First 1/2 of chapter 8

NORTHERN AND MIDWEST REGION: This region has been influenced by only two cultural and linguistic hearths: New England and southeastern Pennsylvania. Fest for festival (gabfest or talkfest - gossiping, beer fest etc. Gazuntight when someone sneezes. A cigar is a rope, a cigarette is called a coffin nail.

SOCIAL/CULTURAL DIALECT: it is important to reiterate that dialects are not products of biology.

4 SOCIAL/CULTURAL DIALECTS: 1. AFRICAN AMERICAN ENGLISH 2. HISPANIC ENGLISH 3. ASIAN ENGLISH 4. NATIVE AMERICAN ENGLISH All possible variations of English that fit within these broad categories are the products of social, cultural, ethnic, educational and occupational influences. These dialects are then influenced by regional dialects.

1. AFRICAN AMERICAN ENGLISH THE most studied and most controversial dialect in American English is African American English. It is also called Black Dialect, Black English Vernacular, and Ebonics. The controversy surrounding AAE is the result of misunderstanding, ignorance and the continuing racial prejudices. It is unreasonable for any educated person to believe that all African Americans speak AAE. It may be relatively safe to say that AAE is the dialect spoken by most working-class African Americans living in working class African American communities.

Every dialect of English is linguistically correct within the rules that govern it and every dialect of English is as valid as any other.

2 PROBLEMS WITH THE LAY UNDERSTANDING OF DIALECT: 1. some people use the term dialect as a synonym for language. 2. the problem of evaluating language differences as good/bad or standard/nonstandard.

There are also NONSTANDARD DIALECTS. This is not a problem as long as we remember that nonstandard does NOT mean inferior!

A synonym for NONSTANDARD DIALECT is VERNACULAR DIALECT. This may be a better word to use because it does not connote value. Vernacular emphasizes the "indigenous community dimensions of those language varieties."

There is a difference between dialects and accents.

ACCENT: characteristics of speech or variations in pronunciation. DIALECT: language differences as well as speech differences. DIALECT is the broader term and subsumes ACCENT. If someone notices only pronunciation differences in the speech of someone else and no language differences, he is perceiving an accent. If he hears pronunciation AND language differences he is hearing a dialect that differs from his own.

There are 5 places along the eastern and southern coasts of the US from which most regional dialects have evolved... 1. Boston 2. Philadelphia 3. Tidewater Virginia 4. Charleston 5. New Orleans. These centers are called CULTURAL HEARTHS!

American dialects constantly evolve as a result of changes in population centers. Changes will continue to occur!

Latinos now account for 13% of the total population in our country and that number is projected to grow during the coming decades.

BILINGUALISM: The term bilingual, on the surface, seems to mean two (bi) languages (lingual). But...proficiency is a question....how competent must a person be in two languages to be considered bilingual?

If a child learns two languages at the same time, that is SIMULTANEOUS ACQUISITION. If she acquires one language adn having mastered that language, learns a second language, that is SUCCESSIVE ACQUISITION...also called SEQUENTIAL ACQUISITION.

DE HOUWER asserts that the cutoff age for determining simultaneous bilingualism is 3 years. She says that the child who acquires two languages from birth experiences BILINGUAL FIRST LANGUAGE ACQUISITION. That is...during the language acquisition period, the child becomes competent in both languages, presumably at an equal rate. DE HOUWER uses the term BILINGUAL SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION to describe the child who begins the process of acquiring one language before exposure to the second language. Exposure to the second language, according to De Houwer, must come at least 1 month after birth but before the child's second birthday.

DIALECT: The term dialect is used often, and is often used with incomplete understanding. Dialect should be understood in a "technical" sense as well as the popular sense.

DEFINITION OF DIALECT: any given variety of a language shared by a group of speakers. A dialect is a variety of language that has developed through a complex interplay of historical, social, political, educational and linguistic forces.

People are all born with the same genetic predispositions for language use and most are exposed to adequate samples of speech and language and have normal interactive relationships with their models.

Differences within a national language - called DIALECTS.

AAE is not now, nor will it ever be, a single dialect....and it will never be static.

Distinctions among dialects, even distinctions among languages, will become increasingly blurred!

People who live in the same region and who share cultural, ethnic, educational, and social values tend to speak the same variety of their national language. Each dialect is neither superior or inferior to another.

Every speaker of a given language speaks a dialect of that language. There is no Absolute Standard English against which variations are evaluated. Numbers of people who speak a certain dialect does not indicate if it is superior or inferior.

