Language and Regional variation
A Brief Summary of Gearge Yule
The Study of Language
Chapter 18
The standard Language
Idealized variety: accepted official language of a community
or country.
Standard English: printed in newspapers, books, widely used
in mass media, and taught at schools.
It is the variety taught to those who want to learn English as a
second or foreign language
It is clearly associated with education and broadcasting
It is more easily described in terms of written language than
spoken language.
Accent and Dialect
Accent: technically restricted to the description of aspects of
pronunciation that identify where an individual speaker is
from, regionally or socially.
Dialect is used to describe features of grammar and
vocabulary as well as pronunciation
Dialectology
There is a general impression of mutual intelligibility among
speakers of different dialect despite some differences.
This is one of the criteria used in the study of dialects or
dialectology
It is important to emphasize that none of the dialects is
inherently better than any other. They are simply different.
Regional Dialects
All languages are spoken in different ways in different
regions.
This led to the recognition of regional dialects.
Isogloss, dialect boundaries and The Dialect
Continuum
If a vast majority of speakers in one area say they carry things
home from store a paper bag while the majority in another
area say they use a paper sack, then it is usually possible to
draw a line across a map separating the two areas.
This line is called isogloss
However, the drawing of isoglosses tends to obscure the fact
that at most dialect boundary areas, one dialect merges into
another. Thus, forming form a dialect continuum.
Bilingualism and Diglossia
Bilingualism is a situation where two official languages are
used.
Diglossia describes a situation involving two distinct
varieties.
In diglossia, there is a low variety used for every day affairs
and a high variety learned ins schools.
Pidgin and Creoles
A pidgin is a variety of language developed for some practical
purpose, such as trading among groups of people who had a
lot of contact but did not know each other’s language.
When a pidgin develops beyond its role as a trade or contact
language and becomes the first language of a social
community, it is described as Creole.
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