Regional Social Dialects

Week 4 Lecture
Regional & Social Dialects

WHAT CAN YOU TELL ABOUT THE
CHARACTERISTICS OF THESE SPEAKERS?

Notes on Examples
 Reasonable (even accurate) guesses about speaker’s various characteristics
e.g. socio-economic or educational background esp. for English accents in Britain

• With distinctive regional accent  origin even from short utterance

Holmes (2008) p. 127

3

Characteristics of Speech
• Remember? No two people speak the same!
– ∞ sources of variation
e.g. even single vowel is pronounced in different ways!

• Some features shared by groups become important because they differentiate groups

Holmes (2008) pp. 127-8

4

Functions of Speech Characteristics/
Features within Languages
1. Like different languages, serve unifying & separating function for speakers
– separating function: pronunciation, grammar & vocabulary of Scottish speakers of English vs whom from England
– though varied within, some features perform overall unifying function

2. Provide social info.
e.g. dropping initial [h]  lower socio-economic background  signal group affiliations & social identities

Holmes (2008) p. 128

5

Language & Social Identity
• People use language to:
1) signal membership of particular groups
2) construct different aspects of social identity

• Important dimensions of identity in communities:
–
–
–
–
–

social status gender age ethnicity social networks people belong to

Holmes (2008) p. 127

6

Language vs Dialect Revisited
• Ambiguous terms
• Differences based on both linguistic & sociohistorical factors
• Language: A single linguistic norm
/ A group of related norms
• Dialect: One of the norms
• Power: “A language is a dialect with an army and a navy”
Wardhaugh (2010) pp. 24-26,28

7

Accent vs Dialect
• Accent
– distinguished by pronunciation ONLY
• Dialect
– distinguished by pronunciation, vocabulary & grammar A. Regional dialect
B. Social dialect