STANDARD PRONUNCIATION DIALECTOLOGY SOCIOLINGUISTICS DIALECTOLOGY

STANDARD PRONUNCIATION & DIALECTOLOGY

SOCIOLINGUISTICS & DIALECTOLOGY Sociolinguistics is a branch of linguistics which studies the functioning of the phonetic, lexical and grammatical aspects of language in society. Dialectology is the academic study of the phonological, morphological & lexical aspects of traditional dialect forms. Dialect is a variety of language in which the use of grammar and vocabulary identifies the regional or social background of the user. Language varieties whose features of pronunciation signal regional or social identity comprise the notion “accent”.

STANDARD & NONSTANDARD LANGUAGES We should distinguish between the 2 notions 1) “language” and 2) “a variety of language”: 1 a) the phenomenon of vocal and written communication among human beings [human language]; 1 b) a system of communication used by the people of a particular country or area [the English language]. 2) a set of linguistic items with similar social distribution [British English and American English].

‘Standard language’ denotes a written language and refers to the fixity of spelling, lexicon and grammar, codified as a set of established rules. Non-standard language varieties are accents or dialects with little or no prestige. A linguistic process of reducing variation motivated by particular social or political interests is standardization. A spoken standard is based on the norms of the written model. However, pronunciation has an extremely variable and changing nature, and is more resistant to standardization.

THE 4 -STEP MODEL OF LANGUAGE STANDARDISATION 1. the selection отбор the selection of a variety as the basis of standard; the chosen variety gains prestige with the people who use it. For political & economic reasons, around the 15 th century, prestige and high status was attached to the educated speech of the capital (London) and the surrounding counties.

2. the codification of form кодификация the process whereby the rules of the chosen variety are explicitly and officially formulated in dictionaries and grammars to minimize its variation in form; In 1755 Samuel Johnson produced a 2 -volume “A Dictionary of the English Language” which included a history of the language, a grammar, an extensive list of words of basic general vocabulary…

3. the elaboration of function развитие refers to the activities aimed at expanding the functions of the chosen variety: administration, education, science, literature, economic life, etc.

4. the acceptance by the community принятие refers to the diffusion and acceptance of the norm by the relevant population; the standard must have a body of users. During the 18 th and the first half of the 19 th centuries, there was a growing trend of correctness and purism determined by the increasing power and prosperity of the middle classes, whose members wished to erase all traces of the workingclass origins in their speech.

STANDARD ENGLISH (SE) Peter Trudgill suggests the following definition: “SE is the dialect of E. a) used in writing, b) spoken by the most educated and powerful native speakers in the UK, Australia, New Zealand South Africa; and c) taught to non-native students of E. ”. SE is used by about 12 -15% of the population of the British Isles. Further, SE speakers often speak in regional and social accents.

STANDARD ENGLISH (SE) Only about 1/3 of Standard British English speakers have a Received Pronunciation accent, or RP – the British English accent which has traditionally served as a prestige variety and as a pronunciation model in the teaching of EFL. Various types of RP are not clearly distinct accents and there are no strict boundaries between them. They are rather tendencies.

THE TYPES OF RP: A. C. Gimson identifies 3 main types of RP: 1. conservative RP, “used by the older generation and, traditionally, by certain professions or social groups”; 2. general RP, “most commonly in use and typified by the pronunciation adopted by the BBC”; 3. advanced RP, “mainly used by young people of exclusive social groups” and “may indicate the way in which the RP system is developing and be adopted in the future as general RP”.

Cruttenden suggests 3 types of RP: 1. general RP; 2. refined RP, “commonly considered to be upperclass” & associated with “upper-class families and with professions traditionally recruited from such families” ; 3. regional RP, “the type of speech which is basically RP except for the presence of a few regional characteristics unnoticed even by other speakers of RP”.

J. C. Wells speaks of 4 types of RP: 1. Mainstream RP, the unmarked, neutral, modern type of RP, typically spoken by BBC newsreaders; 2. Upper-crust RP (URP), the more conservative and old-fashioned type of RP, popularly associated with an elderly Oxbridge don, an upper-class army officer, or the older members of the royal family; 3. Near-RP, strongly modified regional accents close to Mainstream RP, but including a few regional pronunciation features; 4. Adoptive RP, “spoken by adults who did not speak RP as children”.

THE SOCIAL DIFFERENTIATION OF BRITISH DIALECTS & ACCENTS The social dialect (sociolect) is a variety of language used by a certain social group and having distinctive features of vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation. The social accent comprises only pronunciation. Sociolects help to identify the status of speakers in Great Britain, there is less regional variation in the speech of the higher than in that of the lower socioeconomic classes.

SOCIOLECTS: 1) ‘acrolect: акролект, наиболее рафинированная форма литературного языка; the language variety of a speech community that is closest to the standard or has the highest prestige; RP/BBC English/Queen’s English: “letter” – aspirated [‘lethə]; 2) mesolect: a variety of language intermediate between the highest & the low with the reduced social status: “letter” – glottal stop [‘leʔə]; 3) basilect: базилект, просторечный вариант языка; the least prestigious variety of a language most differing from the local standard; it has the lowest social status: “letter” – intervocalic voicing [‘leɖə].

THE GEOGRAPHICAL DIFFERENTIATION OF BRITISH DIALECTS AND ACCENTS The geographic dialect is spoken by people of the area or locality. Geographic dialects include local and regional ones. As a rule, differences between the neighbouring local dialects are rather small, but, in travelling farther in the same direction, differences accumulate, and local dialects and accents comprise regional ones.

BRITISH ENGLISH (BRE) 1. England (English) 1. 1. Received Pronunciation (RP) 1. 2. Northern English 1. 3. East Midlands English 1. 4. West Midlands English 1. 5. East Anglian English 1. 6. South East England 1. 7. West Country dialects

BRITISH ENGLISH (BRE) 2. Scotland (Scottish English) 2. 1. Highland English 2. 2. Glaswegian 3. Wales 3. 1. Welsh English 3. 2. North East English 3. 3. Pembrokeshire dialect

BRITISH ENGLISH (BRE) 4. Ireland (Republic of Ireland & Northern Ireland) 4. 1. Hiberno-English 4. 2. Mid Ulster English 5. Isle of Man – Manx English 6. Channel Islands – Channel English (Jersey, Guernsey, Alderney, Sark).

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