Lecture #19: Sociolinguistics I

Outline

What is a language? What is a dialect?

Although this is a distinction that we have all heard of, it isn't clear that there is any clear distinction that can be drawn between the two. A criterion of mutual intelligibility is often applied as a test of whether a pair of speakers is speaking two different languages or one or two dialects of the same language: if the two speakers can understand one another, then they must be speaking the same language. However, this rule-of-thumb doesn't fit with a number of ways in which we use the terms 'language' and 'dialect', as the following examples show:

1. Norwegian & Danish: mutually intelligible, but generally considered different 'languages'

2. Many languages spoken in China, which are referred to as 'Chinese dialects' are far from mutually intelligible.

3. In 1990, Serbian, Croatian and Bosnian were widely considered to be dialects of Serbo-Croatian ... and they met the criterion of mutual intelligibility. But in 1997 many more people are likely to regard them as distinct languages.

In each of these cases, political factors seem to outweigh linguistic factors in delineating the dialect/language contrast.

4. Many dialects of English not mutually intelligible. Some dialects of English are often not mutually intelligible: e.g. speakers from the mid-Atlantic states of the US may have difficulty understanding the English dialects of some communities in Scotland or Ireland.

The terms 'language' and 'dialect' are also often associated with prestige (language) or stigma (dialect).

This array of facts led the linguist Uriel Weinreich to the conclusion that "A language is a dialect with an army and a navy".

The stigmatization of the term dialect also led a number of students in this class to respond to a question in the beginning of semester survey with "I don't speak a dialect". (Is this you?) Now it may be the case that you don't speak a variety of English that is stigmatized, but *all* speakers of English speak some dialect, regardless of its social status, and most speakers are able to readily switch between a number of varieties of English.

Linguistic use of 'dialect'

Most speakers use a variety of different dialects or styles in different situations

The most skilled language users don't avoid using different dialects, they carefully control how they use different varieties of language.

In what situations would you be likely/unlikely to use expressions like the following?

"would you care for some coffee?"
"want some coffee?"
 
"cookin"
"cooking"
weak, unintelligent, unaware
clueless, thick
dense, spaced-out
 
"No, I haven't done that yet."
"Nah, I ent dun that yet."
 
"So I, like, just bought this, like, brand new car,and it, like, goes and breaks on me, like, right away."

Colloquial speech patterns show the same kinds of systematicities found in formal/written varieties

e.g. deletion in tag-questions

Forms used in formal English: includes subject and auxiliary verbs

1a. He wants me to pay the bill, does he!
b. She likes her new house, doesn't she?
c. They will steal my money, will they!
d. You're getting pretty tired, aren't you?
e. He is failing his courses, isn't he?

Widely possible forms in colloquial English, with subjects and auxiliaries dropped

2a. Wants me to pay the bill, does he!
b. Likes her new house, doesn't she?
c. Steal my money, will they!
d. Getting pretty tired, aren't you?
e. Failing his courses, isn't he?

However, it isn't possible to delete only the subject, leaving the auxiliary still present

3a. *Will steal my money, will they!
3b. *Are getting pretty tired, aren't you?
3c. *Is failing his courses, isn't he?

Nor is it possible to delete only the auxiliary, leaving the subject still present. (this is not true in other colloquial dialects of English which allow fairly liberal omission of at least the auxiliary 'be').

4a. *They steal my money, will they!
4b. *You getting pretty tired, aren't you?
4c. *He failing his courses, isn't he?

Why Vary?

Use of varying language forms is an important communicative tool.

The most skilled language users don't avoid using different dialects, they carefully control how they use different varieties of language.

Regional Variation

...in Words

NE vs. SW Pennsylvania (according to O'Grady et al's Contemporary Linguistics): curtains vs. blinds; pail vs. bucket

"Dutch cheese" New England; "Pot cheese" NY City, Hudson Valley area; various other names farther south (see Fromkin & Rodman p.281).

Well-known regional variation in the usage of the terms 'soda', 'pop', 'tonic' and 'fizzy' (last one used in UK).

Geographical lines dividing the areas where different words for the same object are used are called isoglosses. When many isoglosses follow the same geographical lines, we have grounds for positing a dialect boundary.

