Language, Dialect and AccentDr. K. Lakehal-AyatMentouri University Constantine2011

Nature of a language

•The linguist makes no value judgment. S/he recognizes and accepts the existence of language varieties.

•School traditions emphasize a single “correct” standard form.

• Linguistics acknowledges that a certain dialect may be treated as a standard form

•Or is treated as PRESTIGIOUS by some members of society.

Regional dialects Social dialects or

Sociolects

LANGUAGE

DIALECT

St Br English, St Am English

Queen’s EnglishOxford Accent

• Linguists in recent decades have become more interested in the language of the people who (by a rigid conception of a St. Language) do not talk “properly”: language of small children and foreigners.

• The language of children has therefore a linguistic interest quite apart from its psychological interest as the development of speech in infancy.

• The mixed languages of former colonies (Jamaican Creole or Haitian Creole) have been studied with the same interest as can be studied Fr or Eng.

Language and Dialect

•Both terms are often used interchangeably.•Principle of mutual intelligibility differentiates

between them. • In most cases, the use of one or another depends

NOT on linguistic bases, but rather on socio-political factors.

Any 2 varieties which are

mutually intelligible are taken to

constitute two dialects of the

same language.

If they are mutually

UNintelligible , then they are

separate languages.

A language is a dialect with a navy and an army.

Weinreich, 1945:13.

Urdu Hindi

Language varieties are often called dialects rather than languages

Solely because they are not (or not recognized as) literary languages

Because the speakers of the given language do not have a state of their own

Because they are not used in press or literature, or very little,

Or because their language lacks prestige.

Dialect ► Subordinate term

Language Super ordinate term ►

In the Arab worldLanguage ARABIC►

Dialect Algerian A., Moroccan A., ►Syrian A., etc.

•Anthropological linguists define dialect as the specific form of a language used by a speech community.

•No one speaks a language ; everyone speaks a dialect of a language

•Those who identify a particular dailect as the standard or proper version of a language, are in fact using these terms

•TO EXPRESS A SOCIAL DISTINCTION

Speech community is a concept in sociolinguistics that describes a more or less discrete group of people who use language in a unique and mutually accepted way among themselves.

Dialect is also the term used to describe differences in speech that are associated with different regions or different social groups or classes.

• As we move around a speech community, we find variation in the speech of its members that is associated with their place of living or their social grouping.

Accent

•Differences in pronunciation between varieties

•Oxford accent: certain phonological characteristics particular to English spoken in that town.

•Term is used also to refer to some foreign non native features in the speech of a person (foreigner)

•You speak English with an accent

Regional dialects Am Eng

Pronunciation

Lexis

Morphology

Syntax

Br Eng

Pronunciation

Lexis

Morphology

Syntax

/ka:r/ /ka:/

gas

dove

petrol

dived

I haven’t a book

I don’t have a book

Dialect continuum

Linguistic variable

•As a basic tool for distinguishing social variation

•It is a linguistic item which has at least “variant forms the choice of which depends on other (non linguistic ) factors such as age, social status and situation”.

• /j/ -> /dz/, /ʔ/, /g/, /y/• /q/ -> /q/, /g/, /k/, /ʔ/