Variation
Jean Mark Gawron
Linguistics
San Diego State University
[email protected]
http://www.rohan.sdsu.edu/∼gawron
Variation – p. 1/24
Groups and Situations
1. Dialect: Language varies by social group
2. Style/register: language varies by social situation
(a) Speaking to parents vs. speaking to friends
(b) Writing to parents vs. writing to an attorney
Variation – p. 2/24
Language switching
Background (Fishman 1972):
1. Flemish is a variety of Dutch spoken in Belgium.
2. Almost all, if not all, speakers of Flemish are bilingual in French and Flemish; most
speak standard Dutch as well.
3. French is the language in which government business is transacted.
(speakers of Flemish)
Two languages , several varieties of each
Linguistic repertoire of Flemings
Language/Dialect
Situation
French (formal)
Government business
French (educated)
educated circles in Brussels
French (colloquial)
a particular dialect of French spoken by Flemings to each other
in informal situations.
Flemish
to other Flemings, relatively informal
Dutch (standard)
to other Dutch speakers, possibly other Flemings in more formal
situations (business)
Variation – p. 3/24
Terminology
Dialect
A variety of a language spoken by a particular group (ethnicity,
region, class, age, gender)
Standard
dialect
The dialect taught in school, used in formal writing, heard on
newscasts
Nonstandard
Any dialect but the standard
dialect
Style/register
A variety of a language spoken in a particular kind of social
situation
No
“That’s not
That’s slang!”
Yes
English!
“Everybody has a dialect.”
Variation – p. 4/24
Misused terminology
Term
Wrong
Right
Slang
A nonstandard variety of a language
New words or old words with
new meanings that usually
fade fast (crib)
Accent
A nonstandard variety of a language
A nonstandard pronunciation
of a language
Variation – p. 5/24
Dialect differences
Grammar
Double negation
Negative polarity
I don’t see no problem.
I don’t see any problem.
soft drink
soda
bureau
dresser
brother
brother
br2vô
˚
br2Dô
˚
Lexicon
Accent
Accent is only one component of what makes dialects differ.
Variation – p. 6/24
British vs. American I
For lexical material:
http://www.uta.fi/FAST/US1/REF/engtran.html
Lexical
Grammar
British
American
lemonade
7-up, Sprite
aubergine
eggplant
tatty
shabby
Ta!
Thank you! (informal)
table
submit for discussion
The accommodation in Venice
was first-class
The
accommodations
Venice were first-class
The committee were meeting
that morning
The committee was meeting
that morning
Have you a cigarette?
Do you have a cigarette ?
I have eaten more candy than
she has done
I have eaten more candy than
she has.
in
Variation – p. 7/24
British vs. American II
http://www.uiowa.edu/~acadtech/phonetics/#
All British vowels are RP (Received Pronunciation):
http://hctv.humnet.ucla.edu/departments/linguistics/
VowelsandConsonants/course/chapter2/amerenglishvowels.html
For dipthongs (and a good set of low back vowel contrasts):
http://www.paulmeier.com/ipa/diphthongs.html
British
American
hawed
hOd
hOd
O
low mid back unrounded
hard
hAd
hAôd
A
low back unrounded
hod
h6d
hAd
6
low back rounded
here
hI@
hIô
@
mid central unrounded
hoed
h@Ud
hoUd
U
fairly high, fairly back rounded
hair
hE@
hEô
E
low mid front unrounded
hired
ha@d
haIôd
I
fairly high, fairly front unrounded
Variation – p. 8/24
New Yawk City
Three features of Brooklynese (which is not really a dialect spoken in Brooklyn)
1. Raised æ: “past” pIæst
2. raised O: “coffee” kU@fI
3. Dropped r: “water”, “sure” wUOt@, SU@
Labov’s theory about R-drop. Inherited from posh British pronunciation. Prestige before
the war (President Roosevelt, Katherinen Hepburn), but totally dropped by all but the
lower classes after the war. So R-lessness, and speaking “Brooklynese” in general, is
much more an indicator of social class than borough; same features found in Queens
and the Bronx.
Variation – p. 9/24
Accent
Accent is the hardest thing for speakers to control when they switch dialects. But they
DO control it to some extent.
1. R-drop in New York City (Labov 1972):
R-ful
R-less
fourth
fOôT
fOT
floor
flOô
flO
there
DEô
DE@
cart
kAôt
kAt
2. R-ful pronunciation is the prestige dialect
3. No matter what the social class or task, no one always pronounces their R’s.
4. No matter what the task, higher class speaker use more prestige variants (more
R-ful pronunciations)
5. No matter what the class, careful style correlated with prestige variants
Variation – p. 10/24
Labov’s department store experiment
Experiment
Interview salespeople in large department stores, ranging
from low prestige to highest
Hypothesis
Higher prestige stores will do less R-dropping.
Method
Ask a question to which the answer is 4th floor. Pretend not to
have heard rthe answer and request a repetition. First answer
is casual speech. Second is Careful speech.
Casual
Careful
Saks (high prestige)
63
64
Macy’s (moderate prestige)
44
61
S. Klein (low prestige)
8
18
Result:
Less R-drop in salespeople in upscale stores, in fact less R-drop on the upper
floors (more expensive goods) of the same store.
Variation – p. 11/24
New York City R-drop
’lower working class’
’upper working class’
’lower middle class’
’upper middle class’
70
Percentage of r-use
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
casual
formal
reading
word list
Variation – p. 12/24
Summary
Sources of variation:
1. Place: New York City, England
2. Social class: working class, middle class
3. Situation: Formal, informal
Variation – p. 13/24
Place: the general pattern
1. Dialects often reflect settlement patterns, and deep dialectal differences often
reflect old historical facts
(a) England
For example, many dialectal difference in England can be traced back
to early settlement patterns of Angles, Saxons and Jutes (c. 500 A.D.)
