DIALECTS & ACCENTS

INTERMEZZO

What is dialect?

What is accent?

Are they same or different?

DIALECT

• A variety of a language spoken by a group of people that

is characterized by systematic features (e.g.,

phonological, lexical, grammatical) that distinguish it

from other varieties of that same language.

• Everyone speaks a dialect.

• Idiolect: the speech variety of an individual speaker.

DIALECT (CONT’D)

Language = a continuum of dialect

Dialect = a continuum of idiolect Language

dialect dialect

idiolect idiolect idiolect

dialect

MISCONCEPTION ABOUT DIALECT

•Dialect ≠ ‘substandard’•Dialect ≠ ‘incorrect’•Dialect ≠ ‘slang’

FACT: everyone speaks a dialect

FACTORS AFFECTING DIALECT VARIATION

Dialect can vary because:

1. Geographical Locations

2. Social Class

3. Educational Background or Occupation

(Yule, 2010:241-256)

GEOGRAPHICAL LOCATION

• People coming from different places

may have different dialects. For

instance, American people speak

different dialects such as New England

English, Inland Northern American

English, Mid-Atlantic dialects and so

forth. These dialects are due to the

geographical locations.

SOCIAL CLASS

Middle class(upper)

Working class(lower)

EDUCATIONAL BACKGROUND OR OCCUPATION

Well educated• Formal • Appropriate• Grammatically correct• Talk like a book

Less educated• More casual• Free • Sometimes ungrammatical

WAYS DIALECT VARY

• Phonological (accent)

• Morphological

• Syntactical/Grammatical

• Semantic/Lexical

PHONOLOGICAL (ACCENT)There are obviously many American English accents. For reference, here is a list of only the most common

classifications in the United States and United Kingdom.

General American

This refers to the spectrum of ‘standard’ English spoken by newscasters, TV actors, and a large percentage of middle-

class Americans.

Prominent Features:

• The short-a (as in cat) is raised and diphthongized before nasal consonants. Hence man and can’t are pronounced

something like IPA meən and keənt (“meh-uhn” and “keh-uhnt.”)

• Rhotic, meaning the r is pronounced at the end of words like car and mother.

• Words like lot and rod are pronounced with an unrounded vowel, as lɑt and ɹɑd (“laht” and “rahd”).

• The diphthong in words like boat and rode is pronounced relatively back: i.e. IPA boʊt and roʊd

Eastern New England English

This describes the classic “Boston Accent.” It also refers to related accents in Eastern Massachusetts, Rhode Island,

Maine, Eastern New Hampshire and Eastern Connecticut. The most important feature of this is non-rhoticity: unlike

other American accents, New Englanders drop the “r” at the end of syllables.  Hence the famous phrase “pahk yuh

cahr in hahvuhd yahd” (Park your car in Harvard Yard).

 

Prominent Features:

• Non-rhoticity, as mentioned above.

• Fronted pronunciation of words like father and palm, so these are pronounced IPA faðə and pa:m (i.e. this vowel

is close to the vowel in words like “cat” and “mad” in General American).

• Unlike most other American accents, the vowel in lot and rod is rounded as in most British dialects, pronounced

IPA lɒt and ɹɒd (“lawt” and “rawd”). Note that this feature is less prevalent in some sub-dialects, such as Rhode

Island.

Received Pronunciation

Received Pronunciation is the closest to a “standard accent” that has ever existed in the UK.  Although it

originally derives from London English, it is non-regional.  You’ve probably heard this accent countless times

in Jane Austen adaptations, Merchant Ivory films, and Oscar Wilde plays. It emerged from the 18th- and 19th-

Century aristocracy, and has remained the “gold standard” ever since.

Prominent Features:

• Non-rhoticity, meaning the r at the ends of words isn’t pronounced (mother sounds like “muhthuh”).

• Trap-bath split, meaning that certain a words, like bath, can’t, and dance are pronounced with the broad-a

in father. (This differs from most American accents, in which these words are pronounced with the short-a in

cat.

• The vowels tend to be a bit more conservative than other accents in Southern England, which have

undergone significant vowel shifting over the past century.