All bilingual children encounter special challenges. 1. confusions between the two languages - Some mixing of the vocabularies and rules. Over time, the child separates the two languages as he becomes aware of the differences between them. But if one language is dominant, its vocabulary adn grammatical rules may continue to have undue influence on the the nondominant language. ie; if a person's dominant language was Spanish and the nondominant language was english, his english would always sound like English spoken by a spanish - speaking person.

How dominant a language is for a bilingual speaker depends in large part on the nature of inputs he receives while he is learning two or more languages and on how thoroughly he is immersed in the communities in his environment that use each language. It also depends on how much exposure he receives from English media. Bilingualism exists on a continuum ranging from two languages used to one language as clearly dominant.

If a child's proficiency is essentially equal in two languages, and if he meets whatever standards are established for language competence in those languages, he is bilingual, and his bilingualism is considered BALANCED.

In most cases, he will be more proficient in one language than in the other, but even in the nondominant language his is minimally competent. A child meeting this standard is also bilingual - but the stronger of the two languages in DOMINANT.

Regional dialects are characterized by differences in all components of language, including phonology, grammar, adn semantics but the dimension most affected is VOCABULARY!

NEW ENGLAND AND NORTHEAST REGION: Most obvious difference is the 'r'. They drop the 'r' when it should be present in a word, an they sometimes add it where it does not belong. ie: They say 'ca' instead of 'car'. Or he might say 'tuber' instead of 'tuba'. Word usage is most apparent. Words from the "sea" are observed. They use words like 'nor'easter' and 'nor'wester' to describe the winds. Winds are 'lulling down'. Or winds are 'breezing up'. A sunny day is an 'open' day. An mountain pass is called a 'notch'. Terms in the dialects of this region use words of rural living. 'creepers' are metal cleats on boots. A bobsled is a 'double runner'. When you haus something...you cart it or team it.Also - many unique terms for food. 'hamburger' is 'hamburg'

In AAE the irregularity for third person singular forms is eliminated, resulting in I hit, You hit, She hit. In SAE, ain't is common in many dialects of American English as a substitution for am not, isn't and aren't. In AAE ain't is substituted for these forms but is also used for haven't, hasn't and didn't...ie: she ain't go to school. In AAE ...the more negative terms there are, the more negative the sentence....ie: Joe ain't going to no doctor at no time no how!

One of the most interesting characteristics of AAE is a syntactic device called ASPECT. AAE changes SO quickly but some will last in the dialect for many years. The acquisition of AAE by each child is affected by variables such as family environment, learning strategies, the child's gender and age, the parents' occupations, and family's socioeconomic level.

Speakers from New York refer to a freeway as a throughway, curdled milk is lobbered milk.

SOUTHERN REGION: There are a variety of dialects in the south. Snake doctor for dragonfly, calling the hogs for snoring, egg turner for spatula. Puny means not only small but sickly. They also have distinct rural words...hand for farm worker, critters for animals, juicing for milking cows. Other words: fussing for fighting, draw up for shrink, slosh for spill, johnny or commode for toilet, booger for child. The french influence has remained in louisiana and new orleans. They use "Louisiana French"

EVERY dialect is linguistically legitimate!

STANDARD DIALECT: a variety of a language spoken by people of relatively high status who have economic, political, social and educational power. People who speak a standard dialect often maintain condescending attitudes toward other dialects and the people who speak them.

Even though Castilian Spanish was considered the most prestigious Spanish dialect at this time, another dialect emerged and would become HE....Andalusian Spanish.

The Spaniards who settled in the islands of the Caribbean maintained commercial contacts with the shipping companies in the southern part of Spain - Andalusia. Spanish spoken in the Caribbean therefore was and continues to be heavily influenced by the andalusian dialect.

Native American English: There is a high incidence of otitis media compared to other groups in the US and across the world, and fetal alcohol syndrome is a major health problem.

The greatest growth in the US occurred in the west and in the South. The smallest increases were in the midwest and the northeast. All states experienced some growth. Only the District of Columbia saw its population decrease.

Although children are born to talk, they are not born to speak a particular language or to speak a particular variation of a language.

The language one speaks and the variation of the language one speaks are NOT products of biology! They are products of environment!!!

7 MAJOR VARIABLES INFLUENCE THE ACQUISITION OF LANGUAGE AND LANGUAGE BEHAVIORS: 1. RACE AND ETHNICITY 2. SOCIAL CLASS, EDUCATION AND OCCUPATIONS 3. REGION 4. GENDER 5. SITUATION OR CONTEXT 6. PEER GROUP ASSOCIATION OR IDENTIFICATION 7. FIRST LANGUAGE COMMUNITY OR CULTURE

The language uses in one situation with one group of people may differ from the language one uses in another situation with a different group of people.

