LELA 10082
Varieties of English
Harold Somers
Professor of Language Engineering
Office: Lamb 1.15
1/18
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
2/18
Topics
• Language, dialect, “idiolect”
• Languages in contact:
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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?
3/18
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
4/18
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]
5/18
Assessment
• No coursework
• Multiple-choice exam in summer
• Don’t look at last year’s exam
– I have taken over this course
– My syllabus is quite different from last year’s
• Questions will be based on material covered
in lectures
6/18
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
7/18
Language, dialect, idiolect
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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?
8/18
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
9/18
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 people’s
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
10/18
Accent vs dialect
• “Accent” generally refers only to phonetic
differences
• “Dialect” usually means differences on all
linguistic levels:
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Phonetic
Lexical
Grammatical
Pragmatic
11/18
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 people’s value judgments
12/18
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
13/18
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
14/18
Language and dialect
• Whether two varieties are dialects, or
separate languages is never clear-cut:
• Criteria for “same language” may include
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Mutual intelligibility
Political, geographical or racial identity
Historical identity
Measurable similarities in lexis and grammar
15/18
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
16/18
Language and dialect
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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?
17/18
The next few lectures…
• RP – What is it? Who speaks it? How has
its status changed?
• Accents of English
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How do they differ?
How do we characterise them?
What’s special about your accent?
How do specialists recognise accents?
How can you learn to do a good X accent?
18/18