Dialects of English
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DIALECTS OF ENGLISHProf. Gerald Murray
Dept. of Anthropology (emeritus)University of Florida
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What is a “dialect” Original criterion : social prestige.
Modern definition: mutual intelligibility “Your dirty spoon fell on my clean rug.”
Elimination of judgmental dynamics
Recognition of ambiguous borderline cases
A language is a collection of dialects.
Everybody speaks a dialect whenever talking.
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Dialects and registers Dialects are generally defined territorially.
Migration produces ethnic and social dialects.
Dialect different from register.
“He’s not going to want to give me the day off.”
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Difference from Chinese concept 方言 The 方言 is by definition territorial:
“local”
Are 普通话 and 四川话 different languages?
Linguistically 普通话 is a dialect of 汉语 .
There is still a political element. 粤语 was recently “elevated” from 方言 to 语言 .
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Elements of English dialect analysis
Phonology: High importance.
Morphology and syntax: Low importance
Lexicon: Medium importance
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“British English” vs. “American English”
Vocabulary differences
Differences in vowels. I don’t know when I’ll go home. Stop the clock. A stupid new tune.
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The /t/ phoneme in Britain and America
Variants of the /t/ phoneme Top Stop Water and butter. Latin Wait!
The glottalization of /t/ in Cockney You’d better get a bottle of bitter butter.
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Examples of American Dialects “Boston English”
“Southern English”
AAVE -- “Black English”
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American dialect map
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“Boston English”:Salient features
The silent /r/ . “The apartment on the corner”
The word final /r/ with high vowels. “It’s near the square”
The epenthetic /r/ “I saw Alice at your party” “China isn’t far from Japan”
“Law and order”.
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Practice Bostonian The apartment on the corner. The concert lasted half an hour. Law and order. China always wins at ping pong. I saw Alice at your party. A bottle of tonic.
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“Southern English” Y’all Neutralization of final unstressed /i/, /o/ Apocopation of /y/ in /ay/ diphthong
Your Allophonic merger of front vowels.
Pen / pin I’m fixin’ to marry merry Mary.
Examples of Mandarin dialectical merger 4=4, 14=14, 44 = 44. 老奶奶喝牛奶
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Concluding points Be descriptive, not prescriptive.
Realize that dialects follow complex rules.
Which “dialect” of English should Chinese students learn?