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| Regional variation of pronunciation in the south-west of EnglandRegional variation of pronunciation in the south-west of EnglandÌÎÑÊÎÂÑÊÈÉ ÃÎÐÎÄÑÊÎÉ ÏÅÄÀÃÎÃÈ×ÅÑÊÈÉ ÓÍÈÂÅÐÑÈÒÅÒ Ôàêóëüòåò èíîñòðàííûõ ÿçûêîâ Àíãëèéñêîå îòäåëåíèå Äèïëîìíàÿ ðàáîòà ïî ôîíåòèêå àíãëèéñêîãî ÿçûêà íà òåìó: «REGIONAL VARIATION OF PRONUNCIATION IN THE SOUTH-WEST OF ENGLAND» Ìîñêâà 2001 Plan: Introduction…………………………………………………………………………….3 Part I. The Specific Features of dialects 1. What is the “dialect”?……………………………………………………………4 2. Geographic dialects………………………………………………………………5 3. Dialectal change and diffusion…………………………………………………...5 4. Unifying influences on dialects…………………………………………………..8 5. Focal, relic, and transitional areas………………………………………………..9 6. Received Pronunciation………………………………………………………….9 7. Who first called it PR?………………………………………………………….10 8. Social Variation…………………………………………………………………11 9. Dialects of England: Traditional and Modern…………………………………..12 Part II. Background to the Cornish Language 1. Who are the Cornish?…………………………………………………………...15 2. What is a Celtic Language?…………………………………………………….15 3. How is Cornish Related to other Celtic Languages?…………………………...15 4. The Decline of Cornish…………………………………………………………15 5. The Rebirth of Cornish…………………………………………………………16 6. Standard Cornish………………………………………………………………..16 7. Who uses Cornish Today?……………………………………………………...16 8. Government Recognition for Cornish…………………………………………..16 Part III. Peculiarities of South-Western Dialects Vocalisation…………………………………………………………………….18 1. Consonantism…………………………………………………………………...23 2. Grammar………………………………………………………………………..27 3.1 Nouns……………………………………………………………………….27 3.2 Gender………………………………………………………………………27 3.2.1 Gender making in Wessex-type English………………………………….27 3.3 Numerals……………………………………………………………………29 3.4 Adjectives…………………………………………………………………...29 .5 Pronouns…………………………………………………………………….30 3.5.1 Demonstrative adjectives and pronouns in a Devonshire dialect…………………………………………………31 3.6 Verbs……………………………………………………………………...39 3.7 Adverbs…………………………………………………………………...42 3.8 Transitivity and intransivity in the dialects of South-West England…………………………………………………...44 4. Vocabulary………………………………………………………………..52 Conclusions…………………………………………………………………………...68 Bibliography…………………………………………………………………………..69 Supplements…………………………………………………………………………..71 Introduction. The modern English language is an international language nowadays. It
is also the first spoken language of such countries as Australia, New But in the very United Kingdom there are some varieties of it, called dialects, and accents. The purpose of the present research paper is to study the characteristic features of the present day dialect of the South-Western region in particular. To achieve this purpose it is necessary to find answers to the following questions: - What is the “dialect”? - Why and where is it spoken? - How does it differ from the standard language? Methods of this research paper included the analysis of works of the
famous linguists and phoneticians as Peter Trudgill and J.K. Chambers, Structurally the paper consists of three parts focused on the information about “the dialect” in general and the ways it differs from the standard language (its phonetic, grammar and other linguistic differences), and the specific features of the South-West of England. The status of the English language in the XXth century has undergone certain changes. Modern English has become a domineering international language of nowadays. PART I. The Specific Features of dialects. 1. What is the “dialect”? Dialect is a variety of a language. This very word comes from the “The label dialect, or dialectal, is attached to substandard speech,
language usage that deviates from the accepted norm. On the other hand the
standard language can be regarded as one of the dialects of a given
language. In a special historical sense, the term dialect applies to a
language considered as one of a group deriving from a common ancestor, e.g. It is often considered difficult to decide whether two linguistic varieties are dialects of the same language or two separate but closely related languages; this is especially true of dialects of primitive societies. Normally, dialects of the same language are considered to be mutually intelligible while different languages are not. Intelligibility between dialects is, however, almost never absolutely complete; on the other hand, speakers of closely related languages can still communicate to a certain extent when each uses his own mother tongue. Thus, the criterion of intelligibility is quite relative. In more developed societies, the distinction between dialects and related languages is easier to make because of the existence of standard languages and, in some cases, national consciousness. There is the term ‘vernacular’ among the synonyms for dialect; it
refers to the common, everyday speech of the ordinary people of a region. 2. Geographic dialects. The most widespread type of dialectal differentiation is geographic. “Every dialectal feature has its own boundary line, called an isogloss Geographic dialects include local ones or regional ones. Regional dialects do have some internal variation, but the differences within a regional dialect are supposedly smaller than differences between two regional dialects of the same rank. “In a number of areas (“linguistic landscapes”) where the dialectal
differentiation is essentially even, it is hardly justified to speak of
