Summary- "Introduction to Sociolinguistics" by Janet Holmes. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

Regional and Social Dialects

The chapter focuses on language variation in monolingual communities. In UK for example, the English variety used in Scotland differs than that used in England.

International varieties differ:

On the accent level:

The word (dad) pronounced by a New Zealander would sound like (dead) to a British speaker. (Bad) would also sound like (bed). The word (god) pronounced by an American would sound like (guard) to a British speaker. (Latter) would also sound like (ladder).

On Vocabulary level:

Australians use the form (sole parents), while the people of England use (single parents), and New Zealanders call them (solo parents). The American speaker would say (gas) while the British would say (petrol), (elevator) instead of (lift), and (luggage) instead of (baggage).

On the grammatical level:

The Americans would use the form (do you have) rather than (have you got), and (did you play?) rather than (have you played?) They would also use the form (gotten) while the British use (got).

The Spanish or French varieties also differ on these levels the same way the English verities differ. Canadian French and Parisian French are different French dialects. For example, the word (job) is (Travail) in Paris, while it is (djobe) in Montréal. The word beggar is (mendiant) in France while (queteux) in Quebec. The word cinema is (vues) in Canada while it is (cinema) in France. On the level of grammar, grammatical gender also differs. For example, the word appetite (appetite) and midday (midi) are feminine in Canada while they are masculine in France. Also, the pattern of using the two verbs (avoir) and (etre) to mark the aspect tense differ from Canada to Paris.

Intra-national or intra-continental variation (occurring within a single nation or between countries in a single continent)

Here the focus is on the dialect differences within one country. For example, in U.K. the Cockney differs from Scouse and from Geordie. The Cockney is distinguished with its glottal stop /?/ instead of /t/ in words like (butter) or (bottle). USA is also divided by dialectologists into three divisions: Northern, Midland and Southern. For example, within the midland area, Boston dialect differs from NY. Within NY Brooklynese is also different. In the rural Appalachians you can hear words like Clifft or acrosst, or verbs with a-prefixes such as a-fishin, a-comin. In the eastern states, words for (dragonfly) include snake feeder, snake doctor, snake waiter or darning needle, while New York uses only darning needle.

There is less regional variation in the areas where English was introduced earlier such as New Zealand and Australia although there is a social variation.  In such countries where there is intra-national communication, and small population, the regional variation was not able to develop. In New Zealand, dialect differences are greater in Maori than in English. For example, Maori words starting with (wh) differ in pronunciation from one palce to another. On the level of vocabulary, the word fish in most areas is (Ika) but it is (ngohi) in another. The word (kirikiri) means gravel in the west but means sand in the east of New Zealand.

Cross-continental variation (dialect chains) 

We have three dialect chains across Europe:

1.    One links all dialects of German, Dutch and Flemish from Switzerland through Austria and Germany to the Netherlands and Belgium.

2.    One links dialects of Portuguese, Spanish, Catalan, French and Italian.

3.    A Scandinavian chain links between Norwegian, Swedish and Danish. Therefore, the Swedes and Norwegians   

The chains are also found in India, and they clarify the arbitrariness of the distinction between language and dialect. Defining the contrast between German and Dutch or Swedish and Norwegian using only linguistic features is difficult.  This is because the linguistic features overlap, and usage in one area emerges to another. Therefore we must look to the social and political functions of the language as well as its linguistic features. Therefore, a language is a group of dialects that are usually linguistically similar, used by different social groups who choose to say that they are speakers of one language that unite them and represent them to other groups. This explains why a Chinese who speaks Mandarin does not understand the Chinese who speaks Cantonese, although the two dialects are dialects of the Chinese language.

Social Variation

RP (Received Pronunciation) : a social accent:

It is the accent of the best educated and the most prestigious members of English society. The label derives from the accent which was “received” at the royal court. The RP was promoted by the BBC for decades. It is a social accent not a regional one, and it conceals a speaker’s regional origin.

