INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLINGUISTICS

• what is a society? —> any group of people who are drawn together for a certain purpose or
purposes
• what is a language? —> what the members of a particular society speak
• when two or more people communicate with each other in speech, we can call the system of
communication haha employ a code = a language
• is the relation ship between language and society unchanging? —> no, it can change

ENGLISH IN THE XII CENTURY ENGLAND

(text example in the slides)

Ivanhoe is set in the XII century —> Cedric the Saxon, Ivanhoe’s father, is complaining, because
his language is dying.
The Clerk of Copmanhurst (Friar Tuck) has problems understanding some of the languages
spoken in XII- century England.
What was happening to the English language?

EVOLUTION OF ENGLISH —> (video slide)

English has evolved through generations of speakers.

• since the fall of the Roman Empire, English has undergone major changes
• germanic tribes (Angles, Saxon, Jutes, Frisians) invaded Britain (IV-V century) —> development
of Old English
• Vikings invasions (VIII century) —> influence of Old Norse
• the Normans invaded England in the XII century (1066) —> influence of French and Latin
• Cedric the Saxon complains about the presence of the Normans and the “invasion” of their
language —> Friar Tuck is unable to understand what the Normans say and write

SOCIOLINGUISTICS

The video suggests that:

- language evolution is influenced by the movement of peoples
- language changes depending on the social “group” of speakers

SOCIOLINGUISTICS = the study of language and linguistic behaviour as influenced by social and
cultural factors.

LANGUAGE EVOLUTION

languages = human beings —> they are born, they evolve, they interact with others and they die
Language Variation = each language has heterogeneous implementations owing to geographical,
historical social, contextual factors

ENGLISH

We know that English (like all languages) is not a self-contained mono-system, a unitary whole,
but a socio-cultural polysystem or a diasystem —> i.e. a system of systems = a system with is not
unitary and uniform but rather made up of a number os sub-systems, all sharing some core
characteristics, but each characterised by some peculiar distinctive features.

DIMENSION OF LANGUAGE VARIATION

There are 5 dimension of variation:

- diatopic variation (geographical)
- diastratic variation (social)
- diamestic variation (written or spoken)
- diachronic variation (chronological, historical)
- diaphasic or diatypic variation (contextual-functional)
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DIATOPIC VARIATION

It refers to a geographical variation —> example British English vs American English —>
differences in pronunciation (water), spelling (labour/labor, centre/center, programme/program) ,
vocabulary (autumn/fall), etc…

Also national varieties —> Scottish English, Canadian English, Australian English

DIASTARTIC VARIATION

The diarstratic variation refers to social variation.

Prestige is the key factor, and the variation depends on:
• social group
• social network
• education

DIAMESIC VARIATION

The diamesic variation is due to the medium used —> i.e. written language vs spoken language

written language
- more impersonal expressions (e.g. use of passive with no specification of agent)
- less subjective, less emotional, more precise
- less redundant, more economical (more varied vocabulary, less repetitions longer words)
- accuracy and precision in the use of words
- complete and carefully-constructed sentences
spoken language
- more use of personal reference (esp. first person pronoun)
- more subjective, more emotional, less precise
- more redundant (more limited vocabulary, more repetition, more monosyllabic words)
- more generic terms (thing, do)
- incomplete sentences with less careful sequencing)
DIACHRONIC VARIATION

The diachronic variation refers to chronological, historical variation.

Language = a living creature —> it changes, it evolves over the time (it lives next to other, it learns
from others, ……)

Pre-English period —> old English —> middle English —> modern English —> late modern
English —> contemporary English

DIAPHASIC OR DIATYPIC VARIATION

The diaphasic or diatypic variation is contextual-functional variation.

The language variety used is determinate by the context and the purpose of the message.
Domain-specific languages used in specific domains of civil, professional and institutional life and
associated with specific topics and disciplinary fields.

LSPs (Language for Specific Purposes) —> defines with reference to the professional, disciplinary
or technical field to which they pertain (e.g. the language of the law, of medicine, of economics…)

“ENGLISHES”

- there are many “englishes”

- study of English —> study of variation
- questions arise:
• what has happened to the English language since the Norman invasion?
• what “type” of English do “we” speak today?
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 • which varieties of English are you able to speak/understand?
• what “type” of English did you learn at school?
• what “type” of English do you learn at university?

STANDARD ENGLISH
It is called “standard” because it has undergone standardisation, it has been subjected to a
process through which it has been selected, codified and stabilised, in a way that other varieties
have not.
The English we study at school and the English we usually read is Standard English.
Books, newspapers, magazines and nearly everything else that appears in print in the English-
speaking world are written in Standard English —> it’s a social convention (diastratic variation)

From the very beginning, it was an upper social class dialect (not associated with the common
workers and peasants) —> the ancestor of modern Standard English developed in and around the
Royal Court in London and this pre-Standard English was a dialect of a predominantly London-
area type.
The upper classes quite naturally wrote in their own dialect, and then they were in a position to
impose this way of writing on society at large —> this was accepted because the variety was
associated with power and status, and had considerable prestige.

Standard English is the variety whose grammar has been described and given public recognition
in grammar books and dictionaries —> the Standard English is used in different parts of the native
English-speaking world differs noticeably from one place to another.

Because of its history and special status, Standard English has some grammatical peculiarities
—> yet, it has nothing to so with style, technical vocabulary or pronunciation (accents).
Standard English has a variety of styles.

Native dialect of approximately 15% of the population of England —> and this 15% is
concentrated towards the topped of the social scale —> Standard English is still a social dialect
(associated with power, status and prestige)
Native speakers learn to read and write in Standard English, however, even today, most people do
not speak it.

VARIETIES OF ENGLISH

There are other varieties of english —> they differ on vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation.
Main focus —> diatopic and diastratic variation (with references to diachronic variation)

THE SPREAD OF ENGLISH

- the English language developed out of Germanic dialects that were brought to Britain, during
the course of the fifth and sixth centuries, by the Jutes, Angles, Saxons and Frisians
- by medieval times, this Germanic language had replaced the original Celtic language of Britain
in nearly all of England, as well as in southern and eastern Scotland.
- until 1600s —> English was spoken by a small number of people and geographically confined
to the island of Britain —> English remained a language spoken by a relatively small number of
people in the world
- the original Celtic language initially survived in Wales, Cornwall, the Highlands and islands of
Scotland (where Gaelic had been brought across from Ireland in pre-medieval times
- 1600s —> English began the geographical and demographic expansion which has led to the
situation in which it finds itself today (with more non-native speakers than any other language in
the world, and more native speakers than any other language except Chinese)
- this expansion began in the late 1600s with the arrival of English-speakers in the Americas —>
Nord America, Bermuda, the Bahamas and the Caribbean
- importation of English, from Scotland, into the northern areas of Ireland
- 1700s —> English began to penetrate into southern Ireland and the few Celtic languages
remained star to disappear

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- 1800s —> English in Wales and in the Highlands and islands of Scotland (today Gaelic inly has
60,000 native speakers)
- it was also during the 1800s that the development of Southern Hemisphere varieties of English
began
- large-scale colonisation of Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and the Falkland Islands
- these patterns of expansion, settlement and colonisation have had an effect on the
relationships, similarities and differences between the varieties of English which have grown up
in different parts of the world —> these difference and similarities are most obvious at the level
of pronunciation —> varieties of English around the world differ relatively little in their
consonant system, and most differences can be observed at the level of vowel systems (even
here differences are not enormous)
- examples: Scottish English is similar too northern Irish English —> varieties of the Southern
Hemisphere (Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Falklands) are similar to each other —>
Welsh English is structurally similar to English English, but evident influence of Welsh in its
formation

“ENGLESHES” - DIFFERENCES AND SIMILARITIES

These differences and similarities are most obvious at the level of pronunciation.
Lexically and grammatically, the split between the “English” and “American” varieties is neater —>
each variety has its individual lexical and grammatical characteristics.

BRITISH ENGLISHES
• English English
• Scottish English
• Northern Irish English
• Southern Irish English
• Welsh English

SCOTTISH ENGLISH

English has been spoken in the south-east and south-west of Scotland for centuries.
In the Highlands and the Islands of northern and western Scotland, it has only been spoken for
200 years (Gaelic is still the native language of tens of thousands of speakers).

Scots was the original standard language of the Kingdom of Scotland (based on southern
Scottish varieties) —> it was used at the Scottish court and in literature until the Reformation and
the union of the Crowns of England and Scotland, when it started losing its status.
Scots has at least partly lost its status as a separate language and has gradually been replaced
by Standard English.
• 1707 —> the loss of Scotland independence and the loss of Scots’ independence too —> it
came to be simply felt as a dialect of English
• scots survived in literature —> today there is a revival movement —> the non-standard dialects
of southern and eastern Scotland are basically Scots
• Scots is radically different from most other varieties used in the English-speaking world —> it is
distinctive in terms of vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation
• ScotEng, instead, differs much less from other varieties of English
• today educated Scottish people speak and write a form of Standard English which is
grammatically and lexically not very different from that used elsewhere —> they speak it with a
noticeable Scottish accent

ScotEng pronunciation is very different from that of most the varieties and may be difficult to
understand for students who have learned EngEng (the combination of British Standard English
grammar and vocabulary with the RP accent)

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SCOT-ENG VOWEL SYSTEM

ScotEng pronunciation is very different from that of most other varieties —> there are fewer
vowels i this system than in other varieties of English and this is due to a number of factor, among
which:
- ScotEng is rhotic = relating to or denoting a dialect or variety of English in which “r” is
pronounced before a consonant (as in hard) and at the ends of words (as in far)
- the loss of the non-prevocalic /r/ (pronunciation of cart without an /r/) occurred in southern
England and then spread to certain areas but not all of them
- the RP vowels /ɪə/, /ɛə/, /ʊə/ and /ɜː/, which arose in RP as a result of the loss of non-
prevocalic /r/, do not occur in ScotEng —> as a consequence, the following pairs are
distinguished only by the presence or absence of /r/

Further factors determining the relatively low number of vowels in ScotEng are:
- the RP distinction between /æ/ and /ɑː/ and between /ʊ/ and /uː/ do not exist in most ScorEng
varieties (Pam and Palm are homonyms - words that share the same pronunciation but have
different meanings - as are pool and pull)
- all vowels in ScotEng are of approximately the same length —> so that /ɛ/ often sounds longer
than in EngEng, while /i/ sounds shorter than EngEng /i:/
- in word such as serenity and obscenity, the second syllable is often pronounced with /i/, as it is
in “serene” and obscene, rather than with /ɛ/ as in RP
- phonetically the ScotEng vowels are monophthongs
- there is no RP-type distinction between /ɒ/ and /ɔː/ —> we write /ɔ/ for both cot and caught
SCOT-ENG CONSONANTS

ScotEng has some peculiarities regarding consonants, including the following:

- ScotEng consistently and naturally preserves a distinction between /ʍ/ and /w/ : which /ʍɪtʃ/ and
witch /wɪtʃ/
- initial /p/, /k/, /t/ are often unaspirated in ScotEng
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- the velar fricative /x/ occurs in a number of specifically ScotEng words, e.g. loch /lɔx/ (lake) and
dreich (drix/ (dull)
- /l/ may be dark in all positions
A few words have distinctively Scottish, or at least non-RP, pronunciations in Scotland:

SCOT-ENG GRAMMAR

Most of the grammatical differences between ScotEng and EngEng are found at the level of
informal speech:
1. in many forms of ScotEng, the main verb “have” odes not require the auxiliary do and it can
also occur in and with phonologically reduced forms (auxiliary “have” behave alike, stative
have and dynamic have):
• had you goos time? —> yes, we had
• have you coffee with breakfast? —> yes, I have
• we’d a good time
• I’ve coffee with breakfast
2. “will” has replaced “shall” in most contexts:
• others —> shall/should I put out the light?
• ScotEng —> Will I put out the light?
3. there is a tendency not to contract the negative element “not”, especially in yes-no questions:
• EngEng —> Isn’t he going? - Didn’t you see it?
• ScotEng —> Is he not going? - Did you not see it?
4. “need” can occur with passive participle as its object (most of the other varieties require the
passive infinite or present participle):
• EngEng —> My hair needs washing - My hair needs to be washed
• ScotEng —> My hair needs washed
5. certain passive verbs, especially “want” and “need” , can be used in the progressive aspect:
• I an needing a cup of tea
6. “yet” can occur with non-perfective forms of the verb (in EngENg only with the perfective):
• EngEng —> have you bought one yet)- he is still here
• ScotEng —> did you buy one yet? - he is her yet
7. in EngEng, the adverbial particle in compound verbs tends to come after the direct object,
while in ScotEng it remains after the verb:
• EngEng —> he turned the light out - they took their coats off
• ScotEng —> he turned out the light - they took off they coats
8. “want” and “need” can have a directional adverb as objet as in USEng:
• he wants out - he needs out

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SCOT-ENG VOCABULARY

ScotEng vocabulary does not differ much from other varieties of English, here are few differences:

• “aye” —> is known by EngEng speakers mainly from archaic sources, songs or nautical usage,
but is neves used in everyday speech in the South of England —> in Scotland it’s informal nut
natural
• Scottish hospitals are often known as “infirmaries”, but hospital is also used (infirmary is also
used in the USA, usually referring to a university medical treatment unit where surgery is not
performed
• “loch”, meaning “lake”, is familiar to most English speakers around the world, from the names of
famous Scottish lake —> Loch Ness and Loch Lomond (the word is originally from Gaelic)
• “janitor” also occurs in this usage in NAmEng
• “to mind” has all the meanings in ScotEng that it has in EngEng, but it has the additional
meaning, in informal usage especially, of “to remember” as in —> did you mind when we went
to Edinburgh?
• “outwith” is not known in EngEng but can be frequently encountered in newspapers, public
notices, etc. in Scotland
• “stay” has all the usual EngEng meanings in ScotEng, but it also means “to reside”, “to live” as
in —> I stay at Portobello

SCOT-ENG IDIOMS

ScotEng also has its own idiomatic expressions:

IRISH ENGLISH

Some features of ScotEng (especially grammar features) are also found in some varieties of
English spoken in Ireland
Scottish English and Irish English are two distinct varieties of English having their own specificities
and sub-varieties

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ENGLISH IN IRELAND

Until the XVII century, almost the whole of Ireland was Irish speaking —> now native speakers of
Irish are few in number and confined mainly to rural areas (south-west, west and north-west).
Irish is the official language of the Republic and is taught in schools.

The English that was spoken in and around Dublin was mainly introduced from the west and west
Midlands of England —> this type of English has spread to cover most of what is today the
Republic of Ireland.
The English of the north of Ireland, instead, has its roots in Scotland (south-west) —> arrival of
Protestants settlers from the XVII century onwards.

Scots-speaking areas of the far north were separated from English-speaking areas of the south by
entirely Irish-speaking areas.
SIrEng —> EngEng origin varieties spoken in the south of Ireland
NIrEng —> ScotEng origin varieties spoken in the north of Ireland

This division is not conterminous with the political division of the Republic of Ireland and Northern
Ireland

NIR-ENG PRONUNCIATION

At level of educated speech, NIrEng pronunciation differs from that of ScotEng in certain expects:
- /ɒ/ and /ɔː/ may contrast, but inly before /p/, /t/, /k/ —> unlike ScotEng “cot” and “caught” are
distinct, but like ScotEng, “awful” and “offal” are homophonous
- /r/ is generally not a flap but a frictionless continuant —> words such as “bird” and “card” are
pronounced very much as in NAmEng
- in most NIrEng speaking areas, /l/ is clear [l]
- the intonation of certain types of NIrEng is also very distinctive and resembles that of south-
western Scotland
- English RP exerts a certain influence on the speech of middle-class Northern Irish speakers
NIR-ENG GRAMMAR AND LEXIS

Most of the grammatical and lexical features of NIrEng which differentiate it from EngEng are also
found in ScotEng and/or SIrEng.

• however, NIrEng has its own grammatical features —> e.g. the use of “whenever2 to refer to a
single occasion, as in “whenever my baby was born, I became depressed
• where NIrEng lexis differs from EngEng, it is usually the same as ScotEng lexical items are also
found in NIrEng: aye, brae, burn, carry-out, folk, jag, janitor, pinkie, shoogle, wee
• the word “loch” /lɔx/ also occurs in NIrEng but is spelt “lough” /lɔx/
• other lexical items not found in EngEng include the following:

• these words are also known in certain parts of Scotland

• in NIREng, bring and take can be used differently than in EngEng:
- EngEng —> “you take the children to school, and I’ll bring them home”
- NIrEng —> “you bring the children to school, and I’ll take them home”
• some of the ScotEng idioms and phrases are also used in NIrENg —> I doubt he’s not coming,
I’ve got the cold, That’s me away, I’ll get you home, to go the messages

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• other NIrEng idioms include:

SIR-ENG PRONUNCIATION: VOWELS

The RP vowels /ɪə/, /ɛə/, /ʊə/ and /ɜː/ do not occur, since SIrEng is rhotic.

SIrEng has certain distinctive pronunciation features:

• words such as “path” and “dance” may often have /æ/ rather than /ɑː/
• words such as “hoarse” and “mourning” may be pronounced with /ɔː/ (the same as horse and
morning), rather than with /ou/
• in some types of Dublin speech, words such as pair are pronounced /pʌr/ rather than /peir/
• words like book, cook, rook may have /uː/ rather than /ʊ/
• many, any, etc… may be pronounced /mæniː/ rather than /mɛniː/
• some words which have /ɒ/ in RP may have /ɔː/ in SIrEng —> dog, doll, cross, lost, often, wrong
• words such as “nurse” may be /nʊrs/ rather than /nʌrs/

At the level of uneducated speech, the following pronunciations (which may also appear in the
informal speech of educated speakers), can be found:
• words such as “tea, please, sea” pronounced with /ei/ rather than /i:/ —> this can also be heard
in NIrEng
• words such as “old, cold, bold” pronounced with /ɑu/rather than with /ou/ —> also in NIrEng
• a tendency to neutralise the opposition /ai/-/ɔi/ in favour of /ai/ —> e.g. “oil” /ail/

SIR-ENG PRONUNCIATION : CONSONANTS

- SIrEng is rhotic —> the /r/ is normally a retroflex approximant, as in NAmEng and NIrEng
- in many varieties, the contrast /t/-/θ/ and /d/-/ð/ are not preserved (influence of Irish phonetics
and phonology)
- congrats between / / and /w/ is preserved
- /l/ is clear in all positions
- final voiceless plosives /p/, /t/, /k/ are released, aspirated and without glottalisation —> in the
speech of Dublin, there might be considerable affrication in the final position, e.g. back /bakx/

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SIRENG PRONUNCIATION : STRESS

Distinctively SIrEng stress placement is found in a few words:

SIrEng —> discípline - architécture

EngEng —> díscipline - árchitecture

Stress = Emphasis given to a particular syllable or word in speech, typically through a

combination of relatively greater loudness, higher pitch and longer duration —> the relative force
with which a sound or syllable is spoken.

SIR-ENG GRAMMAR

There are a number of grammatical differences between SIrEng and EngEng —> most of the
typically SIrEng forms are found only in speech, particularly in colloquial styles:
• “shall” is relatively rare, as in ScotEng, NIrEng and NamEng —> will is generally used
• progressive verb forms are more frequent and are subject to fewer restrictions than in other
varieties of English —> they can occur with many stative verbs (e.g. I’m seeing it very well - This
is belonging to me)
• the simple past tense is used when the sequence of tenses would require the pasta perfect in
other English varieties:
- other Eng —> “if he had seen her, he would not have done it”
- SirEng —> “if he saw her, he would not have done it”
- an aspectual distinction between habitual and non-habitual actions or states is
signalled by placing “do”, inflected for tense and person, before the habitual verb:

• other grammatical differences between SIrEng and EngEng (in speech and colloquial):
- other Eng —> “I have just seen him”
- SirEng —> “I’m after seeing him”
• a calque from Irish —> use of the adverb “after” with a progressive, instead of a perfective (used
in other varieties)
• the perfective is also avoided in other contexts:
- other Eng —> “how long have you been here? - have you had your dinner yet?
- SIrEng —> how long are you here? - did you have your dinner yet?
- perfect-avoidance is also typical of NIrEng, ScotEng and NamEng
• “let” can be uses with second person imperatives —> “let you stay here” (“stay here”)
• clefting (= frame scissa) is frequently used and is extended to use with copular verbs —> “it was
very ill that he looked - is it stupid you are?
• indirect questions may retain question-inversion and lack a subordinator (if/whether):
- other Eng —> I wonder if he has come
- SIrEng —> I wonder has he come
- this also occurs in NIrEng
• “yes” and “no” tend to be used less frequently —> elicited verb phrases are used, instead (Are
you going? I am - Is it time? It is - Did he come? He did not)
• the conjunction “and” can be used to connect a finite clause with a non-finite clause, where
other varieties use “when, as, while”:
- EngEng —> It only struck me when you were going out of the door
- SIrEng —> It only struck me and you going out of the door
Finite verbs = show tense, person and number (e.g. I go, she goes, we went) —> they have the
past and the present
Non-finite verbs = do not show tense, person and number —> typically they are infinitives (with or
without to, example: to go, go), participles and gerunds (-ing and -ed forms, example: going,
gone)

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SIR-ENG : LEXIS

SIrEng vocabulary in most case follows EngEng rather than NAmEng usage.
- in those respects in which SIrEng vocabulary differs from EngEng, it often resembles ScotEng
- in some cases. lexical forms not found in other varieties are due to borrowing from Irish, or in
other cases they may be due to preservation of arctic forms.

ENGLISH AS A NATIVE LANGUAGE (ENL)

The UK and Ireland are not the only places where English is spoken as a native language —> UK
and Ireland, South Africa, USA, Nigeria, Canada, Belize, Australia, New Zealand, various
Caribbean islands, Gibraltar.

There are three types of country in the world in terms of their relationship to the English language.

ENL = where people have English as their mother-tongue, as they do in Australia, Canada, Ireland
(referred to as “Inner Circle”)
EFL = there are countries where English is a foreign language, as in Poland, Brazil, China. These
are places where people do not speak English natively and where they use it to speak to
foreigners (sometimes known as “Expanding Circle” nations)
ESL = there are places where English is a second language. In ESL or “Outer Circle” countries
such as India, Pakistan, Nigeria, Kenya and Singapore, English is not typically spoken as a
mother-tongue, but it has sone kind of governmental or other official status —> it is used as a
means of communication within the country, at least among educated classes, and it is widely
employed in newspapers, in the education system and generally in the media.

ENL as opposed to ESL (English as a Second Language) and EFL (English as a Foreign Language)
The presence of ENL outside Britain is due to historical and geo-political factors —> geographical
and demographic expansion of “English” starting in the XVI century, as a natural consequence of
the political expansion of the British Empire (XX end of the British Empire).

Of the ENL varieties that a are typically used as models in EFL teaching, there are two which have
figured most prominently —> British English (EngEng) and North American English (NAmEng,
USEng and CanEng).

THE COMMONWEALTH OF NATIONS

Intergovernmental organisation of 52 member states that were mostly territories of former British
empire.

The Commonwealth of Nations - Southern Hemisphere Varieties

The working language of the Commonwealth of nations is English, but English is not the native
language in all the 52 Commonwealth countries (only in a number of countries)

Southern Hemisphere varieties of Australia, New Zealand and South Africa are similar to each
other despite the thousands of miles separating the 3 countries —> however strange to those
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who speak these varieties, many people from other parts of the English-speaking world have
difficulty in telling one from the other.

