Two National Varieties Course Structure

American vs 1. National Standard & Dialects „ British English Nigel Musk 2. Two National Varieties „ American vs British English English 3 & Teachers’ Programme 61-90 hp 3. Bilingualism & Language Contact Department of Culture & Communication „ Welsh English & Welsh Linköping University 4. Pidgins & Creoles „ Caribbean English 5. English as a Second Language „ Indian English

General American versus RP Invariant Merger of [ɑ] and [ɔ]

Vowels General American .g. cot brought, talk [ɔ/ɑ] [ɔː] /caught 2 or 3 in Gen (Trudgill & Hannah 2002: 5) [ɑ] pot, cot [ɒ] Am ([ɔ]) [ɑ][æ] [ɑ] father, calm [ɑː] = 4 vowels [æ] fast, path [ɑː] [ɔː] [ɒ][ɑː][æ]in RP [æ] bad, sat [æ] Merger of [ɪ] and [ɛ] before nasals The Northern Cities (Chain) Shift 1

e.g. pin/pen

(Svartvik & Leech 2006: 240)

The Northern Cities (Chain) Shift 2 General American versus RP

Diphthongs desk [ɛə/ɪə] busses General American Received Pronunciation bosses [ɛ] [ou] so, dough [əʊ] [ʌ] [ɔ] bat head Diphthongs + /r/ Less pronounced

[ɪɚ] /ɪr/ peer, dear [ɪə] diphthongs in Gen Am [æ] [ɑ] block [ɛɚ] /ɛr/ pair, care [ɛə] because it is rhotic socks [ʊɚ] /ʊr/ tour, cure [ʊə] (postvocalic /r/ is pronounced) General American versus RP Differences in Lexis 1

Consonants Crystal (2005: 308, after Benson et al 1986) distinguishes between these types of lexemes (words or lexical items): General American Received Pronunciation Cultural differences, not part of World Standard English (WSE) T/d Tapping (flapped t/d) e.g. AmE the Ivy League, BrE A levels, value added tax (VAT) [d̯] bitter, latter [t] Often no distinction in Single sense & synonym in the other variety [d̯] bidder, ladder [d] Gen Am e.g. AmE checking account, BrE current account One meaning in WSE & synonym in one or both of the other [n(t/d)] winter, twenty [nt] Often no distinction in varieties [n] winner, penny [n] Gen Am e.g. WSE undertaker, AmE mortician, BrE undertaker

Differences in Lexis 2 Differences in Lexis 3

One meaning in WSE & additional meaning in one or both of the other varieties e.g. WSE caravan ‘group of travellers in a desert’ BrE caravan ‘vehicle towed by a car’ = AmE trailer No WSE meaning, but different meanings in BrE & AmE e.g. AmE overpass, BrE flyover AmE flyover, BrE fly-past Meanings exist in both, but differences in frequency e.g. apartment vs flat, mail vs post, store vs shop

(Crystal 2005: 309) Differences in Lexis 4 Differences in Lexis 5a

A cluster of lexical differences between BrE & AmE: Cars/ Automobiles (Crystal 2005: 310, adapted from Longman Dictionary of & Culture 1992)

Differences in Lexis 5b Differences in Grammar 1

There are relatively few grammatical differences between A cluster of lexical educated BrE and AmE. A leading reference grammar differences [Greenbaum & Quirk 1990] notes regional trends affecting only between BrE c. 250 points in morphology or syntax, with many of these & AmE: Cars/ affecting individual items (e.g. irregular verbs), and very few

Automobiles being general points of syntactic construction. (Crystal 2005: 311) (Crystal 2005: 310, adapted from Differences in the Verb Phrase Longman Dictionary of English Language British English & Culture 1992) Preference for: have: do you have? have got: have you got? Differences in Grammar 2 Differences in Grammar 3

Differences in the Verb Phrase (cont.) Differences in the Verb Phrase (cont.) American English British English American English British English Distinction made in AmE: Irregular vs regular verbs have got/gotten have got Regular Irregular He’s got a new boat He’s got a new boat = has burn – burned burn – burnt (burned) He’s gotten a new boat He’s got a new boat = obtained dream – dreamed dreamt – dreamt (dreamed) Irregular Regular just/already + past simple just /already + present perfect dive – dove dive – dived I just ate I’ve just eaten sneak – snuck sneak – sneaked (snuck) fit – fit – fitted fit – fitted – fitted

Regional Varieties of N. American Differences in Grammar 4 English

Differences in the Verb Phrase (cont.) American English British English Strong preference for: will/won’t rather than formal BrE shall/shan’t I will be arriving at … I shall/will be arriving at …

Strong preference for collective nouns (Trudgill & Hannah 2002: 41) + singular verb + plural (or singular verb) the government is … the government are (is) … Urban Dialect Areas of the US New York City Accent 1

New York City has a very distinct accent.

