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Languages, Dialects, and Varieties
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Key Concepts
The difference between a language and a dialect Defining a standard language
Defining dialects by region: drawing geographical boundaries Development of ethnic dialects
Varieties defined according to their forms and functions: styles, registers, and genres
We stated in the introductory chapter that all languages exhibit internal variation, that is, each language exists in a number of varieties and is in one sense the sum of those varieties. We use the term variety as a general term for a way of speaking; this may be something as broad as Standard English, a variety defined in terms of location and social class, such as lower-class New York City speech, or something defined by its function or where it is used, such as legalese or cocktail party talk. In the following sections, we will explore these different ways of specifying language varieties and how we define the terms 'language,' 'dialect' (regional and social), 'style,' 'register,' and 'genre.'
An Introduction to Sociolinguistics, Seventh Edition. Ronald Wardhaugh and Janet M. Fuller. © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2015 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
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Language or Dialect?
For many people there can be no confusion at all about what language they speak. For example, they are Chinese, Japanese, or Korean and they speak Chinese, Japanese, and Korean, respectively. In these cases, many people see language and ethnicity or nationality as virtually synonymous (Coulmas 1999). However, for many people, there is no one-to-one correlation between these categories; some people are both Chinese and American, or may identify as simply Canadian, not Korean-Canadian, regardless of what languages they speak.
Most speakers can give a name to whatever it is they speak. On occasion, some of these names may appear to be strange to those who take a scientific interest in languages, but we should remember that human naming practices often have a large 'unscientific' component to them. Census-takers in India find themselves confronted with a wide array of language names when they ask people what language or languages they speak. Names are not only ascribed by region, which is what we might expect, but sometimes also by caste, religion, village, and so on. Moreover, they can change from census to census as the political and social climate of the country changes.
Linguists use the term vernacular to refer to the language a person grows up with and uses in everyday life in ordinary, commonplace, social interactions. We should note that so-called vernaculars may meet with social disapproval from others who favor another variety, especially if they favor a variety heavily influenced by the written form of the language. Therefore, this term often has pejorative associations when used in public discourse.
Haugen (1966) has pointed out that language and dialect are ambiguous terms. Although ordinary people use these terms quite freely in speech, for them a dialect is almost certainly no more than a local non-prestigious (therefore powerless) variety of a real' language. In contrast, scholars may experience considerable difficulty in deciding whether one term should be used rather than the other in certain situations. How, then, do sociolinguists define the difference between a dialect and a language?
First, we need to look at the history of these terms. As Haugen says, the terms 'represent a simple dichotomy in a situation that is almost infinitely complex.' The word 'language' is used to refer either to a single linguistic norm or to a group of related norms, and 'dialect' is used to refer to one of the norms.
A related set of terms which brings in additional criteria for distinction is the relationship between what the French call un dialecte and un patois. The former is a regional variety of a language that has an associated literary tradition, whereas the latter is a regional variety that lacks such a literary tradition. Therefore, patois tends to be used pejoratively; it is regarded as something less than a dialect because it lacks an associated literature. Even a language like Breton, a Celtic language still spoken in parts of Brittany, is called a patois because it lacks a strong literary
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tradition and it is not some country's language. However, dialecte in French, like Dialekt in German, cannot be used in connection with the standard language, that is, no speaker of French considers Standard French to be a dialect of French, and in German to tell someone they speak a Dialekt means that they do not speak Standard German (called Hochdeutsch 'High German). In contrast, it is not uncommon to find references to Standard English as being a dialect - admittedly a very important one - of English.
Haugen points out that, while speakers of English have never seriously adopted patois as a term to be used in the description of language, they have tried to employ both 'language' and 'dialect' in a number of conflicting senses. 'Dialect' is used both for local varieties of English, for example, Yorkshire dialect, and for various types of informal, lower-class, or rural speech. The term 'dialect' often implies nonstandard or even substandard, when such terms are applied to language, and can connote various degrees of inferiority, with that connotation of inferiority carried over to those who speak a dialect. This is part of what we call the standard language ideology, and we will have more to say about it below.
In the everyday use of the term, 'language' is usually used to mean both the superordinate category and the standard variety; dialects are nonstandard and subordinate to languages. Sociolinguists view this issue somewhat differently; every variety is a dialect, including the standard variety, and there is an increasing trend toward discussing discrete languages as ideologically constructed rather than linguistically real entities (Blommaert 2010, Garcia 2009; also, see chapter 4 for further discussion).
Mutual intelligibility
The commonly cited criterion used to determine if two varieties are dialects of the same language or distinct languages is that of mutual intelligibility: if speakers can understand each other, they are speaking dialects of the same language; if they cannot, they are speaking different languages. However, there are several problems with this criterion. First, mutual intelligibility is not an objectively determined fact (Salzman et al. 2012, 170). For example, some speakers of (standard) German can understand (standard) Dutch, while others may find it incomprehensible. Your ability to understand someone who speaks differently from you may vary according to your experience with different ways of speaking.
Second, because there are different varieties of German and Dutch, and they exist in what is called a dialect continuum (see discussion of this below), speakers of some varieties of German can understand varieties of Dutch better than they can understand other varieties of German! Historically, there was a continuum of dialects which included what we now call the different languages of German and Dutch. The varieties which became standardized as the languages of the Netherlands and Germany, Standard Dutch and Standard German, are no longer mutually
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intelligible for many speakers. However, in the border area, speakers of the local varieties of Dutch and German still exist within a dialect continuum and remain largely intelligible to one another. People on one side of the border say they speak a variety of Dutch and those on the other side say they speak a variety of German, but linguistically these varieties are very similar. There are important sociopolitical distinctions, however. The residents of the Netherlands look to Standard Dutch for their model; they read and write Dutch, are educated in Dutch, and watch television in Dutch. Consequently, they say they use a local variety, or dialect, of Dutch in their daily lives. On the other side of the border, German replaces Dutch in all equivalent situations, and the speakers identify their language as a dialect of German. The interesting linguistic fact is that there are more similarities between the local varieties spoken on each side of the border than between the one dialect and Standard Dutch and the other dialect and Standard German, and more certainly than between that German dialect and the south German and Swiss and Austrian dialects of German. Thus, situations in which there is a dialect continuum make it apparent that the lines drawn between languages are not based on linguistic criteria.
The third problem with using mutual intelligibility as the criterion for status as a dialect or a language is that even without a dialect continuum, there are many examples of named, distinct languages that are mutually intelligible. Hindi and Urdu are considered by linguists to be the same language in its spoken form, but one in which certain differences are becoming more and more magnified for political and religious reasons in the quest to establish different national identities. Hindi is written left to right in the Devanagari script, whereas Urdu is written right to left in the Arabic-Persian script. Hindi draws on Sanskrit for its borrowings, but Urdu draws on Arabic and Persian sources. Large religious and political differences make much of small linguistic differences. The written forms of the two varieties, particularly those favored by the elites, also emphasize these differences. They have become highly symbolic of the growing differences between India and Pakistan (see King 2001 for more details on this historical development). As far as everyday use is concerned, it appears that the boundary between the spoken varieties of Hindi and Urdu is somewhat flexible and one that changes with circumstances. This is exactly what we would expect: there is considerable variety in everyday use but somewhere in the background there is an ideal that can be appealed to, proper Hindi or proper Urdu. This ideal is based on a sociopolitical ideology of the language, and on different social identifications of the speakers, not on any clear and objective linguistic difference.
Another example showing the sociopolitical division of language is the story of Serbian and Croatian. In what was once Yugoslavia, now divided by the instruments of ethnicity, language, and religion, the language was called Serbo-Croatian. During the time of President Tito it was a country that claimed to have seven neighbors, six constituent republics, five nationalities, four languages, three religions, two scripts, and one Tito. However, the two largest groups, the Serbs and the Croats, failed to agree on most things. After Titos death, the country, slowly
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at first and increasingly more rapidly later, fell into fatal divisiveness. Linguistically, Serbo-Croatian is a single South Slav language used by two groups of people, the Serbs and Croats, with somewhat different historical, cultural, and religious backgrounds. There is a third group in Bosnia, a Muslim group, who also speak Serbo-Croatian, and religious differences thus also contributed to the divisions which led to the eventual bloodshed. Finally, there is a very small Montenegrin group who also speak a variety which was incorporated into Serbo-Croatian. The Serbian and Croatian varieties of Serbo-Croatian are known as srpski and srpskohrvatski, respectively. The actual differences between them involve different preferences in vocabulary rather than differences in pronunciation or grammar. That is, Serbs and Croats often use different words for the same concepts, for example, Serbian varos and Croatian grad for 'train.' The varieties are written in different scripts (Roman for Croatian and Cyrillic for Serbian), which also reflect the different religious loyalties of Croats and Serbs (Catholic and Orthodox). As conflict grew, differences became more and more important and the country and the language split apart. Now, in Serbia, people speak Serbian just as they speak Croatian in Croatia. Serbo-Croatian no longer exists as a language of the Balkans (Pranjkovic 2001). Now that there is a separate Bosnia the Bosnians call their variety bosanski and Montenegrins call their variety crnogorski (Carmichael 2002, 236, Greenberg 2004). The situation became even more complicated when Kosovo declared its independence from Serbia in 2008. But the complications here are clearly sociopolitical, not linguistic.
