Browser PART VIII

Language Varieties,
Individual Differences,
and Related Concepts
KAYE ANGELIE D. ACEDERA
Discussant

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a. Accent & Dialect

An accent is simply A dialect is a

how someone variation in grammar
pronounces and vocabulary
a word - a style of in addition
pronunciation. to sound variation.
EXAMPLE:
If one person utters the sentence
'John is a farmer'

and another says the same thing except

pronounces the word farmer as
'fahmuh,'

then the difference is one of accent.

EXAMPLE:
But if one person says something like
'You should not do that'

and another says

'Ya hadn't oughta do that,'

then this is a dialect difference

because the variation is greater
Another example:

Someone from the United States may say,

“Would you like some tea?”,

While a person from the UK might instead say,

“Fancy a cuppa tea?”

They’re both speaking English, and they’re both expressing the

exact same idea.
 Like individuals, different groups of people who speak
the same language speak it differently.
Bostonians, New Yorkers, Texans, blacks in Chicago, whites
in Denver, and Hispanics in Albuquerque all exhibit variation in
the way they speak English. When there are systematic differences
in the way groups speak a language, we say that each group speaks
a dialect of that language. Dialects are mutually intelligible
forms of a language that differ in systematic ways.
 It is not always easy to decide whether the differences
between two speech communities reflect two dialects
or two languages. Sometimes this rule-of-
thumb definition is used:

When dialects become mutually unintelligible—

when the speakers of one dialect group can
no longer understand the speakers of another
dialect group— these dialects become different languages.
 b. Who are
A purist (or grammaticaster) is
someone who expresses a
the Language
desire to eliminate certain Purists?
undesirable features from
a language, including
grammatical errors, jargon,
neologisms, colloquialisms,
and words of foreign origin.

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 Their primary concern was the
Crusade against
proliferation of 'inkhorn terms', so inkhorn terms..
called because they were coined by
writers and scholars, who used an
inkwell made of horn, or an inkhorn
They advocated the rejection of foreign
vocabulary in writing English, in light of
the borrowings from Greek, Latin, and
Inkhorn terms, they argued, were French to fill in gaps in the English
superfluous additions to the language, language
coined by writers to give the impression

of being more intelligent than they were.

These foreign borrowings were perceived
as pretentious and unnecessary.

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They proposed, instead, the use of older English words, or coining words with Germanic
roots, as this would result in words native to English.

A musician was to become gleeman

A prophet - foresayer
Anniversary - yeartide

grammar - speechcraft
ornithology - birdlore
ancestors - fore-elders
felxible - bendsome
 "Sir John Cheke (1514-1557) was so determined that the English
tongue should be preserved 'pure, unmixt and unmangeled . . .'
that he produced a translation of the gospel of St. Matthew using
only native words, forcing him to coin neologisms ('new words')
such as mooned 'lunatic,' hundreder 'centurion,' and crossed
'crucified.' This policy recalls an Old English practice in which
Latin words like discipulus were rendered using native formations
like leorningcniht, or 'learning follower,' rather than by borrowing
the Latin word, as Modern English does with disciple."
Brander Matthews on Lost Causes in the Early 20th Century

"The purist used to insist that we should not say 'the house is being built,' but rather
'the house is building.' So far as one can judge from a survey of recent writing the
purist has abandoned this combat; and nobody nowadays hesitates to ask, 'What is
being done?' The purist still objects to what he calls the Retained Object in such a
sentence as 'he was given a new suit of clothes.' Here again, the struggle is vain, for
this usage is very old; it is well established in English; and whatever may be urged
against it theoretically, it has the final advantage of convenience. The purist also tells
us that we should say 'come to see me' and 'try to do it,' and not 'come and see me'
and 'try and do it.' Here once more the purist is setting up a personal standard
without any warrant. He may use whichever of these forms he likes best, and we on
our part have the same permission, with a strong preference for the older and more
idiomatic of them."
Despite the illustrious leadership and popular support that this movement has
garnered, it has gained little traction, for two major reasons:

The first is that the original motivation for the movement has since
been rendered redundant by the complete assimilation of all
1 manner of words into English. The entirety of the previous sentence is
easily understood by almost all speakers of English, despite having
more words of so-called foreign origin than native words.