 You will find the most social variation at the lowest socio-economic level where regional differences abound. Further up the social ladder the amount of variation reduces till one reaches the top, where less than 5% of people use RP. Therefore, you can have more than six variation of the pronunciation of the word (grass) around England. In the present time, you can have other accents spoken beside the RP by the people who belong to the upper class. Most well-educated Scots, Irish and Welsh people do not use RP because it is not the only prestigious accent to be used in these communities. Even in previous colonies of Britain like Canada or Australia other accents have displaced RP. Now RP even tends to be perceived by many people as affected or (real posh).

Social dialects

Dialects are linguistic varieties which are linguistically distinguishable by their vocabulary, grammar and punctuation.

RP is a social accent. The Standard English is a social dialect.  Standard English is more accommodating than RP, and allows for some variation within its boundaries. It is estimated that up to 15 percent of the British regularly use standard British English.  In Standard English, a limited amount of grammatical variation is acceptable. The dialect “standard English” is spoken with different accents. Also, there are many standard Englishes. The American Standard English differs from Australian Standard English. Both also differ fro the British Standard English.

Non standard dialects:

Any linguistic form that is not a part of Standard English is regarded as “non-standard”. The standard dialect is the first to be codified, so other dialects are always compared to the standard dialect.

Non standard is a term that gives negative connotations. This is because the term is related to the less prestigious classes. But we must understand that there is nothing regarded as bad or inferior in linguistics. Therefore, linguistically speaking these non standard forms are regarded as different. Some sociolinguists use the term “vernacular” rather than “non standard” to avoid any negative implication.

Vernacular forms have features that differ from those of the standard forms. They tend to be learnt at home and used in informal and casual contexts. Vernacular dialects, like vernacular languages, lack public or overt prestige although they are valued by their users, especially as a means of expressing solidarity.

There is a patterned variation in the way people speak. This variation reflects social factors:

There is a relation between speech and social status:

A-  Castes:

People can be grouped together on the basis of similar social and economic factors. People’s languages reflect their social grouping when they use different social dialects. Social dialects can be seen clearly in Indonesia or India where social groupings are very clear. In these countries there area caste systems determined by birth, and strict social rules govern the behavior of each group. These rules govern matters like job, marriage and dressing. These social distinctions are also reflected in speech, and a person’s social dialect reflects his social background.

For example, in India there is a speech difference between the Brahmin and Non-Brahmin castes. In Indonesia, the Javanese language reflects the social status not just in the choice of linguistic forms but also in the combinations of forms which each social group uses. In example 9 the Indonesian student at a British university says that he has to choose different patterns or styles while speaking to different groups. In Javanese there are distinguishable stylistic levels. There are 3 distinct social groups and 3 associated dialects. 

1-    The dialect of the lowest status group (peasants, uneducated town people). It consists of three stylistic levels.

2-    The dialect of urbanized people with some education. It has 5 stylistic levels. Some of them are shared with the previous dialect.

3-    The dialect of the highly educated people. It consists of five stylistic levels. They are different from the stylistic levels of the urbanized people dialect.

Therefore, a particular social dialect in Javanese consists of a particular combination of style levels. Each style has its own vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation.

B-   Social Class

The term (class) refers to a group of people who share similarities in economic and social status. Status differences are in relation to (family background, wealth, education).

There is a strong relationship between social class and language patter, and that’s why people of different social classes do not speak the same way.

On the level of vocabulary, For example, in England there were words that marked the upper class English people (U speakers) from the (non U speakers). For example, (U speakers) used “sitting room” rather than “lounge”. They used “writing paper” instead of “note paper”, “bag” instead of “Hand bag”, and “sofa” instead of “settee”. However, the barriers between social groups are not fixed, because you can move up or down the social ladder. This is because the choice of vocabulary is superficial and can conceal/ hide social class membership.

On the level of pronunciation, the speech of different social groups is distinguished by frequency which they use particular features.

For example, the feature of “h dropping” reflects the social class of the speaker. In West Yorkshire and Norwich, unlike the highest social group (the upper middle class UMC), the lowest social group (which are the low or working class) dropped most of their “h”s.

