November 16, 1999 Class Notes

By Kim Strapulos

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1. Final Project: Doing the proposal as homework assignment is in your best interest. Some students still need to follow through with completion of project idea.

(see handout for instructions/advice)

2. Survey of Class Time: Thank you for student perspective, however results were inconclusive. Most want to move class discussion to first part of class, small groups are not always successful and there was a split on structure of small groups. Most feel that lectures should be 20 minutes or less.

3. Dialects: Lecture on handout from Craig Carver’s book, American Regional Dialects, which is based on Dictionary of American Regional English

Theory of Western US English - 3 dialect regions in the East – Northern, Midland, Southern – moved west. Western dialects share common features with Eastern dialects, grammar and sound systems, and also include loan words from Spanish.

Terms in McWhorter:

Levels of Language – 1. word borrowings – contact between languages

2. some grammatical influence or structural influence – ex. Scandinavian pronoun borrowings, they, their, them

Dialect Language Creole

Diagram on p 176 – What does this mean?

1. all languages traceable to single source
2. all dialects of English traceable to Old English – circles demonstrate progress from SE
3. SE is powerful, influential
4. dialects of English are mutually intelligible
5. all are equal (same size circles, on same plane)
6. Scots is between dialect and separate language (note its position far to right)

Definition: Dialect – subgroup of language most speakers can understand speakers in other language subgroups

Language – are not mutually intelligible, larger groups of which subgroups are a part, usually associated with national boundaries

Class Discussion:

• Languages and dialects may define cultural and national borders
• Dialects of Chinese are not mutually intelligible - Written versions use same ideograms are not mutually intelligible by all Chinese speakers
• Swedish/Norwegian – 2 languages which are mutually intelligible
• “Language is a dialect with an army and a navy”
• What is Standard English? Does anyone really speak Standard English?

4. Western English – “Utah-nics”

Attitudes:

• Lazy speech
• Weak (unstressed) vowels are deleted
• Similar to Scots/Irish and other western (TX) dialects
• “Utah-isms” – flip/friggin

‘oh” for “heck”

• Losing accent is considered being pretentious
• Pride – Utah English defines Utah

5. Dictionaries:

“Dictionary” – a malevolent literary device for cramping the growth of a language and making it hard and inelastic.” – Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s Dictionary (1911)

Kinds of Dictionaries –

1. Historical – OED
2. Specialized – slang, problem words, new words, foreignisms, medical dictionary
3. Usage
4. Encyclopedia – symbols, films, biographical entries
5. For New Learners
6. Bi Lingual/Tri Lingual
7. College Dictionaries
8. Pocket
9. Unabridged
10. National Dictionaries – Scots, American, British, Jamaican*

*important steps in codification – implementation of language is to have own dictionary

Dictionaries decide:

1. What words should be included
2. Order of the entry (chronological, frequency of usage, etc)
3. What usage labels, if needed, should be applied

(dialect terms, always offensive, obsolete, old-fashioned, levels of formality, illiterate, colloquial, dialect)

4. Swear words associated with more recent dictionaries

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