing system and some vocab
  differences, poltical and religious divide since
  1947
• English(es) of England, Scotland, America
  written form m.i., some accent and dialect
  differences make understanding difficult
• Dutch, Flemish as (dis)similar as BrE and AmE
  but seen as different languages
• Chinese actually quite distinct languages
  described as dialects due to western bias and
  ignorance

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Language and dialect

• Geographical and social factors
• Changing attitudes to accents and dialects
• Languages/dialects influence each other
• How to describe differences?
• How to observe and measure differences?

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The next few lectures

• RP What is it? Who speaks it? How has its
  status changed?
• Accents of English
• How do they differ?
• How do we characterise them?
• Whats special about your accent?
• How do specialists recognise accents?
• How can you learn to do a good X accent?