Lecture 3

The synchronic approach to the

English vocabulary

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OE +MidE+ModE = Contemporary English
Contemporary English variety-within-unity case
-temporal dimension
-geographic dimension

Every speaker has at his/her disposal several

variants of language

Idiolect
Dialect
Sociolect (social dialect)
Accent
Variety
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Classification of varieties of English as given by Quirk/Greenbaum
(1973) (quoted in Lipka, 1990:17) in A University Grammar of
English. The varieties co-existing within the linguistic aggregate of
Contemporary English are the following:
1. Region (geographical variation) AmE, AusE, CanE
2. Education and social standing lit, colloq./sl
3. Subject matter register/field law, med
4. Medium mode lit, poet
5. Attitude style fml, humour,derrog.
6. Interference Fr, Ger, It, Rom

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REGION
For geographical or regional variation the term dialect is traditionally
used: dialect is the language form of a particular group of speakers.
Dialect is currently often used in a broad sense, i.e. both for a
regional, geographical variety, as well as for a social subclass of a
speech community.
Variety (neutral term) frequently preferred today since it lacks the
negative connotations, or shades of meaning, of dialect.

Some examples of differences between British and American

English.
AmE: railroad, conductor, baggage, package, gas(oline),
truck, sidewalk as opposed to
BrE: railway, guard, luggage, parcel, petrol, lorry, pavement.

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REGION
-Irish:
blarney (flattering, cajoling talk),
brogue, galore (abundance,
sufficiency), colleen (name for a girl),
shamrock (trefoil, clover), Tory
(originally an Irish robber), banshee
(Gaelic bean sidhe, fairy woman),
boreen (a narrow rural road in
Ireland), keening (to lament, to wail
mournfully), shebeen (unlicensed
house selling alcohol), leprechaun,
Hooligan (from the name of a wild
Irish family that became notorious in
London during the 1890s).

.
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-Welsh: bard, coracle (a kind of boat used
on the Dee), flannel, crag, eisteddfod,
flummery, tref (hamlet, town), menhir
(long stone), penguin (white head),
iechyd da (cheers, or literally "good
health") .

-Scottish Gaelic: loch (lake), bog (wet

spongy ground), cairn (mound of stones
as a monument or landmark), clan, glen
(narrow valley). The word whisky is an
Anglicised version of uisgebeatha, water
of life; reek (smoke), shank (stalk),
stock (chap, bloke), tweed, Tam o
Shanter

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7
Australian terms:erms
- Aboriginal terms
Budgerigar, bunyip
(large mythical
creature in Aboriginal
mythology), coolibah,
currawong (black
bird), dingo, koala,
kookaburra, wallaby,
billabong

bring a plate, give me a

tick
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Australian words
-English terms with different forms/meanings:

Grog (alcohol), amber fluid, Aussie/Strine, bickie

(biscuit), chook (cheap wine), chokkie, Chrissie,
bushranger, pissed, whorfie, back of beyond,
station, tucker, dunny, jumbuck, woolgrower, chalkie,
billy

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Kiwi words and phrases
Banger (sausage), blow me down (expression
of surprise, as in; "Well! Blow me down, I didn't
know that.), brassed off (disappointed,
annoyed), buggered (exhausted), cackhanded
(left handed), candyfloss (cotton candy),
choice (very good), chuffed (pleased; "he was
dead chuffed), chunder (to vomit), crook (sick,
unwell), doing the ton (driving really, really
fast!), flicks (movies, picture theatre), flog
(steal, nick), footpath (pavement / sidewalk),
gas guzzler (large car, usually associated with
older USA imports) hooray (the Kiwi
"Goodbye), jandal (thongs, flip-flops), naff off
(get lost!) pakeha (non-Maori person), plod
(friendly term for local policeman).
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EDUCATION AND SOCIAL STANDING

-considerable variation depending on education and

social standing =referred to as sociolect or social dialect.
A speaker may show more similarity in his language to
people from the same social group in a different area than
to people from a different social group in the same area.
-the so-called sub-phonemic differences can be said to be
socially meaningful.
-e.g. the pronunciation of a glottal stop between vowels
as an allophone of /t/ (e.g. little /li l/) - a characteristic of
many urban accents of England and Scotland;
-aitch-dropping at the beginning of words (e.g. give
him his hat /giv im iz ht/).

