DIALECTS OF ENGLISHProf. Gerald Murray

Dept. of Anthropology (emeritus)University of Florida

What is a “dialect”

Original criterion : social prestige.

Modern definition: mutual intelligibility “Your dirty spoon fell on my clean rug.”

Elimination of judgmental dynamics

Recognition of ambiguous borderline cases

A language is a collection of dialects.

Everybody speaks a dialect whenever talking.

Dialects and registers

Dialects are generally defined territorially.

Migration produces ethnic and social dialects.

Dialect different from register.

“He’s not going to want to give me the day off.”

Difference from Chinese concept 方言

The 方言 is by definition territorial: “local”

Are 普通话 and 四川话 different languages?

Linguistically 普通话 is a dialect of 汉语 .

There is still a political element. 粤语 was recently “elevated” from 方言 to 语言 .

Elements of English dialect analysis

Phonology: High importance.

Morphology and syntax: Low importance

Lexicon: Medium importance

“British English” vs. “American English”

Vocabulary differences

Differences in vowels. I don’t know when I’ll go home. Stop the clock. A stupid new tune.

The /t/ phoneme in Britain and America

Variants of the /t/ phoneme Top Stop Water and butter. Latin Wait!

The glottalization of /t/ in Cockney You’d better get a bottle of bitter butter.

Examples of American Dialects

“Boston English”

“Southern English”

AAVE -- “Black English”

American dialect map

“Boston English”:Salient features

The silent /r/ . “The apartment on the corner”

The word final /r/ with high vowels. “It’s near the square”

The epenthetic /r/ “I saw Alice at your party” “China isn’t far from Japan”

“Law and order”.

Practice Bostonian

The apartment on the corner. The concert lasted half an hour. Law and order. China always wins at ping pong. I saw Alice at your party. A bottle of tonic.

“Southern English”

Y’all Neutralization of final unstressed /i/, /o/ Apocopation of /y/ in /ay/ diphthong

Your Allophonic merger of front vowels.

Pen / pin I’m fixin’ to marry merry Mary.

Examples of Mandarin dialectical merger 4=4, 14=14, 44 = 44. 老奶奶喝牛奶

Concluding points

Be descriptive, not prescriptive.

Realize that dialects follow complex rules.

Which “dialect” of English should Chinese students learn?