Диалекты и лингвострановедение

English Dialects

Made by Rubanchenko Margarita

Group 332 (030702)

2010

 

 

British English, or UK English or English English (BrE, BE, en-GB), is the broad term used to distinguish the forms of the English language used in the United Kingdom from forms used elsewhere.^[2] There is confusion whether the term refers to English as spoken in the British Isles or to English as spoken in Great Britain,^[3] though in the case of Ireland, there are further distinctions peculiar to Hiberno-English.

Speakers of any given language sometimes get offended when their particular language style is called a dialect. To avoid any confusion, I would therefore like to explain what I mean by the term "dialect."

According to the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, a dialect is

A regional or social variety of a language distinguished by pronunciation, grammar, or vocabulary, especially a variety differing from the standard literary language or speech pattern of the culture in which it exists.

The problem with this definition is that it implies that there is some sort of "standard" language from which all of the various dialects of that language differ. In English, however, I do not think this is true. I think that the English language is far too widespread and varies too much for anyone to say that the English spoken in ____ is "standard" and everything else is a "dialect." Even if it were narrowed down to a single country, there is still a great deal of variation within that country, and who is to say which region/city/state/province speaks proper English?

My definition of a dialect is simply this: "A variation of a given language spoken in a particular place or by a particular group of people." Therefore, when I use the term dialect, I am not making any sort of judgment about the quality or "correctness" of that variety of English. I believe that American, British, Canadian, and Australian English are all dialects of the English language, and that none of them is any better or more proper than any other.

 

Dialects and accents vary between the four countries of the United Kingdom, and also within the countries themselves. There are also differences in the English spoken by different socio-economic groups in any particular region.

The major divisions are normally classified as English English (or English as spoken in England, which comprises Southern English dialects, Midlands English dialects and Northern English dialects), Welsh English, Scottish English and the closely related dialects of the Scots language. The various British dialects also differ in the words that they have borrowed from other languages. The Scottish and Northern English dialects include many words originally borrowed from Old Norse (Old Norse is a North Germanic language that was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and inhabitants of their overseas settlements during the Viking Age, until about 1300) and a few borrowed from Gaelic (Scottish Gaelic (Gàidhlig) is a member of the Goidelic branch of Celtic languages).

There is no singular British accent, just as there is no singular American accent; in fact, the United Kingdom is home to a wide variety of regional accents, to a greater extent than the United States.

The form of English most commonly associated with educated speakers in the southern counties of England is called the "Received Standard", and its accent is called Received Pronunciation (RP).^[8] It derives from a mixture of the Midland and Southern dialects which were spoken in London during the Middle Ages^[9] and is frequently used as a model for teaching English to foreign learners.^[8] Although educated speakers from elsewhere within the UK may not speak with an RP accent it is now a class-dialect more than a local dialect. The best speakers of Standard English are those whose pronunciation, and language generally, least betray their locality.^[9] It may also be referred to as "the Queen's (or King's) English", "Public School English", or "BBC English" as this was originally the form of English used on radio and television, although a wider variety of accents can be heard these days. Only approximately two percent of Britons speak RP,^[10] and it has evolved quite markedly over the last 40 years.

 

 

Outside the southeast there are, in England alone, other families of accents easily distinguished by natives, including:

• West Country (South West England)
• East Anglian
• West Midlands (Black Country, Birmingham)
• East Midlands
• Liverpool (Scouse)
• Manchester (Mancunian) and other east Lancashire accents
• Yorkshire (Slight but noticable differences between Leeds, Sheffield and Bradford)
• Newcastle (Geordie) and other northeast England accents

English language in England

There are many different accents and dialects throughout England and people are often very proud of their local accent or dialect, but there are many associated prejudices.

For the English language in England ("English English"), three major dialect groupings are recognized:

Southern English dialects, Midlands English dialects, Northern English dialects.

The accent best known to many people outside the United Kingdom as English English, is that of Received Pronunciation (RP). Until recently, RP English was widely believed to be more educated than other accents and was referred to as the Queen's (or King's) English, or even "BBC English" (because for many years of broadcasting it was rare to hear any other dialect on the BBC). But for several decades now regional accents have been more widely accepted and are frequently heard. RP is also sometimes called "Oxford English", and the Oxford Dictionary gives RP pronunciations for each word.

Native English speakers can often tell quite accurately where a person comes from, frequently down to within a few miles. Historically, such differences could be a major impediment to understanding between people from different areas. There are also many cases where a large city has a very different accent from the rural area around it (e.g. Bristol and Avon, Hull and the East Riding, Liverpool and Lancashire). But modern communications and mass media have reduced these differences significantly. Speakers may also change their pronunciation and vocabulary, particularly towards Received Pronunciation and Standard English when in public.

