Variables

The American sociolinguist, William Labov devised the notion of the linguistic variable to help capture this idea of difference between dialects. A linguistic variable is a set of related dialect forms all of which mean the same thing and which correlate with some social grouping in the speech community. Variety, in a language, can be defined as a set of linguistic items, called VARIABLES, with a similar distribution. A VARIABLE is a linguistic item that has identifiable variants. That is, when certain ways of saying things or certain VARIABLES become a set way of expressing something, phonetically, grammatically, or with expressions, etc.

• The distinct differences between how the same thing is said are VARIANTS.

• The actual difference is a VARIABLE.

For example words like singing and fishing are sometimes pronounced singin’ and fishin’. The final sound in these words is the variable— fishing and fishin ’/ singing and singin’ are the variants.

The model of analyzing language variation and change that Labov developed has been extremely popular and has been applied to many speech communities around the world.

Linguistic VARIABLES are used most often in determining social dialects, and we will soon be discussing variables in more detail, so remember that term for social dialects.

Examples of other variants are:

• Farm and far without the r-being pronounced: so fam and fa

or

· Bet and better, sometimes pronounced without the “t” like be-h and be-hher

Or other examples

• He talks vs. he talk

or

• He’s happy, he be happy, and he happy

Or multiple negation:

He don’t mean no harm to nobody

Even the use or absence of the relative in relative clauses

• She is the girl whom I praised
• She is the girl that I praised
• She is the girl I praised.

IDIOLECT: REDIRECT TO SLIDE # 5

Finally, our last topic in dialects is the ideolect. What is an ideolect? An idiolect is the speech difference of every individual person. The way you speak is your own. NO ONE SPEAKS A LANGUAGE LIKE ANYONE ELSE. This term is not useful other than as a way of discussing individualism in a language.

MISCONCEPTIONS ABOUT DIALECTS: SLIDE # 9

Now, to finish up our discussion of dialects, let’s clear up some misconceptions:

• Dialects are NOT substandard
• Dialects are NOT incorrect
• Dialects are NOT slang (though they can include terms that are slang)
• EVERYONE SPEAKS A DIALECT
• ALL DIALECTS ARE EQUAL IN THE EYES OF THE SOCIOLINGUIST

We have so far then, discussed the difference between language and a dialect of a language. The major types of dialects are regional dialects, social dialects, and idiolects. Finally, we discussed the linguistic variable. But, there are still other variations we need to consider.

ACCENT

Now that we have discussed dialect what is accent?

In linguistics, an accent is a pronunciation characteristic of a particular group of people relative to another group. Accent should not be confused with dialect (q.v.), which is a variety of language differing in vocabulary and grammar as well as pronunciation.

When a standard language and pronunciation are defined by a group, an accent may be any pronunciation that deviates from that standard. However, accent is a relative concept, and it is meaningful only with respect to a specified pronunciation reference. For example, people from New York City may speak with an accent in the perception of people from Los Angeles, but people from Los Angeles may also speak with an accent in the perception of New Yorkers. Americans hear British people speaking with an accent and vice versa. Thus the concept of a person having " no accent" is meaningless. The language or dialect may be the same they just sound differently.

The best example of this is you and I.

When we both speak Standard English, I speak it with an American accent and you speak it with a Russian accent, but we both still speak Standard English.