Quick write time!
 What
is a dialect?
 Do you speak a dialect? How would you
describe the way you speak?
 Does everyone speak a dialect?
 Is a dialect the same thing as slang?
 http://ncsu.edu/linguistics/videos.php
 There
are approximately 2 million cases of
linguistic profiling every year in the US.
 That is nearly 5500 instances per day.
 We may not intend to discriminate based
on the way someone speaks. We
automatically use how a person speaks as
an information source about that person.
Statistics from NC State Dialect Awareness Program
dialects
 Varieties



within a language
Pronunciation
Vocabulary
grammar
 Many
different dialects of English across
the United States
 We all speak a dialect!
 Dialect
slang!
Why do we speak the way we
do?
 What’s
spoken around us
Standard:
Linguistic Continuum
More standard
standard
Less
What differences do you
notice between the dialects
of characters in TKaM? How
might we explain these
differences?
“Miss Scout, if you give me your attention I’ll
tell you what an entailment is. Jem’s
definitions are very nearly accurate
sometimes.”
-Atticus
“There ain’t no need to fear a cootie, ma’am.
Ain’t you ever seen one? Now don’t you be
afraid, you just go back to your desk and teach
us some more.”
-Little Chuck
Little
“Report and be damned to ye! Ain’t no snotnosed slut of a schoolteacher ever born c’n
make me do nothin’! You ain’t makin’ me go
nowhere, missus.”
-Burris Ewell
“I’ll be dogged…I didn’t know no better
than not to read to her, and she held me
responsible—listen Atticus, I don’t have to
go to school!”
-Scout
“You all hush…Reckon this is long enough to
reach from the sidewalk?”
-Jem
“Why, one spring of nut-grass can ruin a whole yard.
Look here. When it comes fall this dries up and the
wind blows it all over Maycomb County!”
-Miss
Maudie
“And why do I not understand children, Miss Jean
Louise? Such conduct as yours requires little
understanding. It was obstreperous, disorderly, and
abusive—”
-Uncle
Jack
“Baby, …, I just can’t help it if Mister Jem’s growin’ up.
He’s gonna want to be off to himself a lot now, doin’
whatever boys do, so you just come right on in the
kitchen when you feel lonesome.”
Calpurnia
“Brethren and sisters, we are particularly glad to have
company with us this morning. Mister and Miss Finch.
You all know their father. Before I begin I will read
some announcements.”
Reverend Sykes
“Mister Jem, …, we’re might glad to have
you all here. Don’t pay no ‘tention to Lula,
she’s contentious because Reverend Sykes
threatened to church her. She’s a
troublemaker from way back, got fancy
ideas an’ haughty ways—we’re mighty glad
to have you all”
Zeebo
“You ain’t got no business bringin’ white
chillun here—they got their church, we got
our’n. It is our church, ain’t it, Miss Cal?”
-Lula
Let’s place these characters
on the linguistic continuum!
What do you notice about placement on
the continuum?
Linguistic Bias
 Tendency
to favor or disfavor one way of speaking
over another
“She talks in slang all the time!”
“He talks too proper. He sounds like an old man.”
“People on Facebook need to learn how to talk.”
“People with country accents annoy me. They talk too
slow.”
Think about in To Kill a
Mockingbird…

Do Jem and Scout have a linguistic bias?

Jem and Scout ask Calpurnia why she speaks
in different dialects “when you know it’s not
right” (143). Do you agree with Jem and
Scout’s reasoning? Do you agree with Cal’s
reasoning? Why would some people say that
one dialect of English “better” than another?
Let’s explore some of our
dialects by looking at idioms!
 Figurative
meaning of the expression is
different from the literal
 Figurative meaning is commonly
understood by speakers of the dialect
 Varies with dialect
Recognize these idioms?
 Can’t
hold a candle to
 Madder than a wet hen
 Faster than greased lightning
 Sharp as a tack
 Tuckered out
-from highlands Southern dialect
(western NC, Oklahoma, east Texas)
 Slow
as Christmas
 His backbone’s rubbing his belly
 Slick as a peeled onion

Appalachian
 Mad
as a rooster in a henhouse
 Don’t get crosslegged
 Tearing up the peapatch
 Kneewalkin’ drunk
 Three bricks shy of a load

Southern
Idioms we can add?
Idioms used in To Kill a
Mockingbird?
 Other
variations you notice?
Imagine a conversation with a friend about
a movie you saw recently. Try to capture
two sentences from that conversation on
paper.
Imagine a typical conversation about the
same movie with a family member. Would
you say it any differently? Try to capture two
sentences from that conversation on paper.
Now imagine a conversation about the
same movie arises at a job interview. Would
it be any different? Try to capture two
sentences of that conversation on paper.
Style shifting
 We
all shift the way we speak depending
on the situation
 Can
you think of instances of style shifting
in To Kill a Mockingbird?
 Scout
says Calpurnia has “command of
two languages” (143). Do you agree?
What does dialect add to the
novel?
Do you think Harper Lee did
an accurate job of portraying
different dialects?
 Why
would this be difficult?
 How
could we find out?
What happens when dialects
are not portrayed
authentically?
Adapted from:
NC Life and Language Project Dialect
Awareness Curriculum
Information on idioms from:
 http://pandora.cii.wwu.edu/vajda/ling20
1/test3materials/AmericanDialects.htm
Answer in a well-reasoned,
beautifully-crafted paragraph:
In To Kill a Mockingbird, how does the
language a character uses contribute to our
understanding of that character?