Accent
Phonological level sound changes
Dialect
Variations in speech and language patterns across groups of people, or “speech communities”, who share a set of norms and rules for the use of language, language characteristics, and communication habits
Dialect
- Learned from parents/primary caregivers, peers, and community
- non mainstream dialects sometimes have social stigma attached to them
- rule governed, with dialect rules applying to:
phonology (speech sounds)
- this course concentrates on phonological differences
Semantic (meaning)
Grammatical (rules of grammar)
Syntactic (sentence structure)
Pragmatic rules (rules of language use with other people) e.g. eye contact
dialectology
The branch of linguistics concerned with the geographic and social distributions of language
Regional dialects
varieties of English as defined by the geographic location in which the variety is spoken
Social Dialects
the varieties of English spoken by definable social groups
Speech Communities
Macroculture: larger community
e.g. in America the speech community is English speaking people
Microculture: smaller community
- fewer members of this community
- geographic region, ethnicity, social class, etc.
Regional Dialects
Main regional dialects in US
- NE
- South
-Midwest
Each has subdivisions with variations
Differences come from a number of diff sources:
- historical settlement patterns
- migratory routes
- contact with other language groups
- physical and social separation
What do sociolinguists do?
- Study the effects of language on people
- Study the relationships b/w verbal + nonverbal linguistic forms and social communication
- how a speaker talks + effect it has upon the speaker-listener (Adler, 1993)
- The varieties of a language spoken by defined social groups
Social dialect and false stereotypes
- The farther a dialect is from the mainstream dialect (more prestigious dialect), the more likely it is to carry social stigmatization
- Even speakers of non mainstream dialects hold their own dialects in low esteem
false stereotypes:
nonmainstream dialects (NMD) are an incomplete attempt to master the mainstream variety
NMDs are unpatterned and unsystematic
NMD speakers learn at a slower rate than mainstream speakers
ASHA Posiiton Paper on Dialects
Competencies an SLP must have to distinguish between a difference and a disorder:
- knowledge of a given dialect as a rule governed linguistic system
- knowledge of the phonological and grammatical features of the dialect
- knowledge of non-discriminatory testing procedures
English as Second language (ESL) or
English Language Learners (ELL)
Rules of L1 compete with the production of English
What is affected?
- Phoneme differences
-suprasegmental differences (stress, intonation)
Elective Services of an SLP
May provide elective clinical services to NMD speakers who DO NOT present a disorder
Provision of elective services requires SENSITIVITY and COMPETENCY in these areas:
- linguistic features of the dialect
- linguistic contrastive analysis procedures
- understanding of the community and culture of the speaker
Linguistic Contrast Analysis
- Obtain a representative speech sample
- Narrowly transcribe words or phrases that highlight the dialectical variations
- Analyze the sample by comparing it to the standard dialect and find the differences
- Look at the variant features and identify rules that the speaker follows that account for the dialect
SLP as a Dialect Consultant
The SLP may serve in a consultative role to assist
educators in understanding the features of the
NMD to facilitate the learning of reading and
writing in mainstream English.
General American English
Neutralized unstressed vowels used often
Use of unreleased final stops
Well-articulated “hard” /r/
Frequent and “hard” use of /ae/
Southern American English
Regional dialect
Monophthongization – diphthong produced as a monophthong
Post-vocalic /r/ is very soft or changed to /ə/
/s/ becomes /z/ in some words
Variations in stress patterns
/aʊ/ goes to /ɛʊ/ when followed by a voiceless consonant such as in OUT
/j/ + vowel addition to form a “drawl” such as [sɪjət] for SIT
Released and well-articulated /t/ in some words
/ɛ/preceding a nasal
In Standard American English, PEN is pronounced with /ɛ/
In Southern American English, /ɛ/ is replaced with an /ɪ/
Northeastern Dialect
Examples of features: 1st 3 - distinctly New England (Bostonian)
- /ɑ/ for /ɔ/ in words like CAUGHT resulting in CAUGHT sounding like COT
- /ɑ/ - /ɔ/ merger - Don + Dawn become homophones
- /ɑ/ for /æ/ in words spelled with /ɑ/ followed by a voiceless fricative such as in HALF + ASK or when /ɑ/ is followed by a nasal plus a consonant such as in DEMAND + EXAMPLE
derhotacized /r ɚ ɝ/
Intrusive /r/ and /ɚ/ replaces the schwa in nouns ending in schwa such as in IDEA, CHINA
