Theoretical Framework
Launched from National Science Foundation, a report by Elizabeth Malone explain that Dialect is certain ways of talking by many different language communities that set them apart from others, include accents, grammar, vocabulary, syntax, and common expressions. A group that isolated regionally and socially from other groups will develop characteristic dialect. Edward (2009) defined dialects as a variety of a language that differs from others along three dimensions: vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation (accent) because they are forms of the same language. Variety/Variation divided into two types; Regional variation and social variation. Regional variation occurs because people often speak differently in different places, and Social variation involves non-regional differences – the result of such things as social class, gender, ethnic background and education; it also includes variation according to changes in a speaker’s situation.
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Social dialects (sociolects) are varieties associated with speakers belonging to a given demographic group (e.g., women versus men, or different social classes) (about education n.d). Regional dialects (regiolects) are The distinct form of a language spoken in a certain geographical area (about education n.d).
Regional dialects formed because of the isogloss that separating the territory of a language that has one language family. Isogloss is a line drawn to show a dialect boundary between adjacent areas (Wardaugh, 2006: 45). Winston Churchill in his theory stated that Britain and America are two nations separated by a common language. His statement reflecting how dialects formed. Dialects comes from one language family and separated by the
different accents because of their language and the way they say words. In Allison Joseph’s “On
the use of a southern type dialect. Local color can be shown in a particular dialect,occupations, and Topography.
In the article “Do You Speak American?,” Robert MacNeil is trying to reach the american public, especially those who do not have a complete understanding of the ongoing changes that are happening to the English that is spoken throughout the United States. He uses a multitude of examples to prove this very fact. For one he wants to inform the people that one reason for this change is that average people now have more influence in the way language is spoken.Which to him is a good thing. He enjoys the new evolution that American English has undertaken. He believes that it is a step in the right direction. Another, example he uses are the changes different regions and/or group of people have made on the English language. He uses the different accents and dialect to show the growth and improvement that occurred. Even though, some linguist view these changes as wrong, MacNeil views them as necessary and as something that is unique to the United States. In essence, a necessary growth that only makes the United States grow into a better country. Thus, making it more diverse.
Finegan says this is something “living languages must do”. For me, I was raised in a military home in which we moved to a new region every couple of years. Coming from Germany, moving to Rochester, and then to Lowville, my dialect is a combination of all three speech communities. It is different than my parents, and will mostly be passed down to my children. As I age and move locations it is opted to change again as well. So it is not that I speak differently or incorrect than the rest of my family, my speech community is merely growing and changing as it is passed generation to generation. Richard Lederer stated in his article, “We are a teeming nations within a nation, a country that is like a world.” (150) He was portraying how our country, with a universal language, can be so diverted by each region’s version of the English language. I agree completely that although we all “sing” the same song of the American language, “we talk in melodies of infinite variety.” (150) The way our country was built was by different American regions doing their own work, for example, the south had plantations, where my ancestors were small town farmers who worked with manufacturing in mills and
The video “American Tongues” is about variety of English dialect in America, and people still carry prejudice and stereotypes in people’s accents and dialects. These accent and dialects are not limited in pronunciation. There are different words, phrases and grammars in their dialects, therefore, some people are noticed where they are from. As a premise, everyone has an accent. However, some people believe they don’t have an accent because people around them have the exact same accent and dialect in their community. Therefore, they haven’t noticed differences. In the video, there was a scene of a woman was correcting her accent for work to speak “standard dialect”. It was required for her to speak “standard dialect” for work because when she was out of her original community where
This chapter focused mainly on misconceptions and attempting to clarify those misconceptions about accents. In the opinion of linguists, accent is a difficult word to define. This is due to the fact that language has variation therefore when it comes to a person having an accent or not, there is no true technical distinction because every person has different phonological aspects to their way of speaking. However, when forced to define this word, it is described as “a way of speaking” (Lippi-Green, 2012, p.44). Although Lippi- Green identified the difficulty linguists have in distinguishing between accent, dialect, and another language entirely, they were able to construct a loose way of distinguishing. Lippi- Green states that an accent can be determined by difference in phonological features alone, dialect can be determined by difference in syntax, lexicon, and semantics alone, and when all of these aspects are different from the original language it is considered another language entirely (Lippi-Green, 2012).