There are other, less dramatically politically charged examples of how mutually intelligible varieties are considered different languages. We have already mentioned German and Dutch; we can also add the situation in Scandinavia as further evidence. Danish, Norwegian (actually two varieties), and Swedish are recognized as different languages, yet it is common for speakers of these languages to each speak their own language to each other and still be able to communicate (Doetjes 2007, Gooskens 2006, Schuppert and Gooskens 2010). Linguistic overlap between these three languages is clearly enough to make communication feasible for most speakers - in other words, they are more similar to each other than some dialects of German are to each other - but the social and political boundaries foster the continued distinction of these varieties as separate languages.
The fourth reason that mutual intelligibility cannot be used as the sole means of distinguishing dialect versus language status is that there are sometimes unintelligible dialects which are identified by their speakers as being the same language. You maybe aware of varieties of English you cannot understand, for instance. A particularly interesting instance of unintelligibility of dialects occurs with what we call Chinese, which is generally accepted to include two main sub-categories of varieties, Cantonese and Mandarin. Although they share a writing system, Mandarin and Cantonese are not mutually intelligible in spoken discourse; written characters are pronounced differently in these varieties although they maintain the same meaning. Yet speakers of Mandarin and Cantonese consider themselves speakers of different
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dialects of the same language, for to the Chinese a shared writing system and a strong tradition of political, social, and cultural unity form essential parts of their definition of language (Kurpaska 2010).
Likewise, speakers of different regional varieties of Arabic often cannot understand one another's dialects, but are all oriented toward common standard forms (Modern Standard Arabic, with its basis in Classical Arabic). Although some native speakers of some varieties of Arabic might not understand a radio broadcast in Modern Standard Arabic (Kaye 2001), no one questions the categorization of these disparate dialects as one language, because of the religious, social, historical, and political ties between the cultures in which they are spoken.
The role of social identity
Sociolinguists claim that the denning factor in determining whether two varieties are considered distinct languages or dialects of the same language is sociopolitical identity, not linguistic similarity or difference. Orientation toward a particular standard language and, often, an associated national identity, is what makes speakers identify as speakers of language X or Y.
In direct contrast to the above situation, we can observe that the loyalty of a group of people need not necessarily be determined by the language they speak. Although Alsatian, the dialect of German spoken in the Alsace (France), is now in decline, for many generations the majority of the people in Alsace spoke their German tongue in the home and local community. However, their loyalty was and is unquestionably toward France; speaking a Germanic dialect did not mean they identified with Germany. They look to France not Germany for national leadership and they use French, not German, as the language of mobility and higher education. However, everyday use of Alsatian has been a strong marker of local identity, and for a long time was an important part of being Alsatian in France (Vassberg 1993).
The various relationships among languages and dialects discussed above can be used to show how the concepts of power and solidarity help us understand what is happening. Power requires some kind of asymmetrical relationship between entities: one has more of something that is important, for example, status, money, influence, and so on, than the other or others. A language has more power than any of its dialects. The standard is the most powerful dialect but it has become so because of non-linguistic factors. A language is a dialect with an army and a navy' is a well-known observation. Standard English and Parisian French are good examples. Solidarity, on the other hand, is a feeling of equality that people have with one another. They have a common interest around which they will bond. A feeling of solidarity can lead people to preserve a local dialect or an endangered language in order to resist power, or to insist on independence. It accounts for the persistence of local dialects, the modernization of Hebrew, and the separation of Serbo-Croatian into Serbian and Croatian.
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Part of having power is having the ability to impose your way of speaking on others as a, or the, prestigious dialect, that is, a standard language. The process through which a standard language arises is primarily a sociopolitical process rather than a linguistic one; this is the topic of the next section of this chapter.
Exploration 2.1:   Naming Varieties
How do you usually describe the different languages/dialects that you speak? Did reading the section on language versus dialect make you think about the varieties you master any differently? Provide an outline of your linguistic repertoire, including information about the commonly used names for the language(s) you speak, any information about the specific variety(ies) of the language(s) you are more comfortable in, if you consider yourself a 'native speaker' of the language(s), how you learned your language(s), and what assumptions you think others might make about you based on the way you speak. Compare impressions with others in the class.
Standardization
One of the defining characteristics mentioned above about the distinction between 'dialect' and 'language' has to do with standardization. If you see yourself as a speaker of German, you orient to Standard German, not Standard Dutch, even if Standard Dutch might be linguistically more similar to your native dialect. Thus the process of standardization and the ideology involved in the recognition of a standard are key aspects of how we tend to think of language and languages in general. People tend to think of a language as a legitimate and fixed system which can be objectively described and regard dialects as deviations from this norm. This is the standard language ideology but, as we will see, it is only one way that we can think about a language and its varieties.
Standardization refers to the process by which a language has been codified in some way. That process usually involves the development of such things as grammars, spelling books, and dictionaries, and possibly a literature (see chapter 14 for further discussion of language planning processes). We can often associate specific items or events with standardization, for example, Wycliffe's and Luther's translations of the Bible into English and German, respectively, Caxton's establishment of printing in England, and Dr Johnson's dictionary of English published in 1755. Standardization requires that a measure of agreement be achieved about what is in the language and what is not.
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The standard as an abstraction
It is a mistake to think of a standard language as a clearly demarcated variety which can be objectively determined. Lippi-Green (2012) writes about 'the standard language myth,' citing Crowley's (2003) work on the standard as an 'idealized language.' One of the points Lippi-Green makes is that most people (i.e., non-linguists) feel strongly that they know what the standard language is 'much in the same way that most people could draw a unicorn, or describe a being from Star Trek's planet Vulcan, or tell us who King Arthur was and why he needed a Round Table' (Lippi-Green 2012: 57).
Lippi-Green also states that we see the standard as a uniform way of speaking; although some regional variation might be allowed (see below for further discussion), social variation is not considered acceptable within anything labeled as the standard. Furthermore, once we have such a codification of the language we tend to see standardization as almost inevitable, the result of some process come to fruition, one that has also reached a fixed end point. Change, therefore, should be resisted since it can only undo what has been done so laboriously. The standard variety is also often regarded as the natural, proper, and fitting language of those who use - or should use - it. It is part of their heritage and identity, something to be protected, possibly even revered. Milroy (2001, 537) characterizes the resulting ideology as follows: 'The canonical form of the language is a precious inheritance that has been built up over the generations, not by the millions of native speakers, but by a select few who have lavished loving care upon it, polishing, refining, and enriching it until it has become a fine instrument of expression (often these are thought to be literary figures, such as Shakespeare). This is a view held by people in many walks of life, including plumbers, politicians and professors of literature. It is believed that if the canonical variety is not universally supported and protected, the language will inevitably decline and decay'
This association with the standard as simultaneously the goal of all speakers and something which is created by (and accessible to) only the educated elite is also noted by Lippi-Green. She further points out that what is meant by educated' is never specified; indeed, it is quite circular since the standard is spoken by educated people, and we consider them educated because they speak the standard.
The connection to education goes in both directions, because once a language is standardized it is the variety that is taught to both native and non-native speakers of the language. It takes on ideological dimensions - social, cultural, and sometimes political - beyond the purely linguistic ones. In Fairclough's words (2001, 47) it becomes 'part of a much wider process of economic, political and cultural unification ... of great ... importance in the establishment of nationhood, and the nation-state is the favoured form of capitalism.' According to the criteria of association with a nation and its economic, political, and cultural capital, both English and French are quite obviously standardized, Italian somewhat less so, and varieties associated with sub-groups within a society, such as the variety known as African American English, not at all.
