Introduction to English Linguistics (I)

Professor Seongha Rhee

srhee@hufs.ac.kr

Ch. 9. Sociolinguistics (1) (430-457)

1. Dialects

2. Dialects of English

3. Social Dialects and the ‘Standard’

4. Genderlect

5. Sociolinguistic Analysis

6. Lingua Franca

7. Contact Languages: Pidgins and Creoles

1. Dialects

• Factors of language differences:

age, sex, size, speech rates, emotional

state, state of health, native/non-native

language...

• language, dialect, idiolect

• mutual intelligibility

cf. Danish vs. Norwegian vs. Swedish

Hindi vs. Urdu

cf. Mandarin vs. Cantonese

“Dialect”

mutual intelligibility

same basic grammar

systematic differences

1.1 Regional Dialects

• Cause of dialectal diversity:

communicative isolation

• Causes of communicative isolation:

geographic separation, social separation

• regional dialect

• dialect leveling

1.2 Accents

• accent1:

regional phonological or phonetic distinctions

• accent2:

distinct phonological differences in non-native

speaker's speech due to interference

2. Dialects of English

• causes of US dialectal differences:

16-18th century settlement

• Three major dialects (by 18th c.):

Northern dialect: New England, around the Hudson River

Midland dialect: Pennsylvania

Southern dialect: Southern area

• examples:

- /r/ pronunciation (farm, farther, father...)

• early New England settlers' ties with London: 'r-less'

• later western settlers' ties with northern England

• immigrants from other areas

2.1 Phonological Differences

• /r/ pronunciation

• Vowels:

- caught /kɔt/, cot /kat/ vs. both /kat/

- Mary /meri/, marry /mæri/, merry /mɛri/ vs. all same

- creek /krik/ vs /krɪk/

- pin vs. pen

• Examples of AmE vs. BrE

• luxury:

[lʌkʃəri] (48%Am) vs.

[lʌgʒəri] (96%Br)

• data:

[detə] (64%Am/92%Br) vs.

[dætə] (35%Am/2%Br)

• Accent (AmE vs. BrE):

cigarette, applicable, formidable,

kilometer, laboratory

• /h/ pronunciation:

head, herb

2.2 Lexical Differences

• pail/bucket;

faucet/spigot;

blinds/shades/curtains;

wheel/ride/roll (a baby);

baby carriage/buggy/coach/cab...

• BrE. vs. AmE.:

lift/elevator; petrol/gas;

public school/private school;

pants/underpants;

trousers/pants...

• Regional differences:

tonic (Boston) vs. soda/soda-pop (LA);

freeway (LA) vs. thruway (NY) vs.

parkway (NJ) vs. motorway (England),

expressway, turnpike...

2.3 Dialect Atlases

• dialect map / dialect atlas

• isogloss

2.4 Syntactic Differences

• American:

John will eat and Mary will eat

> John and Mary will eat.

• Ozark:

John will eat and Mary will eat

> John will eat and Mary.

• Have them come early! vs. Have them to come early!

• He should have gotten/got to school on time.

(Some Am. gotten, All Br. got)

• between you and me vs. between you and I

• I could have done it (Br. it-omissible)

3. Social Dialects and the "Standard”

• Language Purists

• Banned Languages

• African American English (AAE)

• Latino (Hispanic) English

3.1 Language Purists

• prescriptive grammarians (=language purists)

• SAE (Standard American English)...

national news broadcasters

• BBC broadcasters: previously only RP, now mixed

• Greek grammarians in 2nd-3rd c. B.C. lament

the Greek difference from Homeric Greek.

3.2 Banned Languages

• Russian: Ukrainian, Lithuanian, Georgian, Armenian, Azeri,...

• Cajun English and American Indian languages in America

• Korean during Japanese colonial control

• Japanese songs and movies in Korea

• sign languages in many countries

• cf. le parking, le weekend, le hotdog in French

• cf. Official English initiative in California (1986)... 17 states

3.3 African American English (AAE)

• English spoken by a large population of

Americans of African descent.

• The social isolation created by the

discrimination against African Americans

intensified the dialect differences.

