SOCIAL DIALECT

A variety of speech associated with a particular social class or occupational group

within a society. Also known as sociolect.
Examples and Observations:
"Even though we use the term 'social dialect' or 'sociolect' as a label for the
alignment of a set of language structures with the social position of a group in
a status hierarchy, the social demarcation of language does not exist in a
vacuum. Speakers are simultaneously affiliated with a number of different
groups that include region, age, gender, and ethnicity, and some of these other
factors may weigh heavily in the determination of the social stratification of
language variation. For example, among older European-American speakers in
Charleston, South Carolina, the absence of r in words such as bear and court
is associated with aristocratic, high-status groups (McDavid 1948) whereas in
New York City the same pattern of r-lessness is associated with working-class,
low-status groups (Labov 1966). Such opposite social interpretations of the
same linguistic trait over time and space point to the arbitrariness of the
linguistic symbols that carry social meaning. In other words, it is not really the
meaning of what you say that counts socially, but who you are when you say
it."
(Walt Wolfram, "Social Varieties of American English." Language in the USA,
ed. by E. Finegan. Cambridge Univ. Press, 2004)

Standard British English as a Sociolect

"The standard variety of a given language, e.g. British English, tends to be the
upper class sociolect of a given central area or regiolect. Thus Standard British
English used to be the English of the upper classes (also called the Queen's

English or Public School English) of the Southern, more particularly, London

area."
(Ren Dirven and Marjolyn Verspoor, Cognitive Exploration of Language and
Linguistics. John Benjamins, 2004)

Slang as a Social Dialect

"If your kids are unable to differentiate among a nerd ('social outcast'), a dork
('clumsy oaf') and a geek ('a real slimeball'), you might want to establish your
expertise by trying these more recent (and in the process of being replaced)
examples of kiduage: thicko (nice play on sicko), knob, spasmo (playground
life is cruel), burgerbrain and dappo.
"Professor Danesi, who is author of Cool: The Signs and Meanings of
Adolescence, treats kids' slang as a social dialect that he calls 'pubilect.' He
reports that one 13-year-old informed him about 'a particular kind of geek
known specifically as a leem in her school who was to be viewed as
particularly odious. He was someone "who just wastes oxygen."'"
(William Safire, "On Language: Kiduage." The New York Times Magazine, Oct.
8, 1995)
Also Known As: sociolect, group idiolect, class dialect

REGIONAL VARIATION

Regional accents show great variation across the areas where English is spoken as
a first language. This reading provided an overview of the many identifiable variations

in pronunciation, deriving from the phoneme inventory of the local dialect, of the local
variety of Standard English between various populations of native English speakers.
Local accents are part of local dialects. Dialects of English have unique features in
pronunciation, vocabulary, and grammar. I have learned that the term "accent"
describes pronunciation. It is interesting to listen to non-native speakers of English
carry over the intonation and phonemic inventory from their mother tongue into their
English speech. This is evident when a student from Senagal had asked, Mai hab
da ticken lunsh. No one had any idea as to what the student was asking, until he got
up from the group sitting on the rug and went to the table and pointed to the chicken
they were having for lunsh (lunch).
Among native English speakers, there exist many different accents. Some regional
accents are easily identified by certain characteristics. But you can also find
variations within the regions. There is room for misunderstanding between people
from different regions, as the way one word is pronounced in one accent (for
example, fixn used in the South) will sound like a different word in another accent
(for example fixing in English). We fixn ta go to da stoe (South). Were getting ready
to go to the store (English).
The most noticeable features characterizing regional feature of a language is accent.
Some people speak with an accent and others do not, is not true. Every speaker
uses words with some kind of accent that can tell the listeners where the speaker is
from. Accent, is the way of pronouncing words that are characteristic to a group of
people, depending which country, or part of country the speaker is from.

Examples and Observations:

"As opposed to a national dialect, a regional dialect is spoken in one particular area
of a country. In the USA, regional dialects include Appalachian, New Jersey and
Southern English, and in Britain, Cockney, Liverpool English and 'Geordie'
(Newcastle English). . . .
"In contrast to a regional dialect, a social dialect is a variety of a language spoken
by a particular group based on social characteristics other than geography."
(Jeff Siegel, Second Dialect Acquisition. Cambridge Univ. Press, 2010)

"[L]inguists refer to so-called Standard English as a dialect of English, which from a

linguistic point of view, is no more 'correct' than any other form of English. From
this point of view, the monarchs of England and teenagers in Los Angeles and
New York all speak dialects of English,"
(Adrian Akmajian, Linguistics: An Introduction to Language and Communication,
5th ed. The MIT Press, 2001)

Studies of the Regional Dialects in North America

"The investigation of the regional dialects ofAmerican English has been a major
concern for dialectologists and sociolinguists since at least the early part of the
twentieth century, when The Linguistic Atlas of the United States and Canada was
launched and dialectologists began conducting large-scale surveys of regional
dialect forms. Although the traditional focus on regional variation took a back seat
to concerns for social and ethnic dialect diversity for a couple of decades, there
has been resurgent interest in the regional dimension of American dialects. This
revitalization was buoyed by the publication of different volumes of the Dictionary
of American Regional English (Cassidy 1985; Cassidy and Hall 1991, 1996; Hall
2002), and more recently, by the publication of The Atlas of North American
English (Labov, Ash, and Boberg 2005)."
(Walt Wolfram and Natalie Schilling-Estes, American English: Dialects and
Variation, 2nd ed. Blackwell, 2006)

Varieties of Regional Dialects in the U.S.

"Some differences in U.S. regional dialects may be traced to the dialects spoken
by colonial settlers from England. Those from southern England spoke one dialect
and those from the north spoke another. In addition, the colonists who maintained
close contact with England reflected the changes occurring in British English, while
earlier forms were preserved among Americans who spread westward and broke
communication with the Atlantic coast. The study of regional dialects has
produced dialect atlases, with dialect maps showing the areas where specific
dialect characteristics occur in the speech of the region. A boundary line called
an isogloss delineates each area."
(Victoria Fromkin, Robert Rodman, and Nina Hyams, An Introduction to Language,
9th ed. Wadsworth, 2011)

Regional Dialects in England and Australia

"The fact that English has been spoken in England for 1,500 years but in Australia
for only 200 explains why we have a great wealth of regional dialects in England
that is more or less totally lacking in Australia. It is often possible to tell where an

English person comes from to within about 15 miles or less. In Australia, where
there has not been enough time for changes to bring about much regional
variation, it is almost impossible to tell where someone comes from at all, although
very small differences are now beginning to appear."
(Peter Trudgill, The Dialects of England, 2nd ed. Blackwell, 1999)

Dialect Leveling
"[T]he frequent complaint today that 'dialects are dying out' reflects the fact that the
basis for dialects has shifted. Nowadays, people travel hundreds of miles and think
nothing of it. People commute to work in London from as far afield as Birmingham.
Such mobility would explain, for example, why 150 years ago there was a
traditional Kentish dialect, while today it barely survives, such is the close and
regular contact with London. . . . [I]nstead of small relatively isolated communities
where each person mingles with more or less the same people for a life-time, we
have vast human melting-pots where people have diffuse social networks-mingling regularly with different people, adopting new speech forms and losing the
old rural forms. Both developments in communication and the effects of
urbanisation have contributed to dialect levelling, a term referring to the loss of
original traditional dialectal distinctions."
(Jonathan Culpeper, History of English, 2nd ed. Routledge, 2005)