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Exploration 2.2:   Standard Pronunciation?
How do you pronounce the following words? (They are presented in groups to bring out particular contrasts that are present in some dialects but not others; try to pronounce these words naturally, but do note if you are aware of pronunciations different from your own.) Do you consider some pronunciations nonstandard? Compare your assessments with others in the class; does what is considered 'standard' vary from one region to the next?
but, butter, rudder calm, farm
bad, bed, bid which, witch
pen, pin Mary, merry, marry
cot, caught, court do, dew, due
happy, house, hotel, hospital news, noose
tune, lute, loot picture, pitcher
suet, soot morning, mourning
The standardization process
In order for a standard form to develop, a norm must be accepted; as discussed above, that norm is an idealized norm, one that users of the language are asked to aspire to rather than one that actually accords with their observed behavior. However, it is perceived as a clearly denned variety.
Selection of the norm may prove difficult because choosing one vernacular as a norm means favoring those who speak that variety. As noted by Heller (2010), language can be viewed not as simply a reflection of social order but as something which helps establish social hierarchies. Thus it is not just that a variety is chosen as the model for the standard because it is associated with a prestigious social identity, but that it also enhances the powerful position of those who speak it, while diminishing all other varieties, their speakers, and any possible competing norms.
Because the standard is an abstraction, attitudes toward and associations with the normative forms are all-important. A group that feels intense solidarity may be willing to overcome great linguistic differences in establishing a norm, whereas one that does not have this feeling may be unable to overcome relatively small differences and be unable to agree on a single variety and norm. Serbs and Croats were never able to agree on a norm, particularly as other differences reinforced linguistic ones. In contrast, we can see how Hindi and Urdu have gone their separate ways in terms of codification due to religious and political differences.
The standardization process itself performs a variety of functions (Mathiot and Garvin 1975). It unifies individuals and groups within a larger community while at
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the same time separating the community that results from other communities. Therefore, it can be employed to reflect and symbolize some kind of identity: regional, social, ethnic, or religious. A standardized variety can also be used to give prestige to speakers, marking off those who employ it from those who do not, that is, those who continue to speak a nonstandard variety. It can therefore serve as a kind of goal for those who have somewhat different norms; Standard English and Standard French are such goals for many whose norms are dialects of these languages. However, as we will see (particularly in chapters 6-8), these goals are not always pursued and may even be resisted.
The standard and language change
Standardization is also an ongoing matter, for only 'dead' languages like Latin and Classical Greek do not continue to change and develop. The standardization process is necessarily an ongoing one for living languages. The standardization process is also obviously one that attempts either to reduce or to eliminate diversity and variety. However, it would appear that such diversity and variety are natural' to all languages, assuring them of their vitality and enabling them to change (see chapter 8). To that extent, standardization imposes a strain on languages or, if not on the languages themselves, on those who take on the task of standardization. That may be one of the reasons why various national academies have had so many difficulties in their work: they are essentially in a no-win situation, always trying to 'fix' the consequences of changes that they cannot prevent, and continually being compelled to issue new pronouncements on linguistic matters. Unfortunately, those who think you can standardize and 'fix' a language for all time are often quite influential in terms of popular attitudes about language. One issue today is the influence of texting and computer-mediated communication on the language, and there are always those who are resistant to new developments. Take, for instance, an article in the online version of the Daily Mail titled T h8 txt msgs: How texting is wrecking our language,' in which the author writes about'... the relentless onward march of the texters, the SMS (Short Message Service) vandals who are doing to our language what Genghis Khan did to his neighbours eight hundred years ago. They are destroying it: pillaging our punctuation; savaging our sentences; raping our vocabulary. And they must be stopped.' Such attitudes about languages are not in keeping with how sociolinguists view language; as we have discussed above, internal variation is inherent to all languages, and all languages keep changing.
Standard English?
It is not at all easy for us to define Standard English because of a failure to agree about the norm or norms that should apply. For example, Trudgill (1995, 5-6) defines Standard English as the variety:
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• Usually used in print
• Normally taught in schools
• Learned by non-native speakers
• Spoken by educated people
• Used in news broadcasts
Note that this definition revolves around how it is used, not the particular features of the language, as Standard English is constantly changing and developing. Trudgill also points out that the standard is not the same as formal language, as the standard can also be used colloquially (see below for a discussion of formal and informal styles).
Historically, the standard variety of English is based on the dialect of English that developed after the Norman Conquest resulted in the permanent removal of the Court from Winchester to London. This dialect became the one preferred by the educated, and it was developed and promoted as a model, or norm, for wider and wider segments of society. It was also the norm (although not the only variety) that was carried overseas, but not one unaffected by such export. Today, written Standard English is codified to the extent that the grammar and vocabulary of written varieties of English are much the same everywhere in the world: variation among local standards is really quite minor, so that the Singapore, South African, and Irish standard varieties are really very little different from one another so far as grammar and vocabulary are concerned. Indeed, Standard English is so powerful that it exerts a tremendous pressure on all such local varieties; we will return to this topic in chapter 14 in our discussion of language planning and policy. However, differences in the spoken varieties exist and are found everywhere in the world that English is used and, while these differences may have been reduced somewhat in the British Isles, they may actually have increased almost everywhere else, for example, within new English-speaking countries in Africa and Asia.
The standard-dialect hierarchy
As we have just seen, trying to decide whether something is or is not a language or in what ways languages are alike and different can be quite troublesome. However, we usually experience fewer problems of the same kind with regard to dialects. There is usually little controversy over the fact that they are either regional or social varieties of something that is widely acknowledged to be a language. That is, dialects are usually easily related to the standard variety because of the latter s sociopolitical salience.
Some people are also aware that the standard variety of any language is actually only the preferred dialect of that language: Parisian French, Florentine Italian, or the Zanzibar variety of Swahili in Tanzania. It is the variety that has been chosen for some reason, perhaps political, social, religious, or economic, or some
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combination of reasons, to serve as either the model or the norm for other varieties. It is the empowered variety. As a result, the standard is often not called a dialect at all, but is regarded as the language itself. It takes on an ideological dimension and becomes the 'right' and 'proper' language of the group of people, the very expression of their being. One consequence is that all other varieties become related to that standard and are regarded as dialects of that standard but with none of its power. Of course, this process usually involves a complete restructuring of the historical facts.
We see a good instance of this process in Modern English. The new standard is based on the dialect of the area surrounding London, which was just one of several dialects of Old English, and not the most important since both the western and northern dialects were once at least equally as important. However, in the modern period, having provided the base for Standard English, this dialect exerts a strong influence over all the other dialects of England so that it is not just first among equals but rather represents the modern language itself to the extent that the varieties spoken in the west and north are generally regarded as its local variants. Historically, these varieties arise from different sources, but now they are viewed only in relation to the standardized variety.
A final comment seems called for with regard to the terms language and dialect. A dialect is a subordinate variety of a language, so that we can say that Texas English and Swiss German are, respectively, dialects of English and German. The language name (i.e., English or German) is the superordinate term. We can also say of some languages that they contain more than one dialect; for example, English, French, and Italian are spoken in various dialects. If a language is spoken by so few people, or so uniformly, that it has only one variety, we might be tempted to say that language and dialect become synonymous in such a case. However, another view is that it is inappropriate to use dialect in such a situation because the requirement of subordination is not met. Consequently, calling something a dialect of a particular language implies that that language has at least two dialects, but calling something a language does not necessarily entail that it has subordinate dialects.
Regional Dialects
Regional variation in the way a language is spoken is likely to provide one of the easiest ways of observing variety in language. As you travel throughout a wide geographical area in which a language is spoken, and particularly if that language has been spoken in that area for many hundreds of years, you are almost certain to notice differences in pronunciation, in the choices and forms of words, and in syntax. There may even be very distinctive local colorings in the language which you notice as you move from one location to another. Such distinctive varieties are usually called regional dialects of the language.
