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English Structures
Sociolinguistics
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Dialects and Standardization
We have just seen that the discussion of when a form of language can be considered the same language as another or a different one is complex because social factors, such as politics and history, become involved. Other social factors besides these two also get involved, including geography, identity, and individuality. We will now explore how some of these various factors relate to language forms.
Earlier we described dialects as produced by systematic distinctions in language form and use between groups. The ways people form groups, however, is quite varied, and we can identify several different types of dialects according to the different ways people divide into groups.
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Types of Dialects |
- Regional Dialect
A subgroup variety of a language associated with a particular geographical area is called a regional dialect. This type of dialect is frequently produced through the historical linguistic processes of change that we saw in the last lesson, such as contact with speakers of other languages, changes due to new tools and techniques, and perhaps most especially, differences tied to the environment.
Examples of regional dialects include the dialcet of the Southern United States and the three dialects of German in Europe: Low, Middle, and High German. An isogloss is the boundary between two regional dialects. German Dialect Map
A dialect map of some U.S. regional dialects is found on the Telsur site. If you look at this map, you'll see green lines that mark the boundries between distinctive dialect
varieties. Purple dots were
links to detailed information.
- Ethnic dialect
A subgroup variety of a language that is associated with a particular ethnic group is termed an ethnic dialect.
African-American Vernacular English is considered by some to be an ethnic dialect, or ethnolect, of English. It is a variety of English spoken by people of African American heritage in the United States.
- Sociolect
A subgroup variety of a language that is associated with a social group of any sort is termed a sociolect.
Technically, an ethnic dialect is one kind of sociolect. Other sociolects are based on age groups, gender, and socioeconomic class.
- Accent
Phonetic or pronunciation distinctions between groups result in different accents. The word accent refers only to pronunciation distinctions. To refer to multiple distinctions across all linguistic subcategories, one must use the term dialect or variety.
All speakers have the accent of their own speech community. That is, there is no unaccented speech; everyone who speaks a language, speaks it with an accent. A particular accent essentially reflects a person's home or native linguistic background.
When people listen to someone speak with a different accent from their own, they notice the difference, and they may even make certain biased social judgments about the speaker. When speaking with someone from one's own speech community, pronunciation generally goes unnoticed, and a speaker thinks "This person has no accent," when, in fact, it is simply the same as one's own.
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Activity: Listening to Regional Accents
Try to see if you can hear differences in the pronunciation of various speakers included in the Speech Accent Archive. This archive contains hundreds of speech samples of speakers from all over the world. All the speakers have recorded the exact same English paragraph.
To use the site, follow these directions. First click on the link that says browse. Next, on the left side bar, choose either the language/speakers link or the atlas/regions link.
If you click on the languages/speakers link, you'll find a list first by native language of the speaker. If you click on English, you will get to a list of the native English speakers who have made recordings, and you will be able to compare them by region of birth, as this information is included on the listing.
If you click on the atlas/regions link, you will go to a map. When you click on one country of the map, you'll go to another map marked with red flags showing the homes of the speakers who provided samples. You can click on the flags and get to the language samples.
Whichever way you decide to enter the site, when you've chosen a particular speaker's langauge sample, you'll see two texts side-by-side and a recording playback bar. The text on the left is the actual text given to the speaker to read. The text on the right is a transcription of the speaker's pronunciation using the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). If you hear some significant differences in pronunciation between two speakers, the IPA transcription will show it, even though the regular text doesn't differ at all.
Click here to access the speech accent archive
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The Speech Accent Archive is supported by George Mason University |
 http://accent.gmu.edu/
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| Standard Language
With so many different varieties of language based on differing groups of people -- age-based socilects, class-based sociolects, regional dialects, and ethnolects -- is there any form of a language that is shared by all speakers of the language? That is, is there any such thing as a standard language?
The concept of a standard dialect is exactly that: a concept, not an actuality. No one actually speaks Standard English or even Standard American English.
Definition of Standard Dialect To understand the concept of standard langauge, it is perhaps best to show it in contrast to nonstandard language. It also helps to contrast it with grammatical language.
The chart below gives definitions of grammatical and ungrammatical, standard and nonstandard language, and a diagram to help visualize their relationships to each other.
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Activity: Understanding Grammaticality and Standardness
Grammatical Language: Language that may be produced by and accepted as normal by native speakers
Ungrammatical Language: Language that is unlikely to be produced by or accepted as normal by native speakers
Standard Language: Language that is deemed appropriate to formal, written, public discourse
Nonstandard Language: Language that is used in discourse situations that are informal, spoken, or limited in scope (family, friends, regional, ethnic group)
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Typically, the standard version of a language is not actually spoken by
anyone. Its function is "to bind people together or to provide a common written form for multidialectal speakers" (Fromkin and Rodman 409).
