Accents and dialects

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Many people believe Standard English to be the preferred dialect. This means that is the dialect most accepted in schools and business. It is also a dialect most often used by radio and television commentators and by newspaper reporters.

During the fourteenth century, London, the largest city in England, was the cultural centre of the country. As such, the London way of speaking was adopted by many educated Britishers as the “standard” dialect. When early settlers from this area brought the London speech with them, it retained its status, it was the early form of what is today called Standard English. Although it is important to learn the features of Standard English, it would be incorrect to think of this dialect as “better” than any other.

For hundreds of years the ordinary people in England continued to speak their own dialects. And some of these dialects would often be mutually unintelligible. This would be partly because some of their words differed and partly because their grammar differed in places. But it would usually be mainly because of the broad accents in which they were uttered; sentence intonation might vary, and words which were the same when written down might be pronounced differently.

Such differences are increased by isolation, by lack of movement amongst population and contact between them. But in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries education, transport, broadcasting are amongst the many factors which have helped to break down the isolation and thus to reduce differences in the forms of English people use. Since the Second World War a large-scale survey of the English dialects has been undertaken by Leeds University, for it is clear that many words and forms will disappear as the old people who use or remember them die.

All these dialects have undergone the same smoothing out of variants. What has survived from them today is a certain amount of vocabulary and idioms, and grammar. But, mainly, what has survived is accent, partly for psychological reasons, partly because Standard English itself can be, and is, spoken completely comprehensibly in a variety of accents even by educated speakers.

In George Bernard Shaw’s play, Pygmalion, Higgins, the professor of phonetics, could identify the London district and even the street a speaker came from by his pronunciation. It is doubtful whether in real life a trained phonetician would have been able to do so even at the turn of the century when people were less mobile than they are now. But he would certainly recognize a large number of regional variations. Today many ordinary people claim to be able to recognize different accents, but when put to the test they are less accurate than they think.

What would be the attitude of the educated English speaker to dialect? He might well use the modified accent of his native dialect in speaking Standard English. There are now more educated people (if by that one understands people who have higher education) speaking English with modified accents than with Received Pronunciation. If I returned to my native area I might find myself reassuming the forms and idioms of the dialect quite unconsciously. Elsewhere my normal vocabulary might have occasional dialect words. But the particular use I might make of such words and idioms might be to serve a special function in contrast to my usual Standard English. Thus if a Lancashire man had to reprimand an employee for a foolish action, he might not say, “You’re fool, ” which is harsh, but, “Thar’t gawmless, ” or “Thar’t as daft as a brush, ” which says the same thing, but in a more friendly way. Because it is not the speaker’s normal language it can be delivered with a smile, and the sting taken out of it. Again the speaker may fall into a dialect idiom, which because it is not the normal form will draw attention to itself. Thus a northern speaker who says, “Nay, that’ll not do, ” has a special force and finality about his words, which “No, we can’t do that, ” or something similar, lacks.

1. English is very various in different areas and different communities. There is no official dialect which is accepted by educational institutions, business world, radio and television.

2. The “standard” dialect came from Lancashire in the 16^th century, was completely adopted and is still considered to be the best one.

3. Since then English people have been speaking common language. They understand each other perfectly well.

4. English is a very stable language. You can still hear a lot of old forms used unchanged.

6.There are very many educated people speaking English with modified accents than with Received Pronunciation.

VII. Do you speak a dialect? What is happening to dialects in our country? Are there any political or social problems connected with the language?

VIII. Very informal words are called “slang”. Here is the list of some slang words in British English (many of them are different in the USA or Australia). Try to match them.

“My mate can be really thick sometimes. He stopped to get some fags and left the car open. He talked to the bird in the shop for about five minutes, and some guy nicked his stereo and two hundred quid from the car. Then he called the cops – but what can they do? ”

X. There is a list of twenty American slang words and phrases. Using words from this list or other ones you know write a dialogue between two characters. Use one of the suggestions for the characters that follow or make up your own situation.

– A high school student talks with his uncle who doesn’t understand the slang words his niece or nephew uses.

– Two students walk home from school, discussing their plans for the week-end.

XI. What would it be like if everyone in the world spoke the same language? What would be better or easier? Would we lose anything?