ACS 106 Lecture Notes - Lecture 8: Idiolect, Mutual Intelligibility, Sociolinguistics
3 May 2018
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Wednesday, March 21, 2018
Sociolinguistics
ACS106!
Idiolect and Dialect
-Idiolect: the language that is characteristic of a single speaker; there are as many
idiolects as speakers of a particular language (English= ~850 million idiolects).!
-Dialect: the language spoken by a particular group as they are systematically found
within a particular group of people.!
•Dialects can be able to be understood across speakers (mutually intelligible) but
still differ in systematic ways.!
•Dialects typically differ from languages when they become unintelligible across
speakers. !
Dialect vs. Language?
-Sometimes it is difficult to know when to draw the distinction between a dialect and
a language on the ground of intelligibility as there are many exceptions. !
•Danish and Swedish and Norwegian=considered to be separate languages; mostly
mutually intelligible.!
•Hindi and Urdu=considered to be separate languages; mostly mutually intelligible.!
•Mandarin and Cantonese=considered to be dialects of Chinese; mutually
unintelligible. !
•Serbo-Croatian=considered to be separate languages; mutually intelligible;
different orthographic scripts. !
-Distinctions between dialects and languages are often very fuzzy and form a
continuum.!
-A language is a dialect with an army and a navy.!
Regional Dialect
-When differences accumulate in a particular geographic location, each version of the
language is known as a regional dialect.
-These dialects are often shaped by the historical contexts and processes of contact
between speakers over the course of time. !
-Accents develop as a result of regional phonetic or phonological differences. !
•E.g. Southern drawl, Midwestern accent; Nova Scotian accent. !
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Wednesday, March 21, 2018
•Characteristics of speech that reveals aspects of a speaker’s dialect
(phonologically). !
•Reveal country or sociolinguistic group from where they are from. !
-American accent; Canadian accent; British accent; Australian accent. !
-Regional dialects may also differ along lexical and grammatical/syntactic lines as
well. !
-All of the accent work goes into the vowels. !
Boston and NY Features
-R-drop rule Brought in from the Brits in Souther England beginning in the 18th
century.!
•Farm; fahm.!
•Farther; fatha.!
•Father; fatha.!
-The r-less rule !
Phonological Differences
-R-dropping vs other dialects is just one of the possible differences in pronunciation.!
•Farther > fatha (Bostonian/NY)!
-H- to Y-!
•Huge > Yuge !
Who Is the Leading Language Change?
-Following the findings of William Labov in 20th century department stores in New
York, it is young women who are the primary drivers of language change. !
-Linguistic innovators.!
-Shifting value of the same variable, postvocalic /r/ differed in contexts.!
-The use or not of this value was determined by the context, operating as a social
marker of class but in opposite directions. !
Mapping Dialect
-Dialect maps help identify the areas geographically of where speakers that have
particular dialects live within a region.!
-These can be derived based on:!
•Pronunciation.!
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Document Summary
Idiolect: the language that is characteristic of a single speaker; there are as many idiolects as speakers of a particular language (english= ~850 million idiolects). Distinctions between dialects and languages are often very fuzzy and form a continuum. A language is a dialect with an army and a navy. When di erences accumulate in a particular geographic location, each version of the language is known as a regional dialect. These dialects are often shaped by the historical contexts and processes of contact between speakers over the course of time. Accents develop as a result of regional phonetic or phonological di erences: e. g. Wednesday, march 21, 2018: characteristics of speech that reveals aspects of a speaker"s dialect (phonologically), reveal country or sociolinguistic group from where they are from. American accent; canadian accent; british accent; australian accent. Regional dialects may also di er along lexical and grammatical/syntactic lines as well. All of the accent work goes into the vowels.
