Basic Notions

According to the New English Dictionary, the oldest sense of the term dialect (1577)was ‘a manner of speaking’ or ‘phraseology’, in accordance with its derivation from the Gr. dialectos ‘a discourse or way of speaking’. The modern meaning is somewhat more precise. In relation to a language such as English, the term dialect is used in a special sense to signify ‘a local variety of speech differing from the standard or literary language’.

A dialect is a linguistic system that

-shows a high degree of similarity to other systems so that at least partial mutual intelligibility is possible;

-is tied to a specific region in such a way that the regional distribution of the system does not overlap with an area covered by another such system;

-does not have a written or standardised form, i.e. does not have officially standardised orthographic and grammatical rules.

A regional accent refers to features of pronunciation against a geographical background. Accents may also convey social implications and be prestigious, neutral or low class.

A regional dialect refers to features of grammar and vocabulary against a geographical background. A regional dialect includes a distinctive regional accent but the reverse does not necessarily follow.

Dialect linguistics (areal linguistics, linguistic geography) is a subdiscipline of dialectology concerned with the investigation of the geographic distribution of linguistic phenomena. In dialect geography, phonetic, phonological, morphological, and lexical approaches are primarily employed.

The recorded data are presented in the form of linguistic maps which facilitate the interpretation of the specific geographic distribution and the structure of individual features from a historical, cultural, social (extralinguistic), and language-internal (intralinguistic) point of view.

A linguistic atlas is a comprehensive representation of dialectal features for a whole region or a whole linguistic area.

40. Standard English: characteristic features and the problem of definition.

-a variety of English with standardised pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary and spelling that have no local base;

-used as the norm of communication by the government, law courts, and media;

-taught to native speakers in school and to learners of English as a foreign language;

-a canon of literature and translations;

-prestigious within a country;

-only a minority of people within a country (e.g. radio newscasters, translators) use it. Most people speak a variety of regional English, or a mixture of standard and regional English.

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