AusEng, NZEng, SAfEng —> the sociolinguistic situation is similar in the 3 countries:
- very little regional variation (diatopic) in the English used (≠ English in Britain)
- a greater deal of social variation (diastratic)
• mild vs. broad accents
• mild = differ slightly from RP (towards the top of the social scale)
• broad = differ considerably from RP
• milds accents tend to be found amongst older speaker (RP still has some prestige in
these 3 countries)

AUSTRALASIAN

The AusEng and NZEng varieties are also referred to as Australasian —> Australasia is a
geographical region of Oceania comprising Australia, New Zealand, the island of New Guinea and
neighbouring islands of the Pacific Ocean.

AUS-ENG - AUSTRALIAN ENGLISH

English has been spoken in Australia since 1788, where it currently has about 20 million native
speakers.

AUS-ENG VOWELS - PHONOLOGICAL DIFFERENCES FROM RP

• like south of England non-RP accents, AusEng has /iː/ rather than /ɪ/ in very, many
• like south of England non-RP accents, but top a much greater extent, AusEng has has /ə/ rather
than /ɪ/ in unstressed syllables —> not only does /ə/ occur in the final syllable in horse and
wanted, it also occur in the final syllable of naked, David, honest, village, etc. —> “the Weak
Vowel Merger” (loss of contrast between /ə/ and /ɪ/) example: the words rabbit and abbot rhyme
• AusEng follows RP in having /ɑː/ in laugh, path, grass, but it differs from RP in often having /æ/
in dance, sample, plant, branch —> yet there is a certain amount of regional and especially
scale variation —> /ɑː/ forms are considered somewhat more prestigious than /æ/ forms

AUS-ENG VOWELS - PHONETIC DIFFERENCES FROM RP

Phonetic differences between AusEng and RP are considerable and most noticeable in “broad”
Australasian accents. In some respects AusEng pronunciation resembles that of the London area
of England more than RP, but there are many dissimilarities also.
These phonetic differences are most obvious in the case of vowels

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RP vowels vs. AusEng vowels

1. AusEng front vowels tend to be closer than in RP (i.e. the body of the tongue is closer to the
palate) —> “bid” can sound more like /bid/ than /bɪd/
2. some of the diphthongs (= a sound formed by the combination of two vowels in a single
syllable, in which the sound begins as one vowel and moves towards another) are wider than
in RP (i.e. the difference between the open first element and closed second element is greater
in AusEng
3. there is a tendency for the diphthong to be slower, i.e. with a longer first element, than in RP,
and even for diphthongs to become monophthongized (example: buy, peer, pair)
4. word-final /ə/ is often very open —> example ever = /evɐ/
5. the /ʊ/ vowel usually receives much more lip-rounding than in EngEng

AUS-ENG CONSONANTS

1. AusEng is non-rhotic and has linking /r/ and intrusive /r/:

• linking /r/ —> speakers of non-rhotic accents do not pronounce orthographic “r” word-
finally before a pause of before a consonant, but do pronounce it where is a following
word which begins with a vowel —> he’s far behind (no /r/) she’s far away (/r/ pronounced)
In non-rhotic accents, the /r/ that occurs in far away is known as linking /r/
• intrusive /r/ —> as a further development, and by analogy with linking /r/, there are now
many accents of English in which an /r/ is inserted before a following vowel even though
there is no “r” in the spelling —> this kind of /r/ is known as intrusive /r/

2. intervocalic /t/ as in “city, better” may become the voiced flap [d̯], as in NAmEng —> however,
it is not os standard or consistent as in NAmEng, and [t] is also frequent
3. the glottal stop (= is a type of consonant sound produced by obstructing airflow in the glottis
—> for most US speaker, a glottal stop is uses as an allophone of /t/) realisation on /t/ may
occur in “fit them” as in RP, but not in any other environment
4. AusEng often has an /l/ that is darker than in RP

OTHER AUS-ENG PRONUNCIATION FEATURES

• “assume” may be pronounced /əʃúːm/ rather than /əsúːm/

• similarly, “presume” may have /ʒ/ rather than /z/
13
• “Australia, auction, salt”, which may have /ɒ/ or /ɔː/ in RP, only have /ɒ/ in AusEng
• days of the week tend to be pronounced with final /eɪ/ rather than in RP /ɪ/ (especially by
younger speakers) —> example “Monday” /mʌndeɪ/
• initial /tj/, /dj/, as in “tune and during”, may be pronounced /tʃ/ and /dʒ/
• the sequence /lj/ often becomes /j/, as in “brilliant”
• the past participle forms “known, blown, sown, mown, grown, thrown, shown, flown” are often
pronounced with final /ən/ rather than /n/ —> example known = /nouən/

GRAMMATICAL DIFFERENCES BETWEEN AUS-ENG AND ENG-ENG

At the level of educated speech and writing, there are few grammatical differences between
AusEng and EngEng:
1. the use of the auxiliaries “shall” and “should” with first person subjective (example —> I shall
go, we should like to see you) is less usual in AusEng than in EngEng, and even in EngEng
these are now increasingly replaced by “will” and “would” (example —> I will go, we would
like to see you)
2. differences in the use of the verb “used to”:
• he used not to go —> very formal, and is the most used in writing
• he usedn’t to go —> usual in AusEng. less usual in EngEng
• he didn’t use to go —> not usual in AusEng, usual in EngEng
• contracted forms without to (like, he usedn’t go) are also more usual in AusEng than in
EngEng
3. in EngEng the auxiliary “do” is normally used in tag questions in sentences with the auxiliary
ought; in AusEng “do” is not used:
• EngEng —> he ought to do, didn’t he?
• AusEng —> he ought to go, shouldn’t he?
4. in colloquial AusEng, the feminine pronoun she can be used to refer to inanimate nouns and in
impersonal constructions
• she’ll be alright (everything will be alright)
• she’a stinkier today (the weather is excessively hot today)
5. the use of “have” in expressing possession is more usual in EngEng (example: I have a new
car) than in AusEng where “got” is preferred (example: I’ve got a new car)
6. in EngEng is quite usual for collective nouns to take plural verbs, while the reverse is the usual
case in AusEng:
• EngEng —> the government have made a mistake
• AusEng —> the government has made a mistake
7. in some construction, AusEng may use an infinitive rather than a participle —> example: some
people delay to pay their tax
8. USEng style adverbial placement may occur —> example: he already has done it
9. some AusEng speakers use “whenever” to refer to a single occasion, as in NIrEng
10. AusEng like USEng, may have, for example, “have you ever gone to London?” where EngEng
would often prefer “have you ever been to London?”

LEXICAL DIFFERENCES BETWEEN AUS-ENG AND ENG-ENG

Vocabulary differences between Australasian varieties and EngEng are relatively small if compared
to those between the “English” and “American” varieties —> they are numerous enough at the
level of colloquial vocabulary.
Some of the differences between EngEng and AusEng vocabulary are the result of borrowing into
AusEng from Australian aboriginal languages —> examples: boomerang, dingo, billabong and
many names from indigenous flora and fauna.

14
In other cases, the differences are purely intra-English.

- Footpath refers to a path across fields, through woods, etc. while pavement refers to a pathway
beside a road or street. In AusEng, footpath covers both (in certain areas of Australia, both
pavement and sidewalk occur)
- Goodday [gədei] is a common, colloquial form of greeting in AusEng (also used by Paul Hogan
in the video clips - slogan “Come and say Goodday”)
- In EngEng, bungalow is a “one-storey house” and house generally refers to “a two or more
storey house” → in Australia (where bungalows are more common than in Britain) this
distinction is not made
- In EngEng, paddock means “a field for horses” (recinto) → in AusEng, it refers to any piece of
fenced-in land
- Many words referring to European-type countryside features, such as brook, stream, meadow
are unusual or poetic in AusEng
- In the use of station wagon AusEng follows NAmEng (estate car in EngEng)

Most lexical differences within the English-speaking world can be found at the level of colloquial
speech, and especially that faddish, often transitory form known as “slang”

slang = a type of language regarded as very informal, consisting of words and phrases more
common in speech than writing, typically restricted to a particular context or group of people,
deliberately uses in place of standard forms for added raciness, humour, irreverence or other
effect.
AusEng slang or colloquial expression not known in EngEng include the following:
(vedi tabella)

15
" "

FURTHER PECULIARITIES OF AUS-ENG

1. “thanks” is often used rather than “please” in requests —> can I have a cup of tea, thanks?
2. colloquial abbreviation are more frequent than in EngEng —> beaut = beautiful, beauty; uni =
university
3. abbreviated nouns ending in /i:/ are more common in AusENg than in EngEng —> truckie =
truck driver; tinnie = tin
4. abbreviated nouns ending in /ou/ are also more common, and many forms are unknown in
EngEng —> “arvo” = afternoon; “muso” = musician
5. abbreviated personal nouns ending in /zə/ or /z/ are common —> examples: Bazza “Barry”,
Mezza “Mary”, Shaz “Sharon”

NEW ZEALAND ENGLISH

English has bee spoken in New Zealand since the early XIX century and has about 4 million native
speakers.

NEW ZEALAND ENGLISH - VOWELS

Phonetically and phonologically speaking, NZEng access are very similar to AusEng —> and
‘mild’ AusEng and NZEng accents are difficult for outsiders to tell apart, particularly in the case of
older speakers

- like AusEng, NZEng has /i:/ in very and /ə/ in naked —> it also has wider and slower diphthongs
than RP
- NZEng vowel /ɪ/ is a /ə/ —> the contrast between AusEng bid [bid] and NZEng [bəd] is very
clear, and is the most noticeable indiction of whether a speaker is an Australian or a New
Zealander
- as a further development, the vowel /ɪ/ = /ə/ has become merged with /ʊ/ after /w/, so that, for
example, women has become identical in pronunciation to woman
- younger New Zealander, at least, have no distinction between /ɪ/ and /ə/ —> finish is
pronounced /fənəʃ/ and Philip [fələp], as compared to AusEng [filəp] and RP [fɪlɪp]
- the vowel /ɛ/ as in bed and /æ/ as in bad are even closer than in AusEng —> in the speech of
younger New Zealanders, bed may be misinterpreted by outsiders as bead, and bad as bed

16
- words such as dance, sample, grant, branch have /ɑː/ rather than /æ/ —> yet words such as
laugh, telegraph, graph have /æ/ (≠ AusEng)
- there is a strong and growing tendency for /ɪə/ and /ɛə/ to merge, so that pairs such as beer,
bear are pronounced identically
- distinctions between a number of vowels may be neutralised before /l/ and /r/, so that the
following pairs/groups may be pronounced identically —> doll and dole, pull and pool, fellow
and fallow, will and wool, Derry-diary and dearie —> /l/ is always dark in all positions, like in
AusEng and there is an increasing tendency to lip-rounding vocalisation of /l/
- unlike AusEng, the vowel /ʊ/ tends to be unrounded, as in many types of EngEng

NZENG - CONSONANTS

- in NZEng the /ʍ/ of which has been strongly maintained, more so even than in RP —> however
it is now more or less lost in the speech of younger New Zealanders
- intervocalic /t/ as in city, better is variably a voiced flap, as in AusEng
- most forms of NZEng are non-rhotic, with linking and intrusive /r/ —> but the local accents of
the southern area of the South Island are rhotic —> this phenomenon is known to
NewZealanders as the “Southland burr” and is often ascribed to the influence of settlers from
Scotland and Ireland
- the word with is pronounced /wɪθ/, as in ScotEng, rather than /wɪð/, as in EngEng
NZENG - GRAMMAR

- NZEng resembles AusEng in:

• avoiding shall and should
• lacking totally the construction I’ll give it him
• preferring singular verb agreement as in “the team is playing badly”
- as in ScotEng, shall is also avoided and replaced by will in sentences such as: “will I close the
window? (rather than EngEng “shall I close the window?” and NAmEng “should I close the
window?”
- another peculiarity:
• EngEng —> at the weekend
• NAmEng —> on the weekend
• NZEng —> in the weekend

17
NZENG LEXIS

NZEng generally agrees with either AusEng or with EngEng. NZEng lexical items include:

NZENG - MAORI LEXIS

The Maori —> the indigenous population of New Zealand

There are around 550.00 Maori in NZ, 14% of the population —> 135.000 of them are native
speakers of Maori, a Polynesian language —> all Maori speakers, however, can also speak
English.
Many New Zealand place-names are of Maori origin —> example: Whangarei, Te Anau
A rather large number of Maori words have found their way into the usage of English speakers in
New Zealand —> most of them, however, are only used in connection with Maori culture.
The following words can be found in NZ books and newspapers, without translation into English,
indicating that most New Zealanders known what they mean.

