The document defines key concepts in the study of language variation: Varieties are sets of linguistic features associated with a group. Dialects differ grammatically and lexically from other varieties and are associated with a social group. Accents only differ in pronunciation. Styles vary based on social situations. Dialect contact from communication between groups can lead to dialect mixture and the formation of new dialects or koines. Registers are varieties associated with topics or activities.

1. 3 october 2011

2. Language varieties
 A variety of language as a set of linguistic items with
similar distribution (Hudson)
 Any body of human speech patterns which is
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 formal contexts of
communication (ferguson)

3. (Hudson & Ferguson)
 They agree in defining variety in terms of a specific set
of ‘linguistic item’ or ‘ human speech pattern’
(presumably, sounds, words, grammatical features,
etc) which we can uniquely associate with some
external factor ( presumably, a geographical area or
social group)

4. dialects
 A variety of language which differs grammatically,
phonologically and lexically from other varieties, and
which is associated with a particular social class or
status group.

5. accent
 Varieties which differ from one another only in
pronunciation are known as accent

6. styles.
 Varieties which are associated only with particular
social situations are known as styles.
 Language variation which reflect changes in
situational factors such as addressee, setting, task or
topic

7. Dialect contact
 Contact between linguistic varieties which results from
communication between speakers of different but
mutually intelligible dialects, often involving
accommodation.

8.  Such communication is of course very common
indeed, but, from the point of view of sociolinguistics,
such contacts are particularly interesting where they
occur on large scale, such as at dialect boundaries
(isogloss) or as result of urbanization or colonization.
In these cases, phenomena such as dialect mixture.

9. Dialect mixture
 A consequence of large scale, long term dialect contact
in which face-to-face interaction between speakers of
different dialects, stemming from developments such
as emigration or urbanisation, leads to
accommodation between these speakers and thus the
mixing of different dialect form

10.  The end result of the mixture may ultimately be the
formation of a new dialect, such as Australian English,
with speakers selecting a combination of forms from
different dialects which are present in the mixture for
retention, and discarding others. The new dialect will
typically have the linguistic characteristics of a koine

11. Register
 A technical term from sociolinguistics and particularly
associated with the work of Michael Halliday which is
used to describe a language variety that is associated
with a particular topic, subject or activity.
 More narrowly to describe the specific vocabulary
associated with different occupational groups.

12. DISCUSSION
1. WHICH LANGUAGE(S) DO YOU SPEAK?
2. DO YOU SPEAK A DIALECT OF X?
3. WHERE IS THE BEST X SPOKEN?
4. WHAT IS YOUR NATIVE LANGUAGE (OR
MOTHER TONGUE) ?
5. DO YOU SPEAK x WITH AN ACCENT? IF SO,
WHAT ACCENT?

13. Languages, dialect, variation
 THANK U…..