REGIONAL AND SOCIAL

DIALECTS
A regional dialect is the uniqueness of
language in an area.
Ex: amer : will you do it?
scot : No, Ill not do it.

Regional Variation
1. International varieties
2. Intra-national or intra-continental
varieties
3. Cross-continental variation: dialect
chains
4. Social variation

1.Internasional
varieties:
1.International
varieties:
Include differences vocabularry,
pronounciation, and grammar in regions.
Exp:
Australians
England
parents
New zealanders

: sole parents
: single
: solo parents

2.
2.Intra-national
Intra-national
or intra-continental
or intra-continental
varieties
varieties

The high
high level
level of
of intra-national
intra-national
communication together
communication
together
with
the
with the
relatively
small populations,
relatively
small populations,
may have inhibited
may have
the
development
inhibited
the development
marked
of
marked of regional
differences
regional
differences
in these countries.
in these countries.
Exp ::
Exp
West of
West
ofNew
New
Zealand
Zealand :
gravel
gravel
East of
East
ofNew
NewZealand
Zealand : sand
sand

3. Cross-continental variation:
dialect chains
Two or more different languages or dialects
merge one into others without a definiable
boundary.
Exp: across the whole of europe
One chain links all the dialect of german, dutch
and flemish from switzerland thorough Austria
andGermani, to the Netherland and Belgium, and
there is another which links dialect of Portuguese,
Spanish, Catalan, French and Italian.

4. Social variation

Rp : a social accent
the instantly recognisable accent
described as typically British.

often

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acce

Social dialect
The speech of people from different social,
as well as regional, groups may differ in
these ways.
Rp = a social accent
Standar english = a social dialect
Vernicular
languages
contrast
with
standard languages
Vernacular dialect contrast with standard
dialect features

Caste Dialect
There are castes system ditermined by birth, and
strict social rules govern the kind of behavior
appropriate to each group. The rules cover such
matters as kind of job people can have, who they
can marry, how should they dress, what they
should eat, how they should behave in a range
of social situation.
Exp: Brahmin-non Brahmin
In say milk
Brahmin

: Haalu

Non Brahmin : Aluu

Social Dialect
1. Vocabulary
2. Pronounciation
3. Grammatical pattern

GENDER AND AGE

It is claimed that women are

linguistically more polite
than men

Gender and Age

Sex has come to refer to categories
distinguished
by
biological
characteristics
Gender is more appropriate for
distinguishing people on the basis of
their socio-cultural behavior, including
speech.

GENDER-EXCLUSIVE SPEECH
DIFFERENCES:
HIGHLY STRUCTURED COMMUNITIES
Women and men do not speak in exactly
the same way as each other in any
community.
Traditional Japanese provides some clear examples.
Womens form

Mens form

Otosan

oyaji

father

Onaka

hara

stomach

oishii

umai

Delicious

taberu

kuu

eat

GENDER-PREFERENTAL SPEECH FEATURES:

SOCIAL DIALECT RESEARCH

Social dialect research not surprisingly in
western
urban
communities
where
womens social roles overlap, the speech
forms they use also overlap. In other
words women and men do not use
completely different forms.

Gender and social class

Every social class men use more
vernacular forms than women. In the
lowest and the highest social groups,
the womens speech is closer to that
of the men in the same group than to
that women in other groups.

PLANATIONS OF WOMENS LINGUISTIC BEHAVOUR

The social status explanations
Some linguists have suggested that women use more standard
speech forms than men because they are more status-conscious
than men.
Womans role as guardian of societys values
Women use more standard forms than men points to the way
society tends to except better behavior form women than for
men.
Subordinate groups must be polite
People who are subordinate must be polite.
Vernacular forms express machismo
Men prefer vernacular from because they carry macho
connotations of masculinity and toughness.

How are women categorized?

In assigning women in particular
social class, researchers in early
social dialect studies often used the
womans husbands occupation as
their major criterion. Reflected their
social background.

The influence of the

interviewer and the context
Men the other hand tend to be less responsive to
the speech of others, and to their conversational
need In such circumstances it is likely that the
interview context. This too might account for
mens greater use of vernacular forms. In one of
the earliest dialect surveys, the male interviewers
asked different question of women and men in
order to eicit a casual style of speech in which
vernacular forms where more likely to occur.

Age and social dialect data

Social dialect research has provided a
great deal of information about pattern
of pronunciation and grammar for
different age groups. Many people social
dialectologist have found that adolescent
use particularly high frequencies of
vernacular forms, especially if they are
forms such as aint and multiple negation
which people clearly recognize and
identify as non-standard.

Age grading and language change

When a linguistic change is spreading
through a community, there will be a
regular increase or decrease in the use of
the linguistic form over time. The for an
innovative. A form on the increase-this
will show up in a graph as a low use of the
form by older people and a higher use
among younger people.

GENDER AND AGE

It is claimed that women are

linguistically more polite
than men

THE LANGUAGE FORMS USED BY MEN

AND WOMEN DIFFERENT IN WESTERN
SOCIETIES
In western societies, women and men whose social
roles are similar do not use forms that are completely
different, but they use different quantities or frequencies
of the same form. For example: women use more
standard forms than men, and men use more vernacular
forms than women / women use more ing-forms than
men and fewer ing-forms in words like coming or
running. But in western communities, such differences
are also found in the speech of different social classes,
therefore the language of women in the lower and
higher classes is more similar to that of men in the same
group.

WOMEN'S LINGUISTIC BEHAVIOR (USING

FORMS THAT ARE MORE STANDARD)

1- Social status: women generally have a lower

social status in society; therefore they try to
acquire social status by using Standard English.
2- Women's role as guardian of society's
values: women use more standard forms than
men, because society tends to expect 'better'
behavior from women than from men (women
serve as modals for their children's speech).

WOMEN'S LINGUISTIC BEHAVIOR (USING

FORMS THAT ARE MORE STANDARD)
3- Subordinate groups must be polite: women
use more standard forms than men, because
children and women are subordinate groups and
they must avoid offending men, therefore they must
speak carefully and politely.
4- Vernacular forms express machismo: men
prefer vernacular forms because they carry macho
connotations of masculinity and toughness.
Therefore women might not want to use such form,
and use standard forms that associated with female
values or femininity

WOMEN'S LINGUISTIC BEHAVIOR (USING

FORMS THAT ARE MORE STANDARD)
5- women's categories: Not all women marry
men from the same social class, however it is
perfectly possible for a women to be more
educated then the man she marry, or even to
have a more prestigious job than him.
6- The influence of the interviewer and the
context: women tend to become more
cooperative conversationalists than men.