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Dialect continua
This use of the term dialect to differentiate among regional varieties can be confounded by what is called a dialect continuum, in which there is gradual change of the language. Over large distances the dialects at each end of the continuum may well be mutually unintelligible, although speakers can easily understand people in neighboring areas. In these cases, it was (and still is) possible to travel long distances and, by making only small changes in speech from location to location, continue to communicate with the inhabitants. (You might have to travel somewhat slowly, however, because of the necessary learning that would be involved!) It has been said that at one time a person could travel from the south of what is now Italy to the north of what is now France in this manner. It is quite clear that such a person began the journey speaking one language and ended it speaking something entirely different; however, there was no one point at which the changeover occurred, nor is there actually any way of determining how many intermediate dialect areas that person passed through. For an intriguing empirical test of this idea, one using recent phonetic data from a continuum of Saxon and Franconian dialects in the Netherlands, see Heeringa and Nerbonne (2001). They conclude that the traveler 'perceives phonological distance indirectly' (2001, 398) and that there are 'unsharp borders between dialect areas' (2001, 399).
In such a distribution, which dialects can be classified together under one language, and how many such languages are there? As we have suggested above, this distinction is based more on social identity and political boundaries than on linguistic criteria. The hardening of political boundaries in the modern world as a result of the growth of states, particularly nation-states rather than multinational or multiethnic states, has led to the hardening of language boundaries. Although residents of territories on both sides of the Dutch-German border (within the West Germanic continuum) or the French-Italian border (within the West Romance continuum) have many similarities in speech even today, they will almost certainly tell you that they speak dialects of Dutch or German in the one case and French or Italian in the other. Various pressures - political, social, cultural, and educational - may serve to harden state boundaries and to make the linguistic differences among states more, not less, pronounced.
Dialect geography
When a language is recognized as being spoken in different varieties, the issue becomes one of deciding how many varieties and how to classify each variety. Dialect geography is the term used to describe attempts made to map the distributions of various linguistic features so as to show their geographical provenance. For example, in seeking to determine features of the dialects of English and to show their
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distributions, dialect geographers try to find answers to questions such as the following. Is this an r-pronouncing area of English, as in words like car and cart, or is it not? What past tense form of drink do speakers prefer? What names do people give to particular objects in the environment, for example, elevator or lift, carousel or roundabout7. We calls such features variables, as there are variable (i.e., varied and changing) ways of realizing them. For example, the past tense of drink might be drank or drunk, or the words for the fuel you put in an automobile could be petrol or gas.
Sometimes maps are drawn to show actual boundaries around such variables, boundaries called isoglosses, so as to distinguish an area in which a certain feature is found from areas in which it is absent. When several such isoglosses coincide, the result is sometimes called a dialect boundary. Then we may be tempted to say that speakers on one side of that boundary speak one dialect and speakers on the other side speak a different dialect. We will return to this topic in chapter 6.
Everyone has an accent
Finally, the term dialect, particularly when it is used in reference to regional variation, should not be confused with the term accent. Standard English, for example, is spoken in a variety of accents, often with clear regional and social associations: there are accents associated with North America, Singapore, India, Liverpool (Scouse), Tyneside (Geordie), Boston, New York, and so on. However, many people who live in such places show a remarkable uniformity to one another in their grammar and vocabulary because they speak Standard English and the differences are merely those of accent, that is, how they pronounce what they say.
One English accent has achieved a certain eminence, the accent known as Received Pronunciation (RP), the accent of perhaps as few as 3 percent of those who live in England. (The 'received' in Received Pronunciation is a little bit of old-fashioned snobbery: it meant the accent allowed one to be received into the 'better' parts of society!) This accent is of fairly recent origin (see Mugglestone 1995), becoming established as prestigious only in the late nineteenth century and not even given its current label until the 1920s. In the United Kingdom at least, it is 'usually associated with a higher social or educational background, with the BBC and the professions, and [is] most commonly taught to students learning English as a foreign language' (Wakelin 1977, 5). Those who use this accent are often regarded as speaking 'unaccented' English because it lacks a regional association within England. As Hughes et al. (2005, 3) say: 'Because of its use on radio and television, within Britain RP has become probably the most widely understood of all accents. This in turn means that the learner who succeeds in speaking it, other things being equal, has the best chance of being understood wherever he or she goes in the British Isles' Other names for this accent are the Queen's English, Oxford English, and BBC English. However, there is no unanimous agreement that the Queen does in fact use RP. Harrington et al. (2000) point out that an acoustic analysis of her Christmas broadcasts since 1952 showed a drift in her accent 'toward one that is characteristic
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of speakers who are younger and/or lower in the social hierarchy' She 'no longer speaks the Queen's English of the 1950s.' Today too, a wide variety of accents can be found at Oxford University, and regional accents also feature prominently in the various BBC services.
Trudgill (1995, 7) has pointed out what he considers to be the most interesting characteristics of RP: the speakers who use it do not identify as coming from a particular region, nor is the variety associated with a particular region, except that it is largely confined to England. Further, it is possible to speak Standard English but not speak RP; hence our characterization of it as an accent and not a dialect. As Bauer (1994, 115-21) also shows, RP continues to change. One of its most recent manifestations has been labeled 'Estuary English (Rosewarne 1994) - sometimes also called 'Cockneyfied RP' - a development of RP along the lower reaches of the Thames reflecting a power shift in London toward the worlds of finance, entertainment, sport, and commerce and away from that of inherited position, the Church, law, and traditional bureaucracies.
It is also interesting to observe that the 1997 English Pronouncing Dictionary published by Cambridge University Press abandoned the label RP in favor of BBC English even though this latter term is not unproblematic, as the BBC itself has enlarged the accent pool from which it draws its newsreaders. One consequence of this policy is that some people see old standards as being eroded, that is, their own power base being threatened. A letter writer to the Daily Telegraph in October 1995 informed readers that 'Sir Harold Nicolson looked forward, in 1955, to an age when all classes would "speak English as beautifully and uniformly as they do upon the BBC." Forty years on, though, the Corporation has abandoned its old manner of speech in favour of the all-too-aptly named "classless" accent, which, though certainly uniform, is far from beautiful.'
The development of Estuary English is one part of a general leveling of accents within the British Isles. The changes are well documented; see, for example, Foulkes and Docherty (1999), who review a variety of factors involved in the changes that are occurring in cities. One feature of Estuary English, the use of a glottal stop for a't' sound (Fabricus 2002), is also not unique to that variety but is spreading widely, for example, to Newcastle, Cardiff, and Glasgow, and even as far north as rural Aberdeenshire in northeast Scotland (Marshall 2003). Watt (2000, 2002) used the vowels in face and goat to show that Geordie, the Newcastle accent, levels toward a regional accent norm rather than toward a national one, almost certainly revealing a preference for establishing a regional identity rather than either a very limited local identity or a wider national one. Recent research (see Coupland 2007, 97-9) also shows that while British people in general still have a high regard for RP they also like Scottish- and Irish-accented English. However, they do not like the accents of cities such as Glasgow, Birmingham, and Liverpool, nor do they like Asian- or German-accented English. Most people like their own accents whatever they are and seem content with them. Coupland says of accent variation: the 'social meanings ... are clearly multidimensional, inherently variable, and potentially unstable' (2007, 99).
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The most generalized accent in North America is sometimes referred to as Newscaster English, the accent associated with announcers on the major television networks, or General American, a term which emphasizes its widespread acceptance and lack of regional association (see the website for this chapter to find a link to the discussion of Standard American English in the Do You Speak American? PBS production). Lippi-Green (2012, 62) endorses the use of the term SAE (Standard American English), while recognizing that it is a 'mythical' beast and idealizes a homogeneous variety. There is no official definition of what forms are included in SAE in terms of accent or grammar; as noted by Pinker (2012), 'The rules of standard English are not legislated by a tribunal but emerge as an implicit consensus within a virtual community of writers, readers, and editors. That consensus can change over time in a process as unplanned and uncontrollable as the vagaries of fashion.' It is also often recognized that there are regional standards in US English; for example, while r-lessness may be considered standard in Boston or Atlanta, it is not in Chicago; /ai/ monophthongization (e.g., the pronunciation of the vowel in the pronoun T to sound more like 'Ah') is heard by newscasters in southeastern parts of the United States but not farther north or west.
As a final observation we must reiterate that it is impossible to speak English (or any other language) without an accent. There is no such thing as 'unaccented English.' RP is an accent, a social one rather than a regional one. However, we must note that there are different evaluations of the different accents, evaluations arising from social factors not linguistic ones. Matsuda (1991,1361) says it is really an issue of power: 'When ... parties are in a relationship of domination and subordination we tend to say that the dominant is normal, and the subordinate is different from normal. And so it is with accent. ... People in power are perceived as speaking normal, unaccented English. Any speech that is different from that constructed norm is called an accent.' In the pages that follow we will return constantly to linguistic issues having to do with power.
