George Yule Chapter 18: Language & Regional Variation Explained

[00:00:00]good morning ladies and gentlemen i hope you're doing great and awesome as usual in our daily meetings today we're jumping to the study of language by jojoul because we have unfinished mission to accomplish and in our topic of today we're jumping two chapters to chapter 18. now why do we skip two chapters i think because we are following some sort of priority here we need to focus on the most important and relevant chapters that we do study and focus on and learn from dramatically more than other chapters that we have no direct contact and benefit from now why do i focus on this chapter particularly it's one of the most important highly controversial deeply rooted chapters and one of the key elements of becoming aware as a english speaker as an english speaker and as an english teacher so futuristically speaking you need to be aware of the geography of english now how is geography related to english it's because english is all about geography it's about distribution of accents and dialects around the world it's about the preference of certain people to certain dialects over others so in our chapter of today which is chapter 18 we're going to focus particularly on that now in this chapter um chapter 18 what we are going to do we are going to hover over the key features and elements of uh dialects and accents and iso classes and language continuum and pidgin and creole bilingualism because these are very common socio-linguistic linguistic social kind of topics that bear high relevance to our study of language and they are significantly uh important do we say significantly important not sure uh but the point is um language and regional variation now before we kick start this chapter i highly recommend you check out the questions that are uh in the that are distributed at the end they're left to the end of this chapter because they are going to keep you focused on certain parameters and principles that you need to bear in mind and focus a little bit more on especially when it comes to the standardization of english and dialects and language in general accent and dialect uh dialectology which is the study of dialects regional dialects isoglasses and dialect boundaries the dialect continuum bilingualism bilingualism it's often mispronounced would it bilingualism bilingualism bilingualism bilingualism uh language planning and uh pidgin and creoles the post-creel continuum and the study questions in addition to tasks for teachers i highly recommend you give students tasks to to do more than questions to answer when you assign them to do tasks they are going to be able to uh be in the direct contact with language and with uh the major principles of language and how they are relevant to society throughout this book we have been talking about language such as english spanish swahili as if as if there are a single variety of each and every day use but that is we have largely ignored the fact that every language has a lot of variation with fear especially and the way it is spoken so it's more leaning to spoken variation than to written variation here at default it could love the actor if we just look in english we find widespread variation in the way it is spoken in different countries such as australia uh britain and the us canada um idec new zealand ireland scotland all of these varieties of english are variations of english okay so we keep that in mind we can also find a range of varieties in different parts of those countries so when you go to london they're of course not gonna speak the same way people speak english and um for example yorkshire or um in manchester there's a variety of um dialects out there and accents and the way they say words so instead of saying thought they say thoughts for the same word so this accentuated variation is an indicator where people are originally from and it's a good indicator that language varies even within the same category of languages we can also find a range of varieties different parts of those countries so geographically speaking uh with the uh with the lito uh to know she's out account of trick-or-treat in hawaii as justin one example of this chapter we have investigated um aspects of language variation based on where that language is used as a way of doing linguistic geography [Music] um [Music] [Music] across the river you see other nations but this river is flowing uh the way they speak uh we talked about the word and structure of a language in an earlier chapter um we're concentrating on the features of only one variety anarchism aloe vera to the usually called the standard language this is actually an idealized variety idealized anime variety because it has no specific region it is the variety associated with administrative commercial and educator educational centers spoken if we think of standard english it is the version we believe is found in printed printed mature english in newspapers and books is widely used in the mass media and is taught in most schools in the darasviar lab it is the variety we normally try to reach and teach to those who want to learn english as a secondary foreign language or hatha bhatti aku variation litudaras it's clearly associated with educational education and broadcasting and public context and is more easily described in terms of the written language vocabulary spelling and grammar if we are thinking of the general variety used in public broadcasting in the united states we can refer more specifically to standard american english or in britain to um standard british english but to be honest i highly doubt that there is one standard english because english stems from people who speak english and those people change and they change the way they speak so there is no one single standard criteria on which we can say this is absolutely the best standardized version of english out there accents and dialects let's move to very important and you see controversial debatable kind of question that whether american accent or british accent is more superior than let's say um other varieties or variations or dialects and accents around the world but first of all we need to principally define what accent is and what dialect is even though they cross in some points when when we talk about this sort of variation whether we think we speak a standard variety of english or not we all speak within