regional dialects. This uniformity has led many linguists to deny the
meaningfulness of such a notion altogether; very frequently, however,
bundles of isoglosses - or even a single isogloss of major importance -
permit the division, of a territory into regional dialects. The public is
often aware of such divisions, usually associating them with names of
geographic regions or provinces, or with some feature of pronunciation. 3. Dialectal change and diffusion. The basic cause of dialectal differentiation is linguistic change. “When a change (an innovation) appears among only one section of the
speakers of a language, this automatically creates a dialectal difference. After the appearance of a dialectal feature, interaction between speakers who have adopted this feature and those who have not leads to the expansion of its area or even to its disappearance. In a single social milieu (generally the inhabitants of the same locality, generation and social class), the chance of the complete adoption or rejection of a new dialectal feature is very great; the intense contact and consciousness of membership within the social group fosters such uniformity. When several age groups or social strata live within the same locality and especially when people speaking the same language live in separate communities dialectal differences are easily maintained. “The element of mutual contact plays a large role in the maintenance of speech patterns; that is why differences between geographically distant dialects are normally greater than those between dialects of neighbouring settlements. This also explains why bundles of isoglosses so often form along major natural barriers - impassable mountain ranges, deserts, uninhabited marshes or forests, or wide rivers - or along political borders. Similarly, racial or religious differences contribute to linguistic differentiation because contact between members of one faith or race and those of another within the same area is very often much more superficial and less frequent than contact between members of the same racial or religious group. An especially powerful influence is the relatively infrequent occurrence of intemarriages, thus preventing dialectal mixture at the point where it is most effective; namely, in the mother tongue learned by the child at home”. (¹9, p.417) The fact that speech, in particular, can give such a clear answer to the question “Where are you from?” exercises a peculiar fascination, and the terms dialect and accent are a normal part of everyday vocabulary. We can notice regional differences in the way people talk, laugh at dialect jokes, enjoy dialect literature and folklore and appreciate the point of dialect parodies. At the same time - and this is the paradox of dialect study - we can easily make critical judgements about ways of speaking which we perceive as alien. These attitudes are usually subconscious. The study of regional linguistic variation is very important. The more we know about regional variation and change in the use of English, the more we will come to appreciate the individuality of each of the varieties which we call dialects, and the less we are likely to adopt demeaning stereotypes about people from other parts of the country. As for the United Kingdom until 1700 the small population was sparsely distributed and largely rural and agricultural, much as it had been in medieval times. From the mid-18th century, scientific and technological innovations created the first modern industrial state, while, at the same time, agriculture was undergoing technical and tenurial changes and revolutionary improvements in transport made easier the movement of materials and people. As a result, by the first decade of the 19th century, a previously mainly rural population had been largely replaced by a nation made up of industrial workers and town dwellers. The rural exodus was a long process. The breakdown of communal farming started before the 14th century; and subsequently enclosures advanced steadily, especially after 1740, until a century later open fields had virtually disappeared from the landscape. Many of the landless agricultural labourers so displaced were attracted to the better opportunities for employment and the higher wage levels existing in the growing industries; their movements, together with those of the surplus population produced by the contemporary rapid rise in the birth rate, resulted in a high volume of internal migration that took the form of a movement toward the towns. Industry, as well as the urban centres that inevitably grew up around it, was increasingly located near the coalfields, while the railway network, which grew rapidly after 1830, enhanced the commercial importance of many towns. The migration of people especially young people, from the country to industrialized towns took place at an unprecedented rate in the early railway age, and such movements were relatively confined geographically. Soon after World War I, new interregional migrations flow commenced
when the formerly booming 19th-century industrial and mining districts lost
much of their economic momentum. Declining or stagnating heavy industry in In the 1950-s, opportunities for employment in the United Kingdom
improved with government sponsored diversification of industry, and this
did much to reduce the magnitude of the prewar drift to the south. The
decline of certain northern industries - coal mining shipbuilding, and
