DIALECTS AND VARIANTS OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

A dialect is a variety of a language spoken by a subgroup of people. Dialects are distinguishedfrom each other by differences in pronunciation grammar and vocabulary. Dialects develop primarily as a result of a community that shares one language. Under such circumstanceschanges that take place in the language of one part of the community do not spread elsewhere.

Traditionally linguists have applied the term "dialect" to geographically distinct language varieties but in current usage the term can include speech varieties characteristic of other socially definable groups (slang, argot, jargon).

A variant is the language of a nation jthe standard of its norm*the language of a nation's literature.

Every national variety of a language falls into territorial or regional dialects.

The basic difference between a dialect and a variant is that a dialect exist only in the oral form.

Also in most cases a dialect can never become a national language (London dialect).

Dialects in Great Britain

It is possible to name 2 divisions of the Celtic languages in England: the Gaelic or Gothic and the Cymric or Britannic branch. The 1^st to come were Gaelic Celts. Their language is represented today by Irish, Scots, Gaelic and Manx. The modern representatives of the Britannic division are Welsh, Cornish and Breton. Cornish is already extinct, Scotland, Gaelic is spoken by 15000 people, Welsh is spoken by lmln people, Irish by about 400000.

Old English period.English appeared as the language in the 5^th century when the tribes of
Angles and Saxons and the Jutes invaded the British Isles. They spoke the OE a variant of West
Germanic. Their dialects gave rise to modern English.

4 dialects

1. Kentish - spoken by the Jutes

2. West Saxon (Wessex) - spoken by the Saxons

3. Northumbrian - Angles

4. Mercian - Angles

By the 9 century, partly trough the influence of Alfred, king of the West Saxons and the Г¹ ruler of all England, west saxon became the leading dialect. Wessex dialect functioned as a literary language till the Norman Conquest. A Mercian dialect was primarily used for the greatest poetry (Beowulf)

Middle English period. After the Norman Conquest Wessex dialect stopped its existence.

Dialects:

North - Northumbrian

2. East - Midland

3. West-Midland

4. South-West - Wessex

5. South-East - Kent

Midlands the dialect of Middle English became important during the 14 century when the counties in which it was spoken developed into centers of university, economic and courty life. East Midland was strengthened by its use in the government offices of London.works of such poets as Geoffrey Chaucer. These and other circumstances gradually contributed to the direct development of the East Midland dialect into the Modern English language. Modern English period. In the 16 century London dialect is acknowledged as the literary norm only in Scotland English developed independently as Scotland was politically independent till Middle of the 17 century. All other dialects were reduced to the state of merely oral languages. English spreads in Wales, Scotland, Ireland, North America, India, Australia, New Zealand. Contemporary dialects. In Great Britain at present the speech of educated person is known as Received standard English. Widely differing regional and local dialects are still employed in the various counties of Great Britain. Modern dialects are divided into 6 groups:

1. Scottish

2. Northern - corresponding to the ME Northern

3. Western

4. Central - corresponding to the ME Midland

5. Eastern

6. Southern

Each group has its peculiarities in the sphere of phonetics and vocabulary.

The most distinguishing differences betweenAmerican English and British English are in

pronunciation and vocabulary. There are slighter differences in spelling and stress as well. Their grammatical system is actually the same with very few exceptions. Grammatical system:

1. The use of the auxiliary verb "will" instead of "shall" with I and We

2. Tendency to substitute the past indefinite tense for the present perfect tense (I saw this
movie -AM., I've seen this film -BR)

3. The old form of the past participle of the verb to get - got - gotten
Vocabulary

The American vocabulary has distinctive features of its own. There are whole groups of words which belong to it exclusively - Americanisms:

1. historical Americanisms. These are words which retain their old meaning whereas in
British English their meaning have changed (fall - autumn, guess-think)

2. proper Ajnericanisms (sweets - candy, luggage - baggage)

3. specifically American borrowings (sombrero, canyon, canoe; translation loans - pipe
of peace)

American shortenings (mo - moment, just amo; cert - certainly, that's a cert))

SEMANTIC CHANGE

The development and change of the semantic structure of a word is always a source of qualitative and quantitative development of the vocabulary.All the types discussed depend upon some comparison between the earlier (whether extinct or still in use) and the new meaning of the given word. This comparison may be based on the difference between notions expressed or referents in the real world that are pointed out, on the type of psychological association at work, on evaluation of the latter by the speaker or, possibly, on some other feature.M. Breal was probably the first to emphasize the fact that in passing from general usage into some special sphere of communication a word as a rule undergoes some sort of specialization of its meaning.

Date: 2015-12-11; view: 3534