National Standard & Course Structure

British English 1. National Standard & Dialects  Nigel Musk 2. Two National Varieties  American vs British English English 3 & Teachers’ Programme 6161--9090 hp 3. Bilinggggualism & Contact Department of Culture & Communication  & Welsh Linköping University 4. Pidgins & Creoles  English 5. English as a Second Language 

Standard National Language(s) The spread of English in the World

Definition: an idealised language variety, most often accepted as

the official language of a community or country. (Yule 2006: 194)  the emerggyence of many modern Euro pean nation states b y the end of 19th century accompanied by the spread of nationalist ideologgggies: one nation, one language  Codification of vernacular (spoken) was influenced by traditions of unified written standard of Classical Latin, i.e. grammars prescribed a regulated and ‘refined’ language (akin to the language of the gentry) (Barber 1993: 203-4) (Crystal 2005: 107) (Trudgill & Hannah 2002: 5) Language, Accent & 1

accent refers more specifically to regional or social variation in

pronunciation. (Yule: 195)

dialect refers to regional or social variation in grammar, vocabulary and 1. /ɑː/ rather than /æ/ ege.g. EngEng path [pɑːθ] pronunciation. (Yule: 195) 2. absence of post-vocalic /r/ e.g. EngEng far [fɑː], course [kɔːs] 3. close vowels for /æ/, /ɛ/ e.g. AusEng that [ðɛ̞t], bed [be̞d] e.g. : them days didn’t live wi’ lasses. monophthongisation of /ɑi/, /ɑu/ like [lɑˑək], about [əbæˑɒt] language “a dialect with an army and navy” 4. front [aː] for /ɑː/ e.g. AusEng part [paːt] 5. absence of contrast /ɒ/ & /ɔː/ e.g. CanEng (AmEng) cot, caught [kɑːt] Distinguishing between dialect/language on grounds of linguistic features: 6. /æ/ rather than /ɑː/ ege.g. AmEng can’ t [kænt]  a written standard? 7. absence of contrast /ɒ/ & /ɑː/ e.g. AmEng bother [bɑːðɚ], father [fɑːðɚ] 8. voicing/tapping of intervocalic /t/ e.g. AmEng better [bɛɾɚ]  mutual intelligibility? 9. unrounded /ɑ/ (rather than /ɒ/) ege.g. AmEng pot [pɑt]  linguistic similarity? 10. syllabic /r/ e.g. AmEng bird [bɝd] 11. absence of contrast /ʊ/ & /uː/ e.g. ScotEng pull [pʊɫ], pool [pʊɫ]

Received Pronunciation 1 2

Received pronunciation has its roots in the south-east of England.  19th century became the accent of public school system, the Civil

e.g. pass [pɑːs], home [həʊm], bird [bɜːd], poor [pʊə], hill [hɪɫ] SfService of the , the armed f orces, i.e. authority & power  Established over 400 years ago as language of the court & the upper  but nowadays it is a regionless accent classes.  understood and spoken all over Britain  Term coined in 1869 by the linguist A. J. Ellis in On Early English  but by only 3-5 % of population PitiPronunciation to mean acceptdted or approved.  it is still a social accent (middle & upper classes) In the present day we may, however, recognise a received pronunciation  shows variation from conservative to contemporary RP, typically all over the country [… ] It may be especially considered as the educated spoken by older & younger speakers, respectively (Gimson 1990) pronunciation of the metropolis, of the court, the pulpit and the bar. (23)  but there are many more speakers of near-RP accents or ‘modified RP’ RP – New Developments 1 RP – New Developments 2

T tapping – a tap (or flap) sound produced by flicking the tip of the T glottaling – the consonant /t/ is realised as a [ʔ] increasingly in these two environments: tongue against the roof of the mouth, c.f. [ɾ]

T voicing – a /t/ pronounced almost identically to a [d] 1. syllable-final before a following consonant e.g. cut them [kʌʔðəm], fat content [fæʔkɒntent], [ɾ] a lot of them actually came and stayed with us. So they sitcom [sɪʔkɒm] [d] 2. with certain consonant clusters, such as [ʧ][ns][mp] came over with their duty-free, their bottles of gin and e.g. watch [wɒʔʧ], since [sɪnʔs], camp [kæmʔp] vodka