Among people who are 5 or older, 18% report that English is not the language they speak at home. ...an increase or more than two fold.

The most common language spoken other than english is Spanish. Only half of those who speak spanish report that they speak English as well.

The influences of European languages on AAE can be traced to the trade initiatives of European countries in Africa. The original AAE also came to America by way of the slave trade....and became widely and firmly established in the US because of the constant and intensive contacts between slaves and their English speaking owners. ALL variations between AAE and Standard American English must be understood not as errors but as characteristics of a viable and valid dialect.

There are at least 29 linguistic rules of AAE that vary from Standard American English rules.

ASIAN ENGLISH...Most common spoken language in the far east is chinese but it is FAR from the only language.

There is clearly no single Asian language that affects the production of English to create what we are calling AE (asian english). THERE IS A CHART ON PAGE 350 ABOUT AE.

As the geography of the US changed, the language influences changed. Spanish is a significantly used language in 21 countries in the Americas. It is the first language of 90% of the citizens of many countries in South america. The reason these numbers are significant is because of IMMIGRATION. NOT ALL SPANISH SPEAKING INDIVIDUALS COME FROM THE SAME PLACE AND THEY DO NOT SPEAK THE SAME FORM OF SPANISH. They will bring to HE from their native dialects of Spanish and from their cultures.v

We must remember: 1. Those who speak HE are influenced in their language development and their language use as are people who speak any language, by a multitude of factors. 2. to appreciate the evolution of HE, we need to be aware of the range of origins from which HE is derived...which presents a variety of cultural, family, and religious influences and its own Spanish dialects.

In the ideal world the speaker -adult or child- functions well in both languages to be considered bilingual. In the ideal world...there is no dominant language...they speak both equally well. But in the real world....there is a dominant language

We should distinguish between individuals who are PRODUCTIVE bilinguals and those who are RECEPTIVE bilinguals. The PRODUCTIVE bilingual is truly competent in BOTH languages even if one is more dominant than the other. The RECEPTIVE bilingual clearly has a dominant language and can understand a second language but is not a proficient speaker in that language.

Whether dialects are standard or vernacular, the differences that separate that separate them occur in grammar, phonology, semantics, vocabulary, pragmatics, and all other dimensions of language.

We will learn about 3 of these differences: 1. regional 2. social/cultural 3. gender

HISPANIC ENGLISH: By mid 1500's Spain had a strong presence on the American continent.

When the Moors were driven out of Spain, Queen Isabel decreed that the Castilian dialect should be spoken by all the people of Spain so they would become more united.....thus the Castilian dialect would also be introduced to the Spanish settlements in the Americas.

Each dialect of a language has its own social and cultural history. According to the CREOLIST THEORY, AAE is a complicated hybrid derived from several African languages and Portuguese, Dutch, French and English. When speakers of these various languages interacted, they developed common languages so that they could communicate with one another. A common language called a pidgin, develops as speakers of a nondominant language accept a few key words, usually related to business or trade, from the dominant language. A pidgin begins as an informal language consisting mostly of nouns and many gestures. As it develops, the pidgin becomes more formal. The vocabulary of the dominant language is absorbed into the nondominant language, which retains revised versions of its original phonological and grammatical systems.

When the tidgin becomes the primary language of a group language of a group of people, it is called a CREOLE language. At this point, the original nondominant language ceases to exist. As the language evolution continues, the creole language becomes increasingly similar to the language of the dominant culture, a process called DECREOLIZATION. PART OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF AAE, THEN, CAN BE TRACED TO THE CREOLIZATION OF THE WEST COAST AFRICAN LANGUAGES.

English: 24 consonants and 12 vowel sounds Spanish: 18 consonants and 5 vowels. Thus there are differences in the pronunciation of english words when spanish speakers try to say them. There is no Spanish equivalent for the t, d, z, v, and a few others my typewriter won't type!

Word order is an important aspect of English syntax...but Spanish uses more inflections on words to convey meaning.

It is difficult to separate social dialect form regional dialect. Technically a REGIONAL DIALECT refers to a variety of language used by people living in a restricted geographic area but within that area several social dialects may be spoken by people who are grouped by factors other than geography, including social class, ethnicity, educational level, occupation and religion. The social dialect is influenced by the regional dialect, however, so that a group of people linked by factors such as those identified here have a different dialect in Houston than in Boston. In other words, regional and social dialects interact, producing variations within dialects of language.

experts don't always agree about the number of regional dialects because they do not all draw lines on dialectical maps in the same places and regional dialects are defined according to geographic boundaries. Taylor suggests that the U.S. has at least 10 regional dialects.Carver suggests there are 6 major regions - and these can be divided into layers adn subregions.