British Isles varieties of English, including English English, are discussed in John C. Wells (1982). Some of the features of English English are that:

• Most versions of this dialect have nonrhotic pronunciation, meaning that [r] is not pronounced in syllable coda position. Nonrhoticism is also found elsewhere in the English speaking world, including in Australian English, New Zealand English, and South African English, as well as most nonnative varieties spoken throughout the Commonwealth of Nations.^[8] Rhotic accents exist in the West Country, parts of Lancashire, the far north of England and in the town of Corby, both of which have a large Scottish influence on their speech.
• As noted above, Northern versions of the dialect lack the foot-strut split, so that there is no distinction between /ʊ/ and /ʌ/, making put and putt homophones as /pʊt/.
• In the Southern varieties, words like bath, cast, dance, fast, after, castle, grass etc. are pronounced with the long vowel found in calm (that is, [ɑː] or a similar vowel) while in the Midlands and Northern varieties they are pronounced with the same vowel as trap or cat, usually [a]. For more details see Trap-bath split. There are some areas of the West Country that would use the Southern variety for some words and the Northern variety for other words.
• Many varieties undergo h-dropping, making harm and arm homophones. This is a feature of working-class accents across most of England, but was traditionally stigmatised but less so now. In the past, working-class people were often unsure where an h ought to be pronounced, and, when attempting to speak "properly", would often preface any word that began with a vowel with an h (e.g. "henormous" instead of enormous, "hicicles" instead of icicles); this was referred to as the "hypercorrect h" in the Survey of English Dialects,
• A glottal stop for intervocalic /t/ is now common amongst younger speakers across the country; it was originally confined to some areas of the south-east and East Anglia.
• The distinction between /w/ and /hw/ in wine and whine is lost in most varieties, "wh" being pronounced consistently as /w/.
• Most varieties have the horse-hoarse merger. The horse-hoarse merger is the merger of the vowels /ɔ/ and /o/ before historic /r/, making pairs of words like horse/hoarse, for/four, war/wore, or/oar, morning/mourning etc. homophones.  However some northern accents retain the distinction, pronouncing pairs of words like for/four, horse/hoarse and morning/mourning differently.^[11]
• The consonant clusters /sj/, /zj/, and /lj/ in suit, Zeus, and lute are preserved by some.
• Many Southern varieties have the bad-lad split, The bad-lad split is a phonemic split of the Early Modern English short vowel phoneme /æ/ into a short /æ/ and a long /æː/. This split is found in some varieties of English English and Australian English in which bad (with long [æː]) and lad (with short [æ]) do not rhyme. (Wells 1982: 288–89, 596; Horvath and Horvath 2001; Leitner 2004). so that bad /bæːd/ and lad /læd/ do not rhyme.
• In most of the eastern half of England, plurals and past participle endings which are pronounced /ɪz/ and /ɪd/ (with the vowel of kit) in RP may be pronounced with a schwa /ə/.
• Another east-west division involves the rhotic [r]; it can be heard in the speech of country folk (particularly the elder. The rhotic [r] is rarely found in the east.

Welsh English

Welsh English, Anglo-Welsh, or Wenglish (see below) refers to the dialects of English spoken in Wales by Welsh people. The dialects are significantly influenced by Welsh grammar and often include words derived from Welsh. In addition to the distinctive words and grammar, there is a variety of accents found across Wales from the South Wales Valleys to Monmouthshire to West Wales. The term can also refer to individual words borrowed from English (often recent additions to the English language for which there is no Welsh equivalent yet), but spoken by a fluent Welsh speaker and altered to fit the Welsh language eg. "Dwi'n compiwtio fo rwan", to mean "I'm computing it now".

Some people use the same word to refer to any form of English spoken in Wales.

Pronunciation and peculiarities

Some of the features of Welsh English are:

• Distinctive intonational differences, including a rising intonation at the end of statements - sometimes characterised as "sing-song".
• Lengthening of all vowels is common in strong valleys accents.
• The vowel in English words such as "bus" is not that of Standard English. Thus, in Welsh English, the vowel sounds in "bus" and "the" are identical.
• In some areas, pronouncing [ɪ] as [ɛ] e.g. "edit" and "benefit" as if spelt "edet" and "benefet".
• A strong tendency (shared with Scottish English) towards using an alveolar trill [r] (a 'rolled r') in place of an approximant [ɹ] (the r used in most accents in England).
• Yod-dropping is rare after any consonant so rude and rood, threw and through, chews and choose, for example, are usually distinct.