cotton textiles in particular - had nevertheless reached a critical level
by the late 1960s, and the emergence of new growth points in the West 4. Unifying influences on dialects. Communication lines such as roads (if they are at least several centuries old), river valleys, or seacoasts often have a unifying influence. Also important urban centres often form the hub of a circular region in which the same dialect is spoken. In such areas the prestige dialect of the city has obviously expanded. As a general rule, those dialects, or at least certain dialectal features, with greater social prestige tend to replace those that are valued lower on the social scale. In times of less frequent contact between populations, dialectal differences increase, in periods, of greater contact, they diminish. Mass literacy, schools, increased mobility of populations, and mass communications all contribute to this tendency. Mass migrations may also contribute to the formation of a more or less uniform dialect over broad geographic areas. Either the resulting dialect is that of the original homeland of a particular migrating population or it is a dialect mixture formed by the levelling of differences among migrants from more than one homeland. The degree of dialectal differentiation depends to a great extent on the length of time a certain population has remained in a certain place. 5. Focal, relic, and transitional areas. Dialectologists often distinguish between focal areas - which provide sources of numerous important innovations and usually coincide with centres of lively economic or cultural activity - and relic areas - places toward which such innovations are spreading but have not usually arrived. (Relic areas also have their own innovations, which, however, usually extend over a smaller geographical area.) “Relic areas or relic phenomena are particularly common in out-of-the- way regional pockets or along the periphery of a particular language’s geographical territory. The borders of regional dialects often contain transitional areas that
share some features with one neighbour and some with the other. Such
mixtures result from unequal diffusion of innovations from both sides. 6. Received Pronunciation. “The abbreviation RP (Received Pronunciation) denotes the speech of
educated people living in London and the southeast of England and of other
people elsewhere who speak in this way. If the qualifier ‘educated’ be
assumed, RP is then a regional (geographical) dialect, as contrasted with The ancestral form of RP was well-established over 400 years ago as
the accent of the court and the upper classes. The English courtier George The present-day situation. Today, with the breakdown of rigid divisions between social classes and the development of the mass media, RP is no longer the preserve of a social elite. It is most widely heard on the BBC; but there are also conservative and trend-setting forms. Early BBC recordings show how much RP has altered over just a few decades, and they make the point that no accent is immune to change, not even “the best”. But the most important fact is that RP is no longer as widely used today as it was 50 years ago. Most educated people have developed an accent which is a mixture of RP and various regional characteristics - “modified RP”, some call it. In some cases, a former RP speaker has been influenced by regional norms; in other cases a former regional speaker has moved in the direction of RP. 7. Who first called it RP? The British phonetician Daniel Jones was the first to codify the
properties of RP. It was not a label he much liked, as he explains in “An “I do not consider it possible at the present time to regard any
special type as “standard” or as intrinsically “better” than other types. The historical linguist H.C. Wyld also made much use of the term “It is proposed to use the term ‘Received Standard’ for that form which all would probably agree in considering the best that form which has the widest currency and is heard with practically no variation among speakers of the better class all over the country”. (1927, 3rd edn, p.149) The previous usage to which Jones refers can be traced back to the dialectologist A.J. Ellis, in “On Early English Pronunciation” (1869): “In the present day we may, however, recognize a received pronunciation all over the country… It may be especially considered as the educated pronunciation of the metropolis of the court, the pulpit, and the bar”. (p.23) Even then, there were signs of the future, for he goes on to say: “But in as much as all these localities and professions are recruited from the provinces, there will be a varied thread of provincial utterance running through the whole”.» (¹8, p.365) 8. Social variation. As for the accents, they refer to the varieties in pronunciation,
which convey information about a person’s geographical origin. These
varieties are partly explained by social mobility and new patterns of
settlement. Distinct groups or social formation within the whole may be set
off from each other in a variety of ways: by gender, by age, by class, by
ethnic identity. Particular groups will tend to have characteristic ways of
using the language-characteristic ways of pronouncing it, - for example -
and these will help to mark off the boundaries of one group from another. I think the best example to show it is the famous play “Pygmalion” by |
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