This document discusses language variation and dialects. It defines language varieties as forms of language that change based on social factors like region, social class, individual, and situation. A dialect is a language variety spoken by a speech community that is distinguished by systematic phonological, lexical and grammatical features from other varieties of the same language. An idiolect refers to the speech variety of an individual speaker. Dialects can be regional, based on geographical area, temporal based on historical stage, or social/sociolects based on social class. Factors like social situation, occupation, age, geography, education, gender, social status, and ethnicity can contribute to language variation. All languages have dialects and everyone speaks at least one

1. C R E AT E D B Y :
I V
A M U T M A I N A H
LANGUAGE, DIALECT AND
ACCENT

2. LANGUAGE VARIATION
Language Varieties  refers to the various forms of
language triggered by social factors. Language may
changes from region to region, from one social class to
another, from individual to individual, and from situation to
situation. This actual changes result in the varieties of
language.
Language Variation:
• No two speakers of a language speak exactly the same
way
• No individual speaker speaks the same way all the time

3. DIALECT
A language variety, spoken by a speech community, that is
characterized by systematic features (e.g., phonological,
lexical, grammatical) that distinguish it from other varieties
of that same language
Idiolect: the speech variety of an individual speaker

4. VARIETIES
Hudson (1980: 24)
a set of linguistic items with similar distribution
Ferguson (1971: 30)
any body of human speech patterns which sufficiently
homogeneous to be analyzed by available techniques of synchronic
description and which has a sufficiently large repertory of elements and
their arrangements or process with broad enough semantic scope to
function in all normal context of communication.
Wardhaugh (1988: 20)
A specific set of linguistic items or human speech patterns
(presumably, sounds, words, grammatical features) which we can
uniquely associate with some external factors (presumably, a
geographical area and a social group)

5. Factors that contribute to variation:
• Social situation
• Occupation
• Age
• Geography
• Education
• Gender
• Social status/class
• Ethnicity

6. Facts about dialects:
• All languages consist of dialects (a language is a group
of dialects; to speak a language is to speak a dialect of
that language)
• Therefore, everyone speaks at least one dialect
• Dialect differences are usually minor and dialects of a
language are usually mutually intelligible

7. KINDS OF DIALECT
1. Regional or geographical dialect : varieties of a language spoken in
a geographical area.
2. Temporal dialects :varieties of a language used at particular stages
in its historical development.
3. Social dialect/sociolects : varieties of a language used by people
belonging to particular social classes.
4. Idiolects : varieties of language used by individual speakers, with
particularities of pronuounciatin, grammar and vocabulary.

8. • Dialect must not be confused with ‘accent’. Standard
English is spoken in a variety of accents. RP is the
English accent that has achieved certain eminence.a.
associated with a higher social or educational
background b. most commonly taught to students EFL c.
other names for this accents: the queen’s English,
Oxford English, BBC English.