- the word “mana” (“power, honour”) is also used in non-Maori contexts

- the word “tapu” (“sacred”) is basically the same as the English taboo, which was borrowed into
English from Tongan, another Polynesian language
18
- “pakeha” (“white person, New Zealander of European origin) and Maori are the terms normally
used to refer to the two major ethnic groups in the country

NZENG - USAGE

- as in AusEng, certain abbreviated forms not found in EngEng or NAmEng are common in
colloquial speech —> beaut for “beautiful, beauty”, ute for “utility vehicle, pick-up truck”
- as in AusEng, thanks is often used rather than please in requests —> Can I have a cup of tea,
thanks?
- as in AusEng (though the words involved are not always the same), colloquial abbreviations
ending in /ou/ are common —> arvo “afternoon”, smoko “break, rest period”
- as in AusEng (though the words involved are not alway the same), colloquial abbreviations
ending in /i:/ are common —> boatie “boat enthusiast”, postie “postman, delivery worker” (also
found in ScotEng)

SOUTH AFRICA ENGLISH - SAFENG

South Africa “the rainbow of nation” —> 11 official languages (Afrikaans, Sesotho, English,
Setswana, IsiNdebele, Siswati, IsiXhosa, Tshivenda, IsiZulu, Xitsonga, Sepedi.

The Republic of South Africa —> population 56,7 million

• African majority (70%) —> Bantu languages (a group of some 500 languages constituting a
branch of the Niger-Congo language family)
• 20% of the population —> Afrikaans (a language of European origin related to Dutch)
• small percentage —> languages of Indian origin such as Hindi and Tamil
• a few surviving indigenous languages that are, though, in a stronger position in neighbouring
Namibia and Botswana
• in 1820 —> British settlers (predominantly from south.eastern part of England, included London)
• English has had significant numbers of speakers in South Africa since 1820s
• it is currently spoken natively by about 2 million whites and nearly 1 million “coloured” (mixed
race) and Indian-origin speakers
• it is also widely spoken as a second language
• focus on English as a native language in South Africa

SAFENG - SOCIAL VARIATION

1. cultivated —> closely approximating PR and associated with upper class; an older form of
near-RP sociolect, not spoken by the younger generations.
2. general —> a social indicator of the middle class; different from other varieties of English in
terms of accent, lexico-grammar and lexis
3. broad —> associated with the working class, and often difficult to distinguish from the
second-language Afrikaans-English variety

SAF-ENG - VOWELS

Just as with AusNZEng, there is a certain amount of variation in the pronunciation of SAfEng,
ranging from Rp or near-RP to “broad” SAfEng.
SAfEng is characterised by the following vocalic phenomena:
- like RP and NZEng, SAfEng has /ɑː/ in dance, sample, grant, branch (≠ most forms of AusEng)
- the most evident feature distinguishing SAfEng from AusNZEng is the very back pronunciation
of /ɑː/ = [ɑː] in car, dance, bath, etc., contrasting with NZEng front [ɑː] —> (front = articulated
with the tongue blade relatively far forward in the mouth, back = produced with the tongue
articulating in the back part of the mouth
- the SAfEng pronunciation of /ɪ/ is distinctive in that it has both the high front [i] of AusEng and
the centralised [ə] of NZEng (remember the contrast between AusEng bid [bid] and NZEng
[bəd]) —> in SAfEng these two pronunciation constitute allophonic variants: [i] occurs before
and after /k/, /g/ and /ŋ/, before /ʃ/, after /h/ and word-initially; [ə] occurs elsewhere —> e.g. big
[big], bit [bət]

19
- there is a stringer tendency in SAfEng than in AusEng for diphthongs to be monophthongized
—> e.g. “peer” RP = /piǝ/ and SAfEng = /pe:/
- SAfEng shares with AusNZEng the occurrence of /ə/ in the unstressed syllables of naked,
village, etc…
- SAfEng also agrees with AusNZEng in having /i:/ in the final syllable of very, many, etc…
- examples:
• pronunciation of VERY —> /i:/ rather than /ɪ/ in the final syllable
• pronunciation of NAKED —> the occurrence of /ə/ in the unstressed syllables
• pronunciation of COMMA and LETTER —> as [ə] in General and Broad, with variation
between [ə] and [ɐ] in Cultivated and Broad varieties close to Afrikaans English.

SAF-ENG CONSONANTS

• SAfEng is r-less, lacking non-prevocalic r (pronunciation of cart without /r/), except in

Afrikaans. influenced English varieties —> many varieties of SAfEng also lack both
intrusive r and linking r (four o’clock [fo:(?)əklɔk], law and order [lɔ:no:də]) —> SAfEng in the
only variety having this characteristic
• Afrikaans speakers often use a trilled [r])
• as in AusEng, initial /tj/, /dj/ are often realised as /tʃ/, /dʒ/ (e.g. tune and during pronounced with
/tʃ/ and /dʒ/)
• there is a tendency for /p/, /t/, /tʃ/, /k/ to be unaspirated
• as i AusNZEng there is a tendency for intervocalic /t/, as in better, to be a voiced flap, altho this
is not widespread or consistent as in NAmEng

SAF-ENG GRAMMAR AND USAGE

There are fewer grammatical differences between SAfEng and EngEng than between AusNZEng
and EngEng, especially at the level of educated speech

1. a common “broad” SAfEng feature is the use of all purpose response question “is it?”,
invariable for person, tense or auxiliary, which corresponds to the complex series “do they,
can’t he, shouldn’t we, will you, etc…” used in other varieties:
• EngEng “he’s gone to town” “oh has he?”
• SAfEng “he’s gone to town” “oh is it?”
2. non-negative “no” occurs as an introductory particle:
• question = how are you?
• answer = no, I’m fine, thanks
3. complement structure of adjective + infinitive occur where other varieties have adjective + of +
participle:
• other Eng = “this plastic is capable of withstanding heat”
• SAfEng = “this plastic is capable to withstand heat”
4. in “broader” varieties of SAfEng it is possible in certain constructions and contexts to delete
object noun phrases (NPs) after verbs which must have NPs in other varieties:
• have you got?
• have you sent?
• did you put?
• noun phrase = consists of a noun or pronoun, which is called the head, and any
dependent words before or after the head. Dependent words give specific
information about the head (e.g. finer optics, air intake, greenhouse gas emissions,
that house there)

SAF-ENG : LEXIS

As with AusNZeng, the contact of SAfEng with other languages has had an effect on its
vocabulary.
Some better-known borrowing:
From Zulu
Impi «African warrior band»
indaba «conference»
20
From Afrikaans
dorp «village»
Kraal «African village»
Sjambok «whip»
Veld «flat, open country»
braai «barbecue»

SAfEng also displays the use of a number of discourse markers borrowed from Afrikaans,
e.g. the use of the interjection ag (=oh!); /ax/ in colloquial speech —> example: ag, go
away man!

Borrowings from Afrikaans include the use of now-now to refer to the time slightly later
than now —> I’ll do it now-now = means that the act to be performed will be done at a
point in time further removed than the time referred to in “I’ll do it now”

The use of redundant “busy” to indicate the progressive aspect —> I was busy sleeping
(≠ the literal meaning of the word busy)

Differences within from formal English vocabulary are not particularly numerous but
include:

INDIAN

The British first arrived in India in the early 1600s —> soon established trading posts in a number
of cities under the control of the East India Company.
By 1765 the British were effectively controlling most parts of the country —> the start of what is
referred to as “The Raj” —> a period of British rule in India that lasted until Independence in 1947

First missionaries —> by 1700 language of administration —> by 1857 universities in Bombay,
Calcutta and Madras.
English was increasingly accepted as the language of government, of the social elite, and of the
national press.

INDIAN ENGLISH - IND-ENG

In India, English is an official language used as one of the languages of education and wider
communication.
There are number native speakers of English in India, but they are outnumbered by those who
speak English as a Second Language.
IndEng —> problems of norms —A no general agreement as to whether the standard should be
strictly EngEng or whether IndEng forms (especially in grammar) - used by the majority of
educated speakers and found in newspapers - should be accepted in the Indian standard.

IND-ENG PRONUNCIATION

The pronunciation of IndEng varies quite considerably depending on the speaker’s native
language as well as on his/her educational background and degree of exposure to native English,
however, a number of generalisation can be made:

21
1. IndEng tends to have a reduced vowel system than RP, with some contrasts lacking —> the
nature of these constants depends on the specific system of the speaker’s native language,
but often RP /ɑː/ and /ɔ:/ both correspond to IndEng /ɑː/, while RP /ɒ/ and /æ/ correspond to
IndEng /a/
2. the RP diphthongs /ei/ and /ou/ tend to be monophthongal /e:/ and /o:/
3. in southern India, word-initial front vowels tend to receive a preceding /j/ and back vowels a
preceding /w/ —> eight /je:t/, own /wo:n/
4. in northern India, word-initial /sk/, /st/ or /sp/ tend to receive a preceding /i/ —> speak /ispi:k/
5. the English of most educated Indians is non-rhotic
6. /r/ tends to be a flap [ɾ] or even a retroflex flap [ɽ]
7. the alveolar consonants /t/, /d/, /s/, /l/, /z/ tend to be replaces by retroflex consonants /ʈ/, /
ɖ/, /ʂ/, /ɭ/, /ʐ/
8. in some varieties, /v/ and /w/a er nit distinguished —> similarly to /p/ and /f/, /t/ and /θ/, /d/
and /ð/, /s/ and /ʃ/, depending of the region
9. the consonants /p/, /t/, /k/ tend to be unaspirated
10. IndEng differs considerably from other forms of English in stress, rhythm and intonation —>
this makes comprehension by speakers of other English varieties extremely difficult
• particularly, IndEng tends to be syllable-timed rather than stress-times —> this means
that each syllable occurs at approximately regular intervals rather than, as in other
forms of English such as EngEng or USEng, each stressed syllable occurring at
approximately regular intervals
• syllables that would be unstressed in other varieties of English receive some stress in
IndEng and, thus, do not have reduced vowels
• suffixes tend to be stressed, and function words which are weak in other varieties of
English (of /əv/, to /tə/) tend not to be reduced in IndEng

IND-ENG : MORPHOLOGY AND GRAMMAR

A number of morphological and grammatical features also occur in the English of some educated
Indians and can be found in English language newspapers in India:

1. differences in count noun - mass noun distinctions:

• the pluralisation of many EngEng nouns (especially abstract nouns

• the use of nouns alone which appear only in partitive phrases in EngEng:

2. an extended use of compound formation —> in EngEng, noun + noun compound such as
“facecloth”, “teacup” can be made from the construction noun(1) + for + noun (2), becoming
noun (2) + noun(1) (example : corp for tea becomes teacup) —> IndEng has extended this
process to include constructions with other prepositions (especially of).
• Some compound formed from such phrases are transparent in meaning (example :
chalk-piece “piece pf chalk”, key-bunch “bunch of keys”, meeting notice “notice of
meaning”)
• while others are ambiguous (where of can mean “containing”) —> example : fish tin “tin
containing fish” ≠ EngEng “tin for fish” —> water bottle “bottle containing water” ≠
EngEng “bottle for water”)
22
 • other IndEng compound consisting of nouns + deverbal nouns include: age barred
“barred by age”, pindrop silence “silent enough to hear a pin drop”, schoolgoer “one
who goes to school”
3. the use of nominal rather than participial forms of same words when used as adjective:
• EngEng —> coloured pencils, scheduled flight
• IndEng —> colour pencils, schedule flight
4. there are several differences from EngEng in the of tense and aspect in IndEng:
• the use of the present tense with durational phrases (indicating a period from past to
present), where EngEng would require the present perfect (unusual in more educated
IndEng) —> EngEng “I have been here since two o’clock” “I have been reading this
book for two hours” ≠ IndEng “I am here since two o’clock” “I am reading this book
since/for two hours”
• the use of future forms in temporal and conditional clauses where EngEng would
require present tense forms:
- EngEng —> “when you arrive, please visit me” “if I come, I will see you”
- IndEng —> “when you will arrive, please visit me” “if I will come, I will see you”
• absence of sequence of tense constraints:
- EngEng —> when I saw him last week, he told me that he was coming
- IndEng —> when I saw him last week, he told me that he is coming
• the use of progressive aspect with habitual action:
EngEng —> I do it often
IndEng —> I am doing it often
- with completed action:
EngEng —> where have you come from?
IndEng —> where are you coming from?
- and with stative verbs:
EngEng —> do you want anything? - she had many sarees
IndEng —> are you wanting anything? - she was having many sarees
• the use of the perfective aspect instead of the simple past (especially with past-time
adverbs):
- EngEng —> I was there ten years ago
- IndEng —> I have been there ten years ago
- EngEng —> we finished it last week
- IndEng —> we have already finished it last week
- EngEng —> yesterday’s lecture lasted three hours
- IndEng —> yesterday’s lecture has lasted three hours
5. the use of “itself” and “only” to emphasise time or place where EngEng speakers would use
intonation to provide emphasis:
• can I meet with you tomorrow itself?
• we will be required to have our classes here itself
• now only I have understood the problem (= just now)
• we arrived today only
6. a difference in use of prepositions in verb-preposition collocations:
- no preposition:
• IndEng —> to dispense (do without), to strike (delate)
• EngEng —> to dispense with, to stoke out
- addition of preposition —> to accompany with, to air out (one’s view), to combat against,
to fear of, to return back
- different preposition:
• IndEng —> to be baffled with, to get down (from a vehicle), to pay attention on, to
tear off/away
• EngEng —> to be baffled by, to get off/out, to pay attention to, to tear up
7. the use of adverbial there for “dummy” there (falso fittizio) —> “Dummy” there in EngEng
occurs in subject position with an existential meaning and has reduced pronunciation, while
adverbial “there” is not reduced —> example there’s (dummy) some paper over there (adverb)
- EngEng —> what do you want to eat? there is meat, there are vegetables, there is bread -
I am sure there is an explanation
- IndEng —> what do you want to eat? meat is there, retables are there, bread is there - I
am sure an explanation is there

23
8. different use of some auxiliaries: “could” and “would” are often used instead of they present
forms “can” and “will” because IndEng speakers consider past forms more tentative and thus
more polite:
- EngEng —> we hope that you can join us
- IndEng —> we hope that you could join us
- EngEng —> let’s finish now so that we can be there early
- IndEng —> let’s finish now stoat we could be there early
- EngEng —> the lecture will begin at 2.00
- IndEng —> the lecture would begin at 2.00
The auxiliary “may” is used to express obligations politely in IndEng:
- EngEng —> this furniture is to be removed tomorrow
- IndEng —> this furniture may be removed tomorrow
- EngEng —> these mistakes should be corrected
- IndEng —> these mistakes may please be corrected
9. the absence os subject-verb inversion in direct questions, and the use of such inversion in
indirect questions (the opposite of EngEng usage):
- direct questions with no subject-verb inversion:
• EngEng —> what is this made from?
• IndEng —> what this is made from?
- indirect questions with subject-verb inversion:
• EngEng —> I asked him where he works - I wonder where he is
• IndEng —> I asked him where does he work - I wonder where is he
10. the use of a universal, undifferentiated tag question (isn’t it?), regardless of person, tense or
main clause auxiliary —> examples: you are going hoe soon, isn’t it? - they said they will be
here, isn’t it? - we could finish this tomorrow, isn’t it?
11. there are also differences in complement structures with certain verbs:
- EngEng —> we are involved in collecting poems
- IndEng —> we are involved to collect poems
- EngEng —> she was prevented from going
- IndEng —> she was prevented to go
- EngEng —> I would like you to come
- IndEng —> I would like that you come
12. a non-English use of “yes” and “no”, as in WAfEng

IND-ENG : LEXIS

One distinctive characteristic of IndEng is that there is substantial lexical borrowing from Indisn
languages into English.
Some frequently-encountered words include the following:

24
Other vocabulary differences are due to extension or alteration of meaning of EngEng words,
retention of archaic forms or innovations:

NORTH AMERICAN ENGLISH

North American English (NAmEng) is a variety of English spoken in the United States and Canada:
- US English (USEng)
- Canadian English (CanEng)
- The sociolinguistic situation in the United States and Canada is rather different from that of the
rest of the English-speaking world:
- there is more regional variation in NAmEng pronunciation than in AusNZEng and SAfEng
- there is no universally accepted, totally regionless standard pronunciation as in EngEng
General American is a term which is quite widely used in American languists to describe those
American accents - the majority - which do not have marked regional north-eastern or southern
characteristics.

25
US-ENG : VOWELS

Vowel length is not distinctive in General English.

NAM-ENG : VOWELS

This phonological analysis is not so widely accepted as the analysis of RP vowels —> particularly,
the identification of vowel phonemes before /r/ is not entirely uncontroversial given the
considerable allophonic variation before /r/:
- /i/ —> peer [pɪəɹ]
- /ei/ —> pair [pɛəɹ]
- /ai/ —> fire [faɪəɹ]
- /au/ —> tower [taʊəɹ]
- /ɔ/ —> port [pɔəɹt]
- /ə/ —> bird [bə:ɹd]
NAM-ENG VOWELS : PHONOLOGICAL DIFFERENCES FROM RP

1. NAmEng agrees with all other English varieties discussed in having /i/ rather than /ɪ/ in very,
many, etc…
2. the three RP vowels /ɒ/, /æ/ and /ɑ:/ correspond to only two vowels in NAmEng, /ɑ/ and /æ/.
This combined with the phonetic difference between RP /ɒ/ and USEng /ɑ/ and a difference in
vowel distribution in many sets of words, makes for a complicated set of correspondences.
This chart illustrate the following points:
- in very many words spelled with “a”, the correspondence is straightforward: in cat, bad,
man, etc., both RP and NAmEng have /æ/ —> similarly in many words spelled with “o”,
the correspondence is also reliable: in pot, top, nod, etc., RP has /ɒ/ while NAmEng has
/ɑ/
- NAmEng does not have the RP distinction between /ɒ/ and /ɑː/ (bomb and balm) —>
therefore, it has /ɑ/ not only in the set (pot, top) but also for many words that have /ɑː/ in
RP, such as father, calm, rather —> thus father thymes with brother, and bomb and bake
are pronounced the same
- while RP does not distinguish between “gnaw” and “nor” (both pronounced /nɔː/),
NAmEng, being rhotic does (see paw, port)
- in words such as path, laugh, grass, where RP has /ɑː/ before /θ/, /f/, /s/, NAmEng has/æ/
—> this rule applies to RP /ɑː/ before /nt/, /ns/, /ntʃ/, /nd/, /mp/, thus NAmEng agrees
with other English accents and many types of AusEng in having /æ/ rather than /ɑː/ in
plant, dance, branch, sample, etc. —> unlike northern English, NAmEng also has /æ/ in
half, banana, can’t

26
3. the rhoticity of NAmEng has the consequence that the following RP vowels (derived
historically from vowel + /r/) do not occur in NAmEng:
- /ɪə/ in dear, near (= Nam /ir/)
- /ɛə/ in square, dare (= Nam /eir/)
- /ʊə/ in cure, tour (= Nam /ur/)
- /ɜː/ in girl, bird (= Nam /ər/)
NAM - ENG VOWELS : PHONETIC DIFFERENCES FROM RP

All vowels in NAmEng are somewhat different from RP vowels —> the major difficulties include:
1. the vowel of “pot” is unrounded [ɑ] in NAmEng, rounded [ɒ] in RP
2. the vowel /ɔ/ of “paw” in USEng tends to be shorter, more open and less rounded than the
equivalent vowel /ɔ:/ in RP
3. very front realisations of /ou/ such as in RP [øu] are not found in most varieties of NAmEng —>
the typical NAmEng pronunciation is /oʊ/, starting from a back position

- /ɑ/ —> open back unrounded

- /ɒ/ —> open back rounded
- /ɔ/ —> half-open back rounded
4. the diphthong /ei/ may be closer in NAmEng (i.e. the body of the tongue is closer to the
palate)
5. the first element of /ɑu/ tends to be more front (i.e. made in the front part of your mouth) in
NAmEng than in RP —> NAmEng [aʊ] vs. RP [ɑʊ]

NAM-ENG CONSONANTS

1. the glottal stop [ʔ] is usually not found in NAmEng —> particularly, it is not generally found as
an allophone of /t/ in mots NAmEng varieties, except before /n/ (button [bəʔņ]) or, in New York
City and Boston before /l/ (bottle [bɑʔļ]) —> the final /t/ is often unreleased in NAmEng,
especially before a following consonants, as in “that man”
2. the RP allophonic differentiation of /l/ (clear vs. dark) is either not found or not so strong in
NAmEng —> in most varieties, /l/ is fairly dark in all positions
- in RP syllable-initial /l/ as in lot is 'clear', i.e. pronounced with the body of the tongue
raised towards the hard palate, giving a front vowel resonance, while syllable-final /l/ as in

27
 hill and syllabic /l/ as in bottle are 'dark' or velarized, i.e. pronounced with the body of the
tongue raised towards the soft palate, giving a back- vowel resonance
3. intervocalic /t/ as in city, better, in NAmEng is most normally a vocalic flap [d̯], not
unlike the flapper /r/, [ɾ] of ScotEng —> in many varieties, the result is a neutralisation of the
distribution between /t/ and /d/, i.e. “ladder” and “latter” both have [d̯] —> this flapped [d̯] is
consistently used in NAmEng in latter, city, etc., by most speakers, except in very formal styles,
where [t] may occur:
- in the suffix -ity, [d̯] may vary with [t], as in obscurity, electricity
- in plenty, twenty, [nt] alienates with [n], [n]̯ or [nd] —> winner and winter may or may
not be identical
4. NAmEng is rhotic and has /r/ in bird, card, car, etc… (and in the word colonel [kɹnł]) —>
phonetically speaking, too, the /r/ is pronounced rather differently from that of RP:
- acoustically, the impression is one of great retroflexion (the two of the tongue is curled
back further) than in RP, but in fact many Americans achieve this effect by the humping up
of the body of the tongue rather than by actual retroflexion
5. as in AusEng, many USEng speakers have strong tendency to reduce /lj/ yo /j/, ad in “million”
= /mɪjən/

NAM-ENG VS. ENG-ENG

The analysis of an educated central-eastern variety of USEng enables systematisation of the

major differences between NAmEng phonology and that of EngEng types.
However, there is a considerable amount of regional variation —> USA can be divided into three
main accents areas:
- the south
- the general American area
- the north-east
Most of the differences have to do with vowels rather than consonants

Despite systematisation efforts, there are also non-systematic differenced between NAmEng and
EngEng involving individual or small groups of words —> these differences are not regular and
they’re unpredictable

USEng EngEng

- NAmEng “aluminum” /əlúmənəm/ differs both in pronunciation and in spelling from EngEng
“aluminium/
- either, neater can have either /i/ or /ai/ on both sides of the Atlantic, but in educated speech /
iðər/ is more common in USEng, and /aiðə/ in EngEng
- a number of words spelled with “er” have /ər/ in NAmEng corresponding to /ɑ: elsewhere —>
clerk NAmEng /klərk/, EngEng /klɑ:k/
- of, what, was have /ʌ/ in NAmEng, /ɒ/ elsewhere —> thus “what” rhymes with “but” in
NAmEng, but with “not” in EngEng
- word like “fertile, hostile, juvenile, missile, mobile, sterile” have final /ɑil in EngEng, while in
NAmEng the final syllable may be either /ail/ or /əl/
- the prefixes “anti-“ and “semi-“ have final /i:/ in EngEng —> in addition to these pronunciations,
NAmEng also has final /ai/ for these prefixes
- “Tunisia” is not pronounced /tuníʒə/ in NAmEng but /tju:nízi:ə/
- “Asia” has /ʒ/ in NAmEng, /ʃ/ or /ʒ/ in EngEng

