CHAPTER 18
Language and regional variation
DESCRIPTION
The standard language This is actually an idealized
variety, because it has no specific region. It is the
variety associated with administrative, commercial and
educational centers, regardless of region.If we are
thinking of that general variety used in public
broadcasting in the United States, we can refer more
specifically to Standard American English or, in Britain,
to Standard British English. In other parts of the world,
we can talk about other recognized varieties such as
Standard Australian English, Standard Canadian
English or Standard Indian English. Language and
regional variation
Accent and dialect Accent It is amyth that some
speakers have accents while others do not.Wemight
feel that some speakers have very distinct or easily
recognized types of accent while others may have more
subtle or less noticeable accents, but every language-
user speaks with an accent. Term dialect, which is used
to describe features of grammar and vocabulary as well
as aspects of pronunciation. We recognize that the
sentence You don’t know what you’re talking about will
generally “look” the same whether spoken with an
American accent or a Scottish accent. Language and
regional variation
REFLECTION
In this chapter we learned.
The informants of the major
dialect surveys of the
twentieth century tend to be
STANDARDS or "non-
mobile, elderly, rural, male
speakers." Those speakers
were chosen because they
were believed to be less
likely to have influences from
outside the region in His
discourse. An unfortunate
consequence of using such
criteria is that the resulting
dialect description tends to
be more accurate than a
period well before the time of
the research. However, the
detailed information obtained
has served as the basis for a
series of linguistic Atlases of
entire countries (eg England)
and regions (eg the Upper
Midwest area of the United
States). Language and
regional variation