VARIANTS AND DIALECTS

OF ENGLISH
 1 Main subdivisions of informal style.
 2. Groups of learned words.
 3. Types of colloquial words and expressions
 Accents, Dialects and Variants of English.
 Received Pronunciation
 2 Lingua Franca. Pidgins. Creoles
 3 British English
 4 American English
 5 Canadian English
 6 Australian English
 7 Indian English
 are used by particular social groups and may be associated
with socioeconomic status of the speaker (income level, type
of occupation, type of housing, educational level, etc.) as well
as with ethnic, gender, occupational, or age groups.
 Functional speech varieties show the appropriateness to
particular speech situation, registers can be casual, formal,
simplified, technical, etc.

SOCIOLECTS
 is a manner of pronunciation of a language.
 Accents can be confused with dialects which are
varieties of language differing in vocabulary and
syntax as well as pronunciation

AN ACCENT
 (from the Greek word διάλεκτος, dialektos) is a variety of a language that is
characteristic of a particular group of the language's speakers.
 The term is applied most often to regional speech patterns, but a dialect may
also be defined by other factors, such as social class. Sometimes in stories
authors use dialects to make a character stand out.
 In popular usage, the word "dialect“ is sometimes used to refer to a lesser
known language (most commonly a regional language), especially one that is
unwritten or not standardized.
 This use of the word dialect is often taken as pejorative by the speakers of the
languages referred to since it is often accompanied by the belief that the
minority language is lacking in vocabulary, grammar, or importance.

A DIALECT
 It is important to understand that the boundaries where one accent ceases
to be heard and another takes its place are not distinct at all. Accents and
dialects blend subtly and imperceptibly into one another.
Moreover, the variation of the language the people of this or that region
are using is correlated with such social phenomena as age, gender, socio-
economic status, ethnicity and local affiliations of both the speaker and the
hearer, and can result in shirt-term, but also long term, language change.
‘Dialect areas’ are not fixed, “accents shade one into another as individual
speakers espouse features drawn from a range of accents to which they have
access and that are indicative not just of their regional connections but also of
their social needs and aspirations”

[KORTMANN 2004; 27].

 It is not only for phonological features but for grammatical usage
and lexical choice as well.
 The traditional dialects spoken in the Northern Isles (Orkney and
Shetland) can be describes as varieties of Scots with a
substantial component of Scandinavian features manifested at
all levels of language.
 of English are regional varieties possessing a literary norm.
There are distinguished variants existing on the territory of the
United Kingdom and variants existing outside the British Isles.

VARIANTS
 is a term generally applied to a form of the
English language that is thought to be
normative for educated native speakers.
 It encompasses grammar, vocabulary, spelling
and pronunciation

STANDARD ENGLISH
 as that form of English which is current and literary, substantially uniform and
recognized as acceptable wherever English is spoken or understood. Local
dialects are varieties of the English language peculiar to some districts and
having no normalized literary form. Variants are regional varieties, which unlike
the local dialects possess a literary form. In Great Britain there are two variants:
Scottish English and Irish English, and five main groups of dialects: Northern.
Midland. Eastern. Western and Southern, besides every group contains up to ten
dialects. For example, in the group of Southern dialects the best known is
Cockney, the regional dialect of London.
 is a form of pronunciation of the English language (specifically British English)
which has long been perceived as uniquely prestigious amongst British
accents. About two percent of Britons speak with the RP accent in its pure
form. Received Pronunciation or Southern English is widespread among
educated population and has no local coloring. Speakers are distinguished
from other educated people by the fact that it is impossible to determine
their origin from their accent. As RP is used in teaching of English worldwide
and for purposes of wide communication we can refer to it as a supra
regional accent model [Kortmann 2004].

RECEIVED PRONUNCIATION (RP)

