English has many dialects that vary based on region and social class. The document examines dialects in Papua New Guinea, which contains over 1,500 languages spoken by small village groups. A study examined how people from different villages requested betel nut to chew, finding both identical dialects and close relationships between dialects of the same language. While languages and dialects exist on a continuum, political and social factors also influence whether varieties are considered separate languages or dialects.

2. English has many
dialects
DIALECT Subordinated variety of a language
-Regional dialect  It says
There are different where we come from
kinds of dialects -Social dialect  It says
who we are Geographical features
(river, mountains, etc)
The study of dialects has to do with BOUNDARIES Social nature (different
social class)

3. Language and Dialect in
Papua New Guinea
• North West new Britain in Pacific region It contains many indigenous
languages.
People live in small
Great concentration villages all are
of diversity multilingual people
speak 4 or 5
1.500 languages languages
are spoken
North West New Britain
In Papua New Guinea languages
are spoken by small groups, 40%
have fewer than 500 speakers

4. The experiment was about how people in different villages from Papua New
Guinea would request someone to give them “betel nut to chew”
-A betel nut is a small green nut of the betel palm
(intoxicant)
-It has cultural importance in North West Britain
*ten examples from different villages Results:
Varieties:
6 and 7 Identical -Constitute
dialects of 1
8 and 9 Similar to 6 and 7 (differ in pronunciation) language
Varieties:
3, 4 and 5 show close relationship differ in -Dialects of
term of vowels in the roof and in the prefix of 1 language
verb “chew”
Variety:
10  not very different
-Grammar Similar in all cases
Betel nut+ 3 person singular form of the verb “come” + 1rst person verb phrase
Literally: “betel nut, it comes, I chew”
Or loosely: “give me some betel nut chew”

5. Linguists recognize two major language families in
Papua New Guinea comprising between 700 and
800 languages.
1) Austronesian (it is near extinction)
2) Non-Austronesian (or Papuan)

6. What counts as a language or a dialect?
Classic cases: Intelligibility
Stretches through rural between adjacent
-The West Romance communities from the villages
dialects Atlantic coast of France
-Germanic dialects through Italy, Spain and Find each other
continua. Portugal. mutual
intelligibility
In SCANDINAVIA Danish, Swedish, Norwegian
if a tourist knows:
Dialects of one language
It is possible to communicate
across language boundaries

7. •Danish V/S Norwegian •Modern languages derived from
Nordic ancestor. Their
-Have a great deal of
increasing fragmentation reflects
vocabulary in common but
political history
differ in pronunciation.
•Separate languages due to
•Swedish V/S Norwegian political reasons.
Understand a nd
-Better more in vocabulary r st
de
-have more similar better than U n Norwegians
pronunciation Danes Swedes
Danes
•WHY?
-Because more Norwegians have been in
Sweden than Danes.
-Swedes have been in the other two
countries.

8. STATISTICS:
• ¼ of Swedes read anything in Norwegian
or Danish.
• 41% of Danes and 52% of Norwegian
listen to Swedish radio
• 9% of Swedes listen to Norwegian or
Danish radio.

9. •Is American English a dialect of English or a separate
language?
It depends on your point of view.
•George Bernard Shaw England and America as two
nations divided by a common language
•Noah Webster Authored a dictionary containing
different spellings in American and British words (color,
criticize)

10. Varies from other
The way of dialects of the same
ACCENT pronouncing a DIALECT language in at least
variety three levels of
organization
-Pronunciation
-Grammar
-Syntax
-Vocabulary
They share a
common grammar,
they differ more in
terms of vocabulary
and pronunciation.

11. Register Gives a clue about
what we are doing
•Example: Two lawyers are
It is concerned with
variation in language Talking about a legal matter,
conditioned by uses they are using the register of law
rather than users.
(context)
Speech
commu Social Group It is a convention
n ity
Communicative
who claims a that a speech competence
variety as their community share
own. about their speech
variety.
•People don’t necessary share the same
language but they share a set of norms •This term is used by sociolinguists to refer
and rules for the use of language to a speaker’s underlying knowledge of the
•It has social boundaries rules of grammar, and rules for their use in
social appropriate circumstances