Phonology of American English

1) R-Deletion

deletes /r/ everywhere except before a vowel.

• guard and god /

• sore and saw /

• poor and pa /

• fort and fought /

• court and caught

2) L-Deletion

for some speakers of AAE.

• toll and toe /

• all and awe /

• help and hep

3) Consonant Cluster Simplification (optional)

Simplify at the ends of words:

• when one of the two consonants is an alveolar

/t/,/d/,/s/,/z/

• It may delete the past-tense morpheme

• meant and mend => [men]

• past and passed => [pass]

• When the final 〔t〕or 〔d〕 does not represent

the past tense, the rule is more applicable.

• a noun paste => [pes]

• a verb chased => [cest]

- /t/ will not always be deleted

• Final〔s〕or〔z〕more retainable when plural marking

• seats => [sit+s] where /s/ represents plural.

• Keats => [kit] /s/ more likely to be deleted.

4) Neutralization of〔ɪ〕and〔ɛ〕before nasal

• A lack of distinction between /ɪ/, /ɛ/ before nasal.

• pin and pen /

• bin and ben /

• tin and ten

=> pronounced roughly between the [ɪ] and the /ɛ/

5) Diphthong Reduction

• Reduction of diphthong [ɔj] to the [ɔ].

(particularly before /I/)

• boil and boy => [bɔ]

6) Loss of Interdental Fricatives

• /ɵ/ > /f/; /d/ > /v/

• Ruth [ruf] brother〔brʌvə〕

• Initial /ð/ in this, that, these, and those

/ð/ > [d]

Syntactic Differences between AAE and SAE

1) Double Negative

• Some concluded illogical because two negatives make

positive;

• But many other languages such as French and Italians

use double negatives.

• He don't know nothing. <illogical??>

2) Deletion of The Verb "Be"

e.g) SAE AAE

• He is nice/He's nice He nice

• They are mine/They're mine They mine

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

• *He's as nice as he says he's *He as nice as he say he

• How beautiful you are How beautiful you are

• *How beautiful you're *How beautiful you

• Here I am Here I am

• *Here I'm *Here I

• =>Where the verb can be contracted in SAE, it is deleted in AAE

and vice versa.

3) Habitual "Be“

• In SAE, distinction is made lexically;

adding more words.

• John is happy now.

or John is generally happy.

• In AAE, the distinction is made syntactically;

an uninflected form of "be" is used to refer

to habitual state.

• John be happy => John is always happy

• John happy => John is happy now

• He be late => He is habitually late

• He late => He is late this time

History of AAE (African American English)

• Beginning of AAE-black slaves in chains to Virginia, 1619.

• Theories as to AAE differences.

① African slaves learned English as a second language.

② Many of the unique features of AAE are traceable to

influences of the African languages spoken by the slaves.

• From Pidgin: American English ＋ West African language

• AAE is closer to Southern dialects because:

① Their second language was Southern English

② Southern white children were raised among

black slaves

3.4 Latino(Hispanic) English

• English spoken by native Spanish speakers

and their descendants.

• →The South West was once part of Mexico.

• →Large number of immigrants from Spanish

speaking countries.

• Code-Switching

- Insertion of a Spanish word or phrase in English

sentences, or moving back and forth between Spanish

and English.

- universal language-contact phenomenon

• Canada, Québecois: French ↔ English

• Switzerland: French ↔ German

• “Broken” English (Spanglish, TexMex)

-Common misconception caused by the ignorance of code switching

-The phrase inserted into a sentence are always by syntactic rules.

• My mom fixes green tamales. (Adj N ←English)

• Mi mamá hace tamales verdes. (N Adj ←Spanish)

• My mom fixes tamales verdes.

*My mom fixes verdes tamales.

• Mi mamá hace green tamales.

*Mi mamá hace tamales green.

• Chicano English (ChE)

• A distinct dialect influenced by Spanish in American English.