„ Partly ascribed to close early ties with England, but also because of influences from other immigrant languages, e.g. (Trudgill & Hannah 2002: 5) Yiddish, Irish, Irish English & Italian „ More social stratification of accents than anywhere else in N. America (Trudgill & Hanna 2002: 47) „ Upper class features have far fewer local features than lower class accents.

New York City Accent 2 New York City Accent 3

Characteristic features: „ The [ɜ] followed by /r/ = [ɝ] in General American is characteristically vocalised as before a , but „ In common with many other Eastern New England accents [ɜɪ] not in a final position: it is non-rhotic (lacking postvocalic /r/). [nɜɪvəs] [mo(ə)nɪŋ] See, I was so nervous and upset that my pulse was goin' three 'clock in the morning so fast, a::nd I couldn't talk

This is less so among young New Yorkers (esp. of higher social This pronunciation is stigmatised (and therefore not used by class): the upper class) and is being ousted among young people:

[wɝk] /wɜrk/ [wɝkt] /wɜrkt/ [jɔɚk] /jɔrk/ [wɝk] [wɝkt] I work in the city I’ve always worked in New York I work in the city I’ve always worked in New York New York City Accent 4 New York City Accent 5

„ An additional /a/ (c.f. Gen. Am. pot [pɑt] and „ The same rounded quality of the /a/ occurs in the diphthong father [fɑðɚ]), often realised as a diphthong: [ɑə] /ai/, e.g. in buy [baɪ], die [daɪ] which is often realised as [ɑɪ] [fɑəðɚ] the lightning turned out to be my father who gave me two quick noogies on the top of my head [stɑpt] [paːstə] [ɛɚbɔɚn] [tɑp] the dish stopped but the pasta became airborne an’ it just slid [pəʤɑəməz] [bæəθɹoubz] [sɔəs] the men were comin' down their pajamas an' bathrobes, out of the dish because it had been liquified by the sauce an’ it and they had bottles stickin' all out all over [flɑɪŋ] just went flying all over him [bɑdɫz]̩

New York City Accent 6 Regional versus Social Variation

Received „ Distinction maintained between cot [kɑt] and caught [kɔt] Pronunciation (unlike many varieties of Am. English), but this is typically realised as a diphthong: [ɔə] Social (Svartvik & Leech 2006: 127) [bɔ(ə)d̯] [lɑd̯][bɑdɫz]̩ Variation I bought a lot of fancy bottles, little like one drink in, for souvenirs t- t- all of my friends

[əbɹɔəd] I had the opportunity to travel abroad for one year Regional Variation

The Pyramid of Standardisation Social Dialects (Sociolects) 1 Social Dialects (Sociolects) 2 sociolinguistics: “the study of the relationship between language variation in pronunciation of postvocalic /r/ and society” (Yule 2006: 205) „ (r): [ɚ/ɹ] versus (r): ø sociolect: a language variety characterised by social class (often

in urban areas) – correlating social and linguistic variables variable variant social markers: the frequency of a certain linguistic variable in e.g. “fourth floor” Standard AmE: [fɔɚθ flɔɚ] /fɔrθ flɔr/ speech may mark a person as a member of a social group variable: a unit in language that is subject to social or stylistic (Yule 2006: 207-8) variation (and thus most susceptible to change) e.g. fourth [fɔɚθ] versus fou’th [fɔ(ə)θ] variant: a specific linguistic form which a variable takes when it is used in a specific context by a speaker

Social Dialects (Sociolects) 3 Social Dialects (Sociolects) 4

Labov’s department store investigation: elicit “fourth 80 64 floor” in 3 NY department stores, lean forward 60 63 61 44 pretending not to have heard properly to get a 40 30 40 20 27 22 18 second more careful pronunciation (Labov 1972) 8 13 0 5 „ Saks, 5th Avenue: high status 4th floor 4th floor „ Macy’s: middle status Saks Labov’s results for postvocalic /r/ Macy's „ S. Klein: low status on 1st & 2nd request (Labov 1972: 51-52) S. Klein Social Dialects (Sociolects) 5 (Yule 2006: 208) Bibliography speech style: situationally distinctive uses of language, Benson, M., Benson, E. & Ilson, R (1986) Lexographic Description of English. Amsterdam: John Benjamins e.g. making a distinction between formal (careful) Crystal, David (2005) 2nd edn. The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press and informal (casual) style Crystal, David (2003) 2nd edn. English as a Global Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press style-shifting: changing from one style to another Greenbaum, S. & Quirk, A. (1990) A Student’s Grammar of the English Language. London: Longman Labov, W. (1972) Sociolinguistic Patterns. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press According to Labov style depends on the amount of Svartvik, Jan & Leech, Geoffrey (2006) English. One Tongue, Many Voices. Basingstoke, Hants: Palgrave Macmillan attention paid to Trudgill, Peter & Hannah, Jean (2002) 4th edn. International English: A Guide to Varieties of Standard English. London: Edward Arnold Yule, G. (2006) 3rd edn. The Study of Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press