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Cockney rhyming slang

Cockney rhyming slang is an amusing and much under-

estimated part of the English language. Originating in
London's East End in the mid-19th century, Cockney
rhyming slang uses substitute words, usually two, as a
coded alternative for another word. The final word of the
substitute phrase rhymes with the word it replaces (e.g.
'butcher's hook = 'look).
Rhyming slang began 200 years ago among the London
east-end docks builders. Cockney rhyming slang then
developed as a secret language of the London
underworld from the 1850s, when villains used the coded
speech to confuse police and eavesdroppers.
Many original cockney rhyming slang words have now
entered the language and many users are largely
oblivious as to their beginnings.

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Examples

Adam and Eve - believe ('would you adam and

eve it?')
boat (boat race) face, bowler hat cat, Brahms
(Brahms and Liszt) pissed, Bristols (Bristol
Cities) - titties (breasts), bull and cow - row
(argument), cloud seven heaven, daisy roots
boots, dustbin lids kids, half inch - pinch
(steal), Holy ghost toast, raspberry
(raspberry tart) - fart (evolved to include 'blowing
a raspberry' with the tongue), sausage and
mash cash, trouble (trouble and strife) wife,
jam jar car, elephants trunk drunk, china
plate mate.
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SUBJECT MATTER

Varieties according to subject matter = registers.

-registers = speech adaptations that depend upon the social and
communicative demands of the situation (Andersen, 1978, quoted in
Berko Gleason, 1989:330).
-registers = differences observable within speakers, across
situations.
Most of speakers : a single language and often a single dialect, but
several registers in order to be socially acceptable.
-register - 'varieties according to use', in contrast with dialects,
defined as 'varieties according to user' (Halliday, McIntosh &
Stevens, 1964 quoted in Hudson, R.A. 1991:48).

Slight oversimplification: ones dialect shows who (or what) you are,
whilst ones register shows what you are doing.

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Examples
1) The second approach to studying
communicative behaviour is sociolinguistic. This
method is concerned with discovering patterns
of linguistic variation. Variation in language use
is derived from differences in speech situations
and from social distinctions within a community
that are reflected in communicative
performance. Although some speech differences
are idiosyncratic, it is possible to study
intracommunity variables by recording and
analysing actual speech behaviour of members
of distinct sectors of population.

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2) No code or policy can anticipate every situation
that may arise. Accordingly, this Code is intended
to serve as a source of guiding principles for
directors, officers and employees. If any aspect of
this Code is unclear to you as an employee, or if
you have any questions or face dilemmas that are
not addressed, you should confer with your
supervisor.
The Company reserves the right to amend or
rescind this Code or any portion of it at any time
and to adopt different policies and procedures at
any time. In the event of any conflict or
inconsistency between this Code and any other
materials distributed by the Company, this Code
shall govern. If a law conflicts with a policy in this
Code, you must comply with the law.
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 Medium
Speech (conversational
language) is often:
- Inexplicit
- spontaneous: speakers have
to think standing up; use of
fillers
- vocabulary of everyday speech
tends to be informal, domestic,
and limited;
- interactive nature of
conversation requires a great
deal of maneuvering which
would not usually be found in
writing;
- conversation can use a wide
range of tones of voice.
Writing:
- language sufficiently clear and
precise that it can be interpreted
on its own;
- sentences properly constructed, they
may have an intricate structure;
- writing tends to make greater use
of vocabulary whose meaning is
precise.
- writing has its own ways of
organizing the exposition of a text
(e.g. preface, summaries, indexes,
sub-headings).
- there are many written effects
which cannot easily be spoken
(such as train timetables, graphs,
and formulae);
- Written language is usually much
more permanent and formal than
speech
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ATTITUDE

-linguistic form may be determined by the speakers attitude to the hearer or

reader (the addressee), to the subject matter, or to the purpose of the
message. This variety is often marked by the ambiguous label style.