 Received Pronunciation may be referred to as the Queen's (or King's) English, on
the grounds that it is spoken by the monarch; however, that term is more often
used to refer to correctly written Standard British English, as in the Queen's English
Society. It is also sometimes referred to as BBC English, because it was traditionally
used by the BBC, yet nowadays these notions are slightly misleading. Queen
Elizabeth II uses one specific form of English, whilst BBC presenters and staff are
no longer bound by one type of accent. There have also long been certain words
that have had more than one RP pronunciation, such as again, either, and moor. It
is sometimes referred to as Oxford English. This was not because it was
traditionally the common speech of the city of Oxford, but specifically of Oxford
University; the production of dictionaries gave Oxford University prestige in
matters of language. The extended versions of the Oxford Dictionary give Received
Pronunciation guidelines for each word. RP is an accent (a form of pronunciation),
not a dialect (a form of vocabulary and grammar). It may show a great deal about
the social and educational background of a person who uses English. A person
using the RP will typically speak Standard English although the reverse is not
necessarily true (e.g. the standard language may be spoken by one in a regional
accent, such as a Yorkshire accent; but it is very unlikely that one speaking in RP
would use it to speak Scots or Geordie).
 The vast majority of Englishes (all except British English) can be
divided into several groups. Thus, J. Jenkins [Jenkins 2003; 22] divides
them into two big groups: the new Englishes which resulted from the
first diaspora and the New Englishes which resulted from the second.
The first group consists primarily of the USA, Canada, Australia, New
Zealand and South Africa. The variants of English on those territories
developed independently, mixed with dialects and accents in the
settlements and have been in the usage since colonial days. The
variants of English of the second group are (and were) learned as the
second language or as one language within a wider multilingual
repertoire. In this group Indian English, Philippine English, Nigerian
English and Singaporean English may be included.
 In some other works the variants of English are described in a slightly
different way. For example, M. Saxen a identifies three broad diaspora of
Englishes that are relevant to understanding of the interface between the
sociolinguistics of colonization and globalization [Saxena 2010, 22].
 Diaspora Type I comprises speakers of English who have re-located from
an English speaking homeland or nation. They include speakers of
varieties of English in Canada, Australia and New Zealand. In these
countries English is the de facto language of establishment business
whether or not this is expressed in any constitutional document. The
Englishes that have emerged out of colonial enterprise form Diaspora
Type II and are found in the British Commonwealth (Nigeria, Kenya,
Jamaica, India, Hong Kong, the Philippines and the other former British
colonies).
 The English language is the part of the language policy system and the
official language of the countries.
The third group, Diaspora Type III comprises those that have evolved
either as the consequence of or in response to global market-cum-political
forces: Japan, South Korea and China among others. This Diaspora leans
towards so-called English home-land varieties of the United States and Britain
in terms of attitudes and preferences. The other authors [James 2011] would
call it emerging varieties with one sub-group to be expected to appear with
such a prospective member as Euro-English. Definitely there is no longer
sovereignty of one ‘kind’ of English over the others, and the term ‘variety’
entails not only standard and national varieties, but also regional, social and
ethnic dialects, group specific-language forms, contextually and stylistically
defined expression, and so on, for use their respective cultural contexts.
 There is also a group of languages which are called
contact languages, they are creoles and pidgins

LINGUA FRANCA. PIDGINS. CREOLES

 is a speech variety which develops when the speakers of two or more
different languages come into contact with each other and do not know
each other’s language. Pidgins are not native languages of any group and
may have arisen as a result of a natural tendency to simplify the
language in contact situations between people. Pidgins can be called
auxiliary languages, as they result from the communicative strategies
when speakers of different languages try to bridge the communicative
gap. The characteristics of a very basic type of pidgin may be single
words, simplified grammar and exaggerated gestures used by a traveler
when he contacts with local people (though it might be referred to as
jargon [Holm, 2000]).

PIDGIN
1. Pidgins have no native speakers, i.e. they are second languages for everyone who
speaks them.
2. They are governed by convention, i.e. they have vocabulary and
grammatical structures, however basic, which are accepted by its speakers.
3. They are not mutually intelligible with their source languages. Thus,
‘Pidgin English’ is sufficiently different from English which a native speaker of
English must learn.
4. Pidgins have grammars which are simpler than the grammars of their source
languages.
Pidgins are a subset of a larger group of languages called lingue franche or
languages of wider communication.

THOMASON AND KAUFMAN [1988] SINGLED

OUT THE CHARACTERISTICS WHICH DEFINE
A PIDGIN
 is a language used for communication among speakers of different
languages. English is considered to be the most important lingua franca
today as it is used as a means of communication among large numbers of
people. The term ‘lingua franca’ itself is an extension of the use of the name
of the original ‘Lingua Franca’, a medieval trading pidgin used in the
Mediterranean region – an important maritime trading zone where traders’
native languages included many very different languages such as
Portuguese, Greek, Arabic and Turkish

LINGUA FRANCA
 The hypothesis of the so-called “American
language” has had several supporters, especially in
the USA. Yet there are some other points of view:

DO AMERICANS SPEAK ENGLISH

OR AMERICAN?
 1. American English is one of the dialects of the English
language;
 2. American English is a regional variety of the English
language
 However, it can be proved that in spite of some distinctive
characteristics, it is the same vocabulary as that of British English. As for
grammar system, here we are likely to find even fewer divergences than
in vocabulary' -
 in the 1st personsingular and plural;
 sustitution of Past Indefinite for the Present Perfect: “I saw this movie =
I’ve seen this film”; to get - got - gotten).
 American English is marked by certain phonetic peculiarities but they
are also but few.
 So the language spoken in the USA can be regarded as a regional variety
(variant) of English.
 The process of coining new lexical items started as soon as the colonists
began borrowing names for unfamiliar flora, fauna, and topography from
the Native American languages. Examples of such names are opossum,
raccoon, squash and moose (from Algonquian). Other Native American
loanwords, such as wigwam or moccasin, describe artificial objects in
common use among Native Americans. The languages of the other
colonizing nations also added to the American vocabulary; for instance,
cookie, cruller, stoop, and pit (of a fruit) from Dutch; levee, portage
(‘carrying of boats or goods’) and (probably gopher from French;
barbecue, stevedore, and rodeo from Spanish.