Social Dialects
The term dialect can also be used to describe differences in speech associated with various social groups or classes. An immediate problem is that of defining social group (see chapter 3) or social class (see chapter 6), giving proper weight to the various factors that can be used to determine social position, for example, occupation, place of residence, education, income, 'new' versus old' money, racial or ethnic category, cultural background, caste, religion, and so on. Such factors as these do appear to be related fairly directly to how people speak. There is a British 'public-school' dialect, and there is an 'African American dialect found in many places in the United States; we will elaborate on ethnic dialects in the next section.
Whereas regional dialects are geographically based, social dialects originate among social groups and are related to a variety of factors, the principal ones
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apparently being social class, religion, and race/ethnicity. In India, for example, caste, one of the clearest of all social differentiators, quite often determines which variety of a language a speaker uses. In a city like Baghdad in a more peaceful era than at present the Christian, Jewish, and Muslim inhabitants spoke different varieties of Arabic. In this case the first two groups used their variety solely within the group but the Muslim variety served as a lingua franca, or common language, among the groups. Consequently, Christians and Jews who dealt with Muslims used two varieties: their own at home and the Muslim variety for trade and in all inter-group relationships.
Studies in social dialectology, the term used to refer to this branch of linguistic study, examine how ways of speaking are linked to social differences within a particular region. Socio-economic class is a main factor which will be addressed at length in chapters 6-8. Another factor in social dialectology which has received a great deal of attention is race/ethnicity; we will focus on African American Vernacular English, about which a wealth of sociolinguistic research has been carried out, and also present information about Latino Englishes in the Unites States, which are emerging as an important focus in the study of ethnic dialects. First, however, we will introduce a German social dialect which is controversial both in German society and among sociolinguists, a case which brings to the forefront the concerns inherent to social dialectology.
Kiezdeutsch 'neighborhood German'
The term Dialekt, 'dialect' in German, as mentioned above, has historically been used solely to refer to regional varieties. While sometimes stigmatized, these dialects are at the same time integral to regional identities and seen as deeply, essentially German. While a body of literature on Gastarbeiterdeutsch (guest worker German) emerged beginning in the 1970s, this variety was identified as a second language or a 'pidginized' variety of German, and very clearly spoken by immigrants (e.g., Keim 1978, Pfaff 1980), and thus, not a German Dialekt. Subsequently, a body of research about multilingual language practices of multiethnic groups of urban youths in Germany showed that multilingual practices were common among urban youths of many backgrounds (e.g., Auer and Dirim 2003, Kallmeyer and Keim 2003); while this research did show that such practices were not unique to children of immigrant background, it also did not suggest that multilingual discourse was something quintessentially German. However, when Kiezdeutsch, a way of speaking associated with multiethnic neighborhoods, was described as a German dialect (Wiese 2010, 2012), resistance to the idea of recognizing this way of speaking as a variety of the German language became apparent. The controversies surround this work, both in academic circles and in public discourses, exemplify the issues in social dialects in general. These issues include the label applied to the variety, identifying the features of the variety, correlations with demographic factors, and the process of the development.
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In the case of Kiezdeutsch, this term was chosen by researchers because other terms used to refer to the variety in everyday speech were inaccurate (e.g., Türkendeutsch, 'Turks' German) and potentially offensive (e.g., Kanak Sprak, derived from a derogatory term for foreigners [Kanak or Kanaker], and nonstandard spelling/pronunciation of German Sprache 'language'). However, as this case illustrates, no term is perfect. The term Kiez varies regionally in how it is used; in Berlin it is commonly used in a positive manner to refer to one's neighborhood, indicating it is where one feels at home, but in Hamburg the term is used to refer to one particular neighborhood, the so-called red light district. As we will see in our discussion of African American Vernacular English and Latino Englishes below, labels for varieties are often problematic and sites of controversy; this issue will also be discussed further in the next chapter as we attempt to define social groups.
While certain features of Kiezdeutsch do not seem to be disputed, the development and status of these features are. Wiese argues that although Kiezdeutsch does include some lexical items from languages other than German (often, Turkish), it is not a mixed language; instead, the grammatical features have their roots in the German language. She refers to Kiezdeutsch as a German dialect. Auer (2013, 36) disputes this, saying it is simply a youth style of speaking which is not used consistently enough to be considered a dialect, and suggests that there are features indicating 'unsichere Beherrschung der deutschen Morphologie' ('uncertain mastery of German morphology'). Similarly, Jannedy (2010) calls Kiezdeutsch a 'multi-ethnolectal youth language,' and not a social dialect.
Popular opinion about nonstandard social dialects is often that these ways of speaking are lazy, sloppy, and degenerate. Wiese (2012) aims at convincing a general audience that the features of Kiezdeutsch are part of normal language development and variation, not a bastardization through foreign influence, but this position has caused great consternation for many readers, who do not want to accept that a new dialect is possible (see Wiese 2014 for an analysis of this public discourse).
Who speaks Kiezdeutsch is also represented in the literature in different ways. There is agreement that its speakers generally live in multiethnic neighborhoods, and it is referred to as a youth language, but whether it is indeed limited to young speakers has not been conclusively demonstrated. Auer (2013) discusses the speakers of Kiezdeutsch as socially marginalized youths of immigrant background, while among Wiese's research participants are speakers with German backgrounds who are monolingual German speakers (as well as speakers of other ethnic or national backgrounds who are monolingual German speakers).
Finally, the process of the development of this variety is controversial. It is often assumed to be the result of language contact, meaning that the features are borrowed from other languages, especially Turkish (e.g., Auer 2013). Wiese (2010, 2012) argues for a somewhat difference scenario: that this situation of language contact has created a fertile environment for internally motivated language change (see chapters 5 and 8 for discussions of contact variety development and language change more broadly).
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What is clear is that Kiezdeutsch is a variety which has developed as an ingroup language; the development and use of Kiezdeutsch is intertwined with the identities of the speakers. As will be discussed for ethnic dialects, the identification with a group is a key element in the development of a social dialect.
Ethnic dialects
So-called ethnic dialects do not arise because members of particular ethnic groups are somehow destined to speak in certain ways; like all other social dialects, ethnic dialects are learned by exposure and anyone, regardless of their ethnic identification or racial categorization, might speak in ways identified as 'African American Vernacular English or 'Chicano English.' The connection between race/ethnicity/ nationality and linguistic variety is one that is entirely socially constructed, it is in no way linked to any inherent attributes of a particular group.
The processes that create ethnic dialects are poorly understood, and much research remains to be done into how and why they develop (we will also address this topic in chapters 6 and 7). However, we do know that ethnic dialects are not simply foreign accents of the majority language, as many of their speakers may well be monolingual speakers of the majority language. Chicano English, for example, is not English with a Spanish accent and grammatical transfer, as many of its speakers are not Spanish speakers but English monolinguals. Ethnic dialects are ingroup ways of speaking the majority language.
One study which gives us insights into the motivations for the development of an ethnic dialect was done by Kopp (1999) on Pennsylvania German English, that is, the English spoken among speakers of what is commonly called 'Pennsylvania Dutch,' which is a German dialect which developed in certain regions of Pennsylvania. Kopp analyzes a variety of features associated with speakers of Pennsylvania German in both sectarian (i.e., Amish and Mennonite) and nonsectarian communities. He discovers what at first seems to be a paradoxical pattern: although the sectarians are more isolated from mainstream society, and they continue to speak Pennsylvania German, their English has fewer phonological features that identify them as Pennsylvania German speakers than the nonsectarians, who are integrated into the English mainstream and less likely to be speakers of Pennsylvania German. So the nonsectarians, who are in many cases English monolinguals, exhibit more phonological features reminiscent of a Pennsylvania German accent in their spoken English than the sectarians! As Kopp explains, this makes perfect sense when we think of language as providing a way to construct identity. The sectarians speak Pennsylvania German, and thus can use that language to create group boundaries; the nonsectarians, who increasingly do not speak Pennsylvania German, have only their variety of English to use to construct themselves as members of a particular ethnic group.
Although Pennsylvania German English developed largely in rural areas, many ethnic dialects are urban phenomena. Cities are much more difficult to characterize
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linguistically than are rural hamlets; variation in language and patterns of change are much more obvious in cities, for example, in family structures, employment, and opportunities for social advancement or decline. Migration, both in and out of cities, is also usually a potent linguistic factor.
