Transcript Document

Variants and Dialects of
the English Language

Standard English, variant, dialect

Main variants of English


Local Variants of English
Pidgin
Standard English



the official language of Great Britain
recognized as acceptable wherever
English is spoken or understood
literary and current English
Local Dialects

varieties of the English language
peculiar to some districts and having no
normalized literary form
Variants

regional varieties possessing a literary
form
Dialects of the Standard
English Language
traced back to Old English dialects
 Northern
 Western
 Midland
 Eastern
 Southern
 Lowland (Scottish or Scotch)
Dialects of the Standard
English Language
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Scottish English (the 2nd place) and
Irish English – variants of English (I.V.
Arnold)
there is literature composed in them
R.Burns (Scottish), Sean O’Casey (Irish)
Dialects of the Standard
English Language
Dialects differ from standard English by:
 phonetic peculiarities
 grammar peculiarities
 lexical peculiarities
Dialects of the Standard
English Language
Cockney – Southern dialect – the regional
dialect of London
 [w] and [v] – wery vell
 [au] and [a:] – house [ha:s]
 rhyming slang – hat is tit for tat
Lexical Peculiarities of
Dialects

dialect words are connected with local
customs, social life, and natural
conditions e.g. loch – Scottish lake,
kirk – church
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names of objects and processes
connected with farm keeping, names of
tools, domestic animals and so on
e.g. shelty – Shetland pony
Lexical Peculiarities of
Dialects
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emotionally coloured words e.g. bonny
– beautiful, healthy-looking, loon – a
clumsy, stupid person
word-building patterns e.g. Irish
diminutive suffixes –an, -een, -can –
bohereen ‘narrow road’
bothar
‘road’
e.g. girl
girleen
Lexical Peculiarities of
Dialects

different meaning in the national
language and the local variety e.g. to
call – in Scottish ‘to drive’, short –
‘rude’
Lexical Peculiarities of
Dialects
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dialect words penetrate into Standard English
e.g. bairn ‘child’, bonny ‘handsome’,
glamour ‘charm’ – from Scottish
e.g. whiskey, blarney ‘flattery’, shamrock
– from Irish
dialect words may be used as technical terms
in literary English e.g. lug ‘ear’ – handle,
cuddy ‘ass’ – jack-saw
Lexical Peculiarities of
Dialects
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dialects are chiefly preserved in rural
areas
in speech of the elderly
used mostly for the purposes of oral
communication
dialects are declining in importance
are used to characterize speech of
personages in books
Variants of the English
Language
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British English
American English
Australian English
Canadian English
Differences between the
Variants
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phonetic peculiarities
grammatical peculiarities
spelling peculiarities
lexical peculiarities
American English
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regional variety of English
has its own literary standard (norms of
speaking and writing) – Standard
American or American National
Standard
American English
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is not a separate language (H.L.
Mencken)
has neither grammar nor vocabulary of
its own
the differences between the variants
are not systematic
American English. Lexical
Peculiarities
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general English – words found on
both sides of the Atlantic
Americanisms – specific of presentday American usage
Briticisms – typical of British English
American English. Lexical
Peculiarities
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general English
e.g. country, nation, language, etc.
a notion may have two synonyms used both
in Great Britain and in the USA. Difference is
in frequency
e.g. post – mail, timetable – schedule post,
timetable are more frequent in Britain
mail, schedule - in the USA
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American English. Lexical
Peculiarities.Americanisms
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historical Americanisms – words
which retained their old meanings
whereas in British English their
meanings have changed
e.g. fall ‘autumn’, to guess ‘think’,
homely ‘ugly’
Americanisms
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proper Americanisms – lexical units
denoting some realia that have no
counterparts in Britain
e.g. junior high school, senior high school
dude ranch ‘a sham ranch used as a
summer residence for holiday-makers
from the city’
Americanisms
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lexical units denoting phenomena
observable in Britain but expressed in a
descriptive way
e.g. campus ‘ grounds of school or
college’
Americanisms
partial Americanisms – polysemantic words typical
of the American variant in one of their meanings
e.g. pavement – ‘street or road covered with a stone,
asphalt, concrete, etc. мостовая – Americanism
‘paved path for pedestrians at the side of the road’ –
Briticism тротуар (Am. sidewalk)
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‘the covering of the floor made of flat blocks of wood,
stone, etc. дорожное покрытие – general English
‘soil’ (geol.) почва – general English
Americanisms
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lexical units that have different
distribution in British and American
variants
e.g. to ride a bike, a horse – British
to ride on the train, to ride in a boat American
Americanisms
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differences in emotional and stylistic
colouring
e.g. politician – ‘someone in politics’ –
British/ derogatory meaning in
American
Americanisms
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American borrowings – words which
reflect the historical contacts of the
Americans with other nations on the
American continent
e.g. ranch, sombrero, canyon – Spanish
wigwam, canoe, toboggan, caribou Indian
Americanisms
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American shortenings – produced in
the USA, represent informal stylistic
strata of vocabulary
e.g. mo – ‘moment’, circs –
‘circumstances’, cert – ‘certainly’
Lexical peculiarities
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usage of prepositions
e.g. I start my holiday on Friday. (BE) – I
start my vacation Friday. (AE)
e.g. a quarter to five (BE) – a quarter of
five (AE)
e.g. to chat to smb (BE) – to chat with
smb (AE)
Lexical peculiarities
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1.
2.
3.
4.
word-building
affixes –ette, -ee, super- e.g.
kitchenette, draftee, supermarket
conversion e.g. to major
major
blending e.g. motel=motor+hotel
shortening and initial abbreviation e.g.
b.f. – boy friend
Local Dialects of the
American English
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Northern
Southern
Midland (North Midland and South
Midland)
Local Dialects of the
American English
differences in pronunciation
e.g. New York dialect – ir in bird, girl; ear
in learn – [oi] – [boid], [goil], [loin]
 differences in vocabulary
e.g. cottage cheese - Standard
American
pot cheese – New York City
Dutch cheese – Inland Northern
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Canadian, Australian,
Indian Variants
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characterized by a high percentage of
borrowings from the language of the
people who inhabited the land before
the colonizers came
lexical units denote some specific realia
of the new country: local animals,
plants, weather conditions, new social
relations
Canadian, Australian,
Indian Variants
local words later on may become
international
 may have several dialects (12 in
Australian)
e.g. shack ‘a hut’, to fathom out ‘to
explain’ – Canadian
bungalow, mango, sari, jute – Indian
dingo, kangaroo, boomerang - Australian
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Pidgin (contact language)

name given to any language created,
usually spontaneously, out of a mixture
of other languages as a means of
communication between speakers of
different tongues
Pidgin (contact language)
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have simple grammars
few synonyms
learned as second language rather than
natively
vocabulary is usually limited to 1500 words
basic vowels like [a], [i], [u], [e], [o]
separate words that indicate tense, usually
before the verb
Pidgin (contact language)
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origin – from the Chinese pronunciation
of the business
Pidgin English (Canton English) –
Chinese-English-Portuguese pidgin used
for commerce in Canton during the 18th
and the 19th centuries
Pidgin (contact language)
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West African Pidgin English – 17th
century – English traders traded with
various West African tribes
Pidgin (contact language)
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Hawaii Pidgin English – created so
that the Japanese, Chinese, Portuguese,
Filipinos, as well as Hawaiians and
Americans could do business
e.g. akamai ‘smart, intelligent’, brah
‘brother’, boddah you? ‘Are you
disturbed by this?, Howzit ‘How are
you?’