28
NAM -ENG VS. ENG-ENG : MORPHOLOGY

In NAmEng, some irregular verbs have become regularised vs. remaining irregular in EngEng_
- present = smell —> past and past participle: EngEng = smelt and NAmEng = smelled
• in some irregular EngEng verbs, there is a vowel change from /i/ in the present to /ɛ in the past
and past participle forms. The NAmEng forms retain the present tense vowel in the following
cases, as well as voicing the ending —> example: dreamt /drɛmt/ (EngEng) vs. dreamed /drimd/
(NAmEng)
• in few instances, the NAmEng forms are more irregular than in EngEng forms:

•
• NAmEng also uses dived, fitted and sneaked for the past tense, but the irregular forms are more
frequent —> example: he dove/dived in head first
• the past participle “gotten” is not used in EngEng. In NAmEng it was formerly restricted to being
used in the sense of “obtain” or “acquire” —> example: I’ve gotten a new car since I last saw
you

NAM-ENG VS ENG-ENG : MODAL AUXILIARIES

Several of the modals are used with a different frequency or meaning in NAmEng than in EngEng:
• “shall” is replaced by “will” in NAmEng to denote a future action and by “should” in first person
questions:
- EngEng = I shall tell you later
- NAmEng and EngEng = I’ll tell you later
- ENgEng = Shall I drink this now?
- NAmEng and EngEng = Should I drink this now?
• “would” —> USEng has two uses for this meal that are much less usual in EngEng.
- to express a characteristic or habitual activity (vs. the simple past or the verb with the
modal “used to” in EngEng)
- USEng = when I was young, I would go there every day
- EngEng = when I was young, I used to go/went there even day
- while in EngEng “would” cannot be used to express a hypothetical stat if this is already
signalled by the verb or by a conditional clause, in many USEng dialects “would” can be
used in this way in formal speech:
- USEng = I wish I would have done it
- EngEng and USEng = I wish I had done it
• “ought to” —> USEng rarely uses this auxiliary in questions or negated forms. Instead, “should
is used:
- EngEng = ought we to eat that? (older speakers)
- USEng = should we eat that?
- EngEng = you oughtn’t to have said that
- USEng = you shouldn’t have said that (you oughtn’t have said that —> rare, formal)
• “must” —> the negative of epistemic “must” is “can’t” in southern EngEng —> in USEng, the
most common negative of epistemic “must” is “must not”
- unlike north-west EngEng, in USEng this cannot be contracted to “mustn’t” without
changing the meaning of the auxiliary to “not be allowed” —> example = “he must not be
in - his car in gone” (epistemic), “you mustn’t be in when we arrive” (“not allowed”)
- mustn’t can be epistemic in the past perfect —> example = he mustn’t have been in —>
however the uncontracted form is preferred in USEng
• “used to” —> in questioning or negating sentences with the modal “used to”, EngEng can treat
“used to” to either as an auxiliary or as a lexical verb requiring “do” for these constructions
- used he to go there? he used to go there (auxiliary)
- did he use to go there? he didn’t use to go there (lexical verb)

29
 - in USEng, “used to” is treated only as a lexical verb in these constructions, and this is
also becoming increasingly the case of Engeng

NAM-ENG VS. ENG-ENG : COPULAR VERBS

In USEng copular verbs “seem, act, look and sound” must be followed first by the preposition
like; “seem” can also be followed by the infinitive “to be” vs. in EngEng they can be followed
directly by an indefinite noun phrase:

NAM-ENG VS. ENGENG : VERBS

• the verb “want” can be followed directly by adverbs “in and out” in USEng. In EngEng “want”
must be followed first by an infinitive:

Also, “want” can be used un the sense of “need” in EngEng with an inanimate subject (not
possible in NAmEng) —> example: the house wants painting

NAM-ENG VS. ENG-ENG : HYPOTHETICAL CONSTRUCTIONS

USEng and EngEng —> closes representing hypothetical situations are often introduced by “if”:
(1) if I had been there, I could have fixed it
(2) if you (should) need help, please call me
(3) if this situation were to continue, the authorities would have to take action

EngEng —> hypothetical causes can be formed by inverting the subject and verb or first auxiliary
(very formal in USEng):
(1) had I been there, I could have fixed it
(2) Should you need help, please call me
(3) were this situations to continue, the authorities would have to take action

NAM-ENG VS. ENG-ENG : COLLECTIVE NOUNS

Collective nouns such as “team, faculty, family, government, etc. often take plural verb agreement
and plural pronoun substitution in EngEng nut nearly always take singular agreement and singular
pronoun substitution in USEng.

EngEng —> your team are doing well this year, aren’t they?
USEng —> your team is doing well this year, isn’t it? - aren’t they? (also mixed forms)

NAM-ENG VS. ENG-ENG : VOCABULARY

Different flora (corn vs. maize) and fauna (robin), different development of technology and culture
(US high school —> 14-18 year old)
There are thousand of words which either:
- differ in total meaning (same word, different meaning)
- or in one particular sense or usage (same word, additional meaning)
- or are totally unknown in the other variety
30
1. same word, different meaning

2. same word, additional meaning in one variety

3. same word, difference in style, connotation frequency of use

31
4. same concept or item, different word

NAM-ENG - VARIATION

NAmEng is characterised by a considerable amount of regional variation —> 3 different main

accents areas (the south, the General American area, the north-east)
Most of the differences have to do with vowels rather than consonants.

NAM-ENG - THE SOUTH

The area of the USA that Americans refer to as “The South” is in fact the south-eastern area of the
United States
Linguistically, this large area can be divided approximately into two sub-regions:
- the Lower South
- the Inland South
THE SOUTH - LOWER SOUTHERN

This area consist of eastern Virginia, eastern North Carolina , northern Florida, southern Alabama,
Mississippi, Luisiana and south-eastern Texas
Much of the southernmost part of Florida was settled by English speakers only relatively recently
—> it generally has accents of a mixed type more closely resembling those of the West (but the
older accent of Key West has some Bahamian or Caribbean features)

There is considerable regional variation within this area —> however, the main features of the
Lower Southern accents include the following:
• generally, Lower Southern accents are non-rhotic, i.e. they lack non-prevocalic /r/ in words such
as cart and car —> many coastal Lower Southern accents are so non-rhotic that, like SAfEng,
thy lack linking and intrusive /r/ as well as non-prevocalic /r/ —> it is probable that the loss of /r/
was the result of this innovation from England being diffused outwards in post-settlement times
from major East Coast ports such as Charleston
• the vowels /ɪ/, /ɛ/, /æ/ often take a schwa /ə/ “offglide” (= a glide - semivowel - caused by the
movement of the articulators away from their position in articulating the previous speech sound)
—> at its most extreme, this process of “breaking”, as it is known, can give pronunciations such
as “bid” [bɪjəd], bed [bejəd], bad [bæijəd]
• the vowel /ai/ is often a monophthong of the type [ɑ:], as in “high” [ha:] —> in some parts of the
South, this monophthong only occurs word-finally and before voiced consonants, while a
diphthongal variant occurs before voiceless consonants, as in “night time” [naɪt ta:m]
• the /ei/ and /ou/ diphthongs tend to have first elements rather more open than elsewhere in
North America
• the vowels /ɪ/ and /ɛ/ are not distinct before a nasal consonant —> words such as pin and pen
are identical

32
• the verb forms “isn’t”, “wasn’t” are often pronounced with /d/ rather than /z/: isn’t /ɪdnt~ɪdn/ —>
there is also an increasing tendency to use /d/ rather than /z/ in the word business

THE SOUTH - INLAND SOUTHERN

Inland Southern accents are found in West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, western Virginia,
western North Carolina, western South Carolina, northern Georgia, northern Alabama, Arkansas,
south-western Missouri, Oklahoma, and most of Texas.
They also include the Appalachian and Ozark mountain varieties.

These accents share most of the features of Lower South NAmEng, except that they are typically,
if sometimes variably, rhotic —> this is presumably because these areas were less susceptible to
influence from London as a result of being from the East Coast ports.

THE SOUTH - BLACK VARIETIES

Many Black Americans, wherever they come from in the US, have accents which closely resemble
those of White speakers from the Lower South, although they are not usually identical —> until
the abolition of slavery in the US, most of the Americans of African origin were located in the
Southern plantation and slave-owing states.

On moving to the northers and western areas of the USA, Black speakers naturally took their
southern accents with them —A subsequent relatively low constant between Black and White
Americans have led many originally southern features to be maintained in Black USeng

Social separation also has another consequence —> Black speakers are by and large not
participating in the Northern Cities Chain Shift and In other changes occurring in the central
eastern variety of General American.

NAM-ENG : GENERAL AMERICAN

General American —> those American accents which do not have marked regional northeastern
or southern characteristics

There are however a number of important regional differences within this accent type which is
hardly surprising considering the vast geographical area it covers.
General American include these varieties:
• Northern
• Central Eastern
• Western
• Midland

GENERAL AMERICAN - NORTHERN

Northern Cities Chian Shift

• /ɑ/ is moving forward to take up a front vowel position [æ~a] closer to the original position of the
/æ/ —> this can lead speakers from other accents areas to misinterpret (example; John as Jan)
• /æ/ is lengthening and moving upwards through [ɛ:] to [e:] and even diphthongizing to [eə] or [ɪə]
—> this can lead speakers from other areas to misinterpret (example; Ann as Ian) —> the
degree of raising and diphthongising of this vowel varies considerably according to place, word
and phonological environment, with the following consonants being the most important
determining factor (example —> “man” may be [mɪən] but “mat” [mɛət] (this change happens
especially in Buffalo and NY)
• /ɛ/ presumably in order to move out of the way of /æ/ as it rises, is retracting and becoming a
more central vowel close to /ʌ/, so that “best" may sound very like “bust”

33
GENERAL AMERICAN - CENTRAL EASTERN

The Central Eastern area is characterised by the presence of the accent “selected” and described
to enable systematisation of NAmEng and comparison to RP.
The vowels system of this variety of USEng is typical of the modern educated USEng accents
found in south-eastern NY state, most of New Jersey away from NY city, eastern Pennsylvania,
Delaware and Maryland.

However, this vowel system is currently being affected by a number of innovations that are
altering its character —> these innovations are particularly apparent in the accents of urban areas
and in the speech of younger people

Innovations of Central Eastern variety of USEnd are 5:

1. the vowels /ɛ/, /æ/ and /ɑ/ are involved in the Northern Cities Chain Shift
2. the vowel /ei/ in “bay” is becoming an increasingly narrow diphthong, with the first element
becoming closer (opposite to the change in the south of England and in AusNZEng and in
SAfEng were the diphthong is getting wider)
3. the vowel /ai/ is undergoing a change such that the allophones occurring before voiceless
consonants are increasingly different from those that occur elsewhere —> particularly, the first
element of the diphthong is increasingly being raised in the direction of [ə], giving
pronunciations such as “night time” [nəɪt taɪm]
4. the vowel /u/ as in boot is becoming increasingly fronted [u:] in the direction of [u:]
5. the vowel /ou/ of boat is acquiring a frontier first element, although it is not yet as advanced as
the [øu] that is found in some forms of EngEng RP

GENERAL AMERICAN - WESTERN

The Western area comprises the western state of Washington, Oregon, California, Nevada, Idaho,
Utah, Arizona, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, North Dakota and South Dakota —> this is
extremely large area and its accents are not uniform.
In particular, urban speech can often be distinguished from rural speech, with urban varieties
being much more innovating —> the innovations regarding the Central Eastern varieties are also
occurring in this variety, but they are much more typical of younger speakers in cities such as San
Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle and Denver than they are of older speakers in rural Wyoming or
Montana.

The Northern Cities Chain Shift in not found in this area.