In research which examines the complexities of urban speech, Jaspers (2008) also addresses some of the ideological issues at stake in the study of ethnic dialects. He addresses the practice of naming particular ways of speaking as ethnolects, pointing out that it is indicative of the ideological positions of the sociolinguists doing the research themselves. Labeling and describing a particular way of speaking as an ethnic dialect implies a certain homogeneity about the variety and its speakers, and it inevitably also places the dialect and the group who speaks it outside the mainstream. Jaspers writes (2008, 100):
The point is not that code-establishment and naming as such should be frowned upon, but that they limit our understanding of inner-city social and linguistic practices, and that they have ideological consequences sociolinguists should take into account. As an alternative, I have advocated that ethnolect be regarded as a useful term for speakers' perceptions of particular ways of speaking (and of course, some scholars of ethnolects are already attending to perceptions of this kind), with the understanding that speakers' perceptions, and the names they develop for them, do not necessarily correspond to systematic linguistic differences (and vice versa).
The following discussion of African American Vernacular English and Latino Englishes attempts to incorporate these disparate perspectives. In doing so, we seek to describe a fascinating linguistic phenomenon, the development and spread of a linguistic variety that is linked to a particular racial group without contributing to essentialist ideas about social groups or making simplistic descriptions of languages.
African American Vernacular English
Interest in African American Vernacular English (AAVE) grew in part out of the observation that the speech of many Black residents of the northern United States, in New York City, Philadelphia, Washington, DC, Baltimore, Detroit, and Chicago, resembles the speech of Blacks in southern states in many respects, yet differs from the speech of Whites in their respective regions. To some extent, this similarity is the result of the relatively recent migrations of Blacks out of the south; in another, it is just one reflection of long-standing patterns of racial segregation only now slowly changing, patterns that have tended to separate the population of the United States along color lines. Linguists have referred to this variety of speech as Black English, Black Vernacular English, and African or Afro-American English. Today, probably the most-used term is African American Vernacular English, and we will use this term (abbreviated as AAVE), although in our discussions of research
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by particular authors we will use whatever term they used. (The term Ebonics - a blend of Ebony and phonics - has also recently achieved a certain currency in popular speech, but it is not a term we will use in discussion of sociolinguistic research.) It should be also noted that variation in AAVE according to region (e.g., Hinton and Pollock 2000,Wolfram and Thomas 2008), age (e.g., Rickford 1999, Wolfram and Thomas 2002), and social class (e.g., Linnes 1998, Weldon 2004, Wolfram 2007) have also been studied and that these form an essential aspect of ongoing research.
Exploration 2.3:   Naming Varieties, Again
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Why do you think the variety we are referring to as 'AAVE' has been referred to with so many different terms? Why have researchers chosen to use 'Black,' 'Afro-American,' or 'African American' to describe this variety at different times? Why is the term 'Vernacular' introduced to describe this way of speaking? In what ways can you link these naming practices to our discussion of the relationship between language and worldview from chapter 1?
Features of AAVE
The features of AAVE which have been researched include phonological, morphological, and syntactic characteristics (see also chapters 6 and 7 on variationist studies for discussions of research on this topic). We will focus here primarily on features which have been found to be specific to AAVE and which have been researched extensively over several decades. This is not, we stress, an exhaustive list of features nor an indepth coverage of the research on their variation (please see the reference in the Further Reading section to find more research on this topic). The aim of this section is to make our readers aware of some of the characteristics of this dialect.
On the phonological level, consonant cluster reduction has often been noted (e.g., from Labov 1972 to Wolfram and Thomas 2008); words such as test, desk, and end may be pronounced without their final consonants. (See chapter 7 for a discussion of earlier work on consonant cluster deletion in AAVE.) Other phonological features commonly found in varieties of AAVE include r-lessness, and /ai/ monophthongi-zation, and realization of 'th sounds as Itl, l&l, HI, /v/ or /s/ (Thomas 2007), although these features are found in other varieties of English in North America and around the world.
Some of the most salient and frequently researched features of AAVE have to do with verbal -s marking. This involves the presence or absence of the suffix -5 on finite verbs. In Standard English dialects, -5 marking is only on third-person
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singular verbs (e.g., She likes cheese). In AAVE, this marking is sometimes absent (e.g., She like school) and this is considered one of the core features of AAVE. Further, verbal -s marking also appears in grammatical contexts other than third-person singular (e.g., The men has wives) in some varieties of AAVE. There is extensive literature on patterns of -5 marking on verbs (Cukor-Avila 1997, Montgomery et al. 1993, Montgomery and Fuller 1996, Poplack and Tagliamonte 1989, 1991, 2005) showing similarities to other nonstandard English dialects.
Another interesting pattern in the verbal system of AAVE is the use of the zero copula. As Labov (1969) has explained, the rule for its use is really quite simple. If you can contract be in Standard English, you can delete it in AAVE. That is, since 'He is nice' can be contracted to 'He's nice' in Standard English, it can become 'He nice' in AAVE. However, T don't know where he is' cannot be contracted to T don't know where he's' in Standard English. Consequently, it cannot become T don't know where he' in AAVE. We should note that the zero copula is very rarely found in other dialects of English. It is also not categorical in AAVE; that is, there is variation between realization of copula forms and zero copula. Labov (1972) argued for the use of zero copula as a marker of group membership among certain Black youths in Harlem, members of a gang called the Jets. Zero copula use diminished as strength of group membership decreased. There is a wealth of literature on the linguistic factors in copula variation in AAVE; see, for example, Blake 1997, Hazen 2002, Rickford et al. 1991, Weldon 2003.
Still another feature of AAVE has been called habitual be (also called invariant be, or be2). This feature has become a stereotype of Black speech, often imitated in caricatures of AAVE speakers; for example, the US toy store 'Toys "R" Us' has been jokingly called 'We Be Toys' in Harlem, a predominantly African American neighborhood of New York City (see the link to a discussion of this joke in the web links provided in the online materials for this textbook). The feature is called 'invariant' be because the copula is not conjugated, but used in the form of be for all subjects (i.e., I be, you be, he/she/it be, etc.). It is called 'habitual' because it marks an action which is done repeatedly, that is, habitually. Thus the utterance They be throwing the ball does not mean that the people in question are (necessarily) currently throwing a ball, but that they often get together and throw a ball back and forth. This differs in meaning from They (are) throwing the ball, which indicates something that is happening at the current time. Research on this feature often focuses on its development, which leads us to another important aspect of research on this dialect as a whole: how did it develop, and how does it continue to change?
Development of AAVE
Sociolinguists disagree on how AAVE relates to other varieties of English in the United States, and this is a controversy of long standing. Kurath (1949, 6) and McDavid (1965, 258) argued that AAVE had no characteristics that were not found in other varieties of English, particularly nonstandard varieties spoken by Americans of any color in the south. This is sometimes called the Anglicist hypothesis of
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origin. In this view, AAVE is just another dialect of American English (see Wolfram and Schilling-Estes 2005 for more discussion). That Black speakers may produce greater quantities of certain nonstandard usages is merely a peculiarity of the style of speaking they have adopted.
Wolfram (2003) and Wolfram and Thomas (2002) take a slightly different position, favoring a neo-Anglicist hypothesis that early African Americans maintained certain features of the languages they brought with them while at the same time accommodating to the local dialects of English. Wolfram and Thomas say that such a substrate influence (see chapter 5) from the African languages still persists in AAVE, certainly in the variety they examined in Hyde County, North Carolina. Wolfram and Torbert (2006, 228) claim that 'AAE has diverged from European American varieties over the years, so that present-day AAE is now quite different from contemporary benchmark European American dialects. The differences are not due to earlier language history, but to the everyday nature of African American speech during the twentieth century'
Diametrically opposed to this view is the view of the creolists, for example, Stewart (1967), Dillard (1972), and Rickford (1977, 1997, 1999), who maintain that AAVE is of Creole origin (see chapter 5), and therefore a variety of English which originated quite independently of Standard English. In this view, AAVE has features that are typical of creole languages, particularly the zero copula and habitual be, some residual Africanisms, and certain styles of speaking (such as rapping, sounding, signifying, and fancy talk), which look back to an African origin. In this view, AAVE is not a dialect of English but a creolized variety of English (see chapter 5) which continues to have profound differences from the standard variety.