-The University Grammar of English (UGE) distinguishes five variants of

attitude along the following scale: rigid / FORMAL / neutral / INFORMAL /
familiar (of which only the two in capitals are explicitly marked).

-Lexicon: finer distinctions are usually drawn in many dictionaries different

kinds and different degrees of formality and informality

-Etymology: formal words are normally of classical or Romance origin, while

informal words usually derive from Anglo-Saxon.

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Leech (1981):
horse (general), steed (poetic), nag (slang)
But
COD: nag = small riding horse: (colloq)
horse
LDCE: nag (not fml)= 1)a horse that is old or
in bad condition; 2) (infml, esp. derog) a
horse, esp. one that races.

AussieE: plod (humour) a local policemen

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 Prince Harry jumps to rival's rescue after
horror polo fall
The selfless prince jumped from his steed after US businessman Bash Kazi
was knocked unconscious after a violent collision.
Polo whizz Harry, 27, put Mr Kazi into the recovery position while other riders
taking part in the charity match in Campinas last month looked on.
The British Red Cross said the prince's valiant actions could have saved Mr
Kazi's life.
The businessman said: "Prince Harry was the first one off his horse, doing the
right thing, turning me over to make sure I regained consciousness."
The amateur polo player was taking part in the match organised by the prince
when he was thrown from his mount when it collided with another horse.
He said: "I remember waking up with these piercing blue eyes looking at me."
He called the royal "a fabulous person" and "such a gentleman" for helping him.
Mr Kazi is thought to have had minor concussion, but was later given the all
clear after a CT scan.
The 41-year-old had been recruited for the star-studded match to raise
money for Prince Harry's Lesotho-based charity Sentabale by Ralph
Lauren model and professional polo player Nachos Figueras.
Harry's team won the match 6-3.

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Queen Elizabeth II in Public and Private
Since then, Elizabeth has reigned but not ruled. As head
of state, she has presided over British involvement in a
string of military conflicts, from Korea to Afghanistan.
She has also received weekly briefings from successive
British prime ministers: David Cameron is the 12th. But
she is allowed to express no political opinion that has not
been authorized by the government. Rather, her role is
to personify orderly continuity from a majestic height.
She has traveled the globe tirelessly. At home, she holds
garden parties, hands out medals and honors, visits
hospitals and goes to the races. This doesnt always
make for exciting reading. Time and again, Smith writes
of Elizabeths rounds of official duties and her familiar
routines, her morning obligations.

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INTERFERENCE

= the contact of L1 with a foreign language; it includes varieties caused by

the traces left by a speakers native language when speaking English. Thus,
speakers of English as a foreign language make unaware attempts to force
English into the grammatical patterns of their mother tongue. This tendency is
the source of further varieties of English, such as the English spoken by
French, vs. that spoken by a Russian/ German/ Romanian.

-Interference at the phonological, grammatical and lexical level.

-on the lexical level, interference is probably more important than on the
phonological and grammatical levels. In this respect loan words and loan
translations must be mentioned as the result of interference. The so-called
false-friends also belong here. For example, the German words sensibel
sensitive, brav good are identified with the English sensible reasonable
and brave courageous. The English library (R. bibliotec) is identified with
the Romanian librrie, magazine (R. revist) with magazin, and compass (R.
busol) with compas, E lentil vs. R lentila.

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 CONCLUSION
Dear dustbin lids, your chalkie says to you
now, hooray!

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