Dialect, standard and identities - spoken language as a signal of who your are
Topic: language as a marker of identities within a language area [geographical and social dialects]
What is a dialect
All kinds of spoken varieties
A (standard) language= “dialect with an army and a navy” —> variety that dominates in a Nation,
difference between a dialect and a language is not linguistic, but formal and social difference
Types of dialects:
Regional/geographical
Gender-based
Social
Age-based
Language variants specific to a closed group (intended to exclude non-members, e.g. code
language, like a variety only gay men use to communite with each other, while hiding they are
gay)
Geographical dialects:
How do they develop?
It is very unlikely that English ever was a uniform language—>there were always dialects
Dialects always change: sometimes they diverge and sometimes they converge, or both:
DIVERGENCE, SOME CAUSES:
More limited contact within the language = more different varieties
Contact with (different) other languages
Distance/isolation from centres of standardisation may mean new developments from there are not
adopted - while local developments are adopted
Strong local identities may be reluctant to adopt language developments from centres of
standardisation, the prouder you are of your local identity, the greater the chance that you stick to
your local dialect
The longer a language group has been established in an area, the more likely it is that there will be
distinctive dialects
CONVERGENCE, SOME CAUSES:
Close contact with other dialect area
Migration
Education/media (toward the standard dialect)
Social mobility (more socially respected = use less the local dialect and more the standard)
ENGLISH DIALECTS
- Y focus on these dialects:
Long period of settlement
Strong regional identities
Traditionally, in UK, more ambiguous attitude to social mobility= strong solidarity with their own
social class
—> distinctive and resilient dialects
Main division: NORTH- SOUTH:
The foot-strut split:
South (and RP English): /fʊt/ vs /strʌt/
North: /fʊt/ vs /strʊt/
Drawing a line on a map does not give us an accurate picture of usage, of course
The bath-trap split
RP: /bɑːθ/ vs /træp/
South: /bæːθ/ vs /træp/
North: /bæθ/ vs /træp/
The “no”
South + RP: /əʊ/
North: /oʊ/
Vocabulary:
Most of the north was part of the Danelaw, and it may be evident in the vocabulary (e.g. bairn=child,
laiking=playing, gang/gan= to go, force=waterfall, fell=mountain)
An example of northern dialect: Geordie, from Newcastle:
Double modals
Phonetics: /eɪ/ —> /e:/ or /ɪə/ /eʊ/—> /o:/ or /ʊe/ /aɪ/—> /eɪ/
York accent:
Similar to Geordie
“No” will sound more like /nø:/
Pronunciation innovation beginning among young women is a typical situation
Rhoticity in England:
Historically, the /r/ was pronounced in
all positions
In the late Middle Ages, it began to disappear
from any position where it was not followed
by a vowel. It first happened in the northeast
of London
It took a very long time before the non-rhotic
pronunciation began to spread southwards
and eastwards from London, and even as
late as in the 1950s, the rhotic pronunciation
could be found in the south.
There also used to be significant areas of
rhotic pronunciation in the Northeast and in
the north of Liverpool. These have now
become non-rhotic.
Western feature: Voicing of initially unvoiced fricatives
Nowadays it’s a rare phenomenon, but it’s a very typical feature in the Southwest
E.g. farm= /vɑ:m/, said= /zed/
Language as a shibboleth - a social marker of belonging
A shibboleth is a test case (related to e.g. language or social conventions) that is used to sort out
who should be admitted to a certain social circle, and who should not
The point is that those who are excluded may not notice what they are doing wrong, or perhaps
even that a test is applied
Shibboleths go both ways: we must not assume that all speakers or less prestigious dialects wish
they could speak “posh”
Linguistic shibboleths:
Accent/pronunciation
Grammar
Vocabulary
Have social dialects always been a thing?
Some scholars claim that the idea of one unified standard pronunciation for well-bred people
across England did not arise until mid-1700s
Before that, the educated classes were expected to be standardized in grammar and vocabulary,
but not pronunciation
We have evidence that some English speakers looked down on other English speakers because
of their pronunciation
Emergence of RP:
Thanks to its use in Public Schools (very prestigious private schools)
The influence of RP grew in the late 19th-century, and pure RP had its greatest influence in the
early-to-mid-1900s:
The expansion of education = more and more people subjected to standardisation
Social mobility grew = the need to adjust your language to your new social status grew
The growth of the service professions
The electronic mode, in particular radio = greater spread of RP into local communities
RP today:
Pure RP today is used by a small minority (3-5%)
People tend to be more comfortable with mixing RP with some regional features