The second major factor in the failure of this movement is the

precriptivist nature and stylistic basis of the arguments, which causes
2 linguistis to refrain from voicing their support for this movement, if they
don't fundamentally disagree with it in the first place.
 c. Black English

African-American English (AAE), also

known as Black English in American
linguistics, is the set of English
sociolects spoken by most black
people in the United States.

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 The term was created in
Reading:
1973 by a group of black
scholars who disliked the
What is Ebonics? negative connotations of
terms like 'Nonstandard
Ebonics simply means 'black
Negro English' that had
speech' (a blend of the words
been coined in the 1960s
ebony 'black' and phonics 'sounds').
when the first modern
large-scale linguistic studies
of African American speech-
communities began.

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 Since the onset of the civil rights movement in the 1960s, AAE
has been the focus of national attention. Some critics attempt to
equate its use with inferior genetic intelligence and cultural
deprivation, justifying these incorrect notions by stating that
AAE is a “deficient, illogical, and incomplete” language. Such
epithets cannot be applied to any language, and they are as
unscientific in reference to AAE as to Russian, Chinese, or
Standard American English. The cultural-deprivation myth is as
false as the idea that some dialects or languages are inferior.

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 Features of Black English
r deletion Consonant cluster Neutralization of
reduction [ɪ] and [ɛ] before
deletes /r/
simplifies consonant Nasal Consonants
everywhere except
before a
vowel. clusters, particularly lack of distinction
at the ends of words and between /ɪ/ and
EXAMPLES:
when one of the two /ɛ/ before nasal
guard and god
consonants is an alveolar consonants, producing
nor and gnaw
(/t/, /d/, /s/, or /z/). identical pronunciations
sore and saw of pin and pen,
poor and Poe EXAMPLES:
meant and mend - men bin and Ben,
fort and fought tin and ten,
court and caught passed and past - pass
him and hem

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 Features of Black English
Habitual or
Loss of Interdental Double or multiple invariant be
Fricatives negatives
an uninflected form of
double or multiple
the change of /θ/ to be is used if the speaker
negatives is common
/f/ and /ð/ to /v/ at is referring to habitual
in AAE
the ends of syllables so state.
that Ruth is EXAMPLES:
EXAMPLES:
pronounced [ruf] and She be telling people she
She ain't seen nobody
brother is pronounced eight.
I don't want nothing
[brʌvər].

He don't know nothing

I be in my office by
7:30.
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These distinctive Ebonics pronunciations are all systematic, the
result of regular rules and restrictions; they are not random
'error'--and this is equally true of Ebonics grammar.
For instance, Ebonics speakers regularly produce sentences
without present tense is and are, as in
"John trippin" or "They allright".

But they don't omit present tense am.

Instead of the ungrammatical "I walkin",
Ebonics speakers would say "Am walkin."
d. Standard American
English

The term Standard American English

customarily refers to a variety of the English
language that's generally used in professional
communication in the United States and taught
in American schools.

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 Walt Wolfram
"In the United States, we don't have
a language academy, but we have
many grammar and usage books
that people turn to for the
determination of standard forms.
The key words in this definition are Walt Wolfram is an American
'prescribed' and 'authority' so that sociolinguist at North Carolina State
the responsibility of determining University, specializing in social and
standard forms is largely out of the ethnic dialects of American English. He
hands of most speakers of the was one of the early pioneers in the
study of urban African American English
language. . . ."
through his work in Detroit in 1969.

