UI Malone Fall '19 Engl 241 Intro Linguistics Language Variation

1. Language Variation
LF Ch 10
Engl 241

2. Concepts & Definitions
Part I

3. Variety
Idiolects
Individual variation
The way one person speaks
Dialects
Patterns of
variation
among groups

4. Dialect:
•Groups
•Systematic structural
or lexical variation
1
Accent:
•Everyone has one
•Systematic
phonological
variation
2

5. Speech Community =
Linguistic factors +
Extralinguistic factors

6. Linguistic
Variation
Phonetic
Phonological
Lexical
Morphological
Syntactic

7. Language vs. Dialect
“Language is a dialect with
an army and a navy!”

8. Language
• Mutual Intelligibility
• Extralinguistic Factors (culture,
geography, politics, etc.)
•Dialect Continuum

9. Mutual Intelligibility
Dutch
Afrikaans
When speakers of two
languages (or dialects)
understand each other with
little to no difficulty

10. Hindi and Urdu

11. Africa:
Nations and
Languages
(Problematizing
‘official’
languages)

12. Dialect Continuum?
English Dutch German

13. Social Factors Influencing
Variation
Part II

14. “Standard”
An ideal
Nobody
speaks it!
Often
determined by
the wealthy
Prestige
Overt:
What society
values
Covert:
How we affiliate
with groups

15. Stylization
•Register
•Style
•Jargon
•Slang

16. Social Factors
• Geography
• Age
• Gender
• Socioeconomic
Status

17. Language and
Communities of
Practice
How do the “communities
of practice” to which you
belong influence your
linguistic choices?

18. Regional
Variation
Part III

19. History
•“Aks” vs. “Ask”
(AAVE)
•Double
Negatives
(Appalachia)

20. Latinate Borrowings and
Prescriptive Rules
•Ending with
Prepositions
•Splitting
infinitives

21. Vernacular Dialects as
Systematic
• “He goes, ‘X’”
• A-prefixing
(Appalachia)
• “on line” vs. “in line”
(New England/Mid-
Atlantic)
• Copula absence
(AAVE)

22. Cot-Caught Merger

23. New England Accents
• Maine:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZ
Dpx1aLovc
• Connecticut:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K
MtXKXMH8wo
• Connecticut:
https://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/05/
nyregion/accent-what-accent.html
• Maine: https://downeast.com/dialects/

24. US Regional Lexical
Varieties
• http://www.businessinsider.com/22-maps-
that-show-the-deepest-linguistic-conflicts-
in-america-2013-6

25. Dialect Quiz
• https://www.nytimes.com/in
teractive/2014/upshot/diale
ct-quiz-map.html