The figure 6.3 explains that:

1.    The “h-dropping” feature is studied in five social groupings in the West Yorkshire and Norwich.

2.    The label used for the lowest social group is (lower or working class).

3.    The label given for the highest social group is (UMC).

4.    The lowest social group (which is the low or working class) dropped most of their “h”s.

5.    The highest social group (the upper middle class UMC), dropped the least number of “h”s.

6.    The pattern is the same all over England. Although the two places differ in the percentage of h dropping, the pattern is the same in the two places, as the UMC drops the least number of “h”s and the working class drops the most of them.

7.    In each social group, you will have individual social variable. For example, a person from the third social group would drop all his/her “h”s although he doesn’t belong to the working class.

The relationship between pronunciation and social class was demonstrated by William Labov, who studied the pronunciation of vowels and consonants by 120 ppl. He concluded that there is a relationship between the social class and the percentage of standard VS vernacular use. The pronunciation of /iŋ/ vs. /in/ at the end of words like “swimming” or “sleeping” distinguishes between social groups. The people of the lower social groups will pronounce it as /in/ rather than /iŋ/.  

The second feature taken as an example is “/r/ pronunciation”. The variable pronunciation of /r/ in words like “car” or “card” or “form” distinguishes between social classes. There are two variants of /r/. It is either pronounced or absent. In some regions, the /r/ is part of the standard prestige dialect in Ireland and Scotland in UK, and in New York and Boston in USA. In such areas, sociolinguists found that the higher the person’s social group, the more /r/ he/she pronounces.  In New York, Labov asked different shop assistants where the answer of each was “fourth floor”. He realized that the more prestigious the shop was, the more people used post-vocalic /r/.  In other places like Reading in England, the more prestigious you are the fewer you pronounce /r/.

Pronouncing vowels is also one of the features. Labov in a study of New Yorkers’ speech measured the slight differences in the way people pronounce the same vowel. He made a score system to rank the vowel pronunciation in relation to the most prestigious or standard pronunciation.

- In New Zealand, a similar scoring system was used in surveying around 140 people living in the South Island to measure their pronunciation of diphthongs in words like “boat”, “bite” and “bout”. The result revealed the social grouping as the highest social group scored high percentage, and they were closer to the standard pronunciation RP, while the low social group scored less. The higher score was allocated to the pronunciation that was close to RP and vice versa. The highest social group scored high, and the lowest social group scored less. In New Zealand, the RP is regarded as a social norm.

- In Paris, the pronunciation of the first vowel in words like “Casser” or “pas” varies from one social group to another. Some people would pronounce them as “cosser” and “po”.

- In Montréal French, (Canada) /l/ deletion varies according to two different social groupings (the professional – the working class). The working class scored high deletion percentage of /l/ rather than the professional one. But /l/ deletion is also influenced by two more things: the grammatical status. ‘l’ almost disappears in impersonal “il” like in “il pleut” (it is raining). Again, the working class showed a higher percentage of deletion than the professional class. The deletion is also influenced by the surrounding sounds. It tends to be deleted when preceding a consonant rather than a vowel. In this case we see that linguistic and social factors affect the pronunciation.

- In Persian Tehrani and Swahili used in Mombassa, the higher the social group is the more standard forms it uses.

On the level of grammatical patterns, there is also a variable that prove social grouping. The higher social groups use more of the standard grammatical forms and few of non-standard or vernacular forms.  For example, the Standard English would use “she walks every day”, “I finished my homework”, while the vernacular would use “ she walk” and “I finish”.

There is a pattern of negation called “negative concord” which means double negation. It is not used by Standard English as it only uses one negation form. However, most vernacular dialects can have more than one negative form.  It is much more frequent in lower class rather than UMC.

In standard pronunciation, the glottal stop is avoided, while used more comfortably in vernacular.

Glossary:

Post vocalic: تأتي بعد حرف علة

Diphthong: صوت مكون من حرفي علة