Linguists draw important distinctions between overt prestige and covert prestige: "In the case of overt prestige, the social valuation lies in a unified, widely accepted set of social norms, whereas with covert prestige the positive social significance lies in the local culture of social relations.
It is, therefore, possible for a socially stigmatized variant in one setting to have covert prestige in another. Cambridge University Press, As [Thomas Paul] Bonfiglio puts it, 'There is nothing in the particular language itself that determines its worth: it is the connection of the language in question to the phenomena of power that determines the value of that language and that contributes to the standardization process.
What Is Sociolinguistics? Language: the Basics. For example, the use of whom in Whom did you see? Apart from these somewhat special cases, it is difficult to find clear-cut cases of prestige variants on the grammatical level of language, particularly in the grammar of ordinary informal conversation.
Such prestige is 'covert' because its elicitation will often not, if successful, be consciously noted. For example, one will ordinarily say It's me to the question Who is it? Similarly, except after prepositions Americans ordinarily say who in preference to whom : Who did you ask? Such usage is said to seek overt prestige because the often dubious prestige one gets from such usage is ordinarily consciously noted, hence 'overt.
Essential Introductory Linguistics. Blackwell Publishers, The actual concepts and functions of class, gender, networks, and, most importantly, norms, standards, and prestige, differ radically in different communities. The two terms are often confused with one another and also with another term, 'prestige. The prestige of a language depends on its record, or what people think its record to have been.
The function of a language is what people actually do with it. The status of a language depends on what people can do with it, its potential. Status, therefore, is the sum total of what you can do with a language--legally, culturally, economically, politically and, of course, demographically. This is not necessarily the same as what you do with the language, although the two notions are obviously related, and indeed interdependent. They can also be connected with the prestige of a language.
Let us illustrate the differences. Classical Latin has had a lot of prestige but it has few functions. Swahili has a lot of functions, but little prestige.
Irish Gaelic has status, official status, but few exclusive functions. De Gruyter, Actively scan device characteristics for identification. Use precise geolocation data. Select personalised content. Although James is not a native Southerner, he incorporates Southern dialect features into his singing and speech. Fought explains that the American South is the fastest growing region in the country and now the most populous dialect region.
Of course, many of its residents are not originally from the South, and this influx of people from other areas, sometimes called linguistic swamping , is having an impact on the traditional Southern way of speaking.
This traditional Southern feature has largely disappeared from Southern dialects. Texan is sometimes thought of as a distinctive dialect, although linguists generally classify it as part of the larger Southern dialect.
Part of the Western dialect, California speech has emerged as an influential dialect, partly because movies and television are produced there, but also because California is envied for its active lifestyle. Californian youth are often thought of as an important source of new slang items.
This section examines two of these Western dialects: Valleygirl and Surferdude. Fought explains some of the pronunciations that typify these dialects, and George Plomarity, a speaker of Surferdude, explains some the specialized jargon that surfers use and how some of it has entered mainstream American English.
Settlement and migration are two major factors that have shaped the linguistic landscape of the U. Different regions of America were settled by different groups from the British Isles and elsewhere , who brought with them their unique ways of speaking. Some of these differences have been preserved and can be heard in the major regional dialects of the U. Early settlement occurred along the East coast, from North to South, with people from different dialect areas of Britain establishing themselves in different areas.
As settlers moved further inland, they took their dialects with them. Thus, dialect differences are greater from North to South than from East to West. Once settlers passed the Mississippi River and moved into the Great Plains, travel was less restricted by geographical barriers, which led to increased mixing of dialects in the western part of the country. The discovery of gold in California also contributed to this mixing, as people from all over the country, with various speech patterns, congregated there.
Also important to the development and preservation of dialectal differences is isolation, whether geographical or social. All of these groups have developed distinctive speech varieties—subdialects of the major regional dialects. Social isolation is exemplified by nineteenth-century immigrant groups, who often settled in their own urban neighborhoods and lived and worked apart from other groups; although they were not separated from the mainstream by mountains, they were effectively cut off from it socially.
Dialect differences some corresponding to socio-economic differences resulted from dissimilarities in the English acquired by these different ethnic groups. A comparable process has given rise to Chicano English , a dialect of English spoken by some people of Hispanic descent.
Native Americans, too, were forcibly isolated from other Americans, and some of them have developed a distinct dialect of English sometimes in addition to preserving their native languages.
Contact between English and other languages has contributed its share to the growth of American dialects. In Louisiana, the contact between English and French produced unique dialects of both of those languages. In Hawaii, English encountered the Hawaiian language a Polynesian language , and the contact gave rise to a Hawaiian variety of English. In Alaska, English came into contact with more than twenty different native languages, and linguists are now studying the properties of the variety of English spoken by Alaskan Natives.
Factors contributing to dialect preservation can be hard to pin down. Speaking a certain dialect can be a means of identifying with a region or a way of life; the speech patterns of groups or individuals are an important part of their identity. For instance, in Appalachia, improved roads have recently had a tremendous impact on previously isolated communities. However, the distinctive speech forms of the region have not been eradicated altogether, for pride in the traditional Appalachian way of life has encouraged some people to protect their way of speaking.
The boundaries between the major regional dialects tend to correspond to major geographical barriers. Within the major dialect regions are sub-regional dialects.
Although many people refer to them by state e. As an example of sub-dialects, consider the myriad varieties of Southern. These dialects—like all dialects—have changed over time and continue to change, but all remain distinctly different from each other. Although television may introduce and spread new words and phrases, it is not causing regional dialects to die out. In no regional dialect area, then, do people all speak the same way. Furthermore, within geographical areas, social groups distinguish themselves through speech.
Language can vary according to class, ethnicity, occupation, or gender; it can vary because of isolation or contact; it can vary because people are individuals and language is part of their individuality. One difference among regional dialects is vocabulary: pop vs. DARE was compiled by analyzing interviews conducted in the late s with people all over the country.
Since most of them were elderly at the time, the information in DARE reflects the speech of people who learned English in the late 19 th century.
Pronunciation, too, differs from region to region. For instance, in the Midland and Western dialect regions—but not elsewhere—words like caught and cot are pronounced the same. In the Southern dialect region—but not elsewhere—words like pin and pen are pronounced the same. As described above, a pronunciation shift is now in progress in the Northern dialect region—the Northern Cities Shift.
Students can hear people from other areas speak, by listening to radio broadcasts from every state using the Do You Speak American? Virtual Radio Dial. Finally, there are grammatical differences in the speech of regional dialects. Does one cause the other or do they just coincide?
Can there be one without the other? If you have ever moved from one dialect region to another, did you notice yourself changing your pronunciation? If so, why? In order to be understood? In order to fit in? For some other reason? Have you ever noticed other people changing their pronunciation? Which is harder, adopting new and strange vocabulary items or modifying pronunciation?
What are the advantages and disadvantages of trying to adopt a different regional dialect? They may think that New York and Southern accents are bad English but they can also find them charming. Do you share the sorts of feelings MacNeil describes? Do you consider your own variety of English to be prestigious or stigmatized?
If so, why do you think that is? Language Change : Compare the ways in which linguist William Labov speaking about the Northern dialect and the lobsterman speaking about Maine view language change. What experiences do they use to talk about language change? Are their views positive, negative, or neutral?
What aspects of language does each person highlight in talking about language change? What is the relationship between historical migration, modern migration, and language? In what ways can we celebrate language variety differences?
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