Transcript The History of English - Texas A&M University

Dialects
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Dialects are a natural phenomena
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No human language is uniform, fixed or unvarying
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Dialects vary from group to group, individual to
individual and within the same individual
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No one dialect is any more correct, any better, or more
logical than any other dialect of a language. No dialect
is more grammatical than another; All dialects are
equally effective in that they can express the same
idea or thought.
What is a dialect?
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Popularly dialects are described as ungrammatical forms
that deviate from the standard, as substandard or corrupt
forms of a language. An attempt to define a dialect this way
is a form of prejudice towards its speakers.
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In linguistic terms a dialect has been described as one of the
many varieties of a language, as a mutually intelligible and
distinct form of a language.
–Note however that this concept is questioned by the existence of
cases such as Cantonese (southern dialect) and Mandarin
Chinese (Beijing dialect), two mutually unintelligible dialects of
Chinese
–Two languages may be intelligible and yet not considered
dialects. This is the case of Portuguese and Spanish (one-way
intelligibility) or Tohono O’odham and Akimel O’odham (mutual
intelligibility).
Types of Dialects
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The Standard: This is the dialect of the institutions, of
education, religion, government. It is considered the
“correct” and “pure form” of a language. Language
academies and language grammarians attempt to provide a
prescriptive description of this variety.
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Regional dialect: Distinct form related to a geographical area
(Appalachian English, New York English)
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Ethnic dialect: Variety associated with a cultural or ethnic
group (Hispanic
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Social dialect: Form associated to a social group –working
class dialect, middle class speech.
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Idiolect: Form of a language spoken by an individual which
also varies according to the situation –different registers.
Dialects of American English based on migratory
patterns
The main dialect areas of the US can be traced to the migrations
of English speaking people to America from the British Isles
during the colonial period (1607-1775) and to subsequent
migratory patterns
These are some important prior events:
Modern Sociolinguistics has divided the dialects of American
English into five main dialect areas, based the vowel system:
North Central, Inland North, Midland, West and South.
Dialect areas of American English based on the Vowel
System
(Main researcher: William Labov, University of Pennsylvania)
These are some examples of vowel differences
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Some people have distinctive pronunciations in pairs of words such
as caught and cot or dawn and Don while others pronounce them
identically. This merger is typical of the Inland North, a region of
large cities surrounding the Great Lakes and spread out through
upper New York State.
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In the southern area of the country, creek is pronounced with a
tense (diphthongized) i /krik/ and in the north Midlands it is
pronounced with a lax I as /krIk/.
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Some pronounce Mary, marry, merry identically. While others
pronounce all three words differently as /meri/, /mæri/ and /mεri/
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One of the most outstanding features of the south is the
monophthongization of /aj/ into /a/ syllable final and before
voiceless consonants as in ‘buy’ /ba/.
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Many speakers of American English pronounce pin and pen
identically, whereas others make a distinction as /pIn/ and /pεn/.
The only type of unconditioned merger (affecting the phonemes
wherever they appear) is the collapse of the distinction between the
short /o/ of cot, hock, Don and the long open /oh/ of caught, hawk, and
dawn.
The most widespread conditioned mergers concerns the distinction
between /i/ and /e/ before /m/ and /n/, as in pin vs. pen, him vs. hem.