accent some accents are good some accents are bad it's the personal perception of whether this accent is good or accent is bad um and it's it's highly controversial topic actually it's a myth that some speakers have accents while others do not everybody speaks with an accent middle eastern accent russian accent accent is sometimes good accent is sometimes sexy accent is sometimes bad when people do not understand you because you have heavy accents we might feel that some speakers have very distinct or easily recognizable and recognized types of accents while others may have more subtle or less noticeable accents than accents but every language user speaks within accents everyone speaks with an accent technically the term accent is restricted to the description of aspects of pronunciation that identify whether an individual speaker is from regional or social status it's different from the term dialect which is used to describe features of grammar and vocabulary as well as aspects of pronunciation so that's a that's uh some sort of superficial difference if they love chick or something we recognize that since you don't know what you're talking about will generally look the same whether spoken or with an american accent or scottish accents both speakers will be using forms associated with standard english but have different pronunciation so the different accentuated pronunciation is going to let us see who is coming from where and in from what regional area in some cases however this next sense uh edening and kingwood here have earned about for example i don't know how they say that has the same meaning as the first but has been written out in an approximation of what a person who speaks one dialect of scottish english might say um there are differences in pronunciation of wit and a boot but there are also examples of different vocabulary like keen and javierin in a different grammatical form like dini while differences in vocabulary are often easily recognizable yet variation and the meaning of grammatical structure of turkey are less frequently documented in the following example from treadwell to british speaking visitors b and c and a local irish english speaker liu a are involved in a conversation in donegal ireland how are you is here till after easter speaker a looks puzzled see we came on sunday ah you see here a while then so it seems that the construction how long are you are you see here i i use dialect is used with a meaning close to the structure how long have you been here how long have you been here now referring to past time speaker b however answers as if the question was referring to future time how long are you going to be here so you see that's a very distinct difference out there when speaker c answers with a pastime response um use here uh to refer to pastime note that the dialect from use you plural use like book books you use um seems to be understood by the visitors though it's unlikely to be part of their own dialects very good example of an interesting part actually despite regional difficulties there's a general impression of mutual intelligibility among many speakers of different dialects of english this is one of the criteria used by the study of dialects and need to talk about dialectology to distinguish between two different dialects in the same language or parent language whose speakers can usually understand each other and two different languages whose speakers can usually understand each other and there is high level of intelligibility out there but it's helpful to establish the fact that the different dialects like each language is equally worthy of analysis and there is but like more intelligible some varieties do become more prestigious but satisfy the personal social perception in fact the variety that develops as the standard language has usually been one socially prestigious dialect originally associated with the center are economic and political power geography of the distribution of that dialects in the world for example london is highly perceived as a good standard english because it's the epicenter of um the majority of uh mostly powerful english speakers and rich people in in this particular city also economic power uh center of uh economy and uh politics politics and economy yet there um there always continue to be other varieties of languages spoken in different regions and that is a matter of fact a fact of the matter regional dialects the existence of regional different regional dialects is widely recognized and often the source of some humor for those living in different regions in the united states some people from the brooklyn area in new york may joke about the southern definition of sex by telling you that sex is faux less than ten and in their best imitation of someone from the southern state in return southerners can wonder aloud about what a tree guy is in brooklyn since they have heard brooklyn speakers refer to those those three guys some regions dialects clearly have stray type pronunciation associated with them three huggers and three guys are going beyond stereotypes those involved in the serious investigation of regional dialects um have devoted a lot of survey research to the identification of consistent features of speech found in uh analysis that will enable them to to use it for future sociolinguistic purposes so speakers um so these dialects survey often involved painstaking attention painstaking attention to details and tend to cooperate and operate with very specific criteria in identifying acceptable inferments after all it's important to know if the person whose speech your recording really is a typical representative of region or dialect consequently the inferments and the major dialect surveys of the 20th century tended to be norms or non-mobile or non-mobile older rural male speakers standards who are norms speakers were selected because it was believed that they were less likely to be influenced from outside the regions in their speech one unfortunate consequence of using such criteria is that the resulting dialogue description tends to be more accurate of a period well before the time of investigation is the detailed information obtained has provided the basis for a number of linguistic atlases upper midwest area of the united states and dialect boundaries or hadood dialects we can look at some examples of regional variation found in a survey that