1. UNIT 5 VARIETY & CHANGE
• What varieties of English exist?
• Why does so much variation in our language
exist?
• How can we link variation to change?

2. DESCRIBING VARIATION
• EYE DIALECT – eg. “fraffly suite”
• IPA/TERMINOLOGY – eg. glottal stopping, th
fronting etc.
• EXPLAINING HOW NON STANDARD
DIALECT IS LOGICAL AND NOT ‘WRONG’!
– eg. using regular verb endings for economy

3. WHAT VARIETIES EXIST?
PERSONAL VARIATION
What do we call language
that varies on a personal
level? What factors influence
this?

4. WHAT VARIETIES EXIST?
REGIONAL VARIATION
Accent v dialect
Estuary English (social, not regional?)
Giles and accommodation
Attitudes to accent;overt & covert prestige
Link to invasions…
Dialect maps and isoglosses

5. WHAT VARIETIES EXIST?
ETHNIC VARIATION
B.V.E and Ebonics
Black English continuum
Pidgins and Creoles
Bi-dialectalism
Dub poetry
Attitudes to the above
Link to future of English; uniformity or diversity?

6. WHAT VARIETIES EXIST?
CLASS VARIATION
Changes in class system in
Britain
History of RP and perceived class
associations of accents (newsreaders!)
New classless variety? (EE)
Trudgill (Norwich), Labov (NYC), Milroy
(Belfast)??

7. WHAT VARIETIES EXIST?
GENDER
Dominance v difference
Language as androcentric
Key theorists on verbosity, interruptions
silence, gossip, topics, turn taking etc

8. WHY SO MUCH VARIETY? HOW DO WE
LINK THIS TO LANGUAGE CHANGE?
History of invasion
History of standardisation
Technology and globalisation
Influence of America
Language as a badge of identity
Future; diversity or uniformity?
Attitudes; Jean Aitchison!
Without varieties co-existing, would never be change
Saussure’s synchronic versus diachronic view of
language study

9. WHAT VARIETIES EXIST?
OCCUPATION
Legalese, journalese, ‘chalk talk’
Refer to Pit talk
Once need for unique occupational variety
gone, variety doesn’t necessarily die>
Dialect levelling
Labov (fishermen) Milroy (factory workers)

10. WHAT VARIETIES EXIST?
AGE VARIATION
Coates-“linguistic wardrobe” idea
Downes on age variation
Child language-different to adult
Teenage slang/taboo and ease with technology
Elderly-archaic lexis, “wireless”, “courting”
Pitmatic worth a mention
Labov (MVineyard) , Chesire (Reading), Kerswill
(Milton Keynes)??