(b) North East U.S.
New England largely settled by speakers from East Anglia.
(c) South East U.S.
Coastal areas further south settled by speakers from South of England
(d) Appalachian area (settled later)
North of England and northern Ireland
2. Dialect leveling: In a new settlement, dialect differences among the settlers tend to
level out, sometimes in favor of the most frequent variant. (New Zealand)
3. Routes of trade and immigration are the major factors in dialect spread.
Variation – p. 14/24
Place:America
1. http://www.ling.upenn.edu/phono_atlas/
American regional dialects (William Labov, Sharon Ash, and Charles Boberg. The
Atlas of North American English, with accompanying software)
http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2005/11/14/051114ta_talk_
seabrook
Three major divisions already apparent at the time of the Revolution
(a) Northern variety (New England)
(b) Midland dialect (Pennsylvania)
(c) Southern dialect
2. Southern dialect: Is there any longer such a thing?
(a) Walt Wolfram:
http://www.youtube.com/user/NCLLP#g/u
i. Dialect in Southern cities (Disappearance of “country dialect” from
Charlotte, due to growth and demographic change)
ii. Carolina Outer Banks Brogue English (“High Tide Brogue”, Atlantic, N.C.)
iii. Carolina Outer Banks Brogue vocabulary
Variation – p. 15/24
Northern dialect
Migration from New England and northern New York along the Southern shores of the
great lakes (along Erie Canal to Cleveland and west to Detroit)
1. New England
2. Inland North
3. The Hudson Valeey
4. Metropolitan New York
Variation – p. 16/24
South Midland
Migration from Upper Potomac and Shenandoah Valley in southern West Virginia, easter
Kentucky, and Tennessee.
1. Upper Potomac and Shenandoah
2. Southern West Virgina & Eastern Kentucky
3. Western Carolina & Eastern Tennessee
4. Northward into Indiana (the Hoosier apex)
Variation – p. 17/24
North Midland
Migration route from Philadelphia and the Delaware Valley west across Pennsylvania
1. Delaware valey
2. Susquehanna Valley
3. Upper Ohio Valley
4. Northern West Virginia
Variation – p. 18/24
Southern
Migration from Chesapeake Bay (southeastern coastal Maryland) and tidewater Virginia
(just south of Chesapeake Bay on the coast)
Variation – p. 19/24
Methods of dialect Atlas
The presence/influence of a dialect in individual speakers varies. Younger more mobile
speakers will generally reflect more outside influence. Conversely geographically remote
area with stable communities will be the most linguistically conservative.
1. Find speakers with least outside influence (NORMS: nonmobile older rural males)
2. Long questionnaire (Lexical) Do you say:
(a) bucket or pail
(b) Hoagie or Grinder
(c) soda or soft drink or pop
3. Long questionnaire (Pronunciation): How do you say these words?
(a) Mary, merry, marry
(b) cot, caught
(c) pin, pen
4. Variant answers are recorded, tabulated, and placed on a map
5. If possible draw boundaries between variants on map (http://babel.ling.
upenn.edu/phono_atlas/ICSLP4/Map_1a.GIF). Such geographic
boundaries between variants are called isoglosses.
Variation – p. 20/24
Mergers
An important kind of difference between dialects occurs when one sound in one dialect
corresponds to two distinct sounds in another. This called merger.
An example of such a merger is the merger of /w/ and /û/ that has happened
throughout much of American English.
whale
ûejl
wail
wejl
which
ûItS
witch
wItS
http://www.ling.upenn.edu/phono_atlas/maps/Map8.html
/O/ and /a/ merger: cot and caught, hawk and hock, Don and dawn merged in
northeastern New England, western Pennsylvani, central Ohio.
http://babel.ling.upenn.edu/phono_atlas/ICSLP4/Map_1a.GIF
Variation – p. 21/24
Restricted Mergers
Variation before liquids and nasals.
1. Mary, merry, marry:
Mary
meIôi
merry
mEôi
marry mæôi
Three vowels before ô: throughout the Midwest neutralized to E: mEôi
2. (/I/ and /E/ before nasals: pin and pen, him and hem merged rural south,
southern Ohio, central Indiana, Illinois, Missouri:
http://www.ling.upenn.edu/phono_atlas/maps/Map3.html
http://www.ling.upenn.edu/phono_atlas/ICSLP4.html
3. pool vs. pool [to pUl] and sale vs.sell [to sEl]:
http://www.ling.upenn.edu/phono_atlas/maps/Map5.html
http://www.ling.upenn.edu/phono_atlas/maps/Map6.html
More prominent among younger speakers
Variation – p. 22/24
Northern cities shift
A vowel shift occurs when a series of vowels undergo a change in acoustic quality
simultaneously.
Beginning in Detroit, Chicago, Cleveland, Buffalo:
Dipthongization
æ in cad → I@
Fronting
A in cod → æ
Lowering
O in dawn → A
Centralizing
E in Ked → further back
Backing
2 in cud → further back
Centralizing
I in kid → further back too.
http://www.ic.arizona.edu/~lsp/Northeast/ncshift/ncshift.html
Variation – p. 23/24
References
Fishman, J.A. 1972. The Sociology of Language: An Interdisciplinary Social Science
Approach to Language in Society. Rowley, Ma.: Newbury House Publishers, Inc.
Labov, W. 1972. Sociolinguistic patterns. Univ of Pennsylvania Press.
Variation – p. 24/24