LELA 10082 Varieties of English

Harold Somers
Professor of Language Engineering Office: Lamb 1.15

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Varieties of English
The aim of this course is to show you how English varies regionally and socially, and to introduce you to the basic methods and concepts required for the study of language variation and change in progress. Accents and dialects Style and register Case studies, but also methods and concepts
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Topics
Language, dialect, idiolect Languages in contact:
speech communities regional and social variation language change language and society

Describing language/dialect differences

phonology, lexis, grammar

Studying dialects: how is data gathered and analysed?

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Topics (cont.)
Style and register
Language use is defined by purpose as well as region Language codes marked by lexis and grammar LSP, sublanguage

Can we measure style?

Literary stylistics; authorship studies Forensic linguistics
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Reading matter
Readings will be recommended in connection with specific topics Some main recommendations:
A. Hughes, P. Trudgill and D. Watt. English Accents and Dialects: An introduction to social and regional varieties of English in the British Isles. (4th edition) London (2005) Hodder Arnold. P. Trudgill. Dialects. London (1994) Routledge. R. Wardhaugh. An introduction to sociolinguistics. (2nd edition) Oxford (1992) Blackwell N. Coupland and A. Jaworksi (eds) Sociolinguistics: A reader and coursebook. Basingstoke (1997) Macmillan. [contains various articles which will be mentioned later]
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Assessment
No coursework Multiple-choice exam in summer Dont look at last years exam
I have taken over this course My syllabus is quite different from last years

Questions will be based on material covered in lectures

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Lecture notes
Lecture notes will be available on website
http://personalpages.manchester.ac.uk/staff/harold.somers/ LELA10082/ Alternatively:
Go via School home page Or via search engine

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Language, dialect, idiolect

What is a language? What is a dialect? What language do you speak? Are A and B the same language? Are A and B different dialects of a single language?

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Language, dialect, idiolect

Everyone speaks differently, in their own individual way: idiolect In fact the way you use language differs from moment to moment (more on that later in the course) Your idiolect will be characterized by phonetic, lexical and grammatical features
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Language, dialect, idiolect

Some phonetic features (and to a lesser extent lexical and grammatical) will be wholly idiosyncratic (eg voice quality) Others will identify your accent and dialect, which may be sufficiently similar to other peoples idiolects that you say you speak the same dialect (or with the same accent) Similarly, various accents/dialects are identified as being the same language
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Accent vs dialect
Accent generally refers only to phonetic differences Dialect usually means differences on all linguistic levels:
Phonetic Lexical Grammatical Pragmatic
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Standard vs non-standard
For many languages, one or another variety is recognised as standard Other varieties may be referred to as dialects, or just non-standard varieties Often, non-standard varieties are more or less stigmatised As linguists, we should not make value judgments, though as sociolinguists we may report other peoples value judgments
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Standard vs non-standard
Everyone has an accent Why are some varieties of English perceived to be better, or more correct? Likewise, why are some accents believed to be uglier than others? Important to distinguish objective facts about accents and dialects, and subjective opinions And notice how perceptions about accents impinge on their use: features of prestigious accents spread to other accents
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Standard vs non-standard
For many languages, the standard is the local dialect of some prestigious region, typically (though not always) the capital Not the case for English, which has a non-regional standard, called RP (received pronunciation)
RP is a variety of southern English, but is not the local accent of London, nor Oxford or Cambridge (or anywhere else) More on RP later
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Language and dialect

Whether two varieties are dialects, or separate languages is never clear-cut: Criteria for same language may include
Mutual intelligibility Political, geographical or racial identity Historical identity Measurable similarities in lexis and grammar
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Some borderline examples

Swedish, Norwegian x2, Danish: linguistically and politically distinct but mutually comprehensible Serbian, Croatian (erstwhile Serbo-Croat) Hindi, Urdu: writing system and some vocab differences, poltical and religious divide since 1947 English(es) of England, Scotland, America: written form m.i., some accent and dialect differences make understanding difficult Dutch, Flemish: as (dis)similar as BrE and AmE but seen as different languages Chinese: actually quite distinct languages described as dialects due to western bias and ignorance
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Language and dialect

Geographical and social factors Changing attitudes to accents and dialects Languages/dialects influence each other How to describe differences? How to observe and measure differences?

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The next few lectures

RP What is it? Who speaks it? How has its status changed? Accents of English
How do they differ? How do we characterise them? Whats special about your accent? How do specialists recognise accents? How can you learn to do a good X accent?
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