The dialects of England - Реферат

Ministry of Education of the Republic of Kazakhstan The dialects of England Astana - 2014 Content 1. The Dialects of English language. Their types and forms 2. British English 1. The Dialects of English language. Their types and forms Where we are from is important to people - hence support for football teams from our home region, returning to our roots at Christmas, etc. Nearly all of us have regional features in the way we speak and this is part of our identity. We all speak with an accent and we all speak a dialect. Accent: the way we pronounce English. Since we all pronounce when we speak, we ALL shave an accent. Most people’s accents will have some regional features. 3-5% of speakers in England may use the totally regionless accent of received pronunciation, either because they have been to one of the big public schools or because they want to sound as if they have. Dialect: not only pronunciation, but also the words and grammar that people use: I haven’t got any / I haven’t got none Most regional dialects are spoken with a corresponding regional accent (eg Lancashire dialect Lancashire accent). Standard English The dialect normally used in writing and spoken by the most powerful and educated members of the population. It is a minority dialect, spoken by perhaps 12-15% of the population. About 7-12% of standard English speakers speak it with a regional accent. Standard English Non-standard dialects I did it I done it A man that I know A man what I know He doesn’t want any He doesn’t want none She isn’t coming She ain’t coming We saw him We seen him Standard English comes in a number of different forms: English standard English American standard English I haven’t written to him even though I should have done I haven’t written to him even though I should have It’s got cold in here It’s gotten cold in here Scottish and Irish standard English are also a little different. In fact, English standard English vary a little between north and south: South: North: I won’t do it. We haven’t seen him I’ll not do it. We’ve not seen him. Dialect issues should not be confused with degrees of formality. All dialects can be spoken in less or more formal styles. For example: I’m completely inebriated - I’m bloody sozzled are both standard English; the latter is just a more informal style. I be very drunk is a more formal style but of some non-standard dialect. Like all dialects, Standard English allows stylistic variation, including swearing, highly informal vocabulary and slang. Regional dialects There are two different sorts: 1 Traditional dialects Spoken by a shrinking minority of the population. They often differ considerably from standard English and from each other. They can be difficult to understand when first encountered - eg: She bain’t a-coming Hoo inno comin Her idden comin 2 Mainstream dialect These include both the standard English dialect and the Modern Non-standard Dialects. Most native English speakers speak some variety of Mainstream Dialect. These dialects are associated with native speakers outside the British Isles, especially in Australia, USE and Canada. In Britain they are particularly associated with: the areas which standard English originally came from - the south-east; most urban areas; places that have become English speaking only fairly recently (eg Scottish highlands, Wales, western Cornwall); the speech of younger people; middle- and upper-class speakers everywhere. These Mainstream Modern Non-standard Dialects differ much less from standard English and from each other. They are often distinguished much more by their pronunciation - their accent - than by their grammar. Mainstream Dialect speakers might say: She’s not coming, or she isn’t coming, or she ain’t coming. Dialect areas There are no sharp dialect boundaries in Britain. Yorkshire dialect, for example, does not dramatically change as you cross the County Durham border. “Dialects form a continuum, and are very much a matter of more-or-less rather than either/or. There is really no such thing as an entirely separate, self-contained dialect”. But for convenience, dialectologists do talk about traditional and modern dialect areas as if there were abrupt boundaries. Why do people speak different dialects? This is easier to answer if we ask: why doesn’t everyone speak the same? Like all languages, English is constantly changing. Some changes spread out to cover the whole country; others spread only so far, leading to dialect differences between areas. The spread of changes may be caused by physical barriers to communications. The Fens is one such important boundary, with pronunciation in Norfolk of laugh /la:f/ and butter /bUt¶/, and in Lincolnshire of /l?f/ and /but¶/. The Norfolk pronunciations are newer forms which never made it across the Fens into Lincolnshire. Language change can sometimes be explained by external factors - eg the wholesale adoption into English of many French words following the Norman Conquest of England in 106