resulted in the linguistic atlas of the upper midwest of the united states one of the aims of a survey of this type is to find a number of significant differences in speech of those living and different areas and to be able to chart where the boundaries are how does between those areas it is found for example that the vast majority libya of inferment and foreign is one area say they carry things home from the store in a paper bag while the majority in other areas say they use paper sack which is a dialect variation then it's usually possible to draw or draw draw a line across a map separating the two areas as shown on the accompanying illustration this line is called isoglass so ice glass is the line and represents a boundary between the areas where we uh with regard to that one particular linguistic term um it is a very similar distribution and that is found for another two terms which is preference for pale uh to the the north and bucket to the south pale um and bucket um then another isoglass probably overlapping the first it can be drawn in a map when a number of isoglasses come together in this way a more solid line indicating a dialect boundary can be drawn and the accompanying illustration a small circle indicating whether paper bag was used in and a plus sign shows where paper shack used the broken lines between the two areas represent an iso class that roughly uh coincides with a line separating several other linguistic features leave i taught english in high school and i told english in high school roof and roof creek and creek greasy and greasy that's the difference midland they say greasy dialect continuum another note of caution is required with regard to dialect boundaries uh the drawing of ice and glasses and dialects boundaries is quite useful in establishing a broad view of regional dialects but it tends to obscure the fact that most language and dialect boundaries areas one dielectric language variety merges into another so they can merge keeping this in mind we can view regional variation as an existing along a dialect continuum rather than as having a sharp break from one region to another a very similar type of continuum can occur with related languages existing on either side of political border can occur with related to language existing on one side of a political border as you travel from holland in germany into germany you will find a concentration of dutch speakers turkeys giving way to areas near the borders where dutch may sound more likely uh deutsche because the dutch delegates and the german dialects are less clearly differentiated and they are emerging speakers who move back and forth across the borders area using different varieties with some ease may be described as by dialectal speaking two dialects most must have most of us grew up with some form of bi-dialectalism speaking one dialect in the street among family and friends and having to learn another dialect in school um with that into germany languages used in the street and in school where we can talk about people uh knowing two distinct languages we describe them as bilingual bilingual are people who speak two languages or more um two length two languages specifically bilingualism and diglossia in many countries regional variation is not a simply a matter of two or more dialects of one single language was a bilingual country justin trudeau speaks french and english as an official bilingual country with both french and english as official language this recognition of the linguistic right of the country countries french-speaking speakers largely in quebec they speak french did not come about without a political upheaval um for most of its history canada was even essentially an english-speaking country with a french-speaking minority group canada in english in such situation bilingualism at that level of individuals tends to be a feature of the minority group banana in this form of bilingualism a member of minority group grows up in one linguistic community uh welsh in britain spanish and the united states had all the minority via the language of minority but learns another language english in in order to take part of the largest dominant linguistic community dominant language linguistic community individual um individual bilingualism however uh doesn't have to be the result of political domination by a group using a different language it can simply be the result of having two parents who speak different languages of a child simultaneously acquire the french-speaking spoken by her mother and the english spoken by her father this is bilingualism bilingualism simultaneous synchronic bilingualism ako delayed bilingualism [Music] there will simply be two ways of talking about uh talking to the person being talked to however even in this type of bilingualism one language stands eventually to become the dominant one in the end of course you need an operating system language where it dominates your daily communication and your speech and that is using english of course with the other is a suburban and troll a rather special situation involving two distinct varieties of english called diglosia or diglossia in some occasions exist in some countries in diglossia there is a low variety acquired locally and used for every affairs and a high or special variety learned in school and used for important matters arabic arabic-speaking countries where the high variety classic arabic modern standard arabic language a version of arabic but spoken majorly in the most regions of the country in iraq the the low variety is the local version of the language such as egyptian egyptian arabic or lebanese arabic through a long period of or iraqi arabic a diagnostic situation exists with latin as the high variety and one of the local languages in europe for example french spanish italian um as the low variety of uh canada is perhaps or perhaps or perhaps because bilingualism is contemporary um in contemporary europe and north america north america tends to be found mostly among minority groups many countries are often assumed to be monolingual for many of the those residents who are only capable of speaking one language english the united states would indeed seem to be a monolingual country for others it's clearly not because they live in large communities where english is not the first languages of whom as an example the majority of population in san antonio in