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Dialects of English

Dialects of English. Prof. 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

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Dialects of English

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  1. Dialects of English Prof. Gerald Murray Dept. of Anthropology (emeritus) University of Florida

  2. 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.

  3. 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.”

  4. 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.

  5. Elements of English dialect analysis • Phonology: High importance. • Morphology and syntax: Low importance • Lexicon: Medium importance

  6. “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.

  7. 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.

  8. Examples of American Dialects • “Boston English” • “Southern English” • AAVE -- “Black English”

  9. American dialect map

  10. “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”.

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

  12. “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

  13. Concluding points • Be descriptive, not prescriptive. • Realize that dialects follow complex rules. • Which “dialect” of English should Chinese students learn?

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