Edit] Deviation from standard language varieties

A diagram showing variation in the English language by region (the bottom axis) and by social class (the side axis). The higher the social class, the less variation.

The existence of differences in language between social classes can be illustrated by the following table:

Bristolian Dialect (lower class)	...	Standard English (higher class)
I ain't done nothing	...	I haven't done anything
I done it yesterday	...	I did it yesterday
It weren't me that done it	...	I didn't do it

Any native speaker of English would immediately be able to guess that speaker 1 was likely of a different social class than speaker 2, namely from a lower social class, probably from a working class pedigree. The differences in grammar between the two examples of speech is referred to as differences between social class dialects or sociolects.

It is also notable that, at least in England and Australia, the closer to standard English a dialect gets, the less the lexicon varies by region, and vice-versa.

Дата добавления: 2015-10-21