Regional Variation in Sounds

Maps of the dialects of the United States (and other countries) can also be constructed based on the ways in which particular sounds are produced. A large-scale project to create a dialect atlas of the US based on pronunciation is currently underway at the University of Pennsylvania under the direction of Prof. William Labov. The map and diagrams below are taken from an on-line report of this work, which gives a careful account of many regional dialects.

Labov and colleagues report that the vowel systems of the South and of the Inland North regions are both undergoing a radical change, probably the most dramatic changes in the English vowel system since the Great Vowel Shift of the middle ages. The charts below, again taken from Labov's on-line report, show how the vowels are reorganizing. For a more detailed explanation of these dialectal changes and how and where they are occurring, visit the on-line report.

[Note for studying: don't try to memorize this chart - just pay attention to the overall effect - that changes in the vowels of a dialect can lead to "chain-reaction" effects.]

Meanwhile, while areas of the US are modifying the English vowel system established 600+ years ago by the Great Vowel Shift, many varieties of Scottish English retain a vowel system which retains the pre-vowel-shift vowels!

Vowels as Marker of Southern American English

aj --> a:

hide -> [ha:d]
tribe -> [tra:b]
diphthong --> monophthong

addition of glides, syllables

bed
Bill
man

raising of mid-front vowels before nasals

pen
pin
meant
mint

..but doesn't affect:

met
mitt

Variation in [aj] --> [a:]

Pennsylvania:
more before liquids, nasals: miles, kind of, Irish
less before stops: might, idle
Further South:
more common word-finally or before voiced stop
why, ride
less common before voiceless stops
night, like

Prestige and Stigmatized Sounds

r-deletion

prestige in British English
partially stigmatized marker of Boston English

postvocalic r

prestige in American English
stigmatized property of SW British Eng.

[aj] --> [a:]

stigmatized feature of Southern varieties

[aw] --> [^w]

prestige feature of Canadian English

Attitudes &endash; positive or negative -- about phonological variation reflect attitudes about the people associated with specific sound forms. Nothing about the sounds themselves justifies the attitudes.

Grammatical variation

The teacher learned me my lesson. [stigmatized grammatical form]
The teacher taught me my lesson. [standard]

Standard English:

teach: [V NP NP]
learn: [V NP]

Stigmatized varieties:

learn: [V NP], [V NP NP]

Compare:

The ship sank.
The baby burped.
The storm sank the ship.
The parent burped the baby
sink: [V], [V NP]
burp: [V], [V NP]

Also:

The student rented the apartment.
The landlord rented the student the apartment.
rent: [V NP], [V NP NP]

In fact, the use of "rent" with the [V NP NP] structure is a recent innovation in English, and is still only marginally acceptable in some varieties of English.

Therefore, the stigmatized usage of "learn" is not 'illogical' &endash; it uses a pattern which is commonly applied to other verbs in English, and which children also use productively.

"don't giggle me!"

Regional Variation in Syntax, Morphology

Because of the effects of national written styles, regional variation in syntax and morphology tends to be less noticeable. However, it is not at all difficult to pick out syntactic and morphological differences between American and British English.

 North American
 British
 Morphological differences

 gotten

got

 dove

dived
 Syntactic differences

 I might have done it.

I might have done.

 The committee is/*are meeting today.

The committee is/are meeting today.

 Bill is in the hospital.

Bill is in hospital.
 Syntactic parallels

 A committee is meeting today.

A committee is/*are meeting today.

 Bill is in (the) jail.

Bill is in (the) jail.

 Sue is at (the) school.

Sue is at (the) school.

Interim Conclusions

1. Linguistic Variation is an important communicative tool

2. Mastery of varying styles and registers is important to being an effective communicator

3. No evidence that non-prestige varieties of English are linguistically inferior or less 'logical' than standard or prestige varieties of English.

4. Attitudes about stigmatized varieties of English reflect our prejudices about the speakers of those varieties, and have no linguistic justification

5. Speakers and readers are highly sensitive to linguistic variation &endash; speakers need to be aware of what their use of linguistic variation signals

Last updated 11/23/98 by Colin Phillips