LING 200 Lecture Notes - Lecture 13: Augustine Henry, Double Negative, Canadian English
Monday, November 6th, 2017
*Side note: last class (Wednesday, November 1st, 2017) → in-class guest lecturer
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Language variation
• Languages (and varieties of individual languages) vary in a large number
of ways
Phonetics/phonology – different pronunciations of car, caught, ... - morphology– hats the
past tense of the dive?- syntax– word order, double negatives- lexicon– pop vs. soda vs. coke
/ water fountain vs. bubbler
• Variation can be conditioned by a large number of factors
- individual- setting- social group- gender- geography / regional -...
Languages ary oer geographi spae, though ell also touch on some social factors
What is a dialect? What is a language?
A laguage is a dialet ith a ar ad a a.
- attributed to Yiddish linguist Max Weinreich
Language vs. dialect
- Norwegian ➞ language- Swedish ➞ language- Norwegian and Swedish are mutually
intelligible!
- Mandarin ➞ dialects of Chinese- Cantonese ➞ dialects of Chinese- Mandarin and
Cantonese are not mutually intelligible!
Language vs. dialect
• Basically, there is no crystal clear linguistic definition of what a dialect is.
• A good first pass is – dialects are mutually intelligible forms of a language that differ in
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
systematic ways
• When speakers of one dialect can no longer understand speakers of another dialect, they can
be said to speak two different languages
• Whether a partiular ariety of speeh is alled a laguage or a dialet is deteried
according to socio-political criteria.
• • Intelligibility can be asymmetrical
- Norwegians understand Danish better than Danes
understand Norwegian - Laos understand Thai better than Thais understand Lao
• Nationhood is clearly relevant• Norwegian and Swedish are mutually intelligible, but they
are spoken in separate countries
• Hudreds of utually uitelligile arieties of Chiese
• Very distit graars; osidered dialets of a sigle laguage • Iraq, Morocco, and
Egypt• Welsh of North and South Wales
• Nearly identical grammars; considered distinct languages• Fanti andTwi (Ghana and the
Ivory Coast)• Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian (former-Yugoslavia; Bosnia, Croatia, Serbia) • Hindi
and Urdu (India and Pakistan)
Standard dialect(s)
• “tadard dialets are alled stadard eause they are spoke y the people ith poer,
money, etc. -- thats it.
• Because of this, non-standard dialects are often associated with lower prestige
• Biases against dialects are rooted in the biases against the people who speak these dialects
- Dialect variation is rule-governed; follows from the more general observation that language is
rule-governed
• Standard dialects or varieties are usually ...
- Associated with the dominant social and political group
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
*side note: last class (wednesday, november 1st, 2017) in-class guest lecturer. Language variation: languages (and varieties of individual languages) vary in a large number of ways. Syntax word order, double negatives - lexicon pop vs. soda vs. coke. / water fountain vs. bubbler: variation can be conditioned by a large number of factors. Individual - setting - social group - gender - geography / regional - Languages (cid:448)ary o(cid:448)er geographi(cid:272) spa(cid:272)e, though (cid:449)e(cid:859)ll also touch on some social factors. What is a language? (cid:862)a la(cid:374)guage is a diale(cid:272)t (cid:449)ith a(cid:374) ar(cid:373)(cid:455) a(cid:374)d a (cid:374)a(cid:448)(cid:455). (cid:863) Norwegian language - swedish language - norwegian and swedish are mutually intelligible! Mandarin dialects of chinese - cantonese dialects of chinese - mandarin and. Egypt welsh of north and south wales: nearly identical grammars; considered distinct languages fanti andtwi (ghana and the. Ivory coast) bosnian, croatian, serbian (former-yugoslavia; bosnia, croatia, serbia) hindi and urdu (india and pakistan)