AMERICAN ENGLISH
 Among the earliest and most notable regular "English" additions to the
American vocabulary, dating from the early days of colonization through the
early 19th century, are terms describing the features of the North American
landscape; for instance, run, branch, fork, neck (of the woods), barrens, notch,
knob, riffle, rapids, water gap, cutoff
 Other noteworthy American toponyms are found among
loanwords; for example, praire, butte (French); bayou (Choctaw
via Louisiana French); coulee(Canadian French, but used also in
Louisiana with a different meaning); canyon, mesa.
Ever since the American Revolution, a great number of terms
connected with the U.S. political institutions have entered the
language; examples are run, gubernatorial, primary election,
carpetbagger (after the Civil War), repeater, lame duck and pork
barrel.
 Already existing English words – such as store, shop, dry goods,
haberdashery, lumber – underwent shifts in meaning; some – such
as mason, student, clerk, the verbs can (as in "canned goods"),
ship, fix, carry, enroll (as in school), run (as in "run a business"),
release and haul – were given new significations, while others (such
as tradesman) have retained meanings that disappeared in
England.
 A number of Americanisms describing material innovations
remained largely confined to North America: elevator, ground,
gasoline; many automotive terms fall in this category, although
many do not (hatchback, SUV, station wagon, tailgate,
motorhome, truck, pickup truck, to exhaust).
 Finally, a large number of English colloquialisms from various periods are American
in origin; some have lost their American flavor (from OK and cool to nerd and 24/7),
while others have not (have a nice day, sure); many are now distinctly old-
fashioned (swell, groovy). Some English words now in general use, such as
hijacking, disc jockey, boost, bulldoze and jazz, originated as American slang.
Among the many English idioms of U.S. origin are get the hang of, take for a ride,
bark up the wrong tree, keep tabs, run scared, take a backseat, have an edge over,
stake a claim, take a shine to, in on the ground floor, bite off more than one can
chew, off/on the wagon, stay put, inside track, stiff upper lip, bad hair day, throw a
monkey wrench, under the weather, jump bail, come clean, come again?, it ain't
over till it's over, what goes around comes around?
 American English and British English (BrE) differ at the
levels of phonology, phonetics, vocabulary, and, to a
lesser extent, grammar and orthography. The most
noticeable differences between AmE and BrE are at the
levels of pronunciation and vocabulary.
1. Cases where there are no equivalents in British English: drive-
in ‘a cinema where you can see the film without ‘getting out of
your car’ or ‘a shop where motorists buy things staying in the
car’; dude ranch ‘a sham ranch used as a summer residence for
holiday-makers from the cities’.
2. Cases where different words are used for the same
denotatum, such as can, candy, mailbox, movies, suspenders,
truck in the USA and tin, sweets, pillarbox (or letter-box),
pictures or flicks, braces and lorry in England.

ARNOLD CLASSIFIED THE CASES OF DIFFERENCE

BETWEEN AMERICAN ENGLISH AND
BRITISH ENGLISH INTO SIX CATEGORIES
3. Cases where the semantic structure of a partially equivalent word
is different. The word pavement, for example, means in the first
place ‘covering of the street or the floor and the like made of
asphalt, stones or some other material’.
In England the derived meaning is ‘the footway at the side of the
road’.
The Americans use the noun sidewalk for this, while pavement with
them means ‘the roadway’.
4. Cases where otherwise equivalent words are different in
distribution. The verb ride in Standard English is mostly combined
with such nouns as a horse, a bicycle, more seldom they say ride on
a bus. In American English combinations like a ride on the train, ride
in a boat are quite usual.
5. It sometimes happens that the same word is used in American
English with some difference in emotional and stylistic colouring. Nasty,
for example, is a much milder expression of disapproval in England than
in the States, where it was even considered obscene in the 19th
century. Politician in England means ‘someone in politics’, and is
derogatory in the USA.
6. Last but not least, there may be a marked difference in frequency
characteristics. Thus, time-table which occurs in American English very
rarely, yielded its place to schedule.
 Зыкова И.В. Практический курс английской
лексикологии.- М.: 2008.- C. 145-165
 Антрушина Г.Б., О.В. Афанасьева, Н.Н. Морозова
Лексикология английского языка. – Москва,
2001, стр. 259-276

REFERENCES