RP – New Developments 3 RP – New Developments 4

But t glottaling is also appearing between vowels (esp. at word boundaries) among Vocalised l – the final /l/ is realised as a younger RP speakers: vowel [ʊ] [ʔ] [ʔ][ʔ] this friend of mine had this studio apartment at very [ʔ] [ʔ] [ʔ] e.g. well [wɛʊ], cold [kɔʊd], kill [kɪʊ] low rent and I thought, “Well, what the heck? Got a

summer free […]” RP – New Developments 5

High rise intonation (‘upspeak’, ‘uptalk’) – using a rising EtEstuary E ngli lihsh – the term was coi ne d in the 60s fthftfor the features intonation at the end of statements (instead of falling) – more of London regional speech spreading out along the Thames common among women, teenagers, the working class & ethnic Estuary, especially to Essex and Kent. These features include minorities (Crystal 2005: 249) vocalised l and glottaling, but also grammatical features.

Uh, I guess the first time I, kind of, went abroad really by myself was And there was, and there was a caravan park just, uhm, [ʊ] strai g ht a fter ‘A’ Leve ls an d I wen t to Par is, so tha t was the summer o f nearby, which, uh, obviously is still there, which had the [ʊ][ʊ] swimming pool and all the entertainment and everything ninety-one and I stayed two and a half months in Paris

Regional Dialects 1 (Yule 2006:2006: 196-196-88)) Regional Dialects 2

Aim of traditional dialectology to discover regional differences in Dieth-Orton Survey undertaken 1948-61 pronunciation and vocabulary  over 1,300 items in 313 localities throughout England “NORMS”:  biased towards rural communities  non-mobile, Topics: e.g. farm/farming, animals & nature, house/housekeeping,  older, human body, numbers, time, weather etc.  rural, Speakers: mainly working class men mostly over 60, locally born in farming communities  male speakers 1978 Linguistic Atlas of England appeared with an interpretation of were typically selected because thought to be less affected by selection of the data. extlifliternal influences, i.e. ou tidthiitside their region. Dialect Boundaries 1 (Yule 2006: 197197--8)8) Isoglosses 1

isogloss: a boundary between areas with different linguistic Isoglosses for the features, e.g. pronunciation pronunciation of “home” Orton, Harold et al. (1978) The or lexical items Linguistic Atlas of England dial ect b ound ary: a bdboundary characterised by bundles of RP (contemporary) ilisoglosses (ftl(often along RP (conservative) natural boundaries in the ldlandscape )

Regional Dialects 3 Isoglosses 2

Place: Portesham, Dorset Topic: Sid talks about traditional stacking and threshing techniques. Speaker: Sid Hodder (b.1877; male, retired farm worker) Date: 1956 Isoglosses for post- vocalic /r/

(Hughes & Trudgill 1979: 33) I don’t care what nobody say. Sheep is the place for the farm and that’s what the farm’s, that’s what the land is missing now, is sheep. Isoglosses 3 Grammatical Features 1

Tag questions – in question tags agree with main verb of the clause (or use forms of do). e.g. He isn’t coming, is he?

Isoglosses for the They arrived late, didn’t they? pronunciation of “path” Aggressive ta gs – In British usagg,e, there is a s pecial use of ta g (Hughes & Trudgill 1979: 30) questions which works as a put down (rather than inviting the listener’s involvement) ((yCrystal 2005: 299 ) e.g. Well, you would say that, wouldn’t you? A: [to a young man on the phone] Is that your brother? B: It’s my dad, innit. (Eastenders 1986)

Grammatical Features 2 Bibliography

Invariant tags – In many parts of the world (especially where Trudgill, Peter & Hannah, Jean (2002) 4th edn. : A Guide to Varieties of Standard English. London: Edward Arnold English is spoken as a 2nd language), is it/isn’t it? has arisen as Hughes, Arthur & Trudgill, Peter (1979) English Accents and Dialects. London: Edward (Crystal 2005: 299) an invariant form Arnold Ltd e.g. They do a lot of work, is it? () Svartvik, Jan & Leech, Geoffrey (2006) English. One Tongue, Many Voices. Basingstoke, Hants: Palgrave Macmillan She’s gone to town, is it? () Crystal, David (2005) 2nd edn. The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the . The fairly widespread (?) tag innit (isn’t it) in British English Cambridge: Cambridge University Press is also showing similar signs of invariance. Ain’t – used in question tags and ordinary negations, this invariant neggypgative form is found in many parts of the English-sppgeaking world used for both ’m not/isn’t/aren’t and hasn’t/haven’t