Over and above these differences, the vowel phonology of this area is identical to tat of the
Central Eastern area, with the following exceptions:
- the vowel /ɔ/ of “caught” is gradually disappearing in that it is increasingly becoming merged
with the vowel /ɑ/ of cot —> therefore, pairs of words such as “taught” and “tot”, “sought” and
“sot2 are pronounced the same (this change is currently in progress and it is more apparent in
the speech of younger than polder speakers —> in certain other regions of North America, this
merger has already been completed)
- the vowel /æ/ of “bad” is merged with /ɛ/ before an /r/ which comes between two syllables, so
that “marry” is identical with “merry” [mɛɹi], and “carry” thymes with “cherry” —> this is true of
all the General American accents except Central Eastern —> this change is also part of a wider
pattern in which, in most General American accents, other vowels are also merged before /r/ in
words of more than one syllable (/i:/ and /ɪ/ may be merged before /r/ —>. error and nearer are
perfect rhymes)
- vowels being merged before /r/:
• /ɛ/ and /ei/ may be merged before /r/ —> “merry” and “Mary” are pronounced
identically —> therefore, if an accent also has the /ɛ/ – /æ/ merger, merry, Mary and
marry are all pronounced the same
• /ʌ/ and /ə/ may be merged before /r/ —> “hurry” and “furry” are perfect rhymes
• /ɑ/ may be replaced by /ɔ/ or /ou/ before /r/ —> example : “horrid” has the same initial
syllable as “hoary”

34
Words such as “new, nude, tune, student, duke, due”, which in many other accents of English
have /nju-/, /tju-/, /dju-/, lack /j/ in these accents, giving pronunciations such as “tune” /tun/,
“duke” /duk/

GENERAL AMERICAN - MIDLAND

Additionally, educated speakers from this area may also retain some features typical of the older
rural dialects of the area, notably the behaviour of the vowels /ɪ/, /ɛ/, /æ/, /ʊ/, /ʌ/, /ɑ/, /ɔ/ where
they occur before the fricatives /ʃ/ and /ʒ/:
- “fish” can be pronounced with /i/ —> i.e. /fiʃ/ (= fiche)
- “push” may be pronounced with /u/, i.e. /puʃ/, rhyming with douche
- “special” may be pronounced with a diphthongal [ei], i.e. /speiʃəl/
- “mash” may be pronounced with a vowel of the type [æɪ], i.e. /mæɪʃ/
- “hush” may be pronounced with vowel of the type [əɪ], i.e. /həɪʃ/
- “wash may be pronounced with /ɔr/, i.e. /wɔrʃ/, rhyming with Porsche
NAM-ENG : NORTHEASTERN

The Northeastern variety of NAmEng can be divided into two major subdivisions:
- Eastern New England
- New York City
NORTHEASTERN - EASTERN NEW ENGLAND

A very distinct accent, instantly recognisable to other Americans, is associated with the Eastern
New England area —> this region centres on the city of Boston and includes the state of Maine,
New Hampshire, Rhode Island, eastern Vermont, eastern Connecticut and eastern and central
Massachusetts.

This accents resembles the accents of England more than any other American accent —> this
resemblance is due to continuing close links between the port of Boston and London in post-
settlement times and the resultant importation of originally southern English features into this area
of the US.

Features of Eastern New England speech which distinguish it from Central Eastern and which are
due to historical influences from EngEng include:
- the accents of the ares are non-rhotic and have both linking and intrusive /r/
- these accents share with EngEng and the Southern Hemisphere varieties, the vowels /ɪə/, /
ɛə/, /ʊə/, /ɜ:/, of “peer, pair, poor, bird” —> in regions further away from Boston, however, /r/
does occur after /ə/ in items scubas “bird and butter”
- moreover, in the speech of younger speakers, non-prevocalic /r/ is beginning to be
reintroduced as a result of influence from the mainstream American norm
- like EngEng, these accents have an additional front vowel /a:/, used in words such as bard,
calm, father, dance and path —> this feature, too, is rather recessive, with young speakers
increasingly favouring mainstream American norms
- the vowel of “pot, horrid, etc.” is a rounded vowel /ɒ/ rather than the more usual American
unrounded /ɑ/
- the cot-caught merger has been completed in these accents, both sets of words having /ɒ/ —>
because /ɔ/ is lacking, and because these accents are also non-rhotic, items such as “port2
also have the vowel /ɒ/ vowel, so that sot, sought and sort can all be pronounced the same
(which is not true for any EngEng accent)
- younger speaker in Boston and other urban areas also have the Northern Cities Chain Shift
NORTHEASTERN - NEW YORK CITY

New York is the largest city in the US —> it too has a very distinctive accent, which is also found
in the immediately adjoining areas of New York State, Connecticut and New Jersey.

35
The distinctiveness of the NY accent can be ascribed in part, like that of the Boston area, to the
city’s role as a aport with close links with England at earlier periods —> however, it is also due in
part to considerable immigration by speakers of Yiddish, Irish, Irish English, Italian and other
European languages, as well as to independent developments.

Sociolinguistically, there is a more social stratification on the British model in the accents of NYC
than anywhere else in North America, with upper social class accents having many fewer local
features than lower class accents.

Characteristic features of NY English pronunciation include the following:

- NYC English, like that of Boston is non-rhotic, and linking and intrusive /r/ are usual —> as a
consequence, the local accents shares with RP and the other non-rhotic accents the vowels /
ɪə/, /ɛə/, /ʊə/, /ɜ:/ of peer, pair, poor, bird → however, as in the Boston area, younger speakers
are now becoming increasingly rhotic, esp. among higher social class groups
- like Boston, NY also has an additional vowel corresponding to RP/a:/ —> in NY, however, it is
phonetically /ɑə/ —> this vowel occurs in words such as bard, calm and father, as in Boston →
but unlike Boston, it does not occur in dance and path, which have /æ/, instead
- unlike the Eastern New England accent, word such as pot, horrid have the more usual American
unrounded /ɑ/
- the vowel /ɜ:/ has a typical New York pronunciation where it occurs before a consonant in the
same word, as in bird, girl —> this is a diphthong of the type [ɜɪ]: [bɜɪd] —> this was formerly a
pronunciation used by all New Yorkers, but it is now most usual in lower class speech, and it is
not so frequent in the speech of younger people —> in word-final position, as in her, [ɜ:] occurs
- unlike the Eastern New England, the New York accent does not lack the vowel /ɔ/, and so cot
and caught are distinct, and sot /sɑt/ is distinct from sought and sort /sɔt/ → the /ɔ/ vowel of
caught, sought, talk, paw, port, sort, however, has a distinctive New York pronunciation which is
typically a rather close and often diphthongised vowel of the type [oə] or even [ʊə], as in off [ʊəf]
- the distinctively NY /ai/ vowel of buy, night, ride has a back first element, not unlike that of
AusNZEng, of the type [ɑɪ] or even [ɒɪ]
- many New Yorkers have pronunciations of /θ/ and /ð/ as dental stops* [t] and [d] —> in the case
of /ð/, this can lead to a merger with /d/, so that then and den are possible homophones —>
this feature, however, is not so common in educated speech
- the accents of NY are also involved in the Northern Cities Chain Shift

CANADIAN ENGLISH

As far as phonology is concerned, Canadian English can be divided into three main types:
- General
- Maritime
- Newfoundland
CAN-ENG : GENERAL CANADIAN

This area covers most of English-speaking Canada, from Victoria and Vancouver in the west to
Toronto, Ottawa and the English-speaking minority in Montreal in east.

The vowels system of this type of CanEng is identical with that of the western area of the United
States, but:
- it does not have any of the innovations regarding Central Eastern NAmEng
- it has additional features
CanEng additional features include:
• the most distinctive feature of CanEng, and the one which American use in spotting Canadian
speakers, is the phenomenon known as Canadian Raising —> before voiceless consonants, the
diphthongs /ai/ and /ɑu/ have allophones with raised central first elements which differ
considerably from those which they have elsewhere

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CANADIAN RAISING:
- gives pronunciations such as night time [nəɪt taɪm] and out loud [əʊt lɑʊd]
- raised variants of /ai/ before voiceless consonants are now becoming common in USEng also
so that it is the raised allophone of /ɑu/ in words such as out, house, mouth which is now the
most distinctively Canadian Feature

• the loss of the vowel /ɔ/ and the merger of “cot” and “caught” as /kat/ is complete in all forms of
General Canadian English
• Unlike General American, Canadian English has /ou/ in words such as borrow, sorrow, sorry —>
sorry thus rhymes with “hoary”
• the diphthongs /ei/ and /ou/ of “bay” and “boat” are very narrow —> the narrow pronunciation
of /ei/ is a well-established feature of CanEng and not an innovation as it is in Central Eastern
USEng
• although American cities such as Detroit and Buffalo are only a short distance from the
Canadian border, the “Northern Cities Chain Shift is not found in CanEng” —> indeed the
vowel /æ/ of “bad” and “bat” may be very open, in some cases approaching [a] —> note too
that some foreign words spelt with “a”, such as “pasta”, are pronounced with /æ/, as in EngEng,
rather than /ɑ/, as in USEng

CAN-ENG : MARITIME

Three Canadian Maritime provinces: Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick —>
their linguistic history is very different from that of the rest of Canada.

In the XVII and XVIII century, Nova Scotia was the site of a struggle for power between England
and France —> in the 1750s, the French settlers were expelled and new immigrants arrived from
the British Isles and New England
- Gaelic-speaking Scottish Highlanders settled in a number of areas, where some Gaelic is still
spoken to this day
- after the American War of Independence, thousands of American Loyalist (those who
remained loyal to the British Crown) arrived
- later, Irish people arrived via Newfoundland or directly from Ireland
More than 3/4 of the population of prince Edward Island are descendant of early settlers from the
British Isles: highland Scots, Ulster Scots, English and southern Irish (but also American Loyalist
as in Nova Scotia)

The British took over New Brunswick in 1713 and in 1755 expelled large numbers of French-
speaking settlers (many of whom went to Louisiana) —> the first English-speaking settlers
(Scottish, Irish and English) arrived from New England, then American Loyalist also arrived —> the
province is today officially bilingual.

- the English of you’re educated speakers in some urban areas of the Maritimes (e.g. Halifax) is
not radically different from that of the rest of Canada —> but in rural areas, Maritime English is
distinctively different, having a number of similarities with the English of Newfoundland and a
phonological features which appear to owe much to Irish or Scottish (including Scottish Gaelic)
influence, such as affricate word-final /t/
- Canadian Raising is not generally found in rural speech
CAN-ENG : NEWFOUNDLAND

The island of Newfoundland has been part of Canada only since 1949.
Population: 550.000 (approximately 95% of British and Irish origin. less than 3% of French origin)
—> most rural areas are inhabited by descendants of settlers from Dorset and Devon or (later) the
south-east of Ireland.

The phonology of modern Newfoundland English is characterised by considerable social variation

by North African standards:

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 • non-standard grammatical forms, such as present-tense- s for all persons, occur very
frequently and high up the social scale

There is also a considerable “regional variation” —> a fist impression for EngEng speakers is that
speakers “sound Irish”, but in fact, Newfoundland varieties are the result of a mixture of southern
Irish English and south-western EngEng varieties (but in different propositions in different places
—> for example the capital St Johns is particularly heavily Irish influenced.

In communities where immigration from Dorset and Devon played an important role, older
speakers may still have the initial-fricative voicing in “fish” [vɪʃ], “seven” [zɛvən] typical of the older
dialects of the south-west of England —> and a number of Irish-origin syntactic features can be
found in Irish-influenced areas, such as habitual aspect expressed by “do be” as in —> they do
be full (= they are usually full)

For many speakers, the vowel of “cot” and “caught” remain distinct, unlike in mainland Canada.
CANADIAN RAISING —> is generally not found either, in fact, many speakers have mental onset
in /ai/ and /ɑu/ in all phonological environments, e.g. “night time” [nəɪt təɪm] and “out loud” [əʊt
ləʊd].

