This document provides an overview of linguistic variation and features of different varieties of English and languages spoken in the United States. It discusses African American English, Hispanic American English, varieties of Spanish spoken in the Midwest, and other non-standard dialects including Cajun French and Creoles. Key features covered include phonological, syntactic, semantic, stylistic and organizational patterns that distinguish these varieties from standard American English.

1. Linguistics for Educators
June 22, 2011

2. Concepts
Linguistic variation:
AAE
HAE

3. AAE/AAVE/BEV/Ebonics
“We need to define what we speak. We need
to give a clear definition to our language...We
know that ebony means black and that
phonics refers to speech sounds or the
science of sounds. Thus, we are really talking
about the science of black speech sounds or
language.” Robert Williams

4. Major Voices
William Labov
Geneva Smitherman
John Ogbu

5. Features
Phonological Patterns:
For example, “There’s”, “It’s”, “That’s” are all
pronounced as “das”. “There is the dog”, “It is a dog”,
and “That is a dog” could all be said as “Das dawg.”

6. Syntactic features (Ball, 1999; p. 231)
Many speakers do not use 3rd person singular, present tense inflection
[s] as in “He say”. The [s] is frequently used with all persons. For
example, “I walks, they walks” indicates present tense.
“Doug be trying to tell. If this sentence is using the habitual
“be”, then the meaning is “Doug is often trying to tell.” If the
sentence is using the invariant “be”, then the meaning is“Doug
be intent on trying to tell.”
The copula or inflected “be” verb is often implicit ; e.g., “He
tall.”
Multiple negation is non-emphatic and required; e.g., “The man don’t
do or say nothing.”

7. Semantic Patterns
Broadened interpretive meanings: e.g., “dogging” can mean either to
degenerate morally or physically or to have an unhappy or harassed existence
(Ball, 1999; p. 233).
In-group terms: “terms used that are appropriately used by
African American to refer to other African American . . . use of
such terms by most European American would be inappropriate and
considered an act of over-familiarity” (Ball, 1999; p. 234).

8. Stylistic Patterns
Boasting or bragging which would be negatively viewed if about
personal abilities one doesn’t have, positively if one does have, or negatively
if about personal possessions, social achievement of one’s children,
regardless of their truth (Ball, 1999: p. 234-235).
Balester (1993) notes that signifying, an indirect way to deal with a
superior without directly challenging them, was a particularly important
stylistic pattern used by her informants when speaking (p.157).

9. Modes of Discourse
Performance mode: Using the techniques of rhythm, patterns of repetition
and variation, expressive sounds, and phenomena encouraging participative
sense-making like dialogue, tropes, hyperbole and call and response patterns
within the text (Dyson, 1991).
… Morgan (1998) identifies “signifying or sounding”, “adolescent instigating”,
adult conversational signifying”, “reading a person”, and “reading dialect” as
“verbal and discourse genres” which “constitute the African-American speech
community” (p. 251). ./,;

10. Organizational Patterns
Topic associated: “ ‘Narrative fragments’ that may seem anecdotal in
character, linked implicitly to a particular topical event or theme, but with no
explicit statement of an overall theme or point’; shift foci often; leave
relationships between foci unexplained; offer no recognizable ‘end’ and thus
do not seem to have a point; and seem to go longer and not be
concise” (Michaels, qtd in Taylor and Matsuda, 1988; 214). By way of
contrast, the term “topic-centered” denotes narration which is tightly focused
on a single event at one time or place.
Rhapsodizing: A series of anecdotes identifying an underlying point rather
than an explicit, analytical statement (Erikson, 1984). Ball (1992) has
redefined rhapsodizing and topic-associated patterns as “narrative
interspersion”, “circumlocution patterns” and “the recursion pattern.”

11. Holistic Knowing
For example, parents of the children in Trackton (an African American
working class community) developed holistic “ways of viewing and
operating in the world” by not talking “about the bits and pieces of the
world” (p. 108).
As a result, Trackton children never volunteer to list the attributes
which are similar in two objects and add up to make one thing like
another . They seem, instead, to have a gestalt, a highly
contextualized view, of objects which they compare without sorting
out the particular single features of the object itself….if asked
why or how one thing is like another, they do not answer; similarly,
they do not respond appropriately to tasks in which they are asked
to distinguish one thing as different from another. (p. 108)

12. Analytic Style
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etuPF1yJRzg
Heath contrasted the development of language skills among Trackton
inhabitants with those of the “townspeople”:
[Parents in town] teach children how to decontexualize referents or
labels [i.e., they are not linked to specific dated events or situations]. . .
through focused language, adults make the potential stimuli in the
child’s environment stand still for a cooperative examination and
narration between parent and child. The child learns to focus attention
on a pre-selected referent, masters the relationships between signifier
and the signified, develops turn-taking skills in a focused conversation
on the referent, and is subsequently expected to listen to, benefit from
and eventually to create narratives placing the referent in different
contextual situations (p. 351).
http://www.educationanddemocracy.org/Emery/Emery_Ebonics.htm

13. Features of Hispanic
American English
Chicano English A variety of English spoken
by many people of Hispanic descent in the
Southwestern United States and California. It
differs in systematic ways from Standard
American English. Chicano English is not just
English spoken by people who speak Spanish
as a native language and who are still
acquiring English. Not all speakers of Chicano
English speak Spanish

14. Chicano English
Chicano English has some distinctive pronunciation patterns--some
shared with African American English (AAE) and other vernacular
dialects.
the use of a “d” sound instead of a “th” sound: these and them are
often pronounced “dese”and “dem.”
the loss of a consonant at the end of a word if that consonant is part
of a consonant blend (also called a consonant cluster)
For example, the word missed (which sounds the same as mist) will
likely be pronounced as “miss.” Thus, when Chicano English (or AAE)
speakers say “I miss’ the bus,” it may sound like they are using the
present tense of the verb.