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 Standard American English
and Social Power

A standard dialect (or prestige dialect) of a particular

language may have social functions. Its use in a group
may bind people together or provide a common written
form for multidialectal speakers. If it is the dialect of the
wealthy, influential, and powerful members of society,
this may have important implications for the entire
society. All speakers who aspire to become successful
may be required to speak that dialect even if it isn’t their
own.

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 Britain’s prestigious RP accent omits the r in words such as
car, far, and barn.
Thus an r-less pronunciation is
thought to be better than the less
prestigious rural dialects that
maintain the r.

However,
r-drop in the northeast United States is generally considered
substandard, and
the more prestigious dialects preserve the r, though this was not true
in the past when r-drop was considered more prestigious.
In 17th Century.....

- America achieved independence from Britain

- An American academic, Noah Webster compiled the "Webster's Dictionary"
- He proposed new spellings.
EXAMPLE: Verbs in British English that can be spelled with
Dropping the unnecessary either ‘ize’ or ‘ise’ at the end are always spelled
vowels such as.. with ‘ize’ at the end in American English

flavour - flavor
apologize or apologise - Apologize
colour - color
organize or organise -Organize
humour - humor
recognize or recognise - Recognize
neighbour - neighbor

labour - labor
 More spelling differences....

In British spelling ‘L’ is doubled in

verbs ending in a vowel plus ‘L’. In British English words that are spelled with the
American English, the ‘L’ is not double vowels ae or oe tend to be just spelled
doubled: with an e in American English:

travel - travel leukaemia - leukemia

travelled - traveled manoeuvre - maneuver
oestrogen - estrogen
travelling - traveling
paediatric - pediatric
traveller - traveler

More spelling differences....

Some nouns that end with ‘ence’

Some nouns that end with ‘ogue’ in
in British English are spelled
British English end with either ‘og’ or
‘ense in American English:’
‘ogue in American English:

defence - defense
analogue- analog or analogue
licence - license
catalogue - catalog or catalogue
offence - offense
dialogue - dialog or dialogue
pretence - pretense

Speakers of AE use the simple past tense (-ed)

Speakers of BE use the present perfect tense (have/has = past participle

BRITISH ENGLISH AMERICAN ENGLISH

Have you finished your work? Did you finish your work?

I have already seen that film. I already saw that film.

I've just had lunch I just had lunch.

Pronunciation
Syntactic Differences between AAE and SAE
Deletion of the Verb Be

In most cases, if in Standard American English the verb can be contracted, in

African American English sentences it is deleted; where it can’t be contracted
in SAE, it can’t be deleted in AAE, as shown in the following sentences:
He is nice/ He's nice. He nice.

They are mine/They're mine. They mine.

She's going to do it/She's gonna do it. She gonna do it.

How beautiful you are. How beautiful you.

He is/he's nice as he says he is. He nice as he say he.

 There replacement

Some AAE dialects replace SAE there with it’s in positive sentences, and don’t
or ain’t in negative sentences.

“There’s a fly messing with me.” It’s a fly messing with me.

“There’s no one going to help you.” Ain’t no one going to help you.
Don’t no one going to help you.
 Habitual "be"

John is happy. John be happy.

In SAE, the sentence John is happy can be interpreted to mean John is happy
now or John is generally happy. One can make the distinction clear in SAE only
by lexical means, that is, the addition of words. One would have to say John
is generally happy or John is a happy person to disambiguate the meaning from
John is presently happy.

In AAE, this distinction is made syntactically; an uninflected form of be is

used if the speaker is referring to habitual state.
 The ungrammatical sentences
John be happy. “John is always happy.” are caused by a conflict of the
John happy. “John is happy now.” habitual meaning
*John be happy at the moment. with the momentary meaning

conveyed by at the moment,
He be late. “He is habitually late.”
this time, and today.
He late. “He is late this time.”

*He be late this time.

The syntactic distinction

between habitual and

Do you be tired? “Are you generally tired?”
nonhabitual aspect also occurs
You tired? “Are you tired now?”
in SAE, but with verbs other
*Do you be tired today?
than be.

Thank
you!!