  

Cockney

Cockney is probably the second most famous British accent. It originated in the East End of London, but shares many features with and influences other

dialects in that region.

Prominent Features:

• Raised vowel in words like trap and cat so these sounds like “trep” and “cet.”

• Non-rhoticity: see explanation above under Received Pronunciation, above.

• Trap-bath split: see explanation above under Received Pronunciation.

• London vowel shift: The vowel sounds are shifted around so that Cockney “day” sounds is pronounced IPA dæɪ (close to American “die”) and

Cockney buy verges near IPA bɒɪ (close to American “boy”).

• Glottal Stopping: the letter t is pronounced with the back of the throat (glottis) in between vowels; hence better becomes IPA be?ə (sounds to

outsiders like “be’uh”).

• L-vocalization: The l at the end of words often becomes a vowel sound Hence pal can seem to sound like “pow.” (I’ve seen this rendered in IPA as /w/,

/o,/ and /ɰ/.)

• Th-Fronting: The th in words like think or this is pronounced with a more forward consonant depending on the word: thing becomes “fing,” this

becomes “dis,” and mother becomes “muhvah.”

MORPHOLOGICAL

Unlike British English, American English has always shown a marked

tendency to use nouns as verbs. Examples of ‘verbed’ nouns are,

interview, advocate, vacuum, lobby, pressure, rear-end, transition, feature,

profile, spearhead, skyrocket, showcase, service (as a car), corner, torch,

exit (as in “exit the lobby”), factor (in mathematics), gun (“shoot”).

SYNTACTIC/GRAMMAR

• Even British and American speak English, but both of them utilize

different aspects of grammar.

My team is winning.Which team is losing?

The other team are all sitting down.Which team are losing?

SEMANTIC/LEXICAL

AmE• Truck• Attorney• Cookie• Apartment

BrE• Lorry• Barrister • Biscuit • Flat

ACCENT

• An accent is a certain form of a language spoken by a subgroup of speakers

of that language which is defined by phonological features.

• Everyone has an accent, just as everyone speaks a dialect. It's not a

question of “having” or “not having” an accent or dialect, it's a question of

which accent or dialect you speak with.

• Note that you can speak the same dialect as someone else while using a

different accent (though frequently the two vary together). Thus people

from Boston and Brooklyn use about the same dialect, but their accents are

radically different.

DIALECT AND ACCENT IN ENGLISH

American English1.Northern (Northern New England, Boston, NY City, etc.)2. Northern Midland (Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Ohio-Plains, etc.)3. Southern Midland (Appalachia, Arkansas-Oklahoma)4. Southern (Virginia, Carolina, Texas, etc.)5. Western (Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, California, etc.)

DIALECT AND ACCENT IN ENGLISH

British English1.Northern (Cheshire, Cumbrian, Geordie, etc.)2. East Midland3. West Midland (Black Country, Brummie, Potteries, Telford)4. East Anglian (Norfolk, Suffolk)5. Southern (RP, Cockney, Essex, etc.)6. West Country (Anglo-Cornish)7. Bristolian

POINTS TO PONDERDialects and accents are one of the variations in a language

i.e. English. These two terms are not exactly the same.

However, both of them are interwoven. Dialect is not a

substandard of a language, it is not slang either. Dialect

is a variety of a language spoken by group of

people that is characterized by systematic

features (e.g. phonological, lexical, and grammatical)

that distinguish it from other varieties of that same

language. While accent is only variations in

pronunciation only. Thus, accent is a

subset of dialect.

language

dialect

accent

Register

• A register is a variety of a language used for a particular purpose or in a particular social setting

• Registers can simply be described as variations of the language according to its use, while the dialect as a language variation based on users registers on this concept is not limited to the choice of words (such as the notion registers in the traditional theory) but also includes the choice of the use of text structure, and texture.

• Example : English journalist

Style

• Style relates to the typical ways in which one or more people do a particular thing.

• Examples : - Formal - Informal

•SALAMAT•SHUKRAN WA ILA ALIQA’A