Language also changes easy whenever speakers come into contact with each other. No two individuals speak identically: people from different geographical places clearly speak differently, but even within the same small community there are variations according to a speaker’s age, gender, social and educational background. Through our interactions with these different
Despite the fact that English is considered one language, there are many regional varieties called dialects spoken all over the world. Although these dialects are mutually intelligible by English speakers, they are quite different. For example, British English is markedly different than American English. British speakers pronounce words differently and use a different vocabulary. Some words and phrases have different meanings in American English versus British English. One example is the word “bathroom.” If an American were to ask where the bathroom is in a British home, they might be sent to a room with a bath and no toilet, which is probably not what the American wanted. The two dialects may even differ in grammar in some cases. For example, “gotten” is considered correct in American English, but in British English, “got” is used.
Sociolinguistic ethnography is a relatively new approach in sociolinguistics (SL) (Wardaugh & Fuller, 2015), which Tusting and Maybin (2007) referred to as an emerging area of work with the title linguistic ethnography (LE). LE has emerged as a cover term for research that integrates the study of linguistic practices in a particular setting with ethnographically gained knowledge about wider societal norms and ideologies. Sociolinguistics, on the other hand is concerned with language in social and cultural context, especially how people with different social identities (e.g. gender, age, race, ethnicity, class) speak and how their speech changes
Telley, S.A. (2008) ‘Teenage dialect – Chapter one’, pp. 1-75. Available at: https://scholarworks.iupui.edu/handle/1805/1634 (Accessed 12 May, 2014).
There are lots of dialects in Korean language. In South Korea, there are several dialects such as, Kangwon dialect, Kyeonggi dialect, Kyeongsang dialect, Jeonla dialect, Chungcheong dialect, and Jeju dialect. Also, there are dialects in North Korea, which are, Hamkyeong dialect, Pyeongan dialect, and Hwanghae dialect. I am going to cover only South Korea’s dialects in this paper.
Language has pioneered many interracial relationships and historical milestones. Language is a necessity for basic communication and cultural diversity. Being multilingual is a skill proven influential to a successful future. Due to rapid globalization, countries all over the world are stressing the importance of learning a second, or even third, language. With the exception of time and lack of resources, adults have very few widely applicable disadvantages to learning multiple languages. However, language learning as a child presents more complications. Some of those include not having enough funding at the elementary school level to introduce a program for secondary language, academic overload for the youth, stress for both the parent and student parties, and the mixing of languages. Not all of these complications are true in any or all situations, however, and the absence of them provides multitudes of opportunity for future career and academic success. Ultimately, it is the responsibility of the parents or the education legislation to decide whether they encourage the learning of a secondary language at the young age necessary for retention. “The general consensus is that it takes between five to seven years for an individual to achieve advanced fluency,” therefore the younger a child begins to learn, the more likely they are to benefit to the maximum potential (Robertson). Keeping the language learning in high school or beginning the process earlier is a greatly controversial discussion that is important to address because of the topic’s already lengthy suspension.
The American class system is divided into three sets of social categories: upper class, middle class, and lower class. These class divisions are determined based on an individual’s status and power in the society and may also be determined through an individual’s education, occupation, and income. Having a divided society based on social and economic status leads to the formation of different conversational styles. The use of standard or nonstandard English dialects often reflect an individual’s social class and it will vary according to the social group one is categorized. Language is affected by the social structure because individuals will differ from one another in the way an individual speak. Being divided by
East Midland district is the largest and most populous of the major dialect areas. There are also two universities, Oxford and Cambridge. In the fourteenth century the monasteries were playing a less important role in the spread of learning than they had once played, while the two universities had developed into important intellectual centers. So far as Cambridge is concerned, any its influence was exerted in support of the East Midland dialect. That of Oxford is less certain because Oxfordshire was on the border between Midland and Southern and its dialect shows certain characteristic Southern features.
In Britain the way the speak and the way they act has something to do with their culture. They like to have a cultural emphasis of language, meaning they like to emphasize words that are adaptively important in their culture. The culture itself shows how it is different and why it is different from any other in the world. American English is much more homogenous than British English, meaning it is often harder to tell where in the USA someone is from just by hearing their accent. Linguists have identified somewhere between six and twenty-five American dialects, although the major divisions are between Northern, Midland and Southern dialects, which are roughly grouped together. In the US and in Britain we have what is known as an open communication system meaning, we can communicate with new sounds or words by combining two or more existing sounds or