Another issue that intrigues linguists is the divergence hypothesis, that is, the claim that AAVE is diverging from other dialects of English, particularly standard varieties (Bailey and Maynor 1989, Butters 1989, Labov and Harris 1986, Fasold et al. 1987; and Wolfram and Thomas 2002). In this view, the English of Blacks and Whites is diverging in certain parts of the United States. Bailey and Maynor (1989) say that they are diverging in the Brazon Valley in Texas, with only Black speakers using constructions like 'He always be tryin to catch up' and resisting the adoption of post-vocalic r in words like farm. Butters (1989) argues that there is no solid evidence to support such a claim, pointing out that there are both divergent and convergent features. He says that AAVE is just like any other dialect of English; it has its own innovations but remains strongly influenced by the standard variety. Wolfram (1990, 131) also discusses the idea that these varieties are diverging and concludes that the evidence is 'flimsy' However, another review of the evidence (Spears 1992) finds some substance. There may actually, as just stated, be both convergence and divergence, for as Wolfram and Thomas say (2002, 24), 'it is quite possible for particular structures, or structures on one level of language organization, to show convergence at the same time that other structures indicate divergence.' Rickford (1999, 274-7) also points to evidence of both convergence and divergence in East Palo Alto, California, with Black adults showing evidence of convergence and Black teenagers of divergence, although whether the latter is
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mainly an age-graded phenomenon is not at all clear. Although most of these studies look at AAVE as the dialect which is changing away from 'White' dialects, another perspective is presented in Van Herk (2008), who suggests that we can also look at this from another perspective, that is, that the Northern Cities Vowel Shift, a vowel shift found across the northern United States, may be a form of linguistic 'white flight' and it is White speakers who are diverging.
Latino Englishes
This section will address the development of ethnic varieties in Latino communities in various parts of the United States. Although the most research has been done on Chicano English, we use the term Latino Englishes to include varieties in Puerto Rican communities and communities which have Latino residents of various backgrounds.
A central issue in the study of ethnic dialects is distinguishing it from learner varieties. For Latino Englishes, it is important to realize that they develop because of the varieties of English spoken in a community, not because of Spanish input. That being said, most speakers of Latino English varieties live in communities in which Spanish is spoken, although the speakers of Latino English may themselves be monolingual English speakers or dominant in English (Bayley and Bonnici 2009, 1305). For example, in her work in a Puerto Rican community in New York City, Zentella (1997) distinguishes between Hispanicized English, which is spoken by community members who grew up in Puerto Rico, and Puerto Rican English, which is spoken by second or later generation Latinos in New York City working-class Spanish-speaking communities; although they may share some features, especially phonological features, the former is a form of learner English while the latter is not.
As with AAVE, many morphosyntactic features of other nonstandard American English dialects are found in Latino Englishes, such as multiple negation (e.g., 'That ain't gonna never change in L.A. no more,' Fought 2003, 97), regularization of irregular past tense verbs (e.g., 'when she striked me with that ...,' Bailey and Santa Ana 2004, 376), and absence of past tense marking (e.g., T saw some girl, and she look pretty,' Bailey and Santa Ana 2004, 376). Also, some features of AAVE are used by Latino English speakers, such as habitual be (e.g., 'You supposed to be knowing Spanish,' Carter 2013, 79) and zero copula (e.g., 'They feel like they not Latino,' Carter 2013, 83). Morphosyntactic features unique to Latino Englishes are rare; Fought discussed the use of could' rather than 'can when talking about ability, as in 'Nobody believes that you could fix anything' (Fought 2003, 100), and the use of 'tell' to introduce questions was also mentioned (e.g., T told Elinore: is that your brother?' Bayley and Santa Ana 2004, 381).
However, it is the phonology of Latino Englishes that is most distinctive from other dialects of English, and one study (Frazer 1996) showed that non-Latino college students, when given recordings of speakers, could readily identify 'Hispanic' (the term used in this study) speakers of English from non-Hispanics. So
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what are these salient phonological features? Two differences found between Chicano English and the local dialects in their communities that have been found are less frequent vowel reduction and monophthongization (Fought 2003, Santa Ana and Bayley 2004). Vowel reduction is the use of a hi (i.e., an 'uh' sound), as is common in casual speech, for example, 'because' is not usually pronounced with a long e' {HI) sound in the first syllable. Chicano English speakers would then be more likely to pronounce this word like 'bee-cuz.' Monophthongization is when a diphthong is pronounced without the off-glide; so the word 'least,' by many speakers of US English pronounced with an 'y' {1)1) off-glide following the e' {HI) sound, would be pronounced by Chicano English speakers with fewer and shorter glides.
A further issue with the phonology of Latino Englishes is how the speakers sound in comparison to the non-Latino local speakers in their community. Fought (1999, 2003) found that Chicano English speakers who were working class and had gang affiliations did not participate in ongoing sound changes, and similarly Konopka and Pierrehumbert (2008) found that the speakers of what they call 'Mexican Heritage English' were not participating in the Northern Cities Vowel Shift (see chapter 8 for a discussion of this change in progress). Wolfram et al. (2004) also found that on the whole Hispanic speakers did not accommodate to the /ai/ monophthongization of local dialect in North Carolina, although some individual speakers did show patterns more similar to the local norms.
However, what is arguably most noticeable about Chicano English is its intonation (Metcalf 1979, Santa Ana and Bayley 2004). Chicano English has more 'glides,' that is, gradual rises or falls in pitch, and the syllable of the pitch rise is also lengthened, producing emphasis. This contrasts with other American English speech patterns which use stress on a syllable for emphasis, as in the following example, adapted from Santa Ana and Bayley (2004, 427):
He was CHOKing on it (stress on the first syllable of the word choking'; typical of most American English dialects)
He was chooo|king on it (lengthened b' sound and gradual rising pitch; typical of Chicano English)
Even more salient are final pitch contours. In most varieties of American English, there is a step down in pitch at the end of statements, and a step up at the end of questions. In Chicano English, although the overall contour of statements and questions are different, they both tend to end with a glide up and then down at the end of the sentence. Santa Ana and Bayley (2004,429) note that this intonational feature is often used in stereotypical representations of Mexicans in Hollywood films.
Although exactly how Latino English varieties develop, and why they develop in some communities and not in others, remains a topic for further investigation, one thing is clear: Latino Englishes are identifiable dialects and as such develop in part to construct an ethnic identity. This does not imply that it is the conscious choice of individual speakers, but that the importance of ethnic identity in a community is part of the linguistic forms which are adopted as part of ingroup speech.
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This brief overview of research on AAVE and Latino Englishes has raised two broad issues that we will continue to deal with throughout this text. First, language varieties are often associated with particular social groups and as such are used to construct the social identities of speakers (see chapter 11). Second, these associations are often essentialized and used to discriminate (see chapter 13). In the following section, we will look at varieties of another sort, those defined by the context of use rather than by the user alone.
Styles, Registers, and Genres
The study of dialects is further complicated by the fact that speakers can adopt different styles and registers of speaking, and both spoken and written language can be seen as belonging to different genres of language. So while differences in dialect have to do with speakers and their regional or social identities, styles, registers, and genres have to do with different contexts of use. Although the terms style, register, and genre have been used in different ways by different scholars, and there may be overlap between these three terms, we can delineate broad categories which differentiate them (Lee 2001). The term style is most often used to discuss differences in formality; register generally denotes specific ways of speaking associated with particular professions or social groups; and genre is understood as a set of co-occurring language features associated with particular frames (Bauman 2000).
Style
When choosing a style, you can speak very formally or very informally, your choice being governed by circumstances. Ceremonial occasions almost invariably require very formal speech, public lectures somewhat less formal, casual conversation quite informal, and conversations between intimates on matters of little importance may be extremely informal and casual. (See Joos 1962, for an entertaining discussion.) We may try to relate the level of formality chosen to a variety of factors: the kind of occasion; the various social, age, and other differences that exist between the participants; the particular task that is involved, for example, writing or speaking; the emotional involvement of one or more of the participants; and so on. We appreciate that such distinctions exist when we recognize the stylistic appropriateness of What do you intend to do, your majesty? and the inappropriateness of Waddya intend doin, Rex? While it may be difficult to characterize discrete levels of formality, it is nevertheless possible to show that native speakers of all languages control a range of stylistic varieties. It is also quite possible to predict with considerable confidence the stylistic features that a native speaker will tend to employ on certain occasions. We will return to related issues in chapters 4, 7, and 11.