Influence of the Welsh language

As well as borrowing words directly from the Welsh language (e.g. cwtch, bach), Welsh English is influenced by the grammar of Welsh and Welsh intonation. Placing something at the start of a sentence emphasises it: "furious, she was". Repetition for double emphasis is not uncommon : "It was a little-little car, a Fiat". Conversely, structures that would indicate emphasis in Standard English, like "He does go there", or "I do do it", might be used in neutral contexts, where no emphasis is intended. This derives from the common use of periphrasis and auxiliary verbs in spoken Welsh.

 

Scottish English

Scottish English refers to the varieties of English spoken in Scotland. It may or may not include Scots depending on the observer.^[1]

The main, formal variety is called Scottish Standard English^[2][3] or Standard Scottish English.^[4][5] However, Scottish English does have some distinctive vocabulary, particularly pertaining to Scottish institutions such as the Church of Scotland, local government and the education and legal systems.

Scottish Standard English is at one end of a bipolar linguistic continuum, with focused broad Scots at the other.^[6] Scottish English may be influenced to varying degrees by Scots.^[1][7] Many Scots speakers separate Scots and Scottish English as different registers depending on social circumstances.^[8] Some speakers code switch clearly from one to the other while others style shift in a less predictable and more fluctuating manner.^[8] Generally there is a shift to Scottish English in formal situations or with individuals of a higher social status.^[9]

Scottish English is the result of dialect contact between Scots and English after the 17th century. The resulting shift to English by Scots-speakers resulted in many phonological compromises and lexical transfers, often mistaken for mergers by linguists unfamiliar with the history of Scottish English

Phonology

The speech of the middle classes in Scotland tends to conform to the grammatical norms of the written standard, particularly in situations that are regarded as formal. Highland English is slightly different from the variety spoken in the Lowlands in that it is more phonologically, grammatically, and lexically influenced by a Gaelic substratum.

While pronunciation features vary among speakers (depending on region and social status), there are a number of phonological aspects characteristic of Scottish English:

• Scottish English is a rhotic accent, meaning /r/ is pronounced in the syllable coda. As with Received Pronunciation, /r/ may be an alveolar approximant ([ɹ], although it is also common that a speaker will use an alveolar tap [ɾ]. Less common is use of the alveolar trill [r] (hereafter, <r> will be used to denote any rhotic consonant).
• While other dialects have merged /ɛ/, /ɪ/, /ʌ/ before /r/, Scottish English makes a distinction between the vowels in herd, bird, and curd.
• Many varieties contrast /o/ and /ɔ/ before /r/ so that hoarse and horse are pronounced differently.
• /or/ and /ur/ are contrasted so that shore and sure are pronounced differently, as are pour and poor.
• There is a distinction between /w/ and /hw/ in word pairs such as witch and which.
• The phoneme /x/ is common in names and in SSE's many Gaelic and Scots borrowings, so much so that it is often taught to incomers, particularly for "ch" in loch. Some Scottish speakers use it in words of Greek origin as well, such as technical, patriarch, etc. The pronunciation of these words in the original Greek would support this. (Wells 1982, 408).
• /l/ is usually velarized (see dark l). In areas where Scottish Gaelic was spoken until relatively recently (such as Dumfries and Galloway), velarization may be absent.
• Vowel length is generally regarded as non-phonemic, although a distinctive part of Scottish English is the Scots vowel length rule (Scobbie et al. 1999). Certain vowels (such as /i/, /u/, and /æ/ are generally long but are shortened before nasals and voiced plosives. However, this does not occur across morpheme boundaries so that crude contrasts with crewed, need with kneed and side with sighed.
• Scottish English has no /ʊ/, instead transferring Scots /u/. Phonetically, this vowel may be more front, being pronounced [ʉ] or even [y]. Thus pull and pool are homophones.
• Cot and caught are not differentiated in most Central Scottish varieties, as they are in some other varieties.^[12]
• In most varieties, there is no /æ/:/ɑː/ distinction; therefore, bath, trap, and palm have the same vowel.^[12]
• The happY vowel is most commonly /e/ (as in face), but may also be /ɪ/ (as in kit) or /i/ (as in fleece).^[13]
• /θs/ is often used in plural nouns where southern English has /ðz/ (baths, youths, etc); with and booth are pronounced with θ. (See Pronunciation of English th.)
• In colloquial speech, the glottal stop may be an allophone of /t/ after a vowel, as in [ˈbʌʔər]. These same speakers may "drop the g" in the suffix -ing and debuccalize /θ/ to [h] in certain contexts.
• /ɪ/ is more open, so that it sounds closer to /ɛ/ (although the two phonemes are not merged).