FURTHER DIFFERENCES : CAN-ENG VS US-ENG

In few aspects, Canadian pronunciations follows EngEng rather than USEng:

• “been” is usually /bɪn/ in USEng, but occasionally /bi:n/ in CanEng (as in EngEng)
• “again” and “against” are usually /ə’gɛn/ and /ə’gɛnst/ in USEng —> this pronunciations is also
used in Canada and in the UK, but in CanEng and EngEng they can also be /ə’gein/ and /
ə’geinst/
• “corollary, capillary” are stressed in the first syllable in USEng, with secondary stress on the
penultimate syllable —> CanEng follows EngEng in having the stress on the second syllable
• CanEng has “shone” as /ʃan/, never /ʃoun/ as in USEng
• some CanEng speakers have “tomato” as /təmætou/

PIDGINS

What’s a Pidgin? —> a grammatically simplified means of communication that develops

between two or more groups that do not have a language in common —> typically its
vocabulary and grammar are limited and often drawn from several languages

=> a means of linguistic communication which is adopted by a local population in a

simplified, mixed and/or reduced e way

simplification —> involves regularisation (e.g. “I buyed” rather than “I bought”) and loss
of redundancy (e.g. “She like” rather than “She likes”)

miking —> language learners introduce elements from their own language into the
language they are attempting to learn (e.g. French agent in English-based pidgins)

reduction —> fewer words, fewer grammatical constructions, fewer idiomatic and
stylistic devices (owing to limited knowledge and limited range of purposes for which the
language is used)

Simplification, mixture and reduction —> the process of pidginisation

When a simplified, mixed and reduced form of language develops a fixed form with norms
that are shared by large mungers of speakers (which can subsequently be passed on to

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and learn by others), this language is referred to as “pidgin” —> a pidgin can also be
viewed as a crystallised “lingua franca”.

ENGLISH-BASED PIDGIN

A example of pidgin —> English in West Africa; owing to European contact, a regularised,
Africanised reduced from of English gradually became useful as a “lingua franca”, that
eventually crystallised into the pidgin language that is today referred to as West African
Pidgin English

Pidgin languages, by definition, do not have native speakers —> a pidgin which acquires
native speakers is called a “creole”

ENGLISH-BASED CREOLES

A pidgin may acquire an importance over and above its use as a trading language or
“lingua franca” —> when it takes on a full range of social functions and is passed on to
the next generation (thereby acquiring native speakers), it becomes a creole:
- still simplified
- still mixed
- no longer reduced

CREOLISATION

No longer reduced = since the language now has to be used for all the proposes a native
speakers needs to use a language for, the reduction that took place during pidginisation
has to de repaired by a process of expansion —> this process of expansion is known
technically as creolisation —> vocabulary is developed and expanded, grammatical
devices and categories are added to, and the language acquired a wide range of styles.

There are many English-based creoles and the number is growing (page 111)

PIDGIN VS CREOLES

1. impromptu means of communications

2. mixed from different languages
3. a simplified and reduced form
4. nor spoken natively

1. stable means of communication

2. mixed from different languages
3. a simplified yet complete language
4. acquired by children as a native tongue

DECREOLISATION

English-based creoles have differing relationship with English:

• when a creole has or resumes considerable contact with English, a process of
decreolisation may occur
• during a decreolisation, creole language undergo differing amounts of complication and
purification:

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 - complication —> reintroduction of certain irregularities from English (actually
counteracting the simplification occurred during the pidginisation)
- purification —> removal of certain elements from African and other languages
that had resulted from the mixing that took place during pidginisation
• in the Pacific area we find different creoles of this type

DECREOLISATION

In those West Indian locations where English is the official language (e.g. Jamaica), we
frequently find a social continuum of language varieties, stretching from Standard
English at the top of the social scale to “deep” creoles at the bottom.
In other words, there is no sharp linguistic division between Creole and English, but a
continuum of lects

lect = a variety of language which can be identified in a speech community (regional

(dialect), social (sociolect), personal (idiolect), etc…)

Acrolects = the most standard “top” varieties

Mesolects = intermediate varieties
Basilects = the deepest, most creole-type varieties

BLACK VERNACULAR ENGLISH

It is also believed by most experts that American Black Vernacular English (the kind of
USEng spoken by lower-class Black Americans and sometimes referred to the USA as
African-American English), has a similar kind of background, i.e. it too may represent a
historical English-based creole in the last stages of decreolisation

This is a variety of English, but it does share a number of features which are mot found in
White American dialects with the Caribbean creoles.

WEST INDIAN STANDARD ENGLISH (WI-ENG)

Standard English with distinctive Caribbean characteristics is spoken acrolectally in

Jamaica, Trinidad and Guyana by speakers towards the top of the social scale.
The accents used vary from place to place.

In Jamaica, while the phonetics of the English of educated speakers is very similar to that
used by creoles speakers, the phonology is rather different and resembles RP much more
closely
- in acrolectal varieties, for example /h/ occurs
- the vowels of “bud and bird”, “pat and pot”, “peer and pair”, “buy and boy” are
distinguished
- however, some non-RP features do occur

Distinctive (non-Rp) features of WIEng:

- the /ʌ/ vowels of “but” retains some lip-rounding
- /æ/ is an open [a]
- /ei/ and /ou/ are monophthongal [e:] and [o:]
- Jamaican English is often rhotic, especially in more formal styles
- /l/ is clear in all positions as in IrEng
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Final consonants clusters may be reduced:

Unstressed /ə/ is much less likely to occur than is most forms of English:

This is ascribe to the peculiar system of stress, rhythm and intonation of Caribbean creoles, which
tend to be syllable-timed —> this initially makes Caribbean English difficult to understand for
those unused to it.

Varieties of English in the West Indies have some lexical items which are not found elsewhere —>
some of them are found throughout the territory, while others are restricted to particular locations
—> colloquial Jamaican English words that may course difficulty include those shown in the table:

LESSER-KNOWN ENGLISHES

Over and above the UK, Ireland, the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and the
Caribbean, there are many other places in the world where there are long-established
communities of native English speakers —> for example in the Channel Island.

LESSER-KNOWN ENGLISHES - THE CANNEL ISLANDS

The Channel Islands of Jersey, Guernsey, Herm, Sark and Alderney were, until the 1800s, Norman
French-speaking in spite of the fact that they had been under the English and British Crown since
1066, as they still are today, thought they are not actually part of the UK but autonomous
dependencies.

41
The original local French dialler is now dying out —> the English which has now mostly replaced it
has distinct characteristics which appear to be partly due to the influence of French but also to
the dialects of the south-west of England.

This accent, at least on Guernsey, is basically of a rhotic south-west of England type, though it
also has become second-language features such as /θ/ and /ð/ being pronounced as /t/ and /d/

LESSER KNOWN ENGLISHES - BERMUDA

Bermuda, one of the first ever places that English arrived in outside Britain, is a British colony
about 550 miles from the east coast of the southern USA.

The first English speakers to arrive on this originally uninhabited island were some English
Puritans who were shipwrecked her in 1609.
In 1612, sixty English settlers were sent to colonise the island, and African slaves were
transported there from 1616 —> about 60% of the population today are of African origin.

There are noticeable differences between the speech of Blacks and Whites —> the former are
more Caribbean in character, the latter more like the English of coastal South Carolina.

LESSER-KNOWN ENGLISHES -BAHAMAS

The Bahamas is an independent British Commonwealth state of about 700 islands to the south-
east of Florida, with a population of 392,718.

Originally inhabited by Arawak Indians —> between 1492 and 1508 the Spanish enslaved 40.00
natives, by the time the English arrived, the Bahamas were uninhabited.
In 1648 Captain William Sayle (a former Governor of Bermuda) set sail from London and settled in
the Bahamas with about 70 dissident Christians (Bermuda Puritans and others) who wanted to
practise their religion —> other settles arrived from Bermuda in 1656 and after the American
Revolution from 1782 onwards, many American Loyalist arrived from the USA with black slaves
(this doubled the White population and trebles the Black).

The English of these White Bahamans has two main sources —> the Bermudan English of the
original settlers and the American English of the Loyalist.
• most of the population, however, is of African descent, other from slaves who arrived directly in
the Bahamas, others originally coming from the American South or the Caribbean
• Black Bahamian English is closer to White English than varieties in the Caribbean, but it is much
further form White English than the Black Vernacular English of the USA.

OTHER CARIBBEAN ENGLISHES

Turks and Caicos Island:

- population 14.000, over 90% black, speech is very close to Bahamian English
Miskito Coast (coast off Nicaragua and Honduras):
- 30.000 native English speakers, most of African origin, some Rama Indians
- language: Caribbean variety with creole features
San Andres and Providencia (Colombia):
- population 35.000, settled by English Puritans in 1629
- language. Caribbean variety of English
LESSER-KNOWN ENGLISHES: LESSER ANTILLES

The Lesser Antilles of the eastern Caribbean contain a number of communities if white English-
speakers —> these communities are in many cases the direct cultural and linguistic descendants
of immigrants from the British Isles and, thus, speakers of an English which, although clearly
Caribbean in character, may in some respects show differences from that of black West Indians

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(especially since residential and social segregation has been maintained in some places for
hundreds of years):
• Barbados
• Saba
• Anguilla
• Bay Islands
• Cayman Islands (western Caribbean)

LESSER KNOWN ENGLISHES: SOUTH ATLANTIC OCEAN

St. Helena (population 6,000):

• in 1659, it becomes a possession of the East India Company
• population: British, Asian and African mixed origins —> all English speakers
• the English of St. Helena is a creoloid —> a variety which has been subject to a certain amount
of simplification and mixture, but where a continuous native-speaker tradition has been
maintained throughout (a variety undergoing some pidginisation)

Tristan da Cunha (six small islands, population = 264):

• the English is mainly of England dialect origin but shows some signs of pidginisation, but not
enough to be considered creoloid

Falkland Islands (population = about 3.000 - inhabitants named “kelpers”):

• in the capital, Port Stanley, a new dialect has developed, similar to AusNZEng —> only
explantation: sheep shearers and day labourers from Australia and New Zealand
• in rural West Falkland (1 of the 2 islands of the Falklands), each village apparently still shows
dialect connections with the part of England from which it was settled

Pitcairn Islands (population = about 45):

• an isolated British colony in the south Pacific
• inhabitants descended from the mutineers on the British ship HMS Bounty and their Polynesian
Tahitian companions —> the community survived undiscovered until they were found by chance
by Americans whalers in 1808
• the population is declining owing to emigration to New Zealand (in 1992, 52 people were living
on the island)
• language —> English-based creole with Polynesian features

Norfolk Island (population = about 2,750):

• Australian dependent territory in the south-western Pacific, discovered by Captain Cook
• 1/3 of the population are descendant of mutineers, the remainder are descendants of later
settlers from Australia and New Zealand
• English is spoken by 25% of the population, similar to Pitcairn, less basilectal, less mixed
Tahitian

LESSER-KNOWN ENGLISHES: AFRICA

Apart from South Africa, there are a number of communities of native English-speakers elsewhere
in Africa:
• Kenya
• Zimbabwe
• Botswana
• Namibia

The fact that English is spoken here is a direct consequence of colonisation and large-scale
settlement by English-speakers in the XIX and XX centuries.
The English varieties spoken here are all of a south African type —> therefore, they resemble
SAfEng.

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CONCLUSIONS

English is spoken natively in the UK, Ireland, the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South
Africa and the Caribbean —> however, there are many other places in the world where there are
long-established communities of native speakers.

English is spoken as a Second Language in many other countries —> example: India

English is spoken as a Foreign Language almost everywhere.

English has changed considerably since the moment in which Cedric the Saxon, Ivanhoe’s father,
was complaining because his language was dying —> it has been influenced by history and the
movements of people —> it will continue to change.
Language is influenced by historical, geographical and social factors —> these aspects cannot be
neglected —> no variety of English can be studied without adopting a sociolinguistic approach.

No variety of English is “better” than another, no variety of english is “more correct” than another
(e.g. think of IndEng grammar vs EngEng grammar) —> the study of English is the study of
relativity.

44