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Exploration 2.4:   Formality in Introductions
Imagine you are introducing a romantic partner to (a) another friend, (b) your parents, (c) your grandparents, (d) a casual acquaintance, or (e) your boss. Do you use different words to describe your relationship, or more or less elaborate ways to perform the act of introducing? (e.g., 'This is Pat,' vs. 'I'd like you to meet my friend Pat' or 'This is my boy/girlfriend Pat.') Compare your own answers with those of other classmates. How might differences in the ideas about the formality of particular relationships (e.g., family members, an employer) account for the different ways people might execute an introduction? Are there different understandings about the level of formality of different linguistic forms used for introductions?
Register
Register is another complicating factor in any study of language varieties. Generally speaking, registers are sets of language items associated with discrete occupational or social groups. Agha (2006, 24) describes a register as 'a linguistic repertoire that is associated, culture-internally, with particular social practices and with persons who engage in such practices' (italics in original). Biber and Conrad (2003, 175) distinguish work on registers from other analyses of discourse, saying that they focus on the situational parameters denning the communicative situation. Speakers learn different registers through socialization in different cultural groups within their society. What we refer to as 'legalese' or 'personal ads' are identifiable registers for most people. Use of such registers thus either conforms to the norms for a particular, socially situated way of using language, or is a way of invoking the context usually associated with that register. Of course, one person may control a variety of registers: you can be a stockbroker and an archeologist, or a mountain climber and an economist. A register helps you to construct an identity at a specific time or place.
Genre
A related term is genre, which overlaps in meaning with register but is usually associated with particular linguistic features; thus register focuses more on the social situation, and genre more on the text type (Ferguson 1994; Lee 2001). However, like a register, a genre can also function 'as a routinized vehicle for encoding and expressing a particular order of knowledge and experience' (Bauman 2000, 80). For instance, even if we do not understand all of the words, we all recognize the form
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of a recipe, a personals ad, a news article, or an infomercial. Thus, while such ways of speaking do require a certain socialization, it is not necessarily socialization into a particular social or occupational group but rather an acquired familiarity with certain norms of language use in particular contexts and for specific functions.
Dialect, style, register, and genre differences are largely independent: you can talk casually about mountain climbing in a local variety of a language, or you can write a formal technical study of wine making. However, speakers have clear ideas about which ways of speaking are considered 'appropriate' for a particular speech event or social context.
Chapter Summary
What is the relationship between a language and a dialect? This chapter seeks to acknowledge many non-linguists' perceptions about this issue while presenting the sociolinguists' stance that particular ways of speaking are considered distinct languages or subordinated dialects because of sociopolitical ideologies and identities, not because of linguistic differences between varieties. While a 'language' is considered an overarching category containing dialects, it is also often seen as synonymous with the standard dialect; yet closer examination of the standard reveals that it is a value-laden abstraction, not an objectively denned linguistic variety. Further, every language has a range of regional dialects, social dialects, styles, registers, and genres. These interrelated concepts are discussed and denned with a focus on how they are part of speakers' identities and social interactions.
Exercises
1. Read the article from The Independent titled 'God save the Queen's English: Our language is under threat from ignorance, inverted snobbery, and deliberate "dumbing down".' (You can find this in the links listed for this chapter on the website for this textbook.) Find evidence of the following aspects of the 'standard language myth' referred to in this chapter, notably:
• the standard as natural, as evidenced by its widespread use;
• the link between the standard and the heritage and identity of its speakers;
• the standard as linguistically superior;
• the standard as a clearly denned variety with recognizable features.
2. Look at the following examples, and answer the following questions about each: Is this an example of a dialect, style, register, or genre? Does it have a name? How can you describe this variety in terms of its function? What are the linguistic features that make this text identifiable as belonging to a certain category?
Languages, Dialects, and Varieties
55
• I direct my Executor, hereinafter named, to pay all of my matured debts and my funeral expenses, as well as the costs and expenses of the administration of my estate, as soon after my death as practicable. I further direct that all estate, inheritance, transfer, and succession taxes which are payable by reason under this will, be paid out of my residuary estate; and I hereby waive on behalf of my estate any right to recover from any person any part of such taxes so paid. My Executor, in his sole discretion, may pay from my domiciliary estate all or any portion of the costs of ancillary administration and similar proceedings in other jurisdictions.
• Combine the first four ingredients in a medium bowl. Mix eggs, sugar, and oil in a large bowl; add flour mixture to this bowl and stir until just moistened. Do not over-mix. Pour into a 13" x 6" baking dish and bake at 350 degrees for 35 minutes, or until a knife inserted comes out clean.
• Tired of having to wipe your tears away when chopping onion? Weary of dicing and slicing for hours? Now you can be tear and fancy free! Introducing the No More Tears Sheer, which lets you slice your prep time in half! With the No More Tears Onion Sheer, you can slice your way through onions, dice vegetables, and slice cheese in minutes! This is one kitchen tool you don't want to do without! Order this time-saving instrument NOW for the TV-price of only $19.99!
• The University of Portlandia is seeking a research fellow to work on the Multilingual Metrolingualism (MM) project, a new five-year NSF-funded project led by Dr Hannelore Holmes. We are seeking a highly motivated and committed researcher to work on all aspects of the MM Project, but in particular on developing a coding system suitable for urban youth language use. Applicants should have a PhD in a relevant area of socio-linguistics or a closely related field. Proficiency in at least one of the following languages is essential: French, Swahili, Mandarin, or Tok Pisin. Candidates must also have good knowledge and understanding of discourse analysis, semiotics, and grammatical analysis. Applicants should demonstrate enthusiasm for independent research and commitment to developing their research career. The post is fixed-term for five years due to funding. The post is available from April 1 or as soon as possible thereafter. Job sharers welcome. The University of Portlandia is an Equal Opportunity Employer.
• Researchers Find Link Between Education, Smartness {The Onion, September 3, 2007)
BOSTON - A study released Tuesday by the Lyman Center for Policy Evaluation and Strategy may have uncovered a link between school-based education and human smartness.
'Based on these forms we had people fill out, and these charts we came up with, we're pretty sure exposure to education in early life is consistent with higher levels of smartness-having overall,' said Brent Shale, one of the study's coauthors. 'Also, we figured out that the more educated-er people
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Languages and Communities
are, the better they are at doing complicated stuff like filling out forms and
understanding charts'
If the study results are corroborated, the researchers say, it could mean 'a
whole new understanding of, you know, what smartness even is.' 3. Representing dialect. Find a novel that portrays AAVE speakers, such as Nora Zeale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God or Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn. What linguistic features are used in the dialogues to represent Black speakers? (Name at least four.) How are they similar to or different from the features discussed in this chapter? (Keep in mind that we have in no way presented a comprehensive list of features of AAVE; you may need to consult other research on AAVE if you want to draw conclusions about whether this fits with linguists' descriptions of the dialect.) Name and describe the features and give examples from the novel you are using.
Do you think this writing represents authentic speech? What do you know about the author that contributes to your position on this?
Further Reading
Biber, Douglas, and Susan Conrad (2009). Register, Genre, and Style. New York: Cambridge University Press.
This volume provides an overview of the definitions and theoretical issues for studying register, genre, and style, as well as methodological issues for the study of these linguistic phenomena.
Crowley, Tony (2003). Standard English and the Politics of Language. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
This volume addresses the standard language construct in British history, looking at social issues and educational contexts. Green, Lisa J. (2002). African American English: A Linguistic Introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
This discussion of the features and uses of AAVE is very accessible and a good introduction for anyone interested in this variety, its grammar and its social context. Hughes, Arthur, Peter Trudgill, and Dominic Watt (2013). English Accents and Dialects: An Introduction to Social and Regional Varieties of English in the British Isles. Abingdon: Routledge.
This fifth edition offers an up-to-date description and discussion of British Isles dialects, including both rural and urban varieties which reflect the contemporary societies of this region.
McDavid, R. I. (1965). American Social Dialects. College English, 26: 254-60.
An early study on social dialects which introduces key issues and addresses the social and educational consequences of societal differentiation through linguistic differences.
Wolfram and Schilling-Estes (2005). American English: Dialects and Variation. Oxford: Blackwell.
A comprehensive discussion both of issues in the study of dialects and of dialects specific to the US context, this text addresses theoretical issues involved in the study of language variation as well as applications of this knowledge to educational contexts.
Languages, Dialects, and Varieties
57
For further resources for this chapter visit the companion website at www.wiley.com/go/wardhaugh/sociolinguistics
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