15. Chicano English
G-dropping at the end of –ing verb forms, as in fishin’ and goin’. But
here Chicano English differs from other vernacular varieties: It
substitutes an “ee” sound for the short “i” sound in these verbs. So
going may sound like “goween."
Characterized by what linguists call the “non-reduction of unstressed
vowels.” In English, if a syllable is not stressed, its vowel is often
“reduced”—that is, pronounced “uh.” For example, most English
speakers pronounce the first syllables of because or together with an
“uh”: “buh-cuz” and “tuh-gether.” But Chicano English speakers often
use “ee” and “oo” sounds even in unstressed syllables: They are likely
to say “bee-cuz” and “too-gether.” http://www.pbs.org/speak/about/
guide/#Chicano_English

16. Midwestern Spanish and
English
“Reflects a long history of immigration,
migration, segregation, discrimination,
deportation, neglect, struggle, cultural
renaissance and recontact.” Rodriguez-
Mondenedo.

17. Caribbean Spanish in
the Midwest
Changing word and syllable final -s to -h
sound or deleting it altogether
changing -n to velar nasal -ng at the end of
a syllable or a word

18. Narrative Styles
Younger Puerto Rican speakers tell more
direct and less elaborated narratives
Older speakers, with more contact with
Spanish, construct more elaborated
narratives, with more evaluations, the
historical present and more directly-reported
speech.

19. Mexican Spanish in the
Midwest
Pronunciation of -r at end of syllable,
resulting in sound like -sh in shut
Full pronunciation of -y as in mayo
Reduction or deletion of vowels that are not
strongly stressed
Full pronunciation of -s at end of syllables
OR deletion, e.g., chicas sounds like chica

20. Archaisms and Nahuatl
mande in place of como
güero
Nahuatalisms: popote (drinking straw)
colliquialisms: padre (super cool)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=lqtgJLr_T40

21. While we’re 1 Juq (Juk, hoq)
at it. . .
2 Iskay (iskai)
3 Kinsa (Kimsa)
4 Tawa
5 Pichq'a (pisqa)
6 Soqta
7 K'anchis (qanchis)
Counting in 8 Pusac (pusaq)
9 Isqon (isk'un)
Quechua
10 Chunka
http://www.andes.org/audio/count.wav

22. Midwestern Anglicisms
siper
yarda
lonch
mopear

23. Varieties of Spanish
variety in accents
lexical: aguacate o palta
Foods: tacos and tortillas foreign foods to
many speakers. Tostada in Peru is toast.
Rodriguez-Mondenedo, M. (2006). In The American Midwest: An interpretive
encyclopedia, Eds. Sisson. R,, Zacher, C. and Cayton, A. Bloomington, IN: Indiana
University Press.

24. Stereotyped working-class accent
http://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=pYk4N9ZmvYE&feature=related

25. Cognates
edifício; problema; preocupado (often,
changing -cion to -tion as in nacional)
and FALSE COGNATES
embarasada

26. Patois: Pidgins and
Creoles
Pidgin: simplified language usually for
business transactions
http://www.wolframalpha.com/entities/languages/tay_boi/bw/5k/az/
Creole: A pidgin that survives a generation and becomes a language
community (nativization)

27. Cajun French and Cajun English
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRXcpBIteEM
http://thecajunbayoudictionary.webs.com/

28. Linguistic Relativism
All languages and dialects are
comprehensible and must be studied as
systems

29. Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis
“People of different cultures think and
behave differenty because the languages
they speak require them to do so” (Rowe and
Levine, p. 222)
“One might say that Hopi society
understands our proverb ‘Well begun is half-
done,’ but not our ‘Tomorrow is another day.’”
B. Whorf

30. Language and
Nationalism
Irish v Gaelic

31. Chapter Eight
Language Acquisition
Halliday (1975) identifies seven functions that language has for children
in their early years. For Halliday, children are motivated to acquire
language because it serves certain purposes or functions for them. The
first four functions help the child to satisfy physical, emotional and social
needs. Halliday calls them instrumental, regulatory, interactional, and
personal functions.

32. ■ Instrumental: This is when the child uses
language to express their needs (e.g.'Want
juice')
■ Regulatory: This is where language is used to
tell others what to do (e.g. 'Go away')
■ Interactional: Here language is used to make
contact with others and form relationships (e.g.
'Love you, mummy')
■ Personal: This is the use of language to express
feelings, opinions, and individual identity (e.g.
'Me good girl')

33. The next three functions are heuristic,
imaginative, and representational, all helping
the child to come to terms with his or her
environment.
■ Heuristic: This is when language is used to gain
knowledge about the environment (e.g. 'What
the tractor doing?')
■ Imaginative: Here language is used to tell
stories and jokes, and to create an imaginary
environment.
■ Representational: The use of language to convey
facts and information.