Since languages always change over time, no one will ever truly speak the standard form for long, if indeed it is ever actually used in day-to-day situations. There are three major points to notice about standard language:
- The standard dialect serves a function: binding people together
with a common written form
- Standard forms are grammatical forms. They are
not bizarre ways of talking or writing that some mad professor thought
up.
- Any variety of a language could be chosen to achieve this function; it wouldn't have to be the variety that has been labeled as standard.
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Teaching About Dialects
Make sure that you teach students that different varieties of English
exist, even if you can’t teach all the differences between
any two varieties.
At least learn and teach some of the differences between American and British/Canadian varieties of English.
Don’t be ashamed of your own variety; it’s as legitimate
as any other version of English! Accommodate to the local situation, however, depending on where
you teach.
Use appropriate ways to describe language distinctions:
- Use the term grammatical to describe something a native speaker might say, even if it isn't accepted as standard English. Use the term ungrammatical to describe something a native speaker of English would be very unlikely to say.
- Use the term acceptable or standard to describe something that follows the rules of standard English. Use the term unacceptable or nonstandard to designate something that doesn't fit formal written situations.
- Avoid saying that something is simply right or wrong.
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| Continue to Part 3 |
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American Sign Language The sign language used by the deaf community in the United States.
Test of English for International Communication. A standardized exam for Educational Testing Services that is intended to determine the general capability of an NNSE to use English to conduct business. It is used by some businesses, predominantly in Asia, in hiring.
Test of English as a Foreign Language. A standardized exam from Educational Testing Services that is intended to determine the general capability of an NNSE to use English as the language of insruction .It is used as an admissions requirement by most US universities and colleges for international students.
Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages. A term that encompasses both TEFL and TESL. It is the name of the professional organization to which many teachers belong. TESOL the organization has many regional affiliates both in the US and abroad.
Teaching English as Second Language. Refers to the activity of teaching the English language as a tool necessary for some daily task like instruction, shopping, or interpersonal interactions.
Teaching English as a Foreign Language. Refers to the activity of teaching the English language as an intellectual, academic pursuit to non-native speakers of English.
Native Speaker of English. Refers to a person who acquired English in infancy and young childhood as a first language.
Native Speaker. Refers to a person whose relationship to a language is that it was encountered in infancy and young childhood as the dominant language of the environment.
Non-Native Speaker of English. Refers to a person who didn't acquire English as a first language, but came to it after another language was established.
Non-Native Speaker. Refers to a person whose relationship to a particular language is that he/she didn't encounter it while initially acquiring language, but came to it after another language was established.
Limited English Proficient. An adjectival phrase used to refer to the same students as ELL refers to. LEP is falling into disuse as it focuses attention on student deficiency rather than on the positive attribute of learning. Is being replaced by ELL.
Second Language. Refers to any language gained subsequent to the first or native language. It is acquired or learned secondarily to the native language. Doesn't refer to the ordinal numbering of languages, only to the relationship of a particular language to a persons native language.
First Language. Refers to the language that an individual encounters as an infant and young child; a persons native language.
English for Specific Purposes. Refers to the goal of learning English to use it for highly focused activity, such as for business or for aviation communication.
English as a Second Language Program. refers to a school program that is purposefully structured to provide instruction on the English language to NNSEs. An ESL program does not typically include instruction in any other subjects than English. An ESL program may be a component of a larger ELL program at a school.
English as a Second Language. Refers to the subject matter of the English language and the methodology for teaching the English language to non-native speakers. ESL makes no reference to the subjects other than English, but it is not methodology alone either, it refers to teaching the English language as content area. Typically, ESL refers to the study of English in a country where it is used for at least one daily task, such as instruction, interpersonal relations, or shopping.
English Langauge Learner Program. Refers to a school program that is purposly structured to provide instruction on the English language and instruction in other content areas to English Language Learners.
English Language Learner. Refers to students who are in the process of learning English, whether they are in ESL classes exclusively or a combination of ESL classes and other subject area classes.
English as a Foreign Langauge. Refers to the study of English as an intellectual, academic pursuit, not a a language whose use is necessary or desirable for daily life, although it may be used as a research tool. Typically, EFL is the study of English in a country where English is not a language of instruction or daily interactions, such as in Italy or in Saudi Arabia.
English for Academic Purposes. Refers to the goal of learning English to use it as the language of instruction for other subject areas.
Refers to a school program that is purposely structured so that students will use two languages on a daily basis.
Refers to the use of two languages in any capacity on a daily basis. A bilingual person uses two languages on a daily basis--for work and at home, perhaps, or for different subjects at school. Can also refer to the ability to use two languages, even if not used daily.