UNIT 9

REGIONAL VARIETES OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

1. What is a linguistic variety?

Variants of English are regional variants possessing a literary norm. There are
distinguished variants existing on the territory of the United Kingdom (British English, Scottish
English and Irish English), and variants existing outside the British Isles (American English,
Canadian English, New Zealand English, South African English and Indian English).
2. What does the term 'Standard English' mean?
Standard English is the language of Great Britain taught at schools and universities,
used by the press, the radio and the television and spoken by educated people. It may be defined
as that form of English which is current and literary, substantially uniform and recognised as
acceptable wherever English is spoken or understood. There is no doubt that the dialect of
English that has the highest social status is the dialect, which is widely known as Standard
English. Standard English is the dialect found in dictionaries and grammar books.
3. What is known to you about World English (World Standard English)?
World English(es). This term is used for emerging localized or indigenized varieties of
English, especially varieties that have developed in territories influenced by the United Kingdom
or the United States. The study of World Englishes consists of identifying varieties of English
used in diverse sociolinguistic contexts globally and analyzing how sociolinguistic histories,
multicultural backgrounds and varied contexts influence the use of English in different parts of
the world.
The issue of World Englishes was first raised in 1978 to examine concepts of regional
Englishes globally. Pragmatic factors such as appropriateness, comprehensibility and
interpretability justified the use of English as an international and intra-national language. In
1988, at a Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL)conference in
Honolulu, Hawaii, the International Committee of the Study of World Englishes (ICWE) was
formed. In 1992, the ICWE formally launched the International Association for World Englishes
(IAWE) at a conference of "World Englishes Today", at the University of Illinois, USA. There is
now an academic journal devoted to the study of this topic, titled "World Englishes".
4. Which regional labels are most common in modern dictionaries of English?
regional or geographic variation: American English, British English, Canadian English,
Australian English.
5. How can you differentiate between the main two variants of English, known as British
English and North American English?
The American variant of the English language differs from British English in pronunciation,
some minor features of grammar, spelling standards and vocabulary.
The most noticeable difference between American and British English is vocabulary.
There are hundreds of everyday words that are different. For example, Brits call the front of a car
the bonnet, while Americans call it the hood. Americans go on vacation, while Brits go on
holidays, or hols.
6. What are the causes for the existing differences in the vocabulary of British and North
American English?
Lexical differences:
1) Cases where different words are used for the same denotatum, for example, sweets (Br) –
candy (Am.E); reception clerk (Br.E) – desk clerk (Am);
2) Cases where some words are used in both variants but are much commoner in one of them:
shop(Br.E) – store (Am.E);
3) Cases where one (or more) lexcico-semantic variant(s) is (are) specific to either British or
American English. Both variants of English have the word faculty. But only in American English
it denotes ‘all the teachers and other professional workers of a university or college’. In British
English it means teaching staff.
4) Cases where the same words have different semantic structure in British and American
English, for example, homely (Br.E.) means ‘home-loving’ but homely (Am.E.) denotes
‘unattractive in appearance’.
5) Cases where there are no equivalent words in one of the variants, for example, drive-in is used
only in American English denoting ‘a cinema or restaurant that one can visit without leaving
one’s car’.
6) Cases where the connotational aspect of meaning comes to the fore. The word politician
(Br.E.) means ‘a person who is professionally involved in politics’, whereas in American English
the word is derogatory as it means ‘a person who acts in a manipulative way, typically to gain
advancement within an organization’.
7. What dialects and regional variants are registered in the British Isles?
The British Isles boast many speech varieties confined to particular areas. These local dialects
traceable to Old English dialects may be classified into six distinct divisions:
1) Lowland (Scottish or Scotch, North of the river Tweed);
2) Northern (between the rivers Tweed and Humber);
3) Western;
4) Midland;
5) Eastern (between the river Humber and the Thames);
6) Southern (South of the Thames).
8. What is the most important linguistic change that has been affecting English since the
1960s?
9 . What is the role of Englishes in the replenishment of the English lexicon?