• Systematic differences between SAE and ChE

1) English has 11 stressed vowels: /i, Ⅰ, e, ɛ, æ, u, U, o, a, ʌ, ɔ/

Spanish has only 5: /i, e ,u, o, a/

- Spanish native speakers may substitute Spanish vowels for the

English.

ship, sheep => [ʃip]

rid, read => [rid]

2) Alternation of ch /ʃ/ and sh /ʧ/

show => ch [ʧo] check => sh [ʃek]

3) Devoicing

/z/ in easy => [isi] guys => [gajs]

4) Substitution of word-initial /t/ for /θ/ and /d/ for /ð/

thin => [tin] they => [de]

5) Word-final consonant cluster simplification

war and word => [war]

poked (past-tense suffix) => [pok]

loves (third-person singular agreement) => [lʌv]

6) Prosodic aspects of speech in ChE (intonation

and stress) may occur on a different syllable

in ChE than in SAE.

7) The Spanish sequential constraint;

a word does not begin with an /s/ cluster.

scare => escare

school => eschool

• Syntactic Variables in ChE

• double negatives

I don have no money

I no want nothin.

• Comparative more = more often

• Preposition away from = out from

SAE ChE

• I use English more often. I use English more.

• They use Spanish more often. They use more Spanish.

• They hope to get away from their problems. ... get out from...

• Lexical differences

borrow in ChE for lend in SAE

Borrow me a pencil.

• bidialectal either ChE of SAE, depending

on the social situation

4. Genderlect

• language used by particular gender (Deborah Tannen)

• Robin Lakoff’s study (1973)

- hedge: I suppose,

I would imagine,

This is probably wrong,

sort of,

but...

- tag questions:

isn’t it?

doesn’t it?...

- politeness formulae:

please,

thank you...

- intensifiers:

really,

so...

• Verbosity issue

- Men dominate conversation in

mixed-sex conversation.

- Men talk more in formal settings.

• Gender differences

- Women use vernacular forms less often:

-in’ ‘im...

- Men drop word-initial h more often:

‘enry, ’arf an hour, ‘appy...

- Women use ‘proper’ language more

often.

5. Sociolinguistic Analysis

• William Labov’s studies

- r-dropping

(Saks Fifth Avenue, Macy’s, S. Klein)

- AAE features (be-omission)

- ethnic and gender differences

6. Lingua Franca

- common language in multilanguage situation

- in medieval times: “Lingua Franca” (> modern Italian & Provencal) trade language

- English: modern-day lingua franca

- Swahili: East Africa

- Hausa: Nigeria

- Hindi & Urdu: India, Pakistan

- Kannada: around the SW Indian city of

Mysore

- Putonghua: China

7. Contact Languages: Pidgins and Creoles

• Pidgin: a common language w/o native speakers

- typically a trade language (17-19th c.)

- slave + slave-owner language

- plantation language: Hawaiian Pidgin

English

- superstrate language (= lexifier language)

+ substrate language

- Pidgin undergoes simplification.

• Pidgin may be creolized.

- Unlike pidgins, creoles undergo

elaboration.

- Unlike pidgins, creoles have many

grammatical features (auxiliary,

prepositions, article, inflection...)

[Features of Pidgins]

• P: fewer phonemes

• P: easy to learn

• P: absence of grammatical words

He bad man.

I no go bazaar.

• P: few prepositions: fɔ for to, at, in, for, from...

Gif di buk fɔ mi. “Give the book to me.“

I dei fɔ fam. “She is at the farm.“

Dɛm dei fɔ chɔs. “They are in the church.“

Du dis wan fɔ mi, a bɛg. “Do this for me, please.“

Di mɔni dei fɔ tebul. “The money is on the table.“

You fit muf tɛn frank fɔ ma kwa. “You can take

ten francs from my bag.“

• P: Reduplication for emphasis

big big “enormous”

luk luk “stare at”

• P: Compounding common

fella bilong Mrs. Queen: “Prince”

big ai “greedy“

drai ai “brave“

gras bilong fes “beard“

gras antap long ai “eyebrow“

gras bilong head “hair“

han bilong pisin “wing (of a bird)“

• P: Categorial fluidity

Adjective: tu bad pikin

“two bad children“

Noun: We no laik dis kain bad.

“We don’t like this kind of badness.“

Adverb: A liakam bad.

“I like it very much.“

Thank you!