SpecificTerminology
DIALECT derives from French dialecte < Latin dialectus<
Greek diálektos (dia- “through, across”+ Greek lektós
“capable of being spoken”
discourse, conversation, way of speaking, language of a
country or district
1. Manner of speaking, language, speech; esp. a manner of
speech peculiar to, or characteristic of, a particular person
or class; phraseology, idiom
2. a. One of the subordinate forms or varieties of a language
arising from local peculiarities of vocabulary,
pronunciation, and idiom. (In relation to modern languages
usually spec. A variety of speech differing from the
standard or literary ‘language’; a provincial method of
speech, as in ‘speakers of dialect’.) Also in a wider sense
applied to a particular language in its relation to the family
of languages to which it belongs.
It is a variety of a language that is distinct from other
varieties in grammar, vocabulary and accent.
Dialects may be regional or based on class differences
when they are usually called social or class dialects, or a
mixture of the two. Although dialects are usually
recognizable from the speaker’s accent, the term primarily
implies differences of GRAMMAR:
I LIKE IT
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I AIN’T DONE IT
I DIDN’T HAVE NO BREAKFAST
IT NEEDS WASHED
WE GOT OFF OF THE TRAIN
LOOK AT THEM COWS
and VOCABULARY:
WHILE meaning “UNTIL”: WAIT WHILE THE LIGHTS
ARE GREEN
LEARN meaning “TEACH”: LERN YERSELF SCOUSE
HAPPEN meaning “PERHAPS”
The term dialect tends to imply derivation from some
standard educated norm. Linguists regard the standard
variety as just another dialect.
For global varieties of English, the term dialect is not used;
you prefer Indian English, American English, Black
English Vernacular…
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Dialect is a general and technical term for a form of
language: a southern French dialect, the Yorkshire dialect,
the dialects of the United States.
1) Their teacher did not let them speak dialect at school,
but they spoke it at home.
2) It is a dialect word – only the older people use it.
Other terms used by linguists and socio-linguists to extend
the term to cover differences according to class and
occupation are:
regional dialect, social dialect, occupational dialect,
urban dialect, rural dialect.
IDIOLECT < Greek idio- “own, personal, distinct”
In linguistics it is the knowledge and command of an
individual person, the speech habit of an individual person.
Speakers differ in their knowledge, so that in some ways
everyone’s idiolect may be different.
ACROLECT < Greek ákros “top, tip “
1) the most prestigious or highest social variety of a
language, such as standard British English with an RP
accent.
2) Originally, in a post-Creole community, the social
dialect most closely resembling the standard language
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from which the Creole is derived (e.g. in Jamaica a
local variety of standard English)
The term is sometimes used in connection with mothertongue English speakers. Thus standard British English
with an RP accent may be considered an acrolect.
It is also used with reference to varieties of English in
regions where English is a second or third language:
“I feel that in the case of Singapore English…a very
distinct non-British English acrolect is gradually emerging.
HYPERLECT
It refers to a variety of language associated with the upper
strata of society.
The term is intended to cover marked grammatical usage as
well marked accent (MARKED RP)
Look at what Honey writes in Does Accent Matter?
Faber&Faber 19912
“I will call a HYPERLECT any such special variety of
language associated not with the most highly educated, but
with those who are socially the most highly privileged,
remembering that this term can cover not just their accent (
which in the case of contemporary Britain, I have called
“marked RP”), but may also refer to the complete range of
accent, grammar, vocabulary and idiom which constitute a
social dialect”.
BASILECT
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More generally, it is the least prestigious variety of a
language. The term can be used to describe dialects of
people speaking English as their mother tongue and may
also be applied in communities where English is used as a
second or third language.
More specifically in a community in which a CREOLE has
been current, it is the social dialect that is furthest away
from the standard language and nearest to the Creole.
A basilect is CLOSER to the standard language of which it
is a version than either a Creole or a pidgin.
MESOLECT
It is a level of language which shows greater speaker
competence than a BASILECT but LESS than an
ACROLECT.
Honey writes: “ With every year that passes, fewer and
fewer young children in Britain are introduced to the
meanings of the old dialect words, and the accent of more
and more of them to move at least an intermediate stage in
the direction of RP, which is called MESOLECT.
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Language and Social Context
In the British Isles English speakers are traditionally
divided into three distinct groups which can be defined
according to their accent:
a) Standard English RP speakers
b) Standard English non-RP speakers
c) Non-standard or dialect speakers
Three different social layers correspond to these groups
quite regularly:
-group a) consists of a very small minority in the highest
classes
-group b) is the largest and is made up of the middle class
-group c) corresponds to the working class and rural
population.
Trudgill’s PYRAMID CHARTS
To take a lexical example, in the standard English dialect
there is a single compound word SCARECROW “the
humanoid object farmers place in fields to scare off birds”.
At the lower end of the pyramid we can find a far greater
degree of regional variation in the most localized regional
English dialects. Corresponding to scarecrow you can
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have BOGLE, FLAY-CROW, MAWPIN, MAWKIN,
BIRD-SCARER, MOGGY, SHAY, GUY, BOGEY-MAN,
SHUFT, ROOK-SCARER and so on.
You can find the same sort of pattern with grammatical
differences, In standard English you find both:
He’s a man who likes his beer
He’s a man that likes his beer
In non-standard varieties regional variation is much greater:
all the following are possible:
He’s man WHO likes his beer
He’s man THAT likes his beer
He’s man AT likes his beer
He’s man AS likes his beer
He’s man WHAT likes his beer
He’s man HE likes his beer
He’s man LIKES his beer
Look at figure 3. It illustrates the situation with regard to
the pronunciation of one word: HOME. At the top of the
pyramid there is no variation owing to the power of RP. As
you know RP is a mere social accent and features a
restricted group of speakers.
In the top line there is only one variant, while there are
seven on the bottom line.
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In the second line the presence of /ho:m/ in both Edinburgh
and Newcastle, and of /hom/ in both Liverpool and
Bradford indicates the way in which certain non-RP
pronunciations acquire the status of less locally restricted,
regional standard-pronunciations in various parts of the
country.
Within the RP itself there is another variation which mirrors
a subtle social distinction: the so-called MARKED RP
reveals that speakers belong to the elite who attended public
schools and the most exclusive universities such as Oxford
and Cambridge. The UNMARKED RP indicates speakers
who belong to a less prestigious social level.
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