texas will be more likely to listen to radio broadcast in spanish than in english texas planet uh texas mexico here in new mexico consider a similar uh context of guatemala a con a country in central america um where there are 26 main languages spoken acoustic spanish is selected as the language of education um other mains literature were low variety um can it have disadvantage or not questions of this type require answers on the basis of some type of language planning government legal and educational organizations and many countries have to plan which variety of or varieties of language spoken in the country are to be used for official businesses a [Music] the choice was hindi yet in many non-hindi speaking regions uh there were riots against this decision for example there were national language wars in the philippine philippines before different groups could agree on the name of the national language standard language spoken the process of language planning may seem in a better um may be seen in a better light when the full series of stages is implemented over a number of years the adoption of swahili as a national language of tanzania in east africa may serve as a good example there still exists a large number of other languages as well as the colonial vestiges colonial vestiges of english but the educational legal and government systems have gradually introduced swahili as the official language that the process of selection choosing an official language is followed by codification in which basic grammars dictionaries and written modals are used to establish the standard varieties the process of elaboration follows with the standard variety being developed for use in all aspects of social life and the appearance of body of literature work written in the standards language planning after three stages codification elaboration and implementation near 10 feet is largely a matter of government attempts to encourage use of the standard and acceptance is the final stage when a substantial majority of the population have come to use the standards of in some areas the standard chosen may be a variety than original had no native speakers in the country for example in papua new guinea a lot of official business is conducted in talk pycine this language is now used by over a million people but it began many years earlier as a kind of contact language called pidgin patient no pigeon pidgeon is a variety of a language that developed for some practical purposes such as trading variety of a language syllabus but who did not know each other's languages as such it would have no native speakers maybe her native speakers term or the word pidgin is thought to be from a chinese version of the english word business pidgin here normal business word a pigeon is described as an english pigeon if english is the lexi fire language that is chanel exit fire the main source of words in the pigeon lexifier german lexicography the word grass for example has its origin in the english word grass but in took pissing it also came to be used as hair it is part of uh moss grass or mustache and grass belong fees or fez here bird beard there are several english pigeons still used today they're carrying them they are critized by absence of many accomplished grammatical morphologies [Music] was possessive as our noun standards english are rare in pidgins while structures like tupac two books mana huh and the gyal place the girls place are common functional morphemes often take the place of inflectional morphemes and functional morphemes found in in the source language for example instead of changing the form of you to your as an english phrase your book english based pidgin use like belung and change the word order to produce phrases like book belong you kitabiah syntax of pidgin can be quite unlike the language from the term where borrowed or modified or the lexified language can also be seen in this example from the early stage of took person by amba head belong you a right gain there are believed to be 6 to 12 billion a million people still using pigeon languages and between 10 and 17 million using descendants from pigeon called creoles creole when a pigeon develops beyond its role as a trait to contact with us becomes the first language of social community although still locally referred to as pidgeon the language spoken by a large number of people in hawaii is called creole technically from hawaii's creole english a creole initially develops as the first language of the children growing up in a pidgin using community and become more complex as serves more communicative purposes thus unlike pigeon creole have large number of native speakers and are not restricted at all in their use the pigeon and creole behind community being native speakers pigeon mobile native speakers a french creole is spoken by the majority of the population heidi and english creole are used in jamaica and shuri sierra leone the separate vocabulary elements of a pigeon can become grammatically elements in the creole the form by and by you by and by hugo is early to send gradually shortened of to by you go finally to you beagle with the grammatic structures not unlike that of english translation you will go lima the posterior continuum has energy in many contemporary situations above just as there was development development from a pigeon to creole known as cruelization chinook realization there is now often a retreat from the use of the creole by those who have greater contact with a standard variety of the language and variety mata language education and greater social prestige are associated with a higher variety or higher variety of a number of speakers will tend to use fewer cure forms and structures hardy to sum up decrealization the creolization famous realization and when pidgin electric jewish of the of the language vadi simone decrealization leads at one extreme to a variety that is closer to the external standard model and leaves at the other extreme a basic variety with more local creole features between these two extremes maybe a range of slightly different varieties akutamanta fawu tatou with some many and fewer creole features this range of variety involved after elijah post creole continuum creole so in jamaica one speaker may say a female book that using the basic creole variety and another may put it as is me book using a variety with fewer creole features realization